School Board Meeting, June 27th, 2018 Part 1 A

an an Yeah.

Good evening.

I would like to welcome the board audience and guests in public to the June 27th regular board meeting for Seattle Public Schools.

Ms. Ramirez could we have the roll call please.

Director Burke here.

Director DeWolf here.

Director Geary here.

Director Mack Director Patu here.

Director Pinkham.

present.

Director Mack is in the building and is expected shortly maybe even now.

And President Harris has a work commitment with an uncertain end time so she's expected at some point today but we don't know exactly when.

I will be chairing on her behalf.

We'll begin with by standing for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag.

So we're going to begin our our meeting today with recognitions and I'd like to actually start.

by inviting Chris Alondra the mayor's Mayor Durkin's education and youth policy advisor to the podium to read a proclamation.

Welcome.

Thanks for joining us this evening.

Thanks so much for allowing me to speak on behalf of the mayor this afternoon and good afternoon board members and Dr. Nyland.

You know.

We just want to honor Dr. Nyland's years of service and education in particular to the students families and teachers of Seattle Public Schools.

And personally as a father of a Salmon Bay K-8 student I'd like to personally thank you for your leadership and wish you the best of luck.

The mayor's collaborations and partnership with Dr. Nyland has been relatively brief since coming to office.

She clearly sees you know that your commitment to improve the learning of students is front and center and with that we'd like to honor you Dr. Nyland with a proclamation.

Here goes.

Whereas Dr. Larry Nyland has served as superintendent of Seattle Public Schools from 2015 to 2018. And whereas under Dr. Nyland's leadership and tireless commitment to our community Seattle Public Schools have developed a renewed focus on equitable education collaborative partnership with all stakeholders transparency and work and true empowerment of staff families and children.

And whereas Seattle Public Schools continues to be recognized as a high performing urban district with outstanding improvement in closing the opportunity gap.

And whereas Dr. Nyland led the Seattle Public Schools into a new era of consistent goal setting strategic investment frequent community engagement and rigorous oversight which has dramatically improved family and staff satisfaction.

And whereas he has supported key initiatives including ADA compliance ELL family communication improvement all district training Seattle serve day and policy adjustments related to ICE.

And whereas the city of Seattle is deeply grateful for Dr. Nyland's years of service to Seattle students his commitment to racial equity educational opportunity and data driven results for all communities in Seattle and his work to make Seattle more vibrant equitable and inclusive place to live.

Now therefore I Jenny A. Durkin mayor of Seattle do hereby proclaim June 27 2018 to be Dr. Larry Nyland Day.

Jenny A. Durkin.

I want to invite my colleagues down to take pictures as well.

And then I also want Larry to have an opportunity to share some comments.

So before you leave I want to make sure that Superintendent Nyland has a chance to share some of his feedback comments back for the mayor's office.

All right.

Well thank you to the city of Seattle and to the mayor.

It certainly has been an incredible opportunity and joy to work with the city of Seattle Seattle schools enjoys a truly unique partnership with the city of Seattle.

We share common boundaries that doesn't happen with our other whatever it is 181 jurisdictions and 295 school districts.

And that means that the city of Seattle going back 21 years now has partnered with us in a very big financial way in addition to dozens of other ways permitting transportation.

et cetera et cetera et cetera.

And so it truly does make a difference.

And the partnership with the city of Seattle is one of the reasons why we are a high performing urban district.

So again thank you to the city.

Thank you to the mayor.

Thank you Chris.

Means a lot.

And we our kids are eternally grateful it makes a huge difference for them.

Thank you.

Well we wouldn't want for Mayor Durkin to be the only one to say thank you.

And so your your board also wants to express our gratitude to you for your work and the your contributions.

So we have a plaque because that's what these things do.

And so I'm going to read this together.

We've strengthened I'm going to read this again.

Together we've strengthened relationships in our communities and schools challenged ourselves and each other to relentlessly address racial inequities in education created policies and practices that affirm our students and create safe learning environments and aligned our resources and strategies towards common goals.

As a community we also have learned together to improve our educational practice both in and outside of the district.

We've also aligned our arrows.

That part wasn't on there but so I want to thank you and I also want to give my colleagues a chance to offer their thanks and then we'll do another photo op.

Would anyone like to start.

Director Mack.

Dr. Nyland when I started engaging in advocacy with the district on Seattle Council PTSA it was with your predecessor and when you came on the interactions with Seattle Council PTSA and the public became more authentic and I really appreciated that.

I also I will also wanted to share with you that one of the things that I've really valued that you do is you synthesize information really simply and beautifully.

And you know there's in a meeting the other day you said something about our upcoming BEX levies and I was like that's exactly the way we need to be talking about that.

And so that's a gift and I really appreciate that you've shared that with us and I want you to know that before you go and that you'll be missed.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

It has been it has been just such an honor to work with you.

I'm one of the few board members that's been able to travel with you all over the country and it has been so I guess I'm just so proud that you were our superintendent and I was so proud of how you were received.

by the nation for the work that we've been doing here in terms of eliminating the opportunity gap and just seeing that we are leaders and that is in large part to the work that you have continued to put at the center of everybody's vision no matter what we're doing you're continuing to remind us that Strong school districts have boards that make goals and continue to focus on that.

And one of the goals has been eliminating the opportunity gap because it is the issue of our lifetime and of our future and something that we all have to continue to focus on.

So I just I hate goodbyes and.

I just will continue to believe whether it's wishful thinking or not that we will continue to stay in touch around these issues and that Seattle Public Schools will continue to count on you to come in and help us as we need help on these very important issues because you are so trusted.

by our city by so many people and the respect that you have shown them.

But I also want you to know that if you go out into the greater world whatever plans you have that you can reach back to us as well for our support in terms of spreading this work and doing what we can to continue to honor your work.

and grow it here as just the beginning of something that you can champion someplace else now.

So thank you so much.

Director Patu.

As a longtime board director.

There's times that you know things might not always go the way we want.

But I've never actually have not been satisfied with with conversations that we've had or a need or a complaint.

You've always been gracious to sit and listen have time to actually to hear out whatever complaint that that I have which is not very often.

But I just appreciate it.

your understanding and also you're hearing you know making time and effort to listen.

Sometimes we might not always be on the right side but sometimes we have to kind of let it out.

So that way at least we know whether we're doing the right thing or not.

But I find that when I do come in and run it by you you always been so gracious and understanding.

You know I've never seen a mean look on your face.

when we've had times you know where I've actually brought issues to you and that I appreciate.

You know.

Making sure that you know knowing that you're listening and and always being supportive and I appreciate that about you.

So thank you for all the work that you've done.

And as a longtime board director I really appreciate you for all the work that you've actually helped to move this district forward.

And hopefully the next person that comes along we're actually going to have a lot of issues to actually reach into.

Thank you so much.

Director DeWolf.

Thank you.

Well Larry we didn't get to work together for very long.

One of the things you had mentioned before or earlier in conversations was maybe a frustration that we didn't get to tell our story very well.

And I think even more important is that you created calm certainty stability to be able to create the stage for those stories to be told.

So I am so grateful for you for doing that work.

I kind of see you like a duck on underneath the water you're moving those legs really fast and trying to do all the hard work and above calm and you had a great smile and I've been so grateful to work with you and know that your story is so much in the DNA here and I I know that where we go is only because of where you've brought us here today.

So thank you for your service to this city to the students and the families and our communities.

I hope we'll see you around.

OK teleprompters you ready.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ Thank you.

Just appreciate all that you've done and the groundwork I think that you laid here and I think you know as the direction that the board is going is because of you and as we bring in the new superintendent I think we're going in the right direction for the school district.

We see upon the board you know every student every day kind of thing.

And so I also want to share my language which I'm starting to learn.

and by myself as best as I can.

Suquanawat.

Know it.

Hitemanawat.

Learn it.

Tat suqua.

Teach it.

Sikhnuawat.

Speak it.

Titoquanawat.

Live it.

Wailahe.

Every day.

Again.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you all well I will I will close my my first interaction with Larry was actually many years ago on the Washington State Board of Education math panel where Larry served for you know we had some overlap there and at the time I thought to myself what a quiet fellow contemplative doesn't say much takes it all in.

Tough to get a read on him in working with him as as a director for two and a half the last two and a half years.

It's been such a pleasure and such a learning experience for me and to see how how you combine encyclopedic knowledge You know this voracious reading writing note taking and then you know a systems level focus to say well how do we take this complex problem sort of the way Eden described it and turn it into a series of more bite sized pieces.

So I really wanted to express my appreciation for that and to highlight that the.

The what you have done the legacy that you're leaving is truly one of stability.

You've you've set a tone which I think the district has not been able to achieve for many years and you've done that without drama but with consistency and respect consistent messaging.

It might seem boring sometimes but you know what it works and I listen to the board the staff the public and I hear little Larry isms come up all around.

And so so your your impact has permeated the entire district and sometimes it feels like when we're here on the board and maybe even you know in this building that it's it's it's it's all about systems and it's hard to know how that impact is making its way to students.

But you're out in the buildings every week.

You're engaging with the students the teachers the principals and that respect.

You know we've we've heard back as directors that that respect has been impactful.

So I just also want to thank you along with my colleagues for your commitment your service and hope we continue to see you.

Photo op.

th th

OK moving on.

There will actually not be a student performance tonight.

We let our students go home for the summer and so they're they're not performing.

So instead I will turn it over to Superintendent Nyland to share his comments.

Well thank you.

And I will share my district comments and then I'll share some personal comments in response.

So thank you to the board for your comments and you captured me well.

So thank you.

Well.

As indicated the school year has ended and we thank our educators and all of the support staff.

A lot of our educators will be leaving the building soon and participating in some well-deserved rest and many of our support staff will still be here all summer long.

Hopefully with a little bit of vacation in there getting ready for the start of another school year.

Congratulations to our thirty five hundred graduates who earned their diplomas last week.

I had the opportunity to visit the last three of I don't know I think we have 17 or 18 graduations each year comprehensive high schools and then our specialty schools.

And so I had an opportunity to be at Nova at South Lake and at Center School along with director representation.

So thank you to our directors who really put in extra duty during this last week of graduations and always heartwarming to hear some of the stories particularly from our specialty schools have students that have maybe more challenges than others and to see that they're launched with great opportunities for the future.

So we certainly wish well to all of our graduates all of our families and our students and staff for a year well done.

Thank you to our retirees as well.

We celebrated in this room last night and as usual every year it's absolutely amazing.

I think last year it was 47 years for the longest serving retiree.

And so that is truly an incredible amount of dedication on the part of our staff.

I think the Shortest was 11 and 17 years or something like that.

So truly a remarkable and dedicated group of staff that serve each and every day and then eventually move to that well-deserved retirement.

We do have 136 staff retiring from Seattle Public Schools.

On.

So thank you to our families for sharing your students with us and we'll welcome them back here in a few months.

We had good participation in the March for Pride parade.

Directors Harris and DeWolf attended.

Lisa Love always does a great job of organizing that.

and celebrating our students and the work that we do together to make them safe and successful in school.

We did have a week ago we had a celebration here for the John Stanford Center staff employees.

That's always a little bit of a challenge about half of our employees in this building.

are related to education and the school year.

And so they disappear right about the time that school is out.

And the other half of our staff as I mentioned they stay with us.

They do work in a vacation but they're here for the summer.

So we kind of alternate.

This year we celebrated just before school was out.

Other years we celebrate just after school is out.

But trying to recognize them and so a shout out to the committee that we have working here.

They've done incredible events as we've gone through the year to build the camaraderie and the partnership and the teamwork.

And then there's been a lot of training along the way as well and a lot of listening sessions to listen to our staff and to try to engage them and hear from them about what they need to do their job better.

So certainly a lot of appreciation for the people who work so hard here behind the scenes.

Partnership with the city again.

Thank you for the recognition from the city.

One of the things that they did in fact I think on the first day that the mayor took office was to announce Metro cards for our students and that.

like everything else requires a partnership agreement so that we can figure out all of the details about public transportation and how that works and how we can make more and better opportunities available to our students to access education and the other great aspects of our city.

So Assistant Superintendent Pegi McEvoy is going to tell us just a little bit about the ORCA card program.

Thank you Superintendent.

So we are delighted when the city asked us to partner on this program, but it's a lot of work to put something together.

So we had this spring our Director of Logistics, Kathy Katterhagen, SDOT Strategic Advisor, Sarah Walton, Metro Transportation Planner, David Dunneback, and SPS Assistant General Counsel, Ronald Boyd, spending hundreds of hours in order to put this program together.

And what we needed was a framework for this partnership so that we could make sure that we could actually deploy these cards in a very successful way.

So the city now is calling this their ORCA Opportunity Program.

And first what happens in this framework is that the city purchases the ORCA cards directly from Metro.

The money passes through that way so that they can buy them.

Then they ship those ORCA cards to us and we have agreed to administer this program so that all of our students can have an opportunity to have ORCA cards.

So it's very exciting.

The city has also agreed to pay the administrative costs for us actually delivering their program.

That comes up to about $225,000, so that MOU doesn't require board approval as the superintendent has authority to sign that MOU.

Therefore, this year we're going to be administrating two ORCA programs.

the orca opportunity program and the district orca program.

Now tonight we are bringing a bar in front of you related to the district orca program because that is a larger amount and it does require board approval.

So we want to make sure that everybody understands that we will be working through this.

We spent a lot of time trying to put this together and it will be available for our students this fall.

Thanks for all your work to make that all work.

Well it's been momentous not often that the Supreme Court of the United States makes decisions that impact us directly in education.

And as something would happen they've made two big decisions in just the last few days both of which have some impact on us.

The Janus decision long anticipated by a 5 to 4 vote and some very interesting.

Comparisons to past cases said.

that unions could no longer require employees to pay union dues.

And so that's something that we'll be learning more about working with our unions working with our state associations to learn more about what that impact will have on us.

And then also on a 5 to 4 vote the Supreme Court upheld the president's travel ban.

And we know that when that happens that creates a fair amount of fear and consternation in the part of some of our students.

So fortunately right at the moment school is not in session.

But as our board has been on record many times in the past we continue to stand with our families and say that we're here to provide for the safety and the support and do everything we possibly can for the students within our care.

Statement is posted on our home page with regard to that.

Well in response to the board.

Thank you for the incredible opportunity to serve.

As you've heard me say before I was very appreciative of the strategic plan that was fairly newly minted when I came.

It gave me focus and direction.

And over the last several years we have been working on aligning those arrows and working on four years four goals student achievement And as I often say it matters.

It means that our employees can focus their efforts and align and coalesce around the things that matter the most.

So.

As we've worked on our eliminating the opportunity gap work we've kind of emphasized three big ideas.

One is belief in every student no matter what.

No excuses.

Second the idea that relationships matter.

So as we move into how do I say that.

We have a partnership team with SEA and PASS and they have done the work along with our district staff see Pat Sander in the back there who's been a big part of that coordinating our Tri-Day which is our only district wide professional development day.

around relationships and how important it is to build meaningful and sustainable relationships.

And that's now morphed into I forget how many thirty eight hundred staff members have participated in our online variation of that training.

And so the message and the good word is continues to get out there.

And then that commitment to knowing each student's story strength and need.

And again incredible work in terms of lining up those those pieces.

So I can't say enough about a cabinet and the staff here in this building the partnership with principals we met in our summer Leadership Institute Part 1. We do two days in June with all of our administrators and then we do three days in August.

And so today was mostly my day and a handoff to Superintendent Juneau.

So we were both there and we both had the opportunity to interact with and talk about where we've come and tomorrow will be Superintendent Juneau's day with our administrators talking about her her compelling why why she does this important work and get to know our leadership team and talk about how they move forward in the future.

So.

There's more in the in the newsletter here in terms of a lot of good work underway and a lot of good news even though the school year certainly has wound down and certainly well-deserved vacations coming up.

So again it is truly been my honor and pleasure to be a part of Seattle Public Schools.

So I thought I was retired and I came back for four years and it has truly been the highlight of my career to see a team of people come together in support of all of our students and to see really high quality teaching and leadership in each of our schools and then to have the incredible partnership as we talked about earlier tonight from the city as well as from our CBO's our community based organizations who've stood shoulder to shoulder with us.

And I will be excited to hear about how all of those arrows continue to touch and align and create lightning in a bottle that will generate great success for Seattle students and become known across the country for the good work that's being done here.

So.

Again I thank you for that opportunity.

And as I mentioned to our executive committee earlier today I will with your permission take my leave for the rest of the meeting.

I am making progress.

I have two meetings with Superintendent Juneau in the next two days to hand over the work.

That part's done.

I do need to leave her a clean office and I need to vacate my apartment by Saturday.

So if you'll excuse me I'll go do some cleaning so that we can leave things ship shape for Superintendent Juneau.

So again thank you.

It has been an honor to serve.

So this brings us back to our agenda.

At this time we usually go around and do board committee reports prior to comments.

Are there any directors that would like to share comments from their committees.

Director Mack.

Good evening.

I'll go ahead and start with the quick report from the operations committee.

I'm not going to go too long because I think we have some 20 items that are actually on the agenda tonight.

And that is makes it clear kind of what part of the work is that we're doing.

Our last meeting was on June 7th and we won't be having another meeting until August 22nd because we take off in July.

Not a lot of meetings over the summer as we take a little bit of a break.

But in the meantime the facilities master plan task force is actually going to be starting their work and doing their work over the summer.

Their first meeting is going to be July 9th.

On Monday this past Monday we had a work session on BEX V which included information on the facilities master plan draft as well as conversation about the task force.

And we also had a work session on wait lists and capacity for next year.

And so I'm excited about the facilities master plan task force starting their work and they'll be concluding that by August 26 which will be our next BEX V work session.

And.

That's about it for ops.

I have some stuff on ledge but I wasn't sure if Director Geary wanted to address legislative.

OK I'll take it.

So on legislative work I spent a couple of days at the WSSDA legislative committee.

I sit on their committee which is the state level school board directors association.

We met on June 15th and 16th.

That committee is tasked with passing forward positions to the full membership which will be voted on in September September 21st and 22nd.

On various things and one of the.

There's a lot of positions coming forward.

One of the positions that Seattle schools is going to sign on to is the comprehensive school safety position which aligns with the resolution that we already passed on on safety as well as a gun violence prevention position.

I'm also taking the lead on a position titled fully fund facilities for mandated class size reduction in which WSSDA position statement says that WSSDA shall initiate and support legislation to fully fund any and all mandated class size reduction.

Funding will support any property acquisition and facilities to provide the necessary classroom space.

So that's an exciting one if that gets pushed forward by the full membership.

And I believe that Director Geary and I will be together at the legislative assembly in September.

On the other fronts there's a lot of as Dr. Nyland mentioned there's a lot of negative news nationally and I won't touch on that but I just want to acknowledge.

Acknowledge it.

Director Geary.

To piggyback onto that just a little.

Mayor Durkan did today sign the families education levy to send that to the voters this fall.

We thank the city very much in terms of the money that they are going to be asking the voters to contribute to public education and we need to remind everybody that Seattle Public Schools will also be going out for its education levy come February.

So.

We are not in competition in any way but remind everybody that this is money that is necessary to support our preschoolers our K through 12 students and our 13th and 14th year promise.

But that there's still going to be an opportunity and a need for a levy that will then come in to support Seattle Public Schools the everyday running of our school district.

So these are two separate things.

So we thank the city for their efforts to support us in our mission and just be aware that there will be another levy and that we need them both in order to continue the great work that is going on in Seattle Public Schools.

Director Pinkham Audit and Finance.

Friday Finance our last monthly meeting was Monday June 11th.

But our biggest kind of news break was that the budget is nicely published and available online.

So if people want to go there and look at it and probably recommend that you hopefully are able to view it as a PDF file because if you want to download a lot of pages but appreciate the efforts of JoLynn Berge's office of getting this together and.

Lovely pictures as well promoting the artwork of our students.

So glad that we got that done.

You'll see actually we'll have a lot of our bars will be coming up from Audit and Finance at today's meeting.

Majority dealing with the IEPs that we have for students and costs that we have to cover for that.

I think we're pretty much on track to do things especially we had the budget meeting hearing earlier today.

Thank you Chris Jackins for showing up and sharing your comments that will be introduced tonight and for action on July 11th.

And I also will have another further announcements later on in this meeting about completed audits for schools.

you I will microphone hog just a little bit and do two committee reports one for C&I and one on behalf of Director Harris for the executive committee.

We had a June 12th C&I policy committee meeting.

I'm going to touch on three items that I think are of interest to the board and to the public.

One of them was the annual approval of schools our continuous school improvement plans that was brought before the committee and we talked a little bit about it.

The timeline for uploading had not been completed and so did we did not have a fully uploaded and vetted set of CSIPs.

So we actually pushed that by one month in the C&I committee.

So that is that's why you do not see it coming forward today.

So we wanted to keep that work in committee until it was at a high high quality level to bring it to the board.

We're just trying to keep committee work at the committee and keep board work at the board so that we can keep these meetings more compact.

Second item around instruction materials update.

There's been a conversation about a formal adoption for since time immemorial and what was brought up in committee was a challenge that for us to formally adopt it.

We can't really do it within our existing policy because our existing policy has a very prescriptive sequence of going out and doing an RFI to request for information request for proposal multiple vendors and then committee selection.

So we can't formally just adopt something even if it is state mandated.

like the since time immemorial curriculum is right now.

So the the decision was made to take another look at policy 2015 which governs that and essentially create a mechanism that we can adopt sort of state mandated or things things that are But we wanted to create a policy vehicle that allows us to do that legitimately.

So that's going to come back next month.

And the third one Naviance I think has come before the board as well.

You may recall a couple of months ago we discussed it at at some length as a tool for high school and beyond planning.

and support our counselors and our opportunity gap work staff has found in doing the implementation we agreed to a finite set of data sharing fields and the belief was that that would allow us to provide transcript uploads.

And as they're going through implementation they're finding that there may be some challenges around that.

And so they Dr. Kayla Perkins brought this topic before the C&I committee asking for clarification on well if we can't upload transcripts what is our what is our vehicle to move forward.

And the committee provided guidance to him that he should engage with the board engage with the community to understand the tradeoff between what performance what functionality we need to get out of Naviance versus what data is required to be shared to do that and recognizing that's a tradeoff.

So I wanted that also to be out in the public eye.

This is a conversation that's going on.

We've had one opt out window already for people who are You know we're not comfortable with the data sharing.

There will be a second opt out cycle in December in September once school starts back up.

One of the suggestions from the C&I committee was to hold a series of school based meetings to allow family members to.

see the tool but also have discussions with their students and with their counselors around what the what that data sharing could look like.

So for all you directors and for anyone out in the public know that that's something that we're we take really seriously data sharing data student data privacy.

And that over the next couple of months we're going to continue to work on that to try to find the best balance between protecting our students data and privacy and being able to provide our counselors the ability to serve students.

Looking forward I mentioned the curriculum or the instructional materials policy 2015 that's being reviewed by legal and then electronic learning policies will also be coming up.

And I think the rest of it will roll into subsequent months.

On the executive committee we had on June 14th the executive committee met.

I'm just going to touch on two brief items one of them was the Seattle Rotary came before the executive committee with a request or suggestion to place a peace poll at the John Stanford Center.

This is something that they've been doing it at schools and sites around the city and you know and essentially around the state.

So this was you know we've this was something that was you was brought before us and seemed like a really appropriate level appropriate symbol.

So I think that we're exploring what that could look like and if we can get that in place.

And then the other thing that came before the executive committee that I just want people to know about was the public records records officers.

Natasha Walicki and Roxanne O'Connor.

came before us and shared an annual report on public records requests which was really interesting and informative.

There are let me see there are around 25 requests per month about 1.2 requests per business day.

And currently their backlog they're working on about 80 open requests including 21 that are carried over from previous school years.

So the average time is 52 business days to turn around public records requests.

So wonderful wonderful people that are absolutely committed to their work and it was really great to hear how passionate they are about it.

in something that feels contentious sometimes when people have to go to a public records request to find to get information how committed our staff is to to supporting that work and you know the transparency that we all value.

So I wanted to celebrate them.

That takes care of committees and normally we would go to student comments.

We have no student.

Board guest this evening.

So that brings us to the consent agenda.

We've reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda.

I move approval of the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

Approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

Seeing none.

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

Those opposed.

The consent agenda has passed.

So this brings us to board comments.

We have about 30 minutes before public testimony.

So I think there's going to be time for directors to give comments and also provide a little bit of a break.

Would anyone like to open for board comments.

Director Director Pinkham and then Director Patu.

It's OK.

Oh yeah.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ thank you and Táˀc kulé-wit good evening.

Táˀc sapéin a new Nez Perce word I learned which means glad you came.

First I just want to thank everyone for ending another school year.

This is my third one and I was grateful to go out to the graduations.

I was able to make it to Southlake's graduation Nathan Hale's graduation Ingram's and then also Middle College and it was a proud moment just to stand up there and greet all the graduates and wish them best of luck on their next journey.

So the graduates now as you're either taking that summer vacation before you start your next part of your journey.

Enjoy the summer enjoy.

hopefully what the Seattle schools has been able to provide you.

But I want to take most of my time here to talk about issues that I brought up before here and that's the reestablishment of Indian Heritage High School.

The reasons I want to see how we can do this what direction we can see the Seattle School District going and one acknowledges Seattle and our schools are on Duwamish Coast Salish land and a recent National Education Association publication Native Nations and American schools the history of natives and American education system as published in 2017 they note the languages and cultures of American Indians Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians exist nowhere else on the face of this earth.

and too many indigenous languages are in jeopardy of disappearing altogether.

Policy and resources are needed to restore and preserve indigenous languages and cultures before it's too late.

Another reason allows the community to learn the history of this place because knowing the history from Native perspective of these traditional lands is needed.

And Leila Rorick a Hisquat Native wrote the opportunity to learn the language of the land in which one lives means that a different set of ideas knowledge and wisdom can be shared and proliferated to influence a change in the future.

A different way to organize ideas and approaches to living on this land.

A focus on education that will better the community rather than industry which can cause a loss of intent of education.

A new high school can be focused on bettering community through education.

Indian Heritage High School did have its own CEB code 4 8 1 1 1 1. And yes it did not have 100 percent graduation rate.

But note that many students who chose that school were definitely not going to graduate from the school that they're at.

So anyone that graduated was just one just one student was success.

And in two years all seniors attending Indian Heritage High School graduated from IHS and went on to post-secondary education.

I see Indian Heritage High School coming back as an option school will allow families to opt to attend and also expands access to programs such as the Squatchy that are now currently attendance area schools.

We can partner with the University of Washington which is actually offering courses in Lushootseed language now.

They had their they still have the native ed certification program that's going on this summer for their second year.

I see this as a stopping of displacement the community based data programs remodel facilities in particular it's Robert Eagle Staff Middle School where Clear Sky is being asked to reduce their meetings to once a week.

I see as hopefully expanding native focus schools beyond K through 8. We currently have Licton Springs but that's a school that needs more improvement and support.

Pathfinder is that still a native focused school but I think it's doing a good school but we don't have anything for those students beyond eighth grade.

Identity safety for first people on this land is being inclusive of all people of all backgrounds.

A cultural based education or culturally responsive schooling is needed in Seattle Public Schools.

Native organizations that have come out in support of an Indian focused high school includes the Seattle Indian Health Board the Indians of all tribes Native Action Network and of course Urban Native Education Alliance.

I have another kind of long quote here so if I may.

It can be difficult to differentiate the truth about indigenous knowledge from Western imaginings upon what can be understood from looking at the surface of our cultural beliefs and behaviors.

Western understandings view the metaphysical realm as the end of what can be understood and therefore not useful.

I believe that those who lean away from Western understandings can develop deeper understandings when efforts are made to continually renew and connect to indigenous worldviews especially through connecting language to place in order to reveal indigenous understandings and truths.

I've heard it said that Western religions had their evolutionary beginnings in a type of spirituality similar to that practice by indigenous peoples.

Indigenous spirituality is perceived as a state of disorganization and uncertainty, and by contrast, Western religions are characterized as supreme linear pillars of organization and certainty.

This idea contributes to the Western myth that native peoples are premortal mortal and that our knowledge systems are thusly equivalent or comparable to outdated Western more developed systems.

Instead I see the ancient commonalities between our knowledge systems and theirs knowledge that they each develop under the constant influence of social cultural forces.

Forces across the ages resulting in the development of separate understandings and worldview including the higher degree of importance Indigenous people assigned to drawing understandings from Pacific from specific places.

An immersive extended educational effort is required in order to process understandings in the context of their places of origin.

Indigenous knowledge is not something that can be understood while maintaining an outside perspective.

They can only imagine from a look at the surface of indigenous cultural beliefs.

This again from Laila Rorick Hisquat from her paper At Home of Our Ancestors.

I want to end this with another quote in that if we can show our support for Indian heritage high school to be reestablished will it solve our graduation rates for our native students.

No Liz Poradovich was noted when she was trying to support the first major anti-discrimination law in the United States up in Alaska.

And she's responding to one senator who is questioning you know why do we need this law.

And she's to answer do we believe the passage of this bill or for us the passage of something that was supporting Indian Heritage High School will eliminate the disparities.

Well have we eliminated other things that we have rules against you know they have laws against larceny against murder.

No we haven't eliminated those with laws but it shows our values.

So no law will eliminate crime but at least us as board members can assert to the world that we recognize the present situation and speak our intent to help us overcome.

What.

How do I put that.

Our intent to address the needs of our underserved population in particular than American Indians Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.

Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.

Thank you Director Pinkham.

Director Patu.

I would just like to.

congratulate Rainier Beach High School Franklin Cleveland and interagency for a wonderful graduation ceremony.

I think it's always a motivation when we're seeing so many young people graduating out of their various schools and just seeing their faces and knowing that you know it's the next step.

What is next.

So I want to congratulate all the teachers and all the the administration who actually made it possible for those graduations.

It was well done and it was wonderful to see the smiles on every student's face that actually was walking through when they were receiving their diplomas.

So thank you for all the work that you do because without your work and the support that you give our student would not have been able to.

do what they do today.

I believe that a lot of times we forget to thank our teachers and those who run our schools because we realize that it's not an easy job to do.

But when you have someone who actually is watching over our kids and make sure that they're getting what they need in order for them to move to the next level.

I think that's something that that is appreciated and I really want to say thank you to all the teachers and all the principals for a job well done.

And we forget to do that a lot.

But I wanted to make sure that I made to actually to mention that today because watching kids walking through graduation and you know it didn't get there just by walking through.

You know there was someone that actually supported them and made sure that they got that education in order for them to be able to walk through that aisle and finally said I've done it.

This is it.

It's time for me to move on to the next level of their life.

So thank you for all the hard work that everyone does in the schools to make sure that all our students receive that education and getting them ready for the next level of their education.

I also wanted to to say.

The graduations were really wonderful.

The way to see all these students actually fell in line and really were excited to move on and to the next phase.

It's always wonderful to go to graduation and see kids smile on their face and know hey I've done it.

And as I have grandchildren and watching them walk through and get their graduate their diplomas.

They'll come back and say we did it.

We finally did it.

And I think for parents we always that's a big plus for all of us to see our kids make it through and knowing that hey we're finally getting rid of them finally moving on to the next level of their life and finding a place where they can actually be able to be who they are.

And so I wanted to say thank you to all the teachers and all the principals.

who's made it happen for all our kids in Seattle Public Schools because without your guidance we don't know where our kids will be today.

And we don't say thank you enough for all the work that you do.

Thank you for the parents for your support and making sure your child is at school on time and making sure they're well fed because we We know that kids that come to school hungry doesn't learn as well as those who are actually who are well fed.

So thank you for your support and I think together we can make or actually produce better and smart kids.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Patu.

Director DeWolf and then Director Geary.

Thank you Director Burke.

I just want to provide a little more more clarity about Director Pinkham's comments too.

We're on the treaty land of the Muckleshoot which the Duwamish is a band within and the Suquamish.

I also first want to say hello to my students family neighbors and community.

I know you're here today for a really important reason and I'm excited to hear more your comments outside of the e-mails.

I want to thank the students the staff and the family excuse me student staff and the principal from Middle College at Seattle University which is an incredible program for our students to earn high school credit and connects those students to enriching experiences by being located on colleges and universities across the city.

I also wanted to just share some gratitude for the Nova High School community and students and staff for inviting me to their graduation as well as the community SPS for allowing me to be a part of the graduation celebration.

And I think to Betty's point or Director Patu's point I know that particularly many of these students at Seattle World School for example are the culmination of prayers.

the culmination of hard work the village that it takes to raise a kid.

And so was really grateful particularly during the week where we're talking about family separation and immigration to be at the school and just to see the pride and the celebration and the excitement of being able to graduate from a Seattle Public School.

and was just really grateful and humbled to be there.

And then just lastly thanks grateful to Dr. Pritchett and Dr. Howard at Garfield and as well as the students and the staff and the community there for having me as part of their graduation celebration.

I was able to attend that graduation at Memorial Stadium which was a whole new experience for me.

Our keynote speaker actually sang and had a whole thing and it was just really exciting.

So I'm just really proud of the Nova High School Seattle World School and Garfield students for graduating last week.

Additionally Director Mack and me as part of our role as city liaison both levy and non levy folks kind of will just be coordinating our meetings together met with our city council partners council member Gonzalez and Johnson talked a little bit about the levy and then just started talking about some of the other work that we want to continue to do together particularly some work around some.

Gun safety and responsibility for example and some other potential ideas that we'll see forthcoming.

Also just wanted to spend a little bit of my this opportunity to.

mentioned to that in the service of creating a work plan as part of my role as a tribal liaison.

I was really grateful to visit with Muckleshoot chairwoman Virginia Cross and her educational team and look forward to building out a work plan over the summer with my colleague Director Pinkham and Superintendent Juneau as well as other community partners.

And then lastly do really just want to reiterate my gratitude to Lisa Love who this weekend with the students GSA's families and Director Harris and myself were able to walk Sunday in solidarity with our LGBT community and the Seattle Pride Parade.

And I have to be very frank I was thankfully was wearing sunglasses but I was crying the whole time because as a young person my school district never walked in the parade and certainly wasn't affirming my identity as a queer person.

So to be able to be on the parade route and students on the at At the edges kind of cheering us on so many of those students I know are from our district and just really excited to see us out there and just to see themselves valued and loved by their school district.

It was really beautiful and I hope and I really encourage all of you to come and join us next year in light of all of the excuse me for bad words.

Bummer stuff that is happening at the national level.

It was really really great to be just there among all that love and community.

So particularly in June when the Supreme Court decisions come down it's a nice time to remember that there's still a lot of love and community in our.

in our city wanted to really call out something that's really alarming and particularly troubling for me.

About a month ago I think on May 25th we passed unanimously a plan for the task force for the facilities master plan.

And I just want to you know I'm so grateful for the work that we are doing here at the district and use this as an opportunity to elevate an issue that I see kind of coming down the pike.

So the task force facilities master plan per the BAR says that we will begin the work with a training on racial equity and I am concerned that the racial equity training is not sufficient and we will not be following the letter of our BAR nor the spirit of our intention around racial equity in our in our district.

So I hope that that is rectified with a more substantial racial equity training.

Next thing I want to mention which I try to mention at every meeting is that there last year we had four thousand two hundred eighty total students who are experiencing homelessness.

Seven hundred and eight of those were unaccompanied.

One hundred and twenty five of those were unsheltered and four hundred and four of those were American Indian Alaska natives.

That would mean that for that 10 percent of those students were.

were native students.

So it is not only an issue about getting our students housed but as a racial justice issue and I hope that we continue to work together with the city and the county and our district on ways to rectify this issue.

And the last thing I wanted to say is just a message to our students and our families especially and our staff and our community at SPS.

We will work hard to let you know and feel cared for safe celebrated and welcome in our district.

We see you and we are here with you in solidarity.

And last week our Supreme Court.

brought down some decisions about a travel ban that made some of our students and our families feel vulnerable and unwelcomed and unseen and unloved.

And I want you to know that at this district we do steadfastly stand in support and service of every student and family in our care.

We have a lot of work to do and I hope that you bring your students back here next year so we can raise some judges some lawyers some people who want to think about these issues with a racial equity lens and just to our students.

You're so loved and welcomed here and we've got to do more work.

So thank you.