need to be addressed to the board.
Please adhere to the time limit.
You have two minutes when you have 30 seconds left you'll see the yellow light go in on.
So you need to be hitting for home at that point and wrapping it up.
The focus of your comments should be on issues and solutions.
Majority of your time needs to be on the topic that you indicated that you are going to speak about on the sign up process.
No racial slurs personal insults ridicule or threats will be allowed.
No comments regarding personnel matters and I appreciate the high sensitivity of all of that.
But don't do it.
I will rule you out of order.
All signs brought to the meetings are subject to these ground rules.
Please announce the first three folks on the testimony list.
First up for public testimony we have Evan Dembowski followed by Allison Sofranos and then Melissa Westbrook.
Hello board members.
My name is Evan Abowski and I am a junior at Roosevelt High School.
It has come to my attention recently that there are some problems within my school.
I would first like to point out that the rape culture of Roosevelt is becoming more and more prevalent.
Many students within our school feel unsafe due to the recent sexual assault problems within the Roosevelt community.
It is hard for students to come forward and know that something won't be done to the perpetrator and that they won't be punished for their actions.
This is not OK.
The district needs to address this address this problem because it is not just a Roosevelt problem.
Other Seattle Public Schools have been going through similar things.
The district needs to come up with actual solutions on how to make this situation better.
Another problem our community is facing is the funding issue.
Our school has gotten over three million dollars in funds from our PTSA as opposed to Rainier Beach and Franklin who have gotten absolutely zero.
Roosevelt has a primarily white student population as opposed to Rainier Beach which has a high population of minority students.
This puts Roosevelt at an unfair advantage where we have tons of funding as opposed to schools with higher minority populations.
This should not be the case.
The district needs to figure out a way to distribute the money more equally.
Also Roosevelt lacks technology which should not be a problem because of how much funding that we have.
The resources we need are not available to us and therefore negatively impact our education.
I strongly believe that we should be able to use our funds to help other schools while still internally improving ours.
Thank you for your time.
Hi I'm Allison Sopranos.
I started the Japanese program in preschool in California and moved here right before kindergarten then went to John Stanford.
Right now I'm in seventh grade at Hamilton and take the Japanese program as an elective.
I've been in the Japanese immersion program for eight years and about five hundred and thirty students take the Japanese program in all of our Pathways schools like I do.
After studying in Japanese for eight years I can speak understand and write Japanese and write some kanji.
To I have a learning disability and haven't have and being bilingual has helped me to understand other subjects beyond my challenges.
I hope to continue the Japanese program in Lincoln High School with my friends.
Thank you.
I moved to John Stanford.
Now I'm in the 7th grade of Hamilton and I'm in the Japanese class.
I studied the Japanese program for 8 years.
I studied and about 530 students went to the same three pathway schools as I did.
I studied Japanese for 8 years and I can listen, write, and speak Japanese.
Thank you for listening.
After Melissa Westbrook, we will have Sarah Igawa, followed by Charles Anthony Burrell III, and then Elizabeth Kelly.
Good evening about the ill fated meeting at Robert Eagle Staff Middle School.
Please take that as a learning experience.
Parents and the public don't want to be facilitated.
They want their experience in this district to be heard.
Parents have and the public have on the ground insights and staff should listen if you hear the same thing coming from multiple directions.
I think you should listen.
Many of us could see upon touring the finished building that the space for Licton Springs was inadequate.
There's no way that space was going to ever fit 250 students.
In other words promises made to that community were fairly empty.
I advocate that like with World School the district find a home for Licton Springs.
World School had been offered a far south location and held out for a central location.
They got that albeit in an elementary sized building.
The Lake City Way building would be a great one for Licton Springs.
I believe there's at least two or three million dollars in BEX IV that was for this downtown school that you could use for this purpose at least in planning.
Like Nova like Center School I believe that no matter how small Licton Springs is saving lives.
It is taking kids who do not feel welcome in other schools and finding a community and a home.
That's saying a lot.
Please consider the Lake City building for Licton Springs.
Now to the check yourself survey that's currently being used in several middle schools and which I wrote to you about.
It needs to be put on hold.
A kin parent has shared with me questions from the survey given in their schools.
The questions are very personal.
What religion are you?
Do your parents drink at home?
Oh excuse me they say adults they don't use the word parent.
Additionally, the algorithm, after a couple of questions, will select a kid for a slot.
Parents were notified, but were they told the nature of these questions?
Were they allowed a way to opt out?
Can students opt out?
Students can't skip questions.
They have to finish the whole survey.
That's not fair, and that's not right.
And there are many vendors at many schools, and it's unclear who is seeing these not-anonymous survey results.
As a member of the ITAC committee, I find this deeply troubling.
I have asked to see this survey to both the district and King County.
I am still waiting.
I believe this survey needs a hard stop right now to protect students and parents until it is clear what it truly is and who sees this intimate data about students.
My name is Sarah Igawa.
I am both a Maple parent of a first grader and a veteran elementary English language learner teacher.
Currently I serve as the ELL specialist at Martin Luther King Junior Elementary as part of the families and education levy.
Maple has an ELL population of 40 percent which equates to over 200 students.
The amazing thing about Maple's ELL students is that they're beating the odds.
They perform better on district and state math and reading assessments than other ELLs in Seattle Public Schools.
This is critical information given the fact that ELL students district wide are the only demographic of students that are not making progress on smarter balanced assessment over the past five years.
Maple's a model school for serving the unique needs of English language learners well.
The 2013 Mabel boundary proposal would displace 56 ELL students 11 more students than the alternate proposal which would only move 45. Why would we want to disproportionately move ELL students out of a school that's serving them so well.
My mid Beacon Hill neighborhood has a large population of immigrant and ELL families.
They have unique needs linguistic linguistic and cultural barriers.
Coming to a school board meeting to speak in a second language is scary for them.
In addition many of them come from cultures where family engagement in schools is not the norm.
Last week my neighbors and I distributed a flyer which you have that we personally translated into five different languages and distributed to our neighbors.
Every single current Maple ELO family that we spoke to had no idea that the boundary change was coming.
Someone has dropped the ball in communicating with these families.
None of them felt comfortable coming to the board meeting but several wrote statements in Vietnamese that were translated by a Maple parent and I'd like to share them with you today.
The first is a mother of one Maple ELL student.
We just moved here at Maple.
We were further south before and the schools were not as good.
Now I just found out we would have to move back south again for school.
We had no idea and we just found out from a neighbor.
We need to stay.
Maple has a strong ESL program.
Please keep us at Maple.
We're new immigrants.
That's a lot of transitions for my family.
Thank you very much.
And the other is a mother of two Maple ELL students.
Please let our kids stay at Maple.
This move will be so disruptive for their schooling.
I don't know what else to say.
Thank you for prioritizing the needs of our ELL families.
Hello my name is Charles Burrell and I thank you for the opportunity to address you today.
I'm a parent of two children who attend Maple Elementary School and I'd like to address the boundary change proposal from Maple and how it personally affected one of them my son Oliver.
When I was 27 years old I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
For a decade I received my care through a series of clinics and never saw the same neurologist twice.
Every time I went to see a neurologist, I would have to retell my story to start again from ground zero.
While these doctors knew a lot about MS, they did not know about my MS and how it affects me both physically and emotionally.
Only when I got a job that provided healthcare as a benefit was I able to establish continuity of care with a dedicated specialist that allowed me to start truly managing my condition.
My son Oliver has ADHD.
His teachers and specialists at Maple Elementary have become a core part of his support network and worked with my wife and me to find ways in which he can thrive as a student.
Because of the high level of care that exists for students with special needs at Maple Elementary Oliver has progressed to being far behind in reading at almost grade level in the span of just a year.
Because of the overwhelming level of support at Maple Elementary from those who know and understand truly care personally about Oliver, when problems arise, solutions that truly help him to thrive, to improve and thrive as a person are sought and implemented.
Because of the consistency of leadership and vision at Maple and Renfrew when it comes to children's special needs, my wife and I know that he'll continue to receive the same high level of care as he makes his way through the grades.
If Oliver has to transfer to another elementary school next year though it would hurt his case immeasurably.
He'll have to start from ground zero with a fresh new team.
While his new specialists may know a lot about ADHD they will not know anything about the ADHD that Oliver has and how it affects him both physically and emotionally.
We will have lost the precious continuity of care that currently allows Oliver to thrive as a student and all of us he my wife and I as well as the rest of my family will have to adjust and spend precious time and resources and money regaining it.
I hope that you will make a decision that's equitable for children such as Oliver who as a person of special educational needs is traditionally underserved by Seattle Public Schools.
At the very least I would ask that there is a possibility of exempting students such as Oliver who are currently attending Middle Elementary School from the zone change so that the continuity of care that they need in order to thrive as students is maintained.
Thank you.
Hello my name is Beth Kelly.
I live on mid Beacon Hill and I'm the parent of a Maple first grader.
The fallout between the two boundary proposals has been difficult for our Maple community.
Families from Beacon Hill and Georgetown feel pitted against each other in a struggle to keep their children at a racially diverse high achieving Title 1 school.
There's so many wonderful things about Maple.
It's understandable that nobody wants to leave.
It truly is a model school for families that value both academics and inclusion.
Before the boundary change issue came up I didn't know as many of these amazing neighbors as I do now.
Mid Beacon Hill is very diverse.
We don't all have shared cultural norms.
We don't all speak the same language.
In fact as you heard from Sarah it took multiple community members hours of their own time to put together the flyer that you have today translated into five different languages.
And then we canvassed our neighborhood with it in groups over multiple days to let them know about this single meeting.
That's the effort that it takes to make sure that everyone in my neighborhood not just white people not just English speakers not just able bodied or literate individuals but everybody in my neighborhood is informed and included.
The first proposed boundary change the one for most of Mid Beacon Hill displaces 25 more children of color and 13 more children requiring ELL and special education services than the second.
I believe that the Seattle School District recognizes the disparate education that these children often receive particularly in our Southeast schools compared with their white counterparts.
Maple bridges this opportunity gap.
Please uphold your commitment to equitable educational access under school board policy 0 0 3 0 ensuring educational and racial equity.
Please keep Mid Beacon Hill at Maple Elementary.
Next up we will have Heidi Reitzman followed by Katie Page and Ross Isakawa.
Hi my name is Heidi Reitzman and I am a parent of a fifth grader in the Japanese dual language immersion program at John Stanford International.
My son and I are mixed race Japanese-American and we are super grateful.
My son and I are mixed race Japanese-American and we are super grateful for the incredible experience we've had in the John Stanford School community.
John Stanford like the other dual language immersion schools in Seattle not only offers an excellent education but also a culturally meaningful one that is helping my son and so many others become successful global citizens.
Did you know that one out of four students at John Stanford have Japanese heritage.
20 percent are mixed race.
There's an increasing number of English language learners that just ballooned this year.
I think it's in the several dozens.
I can't remember the exact number.
I'm here today because I want to give you a big thank you to the school board.
Thank you for doing the right thing on January 31st when you made a clear decision to support the expansion of both the Northwest and Southeast dual language immersion pathways.
Not only did you decide to expand these pathways but you also directed money to help ensure this would happen.
It's very explicit and so many people appreciate that.
As soon as this decision this promise was made communities celebrated because it meant not only the continuation of dual language immersion studies for countless kids today but also a bold step to achieve the dream of former Superintendent John Stanford who more than 20 years ago envisioned an extensive citywide K through 12 world languages program that would produce bilingual students ready for this increasingly diverse interconnected world.
Thank you.
You were right to link.
You were right to link the expansion of the Northwest pathway to the Southeast pathway in your January 31 decision.
I appreciate this systemic approach that you were trying to take in the name of equity and in the same way of thinking I ask you to now support the continuation of Japanese without interruption alongside Spanish also in the name of equity and systemic thinking.
The completion of a pathway at the high school level not only serves as a continuation for students to follow but also bolsters that pathway.
Are you wrapping it up.
Thank you.
This is a critical moment.
Please don't fail many hundreds of Japanese dual language students who've worked so hard for so many years for this program.
Instead please join them in celebrating all the good that is happening in their program by reaffirming your decision in January 31. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Konbanwa.
Good evening.
My name is Katie Page and I'm here to speak on behalf of the Japanese program at Lincoln High School.
I don't speak Japanese but my daughter does.
She started taking Japanese when she was five first at John Stanford now at Hamilton in her ninth year.
When she first started in kindergarten she said to me Mom I don't understand what they're saying to me.
And then within two weeks she was singing songs in Japanese.
And then I got the chance to travel with her to Japan saw her order food in Japanese speak to a store clerk in Japanese talk to my college roommates Japanese husband in Japanese.
It's it made all the challenges of trying to raise a bilingual child worth it.
We are so excited about the reopening of Lincoln High particularly the decision to make it the Japanese pathway school.
This makes a lot of sense considering the proximity to John Stanford McDonald and Hamilton.
But we recently learned that Japanese might not even be offered at Lincoln next year.
How could Japanese not be offered at the school that's been designated as the Japanese language pathway school.
It makes no sense.
I think we need to do two things.
First I think we need to come up with an accurate estimate of the number of students.
I understand there's been a survey distributed to Japanese students at Hamilton but we can't rely on students to turn in surveys.
We need to make that communication to parents at home as well.
And there also needs to be a survey sent to transferring 10th graders.
I also brought with me tonight and turned in a petition signed by about 88 Japanese students at Hamilton who are interested in continuing Japanese at Lincoln.
And I also brought Madeline with me so that she could tell you why she wants to continue in Japanese.
Hello I'm Madeline Davis.
I've been taking Japanese since I was 5 and I am planning on attending Lincoln High School next year.
I would like to continue taking Japanese at Lincoln next year because I enjoy taking it and someday I might want to go on a semester abroad in Japan and taking Japanese would help me prepare for that.
Thank you for your time.
After Ross we will have Karen Williams followed by Edith Sobazo and Amina Adams.
Hi, I'm Ross Ishikawa.
My grandfather emigrated to the U.S. in 1903. He eventually ended up in Los Angeles, but he arrived to the country via Seattle.
This was because Seattle was the main point of entry for Japanese coming to the U.S. at the time.
Seattle had the first and most established Japanese community in the U.S.
That's just a little bit about me.
I had some more general notes.
There may be this faint notion that somehow Japanese isn't a worthy language to teach and invest in at Seattle Public Schools.
Funding should go to Spanish which is more widely spoken in the US.
But I also want to I want to dispel that potential sentiment with a few points.
Japan is the fourth largest trading partner.
is our fourth largest U.S.' 's fourth largest trading partner and we are Japan's first trading partner.
Seattle is a hub of Japanese business and is on the Pacific Rim.
Japan has the fifth largest GDP in the world.
Japan is spoken by millions of but few non-natives.
What an opportunity for us here in Seattle.
Japan language is a level 5 difficult language to master and immersion students are tackling it from a young age.
I have to say my two boys are OK students but they speak Japanese better than my dad does.
So that's something.
At almost no extra cost to Seattle Public Schools the Japanese immersion program has been a success at Seattle Public Schools.
It's an incredible international language offering at the SPS and has been for close to 20 years.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Karen Williams and like many others I'm here tonight to talk about the Japanese language pathway at Lincoln High School.
As I'm sure you'll hear tonight there's a lot of confusion and uncertainty regarding whether or not Japanese will be offered at Lincoln.
What I also hope you'll hear is the solid commitment that teachers students and families made to this program a long time ago.
Many students view Japanese as a core class rather than an elective and for some their Japanese skills may provide a literal pathway to their future.
It's true in the first few years the program will face challenges.
The numbers of Japanese students at Lincoln will not initially support a full time teacher but we still need to educate the kids who are there.
Some of them have already invested up to 10 incredible years studying Japanese and from a practical standpoint many have earned credits toward their foreign language graduation requirement.
So I don't think we'd expect them to start over.
I don't think there's an accurate number yet of the eighth and ninth graders who expect to take Japanese next year but I'm confident it's going to be nearly all of them like mine.
Every family who enrolls their child in an immersion program at John Stanford or McDonald is making a long term commitment.
I'm sure this is also true for families whose kids began taking Japanese in middle school.
You've probably visited a Japanese class at Hamilton or Roosevelt or elsewhere in the district.
Weren't you inspired to see these kids learning a language that can truly bridge a gap between two countries that were once at war.
It seems sounds dramatic but these kids are developing the skills and the potential to become future ambassadors.
What a gift I think in our complicated world.
Students and families need to know that the district is committed to this program too and we need your support with creative solutions in the transition years to continue this program for students who need it right now to find the best full or part time teacher to fund it and to support our principal in the process.
The district established the initial pathway for these kids in kindergarten and Lincoln has been designated to continue that.
You must follow through on this designation and ensure that Japanese classes are offered at Lincoln this fall and in the future.
Thank you.
Hi I'm here as a parent of a third grader at John Stanford and a ninth grader currently at Roosevelt for only one year.
Next year the district requires him to move when it opens.
My ninth graders in his 10th year of Japanese and immersion.
We want you to fully fund the Japanese language program at Lincoln when it opens next September.
The school board made the commitment to us last year and we chose to go to Roosevelt this year based on your words.
Now as parents we are hearing that Lincoln may not be able to fully fund Japanese classrooms.
So this is from a quote from one of the minutes from last year.
This pathway change to Lincoln should be adopted at the same time as the adoption of attendance area boundaries and 8 and HC pathways to provide dual language students the same amount of notice as other students impacted by the opening of Lincoln.
Had we known that had we known that the program may not be fully funded.
We might have chosen a different high school for him to go to.
You told us the Japanese program would be at Lincoln when it opened since it is the pathway and there's one more quote not making a pathway to Lincoln would split the cohort between Ingram and Lincoln making it difficult to provide sufficient course offerings at both schools.
Last year understanding the implications the board created part of this problem for next year by allowing ninth grade immersion students at Ingram to stay at that school and most of them chose Ingram so that they wouldn't be forced to leave.
Now we are faced with less kids that would be that would have potentially gone to Lincoln and fewer students to fill the Japanese classes.
This is a short term problem and the problem and the program will have enough Japanese learners in one in probably one year.
Short term problems are exactly what what should be considered for mitigation funding by you or maybe use the rainy day fund since this is the first new Seattle high school high school in 40 years.
In the past when elementary or middle schools have opened you've mitigated for staffing circumstances like this.
We ask you that you we ask that you give Lincoln the same consideration.
Opening a new high school is a lot of work.
You're lucky to have an incredible team with Ruth and Corey and all the department leads and many of us parents are helping to do all this volunteer by heavy lifting to make Lincoln a success.
What families don't need as their students bravely enter this new high school.
Our academic challenges like not offering high school Japanese to families who were promised it and have anticipated it for eight years.
Show your commitment tonight to these students and don't make this an issue.
Continues to be one more thing that I lose sleep over.
After Amina Adams we'll have Karen Schwartzbauer followed by Chris Jackins and then Clint Berquist.
Hi my name is Amina Adams.
I'm a senior at Rainier Beach and I want to start off with saying thank you so much for putting us on the list for renovation.
We appreciate it.
We're going to be part of the process for the renovation just want to let you know that.
And today I want to talk about ethnic studies and we are going to talk about renovation but that's not as our main point.
Now we're just switching into ethnic studies because That's really important for us because minorities need to know a lot about their history and it's important to know about especially like history that has to do with your culture and European learning about European history is not beneficial beneficial for us and our mental because then we won't We won't appreciate our culture.
And sadly to say I don't know a lot about my history and if I had an ethnic studies class I would know more about the history of black people the history of African culture.
And the only thing I do know is about Monsa Musa and that's all I know.
He was just the richest.
African King or something like that I don't know but it's kind of sad I don't know about my history and that's really important but not just for schools that's full of minorities schools with white people too is important to know about black history it's important to know about African history and yeah that's what I wanted to say today and I'm done.
Thank you.
Good evening.
I'm Karen Schwartz Bauer.
I'm a parent of an eighth grader at Hamilton in the Japanese program and here again to stress the importance of following through with continuing the Japanese immersion program at Lincoln is not only important for the families and community of Lincoln but also important to the success of Lincoln itself.
Like many I was overjoyed to hear of the.
seemingly obvious logical decision to continue the dual language immersion program at Lincoln High School.
The current middle schoolers immersion students are all neighborhood families.
They were assigned to McDonald and John Stanford as kindergartners as their neighborhood schools.
They spent eight of their 13 years studying Japanese language and culture and behind them are more students and families looking forward to continuing this program through high school as well as into college and possibly career.
I cannot stress how important this program and community is to all the students and families is one of the main reasons we are all excited about Lincoln and want to send our kids there.
Personally we chose Hamilton for middle school for our son due to its Japanese program and didn't even consider job transfer moving out of the city.
Due to the fact that our son wouldn't have available Japanese where we were to go.
These neighborhood families in the Japanese program will bring to Lincoln enthusiasm and dedication that would be foolish to squander and without such a program in Japanese could be lost to other schools.
This could have a ripple effect going forward with ensuing classes and enrollment entering Lincoln.
We want to help make Lincoln a success from the start and to do so we need a quality Japanese program in the fall to which we can dedicate our students.
Please consider helping the principal at Lincoln form a mitigation plan for the future Japanese learners at Lincoln to ensure the continuation of the successful and beloved program in which already years of resources dedication and love has been committed as well as to help Lincoln become a very desired and soon sought after neighborhood school.
Thanks.
My name is Chris Jackins box 8 4 0 6 3 Seattle 9 8 1 2 4. On the Olympic Hills project four points.
Number one there is no detailed breakdown of the change orders.
Number two how much of the six hundred and sixty student capacity is being used.
Number three what were the effects on Hamlin Creek.
Number four what were the effects on archaeological resources.
On the SAP software agreement two points.
Number one the report states that in the short term there are no credible alternatives.
What is the definition of short term.
Number two the address of the SAP vendor is listed as the Ronald Reagan building in Washington D.C. Is this a private vendor or a government vendor.
On the district educational research work plan please add the data profile district summary annual report to the list reports to be published.
On the one point four million dollar Durham contract for bus transportation services two points.
Number one are Durham drivers union representative.
Number two has the district evaluated the alternative of moving to three start time tiers.
which allows the same drivers to cover several tiers.
On certification of excess levies two points.
Number one environmental review is meant to inform board decisions but the board voted on the Franklin project before the superintendent had issued an environmental decision.
This harms the public the superintendent and the board.
Number two please specify that this won't happen for capital levy funds collected under this resolution.
Thank you.
After Clint Berquist we will have Niall Kurashige followed by Nidhi Aragawa and then Pam Chin.
Hi good evening.
Thank you.
I'm Niall Kurashige.
I'm here for the same reason that many people are here about Japanese being taught in Lincoln.
As my daughter in second grade likes to remind me promise is a promise.
As adults we should lead by example.
I'm here to share my story as a parent as any parent does.
I have made my own choices and sacrifices for my daughter.
I passed on a my dream job in New York because I wanted to keep my daughter in the Japanese program in Seattle Public School because I didn't think that there's anything that came even close to apply for her.
So I wanted to give that gift of the Seattle Public School education.
with the Japanese to my daughter and I'm not the only one.
There are people their families that have moved across state lines to come to these schools for the Japanese program.
It's a very very phenomenal program.
These kids start in kindergarten and goes through for nine years before they get to high school.
And according to research bilingualism is anchored in the brain when the child becomes literate and literacy is going to be the key.
And that is what is being taught at the high school level.
And to take that away would be a real shame.
So.
I'd like to say that although John Stanford and McDonald is often thought of as these privileged schools with lots of money it is now a.
option school with lots and lots of different backgrounds and socioeconomic backgrounds.
There are many single parents that just simply send their children there because they want to continue to communicate with their children in Japanese.
For all these reasons I'd like to kindly remind you that there was a promise made and to please honor that.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
My name is Clint Berquist.
I live in Georgetown.
I'm also the father of a Maple second grader and my son loves Maple and we treasure the friends we have made there and it's been really hard to see so much division within the within the Maple community.
Thanks for the opportunity to speak today about the proposed boundary changes for Maple and their impact on the Georgetown neighborhood.
I come to you today from a place of privilege.
I have a good upper class middle upper middle class job with some flexibility allows me to be here.
We're a two car family, which means my wife is able to pick up my son from after school care, take him to basketball practice while I was able to come here.
Not everybody has the same advantages I do.
So I'm really fortunate to be able to be here to speak for some of the people in our community who may not have those same advantages.
For several weeks now, you've been hearing from Georgetown families who feel the entire community attending their neighborhood school is a critical component to our vitality.
As a neighborhood, we face many challenges that most residents of Beacon Hill do not.
Beacon Hill residents enjoy $14,000 more per year on average than residents of Georgetown.
We have five times as many people living below the poverty line and deal with roughly the same crime levels as a population 22 times our size.
Georgetown lacks typical neighborhood linchpins like a supermarket, library, community center, or safe and accessible biking and walking routes.
A school boundary decision may seem trivial or unrelated to some but it can be the straw that breaks the camel's back for families with means which fractures our fragile community when they leave.
I've packaged some data that shows some of the challenges we're up against as a neighborhood and I'm hoping to give you some appreciation for some of the strains that we're already under as a community.
Beacon Hill has many elementary schools several of which are under capacity.
Georgetown only has Maple.
The school board should be applauded for looking at racial equity as a component of their boundary decisions.
It's my hope that you'll consider equity as part of a thorough analysis of Beacon Hill school boundaries.
Take the time to do it right.
Make gentle and thoughtful decisions for all the school boundaries and find a way to keep the small number of Georgetown families at their neighborhood school.
Thank you very much.
Hi, I'm Nidhi Agrawal.
And don't be distracted by the sari.
I'm here to make a case for Japanese.
So I have two daughters.
They are both at McDonald International in the Japanese program.
And before we joined McDonald, my family had no sort of connection or exposure to Japanese culture or language.
We chose it just because it was close to our house.
And it was, thank you so much for the gift, because it has really enriched our lives.
I don't know if you remember, but two years ago, I was here in front of you to request to let my daughter stay at McDonald's because of some mistake that I had made or there was some miscommunication on forms.
And today, I am here to request you that please maintain this amazing pathway that you have built that has brought these cultural gifts to our lives.
Last year, my family spent five and a half months living in Japan, sending our kids to public school in Japan.
And when we landed in Japan, I said to my fourth grader, all right, here we are.
You know better than we do.
Please navigate us.
And boy.
This fourth grader, she navigated us through bureaucracy.
Can you handle a government office?
She can do it in Japan in a language that I don't understand.
She taught us how in school you open a placemat and you eat your lunch on a placemat and then you clean your class afterwards.
So there are all these amazing gifts and we don't want to truncate them.
Today, they are learning that there are three words in Japanese for describing distance.
So here and there is how we would say in English.
The Japanese, I think, say soko, koko, asoko, which means close to here, close to me, close to you, and there, away from both of us.
Today they're just learning the words.
Tomorrow when they're in high school they'll learn that those words are carriers of thinking.
What does it mean that there is a language that considers other people's space.
Please don't take this opportunity.
Allow them this amazing chance of learning.
Thank you.
Otsukare sama deshita.
You're doing great.
Thank you.
Hi my name is Pam Chin I was here a few weeks ago.
I have a second grader and a kindergartner at Maple Elementary.
I live within the boundary change area.
This past weekend I spent a little bit of time with a couple of my neighbors.
We went around and brought illustrated and translated flyers to make sure that we were reaching families who had not yet heard about the boundary change.
And it was a really worthwhile time because we had three different neighbors who wanted to share letters with you but could not be here today.
So I'll be sharing those.
The first is from Adnaloy Sanchez-Bombrey.
She says Hello Seattle School Board.
We are the future parents of Maple Elementary students.
When we were looking to settle down we had many check boxes.
One of them was most important was school districts.
We looked online talked to realtors future neighbors and every information told us about high ratings of maple.
This played a huge role in us moving to Beacon Hill.
Now suddenly we find that our son can no longer go to the school.
Why do we have to dive deep in the records to figure out that such important decisions were kept hidden.
I would humbly request for you to keep the cut section which isn't a natural border in Maple.
We feel like we are being ripped apart from the rest of neighborhood community and friends on Beacon Hill.
Thank you the Bambri family.
Second letter Rachel DiCarlo mother of one Maple student currently lives within the walk zone.
My husband and I purchased our home where we did in Beacon in 2014 largely based on the fact that our daughter would be districted to a well rated public elementary school.
Maple.
We are very disappointed to hear that our daughter will now be scheduled to attend Van Asselt given the below average ratings and test scores.
Our family kindly requests you consider changing the boundary.
Last letter.
Carla Rosas Hernandez mother of two Maple students who are ELL students.
I am a mother of two kids from Maple and I feel already worried and frustrated for all these changes that you're going to do.
I don't think this is fair.
My kids are really happy in this school.
My little daughter keeps telling me she doesn't want to move from Maple.
She says I don't want another school.
She doesn't understand why we have to change schools and other kids can stay.
Maple had been a great school for us.
Please find a way for our family to stay.
We need this school in this community.
It will be incredibly hard to change schools.
The reason why we moved to this neighborhood is because the schools and now you want us to send to a different area that I refuse.
I hope you can reconsider this decision and keep our children's in the school that they want to be.
Thank you.
Next up we have Erica Kino followed by Mia Kino.
My name is Erica Kino.
I am a registered voter and a parent in District 2. I'm here to support to testify in support of the Japanese immersion program.
My daughter is enrolled in my daughter enrolled in Japanese immersion in kindergarten with the district's commitment that the program would continue through high school.
I learned at a meeting last week that Lincoln High School will be the new pathway school but that the Japanese program may not continue at the high school level due to lower student enrollment.
If the district doesn't hire a teacher at the high school level I fear you'll be effectively killing the Japanese immersion program.
What student would want to enroll in a language pathway that isn't fully supported like the other languages are.
At the meeting last week parents were told that we'd probably have two options for saving this Japanese teacher at the high school level.
One would be for parents to fundraise to hire a teacher.
The other would be that we could use translation machines so that there would be an English speaking teacher with a microphone and a head and a headset and the teachers would have that too and it would be an automated translation.
Both of these solutions are patently inequitable.
It simply isn't fair to require parents in one language offered to raise money when other district sanctioned language programs don't have that requirement.
Why should a child's educational opportunities be determined by their parents income.
Regarding the machines I am a trained Japanese and English interpreter and translator and I can absolutely testify to you that you need a human native speaker to be able to convey context intonation and culture.
Machines are so bad in fact that I believe they do more damage to a student's language ability than just stopping their education right there.
So if machine translation is implemented my daughter will not continue in the Japanese program at the high school level for that reason.
So please keep your district commitment to equitable language immersion options and hire a Japanese language teacher at Lincoln.
Thank you for your consideration.
Arigato Gozaimashita.
Hello my name is Mia Kino and I'm at sixth grade.
I'm in sixth grade at Hamilton International Middle School.
Until last year I went to McDonald Elementary School which is also an immersion school.
I'm in the Japanese program.
I've been in the Japanese program since kindergarten and I feel the school district is not putting as much effort into the Japanese immersion as they do in the Spanish.
For example the Spanish have always had more interns and it seemed to me they had better technology too.
There were also some years when some grades in the Japanese program didn't have teachers while the Spanish did.
I learned that we may not have a Japanese teacher in high school and I thought that was unfair.
I want to ask you to hire a teacher for high school to give more resources and to put more effort into the Japanese program.
I want the kids that are younger than me to get the chance to study Japanese if they want to.
I want them to have the same opportunities as I did.
Thank you for listening to my opinion.
This concludes public testimony this evening.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We will take short comments from my colleagues from what we heard at public testimony tonight.
If you so choose.
Director DeWolf.
I will go first.
Thank you President Harris.
Thank you to everyone for coming out tonight.
I know that it takes a lot of logistics planning and so just no supreme gratitude for you coming out tonight advocating for your kids and for our public schools.
I only have a really quick comment which is to say that I heard the word minority a bunch tonight and I just hope and particularly for kids for Amina.
No one is minor and no one is a minority and we are not minor and we are not a minority.
I think you I mean specifically mentioned about our ethnic studies and one thing that I think.
Often we think about with history is that other people's history is not our own.
As a native person I know that my history is actually your history too.
As a queer person my history is your history too.
There's an MLK quote I've been seeing actually at work lately and it's in a real sense all life is interrelated.
All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.
Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.
I know we can always do a better job and I'm realizing that we are making sure that all of our history is our collective history and I am hopeful and positive that our work with ethnic studies will get us to that goal.
So thank you for that work and thank you for coming out again tonight.
Director Mack.
Public testimony is always my favorite time of the night because you're coming out and talking about and bringing new up new information that we may not have heard before.
But what I'm also incredibly heartened by is the community building that's been going on around some of these really tough issues.
You wouldn't think that boundary changes would actually generate community building but it could I can see it happening in Maple and the.
support and recognition for your fellow families in a very diverse community is really heartening.
You know we're a district that's made up of 105 school communities.
People go to a school and they join a community and it's a larger broader Seattle schools community as well.
But there's a lot of connection directly to that community.
And that's why these challenges around capacity management are so difficult.
You know buildings only have so much space in them.
We have to define our programs of what actually is happening in those buildings well so that you know there's not inequity across the district.
So I think from a systemic perspective we still have a lot of work to do and we will continue to have work around our capacity management and our resolving these challenges of overcrowding or undercrowding and and and making those decisions.
But what I'm really really heartened by is the community building that's going on and the support you know going door to door in Maple to make sure your your fellow neighbors know what's going on is really important.
And the big challenge we've got around community engagement is that that's a lot of time and work.
And I want us to do a better job.
I also recognize how much.
time and effort it takes to really do solid community engagement.
And I also recognize that we are in a major budget crunch coming up in the next year and I am honestly incredibly anxious because we're looking down the barrel of some really challenging issues to resolve with limited resources in order to do that.
And community engagement takes takes a lot of effort.
And I hope that we can connect with folks to make that as robust as possible with the limited resources that we have.
So again thank you for talking with your neighbors.
And I just wanted to reiterate what the operations committee had recommended around Maple was that we believe there's more community engagement that needs to happen in concert with the other boundary changes that are going on in the southeast in 2020 because Wing Luke is reopening and there's other changes that are happening.
that because of the complexity of the region and those boundary changes we wanted to give more time and more community engagement and more thoughtful analysis to make sure that the solutions that are come up with for the 2020 boundary change would be appropriate.
So that's what we had recommended and that the growth boundaries work session where we're going to be talking about these different things.
But that but that effectively means that there there's no imminent decision for the 2019 school year from our perspective unless someone else decides to bring it forward.
So thank you for coming out the dual language pathway.
I completely agree that we need to honor our commitments around pathways of programs and services and we have budget realities that we have to look at.
So I hope we resolve that one because we did make a commitment that there is a language pathway and it makes to me personally doesn't make a lot of sense to have a commitment to a pathway and not offer the courses that are connected to that pathway.
And it is inequitable to expect the parents to pay for the teacher.
I agree with that.
The continuity of services was brought up a number of times and I agree with that as well and I know that we need to do more work around that and I'm hoping to support that.
And I think that was all my little note.
So thank you for coming out and thank you.
Director Geary and then Director Burke.
I'm going to go all the way back to Evan Dembowski's comments.
Those were shocking about the sexual assault.
And so I hope we heard that and that we're sending support to that school.
And I also want to thank him for bringing up as a student the true inequity of how private funding bolsters some of our schools.
And so if we are hearing that from our students we know it is time for us as a district to come up with a plan and move forward on how we're going to allow our parents at this point everything Director Mack said is correct in terms of the funding crisis.
So saying no to private funding doesn't feel like a good option but making sure that we create a system by which we can assure our students who see the inequities of the buildings that we run we can assure them and by doing so we can assure our parents and our city that we have thought this through and are offering a solution is something that I'm would very much like to work on.
And then I appreciate everybody coming out and testifying.
These are very important to you and I think the community building that you are doing is so important.
Profound.
I want us to be really careful when we talk about good schools and bad schools you're talking about somebody's school.
where they send their kid and I know having listened to many Rainier Beach students come like Amina and know that people look at their school as a bad school that it is hurtful to them really hurtful.
So appreciate the community that you have created here and appreciate the community that you can build and that we hope you can build in any of our schools.
that we send your children to as a means of making sure that we're providing a seat for every student in a way that makes sense for our district.
and be mindful that nobody wants to send their student to a bad school and you are part of the solution and part of the answer of making sure that every one of our schools is a good school.
So again thank you.
We hear you and we will do our best to provide your students with the best education that we are funded by our state to provide.
Thank you again.
Director Burke.
I will I will pile on with being really pleased with the community building the Maple community and how that's come together.
I want to thank the current and future Lincoln community for their advocacy to help make that an amazing school with an amazing launch.
And for reminding us of their long term investment and a very clear ask for us to be deliberate about a short term investment to make sure that that's a sustainable pathway.
So I I heard you there.
I heard you at the meeting and I really appreciate you bringing it to to us to to really understand the depth of that investment.
Thank you.
Director Harris.
I too would like to say thank you to everyone who actually came out tonight and let us know about your thoughts and your opinion.
I believe that all schools are good schools depending on what's happening and what is it that the reason why each family chose certain school to go to.
And as a board director it's very important for me to really to see that the schools that I'm over that they get what they need in order for them to move forward.
Our kids are very important to us and that's the whole purpose why we're all up here to make sure that our schools are run accordingly so that way every student that Seattle School District serve will be able to get the best education that they can that we can provide.
That's.
Always not the case because sometimes funding is not always there.
But I think that each schools and the leaders that are in those schools are so creative in terms of how they provide opportunities for every students in their schools that they're in.
As I visit some of my schools last week I just realized you know the leaders that are actually leading those schools.
You know how much patience they have and what is it that their intention to make sure that every student in their school receive that education that we're all looking for.
So hopefully that we don't have all the answers but I believe that we're here because our hearts in the right place and that we want to do well by being able to provide the best opportunity the best education for our kids.
And as we continue on to look for answers and resources that we can utilize.
I hope that we can be able to really come up with ideas of how we can continue to make Seattle Public School the best schools for all your kids.
OK there's my segue.
Thank you.
And that's it.
Last but hopefully not least were you intending to speak please.
I will keep it short.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
Thank you.
Gunalchéesh.
Miigwetch.
Gracias.
Merci beaucoup.
Thank you for coming up here in Tonka.
Yes.
Dual languages is I think a valuable thing and thank you to Michael Tolley as we're looking to adding how we can include native languages and indigenous languages slang as well.
So.
Thank you just for coming here again.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
OK.
There's my segue.
Thank you.
Resources.
We don't have enough money.
I hate being the wet blanket here over and over and over again saying we don't have enough money but we don't have enough money and towards that end.
You saw that at our last legislative meeting we approved two levies BEX V and the operations levy and those will be going out in February.
You saw that the city's family education preschool partnership FEPP previously known as a families and education levy passed with a significant margin.
So knock on wood.
We can pass the February operations and BEX V levies.
Now we have taken some significant hints from folks in the blogosphere and in the editorial arenas that we are somehow breaking the law and asking for too much money given what the legislature told us we could.
Well.
We're hoping that the legislature sees the wisdom of their ways and raises the levy lid or the levy swipe.
Now obviously we're not going to break the law but would you really want us to spend a million dollars for another levy if the legislature asks.
I think not.
And we met with the school's first levy committee this last week.
And it's campaign time and it's game on time and every one of us needs to knock on the doors of our neighbors and tell them why taxing ourselves and renewing these levies is a good thing to do.
It's critically important.
The school board can come out in favor of the levies PTSA's can come out in favor of the levies and I intend to spend my free time doing exactly that.
We talked a lot about voting we talked about veterans but you know that vote.
one of the most inequitably taxed states in the country.
It's really critical we band together.
and build new schools because we're in the middle of a capacity crisis and we take care of what we have.
This is the first levy that will give playground equipment.
We talk an awful lot about recess and exercise but until this board passed this last levy package.
We didn't fund it.
We're trying our darndest to put our effort and our policies where our mouths are.
So join in and it's easy to find my personal phone number and my personal email and we will put you to work and we'll have a good time doing it.
I did not get my meeting at the High Point library on Sunday so that has been canceled.
Somebody else got it.
That was confirmed today.
I'll make it up to you.
We'll find another time we may crash somebody else's meeting because the two by two meetings are more fun anyway and we will get some more meetings on the list soon.
Other things of note and I appreciate y'all have been listening to us a lot.
So I'm going to try really hard to wrap it up.
LGBTQ dinner was awesome sauce.
It was crowded it was fun.
There was a warmth and a safety and identity there that made me really proud of us really really proud of us.
And when I say us I mean the whole team.
We heard from the International Baccalaureate organization's president this last week or two and we talked about real solutions to some of the issues with the International Baccalaureate program and that was exciting to have the one on one with the big dogs in chief.
We met with Trish DeZekos towards a technology access foundation blend Seattle school which is exciting.
Just conversations at this point folks but she's amazing as is her staff as is the model for that school.
Tim Robinson who was sitting directly downwind from me here.
I don't see him here now.
Introduce yourself next time you see him.
He's the new district spokesperson press media relations person.
Change is hard and we're making lots of changes.
There's been a reorganization.
Titles have changed.
Some folks have left the district.
Some folks are soon to leave the district.
You all told us that you wanted a strong superintendent one that wasn't afraid to ask one that would stand up and be a leader and some of the decisions that get made you might not agree with that get made by this board that get made by this superintendent.
But please know we're trying to make them for the right reasons.
And we're trying to make them student centered not adult centered and sometimes with all the noise we forget that.
Feel free to remind us.
We certainly heard you with respect to your feedback from the Robert Eagle staff.
middle school Licton Springs conversations and we canceled the meeting because we can and must do better.
We certainly heard you with respect to Maple Mid Beacon Hill and Georgetown because we can and must do better and will do better.
It's a tough job.
It's the best job I've ever had.
I'm serving with the very best people both on the dais and in this district and we care about your students and we're getting better every day and we thank you.
And we're taking a 15 minute break.
Thank you.
Forgot something.
Congratulations to my new 34th legislative district state senator Joe Nguyen who did it without charter money and without PAC money.
And he's an education supporter that's married to a teacher.