Seattle School Board Mtg. Sept. 6th, 2017

School Board is September 6 2017. Director Pinkham is unable to join us tonight.

He regrets his absence.

Otherwise may we have the roll call please.

Director Pinkham.

Present.

Director Burke here.

Director Geary here.

Director Harris here.

Director Patu here.

Director Peters here.

So I'll stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge of Allegiance.

I will now turn to Superintendent Nyland for our recognition.

Nyland All right.

Well tonight we're honoring Gail Sellhorst our district's visual and performing arts manager and 2017 Washington Arts Education Association's art administrator of the year.

So I'd like to introduce.

I'd like to invite Kyle Kinoshita to come tell a few of the things that Gail's been about and then we'll recognize Gail.

Thank you Kyle Kenosha chief of curriculum assessment instruction.

I'm pleased to introduce Gail because when I came to the district I saw that arts education had flourished under her leadership.

And it's very clear that thousands of students have benefited as well as the fact that nationally she's been looked to our department's been looked to for her leadership and innovation.

A couple of highlights, she has managed to close arts access gaps in the central southwest arts pathways and she's launched the new media arts skill center course incorporating 21st century skills into these courses and assessments.

And she's launched culturally responsive teaching and learning in the arts and consistently upholds that.

I'd like to thank Gail in particular because I see that she's very unwavering in her commitment to equity and social justice.

All focused on arts education and bringing arts to all kids.

So I'd like to invite Gail up here now to the podium to say a few words.

Hi everybody.

Welcome to the first day of school.

So it's sort of weird to hear all those she's because really and truly nothing happens without a team of people and so I'd like to share some appreciations and some acknowledgments.

First to my predecessor Carrie Campbell who had the vision The persistence and the collaborative nature to bring a bunch of stakeholders together to create an arts plan.

This arts plan we call it the creative advantage.

It's our plan it's our initiative and it's what guides us to eliminate arts opportunity gaps for every student in every school in our district.

I also walked into a really great team of people that are back there.

Audrey Querns who's the creative advantage project manager and also worked alongside Carrie in the very beginning days as an architect to pull us all together.

Pam Ivacich our K through 12 instructional services music coach who literally supports teachers K through 12 in our district.

And to our new team member Kate Baker creative advantage media arts project manager really helping us bridge what happens in the classroom at the secondary level to what professions can look like once our students graduate.

Our other big partner is the mayor's office of arts and culture.

Lara Davis is the arts education manager there and Unfortunately she can't be here with us today because she's presenting on the creative advantage in Washington DC right now.

But between her and Randy Engstrom the executive director since 2007 the mayor's office has been fostering and supporting Seattle Public Schools around arts education.

And then I also want to thank our leadership.

I think that Seattle Public Schools is in a really great position right now with Dr. Nyland Dr. Kinoshita Michael Tolley Cashel Toner and Brent Jones.

They are our supervisors.

They are our leaders and have really been alongside us to help us troubleshoot.

through change.

They believe in our strategy and we just want to thank you so much.

I mean because of this support and the board support which you've been very supportive of the arts as have past board members.

We have opened up music programs in the Central Arts Pathway and in the South Southwest Pathway and in the last two years this is huge.

We've opened up 20 new elementary music and visual art programs all throughout the district.

So thank you very much for your leadership.

And then the other people I want to acknowledge are our teachers.

What you have heard these students to by Mr. Escobedo and his colleagues.

I mean we have professional artists working with our students.

We have musicians that are gigging.

We've got visual artists that have their artwork up in galleries.

We've got directors that are working with professional theater companies.

And I think when we're talking about making the real world a part of everyday learning We're so fortunate in Seattle Public Schools to have that.

I'm actually a product of Seattle Public Schools.

I went to Sandpoint Elementary.

I went to Eckstein.

I went to Roosevelt High School and was really lucky to land in a drama one class with Ruben Van Kempen as my teacher and continues to be my mentor.

And I think that's something that drives me and it drives all of us so that we are ensuring our students have those opportunities to find their creative self to find their passion and to find their home.

I've been really thinking a lot about Seattle Public Schools focus right now on students stories strength and need.

And when you think about art spaces that is the authentic place for that to happen because that's what artists do.

We tell our stories we tell the stories of the world around us.

And while we're doing it, we're taking public risks, we're thinking critically, we're getting really frustrated at our product and so we keep pushing through it and we collaborate with our peers.

And so I just think that the arts are a space where that happens and it's transferable into other areas of life and of school.

And I think I just want to say next steps we're going to open up into one to two more pathways and we're going to continue this effort around sequential learning so that our students not only have exposure to the arts but do what these young people are on their way to doing.

professionals in the arts and particularly when we think about students graduating into Seattle being Seattle ready.

We have amazing creative industries here and we want to make sure that they have the opportunity to dive into those when they graduate.

So thank you very much for this opportunity to share about our work and for us to acknowledge the team that we get to work with.

So thanks.

So Gail and your team why don't you come on up and we'll invite the board to come down and have a picture with Gail and her team.

I'm OK, yeah.

But thank you very much.

Oh, do we want to sit down?

Speaking of the arts we are now lucky enough to have as our special guests this afternoon the Eckstein middle school jazz band.

We got to hear them warm up already but now everyone else gets to hear them and I invite the board to come and sit in the front row and you can enjoy their performance.

Thank you.

Willow, weep for me.

Willow, weep for me.

Bend your branches green along the stream that runs to sea.

Listen to my plea.

Hear me, Willow, and weep for me.

I love the stream, lovely summer dream.

Gone and left me here to weep my tears into the stream.

Sad as I can be, hear me willow and weep for me.

I'll whisper to the wind.

And say that love is sin, and that my heart of breaking and making of mine.

I run to the night to hide its starry light, so no one will see me sighing and crying.

Your branches down along the ground that cover me.

When the shadows fall, hear me when I'm weak.

♪ Whisper to the wind and sing that love has been sinned ♪ ♪ And left my heart a-breaking and making a moan ♪ to hide and stop me lying.

So none will see me sighing and crying all alone.

Weeping willow tree, weeping simply.

Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me.

When the shadows fall, hear me willow and weep.

♪ See him waiting, see him waiting ♪ ♪ See him waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting ♪ ♪ See him waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting ♪

So you just heard Nora, and Tessa, and Owen.

We have one more piece for you.

This is called Flight of the Foo Birds, and you're going to hear, let's see, Owen, Abby, and Javier.

Who else?

All right.

We're Eckstein Senior Jazz Band.

Thank you very much for having us here.

♪ ♪ Mm.

Thank you very much.

We are Eckstein Middle School from Seattle Washington and we're going to introduce ourselves right now.

I'm Lilia and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Ryan I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Ben and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Owen and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Abby and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Cabe and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Charlie and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Carter and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Liam and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Daniel and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Lucas I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Aiden I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Amina I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Zach I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Josiah I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Hans and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Avery and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Kira and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Javier and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Holden and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Matt and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Elliot and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Lila and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Miles and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Rose and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Audrey and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Debra Jane and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Gabby and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Nora and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Quinn and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Theo and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Rasa and I'm in 8th grade.

I'm Yoshi and I'm in 7th grade.

I'm Grace and I'm in eighth grade.

I'm Sam and I'm in eighth grade.

I'm Anika and I'm in eighth grade.

I'm Katie and I'm in eighth grade.

I'm Tessa and I'm in eighth grade.

Thank you.

I also want to thank you Mr. Escobedo for all the wonderful work you're doing with these students and thank you very much for bringing them.

Thank you very much to the Eckstein middle school jazz band.

So I will now hand our mic over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

Thank you and thank you again.

Sounds like a lot of students did a lot of practicing over the summer.

Well this is coming up next week is arts education week so it was appropriate for us to recognize Gail earlier and have an opportunity to recognize all of our art program teachers throughout this next week.

National Hispanic Heritage Month begins September 15th to October 15th.

And so we also look forward to recognizing that heritage and we'll be having information out to teachers as we do for each one of these.

celebration months in terms of materials that can be used.

And many times our librarians have done a great job of making sure that displays are out there making students aware of materials that they can access.

Well we also want to recognize tonight are a few of the many many many people who made our tri day possible.

So for a second year in a row after a 14 year hiatus we've had a district wide professional development day around a common theme.

And we know from our work on closing opportunity gaps that great instruction matters a lot.

And we're also learning that great relationships matter a lot.

And so we're extremely appreciative of the partnership that we have with SEA and with PASS and with our district leadership.

As a result of the work last year our elementary suspensions continued the downward trend and we did narrow by a little bit the opportunity gap.

And our families reported that they did feel much more welcome in school.

So we know that the hard work being done in schools across the district is making a difference.

And for those of you I don't know what we would call that.

The educators in our group talk about Hattie and research and a bunch of numbers in the newsletter here that won't mean anything to anybody else but they're really good numbers.

Basically it says that educator perceptions and beliefs of students is the biggest effect size that we know of at this particular point in time.

So if teachers and educators believe in students sometimes even when the students maybe don't fully believe in their own capabilities it matters it makes a difference.

And we know that teacher collaboration matters a lot.

And so I'd like to welcome Pat Sander and she's going to bring the rest of her team up to talk about Some of the great work that's happened to make something happen and roll it out across 104 sites across the district well 105 at least because we did it here at the district office as well.

Good afternoon Pat Sander executive director coordinated school health and with me I have Shelly Hurley who is the co-lead with me on the partnership committee from SEA and Cassie Soden who has been our videographer and pulled all of our videos together the last two years.

And we wanted to recognize the work that she's done.

Judy Simon in our media studio hooked us up with Cassie the last two years and she's been integral in the work that we've been able to do.

So last spring around April the superintendent said let's let's try this again on a try day.

And we said OK partnership team what should we be planning to do this year to follow up on our theme of relationships.

And so this theme this year was relationships, our commitment to institutionalizing racial equity.

And there were three things that the partnership team wanted us to be able to have our staff know at the end of the day.

That there is a race and equity policy 0030. That a district discipline matrix exists.

And that district and school level data on achievement opportunity gap disproportionate discipline and chronic absenteeism is something that we all should be examining and exploring.

And the understanding that we hope to gain at the end of the day was our implicit bias factors into all decisions made that impact students that relationships can start to narrow implicit bias affecting gaps and that addressing disproportionate discipline does not mean lowering behavioral expectations.

And the do for us to do as a group on coming together was that at the end of the day the schools would be working on a schoolwide discipline plan if they were in an elementary school or editing their schoolwide discipline plan.

And at the middle school and high school that they would be getting that conversation on what does social emotional learning look like at the middle school and high school as we think about advisory.

We also wanted to walk away with being able to have examined and know ways to interrupt implicit bias in the interest of improved relationships with students instruction for students and systems serving students through personal and collective reflection.

And the partnership community committee said there should be lots of dialogue and these should be two separate questions that we grapple with.

And then the third thing would be that we would all make a commitment to change practice based on reflection.

So as a result 2016 we reached all school sites and as Superintendent Nyland said tonight This year we got to all the school sites and John Stanford.

So we trained 275 building facilitators for our school sites and we trained 12 facilitators here at John Stanford and had over 200 staff work with us for three hours on August 31st.

As you can see policy 0030 is posted here.

Shelly Hurley made that her her main thrust of this work.

And so they have gone out to every school site to be posted and you'll see them throughout the building.

We have the eight commitments to institutionalizing racial equity from that policy.

The partnership committee is scheduled to meet on September 21st and we're committed to doing follow up throughout the school year.

And Shelly and I want to share some of the feedback that we've heard.

So hear from two evaluations.

What two learnings will influence your practice this coming year.

My practice will be influenced this year because this session has brought inequities to my attention which I will consciously attempt to pay attention to and resolve.

I will attempt to engage students by sharing my stories and finding similarities.

This one relationship is how we start to create sustainable change and their other learning was to step away from my assumptions.

Where's Shelly?

She's got a couple here that have just come in from the SCA.

The school leaders on Friday we met to do some planning for the learning leadership days and the seven principals that were sitting around the table said that the conversations changed dramatically on August 31 as a result of the content of the tri-day.

Hi I'm Shelly Hurley star mentor and special ed teacher with you guys.

And we Pat and I haven't looked at all of the responses yet all of the exit tickets that we asked for but some things that came in were people loved it, they loved the space for these conversations, loved seeing their colleagues in the video and the biggest feedback the facilitators got were please can we have more of these.

Another one our race and equity team did an amazing job.

We loved it.

People responded very positively.

So that's for us is good to hear.

We Pat and I plan to sit down and figure out how we can make this work continue throughout the school year.

And then each of the people did a commitment that they were making for themselves for this year.

They created commitment cards again like we did last year.

Two of them were working to increase positive affirmation and validation to students as well as recognizing and eliminating microaggressions.

and reflect on my own experiences that may inhibit my ability to see each student with the same lens and connect with each to the best of my ability.

And so with that I think we want to end with one of the videos that was our ending video and it'll be there for you to view as our staff did on the 31st of August.

I'm not really of a type of learning type of person.

Well, I do work, but I'm not like a fan of it though.

In my first meeting, I was sitting in, and I'm hearing all these different things about this kid.

I can't read.

He's bad at math.

He gets angry all the time.

I've never met the kid, but I already have this idea that's been embedded into my brain.

So my job is really to, one, Take that label where there's no label.

I'm looking at you as a human being, and I'm going to build a relationship with you based on from the initial meeting that we have to whatever experiences that we have.

Then I'm going to take into account what they said.

You know, if there's something emotional, something with the family, definitely take that into account.

For, like, the first couple weeks, there was a lot of anger issues, and I had to learn that he wasn't really used to a male figure.

One, just being present.

To hear about this kid, all the things that he's overcome already, and it was one of those things where you need to take a step back.

The first thing I do is I let the kid know I expect something of you, because you're capable.

Initially, I do not like to use sports.

I'm a former basketball player, and I try my hardest to find relevance in any other way possible.

But for him, he's a football player, and I heard that he's a really good football player.

I just said, you know what?

I'm going to take football even further, and I'm going to apply it to what we're doing in math.

The minute I used football, he ran with it.

But then it was just a matter of telling him that Using football in a way to where you know you can take some of those principles and use them off the field.

If I try as hard as I do in football,

I can do it in school.

So I try to make school like football, where I try to do my work and make it like how I can memorize the plays, how I can memorize my work.

And I try my best to do that.

When I go higher and I have a test or something, and I try to go 100% all the time.

Language arts is a subject I like doing.

I didn't like doing it at first, but once Mr. Washington came, he kind of actually got me to start liking it.

And that's one of my greater classes out of all of them.

There's Washington, Fields, sometimes Mr. Basie, Mr. Jeremy, Mr. Dean, and the old principal, Ms. Scarlett.

They kept me on track, and they tried their best to keep me out of trouble.

Five principles that I use to try to develop a relationship.

Accountability.

Hold yourself to what you're supposed to be doing.

Expectations.

Follow the instructions that the teacher gives you.

And don't do what you want to do, do what you have to do.

Patience.

Be patient because everything can't happen all at once.

Love.

Love the people around you.

Consistency.

Being consistent with your work and keep on doing it and doing it.

I have anger issues, so when I first came here, any little thing would set me off.

And I was never doing work in class, but they would always pull me out and they would try to try their best to have me do work or try to keep me away from the kids that would try to get me mad.

And it really helped me to where I am now.

I can actually be around those kids and not get mad.

and actually do work in my own classes.

I feel supported because the principal gave me a second chance.

And without it, really, I don't know where I would be right now.

And the principal that gave him that second chance is here tonight.

Kristen Dewitt from South Shore.

So I want to thank her too for that continued commitment to students.

So that's our tri-day report.

What we do is we put this on what we call a thing link and there's videos and PowerPoints embedded and Shelly and myself create a facilitators guide and it walks the schools through some of the activities and things that they can do.

There was probably seven to eight hours of content on this given day and so many of them have done a little bit and are going to continue on.

But we'll be able to figure out how to feed into the next opportunity and call this back up.

Hopefully for our October 13th eliminating the opportunity gap Institute day.

Awesome.

You have questions.

OK.

All right.

Thank you.

Well as we've heard we did start school today so it was an awesome day.

I had the opportunity of starting the school year at Hawthorne Elementary it seemed to be a very appropriate place to be.

They were just recognized for the third time as their family engagement work by Johns Hopkins University.

And so I had the opportunity to be there with Sabrina Burr to talk about parent engagement and it was also joined by Phyllis from SEA so that we could talk about what we just talked about here.

The professional development that we had done in preparation for having staff welcome students and parents everywhere across the district.

Hawthorne was certainly living up to their reputation.

The news media was there ahead of time and interviewing us out on the street corner and as the kids were coming in the crossing guard was welcoming them with a high five and hugs and very very warm welcomes.

And I was just looking for it on my phone.

I think we've got one from West Seattle Elementary where they were had the community all out giving high fives to kids as many of the schools do at different times during the year.

So yes we're we're off and running and we're busy trying to figure out how to count the kids and make sure we have enough to make budget and working on getting teachers in all the right classrooms and all of the last minute details that go with the start of the school year.

I do want to thank so many I mean we've got thousands of teachers and educators and principals who've been out busily doing their work and working long hours to get ready for the kids.

And then we have all of the people that work behind the scenes.

in the in the warehouse and the custodians and the maintenance crew and the list just goes on and on and on to coordinate everything and have the buildings shine as we start school and have materials in place.

Well as I usually do want to give a brief update on some of our SMART goal activities at the back table.

There is a list of superintendent and staff presentations and visits as well as community engagement highlights.

Our three goals that now are in their fourth year moving forward with board approval and support are number one excellence and equity.

Our African-American male advisory committee has been working on their recommendations.

They have preliminary recommendations out and they'll be finalizing those on September 28th.

Look forward to getting those.

We have been working apropos of the newspaper accounts on chronic absenteeism across the country and Washington number two in the nation is a bad thing.

Too many too much chronic absenteeism.

I think we're a little bit better than the state average in Seattle.

We have been partnering with Seattle Housing Authority for quite some time on attendance and they are I don't know they're joined so closely with us sometimes we have to run to catch up with them.

They have been sending out nudge letters to 6000 parents letting parents know why attendance is important and why being there for the month of September is doubly important to get off to a good start.

So we particularly appreciate that support from the Seattle Housing Authority.

And then we have been expanding that to an attendance matters awareness campaign with a hashtag to talk about how we get that message out across the rest of our school communities.

Many board members sent us materials as did many of the people in the community with regard to Charlottesville and some of the materials that we might use for conversations in classrooms.

Unfortunately we continue to have too many opportunities to have those conversations and so we do appreciate those materials and we continue to find ways to post those materials and make those materials available to our teachers.

Ethnic studies continues to be hard at work.

I think we reported on that last week that they have continued to meet over the summer and they are also moving toward recommendations that would move us forward.

I think the discussion and the debate that Director Burke and I heard at their last meeting was It's really urgent and we want it out there everywhere tomorrow.

And it's also very important and we want it to be done well.

So trying to find a balance between doing it well and doing it everywhere.

I think will be our challenge but we're certainly enthused about the idea of getting started.

There seems to be good research behind it from San Francisco and Stanford and hope that that will become one of our mainstays for closing opportunity gaps.

Our second goal is improving systems and once again budget will continue to be with us for the foreseeable future.

Before I make my dire news about McCleary I'll comment that we do have a budget.

Thank you very much.

We are moving forward.

We do have kids in school and we will do our job and do it well this year.

So nobody panic.

However we now wait with bated breath what the Supreme Court will decide.

So the state made their pitch on July 30th.

The news team made their presentation on August 30th.

And at this point in time I don't think anybody knows what the Supreme Court will do.

They have decided as early as October 6 last year and they've decided as late as January in one of the previous years.

What we do know at this point in time and we're continuing JoLynn and her team are continuing to scrub the budget to figure out what it does mean.

We do know that Seattle taxpayers are going to pay more.

Their taxes are going to go up because some of the revenues that have been coming to the local district will be going to the state.

And then our local levy will be reduced.

So taxpayers are going to pay more and we're going to get less.

And then we are very concerned about some gaps that are emerging.

So we know that.

Special Ed is one of those big gaps where we will lose more than we get back from the state.

We haven't figured out what all we think we know about teacher salaries but we know for classified salaries that it's insufficient to cover those expenses of what we're currently doing.

And then I can never remember what it's called it's an IPD something.

It's a fake inflation number.

So basically the state has said that we will increase your levy and your salaries by something less than the cost of living.

We won't count the cost of I think it's housing and fuel.

We'll count the cost of everything else.

So basically we're I mean we would get shortchanged each and every year going forward unless that is changed.

So.

Those are the things that we are starting to discover as we dig more deeply into it and we did have many of our legislators with us the last few days for the ribbon cuttings and they assured us that yes they were aware of some of those please make them aware of the rest of them and yes they were starting to have some meetings soon to begin to talk about how they could address that.

As we always say we do appreciate our local legislative delegation their attempt to listen learn and be responsive to our needs.

But right now we're looking probably at four years of budget cuts as we continue to roll out what the legislature did absent a decision by McCleary.

Community engagement on the budget has begun.

So a lot of work to be done between now and December.

So we will be again we will be again in a year like we were this year where we will be having to build a budget under times of uncertainty hoping that the legislature will do as they promised and make some fixes and hopefully make the fixes before June 30th so that we can build that into our budget in a timely way.

And then point of sale is one of those issues that the board has been very interested in over many many many years and so it's finally happening and being rolled out and being implemented at the high school levels with other schools to follow.

And then goal three is school family and community engagement.

And one of those efforts has to do with getting information out to families in multiple languages.

We're very pleased that school messenger is available to us again and that's one of the ways that we do it.

The website now has buttons on it for our five major languages and we've been translating those forms that are used most frequently.

into those five languages.

And then there's an interesting I don't know what the word is it must be a really good word.

There's a kind of a Yeah we have to translate it and then we have to make it ADA compliant.

So between those two it's kind of like we have to do it in English and make it ADA compliant and we're getting pretty good at that.

And then we have to translate it into five languages and each one of those languages has to be ADA compliant.

So it could go through 10 different people in order to get to the point where it's helping the families and available to everybody who has special access needs.

So we continue to work on that and again we are one of the leaders in probably both of those areas.

And then ribbon cuttings and words will fail me.

Opening new schools is just a delight.

Thank you.

I think almost every one of our directors was there at some point during the five ribbon cuttings that we had.

And So it is heartwarming on many levels.

The buildings I continue to be impressed with how well they are designed to serve instructional needs to support inclusion to provide day lighting.

So just delightful buildings.

This year we opened more seats than we consumed.

So we've been building a lot.

Sometimes we redo old buildings which is really important too because that reduces our maintenance backlog.

But we don't in that case open new seats to keep up with our growth this year.

There's 2000 new seats and then probably another 900 seats in portables and converted classrooms and buildings that are over overcrowded.

The highlight of the ribbon cuttings and they were all special and they were all wonderful was the event at Robert Eagle Staff.

The Robert Eagle Staff family traveled here from North and South Dakota.

And wow they presented a sculpture of an eagle staff and explained that the eagle feathers were carrying prayers to the creator.

And it's a beautiful piece of art and provided blankets and food and resolutions.

Just a wonderful event and we could tell that it was terribly poignant and meaningful to the to the family.

And so they set a high bar as an old history teacher I keep insisting that whenever we open a new building we should make sure that kids in future know who we named the building for.

There's now that sculpture A picture of Robert Eagle Staff an interpretive display with more information available and the honor circle with some of his quotes outside the building.

So I guess the other one that I would comment on of note is Meany.

Meany was a hodgepodge of four cobbled together kind of reminded me of the Alaska lean twos where you just keep adding something to the to the building and it was dark and it was hard to get around in and now you wouldn't know that it's not a brand-new building.

It's opened up, the access is good, the visibility is good, there's light in virtually every part of the building.

So anyway I'll stop.

Anyway the ribbon cuttings were awesome.

Thank you to our facilities operations and construction teams.

Just incredible work all for a very very good cause.

And then topics of community interest.

The air out there is not good and it's now gone to unhealthy.

So I think for the first time ever that we know we have called for keeping kids indoors for athletics and for recess.

So up until now we've been moderate and we've been asking principals to be aware.

of any students that have special respiratory needs and to use good judgments about keeping students in.

Now that we've gone to unhealthy we've bumped that up a notch and we'll continue to monitor that and we need rain.

Get all that stuff out of the air.

OSPI smarter balance results were supposed to be released today.

We think maybe they'll be released tomorrow.

Our results are basically steady.

We've sustained the gains that we made last year and just very very little change from what we saw a year ago.

We don't yet know what the state did to know how we compare with the state.

And then DACA DACA is the dreamers act that has been in place allowing students who go to college or join the military to be on a path towards citizenship.

And that's something that is being set aside so it doesn't have a direct impact on us but it certainly has a fear factor for way too many of our parents.

So once again as in the immigration issue a year ago it creates a heightened sense of anxiety and fear for our families and we will do everything we can to assure them that we have already done a year ago what we could to ensure that immigration would have to go through all of the legal steps and work through our legal department before doing anything that would come anywhere close to our our students but certainly hope that Congress will move forward and take steps to ensure kind of the future 800,000 young people who have been educated here and have great promise for our future.

And then good news, OSPI has given us a grant to support homeless students.

That's been much in the news as we've gone through August up to the start of the school year.

I think the Lowell story finally ran this last week.

So any support that we get from any place is greatly welcomed.

Chief Seattle Club also arranged a grant of $50,000 for us and so our McKinney Bento office appreciates every bit of support that they can.

They do absolutely amazing work of trying to find resources and do whatever we can to support our 3113 students I think was our count most recently.

So it is an issue it's an issue for our city it's an issue for us and we certainly appreciate our staff and in this case those outside of our orbit that are here to help us with that issue.

And finally in closing well it is start of school and thanks to our thousands of teachers and educators as well as all of our support staff and transportation and cooks and everybody else.

We're off and running and we're going to have a great school year.

Thank you.

Thank you Superintendent Nyland.

We do not have a student commentator tonight.

So that now brings us to our business action items and the consent agenda.

So we've reached the consent portion of the agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move approval of the consent agenda.

We need somebody to second since Scott isn't here.

I'll second that motion.

Thank you.

Director Patu.

All right.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

Do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda?

Seeing none.

All those in favor of the consent agenda signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed.

The consent agenda has passed.

We have not yet reached the public testimony portion of the agenda so I am now going to invite directors to offer their comments at this time.

Do I have a volunteer to speak first?

Thank you Director Blanford.

Happy happy first day of school.

I'll start off by noting my pleasure when I walked in the door and saw that the Eckstein jazz band was setting up to play.

Those who frequent our board meetings know that I was a junior high school jazz drummer and a huge fan of jazz to this day.

And as I was listening to the jazz band I was thinking a little bit about the fact that I got the earshot a jazz brochure that comes every year for the jazz festival that's hosted in Seattle.

And I found myself thinking that many of the many of the soloist and many of the members of the jazz band I can if I were a betting man I would bet that one day some of them will be part of that jazz festival sometime in the future.

And the points that were made I think by Gail about how important it is that our students the students of Seattle have the opportunity to take.

the to take the jobs that are being created in this community and particularly the creative jobs that are being taken in this community or created in this community is a wonderful opportunity and something that we all aspire for and I think we're seeing good evidence of that taking place with our jazz bands and our other artistic endeavors that are happening in the school district.

Secondly I'd like to thank Gail and her team for the incredible work that you've done with our students over the course of the last few years.

I had the pleasure of working with Gail on the Naramore art show this year which was a treat beyond belief to see the incredible visual arts that were being produced by our students from one end of the district to the other.

I made an offer to buy several pieces no one was interested in selling and I didn't know if there was any kind of a conflict of interest with that but I would have welcomed those pieces any of those pieces in my home and it's an incredible demonstration of the artistic abilities of our students.

I'll close my remarks by noting that I indicated that I had community meetings scheduled or hoped that I would have community meetings scheduled last week and they have been scheduled they are set for the 23rd of September.

and the 28th of October both from 10 to 12 o'clock at the Douglas truth library at 23rd and Yesler.

And as always being those are my last meetings.

I will look forward to stimulating conversation and dialogue back and forth.

I had the pleasure this morning of sending a ninth grader off to school for the first time she in her Seattle Public Schools history has walked to school.

And it was a pretty tremendous opportunity for a mom and I.

Few tears were shed and a lot of a lot of reflection on the path that our child has taken from kindergarten through ninth grade to this point and the path that her parents have taken along with her.

Then I went on Facebook and I saw a huge number of postings of other parents who were sharing their pictures of their children heading off to schools and just remarking on what a treat it has been to have some role to play in preparing those schools and helping to lead those schools.

along with our educators in classrooms and our principals and all the people in the central office.

My thanks go out to you all and I especially want to thank you for all the hard work that was necessary in order to have a very successful first day.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak at this time?

Director Geary and Director Burke.

Yes indeed.

Happy first day of school.

I just wish that it was a beautiful late summer early fall day instead of the sort of gray morass that we have.

So just a little bit of a damper on what has otherwise turned out to be I think a pretty good day for most of our kids.

Thank you Gail for all your work.

I think it's known that I'm a huge proponent of the arts and I Love to hear about the development of pathways for the arts all over our city because as we know the law defines those kids that are gifted to be also we're also supposed to be identifying those that are creatively gifted.

And while we don't put the same emphasis on identifying and programming for those kids.

It's very important that to the extent that they are self-identifying or our general education teachers are identifying them that they have the resources and the ability to funnel them into a system that is going to keep them engaged in their education at a level that is appropriate for the creative talents that they are bringing.

So continue in that work it is so important.

And as director Blanford said when you see it culminate at something like Naramore it is stunningly beautiful and it makes you so proud.

Thank you to the Eckstein jazz band.

I mean this is part of my district and it's always a thrill to hear them and to know that they're going to be funneled right up in many of them up into Roosevelt which is also a fabulous program.

And I can already hear some of my other directors saying.

And we wait for the day when every single one of our middle schools is funneling the same quality of students up into every one of our high schools.

So it is certainly something we all aspire to.

Thank you for all the efforts on the tri day.

I I became so emotional at that that video because of Anthony Washington and it wasn't What a remarkable man right?

Such a great man and doing such great work.

And it was I think just a little over a year ago I got a phone call from one of the UW professors who was ranting and raving about Seattle Public Schools and how we're not doing this or that.

And he said how there was this fabulous young man who wanted to be a teacher but he didn't have the right credentials and he didn't have the right degree and there was no way for him to come into our schools.

And I said that doesn't sound right.

So I called Clover Codd and I said Clover that doesn't sound right.

And she says that's not right.

And so here we are.

I don't even think it's but a year later and he is making such a huge impact.

Somebody who wanted to be part of our schools somebody who the general population couldn't express a way for him to become part of our schools.

And so we have to make sure we're continuing to work to get that message out.

If somebody wants to bring their talents into our schools and change the lives of our kids like Anthony Washington did and has clearly then we need to make sure that everybody in this city knows to make a phone call to pick up the phone and just ask somebody how do we do this?

Because that was just amazing.

That just overwhelms me.

And then finally in all these great things I have to say my heart goes out to the Chief Sealth community because you never want to lose one of our kids.

And so that's tremendously sad to me because every one of these kids needs an opportunity to get to one of these great futures that we can help them get to.

And that's one child that won't one of our students that won't.

And that is also.

Just heartbreaking.

So my heart goes out to them.

And I have yet to schedule up my meeting but I will and I'll get it posted.

So.

Onward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Good evening and Happy New Year as they would say in the education community.

I want to start with also sort of my acknowledgements obviously the Eckstein band it's a treat just to walk into the building and hear them softening us all up and I think maybe there's some tie-in between our budget challenges and the amazing expertise.

No maybe not.

Anyways I'm left wanting more more more more.

I had two kids that went to Eckstein and I see what a missed opportunity to have not put some parental spin on them and tried to get them into some of that sort of that sort of excellence that was inspiring.

Gail Sellhorst your name resonates throughout the district for the work you do in arts.

You know I consider myself a relative newbie to the the ranks of people in the district and.

Regularly like oh, yeah, Gail was blah blah blah Gail was this Gail was that so I think the The the enthusiasm the work the results are have have made a big impression.

So thank you for that Dr. Nyland mentioned our new school openings I had the pleasure of participating in the ribbon cuttings for the Wilson Pacific site, Cascadia elementary, Licton Springs K8 and Robert Eagle Staff middle school.

And each of the events was unique.

and personalized and really powerful.

I must say that the the participation and involvement of Robert Eagle Staff's family and their their gratitude and respect for the district and the reciprocation was was really humbling.

I found it hard to.

to actually be able to say anything eloquent after they presented.

Principal Marnie Campbell superintendent Nyland with a lot of different you know blankets and and the statue of the Eagle Staff.

It was it was a very moving experience.

So I do hope that that level of.

of maybe I'm not saying it properly but that level of cultural intensity can continue for some of our students for all of our students because that site has so much significance and I think that it's really been captured in the building and the culture and a lot of the artwork at that site.

I had the pleasure this morning of visiting three schools.

I was kind of bopping around a little bit.

I went to Greenwood Elementary for the beginning where they lined the kids up on the playground and each teacher had their sign.

And then they would file into the room, into the building, one teacher at a time.

And there was a sort of half-hearted effort to strip the parents off as they were going in.

But it wasn't ruthlessly enforced yet.

I recognize that comes later and it gets more intensive at the higher grades.

But going to each of the schools and looking at how they do start of school processes it further made me recognize how challenging it is to balance central administration versus site-based management because the decisions and the logistics and the realities of getting a school started there's no way we're going to make a checklist for that because each school has their unique habits and processes and just geographic features.

Whitman they were starting with just their 6th graders until about noon and the 6th graders got to start in the auditorium and get a presentation and get hyped up and then they would go to their advisory and work through their schedules.

So pretty much by the time the other students came the 7th and 8th graders the 6th graders already owned the school.

And that seems like a common thing.

And then Hamilton Middle School was by the time I got there the kids had already dispersed but I was able to talk to a few of the teachers and the organizers and principal Blish.

And it sounds like the year's off to a good start and for people who are concerned the portable that was on the basketball courts is off the basketball courts so the.

Efforts for providing those extra seats and opening of the Robert Eagle Staff Middle School has resulted in a little bit more elbow room at Hamilton.

I do want to mention a couple of things that I learned about Licton Springs which has been somewhat of a hot topic and I think that probably directors and staff will be or have already gotten some emails on that and so I was able to talk to some of the people in the Licton Springs community and the dialogue around that had always been always has recently been This specifically has recently been how do you allow a community to grow.

Do you need to provide space first and allow them to grow into it or do you need to have the numbers first to justify the space.

And it's truly in our budget constrained environment it's a it's a very authentic problem that we have to grapple with and I think Licton Springs is in the is in the middle of that discussion as a K-8 as a small number school.

How do we provide how do we provide a justification for building out their program and letting them grow?

And I think what I had expressed as my opinion what I heard echoed from many of my colleagues was a commitment to give them some space and let them spread their wings and grow into it but then be thoughtful about it and reconsider that at such time so we're not denying other students that space.

with the expectation that a program might grow into it.

And so I just want to report that last year Licton Springs had about 120 students.

What I've heard early early numbers of their enrollment is about 165 to 170. That's nominally a 40 percent increase in one year.

And I'll be looking forward to the day four counts but that's that's a huge vote of confidence in the school.

I heard their kindergarten programs are pretty much full.

So.

It sort of proves if we can provide the facility and provide the support and school has a solid program and mission they will attract the students they will they will build out to that capacity.

And so I think the intent was that that would be an engineered 250 student school.

And then the Robert Eagle Staff middle school would be 750 and that would sort of comprise the hundred or the thousand students capacity in that building.

And so that's that's one of the really good news things about it is enrollment growth.

One of the other great things about it, I learned something about the collaboration that's going on, which I think is absolutely critical for two schools to co-locate.

There's some of the scheduling things that have been worked out as far as sharing the lunchroom and the gym, and it sounds like that is being worked out well with the two principals.

But even at a more operational level they've combined FTEs to fund nurse and I believe a speech pathologist.

I may not have that completely correct but some type of a service which those are the sort of positions that are often challenging to staff with partial FTEs and so this is a great point of collaboration.

So the flip side of that, and there always has to be a flip side, is that there are still some challenges.

I think all of you heard the request for rooms, and with what they've been granted, they're being forced to combine science and art into the same space.

And I saw the space, it's a beautiful space, it's big, it would be amazing for art.

Or it would be amazing for science.

But for both it's really a challenge.

Both of those programs are storage intensive.

Both of them have set up and breakdown requirements.

And so the combination of.

combining those in the same room plus the schedule constraints that come with it they have to actually do split classes or merge classes.

So they're looking at on the order of 30 to 40 students typically I heard art was 40 plus students science was somewhere in the 30 to 40 range.

And so that's that's something that they're really trying to figure out a way around and they don't see one at this point.

And the other one is that the math classes are being given in the hallway.

So the buildings have these amazing breakout spaces.

In the Licton Springs building there's a part of the hallway that includes a bump out and that bump out has been repurposed to be a classroom.

So they were actually teaching a full math class in that hallway.

So my ask to as we look at enrollment and day four numbers is that the the the wishes of myself and the board.

That Licton Springs be considered as a 250 student school the capacity to grow to 250 not be limited and that those those issues be really closely evaluated.

So I appreciate staff taking a look at that.

I also want to build on a little bit on what Dr. Nyland said on the budget.

One of my everybody has a pet project and you all know that mine is career and technical education so as I'm going around talking to people and you know passing the cup or whatever the tin cupping or trying to find places where we can establish more partnerships.

What is crystal clear to me is that anything that we want to grow costs more because we're not fully compensated.

And I'm finding that to be a really significant challenge.

Reminder that our career and technical education participation our CTE participation is 11 percent as compared to many other districts around us.

Bellevue at 12 percent.

Some of the highline shoreline surrounding districts that are in the 16 to 18 percent range.

So of our neighbors we have the lowest CTE enrollment but we have a really high barrier to grow it.

And I just want to make sure that that's part of our continual conversations.

Step down from the soapbox.

On other hot topics I think there will be numerous that go along with start of school staffing you know maybe some waitlist follow ups.

I've heard little buzz about math class availability in some of the high schools and I just know that as more of that information surfaces I'm going to ask that community be thoughtful collaborative a little bit patient but be very explicit with what are identified as the problems and help us work through solutions.

In closing I have a community meeting set.

For Saturday September 30th at 1 30 p.m.

Greenwood Public Library freshly remodeled and slightly renovated and look forward to seeing people there.

Okay thank you very much.

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 the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

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

First up we have Chris Jackins and Phyllis Campano.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the solar energy contract three points.

Number one at the last board meeting district staff argued that yearly savings would pay for the project because district roofs last 25 years.

Number two the board previously approved the contract for a new 2017 roof at Ballard.

Ballard's roof was constructed in 1999. Number three from 1999 to 2017 is less than 25 years.

On school board committee documents a board audit meeting agenda notes that the board is reducing access to public documents.

Please explain why.

On the League of Education voters two million dollar grant to South Shore.

Five points.

Number one thank you for updating the text of the grant.

Number two the Seattle Times gets a private grant for the its education lab stories.

But when you are reading an education lab article is it because it was the most important news that day or Or is it because they have a private grant that favors that kind of story.

Number three I believe that the Seattle Times has not adequately examined that issue.

Maybe someday they will become more independent and stop taking the money.

Number four South Shore has been getting a private grant and the school does a new thing.

Is it because it was the best thing to do or is it because they have a private grant that favors doing that kind of thing.

Number five I believe that the district has not adequately examined that issue.

The district should run its own schools and stop taking the money.

Please vote no.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Phyllis Campano I'm a special education teacher and Seattle Education Association president.

Just wanted to take a quick moment to thank Dr. Nyland for the invitation this morning out to Hawthorne Elementary to open the starting day.

And it was a great privilege to have Sabrina Barr the president of Seattle PTSA there with us.

It was a great feeling of unity for the superintendent the union and Seattle PTA to be together.

and celebrate such an incredible community.

They have for the third year in a row received a prestigious award from Johns Hopkins around community engagement and you could truly see that being there in the morning starting that off and how excited everybody was to see the superintendent there and of course the TV camera.

Everybody was pretty excited about that as well.

So again thank you for the invitation.

and appreciate the continued work on the partnership committee and continuing to build that and really putting an emphasis on it more having more administrators come into that meeting and be consistent in that meeting.

It's so important to our students especially our students of color as we continue to work on eliminating the opportunity gap.

So thank you.

Thank you.

This concludes our list for public testimony.

All right.

So we will now return to the board directors and see if anybody would like to speak next.

Director Patu.

Thank you.

I'd like to welcome everyone to another successful school year.

And I want to say thank you to Eckstein for the wonderful jazz band.

It's always great to hear them because they sound so professional.

When you hear them from outside you think that we have a professional, well I guess they are a professional group that's playing here at our school so it's always wonderful to share the talents of our students.

And also congratulations to Gail for her vision and supporting the vision of performing arts in our various schools.

It's very much needed.

I always say that a lot of our kids may not do well academically but when you put them in the arts a lot of time they excel from there and then they do better all around in terms of academics.

Art is very important and I'm hopefully that we can continue on to provide that in all our schools because it's very much needed.

And congratulations to the Tri-Day staff for your recognition and the hard work that you do.

And I've heard a lot of great feedback from various principals.

in what they're doing on those tri days and it's exciting.

So I think that you've already started a trend let's keep going.

There's a lot of excitement up there in the air and I think this is going to be a great year.

So keep up the good work and thank you for all the hard work that you do.

And my community meeting is actually In September 30th which is going to be at Rock and Tour in Seward Park and it's from 9 to 11 o'clock in the morning.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Okay next up.

Let me ditto all the thank you's and let me go ahead and restate my fantasy.

Every school.

Every student.

Arts and music every day.

And that will take care of math scores.

My heart truly does go out to the Lopez family.

We lost a 15 year old in my neighborhood.

Chief Sealth and I want to say thank you as well for the calls that I got from Assistant Superintendent McEvoy and from Chief Starosky.

letting me know that we had wraparound services at Chief Sealth this morning.

And that matters so very very greatly.

I will also mention that there is a GoFundMe page for the Juarez Lopez support fund.

So if you're so inclined please dial up.

Thank you again Ingram middle school excuse me.

Next time.

Thank you.

It's up north.

Jazz band.

That vocalist makes me close my eyes and think Billie Holiday and makes me think about some pretty extraordinary times in my life and.

We all need to have more of those extraordinary times but to see a young person so extraordinarily gifted is is a beautiful thing.

Other thank yous.

Thank you to Ina Howell of the Alliance of Black Educators who invited President Peters and myself to the Roots community picnic on Sunday.

It was a blast.

And I took my carrying card lasagna.

It was devoured I'm proud to say and I came up with a new line when giving my very short remarks.

If you think that the legislature took care of the McCleary funding that is the very definition of fake news.

I ran into Frank Chop yesterday morning in the elevators in my office building and I thought he was going to choke.

I'm hoping he'll use that as well.

Since now I can't talk about the fines every legislative meeting.

My community meetings are we hope the third Saturday of each month and I have them scheduled for September 16th October 21st and November 18th at the Delridge library from 3 to 5. So if you're riding circuit you can do more than one.

There's also an informal gathering for running start students Sunday this Sunday the 10th from 3 to 5 at Roxhill Park.

It's potluck and there'll be students that have done running start that are contemplating running start.

And it's not just for West Seattle folks.

Come on down.

We have a good time in District 6. And I might add for one of those three meetings I've scheduled they'll be a lasagna again.

But you have to figure out which it's going to be.

Gail Sellhorst your team and to Carrie Campbell before you.

Thanks so very much for the big lift.

You know the nonprofit world and the arts world doesn't get nearly enough credit.

And.

And y'all do it just out of sheer will and tenacity and it's hugely appreciated.

Concerns.

DACA.

The fear in the community the distress in the community is.

Breathtakingly sad.

And I hope that we can continue to reach out to our families to let them know that they have friends in this building and in every one of our 105 buildings now 104. Thank you.

Concerned about getting the student assignment transition plan rewritten.

concerned about starting to write our BEX V goals.

Our capacity crises.

The fact that as far as I know we still do not have a seat at the table with the city of Seattle for HALA.

And that makes me most disappointed and frankly quite angry.

And I hope that we make that a campaign issue.

The Licton Springs issue is very troubling to me because this board I thought was quite clear about making space available for the Licton Springs community.

I'm not quite sure how we could have been any more clear.

on our desire to make sure this school that has tried to be killed for the last 20 years when you started talking about spreading your wings the snarky side of me said yeah like the Phoenix because that school has risen for 20 years.

Alternative school number one Pinehurst now Licton Springs and we talk a lot about equity but we got to walk or talk.

And beyond congratulations for capital and construction five schools two years in a row.

And when I brag on the community with you all that you came in on time and for the most part on budget in the midst of this crazy construction zone more cranes in this city than any other major city in this in the country.

They look at me and say no.

And it's like yeah I'll take you there.

And it's my pleasure.

Last the Tri-Day video.

I was fortunate enough to be able to see that with a group of principals at SLI practically tackled Pat Saunders so that we could see it here.

And then it turns out that others were as usual way ahead of me and it was already scheduled up and thanks for Erin Bennett for making all that work.

Appreciate it very much.

Again it's my honor it's my privilege.

And I think this is going to be a great year.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

Okay I was excited to be able to attend the various ribbon cuttings of our schools that are opening some new some remodeled and as I've said before it's thrilling to see the district embrace the fact and realize the fact that we are a growing district and we cannot be closing schools anymore we have to keep opening them and improve them.

I would now like to make one of my new refrains the backlog of maintenance because it has been pointed out that we do move forward on some projects while we still have a lot of schools that are falling apart and it's falling to families and PTAs to raise the funds to pay for playgrounds to pay for upgrades and we shouldn't we shouldn't be in that situation.

It's not it's not fair to our families there's also an equity issue because not everybody can afford to do that.

So I would like us to shine the light on our backlog of maintenance and see what we can do to find the funds to take care of our schools that are aging and take this burden from our families.

Regarding Licton Springs it's my understanding that the principal has some discretion in terms of how the space is being used.

And if though that the school is using hallways and having a double up in classrooms that indicates that there isn't enough space.

And so I would just like to ask staff to have a conversation with the principal and find out whether there is enough space for Licton Springs because as my colleagues have pointed out it is something that we committed to as a board.

We passed an amendment I believe it was it said this school needs to have the space it needs to maintain the integrity of its programs.

As far as the excitement about Licton Springs finally having a permanent home I mean it was thrilling just as Director Harris pointed out this is a school that's had many incarnations it's been moved around a lot.

It's been on its last legs in the past but now it's growing and now it has a place to call home.

And I'm really proud of everybody who made the effort to do that and who believes in our schools and believes in the fact that we have children who are different.

No two children are alike and we should offer alternatives and options and choices for our students.

And it's great that we do so.

Cascadia is another school that is finally getting a place to lay down its roots after being in an interim site for many years and so that was also heartwarming to see it land somewhere.

OK.

Gail Sellhorst I'll join the chorus and thank you for your work and also just for the arts in general.

It's really important for all of our students and we should be part of everyone's curriculum.

My own family has come from an arts background and so I know the importance of it.

In another life I was a musician I was a playwright.

I was an art critic for the Seattle Weekly.

It's something that's very near and dear to my heart.

And so I'm glad we were able to I'm glad that you were honored and I'm glad that we keep having a conversation about how important the arts are to our students.

Eckstein middle school jazz band they were fantastic.

I look forward to having more performers every week.

Sometimes we don't have the students perform just from a scheduling standpoint so I'm hoping we'll be able to have a nice full schedule this year because we have so many different talents and so many schools and it'd be good to hear from as many as possible.

Thanks also to Ina Howell for inviting us to the Roots picnic as Director Harris mentioned.

What was interesting about that was it was a chance for the board to be out in the community and out amongst various communities that we don't always hear from.

I mean there's various groups that supported this this organized this event and Northwest Black Pioneers the Breakfast Group the Northwest African-American Museum Seattle Parks and Rec also sponsored it.

And of course the you know the Roots family celebration and the National Alliance of Black Educators.

It's a good reminder that there's a lot of organizations out there that we don't always hear from and they can't always make it to our meetings so I think it has been made into a board personal goal for us to go out to the community more and reach out to more communities so we can hear their perspectives and bring it back to the work that we do.

I just want to say a little cheer for our point of sale system.

What that means is we can now use credit cards in our schools.

Hooray.

So that's going to make life a lot easier on many levels not just for our parents our students but our fiscal secretaries at our schools and our auditing and accounting offices.

And so it's great for us to as I've said before leap into the 20th century.

And then...

Thank you to Superintendent Nyland for bringing up the issues of DACA.

Unfortunately we have an executive in our federal government who has some questionable judgment but we will not extend that attitude here.

We will protect our students and we will support our students and I see that our state attorney general is taking the lead on that.

And so I'm glad to see that.

You know we are a nation of immigrants and that is one of the things that's made this nation great.

And we need to always protect those who come under siege for all the reasons we've heard from history and all the reasons we know from history.

Finally I will have my community meeting on Saturday September 16 from 11 to 1 at the Magnolia library.

And so that concludes board comments.

We have a short agenda tonight so we are actually going to continue with our meeting and see if we can make it through and have an early dismissal for everyone tonight so we can go home and give our kids a big hug and see how their first day went.

Thank you.

So that brings us to the action business action portion of our agenda.

My notes in order.

So the first item is approval of the naming of Highland Park Elementary School library in honor of Mrs. Lou Anne Rundle.

May I hear the motion.

Approval of this item would authorize the naming of the Highland Park Elementary School library as the Lou Anne Rundle library at Highland Park.

I second that motion.

May we hear from the chair of the operations committee.

This item was heard by the operations committee on June 15th and move forward for approval.

Do we have somebody who can speak to this item.

OK.

Flip Herndon associate superintendent for operations and facilities and I am going to turn this over to principal Cronus to get everything going.

Thanks.

Hi how are you.

Hope everyone's doing well.

This is Chris Robert and behind us is Pam Wilson.

They're both teachers at Highland Park.

Luanne Rundle has been a volunteer at Highland Park for 45 years in the library.

She actually started there.

She was she's been living in the Highland Park community forever and she was a paid library assistant back a long long time ago when those existed for two years and the funding got cut and she just stayed and never left.

And she's the most tenured person in probably all of Southwest Seattle.

She's an amazing person.

And Mr. Robert and Miss Wilson came up with the idea of naming a library after which the community wholeheartedly agrees with.

And perhaps he could say a few words about her.

Well hopefully Mrs. Rundle will be here so you can meet her.

She's an extraordinary woman and it's been a privilege to work with her.

This is my first year, I just completed my first year at Highland Park and I'd heard all about Mrs. Rundle before I started work and I have to say that library runs like clockwork with her in there.

She's just amazing.

She's 81, she'll be 82 in December and loves coming there to work with the kids and she's making bookmarks for the kids and she makes bookmarks for the kids at the Roxhill Library as well which is where I also work.

And she's just an incredible and very sweet woman and there's no doubt that the library should be named after her.

And so we're hopeful that that's going to happen tonight.

She'd also be with us but we were told this might take a little longer.

She she should she she could arrive any second.

And she actually she was about three minutes late this morning to our morning assembly where we told the community what our intentions were and she arrived just in time.

So if we wait long enough.

Just kidding.

Can we defer this until she arrives.

Thank you Director Harris.

Mr. General Counsel is that acceptable to you sir?

Yes Noel Treat General Counsel yeah I think that's just fine I think unless there's any objection the board can just move this and move to the next item and then come back to this when she arrives.

Thank you.

I don't think I see any objections so let's do just that.

Let's consider that our preliminary introduction to the item.

So that brings us on to item 2 acceptance of the League of Education Voters Foundation LEV LEVF grant to South Shore Pre-K.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to accept the LEV LEVF foundation grant of two million dollars for South Shore Pre-K 8.

I second that motion.

May I please hear from the chair of the curriculum instruction policy committee.

This was heard by the curriculum instruction committee on August 22nd and moved forward for consideration.

Okay.

Have there been any changes since introduction?

Good evening yes.

Director of grants Michael Stone.

Yes there were some light items that were put in there and we want to make sure that they were posted for this morning.

With the help of Mr. Van Duzer they were.

And also making the corrections that Mr. Pinkham pointed out last week for the dual number five and the pre-K for bus transportation.

So the line item referring the specific policy was in.

We thought that was in on the last version we apologize it isn't in this version.

Peters Any questions or comments?

Director Geary.

I didn't mention this at I didn't speak on this point at introduction so I thought I would take the opportunity now to thank Lev and thank the donor for this money.

To the extent that we have a public speaker encouraging us to say no I can't imagine doing that in to the contrary I wish we had.

a person or a group of people to provide the funds necessary to the smooth running of so many of our schools.

You know at this point we do have some schools that have well-heeled PTAs and we have some schools that have very generous foundations.

And so for South Shore to have somebody who's willing to come forward and provide money in hopes that it improves the education of the students there.

I say thank you and I hope that we have more benefactors and that people realize that so much of what is expected of public education now is so dependent on partners that bring a lot of money in these different forms.

And so if this is how we're going to do public education then I think it's upon everybody to make sure that every school has this help.

So I invite more people and be very thankful and express a great deal of gratitude for their generosity until we have a system that fully funds education in a truly equitable way.

Director Harris and then Director Blanford.

I don't believe that there is logic in the concept that if someone is donating they get to control or buy a seat at the table.

And that was one of the things that we did in terms of clarifying the information on the bar.

so that LEV like any other community based organization would participate.

I kind of resent the concept that we now are apparently being compared to the Seattle Times education lab.

I don't follow the logic in this and.

I'm thinking that folks don't get to buy our curriculum at least not with this board.

Thank you very much.

Director Blanford.

I would only add that I think it's very important that folks out in the community understand our fiduciary responsibility as elected board members.

We have the responsibility of overseeing grants like this and being sure that there is an appropriate amount of stewardship and attention to detail to make sure that folks that are working with us that are trying to figure out ways to be involved with Seattle Public Schools have the appropriate amount of responsibility but are not like calling the shots.

And my review of this particular grant in no way leads me to believe that there is inappropriate involvement of any organization.

Furthermore I think that we should be encouraging many of our community partners to come to us.

I think far too frequently the seat is empty when we are trying to get community involvement.

So in this particular situation and in many others that I hope the board will have the opportunity to look at in the future.

We welcome community involvement and participation.

And if there is ever a point where that involvement is inappropriate I have no doubt that my colleagues and I will definitely take the appropriate steps to ensure that there is inappropriate that there is not inappropriate involvement.

This is surely not that case.

There any other comments?

Director Patu or Geary?

Director Patu.

I just want to also add to the thank you for Lev for continuing support of South Shore.

It's been I think it's three years now I think they've been the foundation that actually has given the support and hopefully that you know that what they're actually giving to us is because they really believe in the education of our students and not because they want to be part of making decision making.

So I really appreciate the continued support from LEV because we definitely know that each of our schools need all the financial support that they can get.

And I really believe that it has helped South Shore quite a bit in terms of moving forward in their academics and also supporting the students that actually are part of that school.

So thank you LEV for continued support of South Shore Middle School.

Director Harris.

I wanted to clarify something.

Lev has had the contract for two or three years but the donor that donated to Lev has been donating to Seattle Public Schools since 2004. And that is a whole lot of money and a whole lot of hands on leadership and And I wish he didn't want to be anonymous because I'd like to shake his hand and applaud him right now.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Since everybody's giving their props I want to build on that as well and add just a tiny bit.

I also want to extend thanks to to Lev and our anonymous donor and to all the people that are willing to.

put their money where our mouths are.

In some sense what we are doing is we are providing the best possible education we can for students with the resources we have.

And when we find donors that are willing to contribute to that in a goals aligned way that's that's what we consider a solid partnership.

And I think that this is an evidence of that successful application of a goals aligned partnership.

And I also want to thank principal DeWitt for being at pretty much every single one of our meetings for the last little bit and smiling at every single one of them despite it all.

So thank you for joining us and smiling.

Superintendent Nyland.

The comment about.

I can't repeat it.

Putting their money where our mouth is is very appropriate.

So the donor as I mentioned last time funded preschools which became now a citywide model.

Ruler which has become district wide in our elementary schools.

And really came to us as a social entrepreneur and said what's next in terms of what does South Shore need and what's something that would be if it can be developed well would be something that might be picked up throughout the rest of the system.

So it really is one of those ideal.

Partnerships where we're being challenged to do our best thinking and then they're putting money into it with that hope that A it will benefit South Shore but B that it will be something that will benefit the rest of the district as well.

Thank you.

I'll just add that I really appreciate the thoughtful comments from everybody on this.

They reflect my feelings as well pretty much.

I think it's it's it's wonderful that we have people who want to contribute to Seattle Public Schools in this way.

We do have to to exercise our oversight.

We have to make sure that our donors are not dictating what we do but working with us and what we are trying to do.

And I think it's a sad state of affairs that we do have to rely on partners so much and I'm very worried about that model and I don't think that we should allow that to let our legislators off the hook in terms of funding education.

And the dependence on these partners is a very tenuous place for us to be and it's not a good place for us to be.

So while I welcome the contributions and I appreciate them I don't necessarily feel that that should be our main direction in terms of seeking funding.

Plus we don't tend to have contributions that cover every single school in our district.

It tends to be one or two schools one or two programs it's never comprehensive and nor can we expect it to be because that would be a huge huge donation.

So again we have to look to our state and demand that they fully fund our education so we don't have to be so reliant on partners and we don't have to have discussions like this.

We can have our budget that we need so we can provide everything all of our students need.

If there are no further questions or comments Ms. Shek the roll please.

Director Blanford aye Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Peters aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

We are now going to go to item 1. I could just get a nod from principal Cronus that the timing is good for this choice.

OK.

Approval of the naming of Highland Park Elementary School library in honor of Mrs. Luann Rundle.

This is Mrs. Rundle.

She's a little nervous.

So we talked a little bit about this already.

This morning we honored her in front of our entire community and being the first day of school it really helped because we had so many families there dropping their students off who joined us in our gym for a morning assembly which we do every day.

And at that time we surprised her and this is a bit of a surprise for her as well.

So.

Peters All right so what we are going to do is well discuss and vote on approving the naming of the Highland Park Elementary School library.

In your honor Mrs. Lou Anne Rundle.

Does anybody have any questions or comments?

Thank you.

No thank you.

Thank you ever so much.

And thank you for what you do with Roxhill as well.

It's noticed and it's hugely appreciated.

Well you're very welcome.

Director Blanford.

I'll just say that before you arrived we heard a little.

We heard of your exploits over the many many many years.

And we are also grateful for your commitment to Seattle Public Schools particularly the two schools that you've been working in.

But to the probably the thousands and thousands of kids that have been impacted by your generosity and your commitment to Seattle Public Schools.

So thank you so very much.

You're very welcome.

Dir Burke.

I just want to echo my colleagues thanks and express gratitude for the work that you've done and the number of students you've reached.

All right.

OK.

My name is Dan McGee.

I taught at Highland Park in the past.

I'm a retired teacher.

I'd like to say a few things about Luan.

And evidently you've discussed it before I walked in but this might be repetitious but I'd like to say it anyway.

She worked.

She started in 1968 and she has worked in the library for 49 years.

And she when I went we have a little retired breakfast from Highland Park on the first day of school to celebrate the first day of school as retired teachers.

And she told me don't say 16 don't say 49 because there were two years that I got some money for doing it for doing it.

I'm sure it was from PTA or something.

So she wanted 47 instead of 49. But she would come to school every morning before the bell and she wouldn't leave until after school was over.

She worked in the library all day long five days a week.

She rarely was absent.

In fact if she was absent everybody is saying where's Lou Anne.

Because she came every day all day long.

She checked out books.

She put books away.

She read to the children.

She did everything that a regular librarian would do.

And.

She even my wife taught there before I did when my wife was teaching there she would bring three coffee cakes every morning to put on the faculty table.

She still does.

Does she bring does she bring three.

OK.

What.

Once a week.

Once a week.

OK every sheet for most of the time that she was at Highland Park.

She did it every day.

And so three coffee cakes every day.

And one day the secretary said you know Luanne you've got to stop doing this.

We're too spoiled.

You've got to show us that you know we shouldn't get this thing.

just every time we walk in we're expecting it.

Why don't you cut it down to one day a week.

So she cut it to one day a week but she really wanted to do five days a week.

So I understand that your name in the library after and I think that's fantastic.

I'd encourage you to figure out another way to honor someone who volunteered every day from beginning to end of the day for 49 years to try to figure out some way as a group you can come come up with an idea that maybe a plaque in the hallway with her picture and a brief statement underneath something that would really embarrass her but something something that would last forever.

So thank you very much.

Thank you very much for that wonderful testimony.

How about if we vote on this and then we take a picture.

Ms. Shek the roll call please.

Director Burke.

Absolutely.

Director Geary.

Resoundingly yes.

Director Patu.

Definitely yes.

Director Harris.

With extraordinary enthusiasm.

Yes.

Director Blanford.

I'm trying to think of a synonym.

Enthusiastically.

Did someone use that one already?

Director Peters.

Resoundingly yes.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Let's all gather for a photo.

Okay, ready?

I'm gonna take a couple.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

One more, one, two, three.

Okay.

So with those two items we had two examples of generosity towards Seattle Public Schools.

So we are now moving on to the introduction portion of our agenda and we have two items.

The first one is the repeal of natural resources conservation policy and procedures H 2 5 dot 0 0 and H 2 5 dot 0 1 and adopt board policy number 6 8 1 0 natural resources conservation.

May we hear from the chair of the operations committee?

This item was heard by the ops committee on August 24 or 23 and moved forward for approval.

Good evening Bruce Gower director facilities.

Tough act to follow there.

I'm here tonight to request school board approval to repeal board policy H 25.00 and board procedure H 25.01 and adopt a new policy number 68 10 natural resource conservation.

The new policy does not contain any language changes from the old policy.

It's strictly an update to the new numbering system.

Knowing this was on the board's calendar for phase 2 work we sent out the policy and procedure to our schools, our green teams, other district departments, our vendor partners, Seattle Public Utilities, To get their feedback on what should we do going forward and the recommendation was to keep the policy as it is as it stands and to simply update our procedure.

So the procedures have been updated to reflect the new city of Seattle building codes kind of our new processes.

City of Seattle requirements around composting and trash recycle and updated to some of our best practices.

So but as far as the policy it's strictly a new number.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

Geary.

Questions or comments.

Director Burke.

I just have a quick question around you know the conservation work and especially around the energy conservation.

I know that I've seen tidbits of information pass through board materials and some of the district materials around the results of conservation work.

And I was wondering if if you can remind me and my colleagues are there places that we should look at regularly to track the impact of this on our budgets, our energy usage.

How do you celebrate this work?

Well we've got a fairly dynamic shared savings program with the schools.

We also track our energy uses and report that to the school board annually and we've done a great job saving utilities.

A lot of that thanks to our capital partners.

But we do have a shared savings program so the schools do get the savings that they earn directly into their school budgets.

if they've got year over year savings.

So and that's a very popular program and a lot of the schools take it very seriously and have got some pretty good refunds annually from that program.

Director Blanford.

Thank you.

Can you speak to the range of those refunds?

Boy I think anywhere from $50 to $5,000 on some of the larger schools.

That's significant.

Are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Thank you very much.

And then the next item is adopting board policy number 3 1 1 6 students in foster care.

May I please hear from the chair of the operations committee.

This item was heard by the ups committee on August 23rd and move forward for consideration.

Pat Sander executive director coordinated school health.

This policy is a new board policy for students in foster care and we are recommending this to meet new requirements of the Every Student Succeeds Act.

It also meets our legal obligations.

Through this action we and we will be able to ensure educational stability for children in foster care by identifying enrolling and serving children and youth in foster care.

This comes under the Fostering Connections Act and the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978. Director Harris.

Can you give us a short paragraph of what is the pragmatic effect of this?

That sounded very legalese.

Okay.

So how does this help our kids?

How this will help our students is that once they are identified for foster care They will be able to remain in the school that they're currently in and transportation will be provided.

So it brings that stability to this to the student even though the foster care placements may be changing.

It mirrors very much the McKinney Vento act in this way in that it's the stability and sometimes in the child's best interest some other decisions may be made but they'll be made in concert with the child welfare agencies and the school district.

Peters are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Well that actually completes our agenda for the evening.

So I call this meeting adjourned at 620. Thank you everybody.

you and and you