SPEAKER_02

All right.

We now have a quorum.

So let's go ahead and get started.

So we're not behind by too much.

This is President Hersey.

I'm now calling the board special meeting to order at four thirty two p.m..

Please note that this meeting is being recorded.

We would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people.

For the record I will call the roll.

Director Hampson is not here quite yet.

Director Harris.

Vice President Rankin.

Here.

Director Rivera-Smith I believe is not joining us due to illness.

Oh great.

Fantastic.

Director Rivera-Smith.

OK.

You want to say here real quick just for the record.

Thank you.

Director Sergei is not with us quite yet.

Director Samaritz.

and this is President Hersey.

The superintendent is also present and this meeting is being held in a hybrid format.

Directors are participating in person at the John Stanford Center and remotely via Teams.

The public is being provided remote access today via Microsoft Teams and phone as well as in person at the John Stanford Center for Educational Excellence.

For those joining by phone please remain muted when you are not speaking.

There will not be a public comment opportunity.

Staff will be working to administer the meeting and may be muting participants to address feedback and ensure that we can hear from directors and staff.

The work session this evening is to discuss the budget.

I will now pass it over to Dr. Jones.

SPEAKER_10

Thank you, President Hersey and board members.

Today I have with me, presenting to you, Linda Sebring, budget director, associate superintendent, Dr. Constance Pedrosa, and interim deputy superintendent, Mr. Fred Podesta.

We're going to have an opportunity here to talk about our 22-23, excuse me, our 23-24 budget, and then subsequently we'll talk about our 24-25 planning.

And so the flow of this will be, we'll talk about the context of today and why now, why is this urgent.

We'll talk about this emerging concept of well-resourced schools.

We'll talk about the process and strategy for this year's central office budget reductions and the adjustments.

We'll have a high-level strategy for how we tackle next year's challenge.

And then we'll confirm this year's approach and formalize a directive, hopefully from the board, for 24-25.

And then we'll end with next steps.

And so like the last session, we want to hear from you.

So we've embedded breaks along the way with some probing questions to enable us to hear from you.

Next slide, please.

So the purpose of this is to really keep you informed about the process.

And this is one of many budget work sessions that we've had.

And this one is very significant because now we're talking about real steps that have been taken for these reductions and adjustments.

We're in a difficult stage right now.

It's moving from theory to actual actions being taken.

This is actually impacting employees.

We're in that stage now where it's a challenge.

And so we've had this week where we've issued some notifications to employees about their being considered for RIF and displacement.

So that is happening.

So we're in that phase right now.

So next slide, please.

So I want Dr. Pedrosa to talk about this concept that we're developing.

And we hope that you all can develop this with us around well-resourced schools.

If we look at the end of this journey around budget reconciliation and all the things that we're doing, we're trying to put ourselves in a position where we ultimately have a set of well-resourced schools.

And so Dr. Pedrosa, please.

SPEAKER_05

And if you look at the header it says defining well-resourced schools and that was in the previous slide.

And as we launch into defining well-resourced schools I just want to share with you some values and the beginning of a definition that we will develop in partnership with the school board and community.

So, the goal is to help that we shape this together and so what I'm presenting in front of you is a working definition as a starting place and hopefully in a future work board session, school work board session that we can collaborate on this so that the school board, the community schools and the district are clear for our vision for Seattle Public Schools well-resourced schools guidance.

So on this slide you will see here that this is again a working definition but a well-resourced school is one that has sufficient resources to meet the needs of its students including materials, technology and people.

This can include things like well-equipped classrooms, up-to-date technology, a variety of instructional materials and a sufficient number of qualified educators and support staff.

Additionally a well-resourced school may also have access to resources such as libraries, science labs and athletic facilities.

It also includes the financial resources to ensure that the school can maintain and upgrade these resources over time.

Next slide please.

And one of the attributes, so we are talking about attributes and of course this is something that will be one of those collaborative efforts for us to work together but as a starting place centering on our student outcomes focused goals with anchors both to policy 0010 and policy 0030 which is our instructional philosophy and our racial equity philosophy.

Seattle Public Schools will center decisions that ensure that we maintain the following attributes in our schools.

high-quality instructors from pre-k to graduation, safety and security in all of our buildings and classrooms, welcoming environment where every student is affirmed, social emotional learning and supports to support wellness, services to support unique learners, art, music and other enrichment opportunities for the whole child, curriculum resources and materials aligned to standards, extracurricular programs and activities to enhance student opportunities, well-maintained and accessible buildings, professional learning to support educator growth and development.

Next slide, please.

SPEAKER_10

Let's take an opportunity to pause and just get your initial reaction as we begin to establish this definition of well-resourced schools with our school community.

What resonates with you?

What wonderings do you have?

And so we're developing this.

And again, as Dr. Pedroza mentioned, we want to do this in partnership.

This isn't baked at all.

We're just teeing this up for some dialogue for some future processing and learning together.

SPEAKER_09

Thank you.

Well, it's my my first wonder is services to support unique learners.

I wonder if that could be unique learning needs and if we need to then define what that means or if it's I mean, I think I understand what that means.

in terms of like support for special education services, support for English learners, but I guess that would be sort of a general wonder was do we need to get that specific or is it safe to assume that a well-resourced school includes components of basic education?

SPEAKER_10

Please, we're listening, so continue on, please.

SPEAKER_09

OK.

Yeah, so that would be what I want to be really clear on is that things like that are not optional in any way.

And it may be worth repeating, even if it seems obvious, just because we're trying to really shift mindsets around, including a wide variety of needs.

in what we mean by basic education that students are not other because they need those services.

My other question would be around.

If there is and this is really a genuine wonder is about space and capacity.

If that's part of what we want in the definition of well-resourced schools especially in the context of the potential for school consolidation because I think it's important to understand Well I'll just say you know in hearing from community about what's the most important I know the idea of consolidating schools sounds really disruptive and scary but I have yet to hear anybody say what's most important to me is that my child attends school at this specific building no matter what.

What I do hear is what's most important to me is that my child has access to this service, this instruction, appropriate class size, all of those things that we want for our kids.

And I know also that the place of fear that people go to with hearing about of budgets and consolidating schools is that all of a sudden buildings are just going to be stuffed to the gills with overcrowded classrooms and that to me would not be part of a well-resourced school.

That would be an overcrowded school.

So I think defining, making sure that it's clear that what we're There's two things that impact what's going on right now.

Budget level and being commensurate with enrollment and our expenditures and then also enrollment in general.

So if we have 700 elementary school students it is more expensive to provide all of the things that all of those students are entitled to at three schools as opposed to two schools based on the state funds.

per student.

It does not fund per building.

But I just want to be really clear that part of a well-resourced school includes appropriately sized classes and using space available in sort of the right size.

We don't want to have, we can't afford to have buildings that are half enrolled.

And it wouldn't provide what I consider to be a well-resourced school to have too many students for the building or for the classroom.

So finding a way to sort of describe that I think would be helpful.

SPEAKER_02

I see you Director Rivera-Smith.

I'm going to ask my question and then we'll double back to you.

So can we go back to the attributes slide?

Let's see I just wanted to make sure that I read something correctly.

OK.

What I would like to see as we are continuing to develop the definition I think to and I really love that we are at this stage right.

This is something that directors have been asking for so I'm really excited to see kind of like the.

the genesis of how we are going to be making some of these decisions as they pertain to students.

It's less about necessarily the definition that already exists but as we are continuing to develop and refine one of the things that I find to be critical is ensuring that the definition encompasses both the goals and needed changes that have to take place right.

What I don't want to happen is for us to have like oh this is what a well a well resourced school looks like and then it almost feels like a bait and switch when it's like OK.

That also means that you're not going to have a vice principal and you're not going to have an XYZ counselor or whatever the resource might be, right?

And I don't necessarily think that we need to avoid making those changes when it's appropriate and necessary.

But what I do think would be really advantageous is as we are having these conversations, making sure that whatever change like y'all are going to present to us can be clearly and inextricably linked to the necessity to have a well-resourced school.

Right.

So if you're going to like remove X program at X school how is that related back to our definition.

Like how is that supporting us.

Because what we are going to have to do as board directors is have specific conversations with school communities that are going to be losing some resource.

And we need to also be equipped with like how that potential change in loss of resource is actually best preparing that school to be a resource to all children.

Right.

And if we don't have that inextricable link that's going to make that conversation more difficult.

So that's my two cents.

Director Rivera-Smith.

Oh OK.

Director Hampson has joined us and is on her way.

She is joining us remotely and will be joining us in person shortly.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

I want to back up a little and I'm looking at this list and I really appreciate it.

I agree with a lot of things are listed here.

I'm wondering I'm trying to figure out what the process is with this though.

Are we going to are you take are we building this list to then use it as a basis for how we choose any consolidation that happens or what movement of resources our schools then take.

So, I mean, is that what this is going to happen with us?

SPEAKER_10

This is not the basis for school consolidation.

This is the basis for where we want to be in the future.

And the future is open.

Are we talking about 24, 25, or all the way to 2030, for example?

But consolidation may be one of the pieces that will be necessary to get here.

But I think we want to build backwards from our collective definition of well-resourced schools.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so would you say right now that with this definition here we're building, do you believe that any of our schools at this moment in time do not meet this definition?

SPEAKER_10

I don't know if all of our schools meet this.

However, I would like to have an ideal state for us to build towards.

I mean, later on in the presentation, we're going to talk about having an enrollment campaign, making sure that we are trying to attract families to come back to Seattle Public Schools.

So we want to have some type of assurance around a student's experience and so I think if we can think about it in that context I think that would be a good framing.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you I appreciate that.

No further questions.

SPEAKER_02

Mayor Hampson.

SPEAKER_08

Thank you and just for clarification I'm pulling over while I ask my question.

Can you hear me okay?

SPEAKER_02

Yep we can hear you just fine.

SPEAKER_08

Okay I think This is a good start.

I am interested in seeing kind of some more meat around how we when we talk about attributes there's a mix of inputs and I think outcomes Mostly I think they're mostly inputs on here and so I think it's helpful for me anyway to be able to think of this in terms of are we defining the attributes based on the inputs that are available there that are represented or are we Alternatively or also want to be able to define it by what outcomes those schools are able to reproduce and and are able to produce.

And then how do we tie that neatly with our CSIPs and the MTSS framework which is included in those CSIPs.

I'm looking for those sort of that clarity of thought relative to this because I do see the kind of some of the vision and values represented but it's it's a little bit of a lot of different things and so when we talk about these things I want to make sure that we know when we're talking about inputs versus when we're talking about outcomes that we seek and then I think for me particularly given that this is a budget discussion what I'm interested in if we were to talk about it in terms of a place where you bring together the inputs and the the outcomes is to speak of the attributes being around funding that that has a well-resourced schools or those that are funded to have a demonstrable impact on creating opportunities for students to achieve the outcomes that that we as a community value.

Was any of that unclear?

SPEAKER_10

It was crystal clear.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_08

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_07

I had a similar reaction to Director Hampson that I think that this is more than a great start and the way that you could tighten this is to really think about it from a list of inputs.

One thing that I think could be considered as an addition for input would be related to any resources to supporting families.

as partners in their children's education.

And kind of tying back to the previous slide, maybe something around technology as an input.

But otherwise, I think this is more than a solid start.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04

Thanks and I'm not quite sure how to say this and it might come under curriculum resources and materials aligned to standards but often times if we pack our schools completely full and hang them from the rafters then we can only offer certain courses one quarter a year.

which backs up our students that need that building block baseline foundational courses to build from.

I also think that we have to address STEM education in here specifically.

So if we consolidate schools and we pack them so full that we can only get certain classes offered once a year I'm not sure that we're doing anybody any favors because we've closed the door then to folks forward progress.

Again not sure how to say that in a bullet point but you get my gist.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah I mean I think what Director Harris is hitting on is directly related to our goal for college and career readiness.

If we can't ensure that students have access to the courses that they need to earn their diploma and like leave our care then doesn't necessarily meet that goal.

So just wanted to co-sign that.

SPEAKER_09

Go ahead.

My one other question I thought of and this might be going deeper into the process than we are right now with just defining in the beginning stages of making the definition.

But because this is a budget conversation would this lead to a new or different approach to the allocation formula of how resources go to buildings with this.

What how would we see these things codified as.

in delivering to buildings the resources necessary.

I guess I'm getting at the WSS.

SPEAKER_03

Yes Linda Sebring budget director.

It is one of the things that we believe needs to be unpacked and reevaluated and done differently to support our well-resourced schools.

SPEAKER_09

So this would really provide stronger direction for what a new formula would need to achieve.

SPEAKER_03

That is definitely a potential outcome.

SPEAKER_09

OK great.

And then I guess I just want to say too connected to what Director Harris was saying.

I always see this type of thing as sort of our general container.

within which there may be unique things that happen because of specific programming or specific needs.

So I just kind of wanted to I see everybody's head nodding affirm that that this means that we're trying to create the conditions for student success and all of our buildings.

And although we may have some.

Attributes that we agree are need to be at every school.

That doesn't mean that every school is exactly the same or faces the exact same kind of priorities.

SPEAKER_10

So I've heard that budgets are an articulation of your priorities.

What we're trying to do is develop the ideal state of our priorities, work backwards, and our budget should reflect that.

And so to the extent that we can come up with the again, the ideal state, the greatest experiences our students can have, taking into account all the things that you said.

That's our goal, to really try to build this out from however long it takes.

I think once we start to see all the attributes, all the pieces come together, it may be two years.

It may be 10 years.

I don't know.

But that's how I think about this in terms of where we're trying to go.

So we're trying to lead with what What is a well-resourced school?

And even that term, we can change that if that's not the most appropriate term.

But that's the goal.

So I just wanted to emphasize that.

Thank you for indulging us in this.

That's really informative for us.

OK, so to the not-so-fun things, I see Director Hampson has her.

OK.

SPEAKER_02

Chandra, you still got your hand up.

Don't put it down.

And just don't say anything if you don't have a question.

I know that's a lot of negatives.

But what I'm trying to say is speak up if you have a question.

If you don't, don't.

SPEAKER_10

All right, fantastic.

Next slide, please.

All right, one more slide, thank you.

So just to remind us, why now?

Why are we pushing for this reconciliation of 2023-24?

We are at the tipping point.

Our structural deficit has grown to $131 million.

Our current budget, this budget right now, has about $82 million of one-time funding.

That's how we've...

That's how we've closed the gap, so to speak.

It's ESSER funding, funding for enrollment loss, funding for transportation without riders.

That makes up that $82 million.

Our student needs are increasing, and our labor costs are significantly more than the state and local funding.

We have a slide to show that very specifically later on, but this is the urgency for what we're doing for the 23-24 school year.

And so I wanted to reposition what we're talking about and almost the urgency and why we're moving on this.

Next slide, please.

So what are we doing about it?

Thank you.

We're shifting from planning a singular year effort to a multiyear effort.

Our first step on this is central office expenditure reductions.

We're aggressively looking at how we're going to expand our revenue opportunities.

We don't really think in those terms.

We think about just enrollment coming in, but maybe there's other opportunities to look at.

We're going to streamline and incorporate efficiencies into our central office operations.

Several years ago, we had a whole suite of business process redesign efforts, and we started to see some efficiencies.

We'll probably try to do that again.

Go back to the last slide, please.

All right, and then we're gonna look at cross-departmental efficiencies in automation.

There's a such thing as silos, and I think if we can break down those silos and understand the interdependencies, we can also be more efficient.

And we really wanna, again, push this effort of a well-resourced school and start to build backwards from that with our goals in mind.

Okay, next slide, thank you.

So we have to operate within our means.

So a couple of ways that we're going about doing that, we're maximizing our capital and other fund sources.

Like I mentioned, that we're exploring other revenue sources through the legislature and enrollment growth.

But the enrollment growth, and we'll talk about this in a couple slides, is really how are we recapturing our students.

I think this is something Director Harris has talked about three or four or five, maybe six or seven times around what are we doing, where are our students.

And so we're hearing and we're listening and we're going to approach that.

So in 2023, Two bottom line things that we're doing, central office reductions and some school-based reductions, and we'll show you the specifics in that in a couple slides.

And as we look at 24 and 25 beyond, we're considering school consolidation.

We're also looking at optimizing our special education processes.

We're looking at how do we restructure our operating processes.

And so I don't know how much efficiency there, but I think we can do things a little more efficient.

All right, next slide, please.

So again, our strategy that we're in right now for 23-24, we've had a hiring freeze for a non-school-based position.

We've had a freeze on out-of-state travel.

We're maximizing capital funds and other sources.

We're looking at how we might use the economic stabilization fund to plug the gap.

And we're working diligently with our legislator on potential impacts and state budget ideas.

We were, as recently as yesterday, we were in Olympia trying to press and partner with our legislators, our senators, on these really crucial items.

particularly on SPED in transportation.

So this is not a one-year opportunity.

I think we're going to have to come back to Olympia, build these relationships, and really tell our story.

Because I think there's a lot of stories out there.

I mean, from homelessness to transportation to all kind of different things.

As we know, our legislators have a lot of different considerations.

And we need to make sure that education is priority as well.

Next slide.

So this is the slide I was talking about where we're showing our expenditures compared to state funding.

And I'm going to let Director Sebring talk about this.

SPEAKER_03

So you've seen this slide before, this is the 22-23 budget and these are some of the priorities we've been discussing down in Olympia with our legislators is special educations, the comparison of what our expenditures are currently budgeted for the current year and what the state revenue is, is one of our biggest deficits.

Transportation is another gap between what we spend and what our revenues are.

And the other one that we have listed right here is our admin staff at schools which is principals assistant principals because of the number of programs we run compared to what the state funds.

We're going to continue to expand this out in future conversations.

So we have more visibility into not just where we have variances with the state's funding but where we're making choices as an organization.

So we have full transparency.

Oh next slide please.

So this is a slide that you've seen multiple times.

We've took 22-23 off of the slide because it was just causing some confusions.

And in the future we'll probably be adding a 25-26 as we move into rounding out our multi-year planning as we gather more information moving into 24-25.

So what you're seeing on this, and I apologize for some of the color coding, makes it a little hard to read, but what we've done is we've updated the central reductions.

We had a target we were working towards, a very aggressive target of $36 million, and at this point we've been able to achieve $33 million of that.

An $11 million reduction target for the schools, which is impacting the schools and the allocations that are going out today.

And then in yellow is some updated information about what we were seeing of legislative bills that were in play.

So the Senate Bill 5311 is continuing to evolve and change, and we hope that number will get bigger.

And there's also some conversations with some of our representatives about extension of our maintenance ability to use the capital fund to help us with our operating maintenance.

And the final item there is still in play in the legislature is what's happening with cost of living adjustments funded by the state, medical, pension rates, etc.

So we when we last did an update on this we are still seeing a financial gap of about 21 million that we will continue to work towards in 23 24. And then this also shows how it makes impacts to the 24 25 and out years.

So we still have work to do.

But as Dr. Jones mentioned we are in the middle of the processes of starting to.

As I said school allocations went out today and central budgets are getting wrapped up now.

So next slide please.

This is just a reminder of our process for we went through for our central office reductions and I'll go through briefly the school reductions.

We looked at what was what we call non-restricted staffing and activities which means we haven't made agreements with any of our labor partners for certain staffing ratios or that things that are not tied to revenue that we would lose the revenue if we didn't do it.

And it's important to our student services.

We started with a 15 percent reduction target and looked at other things to optimize and then we pushed that target even further and looked for another 7 million in reductions for 23 24. So next slide.

Sorry this is a little small on the screen but what we've done is we've expanded out a document that we were showing before to show when we have these conversations we usually talk at the superintendent's direct report level which is what we call divisions.

So the first one up there is academics.

And there was some conversation about well what what is in academics.

This does not mean we made reductions in all of these areas in academics.

This is just what is in academics.

In fact many of those programs up there are departments were not affected in any way.

And then what is the total budget for each of these divisions.

So again following through academics there's a forty four point six million dollar total budget for the academics division.

of which they took a reduction, and reduction interprets as we are going to be eliminating a level of service of $2 million, and then there's another $2.4 million of expenditures that we found other ways to optimize funding with our capital resources and grants.

So there was a total adjustment to the academics division of 4.4 million.

And that's how you read this information going down through this first slide here is what we consider our academic divisions.

And next slide please.

And these are our operating divisions.

So you'll see across the bottom, when we talk about central offices, this is not the school funding formulas.

So what's going out to the schools today is school-based funding.

It does not mean that the central office is not school-based activities like custodians or food services or other nurse, not nurses.

but other support services go through the central office.

So it's a total of $441 million, of which we are making reductions of $22 million, which will be felt across the organization.

And then another $10.6 million of shifting to maximize our fund sources for a total of almost $33 million of adjustments.

So next slide, please.

This is a different way of looking at what I was just going through.

So this is the state asks us to report based on technical terms that they use that makes other school districts comparable.

And one of the technical ways we report things is called activity and it breaks in things into central admin other support principal's office teaching teaching support.

And the reason we wanted to display this slide is to show that as we made these decisions, we intrinsically knew and we worked through to try to keep these central office reductions as far away from the classroom as possible.

And what you'll see is the reductions on the far right.

There are 74.4 FTE being impacted.

This is a combination of vacant positions and positions that there are employees in right now who are being considered for a reduction in force.

So 41.8 of those people are in central admin, which is equivalent to 10.6% of our central admin costs.

So you'll see there's nothing under principal's office because principal's office is does not exist in the central office staffing.

But the smallest reduction there of 0.8 percent is teaching support or teaching excuse me that is funded through the central office.

So if I go to the next slide on your handout.

This is the details of what the what's in these different categories.

So I know you guys have seen this before but it's can be a little complicated and it is technical terms.

But this is what the state directs us to put into each of these categories.

So next slide please.

Want to do schools?

Sure.

SPEAKER_05

And this is just a review of what we presented earlier the process for school level reductions.

We had identification of resources not constrained by basic operations or collective bargaining agreements.

Conversations with principal and Seattle which is the PASS Association and Seattle Education Association leadership's review of historically underspent resources and extra staffing provided to some programs and not others.

Elimination of plan support staffing increases and use of the racial equity tool for decision on which schools are impacted class size support.

Next slide please.

And just to review this, I won't go over this in detail.

We presented this in the past with more detail, but I will share a couple highlights.

One is one of the pieces in terms of mitigation.

I just want to note in the past, we've actually mitigated $3 million for extra mitigations for schools for unique circumstances.

We do that at least three times a year.

It happens in the spring, it happens in the summer, and then it happens specifically on October adjustments.

So that has been reduced significantly.

So we are going to be holding really tight to looking at our enrollment projections and really double checking our enrollment numbers with actual seats filled because we want to make sure that the minimal of impact that we have to school.

So I just wanted to note that.

The other note I want you to notice in this slide is on the K-3 ratio adjustments.

We are working really hard to make sure that that is in alignment with the state so that we still receive that revenue.

So any adjustments, we've been a little bit more on the richer side of the formula when we've allocated K-3.

Staffing so we've made a modified minor adjustment, but still within the state Requirements so that we receive those fundings one of the things to note is the running start admin Eliminating of that that's because we actually mitigated for that in the collective bargaining agreement with additional counseling support in our high schools and secondary schools which actually was put in place to support running start and college in the high school.

So that was one of the requests in there and then of course the additional reduction of the assistant principals, the program.

We decided to not move ahead with school athletic directors, staffing for non-reps and then school programmatic changes which at this time and I'll just name them will impact So the schools are going to remain in place, but there are some programmatic shifts happening at Middle College, Al Sugiyama, and TAF at Washington Middle School.

So those are the three programmatic shifts that we're looking through.

All right.

Next slide, please.

SPEAKER_10

So this is not meant to be a yes or no question.

I'd like to just hear from you as board members, how clear is our strategy for the 23-24 school year?

And just if you have other wonderings, if it's not clear, we're trying to be crystal clear with you.

So we'd like to get a gauge as your understanding around what we're trying to do and how we're approaching this.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

Let's go back to that last slide.

You're talking about reducing assistant principals and it's 737 thousand 670. A.

What does that mean.

B.

Athletic directors.

A.

B. What does that mean.

C.

Programmatic programmatic changes.

Middle College Washington Middle School and El Sugiyama.

SPEAKER_02

Can we get back to the last slide so we can see what director Harris is referencing.

SPEAKER_04

School based budget reductions fiscal year 23 24. Those are all.

impactful decisions and so far we don't know anything about them other than these bullet points.

And we didn't have any weighted staffing standard meetings this year.

And there are some of us that are cynical enough to believe that weighted staffing standard needs a complete and utter inside out upside down overhaul anyway.

What does that mean?

Folks folks are tuning in.

Folks are asking us questions and right now we look like two by four sitting here at this desk and that's problematic in a very very big way.

SPEAKER_10

So I think last time we had a little more detail than this time, but I would love for Linda Conci to maybe speak to some of the specificity on this.

Maybe start out with the first question that Director Harris talked about was assistant principals.

And where is that, and what level, and how many?

Please.

SPEAKER_03

Certainly.

And if we went back a few slides to where we showed where some of our variances are between our revenue and expenditures.

Keep going.

Keep going.

Keep going please.

One more I think right there.

So where it says admin staff at schools that we staff.

Sorry I can't even see that.

OK. look at my version that we staff 37 staff above what the state provides in funding.

And that is one of the reasons we had a conversation about the if you go back.

Sorry I'm going to have you keep going back and forth here back to the school reductions slide where we said reduce assistant principals.

Our initial rewrite of the model as far as where assistant principals where schools who currently get a 0.5 halftime assistant principal would no longer get one.

So the cutoff is based on the number of staff that they are supervising in the building.

So it means they'd have to supervise more staff in order to get a 0.5 assistant principal.

And this is equivalent when we redid the model it was equivalent to 7.5 FTE which would affect 15 schools.

When enrollment came out and special education is going up while regular education is going down some schools actually picked up some assistant principal staffing.

So in total I don't think we're down that 7 5 I think we're down 6.5 is was the final number on assistant principals.

So the other question I think was on athletic directors.

SPEAKER_05

So we actually had a plan in place to work with working with our athletic directors.

Currently we are one of the one districts that actually have athletic directors that are non non classified.

They're usually teachers, certificated teachers who then get a stipend or some type of extra pay to do the athletics.

So they're doing their day duties as well as the athletic directories.

We were going to move towards a model It was a big process, we're going to work with the union and all of that, but working to model to move them to non-rep status in the building and so we had allocated that additional money.

So what we just did, we just did not do it.

because we were going to do it.

It was going to start for this fall of twenty three twenty four.

And that was one of the things we pulled back to make sure that we just paused on that do some due diligence watch what's happening.

So basically there's going to be no change to the current athletic director model.

It was just something we had planned for extra money resources and we are just suspending that for now until we do some more diligence work on that.

SPEAKER_04

And was that contemplated in the CBA that we signed last September.

SPEAKER_05

No it was not.

And it was that's what we have to do continue.

That would have been at least an memorandum of agreement or some type of work.

So we are actually pausing on that and we will do that work and starting that level of work.

But as you can see it is an additional cost.

So it's something we have to really consider.

So right now it's paused.

And so the current model that we have this year is just going to continue.

We're not changing anything.

We're just taking the money back and saying putting it back in general fund to fund other things.

SPEAKER_04

OK.

And then along the lines of unintended consequences.

Have we consulted with our risk management department on those kinds of changes.

SPEAKER_05

Yes.

Yes.

SPEAKER_04

And we're also a litigator.

And as one of the.

I forget the number.

It was a football injury.

Yeah.

And it was extraordinary.

SPEAKER_05

The reason why we were putting the.

That was one of the reasons why we were moving towards this because there's also compliance issues hiring staffing.

There's a lot of risk in that.

So it's something that we're working very closely with H.R.

One of the things the reason the number should actually be higher.

But the reason why the number is not higher is we actually pulled out some resources to fund HR compliance folks to really help with the hiring because that has been an area that we have been at risk in the past.

So we're making sure that that as we continue this model in the current state that we actually put those assurances under HR to make sure that the hiring is done appropriately, that people are fingerprinted, all of those things.

So that is something that we considered within that as well.

And then the next one I'll just go directly to the programmatic changes.

So one of the I'll just talk specifically about the two smallest high schools that we have in the system.

They both are schools I'll just state for the record for the community schools with less than 100 students each in those schools and programs.

So what we're doing is we're maintaining the instructional model.

So the students, the minimal impact to the students in terms of they will still be attending their school buildings, they will still be attending their classrooms with their instructional staff but what we are doing is we are shifting the core of the administrative team and assigning these students for oversight with one of our other smaller schools and putting those together.

But the students, for example, at Al Sugiyama, the students will still have the opportunity to still go to Al Sugiyama, still have their same teachers.

But what we're doing is we're shifting the evaluation management and oversight to another administrative team.

So that is one of the shifts that we've made at Middle College and Al Sugiyama moving forward.

Letters will be going out.

We're working with our communications director on that shift.

And in terms of TAF, I just want to share that we have traditionally provided extra FTE to TAF for their model.

I think it's upwards to about, I think, 7.8 additional FTE.

One AP, one assistant principal, and 6.8 FTE teachers.

That's above and beyond what all the other middle schools receive.

And so those are conversations we're having right now.

and we're having to reduce that we can no longer fund that.

So that is something we need to really talk about and an impact with.

But we've already had conversations with TAF and the Washington Middle School community because that is something we cannot fund any longer.

And so we have to work through that process as well.

So those are the three significant programmatic shifts we're looking at for this fiscal year for 23-24.

And I don't know if I answered all your questions Director Harris.

Is there additional questions that you had about any of the items on this list?

SPEAKER_04

Are there other really significant changes like the last three that you just mentioned coming down the pike that y'all are discussing that this board hasn't been advised of?

SPEAKER_05

No.

SPEAKER_04

Thank you.

SPEAKER_05

There's no other changes we're going to go through any changes for example even looking at consolidations of schools for any example or any if there's any shift of even a closure or mention of a building there's an entire board process that has to be followed completely.

And I will just remind the board also we have to have a board discussion around TAFT as well.

So that has to come in front of the board sometime within the school year.

Correct.

Anything you want to add on that.

OK.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Real quick.

Could you while we're on this I think one of the things that was mentioned by Director Harris that I also had a question about.

Could you say a few more words kind of explaining what the K 3 ratio adjustment is and what that looks like.

Because to me that sounds like class sizes and so I just want to make sure that.

SPEAKER_05

I'm going to pass this to Director Sebring.

SPEAKER_02

Great.

SPEAKER_03

It is class sizes.

So K-3 ratio is enhanced funding the state gives us for kindergarten through third grade to allow us to reduce class size below what they fund for other grade spans as far as teacher ratios.

So right now and the K through ratio is a 17 to 1. It's not a 20 to 1. So it's one teacher for every 17 students in kindergarten through third grade and it's evaluated at the district level.

So what we have done in our school funding model is we've emphasized having the richest formulas smallest class sizes at our highest poverty schools and.

higher class sizes at our lower poverty schools.

And what people sometimes get confused about with 17 to 1 is you will not see 17 to 1 in your classroom typically because students also go to art, music, other classes during the day and that counts towards the ratio from the state's perspective.

Students who are going to specialized service programs like special education and ELL those teachers also count because they are providing services to the students.

So what this means is as Dr. Pedroza said is the district was over the ratio.

We had erred on the fact of being more generous on the funding ratios than what the state required to get full funding.

And we are we adjusted our formula.

Looking at the lowest poverty schools by increasing class size by one student in second grade and third grade I believe is exactly what we did.

So by doing that it reduced our allocations out to the schools by about 10 teachers district wide.

SPEAKER_02

Let me just make sure that I understand that.

So you.

So it sounds like in our in this is where I was confused in that last sentence and thank you for the explanation.

That was great.

Did you say that in our low poverty schools or in our high poverty schools we increase the ratio from 17 to 18.

SPEAKER_03

Low poverty.

Low poverty school by one student by one.

And I think it's now 21 to 1. Yeah.

and twenty two to one.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah that's not crazy.

SPEAKER_03

And it's at the lowest poverty schools.

SPEAKER_02

So what would on the maximum end of that spectrum a classroom at a low poverty school look like in a second grade or third grade classroom are we saying that like.

Because I know it's going to be different from school to school, but what is the maximum amount of kids that might be in a classroom learning together, in a gen ed classroom?

I know that specialist is different.

SPEAKER_03

Well, because students don't always come in tidy bundles that line up with the funding formula, our ratio with our labor contract is twenty six to one kindergarten through third grade.

We try to emphasize and encourage people to do smaller class sizes in the lower grades.

So kindergarten first.

And we build our formula to support that.

But each school and if we have small schools, sometimes they get into having to do things a little differently.

SPEAKER_02

For sure.

OK.

But so.

So are we saying like 26 to 27 kids could be the maximum.

SPEAKER_03

It wouldn't be desirable but yes it could be.

SPEAKER_02

OK.

Just wanted to make sure because yeah like in just confirming 26 is the maximum before we need to start like paying extra.

Right.

OK cool.

So we're pushing to the maximum in our schools with the least amount of poverty.

SPEAKER_03

We're not at the maximum yet.

We're at 21, 22 to one, not 26. But yes, we're pushing in that direction.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yes but we want to get full funding from the state.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah absolutely.

No that makes sense.

OK cool.

So I just really need clarity on this because it's like I know that you know when we're talking about these numbers the difference between 18 and 22 might not be that much but the difference between like 18 and 27 regardless of the amount of poverty in your school is a big one.

And I'm not saying that we're there.

That's just why I'm asking the question to understand like what is that impact regardless of like the poverty level at a particular school.

And so what I hear you saying, just to understand, is that we are not at a point yet to where any classroom, K through three, is experiencing the class size of 26 students.

Is that correct?

SPEAKER_03

That is not how we fund them.

That is correct.

Again there's building leadership decisions.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah absolutely.

It's going to vary.

Your your your mileage may vary.

But yeah we're not we're not necessarily expecting.

OK.

That's all I need.

Director Sommers.

SPEAKER_07

Can you provide a little bit more detail on what the Certificated Core Extra Staffing is?

How had schools been using this resource to staff their buildings?

And what was the genesis of that addition originally?

SPEAKER_03

So back to looking at the model and possibly making changes, is the certificate core extra staffing was a .5 FTE allocation to large elementary schools, middle schools, and large K-8 schools, and large being a relative term.

When we built the model originally, we said these schools need more than just what we can afford at the time.

But they're all different and some of them want to have a full-time nurse Some of them want a full-time librarian some of them want to add social worker staff Some of them just want to use it for teachers.

So we said, okay.

Well, let's give them some flexibility So we gave them this 0.5 cert core extra staffing at the time the model was built almost 10 12 years ago and And what we have identified since then is we have started to expand those resources.

We've increased counselors.

We've added social workers across the system now.

We have full-time nurses at all of the middle schools.

So what the original purpose of the CERT Corps was, we have added out through the base model.

That doesn't mean that the schools don't use it to add on even more.

So it varies based on schools, whether they add teaching staff, whether they add the counselors even more, whether they want to add an intervention or something.

So every school is different as to what they do with this.

But the original purpose we have basically taken care of with allocations that were provided.

SPEAKER_09

I have a question about the process for the school level reductions, and I know that there are constraints based on existing agreements that didn't allow for like full evaluation of every expenditure.

So I see use of racial equity tool for decision-making, but I don't see use of evaluation of impact on student outcomes in the decision making.

And I can understand that a lot of what impacts student outcomes is probably contained in other agreements, but I wonder if anyone could share.

what we might be able to do in the future in terms of evaluating that, and also if there was a consideration, because I know and fully appreciate the efforts to keep reductions out of our school buildings, but of course everything that happens in this building is to support our school buildings.

So it would be false to say that there is no impact to students.

So in terms of student outcomes, how did we evaluate these

SPEAKER_05

Proposals well, I'll just say in one of the previous slides one of the things we looked at first was Even looking at even I'll just say for example cert core extra staffing for example looking at a Lot of waivers right in terms of waivers or for example when we talked about reducing school discretionary funds We have a lot of underspent And so that is something that was put there for student outcomes, but is not being utilized.

So those were the things we looked at first.

And so it's not a direct correlation, but there is some correlation.

So if you have money and funds there, and they're being underspent for the support of students and student outcomes, and they're not being utilized, So those are areas that we looked at.

So I'm not saying that we can't do a better job of all of that, but I would say when we looked at some of these items, we definitely looked at some of those impacts long term.

Because if we're giving something out and they're not being utilized in the way they're intended, right, whether people are doing waivers or things like that, then that is something that we're looking at to reduce.

And if you notice, we didn't take everything out.

We reduced by 25% or 50%.

because we know we want to reevaluate.

So that's the piece that we want to reevaluate that.

And we're also having conversations with schools that did use those funds, right, appropriately and really in serving students and looking at that.

So as we go through this revision of our CSIPs, which is actually coming up in the next week, we're doing the BAR for the CSIPs, you should be seeing evidence of some of these line items and and the correlation to our goals and the guardrails and all of those pieces.

So those are shifts that should be happening.

And that's why we didn't go through everything.

But we did look at what it's actually being expended on to students as a first realm of cuts.

So just using transparency in that conversation.

Do you want to add anything, Linda?

SPEAKER_00

I would add a couple things.

We don't need to go back to that slide, but Linda showed the slide of how we classified position reductions in the central office in terms of their functional area per state reporting and really focused on administrative, central administration positions, not positions that were tied to teaching and teaching support.

And that's kind of a broad answer.

I think, and this is not directly responsive either, but We've been harping a lot in these discussions about needing to get to multiyear planning.

Our fiscal year planning now really compresses the amount of time to do this analysis and do this work.

And the task before us is too big.

To do that level of thoughtful thinking in the short number of weeks So that's why we need to get a longer runway and make more long-range systemic kind of changes so we can be that thoughtful.

We're now painted a little bit into a corner where we have to do what we can.

and we need to get a longer planning horizon so we can make those kinds of decisions.

I think people and leadership did a great job, got asked to dig very deep and were asked those questions, you know, please explain as we considered as a group, you know, what you expect the student impacts to be and while you're trying to preserve good outcomes for students, but that was kind of in a qualitative fashion.

We'll need more time and need to be more thoughtful over multiple years to get it.

Those are really good questions you're raising, Director Rankin.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah that just dropped my like thought process to think through this is it as we're thinking about like how student outcomes are going to be impacted it just popped into my mind again the thought that like we can't say for sure that we're optimizing outcomes in our buildings right now right so some of these cuts or rather programmatic changes could very well have like little to no impact on student outcomes and some obviously will, right?

And the way that I'm looking at this is like really an opportunity to take a very disjointed school system and really put some expectations and parameters around like what is the baseline level of services that we're gonna be able to provide?

And that doesn't necessarily mean that Folks's educational experiences won't change.

It just means that we will be able to guarantee a streamlined equitable approach to how are we delivering educational services at every single building, which I think kind of for us.

Kills two birds with one stone because we've been talking about school system system schools for a long time But then on top of that like the way that we are running right now is just obviously like way over what we're being allocated for so like I just wanted to throw that in as you know For anyone who might be listening it can look as though we are talking through these decisions as cut focused only But really where I think at least my head is at and I know that you know My fellow directors share the sentiment is that in this is an opportunity for us to really take a look at like, okay How do we ensure?

productivity at all of our buildings outcomes for students at all of our buildings and how does that need to look different not only from what we're offering right now but also like from the funding perspective right.

What we can afford to do.

So Director Samuels I believe you had a question.

SPEAKER_07

I have two separate questions.

The first question is, I believe the principals are at this point are kind of they've gotten their budgets.

And I think from the director's perspective, it could be helpful to hear some of the feedback from our principals on their reactions to these changes.

I understand they're going to be difficult, but I would be very curious to know from the people who are seeing this truly at the building level, how does that translate?

What I see here, it makes sense to me, but I really want to hear it from the people who are being impacted.

My second question, and I'm hoping that there will be an opportunity to do that.

My second question is, so a third of the central office adjustments is coming from operations, and I'm assuming that's driven by, again, transportation.

So my wondering there is when will we be communicating what the anticipating anticipated changes are to transportation.

And is it just my hope for the legislature to fund the special purpose transportation?

Is that completely dead?

SPEAKER_09

Realign your hopes, Vivian.

There's a, just quickly, there's a safety net fund being established now, where the bill is right now.

The first substitute, I think it's 5174, the first substitute would have fully reimbursed districts for special populations, which includes transportation and IEPs, McKinney-Vento, and foster students.

It would have also increased transportation for students to and from Skills Center, and it would have made adjustments to the STARS formula.

The current version, the second substitute that was that came out of Ways and Means is not doing that.

There's a safety net being established that districts can apply to to get reimbursed for excess costs in special population transportation and the changes to the formula are unknown at this moment.

It's looking like what the bill is now asking for is for more collection of data to update the formula in 2026 or 2027.

SPEAKER_07

I just want to ask a clarifying question.

So those two items, the changes to the STARS formula are being considered in combination to the special purpose transportation?

That's in one?

SPEAKER_09

The one bill, the original bill addressed both.

The original bill was intended to sort of be the fix for the excess costs in special population transportation for districts and to repair the formula to better meet the needs of the actual cost of districts.

There was also talk of adjusting the multiplier, and somebody correct me if I'm wrong, to adjust the formula to account for higher density urban districts and you know districts where kids are miles away from each other and more rural areas right now there's just one allocation and so there was talk about adding factors in that would take those things into account.

We were very hopeful in terms of that meeting the needs of Seattle Public Schools and as were other districts around the state.

I can't remember what the price tag was that came on that for the state but it was more than there is appetite to invest in it right now it sounds like.

And so instead the proposal is a safety net so that instead of having special population transportation reviewed quarterly, which was the original proposal, and then reimbursing districts, districts would be able to basically submit expenses and apply for reimbursement from the safety net.

And then the changes to the formula would be evaluated and determined sometime in the future.

The safety net amount is small, but I did, there's the budgetary or fiscal outlook for the state is going to be coming to them in the next two weeks.

And that could, like hopefully that will provide a better outlook than people are fearing, which could lead to opportunity to increase some of these investments again.

But as of right now, that fix that we were encouraged about does not appear to be coming for next year.

SPEAKER_10

So Director Sommeritz was asking about the principal's perspective.

And just to make sure I understand the question correctly, are you talking about the principal's perspective from what's being proposed up here, or the annual enrollment adjustment, or the combination of both?

OK.

So I'm going to ask Dr. Pedroza to maybe speak to what we talked about with PASS, perhaps, And then if you have some thoughts, or Linda, around the annual enrollment process and where we have some back and forth with principals, please provide some transparency to that.

SPEAKER_05

Well, I'll just share a couple things.

One is that we already have met with the directors of schools to sort of give them a heads up around how to support school leaders on some of these changes.

The biggest impact, just so you know, is going to be with elementary.

And I'll just share this, and I'll just share this as a reminder, Linda was probably going to do this slide, but we are losing enrollment, right?

So those adjustments are being, so we can't conflate the two issues.

So this is going to be a heavy impact.

I just want to remind the public and the community that, you know, Bellevue is closing schools under 300. That's their proposal.

As of today, based on In Homeland, we now have 30 schools under 300. So as just sort of a comparison, right?

So 30 schools under 300, 19 schools under 200, 3 schools under 100. I've said this in the past.

And so these are things that we're dealing with and sort of thinking about how to support that.

As somebody who was in a school that actually had enrollment adjustments two times a year, because fall and winter, this is always challenging and this is always hard.

So there's going to be a double impact for some of these schools because some of these budget reductions are happening at the same time they're getting an enrollment adjustment as well.

So this is going to be really hard.

You're probably going to get a lot of letters.

You should be expecting those communication pieces because the community, and I'm a parent as well in the community, they don't understand the difference.

All they understand is, well, some of them do understand, but not to say, but some of them understand the impact on their school community, right?

And so that is something that we're working through.

The directors of schools are working through that with them.

We do have a plan to support mitigation.

We have an SCA waiver process that we work in partnership with SCA So if there's positions that they want to shift we also have a WSS waiver process we have certain current processes that are in place that we always have and we're trying to use our normal processes and our normal FAQs and our normal conversations to support the schools.

I've asked the directors of schools to focus mostly on the schools that are going to be having the really high impacts and I will just say this for a heads up to you Director Harris it's interesting a lot of the enrollment impacts are in West Seattle and I don't know what that is but many of us there's a lot of impacts in West Seattle with large numbers of enrollment loss in some of the schools so that's going to be a big heavy And so I was looking at the trend and I went, what's happening in West Seattle, right?

So just some, there's going to be a lot of support that has to, there's a whole process with the building leadership team.

So the building leadership team has to go through a budget, a process, an approval process.

This, our SCA members, so we have strict process in our bargaining agreement around that.

There's also a requirement, a racial equity analysis tool be used through the budget process, and there has to be a vote, and there has to be a two-thirds vote.

So there is a process in place that's starting today, and it always starts on February 28th, where schools get their budgets.

We're working very hard to use our current processes, and so that's what I'm going to share with community.

There are processes in place for mitigation.

There are processes in place, and we're going to use that with our school leaders.

So I've asked the directors of schools to prioritize the schools that are heavily impacted with enrollment challenges.

or brand new school leaders.

We have 30, as a reminder, we have 30 new school leaders this year.

So those are the two priorities I'm having the directors focus in on first, to really help the principals navigate through some of these challenges, and then we'll follow through the process.

And then I would say that most of the budgets get turned in before the end of the month, correct?

March 24th is when the vote that so between now and March 24th is when all of these processes have to happen the SCA And the staff members need to be part of a conversation around their priorities in alignment with school improvement plans and Then we have to submit those budgets for approval.

So I just want to share that and I'll have passes I And I will say one more thing yeah, so we've also added for this year all of our social workers and the counselors into this For the 23 24 years so while there might be a impact in other areas every school will be receiving their allocation and then I will add we're also working through the special education allocations that were agreed through the bargaining as well, so those are three positives and So schools will be getting their counselors, they'll be getting their social workers, their additional nursing staff, as well as their special education staffing.

So that's yet to come in some of those, especially with special education.

SPEAKER_09

So for this coming year regardless of the enrollment out of school that counselor allocation is still going whether there's 450 kids or 150 kids.

SPEAKER_05

Is that the.

We're using the formula to move forward with all of the social worker impacts according to the CBA.

Yes we've already placed them in the.

I just want to make sure I was understanding that correct.

Yeah I saw a lot of plus plus plus plus plus plus plus.

So yes.

27.

SPEAKER_03

So some of those happened this year, but now we have the opportunity to do our hiring process.

So I know we've struggled with being able to actually fill all the positions we've got out there, but now we'll have the ramp to do the hiring early as well.

So it does include some that we added this year that just haven't been able to be staffed.

SPEAKER_05

And I will add the one thing about the principal.

I was a principal on this.

It is never fun because you're talking about displacements.

You're talking about communication with your community.

You're talking about talking with people about with the retirements.

Those are really hard conversations.

And we're doing this right now with our central office.

It's not fun.

So I already can tell you, Director Somrats, There's gonna be a lot of and then you're talking about a lot of schools being impacted more than they have been in the past They are no matter what no one's gonna tell you that they're happy with this process Nobody that just no one's gonna be happy about it because there's a lot of impacts to them as a leader As their school team and their community.

So this is this is why when we do staffing adjustments in special ed multilinguals, this is really hard and this is really challenging and And so our goal is to make sure that we give all the information we can, all the resources we can, the supports we can, and then leave some room for some mitigation if we can.

That's the goal.

SPEAKER_04

One of the things that really troubles me was the statement that We still have a number of schools that have underspends.

To me, that's a management systemic foobar that we haven't addressed.

And we hear this every year, and Linda advises us every year that we have that.

But where in the system is it, the directors of schools level, where this should have been addressed frankly a long time ago so that we weren't doing this kind of carryover that makes kind of a mockery out of the weighted staffing standards such as it is.

Where do the wheels come off the bus on that?

Because we hear that every year and that's a problem with trust when we have some schools that are not using their allotments, and frankly, sometimes it feels a bit like a shell game.

We're gaming the system.

And again, that goes back to the system of schools, the school system, bringing back the pendulum swing more towards the middle.

A, do we recognize that there's a problem?

Because if we don't, what did, Zachary?

used to say, if you don't identify the problem, you can't fix the problem.

Where are we at there?

And what are we prepared to do about it?

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, so to be fully transparent, what we've discovered going through this process is that we have not been actively managing our budgets as well as we could.

I think we've discovered through the process that, oh, I had this pocket of money, I had this pocket of money, and I haven't utilized it to the fullest extent.

And so that's a learning that we've had as a discovery, frankly, as we've gone through this process.

So we have learned from it, and we're already thinking about what are the opportunities inherent in this.

So when we start talking about creating these well-resourced schools, should we go to a biannual budget process?

Should we look at how we do WSS differently because we're not necessarily being most effective with the resource?

And so there's a lot of opportunities here, but I want to be very clear that we are discovering through this process that this is one good outcome from this.

I mean, while it's painful that we're going through this, we're actually finding there's places where we can be much more efficient.

And that buck doesn't stop with the directors of school, that buck stops with me.

And so I'm pushing now to have a lot more active management across the board.

SPEAKER_05

But it's also something that we're working on in central office too, right?

And so one of the things that this process my team now knows their budgets really well, right?

We're learning about our budgets and so I'm We're talking more about budgets than we've ever had in our career.

So go ahead Linda.

SPEAKER_03

I Am so excited actually I mean, I'm a finance geek.

But you're right.

And as the superintendent said, we're moving into more proactive management, less reactive, and more nimble.

Because sometimes people don't spend money because they don't trust, and there's too much variability in the formula.

Sometimes they don't spend money because they don't know what to do with the money, because it comes in different restrictions.

And so we all need to be more involved and more proactive.

So it's exciting.

SPEAKER_04

A follow-up question, if I might.

If each of the divisions has been told to cut 15%, are we not weighting the different divisions?

Because that's an across-the-board cut, which implies to me that there's equal outcomes of those cuts, and I'm not sure that that's the case.

SPEAKER_10

Yeah, that was the mark.

I sent the call out to everyone, 15%.

Some were higher than 15%, some were lower, but on average it's about 15% across the board.

Because some of the cuts were more difficult, or adjustments were more difficult, depending on what the areas were.

We found, for example, in the academic side, Those cuts were a lot harder to realize than some of the other areas.

So Fred, I think you were going to comment on that, but it's on average about 15%.

And I think overall we're probably at about 13% or 12.5%.

SPEAKER_00

It was 15% of what was deemed to be flexible discretionary spending in each division so I looked at contracts, I looked at grants, so the numbers were not quite as across the board as they might imply is a point I wanted to make there so different divisions have different degrees of flexibility.

SPEAKER_07

I want to go back to the conversation we were having with Dr. Pedroza.

And I think a point that we don't emphasize enough is that the enrollment decline isn't even across the district.

It is mostly from kindergarten.

And that's why the cuts are likely to be felt by the elementary school and why we need to be doing because it's kindergarten, which will roll out to 12th grade.

So we need to be planning now for the future.

But I think that's a point we should be making about how the enrollment decline is impacting us.

SPEAKER_02

So this is actually bringing up a lot of really interesting thoughts for me. because if we could like produce similar to the sort of like a heat map about where we're experiencing the largest amount of enrollment it could also be useful for us as board directors to have conversations with those communities specifically and then maybe that might give us some understanding because if we're seeing a huge concentration in West Seattle specifically in kindergarten Shocker, right?

We just got the bridge back.

There are so many different impacts that could be Or maybe there's access to or higher access to other schooling opportunities Maybe like that's where families that are already Who have three or four kids who are no longer in kindergarten are moving because that's where they can buy a home, right?

Like I don't know if any of those things are true.

What i'm saying is Having some resource to show where we experiencing the largest losses could give us really critical tools to be able to as a board have conversations with targeted communities when we're trying to do what y'all laid out earlier and figure out like you know where are those families going.

Director Hampson then Director Rankin.

SPEAKER_08

So I think we're on the how clear is the strategy for the two.

Isn't that where we are.

Okay, so I'm going to take us back there, which I don't think is where you were headed.

But and then we do have we have more to get to.

The in terms of the clarity that is being provided, we're definitely getting there.

Hearing more sense of some of the analysis internally that needs to happen to really get at where the changes, some of the more cuts are going to have the greatest impact with the greatest positive impact with the least negative impact.

And in terms of what's still missing there and I hear.

At the beginning, in particular, Superintendent Jones, I heard you speaking to some of this.

One thing that we haven't yet done is as a district.

And when I think about what is a what is a clear strategy about this, and I want to think about it in terms of Little Brent Jones, Little Chandra Hampson going through the school system.

What is that, when things fail for Little Chandra, Little Brent, what is the root cause analysis that causes those failures and how do we align our funding to make sure that the most important pieces support stay in place to ensure that that student has the opportunity to achieve the outcomes that they deserve and that we're really focused on because we have not really spoken a lot about learning student learning and So and it is one of the things that's in the implementation plan for the framework.

And just take the opportunity to clarify it's the student outcomes focus governance framework based on the policy governance model but all to get to keep us focused on students.

And one of the things about that root cause analysis is that it helps you bring it back to the student.

What are the focus on highest needs, that's not something that we're getting there with the racial equity tool analysis.

But we're not hearing, for me, we're not hearing enough about, okay, what about, how are our highest need students going to be not just protected because we already have a long way to go to meet their needs, our opportunity gaps are huge.

So how are we going to keep heading in the direction of working hard to interrogate how we best align our funding to close that opportunity gap and make sure that they can achieve the outcomes that they deserve?

And then the other piece of that that I think is important in terms of providing the clarity of the strategy, as we're talking about the responses of buildings, is what is your theory of action, Superintendent Jones, about whether it's earned autonomy?

We haven't had that.

We had John Stanford, who had, I forget what the term, anyway, all power was to the buildings.

Yeah, and the and you know, there's other managed instruction versus earned autonomy versus performance empowerment.

So I really believe that would be helpful for us to hear from you as to where your team is headed, because I think it helps define how then the the money, how the money is spent, and putting things in that context of we're doing this as a move towards whatever that is in pursuit of, we're getting there, right?

The system of schools, of well-resourced schools, that's a really huge step towards that.

We haven't, first time that I've seen us have that conversation in probably 15 years.

So that's exciting.

I agree, Linda.

It's very exciting to hear some of that being spoken about.

I'm just trying to put some more common language around it so that we can better communicate around it.

So for me, the planning to do any root cause analysis And then getting that definition around the theory of action, which does sound really heady, but I think once it's stated, it's less so.

It's actually easier to connect to the broader concepts.

And then moving towards, I was looking at Kansas City's plan and they have an incredible statement about moving towards a student versus adult centered model and it's, What I appreciate about, I can't quote it, but what I appreciate about their statement of it, it feels not so judgmental about, you know, well, we've been doing it or, you know, this is bad versus good, but just the shift in our thinking in terms of how we make decisions and how we resource.

buildings And we haven't and that's the next I didn't want to jump too far ahead because that's like two pages on but that's I felt leading towards that so that's kind of some of the stuff that I'm still looking for and then I Know you need some direction from us About that and and that's kind of the next part is that strategy And I think you've heard Liza said it very clearly in terms of the only thing I'm going skipping ahead to the next page the strategy to fiscal responsibility.

The thing that I would add is what a really clear strategy connected to the theory of action, connected to the student versus adult centered, connected to actual data that I hear you all saying you're heading towards in terms of really doing that deep analysis of replaying the tape of When we look at our actuals and money that was spent in buildings, what was effective and what wasn't?

There's a whole other dynamic around behavior when it comes to money that's unspent, particularly in institutions.

But there's so much to be gained from Knowing and understanding and replaying that tape as we're trying to model right replaying the tape and looking back at how we spent our time What Was effective and an individual school it could be as Director Sebring stated Any number of reasons why that money isn't being used.

It can be very difficult to to spend money and Some of it might be the belief gap but like that root cause analysis would help us get to that and I know you all are on that and I'm just suggesting ways that we could bring it all together and better discuss it Have better kind of hoppers to put stuff in So yeah, I feel like we're maybe 60% there, which is huge, starting from zero.

SPEAKER_10

So in response to that, and I appreciate all that, from earned autonomy to student outcome focused governance, we are in the middle of it right now.

And what I mean by that is we have not been focused solely on outcomes for students.

And so we're changing it as we're moving forward.

It's forcing us into root cause analysis.

But really the theory of action right now is where is there deviance in the system for how we do things?

What can we take and standardize and then start to understand what the root cause analysis are and then build from that?

But we don't even know where the deviance is.

If you look at it from a student outcome focused governance perspective, we haven't looked at it from solely outcomes.

We've looked at it from the inputs and the outputs, but we never looked at it from solely outcomes.

outcomes and now that our goals are constructed with smart goals we're building backwards from that and so we're trying to make sure that we know what the best practices are in each building and that we we lift those up and then that's kind of in the spirit of targeted universalism we take what's working and we spread it around the rest of the district and so We're right on track, I think, with the understanding and our development and our maturity around student outcome-focused governance.

That really is our theory of action as we're moving right now.

But I'd love to get to the place of this concept of earned autonomy, but I don't think we're there yet.

I think we're still diagnosing where there's deviance across the system, where is it working and where is it not.

And so to President Hersey's point, I think we need to do root cause analysis of what's happening in West Seattle.

And so once we can start to understand deeper around why aren't we getting these outcomes, then I think we can build back into the system.

So that's a very short answer to a very complex issue, but I think we're collectively learning as we go on how to be more disciplined around How do we do root cause analysis?

And where do we start?

And what outcomes are we looking for?

So if we look at well-resourced schools, that's the outcome we're looking at.

And if we won't even do that unless we can have some assurity that that's going to produce better outcomes for our students.

Love to get your responses to that.

So I know you're prompting us to go to the next the next couple slides and We did that was really what we were trying to do for 2324. So that that's our that's our strategy.

That's our hurry up and get a a a budget to you all reconcile to be able to be balanced to meet our fiscal responsibility fiscal obligation and And as we go into 24, 25, this is where we have a little more time to start to think strategically, to your point, Director Hampson, around why are we doing some of these things?

What's the root cause?

How is this attached to outcomes?

So I'll stop right there and see if directors have any more clarity about 23, 24, and then we can move on at your leisure.

All right, next slide, please.

So now we're moving into 24, 25, and this could be 24, 25, 26, 27, and beyond.

One thing I mentioned at the outset is we want to implement an enrollment growth campaign.

That's something that we should be looking at, that we should look at how are we developing these well-resourced schools to make SPS the choice to Seattle parents.

We know Seattle parents have a lot of different choices.

I met a young lady the other day, and she And her father was introducing me to her.

She said, that's your superintendent.

Well, she mentioned a private school.

I was like, I'm not your superintendent.

I tried to recruit her on the spot to come to Seattle Public Schools and I interrogated a little bit as to why are you going to that school versus Seattle Schools?

And we started to develop this rapport, but I think we need to go on the offense a little bit.

We have something great to offer, so I think there's an opportunity.

I know we have lower birth rates, I know that the trend is going down, but I think there's an audience that needs to hear our message and I think we can start to make ourselves the school of choice to Seattle parents.

The other piece that we're doing is this is we're looking at our programs.

We really have to be proactive around understanding our special education services, our English language learner services, transportation, all of these we're not going to get enough funding this year to to reconcile these pieces so we have to look internally around are we using our money as as most efficiently and effectively as we can uh we're going to keep pushing to to get more funding to make sure it's it's uh we're fully funded but until that time we have to be uh open to doing things differently and new to really understand what our what our challenges are in terms of Needs versus the funding that we have and then that that goes right to this next point We're going to continue to have conversations with our legislative partners around underfunding of statewide programming particularly in special education transportation and our classified staffing and ratios and compensation and so these are the high level pieces that we're going to go forward with for 24 25 and there's probably 25 other strategies that we're going to we're going to lift up but we just want to give you some insight into what we're thinking you all will be with us this is where we're going to start to talk to the community about what their needs are but it's all really based on this concept of well-resourced schools how do we start to build back build back from that next slide please so looking for confirmation of a board directive for as we move into 24-25.

Next slide please.

So looking to see if these elements are where you all are giving the superintendent and staff the charge, stabilize our future, keep us solvent, resolve the long-term structural deficit spending, instill discipline and accountability to all spending, all the things that you all just talked about, and really display fiscal stewardship and responsibility.

Our public has voted confidence in us, approving levies and those type of things.

We want to respond in kind and say we are great fiscal stewards and we are geared up to have outstanding outcomes for students and our students have great experiences.

That's the genesis for this question around a directive that you all can give to the superintendent for how we move forward for this next phase for the 24, 25 and beyond.

Next slide please.

With that in mind, I think Director Hampson was a little bit ahead of the game.

She's always been an advanced learner but here we are.

With the student outcome focus governance framework in mind, What guidance do you have for us?

And so really looking to have a clear charge, be on the same page, align in our thinking, seeing the problem with the same understanding, and then really moving forward as a collective around making this happen to get to this concept of well-resourced schools.

So I want to leave this open to you all around what guidance do you have for us around the directive around this whole effort that we're embarking on together.

I'll be quiet and let you all share with me and us.

SPEAKER_07

In terms of the student outcomes focus governance, I think the data that we've been looking at student outcomes, the sources of opportunity are addressing the needs of our special education and our multilingual students, so I would be excited going forward when we're thinking about the programs for our resources are misaligned with state funding that we really look at how can we better serve those students and drive their outcomes with the resources that we have, and why do we have significant Spending beyond the state resources, so you know I think having this added slide in this presentation where we're looking at exactly How much more we're spending over the state revenue?

I would be curious to know what is going into special education like I assume that is mostly staffing but more detail about that and I would love for us to actually do a deep dive at some point, an entire work session on special education because I think that is tremendous in terms of unlocking our budget issues but also our academic opportunities for our students.

SPEAKER_09

I guess a directive I would have is to be, I don't know if it's possible to do these things at the same time, but what comes to mind is be sympathetically ruthless.

Because I think in general we have I mean, I know when it comes to self-examination, I'm like, no, no, no, no, let's talk about anything else.

I don't want to look within.

But as a system, we have done things the way they were done the year before or looked at kind of what exists as what can exist into the future and made adjustments and been afraid to completely reevaluate and to also say people might like this or this might be the way it's always been but this particular thing isn't working or is costing you know more than we have to spend on it or whatever and I think it's it's really hard and I mean especially in in Seattle to be that direct and ruthless about and honest with ourselves and each other and the public about what does and doesn't work and having the courage to act on it.

We're really good at at admiring a problem together and agreeing that something is a problem and talking about the ways in which, oh yes, yes, that's terribly tragic, and then not taking that step into making the shifts necessary.

probably being quoted on Twitter right now as being a heartless, terrible person for saying, be ruthless.

But that's why I say sympathetically ruthless, because it does nobody any favors for any of us to pretend that this isn't a big issue that we have to solve.

We can't pretend that we can sort of wait our ways out of some of these things.

And some of what we're facing is within the control of Seattle Public Schools and some of it is not.

But we don't get a choice about what we confront and what we don't confront.

For example, like I think doing an enrollment campaign is a great idea.

And we are the third most childless city in the United States.

I mean, and housing has a big impact.

There's no new housing.

There's no new housing.

So like, I am living in a home.

that I could not afford today, you know, purchased it almost 10 years ago and I had two kids who were elementary age kids.

I'm not having more kids.

I'm not leaving my house.

So there, you know, there's not new elementary students coming to replace those students and our city is very expensive and our new housing is not Well, there isn't new housing, but it's also we have a lot of 20 and 30-year-olds that don't have kids.

And then when they want to have kids, either can't afford to move into a bigger space, leave the city, or just aren't going to have children.

And so I think that's something we can't pretend.

It's something that we can't do anything about.

At the same time, we can work to make Seattle Public Schools the choice of more families.

Not only are we one of the most childless major cities in the country, we have one of the highest percentages of students who attend private schools.

But still, 75% of the children living in Seattle attend Seattle Public Schools.

That's still, you know, 75%.

And there's a long history in this city of how and why that happened.

So I think, yeah, the, you know, recruiting, trying to recruit, trying to maintain numbers is a great idea and it's something that we should do anyway.

And it's not going to fill those 19 buildings that have under 200 students.

Maybe if we look at our projections, we can see at the very end of the projections, it kind of starts to go back up.

So we're in a position where we have to respond transparently, honestly, with compassion and with ruthlessness to the current situation and the current factors.

And we have to think about the people that are going to be in our positions 10 years from now.

and make decisions that help set them up for success.

You know, I wouldn't want 10 years from now for the superintendent and the board to be scrambling to put portables everywhere because we didn't maintain facilities, for example.

That wouldn't be, we just did that.

We just did that ten years ago, and now we're able to move students back into buildings and out of portables.

So I think that would be my, is just to share the information as much as we can about this is a difficult situation that nobody would choose to have to face.

We're also not facing it alone.

being at WASDA or with WASDA in Olympia this past weekend, in spite of what some newspapers of record may have stated about districts with surpluses, they do not have surpluses.

I mean, you can look on pretty much any Washington State School District website And Google Everett School District budget, you will see them talking about needing to make a 10% reduction.

You will hear Mercer Island talking about, do we need to close one of our four elementary schools?

You will hear Shoreline talking about 10% budget.

It's not just us.

But that also doesn't mean that we get to say, well, it's not just us.

Somebody come save us.

We need to save us.

We need to save us and deal with the reality of what we're dealing with, but we need to do it with compassion for the public, centered on our students, and be absolutely ruthless about things that are not working to support students.

SPEAKER_08

I would add a number six on the board directive, something to the effect of a demonstrative data heavy replaying of the fiscal tape to prove impact on student outcomes.

SPEAKER_10

Say that one more time, please.

SPEAKER_08

It's a it's not a good sentence, but demonstrative data heavy replaying of the fiscal tape to prove positive impact on student outcomes.

And I mean that in the same way that these other things are kind of about a cultural shift in how we operate and resource.

And we do now have better access to actuals, to real data at the building level and need to push ourselves on that so we can see what's actually working.

Otherwise.

SPEAKER_02

I would like to see.

And maybe this falls under display fiscal stewardship or responsibility but clear plain language accurate.

Information about what's going on with the budget So like as we're having these conversations like even for me as a board director Sometimes it's hard to track with some of our lingo.

So like it would be great to have a one pager Produce and I don't know.

I'm just saying like I need something in my hands to help me like Crystallize this conversation when I take it back to community As a reminder, we're standing up community engagement tomorrow.

I 3 p.m.

So please make sure that you're there if you're on the committee, and if not, please join us.

But if we are going to be in a proactive sense, I'm speaking from the board's perspective to have these conversations and like make sure that folks understand what the changes are and what the changes aren't.

Having really clear, plain language conversations that's easily disseminated, easily shareable would be super helpful for me to be able to do those things effectively.

SPEAKER_10

So as I'm capturing sympathetically ruthless, demonstratively playing back the tape, plain and clear language, can we commit this to a resolution of some sort?

I mean, however we can formalize this, that would be ideal.

So there's a way that we can do it.

It may not be the right approach, but based on Director Harris's look, that's not the right approach.

However we can do this, to commit it to superintendent, these are the things that we need you to make happen.

SPEAKER_02

That makes a lot of sense because then that gives you clarity on where you need to work from and I totally agree with that.

I don't necessarily think a resolution is the best way to go about that but I will call AJ and I will see within a student outcomes focused governance framework or lens what is the best way to give you the clarity that you need to move forward in writing that has a vote on it so we can all be accountable to it so that request has been heard loud and clear so let me do some digging to figure out what is the best pathway forward for that.

SPEAKER_04

Two very unpopular suggestions that I suspect my colleagues will not agree with.

One, how soon can you and your senior leadership team get a meeting with the Seattle Times editorial board together?

Because part of what we have been struggling with is our message and our messaging.

And that filters all the way down to Olympia.

And I'm really so sick of hearing from my legislative friends that think that we're knuckleheads, because we're not.

And I resent it, and it makes me incredibly angry.

Second, when are we going to have the intestinal fortitude to sue the good state again for their underfunding of special education.

It is as criminal without being criminal as you can get.

That's not based on need.

It's based on some funky formula, and it goes through the meat grinder in Olympia, and we're the ones that are trying to put all 10 fingers and 10 toes in the dike.

And we're failing our students.

And how we can say that McCleary fix things is ludicrous to me.

And you know, Well, we're at it.

If we want to do a resolution, let's do a resolution about all the craziness in the state system and Sunday's newspaper and all the different layers.

I've said it to Chris before.

I'll say it probably till I'm a dead woman.

You come walk a mile in my high heels, pal, and don't tell me that Seattle is quote-unquote different.

I resent it, it makes me angry, and what's going on in our so-called paper of record isn't helping us one darn bit.

Like I said, I figured it'd be unpopular.

SPEAKER_02

No, I don't necessarily think it's unpopular, but I do have a question that I'd like to ask back, if that's okay.

And not necessarily to Director Harris, but to the board.

My question is like, In my head, I'm trying to play this over, right?

Because nobody from the ed board called any of us about to get any type of feedback on what they were running.

I feel as though that, like, The real question I'm asking here is how do we separate like what we know is fact from what folks will report because that's like the nature of the editorial board.

They have the right to report what their opinion is.

My confusion is like.

Because it doesn't serve the purpose of a paper, which is to get engagement, to write glowing reviews about Seattle Public Schools.

That's not going to get clicks.

That's not going to get comments.

For me, what I'm trying to understand is for us, we habits and patterns are hard to break and it is a habit and pattern of not exclusively the Seattle Times but every news organization regardless of the state that you're in to bash the larger school districts in the state because they usually take up the most resources.

What my confusion is is that the reason that that's dangerous and the reason that director and correct me if I'm wrong Director Harris but like It makes a lot of misinformation that makes our job even more difficult.

It makes us non-credible, right?

So like, I'm not volunteering my time to be up here to lie to people.

I know y'all aren't spending time away from your families to tell people fibs or whatnot.

So what I'm really trying to figure out is like, do we have the capacity to lift up our own messaging in a way that not necessarily needs to, like, you know, I think that we could do a better job of, like, releasing plain language information around what is and what is not happening.

And you and I have had this conversation before.

If we do not do that, then people are going to make up whatever it is that they want.

And so I think from my perspective, like, Just pumping out, even if it's the same information over and over again about what it is we're trying to do, how are we defining these things, I think it's going to be critical once we get that definition locked in.

And then be able to at least link things back to our work, be able to show our work in these instances is going to pay dividends.

But at some phase, see how times are going to say what they see how times want to say.

We still got a lot of work to do.

And whether people want to believe it or not, I mean, we've had this conversation too.

The numbers are what the numbers are.

And...

We got to figure this out.

And I think that at some phase, community is either going to be able to come along with us or they're not.

But we need to be able to stand on our two feet and ensure that we gave as much information as possible.

And so while I'm concerned about the Seattle Times article in that instance, I'm more concerned with, OK, what were the conditions that we as a board created to allow that article to exist without Also, there being a very clear, a very clear, I don't even know what the word is, document, article of our own, I don't know, a very clear body of information to where a person could go and say like, oh, that's what the Seattle Times thinks.

What does the Seattle Public Schools have to say about this?

I think that finding a way for us to be able to communicate those things more efficiently, readily, often, all those things.

And in my opinion, it doesn't have to be much.

We just say what it is we're doing, our guiding principles, so to speak, around those things.

And we're in the midst of developing that.

But as we get to a more solidified foundation of how we are communicating what these changes are and aren't, I think we're just going to have to be more nimble in putting that information out and sharing it out.

Like we should be blasting this to every paper in the county basically because Seattle Public Schools impact is far reaching.

And if they run it cool if they don't I don't care.

But we do need to have some strong body of information where folks can go to get a clear understanding of what is and isn't happening.

And I don't know if we have that yet.

SPEAKER_08

Just want to note the Audit Committee received it earlier today, and then it should be posting tomorrow in preparation for Monday's Internal audit meeting but a 90 page communications on it that was requested by superintendent Jones and communications director so That's self work that our staff is doing in the area of continuous improvement to answer those questions to go out and have an outside firm and use our internal audit process that we set up to be a higher value district centered continuous improvement support.

And so it's a lot but it will then immediately get into the hopper for what are the, you know, how staff are going to follow up on those recommendations.

So that would the first time that staff will be reporting on that is in June.

And but I would just say as soon as you get that, take a look at it so that we know what is an outside entity say when they look at what people are saying.

And they did focus groups and well, you can all look at it.

But so just to encourage you to take a look at that and use that so that we're not just guessing, right?

And hopefully get to a place where we have some sort of, at least like you said, a ready response for that or the facility to have a response that is informative and just like, here's the work we're doing and trying to do better.

So I'm really grateful to staff for making sure that that happened, because that's a lot of work and self-reflection.

And then it's on us in audit to make sure it gets implemented.

Well, it's on the superintendent.

SPEAKER_02

I wonder, can I ask a question back specifically around the audit findings?

My brain is like, I am struggling to find appropriate adjectives or even adjectives.

Can't even get the damn word right.

Verbs.

I am trying to or at least what makes a lot of sense to me would be to take some elements of that.

I could see some intersectionality with the community engagement task force just in like looking through like what are some of those opinions in terms at the front end of what we're doing starting tomorrow.

When is it you said is going to be available at your meeting tomorrow.

SPEAKER_08

No, our meeting's on Monday.

Your meeting's on Monday.

The committee already got it, but it posts tomorrow.

It posts tomorrow.

Right, Julia?

By five.

So, but I can send it.

SPEAKER_02

That'd be great.

Meeting's on Tuesday.

SPEAKER_08

Okay, don't listen to me.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that'd be great.

Point being, just for tracking purposes, if we could get some time on the March 15th meeting, I believe, is the next meeting for the Community Engagement Task Force to talk about that a little bit.

Just want to make sure that I didn't lose that thread.

SPEAKER_08

Or you can, well, we'll talk.

Is it on the agenda for Tuesday?

The audit report findings?

It is on the agenda.

So yeah.

SPEAKER_10

Bev is planning a rollout with a full response to all that.

So you all can read it.

That's fine.

But know that Bev is planning to kind of present it with our response.

It's just there's a lot of information in there.

And she's been processing as I have as well.

What are we going to do about it?

And so it's rich information.

Some of it's hurtful.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just joking.

SPEAKER_06

It's fine.

SPEAKER_10

Surprise.

We wanted to be transparent.

We wanted to get out here and be vulnerable to understand what the challenge is.

We've heard you all as board members say time and time again, communication, communication, communication.

So we took the step to get a third party to do the analysis.

And so it's there.

And I have great faith in Bev and her, how she's going to respond to it.

So how we're going to respond to it.

That's great.

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08

And yeah, please come to the audit.

Is it really on Tuesday and not Monday?

And I have to go pick up a kid.

But so come to the audit meeting, please, because we have a lot of both audit and audit response.

Hopefully we will have finalized the contract for the student safety audit.

That is the safety audit that's being done relative to between employee and students and that contract.

I can't speak to it because I don't think it's been finalized yet unless it got finalized today, but it's We're just waiting for final inking and should be able to talk about that.

But there's the transportation, there's we're doing special attention item on the sexual or Title IX task force recommendation that staff has agreed to present on.

So thank you.

And yeah, please attend if you can.

It's a four o'clock.

It's a team's meeting, right?

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Cool.

OK.

Further conversation can probably be had offline.

Thank you, everybody, for the way that you showed up today.

This was a great discussion.

As there is no further business on the agenda, the meeting stands adjourned at 6.38 p.m.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you tomorrow.