School Board Meeting May 3rd, 2017 Pt.1

you

School board meeting.

I am board president Sue Peters to my right is superintendent Dr. Larry Nyland.

May we please have the roll call please.

Director Pinkham.

Here.

Director Patu.

Here.

Director Burke.

Here.

Director Blanford.

Here.

Director Peters.

Here.

Director Geary.

Here.

Director Harris.

Here.

Is that everyone?

All right.

Will you please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which

Director Peters Now I'm going to hand it over to Superintendent Nyland for our recognitions.

Superintendent Nyland All right we have just one recognition tonight due to some scheduling challenges.

We did have the city on the agenda they had a lot going on this afternoon and we had a lot on the agenda so we asked them if we could schedule this at a later date.

We do want to recognize tonight South Seattle College and their 13th year promise scholarship.

I think one of my quotes that I've stolen from somebody long ago is in order to have you work eight years really really hard and then you have instant success.

So Seattle colleges has been working for many many many years diligently and I'm very impressed with the thoughtfulness that they've put into their 13th year scholarship.

And they have a foundation that's been very diligent in raising funds to support our students.

Great program linked directly to our work around students graduating and closing opportunity gaps.

So with that I will introduce James Bush who will say a few things about the program and then introduce our guests from South Seattle College.

Thank you board members and Dr. Nyland for the opportunity to recognize another of our key partners of Seattle Public Schools.

A little background on the 13th year program.

The program began in 2008 at South Seattle Community College where they created a program to support Seattle Public School students from Cleveland high school and help them attain their dream of a college education.

Since then the 13th year has expanded to Chief Sealth High School, Rainier Beach High School and will begin serving West Seattle High School in 2018. Unlike other promise scholarships that guarantee funding for college, the strength of the 13th year program at South Seattle Community College is that in addition to financial support, students also receive a robust level of support for preparing for college through a readiness program.

The program serves diverse SPS graduates of which three out of four are students of color.

24% are African-American, 24% are Asian-American, 15% are Chicano Latino, 17% are white, 1% are native, and 11% self-identify as multiracial.

The success of the 13th year attracted the support of the city which has given South Seattle's college foundation funding to expand the program to one Central Seattle high school and one North Seattle high school through the sister colleges Seattle Central and North Seattle in 2017-18.

I am grateful for South Seattle College's partnership and working to make sure college is attainable for all of our students.

Please join me in welcoming Vice President of student services Rosie Raimondo, Chairman Sapp and Julian Moss assistant director of the 13th year program from South Seattle.

Thank you.

First of all thank you so much for inviting us here.

There it is.

As James shared my name is Rosie Ramona Cherensap, I'm the VP for student services at South and I'm joined by my colleague here.

Moss.

Greetings, Julius Moss, assistant director of the 13th year of the Parma scholarship program.

What we have built at South has really been the seed of our foundation's idea.

It was essentially our fundraising arm, the foundation for our college, that had the idea back in 2007-2008 that they wanted to do something that was going to impact the neighborhood where we sat.

And so they had learned a little bit about this concept of the tipping point.

And the tipping point theory, at least as it applies in higher ed, says that if you can earn 45 credits of college-level work, then your likelihood of achieving a degree and moving on into better-paying career fields was much, much higher.

And so they really locked on that concept.

And together with the concept of promise scholarships really dreamed up what in 2008 was the initial 13th year program.

And you've got a little picture book going around just to give you a visual of the students we've served and the partnerships we've developed.

Early on serving Cleveland at first we learned a lot of lessons.

We learned that money wasn't enough.

We learned that just putting money out in front of students and guaranteeing a full year of college was a great opening to the door but it wasn't enough to keep students there and keep them succeeding.

And so over the years what we developed was also a readiness academy that sought to serve a student at an early point in their senior year, about January, December, January, and then serve them through their first year of college, even over the summer.

We know the concept of summer melts, that's a real thing, we see that all the time with students that express interest in spring don't show up at our doors in the fall.

And so we sought really to assist students with a lot of what were barriers, and honestly barriers that we've created as part of our higher ed system to entry, even in a community college system.

And so over nearly 10 years now, since 2008, we've served over 500 students.

James shared some of the wonderful demographics about who we serve.

That's also, we believe, very much our community of students that we serve.

And it has now developed into this robust program that's attracted the interest of the city.

My colleague here, Julius, can share a little bit more about it.

We're at the point where we're now serving three high schools, we're moving to West Seattle to complete our reach of the four comprehensive high schools in the area, and now we're working with Seattle Central and North Seattle to launch the project at one each of high schools in their regions as well.

And Julius can share a little bit about some of the specific experiences that our students have had as part of the program.

Thank you Rosie.

Our partnership with Seattle Public Schools and our high schools that we serve, the 13th year scholarship program is necessary and we were able to identify how many students were actually graduating from our three high schools that we are currently in.

and project out how many students that we should target.

We felt that the promise to Seattle Public Schools and your students was necessary to ensure that if every last one of the 670 plus students who are potentially graduates of Seattle Public Schools, if they decided to come to Seattle College that we would make a way to make sure that they were accommodated.

The way that we are able to do this is our robust program known as the readiness Academy.

Very briefly and very succinctly the readiness Academy guides the students through the application process of the scholarship as well as our admissions process but also through the cumbersome sometimes financial aid process and that not only includes federal application but also the state application as well.

So that kind of gives you an idea of the dedication that we as a collective organization happen to back the students and to ensure that they do come to our campus.

It culminates into what's known as our summer bridge program.

The summer bridge program is a three day intensive orientation for our students and we use it as a catch all to identify any issues as far as assessment or registration or enrollment that the students may or may not have at the time but it's also used to really kind of galvanize our effort as an organization to congratulate the student on matriculating to college but also to really charge them in understanding what it means to be a South Seattle College student.

Again we were able to capture as many as 380 applicants this go around so we get a robust size number as far as interest is concerned.

What we've kind of collectively wanted to do is through the expansion to increase the numbers of Seattle Public Schools systems graduates coming to Seattle colleges.

couple of things to note, we've been really focused on equity throughout.

We learned early on that it was important to keep doors open, particularly serving dreamer students, and that continues to be important especially in this climate.

We've also found that the numbers that we are serving, those numbers that you see, or that we shared about who our students are, really are more diverse than our general population.

They are reflective of the high schools that we serve and so they are helping us as a college serve our community more equitably and close those equity gaps at least in terms of access.

So it's been a win-win for us to work together.

The partnerships in the high schools have been wonderful.

It has been really important to develop a partnership that fits each building and serves each building in the way that they need and their students need and that their colleagues need.

So that has been kind of a joy in our work as well developing those relationships.

in a special way for each high school.

And now going out to West Seattle is our next go at getting it right so we really look forward to what we are going to be able to accomplish in this next year and in helping central and north expand as well.

So thank you again for acknowledging us, we look forward to a long partnership, another 10 years at least.

Now that our foundation has finished off their campaign, they've exceeded excuse me they have exceeded their goal of their campaign and so now we are able to continue the promise into perpetuity to serve all future graduating classes out of each of the four high schools in the South Seattle region.

So thank you.

Thank you for the awesome work.

Thank you for being here tonight and I would invite the board to come down and congratulate South Seattle College.

One, two, three, shuffle.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three.

Thank you.

Okay unfortunately we do not have a student performance this evening so I will now turn it over to Superintendent Nyland for his comments.

All right thank you.

Well this is definitely a month of celebrations.

Teacher appreciation week, education appreciation week is officially actually the first full week in May which is next week but many of our schools have been celebrating this week.

I think we all remember that one or two or 10 special teachers that we had in our lives that made a difference for us and certainly appreciate our teachers, our educators who make good things happen for our kids every day.

This week was also bus driver appreciation day on May 1st and I guess that was, I don't know if that was, it was certainly doubly appreciated in that there was a lot of good work by many staff members to avoid some of the demonstrations on May 1st and keep everything moving smoothly for schools that week.

So we certainly appreciate our bus drivers every day of the week.

School nutrition employee week is also this week.

Particularly Friday May 5 for school lunch superhero day.

Nurses appreciation week is starting on May 10 and certainly appreciate the work that our nurses do to go above and beyond to address students health and well-being.

And also this month is arts education month and Asian Pacific American heritage month which we will comment on in greater depth at our next board meeting in May.

Tonight I would like to share information on our strategic plan, some of the good news and some of the hot topics.

Way too much information in here so the superintendent presentations and visits are many and lengthy they are on the back table.

and many opportunities for our community to be involved in schools and that list is also on the back table.

Our strategic plan has three goals.

The first one being educational excellence and equity.

We appreciate the work of the African-American male advisory committee.

They have continued to meet every month, sometimes twice a month.

We appreciate the work that Brent Jones and Nika Lemons have done in staffing that work.

They are moving forward with recommendations and we will be having some policy suggestions coming to us soon.

The Seattle schools scholarship fund committee is active and doing good work.

There is a display outside in our foyer outlining people who have contributed to that.

That is coming up here on May 11, must mean that we are getting close to the end of the school year when we get to recognize students from each of our high schools and hear their poignant stories of challenges and opportunities that they are looking forward to.

With that I would invite the president of the Seattle school scholarship fund committee to come talk a little bit about the ceremony and things that are planned.

So thank you very much for the work that I guess happens all year round to make one night possible and make great futures possible for our students.

Good afternoon.

My name is Eleanor Taves and today it gives me great pleasure to speak on behalf of the Seattle schools scholarship fund committee or board of trustees.

One week from tomorrow as you just heard on May 11 we will be celebrating the 42nd annual Seattle school scholarship award ceremony.

In this short, I think you're going to be seeing pictures while I'm talking of last year's ceremony.

Okay in this short presentation I hope to give you a little overview of the history of the fund, our student selection process and our financial challenges.

The Seattle school scholarship fund was established in July 1974 and has been awarding scholarships of varying amounts to graduating students of the Seattle Public Schools ever since.

The amount of the scholarship started at $200 and gradually was increased over the years to the present amount which is $2,500.

The scholarship fund is a subcommittee of the Seattle school board and is currently overseen by 12 extremely dedicated trustees.

The trustee roster is comprised of former school board directors, one current board director, two former principals, a counseling department administrator, a teacher, a former PTSA member, a concerned citizen, and at least two other administrators.

Besides me I believe there are two of our trustees are present today.

One is Kathy Pham who's probably hanging out at the back of the room and the other one is Leslie Harris.

All of our trustees are passionate about meeting the goals of this fund and willingly meet almost once a month year-round.

We are very fortunate to have incredible support from the school board office staff, the financial department and the general counsel staff office.

The students are selected by those who know them best, their teachers and their counselors.

The criteria used to make those selections are as follows.

Number one, the student has had to overcome significant obstacles in order to earn a high school diploma.

Secondly, the student has to demonstrate the ability to succeed in college, community college or technical school.

Third, the student has to hold a minimum GPA of 2.5.

Four, the student has exhibited a recognizable contribution to the community or school.

And finally, the student must graduate with the current graduating class.

Every one of our high schools has the opportunity to select at least one student.

Each comprehensive high school selects two students and noncomprehensive schools each select one student for a total of 26 recipients each year.

Our emphasis is and always has been on the fact that there have been severe obstacles that students had to overcome.

Last week we trustees read the student statements that accompany each selection and it was startling to learn again what these students have dealt with in their young lives.

Homelessness, incarceration, drugs, gangs, violence, deportation, debilitating medical conditions, refugee camps, painful home experiences, and so on.

How they managed to accomplish a high school education let alone survive in the midst of unbelievable trauma in their young lives is nothing short of miraculous.

They write about how in the midst of all this trauma they found they could believe in themselves to surmount the difficulties that lay in their path.

And invariably it is because of the support of individual teachers, counselors, and sometimes family as well.

We know that the amount we award them is not enough.

We also know that other and more obstacles will appear on the horizon.

But we hope these scholarships give them the courage to continue and will get them started on the path to more education or training that will allow them to become fulfilled citizens.

We always wish we could give more.

However we are limited by established guidelines to giving and the amount we give will increase in the future as our fund balance grows.

The fund balance currently stands at a little over $733,000.

The scholarship fund relies primarily on donations and bequests.

This year alone the fund received a bequest of approximately $220,000 from one of our recently deceased ever so faithful trustees, Phil Conkle, former teacher at Franklin and longtime member of these trustees.

And recently the Seattle school retirees Association raised its annual donation to $10,000 annually.

We make sure donors know that A, every penny of a donation goes into the fund and B, all donations are tax deductible.

Now you've seen this wall in the lobby back there with a lot of names.

I'm going to explain that now.

Donations to honor someone, for example someone who is retiring, or donations to memorialize someone who has passed away, all of these can be recognized on the wall of panels in the lobby of this building.

Currently we have set a goal of a $500 minimum donation as requirement to have a name or names added to the wall.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell you a little about the Seattle school scholarship fund.

And please come to our award ceremony next week where you can meet the students, talk to them one-on-one, meet their parents, their families, and you can hear about their future plans.

You will marvel.

It is truly, and I think Leslie Harris can agree with me, it is truly one of the high points of the year for all of us.

Hope to see you there.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for the great work.

Tonight we want to hear from Maple elementary school.

We've been hearing from our positive outliers and each year we have a few more learning from each other and doing the hard work needed to close opportunity gaps and make good things happen for our students.

I had the opportunity earlier today to be in Auburn and OSPI recognized 23 of our schools for achievement awards.

And tonight we are going to hear some of the great things that Maple has been doing that make a difference for their students.

So with that I will introduce Kelly Aramaki the executive director for Maple.

All right good evening Kelly Aramaki executive director Southeast region.

It is a privilege to introduce Maple Elementary.

Back when I was a principal the gold standard that Southeast schools aim to be like was Maple Elementary.

At that time it was Maple and Mercer that were leading the work around building strong systems strong interventions positive relationships with students and building this culture of learning.

And when you walk through Maple you can sense that in the open concept spaces and in the classrooms.

They've received numerous state awards for their work over the past 10 years.

Maple continues to be a beacon on the hill and a leader in closing opportunity gaps.

It's a pleasure to introduce the principal, Ms. Elena Sanchez.

She has been at Maple since 2006. She's been educating kids and leading as a teacher, then as an assistant principal and now principal.

creating lots of continuity and continuing the innovation.

As you'll hear she and her inspiring team of teachers and staff are continuing to lead in our district's work to close gaps.

Ms. Sanchez.

Sanchez- Hi thank you so much for inviting us tonight.

I'll be presenting along with our third grade teacher Maria Herman and one of our first grade teachers Liberty Spanik.

Thanks.

So starting with what makes our school special, that would be our students and our staff.

This graphic shows the races, ethnicities that comprise our school and you will see that we are a richly diverse school representing the many cultures that abound in our city.

Other highlights, statistics to note, we have about 39% of our students qualify for ELL.

This year's current kindergarten class 46% of them are ELL students.

So a lot of our students are coming from families where their home language is not English and so our teachers are skilled in working with students who are learning the language.

And you will see also that currently 19% of our students were previously ELL students so they have exited from the program during their time in elementary school.

61% of our students qualify for free and reduced lunch and about 11% of our students receive special ed services.

As Kelly said I've been at the school, I'm going into my 11th year as a teacher and as an administrator.

And something that I can say is that our best practices are really grounded in the teaming and collaboration that happened at our school.

That's something when we have people come in to interview with our teams they ask often what makes Maple special and it's the people that work there but also how they work together.

We don't have time for adult drama when we are focused on the important work that we have to do and I feel like our staff is really dedicated, committed to these kids that we work with.

We've also, I hear from people downtown like why do you have such strong tier one instruction?

Well it's part of that collaboration, our teachers are driven to work together, they also are committed to professional development and becoming stronger.

really skilled at how they differentiate for all students within the classroom.

You'll also see some other bullet points here, our shared data tracking tool, since I've been at Maple we've really been focused on data, we've become better and better at gathering data and our process of using data, data-driven instruction is evolving every year.

So one of the best practices or the best practice that we are highlighting tonight is our collaborative work in PLCs.

We call them student growth focus groups, so historically at Maple we've had professional learning communities, I've called them teacher interest groups.

So teachers meeting together to dive deeper into something that interests them or that impacts their practice.

My assistant principal and I over the last couple of years have talked about how do we do the real PLC work of looking at data and using that to inform instruction.

We grounded it in the student growth goals that our staff sets in the fall.

Historically those haven't been living goals at Maple so it's something that was set in the fall.

We'd revisit come spring and look at the growth.

So with student growth focus groups we're looking at that goal many times throughout the year and monitoring student progress towards meeting those goals, making adjustments when we notice that students are not getting close to the goals.

With that, this is kind of our timeline and our process of setting the goals in the fall, and then revisiting them three or four times throughout the year in teams, looking at a piece of student work or an assessment, then determining, noticing the students who need more intervention, developing those interventions, and then putting them in place for five to six weeks, and then checking the student progress.

And with that I will turn it over to our teachers to explain what this process looked like for their team.

So the first grade team picked the first strategy in November we looked at how many students were at or above standard for that time of year in reading in their independent reading levels and then we looked at how many students were approaching and below the standard for that time of year.

And our first strategy that we picked to intervene across the grade level was practicing sight words.

So our commitment was to have an adult practice sight words with the ELL students who were not at current grade level standard in their independent reading levels a minimum of three times a week.

And of course we were also continuing to talk about what kinds of reading groups they were in and those groupings were fluid throughout the time.

In January we saw significant improvement and we looked at it for what was current reading level at that time of year.

So where November the current standard was EF.

for reading at grade level January it was FG and as we get closer now we are at H and by the end of the year IJ.

So our second strategy we decided to work on was word families.

So we continued strategy one with the children who were still below grade level but we added working with word families and reviewing those lists a minimum of two times a week in small groups.

In March when we met there were fewer and fewer students below grade level so we've added another strategy.

So we continue to practice sight words with a handful of students who still don't have them all mastered.

That's only nine for the whole grade level of ELL students.

And we continue to use word families.

Now we've added having students who are still below grade level do individual reading out loud with us and then practicing their retail because we're finding that to be at that age level they've got the sight words now in place.

They know a lot of the phonemics and phonics strategies and they are getting support with that in their reading groups still.

But what they are now needing to get to that next level is those retail strategies and being able to read fluently.

So I teach third grade and our process obviously looks somewhat different from the first grade team.

But we start with the assessments that are already built into our curriculum.

The past few years we have been using the engage New York literacy curriculum and taking those assessments and then focusing on our subset group which is English language learners.

And in each assessment though there is a variety of learning targets.

So this is just an example of one assessment and you can see this student they are doing fine with key details at grade level with using context clues when it comes to Determining the meaning of unknown words but this student really needs to focus on providing evidence to answer questions about the text and giving more evidence.

So you know we look at the data for each student in our subset group and determine okay this is this child's greatest area of need.

And then as a team we meet together and figure out what our groups will look like.

And this is after each assessment.

So all three classroom teachers have a group, an intervention group, the English language learner teacher has an intervention group and our bilingual IA's that are available have intervention groups and we just take one literacy block from the week to meet with these groups and focus on for the student it would be using text evidence to answer questions.

And we repeat that for four to six weeks, give a small assessment at the end, and then we go through the process all over again.

So we're really seeing this student has mastered these areas that they've already received intervention in, this is the next direction that we need to go to help that student continue to increase their reading level and use comprehension strategies with higher level text.

So this graph shows the progress that we've made.

The first set is November and the gray line is how many students were below grade level for that time of year.

Yellow is approaching grade level and the tannish color, olive color is how many were at or above reading standard for that time of year.

And you can see how the percentages increase pretty dramatically especially how many were below dropped significantly in January.

It dropped again in March and now we see quite a spike in March of how many are at or above grade level in reading.

And then we just checked them May 1 a little bit early so that we could have your current data for you.

But we have about 18% of the students that are ELL students in grade one now below grade level in reading.

That's nine students.

And of those nine students, three have been recently put on academic IEPs, four of them have been addressed through the student intervention teams and have individual strategies in place to meet their needs.

Whether that be some sort of a behavior chart or other specialists that are coming in and working with needs that are getting in the way of their learning.

We are at about 58% of the students that are at or above reading level at this time.

All of us in first grade have personal teacher growth goals, professional growth goals that are between 70 and 90% so we are still going to be working for the next seven or eight weeks to get those numbers up.

And for the third grade data the biggest shift that I see is we went from having seven students who were approaching and below grade level in the fall to having four.

So we've moved students towards meeting moved three additional students into exceeding.

And again as Liberty addressed the students that are still far below we really have looked deeply at those students to figure out why you know they are making growth why are they not making as much growth as we'd like to see?

And you know one of the students who is now far below is new to our school in January, another is very new to the United States and is making a lot of growth but still far behind third grade reading level and then two others one had an IEP at the beginning of the year and the other one we've been tracking that intervention all along and now has an IEP so addressing those individual needs for the students that are not meeting or exceeding but outside of those four students we are on track to have the rest of our third grade English language learners on grade level or above by the end of the year which is very exciting.

Great so hopefully you can see how this process is then impacting the growth of students but also how we can then really target students who we see aren't making the progress that we would like to see.

I was told that we could also kind of give an ask of the board.

And so I just wanted to share, as I said I have a history at Maple, over the last five years our enrollment has grown tremendously and Kelly has heard me talk about this often.

We are bursting at the seams and so I saw a list of schools that have over 500 students We are one of 14 elementary schools in the district, we are the only one in the Southeast and we are one of two title schools on that list.

And so just continuing to support us and staff us and possibly look at what the boundaries look like in Southeast Seattle to help our enrollment crisis.

So thank you for that.

Finally we talk a lot about our students and as a proud principal that is a highlight but I also want to acknowledge our staff who I get teary when I talk about them but they work tremendously hard.

So there's a few of them here I'd like them to stand up.

And be acknowledged for their hard work.

Again thanks for inviting us.

Thank you.

Thank you for the great work and for your presentation.

We will write the board down and congratulate you and give you the plaque that we have for you.

One, two, three.

Couple, one, two, three.

A little closer, one, two, three.

One more, one, two, three.

Thank you.

All right thank you again.

Goal 2 is improving systems and that's been, we've been consumed by the budget so we now have a budget that recognizes a $50 million budget shortfall.

And thanks to the legislators work to put off most of the levee cliff we were able to do restoration 1.0 and 2.0 and restore 200 of the school-based positions.

And then last week the board met and talked about K5 reading language arts adoption and agreed that we would earmark any future restorations from the legislature for that adoption.

So based on that we will be moving forward with purchase.

of the materials.

We had to order them by May 1st in order to have them here for the start of the school year and that will allow us to do the professional development and have the materials on hand for the start of the school year.

So thank you to the board for doing that and for allowing us to move forward with that adoption.

Third goal is school family and community engagement and I might mention just two of those items.

The ethnic studies task force is coming together.

We've had 105 applications so far.

And that task force will be starting their work later in May.

And the curriculum and assessment staff have been gathering information on what we are doing internally.

We have a lot of places that are doing exciting things internally to the district.

And we are looking at the research from other districts and some of the research studies that have been done on ethnic studies which are promising.

So that work will be moving forward.

Also, underway is the website refresh and that's been work that Director Harris has been doing with our community engagement team.

Meeting with our task force, getting ideas, and then making those updates.

And we've been kind of going through a testing phase to find out how easy it is to find things on the website and trying to make it easier to use.

So a lot of good news.

We heard earlier Washington achievement awards.

I don't know there's 200 and some recognized schools across the state and we had 23 of them so far more than our proportional share.

Thanks to the good work by our teachers and principals.

World champions, I think we will bring them to a meeting here soon.

Ballard robotics team, the Viking robotics team, won one of two world championship events for high school robotics.

So that's huge.

It's a really exciting opportunity for students to apply skills and sometimes work 24-7 to figure out how to make all of those things work.

How to work cooperatively and they just learn all kinds of great life skills so congratulations to Ballard.

BF Day elementary school marked their 125th anniversary so congratulations to them.

Upcoming the Naramore arts ceremony will be held on May 5 and a lot of our student work is on display at the Seattle art museum.

Director Blanford will be doing the keynote for that event.

So great opportunity to see great work that the kids have been doing.

Yep, Earth Day, schools are busy celebrating that.

Washington Association of Educational Office Professionals, way up, had their conference this last week.

And Robin Mallory from DOTS was installed as the association president statewide.

So congratulations to Robin.

Stevens Elementary won a conservation award, a green medal award.

And one of our coordinator and outreach worker with Rainier Beach action coalition working with Rainier Beach high school students was named the gold alumnus of the year by Seattle Pacific University.

So hot topics, we are in the process of making plans to reopen Magnolia Elementary which means that we have to have boundaries to figure out where students will come from for that particular school.

And that has an impact for schools on Magnolia as well as for schools on Queen Anne.

So we've been having a series of cascading meetings from kind of one school attendance area to the next and earlier in the week there was a meeting with representatives from I believe all of those school communities and we had several of our board directors there as well.

So thank you for the community input in trying to figure out how we will put those boundaries together.

And then waitlist has been a little bit of a more interest and concern about waitlist this year than we have had in previous years and I think part of that is due to the fact that Although we brought back 200 staff members that were positions that were scheduled for being reduced for the budget, we still are short about 50 positions.

So that means roughly that every other school is short a staff member over what they currently have in their building.

And so I know that Stevens is here tonight, I was at Stevens PTA recently talking with them.

We've had meetings with other school staff as well.

And so at this point in time I would invite Dr. Herndon to come to the podium, I don't know who is joining him, JoLynn maybe, Berge our assistant superintendent for finance to talk a little bit about the waitlist process.

and how it works and what we try to achieve through the waitlist process.

Flip Herndon associate superintendent for facilities and operations.

JoLynn Berge assistant superintendent for business and finance.

So I'll talk briefly to add a little bit more detail as to what Dr. Nyland has referred to already for our waitlist.

So our waitlist process is something that we go through every year.

It happens after we get the results of our open enrollment process which starts in the middle of February and goes to the end of February and then we start to look at all the data about where students and families would like to attend outside of their attendance area school.

So there are a couple of factors that we look at for waitlist moves.

Number one is capacity of the building.

Is there space within the building?

Two on the capacity pieces are really given the staffing allocation that is currently allocated to the building, is there room within the staffing allocation to move additional students?

Being mindful of the budgetary and staffing impacts.

And then three is, is there an equitable impact that is being placed upon a school or schools?

So in that we look at where the students are coming from and where they are going.

Our experience in the past has been waitlist has not been a mechanism for trying to retain staff.

We get that often.

Every year about this time we do get several parents, families, principals who call and contact us because they are concerned about losing staff members.

I totally understand that.

It's a challenge when your staffing allocation is less than what it was before.

But in our case we are looking at also when you are making a waitlist move that means you have students moving from one building to another.

and we have not really done that to take staff from one building to go to another.

Because sometimes that is what happens depending on the number of students who are moving.

So this is a multi-departmental endeavor that we look at.

The enrollment planning department does the projections, the admissions department takes all the applications, and then we have conversations with the budget department, the teaching and learning side, and human resources to understand what the implications are for what the moves might look like.

So this afternoon shortly before the board meeting I sent a document to board directors that you could see as some examples of what we are looking at so that you can see what the possible impacts are.

So with every move there is always some sort of impact.

Secondary level are sometimes fractions of an FTE but at the elementary level it's usually full portions of an FTE because we don't very rarely do fractions other than maybe a half if it's a classroom support model.

So that's what it looks like on some of those machinations.

I'll have JoLynn comment a little bit about budget implications.

I think like Flip was saying there is a sending and a receiving school and that can have impacts on both schools.

So we are looking at how staffing is being deployed and then what impact it would have on both the sending and the receiving schools as well as what budget impact it would have as far as net staffing gains or losses.

Director Burke any questions for them while they are here?

All right thanks very much.

Last item that I would mention is bell times.

So the city announced last Monday a week ago that they would be I am optimistically seeking the $2.3 million that we need to move from three-tier busing to two-tier busing.

Director Patu and Director Peters were on hand to along with myself to express our appreciation for that effort.

I believe that the city Council was meeting tonight or soon to take that up under consideration.

The board earlier in January as part of the approval of the transportation standards did say as part of the bar that we would if we were successful in finding funding that we would move to a two-tier system and set the times of 8 AM and 9 AM.

Since that time we have heard I guess two things, we have heard mainly from high schools saying that that makes a really late getting out time for them and compounded by athletic events.

And so Dr. Herndon and Pegi McEvoy have met last week with high school principals to talk about what possible alternatives might be there.

And then we've had quite a few comments from people who are in tier 3. saying well thank you very much but I didn't want to be moved to I think most of them are tier one so that represents a pretty wide swing.

And our challenge of course is whether it's two-tier or three-tier we need roughly the same number of schools in each tier in order to make good use of bus drivers and buses so that we can deliver one set of students to school.

turn around and deliver another set of students to school in a timely way.

So we will be bringing that bar forward to the board for review over the next few weeks.

City Council will be working their process through whatever they have to go through.

hopefully with good news saying that those funds will be available to us and will continue to work with high school administration to figure out if there are any alternatives when we bring that bar forward to the board.

Concludes my remarks.

Peters Thank you Superintendent Nyland.

So we are expecting a student representative this evening to join us.

Does anybody know if she has arrived yet?

Okay then I would like to welcome our student representative.

Cielo Martinez, thank you.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about her, she is from Seattle world school and she is a junior and during her time at Seattle world school she has participated in many leadership activities and is currently the ASB vice president.

As a graphic artist Cielo continually brings creative ideas to every task that she is involved in.

Throughout the years she has exhibited a great understanding of different cultures and practices inclusivity in all that she does.

Her leadership skills inspire new students to become leaders.

She also shows school pride and encourages others to do so.

So I welcome her to the board meeting and invite her to offer some comments for us tonight.

I'm just going to, hello everyone.

First I just want to say that I am glad to be here today.

And I'm just going to talk a little bit about our school.

So our school is a newcomers, a middle school and high school students and we are, we have a lot of programs, not many programs as other regular high school does but we would like to talk more with people about our students because our school is really small but we have a lot of students most of them I mean all of them are immigrants who are coming from different countries but what I like since I got here from Seattle Ward school is that our teachers, principal and other students can show you confidence and they treat you as you were part of a family.

Like they treat you as like you didn't leave your country.

So if you guys have any questions you can talk with me and I will give you more information about our school.

Thank you.

Peters Thank you very much.

And so you are welcome to stay with us for the rest of the meeting.

And then after the public comments if you want to speak again to any of the comments that we heard tonight you're certainly welcome to do so.

Thank you.

We have now reached the consent portion of tonight's agenda.

May I have a motion for the consent agenda?

I move we approve the consent agenda.

I second the motion.

The approval of the consent agenda has been moved and seconded.

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

Director Burke.

I would like to remove item 3 and item 5 from the consent agenda.

Peters do I need a second for that?

Okay then items 3 and 5 are now removed from the consent agenda so do I hear a motion for the amended consent agenda?

All in favor of the amended agenda say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

Director Burke would you like to speak to those two items?

Director Burke beginning with item number three, let me just flip to that.

This is a software agreement renewal which has had a change since introduction and I asked that it could be removed so that staff could briefly describe what has changed from introduction to now since it's on the consent agenda.

Good evening John Kroll chief information officer.

Yes between introduction and today the winning bidder rescinded their bid and despite purchasing effort to keep them to hold on to keep the bid they couldn't do it so we had to go with the second highest bidder.

Burke is there any type of legal obligation to bidders when they submit a bid or is that something where they are able to essentially rescind their bid within some time period or something before it is approved?

Best.

Generally they are held to their bid but from what I understand from purchasing and finance is it's not worth taking them to court to follow through on their bid.

And it was easier especially in this case with a known bidder that was really close in price to go with that one.

Thanks I appreciate the explanation.

Director Blanford.

Is there any substantive difference between bidder A and bidder B?

First and then secondly is the bid substantially different in price?

It was first on the price it was very small for the price of the bid about $8,000.

$7,222 for the year on a $300,000 contract.

so not much and the bid, the first bidder that had won on the lowest price was not as well known as the second bidder and the second bidder has a good reputation well known for over 20 years in the industry.

Director Blanford as the chair of the operations committee can you also speak to the recommendation that the committee made for this item?

I believe this one was heard on the 16th of March and moved forward for consideration.

Thank you very much.

Are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Okay seeing none, Ms. Shek the roll call on this item please.

Director Blanford.

Director Burke aye Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Peters aye This motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

So the other item is item five and that is the contract for new library collections for Edmund S. Meany Middle School, Robert Eagle Staff Middle School, Cedar Park Elementary, Olympic Hills Elementary School, Decatur Elementary, and Licton Springs K8.

May I hear from the chair of the curriculum and instruction committee?

Burke this was brought forward for C&I April 3 for consideration and if I could to just describe why the request to remove it from the consent agenda.

There was some feedback from the community looking for clarification around maintaining aspects of the current collection and I just believe staff has some clarification for that that applies not just to that community but to any community that would be interested and so I appreciate Eric Caldwell clarifying that for us.

Absolutely.

Eric Caldwell, manager of library services and instructional technology.

So there are three changes since introduction.

One was the actual inclusion of the purchase order which is now the first attachment.

Vendor process had been finalized and so a vendor had been proposed to fall at school solutions incorporated.

The other component was clarification of whether or not students or schools at their discretion can keep parts of their existing collection.

And that's always been our policy.

So in past practice, and in fact that came up in the last introduction in questions, and what would happen to those collections.

And I said appropriate materials can of course be kept and moved.

And so we've done that in the past.

There have been special collections for various reasons.

memorial collections that have been kept and moved to the new locations.

So when we were talking about a complete replacement of the library we were talking about the scope of the actual project, not a you can't bring any books along with you at all.

So having that amendment or the clarifying language is helpful to that community, they are concerned that all the effort they put into buying materials for the school would not be And that's not the case.

We really appreciate all the efforts that parents and communities take to build our collections and support that.

The third piece was just a mistake on my part in terms of the planning capacity for Licton Springs.

The board has clearly stated that the planning capacity was 250 and I listed it as 200 so we just corrected that piece.

Peters Thank you.

Are there any other questions or comments about this item?

Director Harris.

Yeah I just want to say thank you for the clarification and a shout out to John Chapman at Licton Springs K-8 who brought this issue to our attention so that we could clarify the bar that is posted and published to yourself Mr. Caldwell to Dr. Kinoshita to Mr. Van Duzer who did the clarifying this morning in fact.

It was a team effort and it was really nimble and elegant.

Thank you.

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

Director Geary aye Director Harris aye Director Patu aye Director Pinkham aye Director Burke aye Director Blanford aye Director Peters aye this motion has passed unanimously.

Thank you.

So we have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but it's not yet 530 so we have a few minutes here for directors to begin their comments now and they can continue their comments after we hear from the public.

So are there any directors?

Director Patu thank you.

Thank you.

I actually want to give a shout out and a congratulation to Gerald Smiley and his Rainier Beach baseball team who have won enough games to make it to the playoff this year.

Rainier Beach has not had a great baseball team for a long time.

So I really want to thank Gerald Smiley who is the coach for this particular team who really came in raise funds for the team and really train them to be really looking like professional players.

I've been at two games and very impressed and I also wanted to say my colleague Clover Codd who has been faithful who was there at almost every game whether it was freezing or not she was still there and I wanted to congratulate her for always being a very faithful fan of the Rainier Beach baseball team.

These kids you know deserve it.

They actually I've never been to a baseball game actually at least a high school one but this one actually was kind of amazing because they were all good hitters and they played a good game so I want to say congratulations Gerald Smiley who is here tonight.

Thank you for giving our kids an opportunity to be the best that they can be.

And I also want to congratulate Maple Elementary School for their success.

It's amazing it's always amazing when I see Southeast making it to these various awards because of all the work that they continue to do to make things better for all our kids.

I always believe that if we're going to close the achievement gap we need to look at the Southeast and be able to really look at how do we are able to provide Stronger and better education for all our kids at the southeast because every one of those students deserve to be successful and just amazing what the principals and all the teachers are doing to bring about the changes for all our schools.

And also wanted to welcome and congratulate our student representative here tonight.

I want to make sure I don't pronounce her name wrong.

Ciela Martinez from world school.

We want to welcome you and appreciate you being here with us and it's always amazing to see different students coming in and being able to tell us about what's happening at your school.

So thank you.

I wanted to also say I have a community meeting coming up on May 27 from 10 to 1130 at Rock Contour and they make good food so my meetings are usually on Saturday mornings so anyone who would like to come and usually at the board meeting you don't have enough time to tell us everything that you want to tell us so these meetings actually give you an opportunity to just come and just tell us whatever it is that you want to tell us and share with us.

either complaints or positives, you are welcome to come and join us at our meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you Director Patu.

Director Harris.

Thank you.

Thank you to South Seattle College District 6. And they have done an extraordinary job as have their board of directors and their foundation in raising so much money.

I'm sorry we didn't have President Orting here because he's been a big supporter of 13th year and he and associate superintendent Tolley have been meeting fairly regularly in our quest to get middle college high school back at South Seattle.

We are not there yet.

but they haven't said no yet and that's a good thing.

That's just huge.

Ms. Martinez welcome it's good to have you here I hope you can listen up and ask questions after public testimony.

Thank you.

The scholarship committee, Eleanor is a force of nature as are many of the folks on the scholarship committee.

Phil Conkle will be hugely missed, the retired teachers Association upping their grant and if you can come next May 11 to this celebration please do.

It will keep you going for a year without question.

These young people have been through so very very much and they have succeeded and strived and some of their personal stories that talk about their counselors and their teachers is just so inspiring and so heartwarming and it absolutely validates all the good work that is done here and at our schools and by our community volunteers and partners.

Again it will keep you going for a year.

It is stunningly wonderful.

Thank you to Maple Elementary.

Having these presentations by the outlier schools is A great lesson to everyone else, we talk a lot about replicating that which we can, and spreading successful practices and big believer in that.

Oregon this last week in Ed Week said that they were going to drop the SBAC test for high schools.

which I think some of us are going to be watching very closely.

They are going to substitute it with another nationally normed test.

So we will stay tuned to that because as folks are aware we have an assessment policy that is presently being drafted with our colleagues at SEA and these are important issues.

We hear you.

We hear you about the waitlist.

and only if it were so easy to be able to grant all your wishes and they didn't have financial consequences to each and every one of those waitlist moves.

I know that my colleagues here on the dais are watching this very carefully, are asking for information, I appreciate that there are public disclosure requests that are very detailed that are out there that have been promised by May 17. Because we have a number of community volunteers that are extraordinarily bright at least one that we will hear from tonight in public testimony.

And the student assignment transition plan is clear as mud.

So it will be interesting to see how all that works together but please know that no one here has ill intent.

And if you have questions please ask them.

Please ask them nicely if you would please.

And tell us who you are and your context that helps us as well to prioritize responses etc.

With respect to Magnolia Queen Anne boundary changes.

Monday night was an extraordinary turnout.

Flip Herndon, Ashley Davies, RJ did a great job of presenting.

We probably had I don't know 150 folks there Mr. Burke?

Two or three hundred says President Peters who was there as well as Director Burke.

The tone was elegant and appreciated in its elegance.

Keep writing us but would ask that when you write us about these issues you tell us who you are, which school community you come from, what grades your children are in so we have context and if you could please not throw other school communities under the bus in order to get what you need for your school community we will all be a lot happier.

I very well recall what happened during the school closure wars when folks were pitted against each other and I lost some very good friends and it still hurts.

And small communities we have to grocery shop together, our kids are going to go together to middle schools.

and we are supposed to model good behavior so anything you can do on that hugely appreciated.

If you are going to send us statistics and bar charts could you please give us the citations and the bases for that information and please sign them because anonymous doesn't let us do our good fiduciary work.

It doesn't let us do due diligence.

Harris I am hoping for May 20 at the West Seattle library at 3 o'clock for my community meeting.

Still has not been finalized I am wrestling with the new electronic library scheduling.

and I think I'll probably just go there in person.

We have good meetings, we have rich discussion, and we discuss controversial issues with respect.

We usually have treats and it's a good time.

Please do come.

We also hear you on personnel issues.

and it's extraordinarily frustrating not to be able to shoot back with what we know.

Because we have a duty to protect people's due process rights, their privacy rights, the collective bargaining rights, and And it again is very difficult so when you write us on personnel issues and or complaints, A would love to hear what your suggestions are, B would love you to copy our executive directors as well, and would like you to put in a subject line personally identifiable information.

So your business doesn't end up on the street and a staff members business doesn't end up on the street.

There are some fairly complicated appeal rights etc so it doesn't happen as quickly as one might think.

It seems so cut and dried sometimes.

But you know these are people that are working hard and we want to respect those rights.

The Garfield football issue falls under the same category.

The district has hired an independent investigator, a highly respected attorney here in town, and please know that the district self-reported to WIAA as soon as this was brought to the district's attention.

And no we can't talk about it because again due process rights matter and we are again speaking about a number of young people's futures here.

So stay tuned and have a little trust in the ethics of the folks in this room and on the dais.

The Fauntleroy elementary school which has been sold as folks know to the Fauntleroy community Association will be having their centennial celebration Sunday May 21 at 1130 AM.

So if you know any Fauntleroy alumna they've got a Facebook page and it should be a very very good time.

Last my usual update with respect to the McCleary fines.

$100,000 a day as ordered by the Washington state Supreme Court against the legislature who has not seen fit to open an escrow account nor even to frankly acknowledge it is $62.9 million.

is the pregnant pause to let that sink in.

In any event it is my pleasure and my honor to serve with the folks in this room and I thank you.

Thank you Director Harris.

So we have now reached the public testimony portion of our evening.

The rules for public testimony are on the screen and I would ask that speakers be respectful of these rules.

I would note that the board does not take public comments on items related to personnel or individually named staff.

I would also like to note that each speaker has a two minute speaking time.

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

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

Thank you.

First up we have Gustavo Alfaro followed by Hani Ahmed and Fokina Keo.

So hello my name is Gustavo Alfaro I am from El Salvador.

I came to the USA when I was 13 years old.

When I arrived to the US I was on sixth grade so I never had a chance to finish it in El Salvador.

When I got here I didn't know how the system worked.

After two months I figured out how it worked and I went to Seattle public school family center to enroll.

When they give me the English test I got 0% because the only thing I knew was children alphabet songs that I learned from friends.

In El Salvador you start learning English in eighth and ninth grade.

I'm very proud to be a part of Seattle world school.

For the students Seattle world school is really important because most of us feel like a family.

We are always there for each other and we work together on academics and school leadership.

This year I have had the opportunity to be president of the association student body.

I'm here with my colleague Cielo who is the vice president.

Our school helps newcomers learn English and it has a very welcoming environment.

My first day of school was really strange for me.

I thought that everybody only speak English.

But many of the teachers and the other staff speak many languages and they and the students help me to understand everything.

I'm a person that enjoys helping other people so I started translating for other students when I had been here for only three months.

Now that I speak English well I work as an interpreter and I recently passed the SBAC test.

After I graduate from Seattle world school next year I plan to go to Shoreline College to study auto mechanics.

I'm very proud to be a part of Seattle world school family.

The Seattle school district as a state that has been so strong in the support of immigration of immigrants and refugee students.

And I'm really thankful to be here and to give us the opportunity to be just standing here.

Thank you so much.

Good evening school board members.

My name is Honey Ahmed and I'm here to talk about the Rainier Beach high school renovation.

Specifically the total BEX BTA capital spending and SPS in each region.

Now as you can see from this poster, The highest percentage the highest percentage is in the north region with 37% of capital spending from previous BEX and BTA levies.

While the southeast region has received a total of 23% of BEX BTA capital levy.

Only a small part of that spending actually goes toward improving Rainier Beach high school.

Rainier Beach in received The performing arts Center which was $6.1 million in BEX I. In BEX II they renovated the CTE Center which is $500,000 meaning the district spent about $6.6 million.

For BTA I from 1999 to 2003 they replaced gym athletics scoreboard, Wi-Fi network, accelerated technology improvement program, seismic fire alarm system, arts and sciences.

In 2005 title IX upgrade, locker room girls, modernization, energy efficiency upgrades.

Unfortunately, they do not have the dollar amount attached to these items.

In 2006 they did a waterline remediation.

In 2007 they did a waterline upgrade phase two.

In 2008 they did a HS improvements.

In 2009 the third and final phase of hot and cold waterline replacement at Rainier Beach brought the remaining potable water lines up to current Seattle Public Schools water quality policy standards.

And 2012 replacement boiler burners to improve, they replaced the boiler burners to improve energy efficiency.

In 2012 they modernized four science classrooms built out skill center and of course the library.

Capital planning staff modernized only four science classrooms, why not all classrooms?

Unfortunately they do not have dollar amounts.

I also find it interesting that Rainier Beach high school was included in BEX III but only 25% of the funding came from BEX while 75% came from BTA.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to conclude your remarks.

You can certainly send your entire comments to us as an email to follow up if you'd like.

Thank you so much.

Shek Fokina Kiyo.

Following Fokina will be Chris Jackins and Emily Lieberman.

Good evening school board members my name is Sokina and I'm a student at Rainier Beach high school here to talk about our much-needed renovation.

Again.

On April 20th administration students and faculty met with the people in charge of capital projects and planning.

While we are happy to see that our advocacy has resulted in our school building receiving more attention from the district we want to reiterate that we do not want that we do not want a piecemeal renovation.

The capital projects and planning team have suggested that small renovations must come first and then the big renovations will come.

We want to make it clear that after small renovations have taken place Rainier Beach high school should not and will not be placed on the bottom of the school district priority list.

We remind our school board members and the staff at capital projects and planning that Rainier Beach high school needs a full renovation and needs to not be at the bottom of your priority list.

And to that I would like to cede a minute to my peers.

Thank you.

Good evening school board members my name is Kealani Tinitalli and I'm a senior at Rainier Beach high school.

I'm here to talk about inequality in capital projects and planning.

What I've given you is a list of BEX 1, 2 and 3 schools.

BEX 4 is not included because it's still happening.

Nonetheless it's not surprising that Rainier Beach high school is not on BEX 4. Now if you haven't noticed yourself I'd point out that the most if not the major high schools we have received modernization, complete renovations or new buildings and additions.

I will name some of the lists of the list.

Nathan Hill spring 2011 modernization, Ingram winter 2011 or 2010 new addition.

South slash Denny.

2010 2011 new building new fields and modernization.

Nathan Hill in 2009 new addition.

There's plenty more upon that list but the last winter Beach high school had something added was the performing arts center in 1998. 19 long years later and no complete renovation, modernization and entire building and no new additions since 1998. Thank you.

Peters Thank you very much and thank you for this list.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on the personnel report.

Three points number one the directors of two departments are leaving.

College and career readiness and ELL and international programs.

What is the effect of these changes?

Number two the report no longer includes leave of absences.

Does the board otherwise approve these leaves?

Number three the personnel report is part of the consent agenda.

Please schedule public comment prior to the board vote on the consent agenda.

On policy 3121 on attendance the board report states that feedback was requested from the African-American male advisory committee.

The report does not state whether feedback was received.

On policy 1240 committees two points number one the text states that executive committee approval is not required to modify board agendas to postpone an item or to add an urgent item if approved by the board president and superintendent.

Number two why is the superintendent being given a veto?

It appears that board authority is being delegated to the superintendent.

On the Roosevelt field lighting contract, has the district issued an environmental threshold determination for this project?

On school board elections, I favor having lots of candidates run for school board to get a public discussion of issues.

Three positions are up this year, number four, number five, and number seven.

The candidate filing period is May 15th to May 19th.

Thank you.

Hi my name is Emily Lieberman and I have been a parent at Stevens for six years.

Our community wants to thank you for your service on this school board.

Your strategic plan reads it is essential to place the interests of students above all others in every decision we make.

Stevens is under enrolled by 90 kids for next year.

We have 23 kids on our waitlist, many siblings, current students or with another existing bond to Stevens.

The superintendent insists that your policy requires him to artificially limit enrollment at Stevens so despite all the space available siblings are being separated between schools, current students are being kicked out and then we are losing teachers because we don't have enough kids.

This feels ridiculous and it does not seem like the intent of the student assignment plan.

I hope that you will help us find a common-sense solution by allowing Stevens to move its 23 student waitlist, keep our community together and keep one teacher.

We are slated to lose two teachers unfortunately of the 50 in the district.

I appreciate Superintendent Herndon describing the district's process for implementing the student assignment plan but it is inconsistent with our experience.

This is the second year in a row that the district has blocked choice assignments to Stevens.

Last year zero choice assignments were granted to Stevens.

We had plenty of room in our building and in our staffing allocation and our PTA president will discuss equity concerns shortly.

18 kids were waitlisted at Stevens last year the majority of whom were siblings, none were let in.

Our current kindergarten classes have 16 and 17 kids.

This is not sustainable or necessary and will yield soon 200 kids enrolled when our capacity is 350. At the same time the district did allow choice assignments to neighborhood schools all around Stevens last year.

We don't understand why Stevens was singled out in this way last year and we don't want to see the injury to our school compounded this year.

Moving the Stevens waitlist today also means 23 kids stay in SPS.

If you wait or don't move the waitlist at all every option is on the table for those kids and their siblings.

In the end it feels like this is a case of grown-ups treating children badly.

I have two kids at Stevens, all of their friends are there, they feel known and loved by the teachers and staff and they feel stressed out about having to move to a different school.

And for what?

Stevens has plenty of room.

It's a school we have loved and invested in for many years.

Forcing us and many other families to leave is heartbreaking under these circumstances.

Next up for public testimony we have Danielle Rice followed by Ethan Rogers and Jenny Peabody Rhodes.

Should I begin?

Hi, my name is Danielle Reese, and I'm here to talk about my amazing, vibrant interesting, introspective, sensitive son, Oren Sternberg, my six-year-old, who qualifies for ACCESS, the ACCESS program, and he was assigned to Olympic Hills, which, as you can see from the map that I gave to you, is about an hour-long bus ride away from our home for a kid who has pretty severe bus anxiety.

And we were just amazed to figure out that we have a school right in our backyard, 12 blocks away from our home, walkable, Thornton Creek, that is just an absolute perfect fit for him with social skills built in, social skills groups built in, two years with the same teacher for my anxious middle child who just takes a long time to build trust and relationships.

I know that the school wants a second access classroom.

I know that they have the room for a second access classroom.

So imagine how thrilled we were to figure out after open enrollment decisions were announced that we received a spot at Thornton Creek and access and we were just like doing cartwheels and Oren was super excited and he went to visit the building and figured out all of his friends that were going to be there and figured out we were going to bump into them at the park and we our family and four other families that this happened to so that's five children that this happened to were absolutely crushed when we figured out a week later that we were unenrolled from Thornton Creek and put on the waitlist at Thornton Creek and reassigned to our original assignment schools.

The special education procedural guide mentioned several times in several places that the best policy for least restrictive environment for special education students is the school that is closest to their home.

And I'm trying to figure out how it makes any sense to take a kid and bus them an hour away when we have a school literally in our backyard that is a perfect fit for him.

We are looking for a second classroom at access, we are looking for more transparency in the enrollment process.

My special education student, my son is no less of a general education student than his general education peers.

Thank you.

A unique academic challenge.

Good evening, my name is Ethan Rogers, my son Casey is in the HCC program at Ingraham, I'm sorry at Hamilton in the eighth grade.

He has known about Ingraham's IB program for several years and yearns to engage in the unique academic challenge that is the IB program.

It is a challenge that is also a natural progression for the extra work he and the other students like him have done in the HCC middle school programs.

Much to our chagrin we learned that apparently for the first time ever the school district capped the number of HCC students admitted to Ingraham.

The cap is 90 students at the moment.

Much to our frustration we learned that this is a temporary situation.

This year and next there will be the cap.

And apparently after that there is expected to be an increased capacity.

So it's only two years worth of students HCC students who are being affected.

Casey is now on the Ingram HCC waitlist along with about 40 other HCC students.

This made me look at all of the ninth grade waitlist.

My handout to you which I gave earlier is this list excluding the special programs which only have a student or two on them.

I have two concerns.

First that the district does its utmost in accommodating all the students on this list as it seems just based on the numbers that there could be a lot of switching based on mutual desires.

I have checked with enrollment planning who have been very open with what they know but I am not convinced that the system will maximize accommodating all students.

Second, that the waitlist at Ingraham HCC, the Ingraham HCC waitlist may have been excluded from the mixing and matching.

This would be unfair and would mean that the HCC students are actually penalized for having engaged in the HCC program.

My assumption is that all seven of the board members ran because you are aware of a situation where the best interest of the students took a backseat to the backseat of other consideration.

And you felt that that was not right.

I am sure that once you are on the board you developed a greater appreciation for why other considerations such as the budget are also important.

However I hope that your initial motivation has not gone away.

Entering high school finally, entering high school is arguably the most important school switch a student will have in setting up life beyond high school.

These lists are students telling us what they believe is best for them in setting up their future.

My school trust is that the school board looks into accommodating these lists through whatever means are available, swaps, expansions, whatever, with an eye to doing what is best in the best interest of these students.

Thank you.

After Jenny Peabody-Rhodes we will have Christy Sharpcott and Raven Fuentes.

Good afternoon I'm Jenny Peabody-Rhodes parent of a third grader and PTA president at Stevens Elementary.

The district's refusal to admit students from the Stevens waitlist is contrary to its own written policy and highly inequitable.

The assignment plan says that enrollment via choice assignments will be granted based on space.

We are under enrolled and have lots of space.

But we are being told the district won't admit the 23 kids on our waitlist like last year causing a ripple effect of losing teachers while classrooms sit empty.

We reached out to the superintendent for his help.

Now well after open enrollment he is articulating new criteria for choice assignments saying enrollment is based on space available and contingent on the staffing impact on other schools.

That isn't what the student assignment plan says.

and this new criteria is nonsensical.

Every choice assignment affects another school and always has.

The superintendent insists that he is forced to follow this criteria that we heard for the first time tonight.

Furthermore he wrote to me that he is specifically limiting choice assignments for kids from the Madrona and Lowell areas.

This is unfair to those families, violates the letter and the spirit of the student assignment plan and seems potentially illegal if it has a disparate impact on any protected class.

This practice of officially limiting choice assignments at certain schools or for students coming from certain areas is contrary to policy and not applied evenly across the district.

It prioritizes choice for families assigned to highly waitlisted schools like Stephen saying you are free to choose among other schools that work better for your family but telling families assigned to schools without waitlists you have no choice.

You must attend your assignment area school.

This disparity is indefensible.

Tearing families apart, ripping kids out of our school, artificially limiting choice assignments when the school has plenty of room and then displacing teachers as a result is unacceptable.

In this time of budget crunch and stress in our communities SPS can't ignore its existing policies.

You have a policy of putting kids first in decision-making and a policy of granting choice assignments on a space available basis.

These policies need to be adhered to in both easy and tough budget years for them to be meaningful.

please admit the students from the Stevens waitlist.

Thank you for your time and thank you Stevens community for coming out tonight.

Good evening my name is Christy Shopcott.

Each year for her birthday my daughter Nyree asked her party attendees to purchase a book for the Dearborn Park library instead of a gift for her.

In less than three weeks Nyree will be collecting her third set of books to deliver to the library.

The librarian makes a little show of it by placing a dedication label in each book.

Her classmates and her younger sister Una love coming across books with these labels.

Una who turns five next month and is slated to start kindergarten next fall is already making a list of books she wants to donate to Dearborn Park.

Una is currently only waitlisted to attend Dearborn next year despite having an older sister there.

We are concerned to hear that our school is projected to have only 49 kindergarten students next year while the waitlist is at 24. And that no students living outside the neighborhood will be allowed to attend.

Calls to the enrollment office ring and ring with no option for leaving a voicemail and we have been unable to get answers to our many questions.

Each year De Bruin receives lower than actual projections which leaves the school scrambling to hire teachers in late summer.

Our school has a small attendance area but the international program attracts many families and we have had large wait lists for the last several years.

Due to the low projected enrollment we are likely to lose two teaching positions which would jeopardize our immersion program.

We've been told our immersion program needs to be split grade classes but this would put our fledgling program at risk as it is not possible to teach immersion with fidelity in a split grade class.

Please remember that these decisions have real impacts on real kids and their families.

By including those on the waitlist our southeast school would have enough students to keep our immersion classes a single level classes.

Families seek out Dearborn Park because being multilingual is critical in today's global economy.

Please don't endanger or eliminate our immersion program.

Thank you.

Shek Raven, Paul Hupert, after Paul Hupert we will have Virginia Andrews and Kelly LaRue.

Good afternoon I am Paul Hupert.

For three years our family has been deeply involved at Dearborn Park International School.

Our younger son Lars who has grown up in this vibrant community is ready for kindergarten.

However he is on the waitlist with no assurance of getting in.

There have been struggles.

Last year we had no permanent Spanish teacher until March.

In response to these issues the district made the hiring of immersion teachers a priority as waiting until the posting date for hiring in general makes it too late to fill such specialized positions.

The budget for the upcoming year eliminates the vice principal and two teaching positions.

This has led to the imposition of split grade classes.

That is an especially large burden on teachers in dual language programs.

This added challenge will degrade the educational opportunity for our children.

The teaching positions are being eliminated as a result of Dearborn Park being under enrolled.

Only two rather than the current three kindergarten classes are planned.

This would create an especially large void in the dual language program as students without the language background could not be added to the school in later years.

Attrition will shrink the number of students even more effectively starving our program to the point that it will not be viable.

In the 2016 to 17 school year the makeup of Dearborn Park international school is 60% from the designated neighborhood and fully 40% from outside its borders.

In order to have full enrollment students must be admitted from outside the prescribed neighborhood as in past years.

The good news is there is a waiting list for kindergarten of 24 students who would like to attend which could provide the enrollment certainty that is critical for the program.

The school staff and faculty are fully committed to the dual language program.

The community and families are fully committed to the dual language program.

I urge the board to assure that the district remains fully committed to the dual language program at Dearborn Park international school by hiring the teachers needed to continue our vibrant and successful international school.

Thank you.

Andrews.

I am a third grade teacher at Stevens Elementary.

I am also a national board certified teacher, I am a career ladder teacher, I am a PTA teacher liaison, and I am a voter and a homeowner in the Stevens neighborhood.

Thank you darlings.

On the first day that we reported back to work this year our staff participated in a districtwide professional development that underlined the crucial nature of the relationships between staff and students.

This is a position our superintendent has taken.

This is thoroughly backed by research.

We know that the relationships between the adults and the children at school can really save children who are at risk.

So I'm here tonight to speak on behalf of one of my students who can't come speak for himself.

He's a beautiful boy, his family came from the Philippines when he was quite small.

He's been attending Stevens since kindergarten.

His family has not moved but he is being told that he cannot return.

He is being displaced to a school where he does not know anyone and no one knows him.

He is grappling with these emotions while he is trying to focus on his education every day.

And he asks himself every day why do other kids get to stay and I don't?

The pleas of his family to be allowed to stay with us have not been accepted when they have approached through inquiry process and the other channels that are open to them.

The pleas from our staff that we have taken up the chain of command at SPS have been denied.

So I'm left with the opportunity to come before you tonight and ask you to let us walk the talk and let my kids and our kids stay at Stevens to complete their elementary education.

Thank you.

LaRue.

Good evening.

My name is Kelly LaRue and I have been testifying on enrollment and budget issues since the day of the Olszewski crisis.

And this year is unprecedented.

It's just completely unprecedented.

The only thing that might be even close to the budget and finance problems that we are facing this year is likely the levy failures of the 80s.

And during this year I have been very proud and incredibly impressed by this board and the finance team in their partnership with parent communities to be clear and transparent and to work together to restore the funds from the levy cliff.

And I'm here tonight to highlight two potential problems and a breach of that trust and transparency.

You've already heard from many families tonight about how the lack of transparency is eroding their trust in the district.

The lack of transparency.

Because enrollment drives the budget.

Every penny that comes into this district comes from enrollment.

And if you're going to be transparent about the budget you have to be transparent about enrollment.

Parents know, we understand, there are 50 staffing positions that are gone.

Even more than that, we are going to have increased enrollment on top of it.

This is the time to really lean in and increase transparency and get more parent buy-in to build on the successes we've already had this year.

Additionally I want to highlight one additional problem, which is it's very very probable that the strategy that's being employed to protect teachers at certain schools is actually causing us to lose more staff than necessary.

For the last several years we have been several hundred, we have been several… 100 students short of projections every October.

This has led to multiple millions of dollars being missing in the October budget and the need to eliminate staff and cut the budget then.

Families that get their choice assignment are very likely to show up in September along with the funds that come with them.

Families that are split, their siblings are not together, they don't get their assignment, they are more likely to make other choices.

It's very possible this problem, this process that you've initiated to protect teachers is hurting both teachers and family and your credibility.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have the Stevens Elementary group Hadley, Kaya, Meki and Isay.

I've been very happy being in the school but because of the waitlist and my sisters I can't I don't my sisters don't want me to go to the school and I want to be with them.

So I'm moving.

I really want teachers to come.

I want teachers to stay and it really makes a difference.

I think siblings should be with each other because it makes a difference when brothers and sisters are with their older sisters or brothers or younger sisters and brothers and they should always be together no matter what.

I think it's sad that we are losing staff at schools and children because they are in certain areas of other schools and they can't come to the school.

I think they should learn and be taught and play together because it will help them learn I don't want to leave Stevens and I don't think anybody else wants to leave their own school just because they are in a different area and not in the area of their school.

Ms.

Shek Thank you.

Next up we have Allison McLean.

Good evening.

I am a 1996 graduate of Stevens Elementary, and I am now a kindergarten parent of my beautiful kindergartner over there standing on a chair.

My big problem is that right now we are back living with my parents after a horrible divorce from my ex-husband who was in the military.

My daughter is six years old.

She's lived in three countries and five states.

I don't ever want her to have to go through another huge traumatic move.

And once I can move out of my parents house I hope that she will be able to keep attending Stevens Elementary so that she has a consistency in her life that she hasn't experienced and that she's had horrible trauma with not having consistency in her life.

So I'm hoping that you guys figure out this whole situation with letting people be on the waitlist and actually attend a school that has empty slots and is going to lose teachers because for some arbitrary seeming reason you won't just open up our school to have even close to its capacity.

I want to know that my daughter will be able to attend or at least have a shot at being on a waitlist to attend and that the waitlist won't essentially just be ignored and that our school won't languish into nothing while you don't let people actually attend the school.

Thank you.

This concludes the sign up list for public testimony.

I want to thank everybody for coming tonight and speaking and now directors will be able to respond to any comments tonight and they will also be able to add anything else they would like to add.

Director Geary.

Thank you everybody for coming tonight.

Celia Martinez, thank you for coming along with Gustavo and telling us about the world school.

It's a pleasure to have you here and to participate as our honorary board member.

To the Rainier Beach students, they come and they continue to come and I think that is fantastic.

And I know we want to make money available for your school.

But I am just so proud that you are taking part in the process and I hope that you will take that forward for the rest of your lives.

Showing up and advocating for what you know to be right and true.

Thank you to the 13th year program and Seattle colleges for your continued work on behalf of our students and looking at the tipping point for their success and making that a reality for them.

Maple elementary principal Sanchez thank you for coming and sharing the good work at your school.

Like the other schools that have come and shared their work with us it comes it seems to always come down to the relationships between the teachers and their relationships with their students and community.

And so that is a principle that we hear loud and clear up here and that we appreciate you sharing with us.

I did have the chance to attend the luncheon for the community and parents for public school CPPS and I wanted to thank them for their work in terms of the outreach that they do to parent groups that don't normally participate within the school community.

helping them, mentoring them, fostering them to bring their voices into our schools and creating that pathway.

You see a thread in terms of making sure that we as a district are reaching out to the people who may not feel as comfortable in participating and making sure that we give them an opportunity to come and participate and be heard.

We met I believe it was just yesterday with the Seattle legislative delegation, Steven Nielsen, JoLynn Berge, Erin Bennett and I.

It is clear that they are working hard to negotiate good outcomes for Seattle families.

It is clear from their message that trying to balance the need to pay for basic education throughout our state.

As well as allowing Seattle families to continue to supplement through our levies for things beyond basic education such as art and music and things that we would consider to be basic education continues to be a struggle in Olympia.

So, continuing to bring your voice to them and thanking them for their efforts, continuing to reach out to anybody that you know throughout the state that could have an influence on their legislative delegation in terms of making sure that we are taking care of education and allowing parents flexibility and an opportunity to shape the education for their kids would be great.

I want to thank the Seattle Times ed lab I finally got a chance to go to one of their ed labs after sending them several emails asking that they please not schedule those events on Wednesday nights.

As I walked in I was immediately identified and told look it's Tuesday night.

So I'm glad, thank you for hearing us.

I think that those events look fascinating.

There have been many that I wanted to attend and couldn't because we are here.

So the ed lab was fun, great opportunity to hear from different people about their ideas on education.

I personally was asking people to share creative ideas about how we can make are highly capable education more available to our students throughout the district.

I don't think that we had lots of interesting input and I can't go through it all but I'm definitely gathering any ideas that we can and I think that that is a hot topic issue for our board so keep those ideas coming in terms of how we can bring great education to every student within their community.

To the Stevens parents and to everybody who spoke about the waitlist issue it is confounding and while I do hear the rationale between not leaving schools without sufficient students we need to make sure that we are acting consistent with our policies in terms of what we have told parents with regard to choice.

I hear that and we need to make sure that we are living up to what we have expressed.

We can do that.

We need to do that.

And then in terms of my meeting I have scheduled I wasn't able to get any weekend meetings I will continue to have Thursday morning meetings I will not be able to do this Thursday morning but I will do my Thursday morning meetings May 11, 18 and 25 at Zoka and those run from 730 to nine if you can come and sit down and have a cup of coffee with me that's great.

And then I will do a Tuesday evening meeting at the Northeast branch library from 6 to 730 PM on May 30 so the end of the month if you can make it, trying to mix up the times when I am available to maximize people's ability to get.

Get to me, talk to me, share their ideas.

So thank you everybody again for your participation and thank you to all the children in particular who are coming and at least to some extent learning about how to make their voices heard, how to participate in the process.

It is a civics lesson for them and for all of us.

So thank you.

Oh one quick thank you.

Thank you Director Harris for your comments.

I feel like you did a great job of covering a lot of issues and explaining some of the nuances for us and I appreciate you doing that for all of us because I know we all have the emails and so I wanted to give you a shout out for that synthesis on all those.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Good evening I would like to also start by thanking our Seattle world school guests Ms. Martinez, Mr. Alfaro, very eloquent and I really appreciate that perspective.

I want to also reach out and thank our partners at South Seattle College around the 13th year promise scholarship.

One of the things that resonated for me in addition to the amazing work that's being done and how it's providing benefits for our students is that they indicated their readiness Academy is a key component of that.

And so I think every good partnership includes candid feedback so I'm going to.

ask Seattle Public Schools staff to reach out to South Seattle College and ask them in their readiness academy are there things that they are doing that we should be doing?

Let us know how we can be of assistance there because I think that's a great opportunity to find things that are working for those students and build it into our systems as well.

Around the Seattle school scholarship fund I was invited by Director Harris and I just wanted to put this out she said bring tissues and leave inspired.

And I look I'm hoping to be able to clear that on the schedule and make it there.

Other good news that didn't get mentioned yet but I wanted to bring it up here, there was a great article in the April 2017 Washington hospitality magazine about the chief self Academy of hospitality and tourism.

And it spoke to the quality of the preparation of their students and the benefits of the internship experiences to really long-term career opportunities and great experiences for them.

This was already mentioned but I want to also extend the invite for BF Day for the 125th anniversary, it was actually yesterday was their 125th birthday.

BF Day is the oldest continually operating school in our city.

And for those of you who have been in old Seattle schools and feel kind of that twang of nostalgia, please go to their May 20 carnival celebration because you'll walk through the school and it will just be like deja vu.

It's amazing.

Love that building.

Thank you to the team from Maple.

We hear regularly as a board a lot of things at the general level.

And you know ideas around how collaboration can work and ideas around how instructional strategies can work.

And so what we've seen is some really specific things.

Some really good examples of how those interventions, how those targeted strategies could apply to students.

So I appreciate that feedback.

Dr. Nyland mentioned the new website the website work that's going on the board page is one of the guinea pigs on that.

And so I wanted to further extend the invitation we've already gotten a little bit of feedback around that that it's better look but a little bit clunky in terms of number of click throughs.

But more specificity and you know you can send all the email directly to Leslie Harris because she doesn't get enough email.

I want to mention an event that I went to last week with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

I attended this with Dr. Nyland and this was a really fascinating group of CEOs, HR managers, education leaders, and their focus was around internships, career technical education, college readiness, just really what is the post-secondary universe look like in Seattle and beyond.

And the number of people that were there that could provide opportunities for our students was just astounding to me.

So I'm really excited about the enthusiasm that that type of work is building and Seattle's teaching and learning team we had representatives there.

doing a focus session on the skill center and also doing a roundtable discussion on what components of K-12 education employers are looking for.

So really great feedback from that and I look forward to that work continuing.

So touching on a couple of the hot topics I also want to thank the Rainier Beach students.

I learned a lot today because they've come to us many times and one of my specific feedback points to them has been let's look for some small projects that we can work on to improve your school while we also try to work on building out a bigger infrastructure project.

And what I heard loud and clear was we've done that.

So that was really informative for me.

That was powerful testimony.

The Magnolia Elementary opening.

This is another one of our of our opportunities that causes pain with growth.

We have our challenges and the community meeting around Magnolia Elementary because of the dynamic anytime we open a new school we have.

a mandate essentially to create disruption because we are trying to fill a new school from zero.

And how do we do that in an equitable way with minimizing disruption, honoring the wishes of families, siblings, all of these things.

This is one of the challenges that the board and the staff has to grapple with as part of the thrill of opening new buildings.

So those of you that are in crowded buildings recognize wow we need to open new spaces.

The flip side of that is we have these challenges.

And this meeting was I felt like it was a A change in tone, the PTA's, respective PTA leaders and family leaders from each of the buildings rallied together, met individually, and were trying to craft a a solution that had the least disruption for the entire region and the enrollment team and Ashley Davies invited these participants to come up and introduce themselves and share a little bit about the work they were doing and it just created such a collaborative environment I think it enabled that discussion to continue so I believe that's a model for how we should be doing some of these challenging things as we move forward.

Enrollment, waitlists, this is a big point of concern for me and continues to be a point of concern as a systems person.

I look at this from the outside and there is so much about it that just does not look like it makes sense.

I understand that loud and clear and so my lines of inquiry into why does it look like it doesn't make sense?

When we look at this from the outside how can we have two schools that are both both have space and both have waitlists and how can we not exchange those students?

And so in drilling down on this I'm learning more about the complicated process and the different aspects around it and I remain unsatisfied although I am learning more.

But I know staff is working on it and I have confidence that they will improve both the transparency and the number of students that we can put in without creating a huge disruption.

So my ask continues to be the data that supports this so that we can look at the same data as the public and all of us can understand where our points of pain are not just as individual schools but as a system.

And I know staff is being responsive to that but it takes a little bit of work to put that together so I appreciate folks patience on that and I share the impatience so that's a place where we are united on that.

Upcoming meetings I have a director meeting planned for May 27 Saturday 2 to 4 PM at the Greenwood library recently reopened Greenwood library.

And then I don't have a specific date yet but we are looking at dates also the last week of May or first week of June for the next Lincoln high school community meeting and the capital projects has done some really great planning work some really good visuals that will be part of that meeting as well.

So look forward to announcement on that coming up in the next few days.

Thank you again for coming listening testifying and helping us make the district awesome.

Peters Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I'll start off by also thanking Cielo and Gustavo for your presentations today and for your principal Brit Silva also for being here.

You grace us with your presence and it's always a treat to head north from my house and see the wonderful building that you helm It's a good thing and it has become the jewel of our neighborhood and so thank you for your leadership on that.

I also want to thank the folks, they don't look like they are here anymore but from South Seattle they did an impressive job of showing the connections and the partnership, the authentic partnership between Seattle Public Schools and South Seattle College.

I wanted to thank Rosie Raimondo who has been a personal friend and a classmate when we went to the University of Washington together and now she's the vice president of the program so it's nice to see her assent in the importance of leadership.

I also wanted to thank those who are responsible for the Seattle scholarship as a former scholarship member who got a scholarship that allowed me to go to college and do something with my life.

I'm really grateful to all of the organizations whether they be large or small that recognize the important role that they play in kind of catalyzing community effort towards our students and helping them to live out their potential what we heard was a fascinating presentation about the huge impact that a group of people can have and so I just want to celebrate that.

Also the folks at Maple they did I thought a great presentation agreeing with what Director Burke said about sharing the details and kind of the theory of action and how they are identifying students.

working hard on their collaborative strategies to identify and remediate for their students and it's great to see the results that have been shown at that school.

I have over the course of the last several meetings have struggled to find a community meeting space for one of my meetings and particularly given the fact that there's so many school issues that are specific to district five in the air these days I'm feeling a sense of urgency to try to convene a meeting and share my thoughts and listen to the community so I'm going to go out on a limb and pick the 13th of March or of May and say if I have to have it in the front yard of my house we are going to have a meeting.

My hope is that we will be able to find a library somewhere more, a little bit better suitable, more suitable than the front yard of my house.

But we will plan to have that at 10 o'clock on the 13th and I will be sure to share with the board staff as soon as I know the location of that.

I will end with two things.

I am on record as being a strong supporter of assessments, standardized assessments and I have made the argument in the past that is supported by a fair amount of research that says that the only way that we can actually improve our systems and have more of the schools that are up on the wall is when we actually do some sort of assessment.

There are arguments that are made to say that we assess too much or too little and there is always work that can be done but I want to appreciate the students who over the course of last week and this week We are busy with their assessments and I want to thank the teachers and the administrators who have been working over the course of this year to assure that our students perform well and are successful in those assessments.

I believe that is the way that we as school board and as administrators can figure out where more attention and more resources need to be directed.

by having a really clear sense of how our students are doing and so for those students and those parents who participated in the assessments I want to be on record as being grateful for your participation and involvement and hopefully those numbers grow over time.

And then finally there's been a lot of conversation about Stevens and because Stevens is in my district is in the district that I represent I'm very sensitive to the issues that are present.

I'm also cognizant of the fact that a couple months ago I was at another school in our district Having a conversation with parents who were very upset about the exact same issue.

The fact that their waitlist that are in place and parents who were not most of the parents but a few parents who wanted me to basically figure out a way to take students away from schools like Stevens in order to ensure that there was high enrollment at this particular school.

And what I shared at the time was that though I am very supportive of each and every school in the district, I along with my colleagues up on the dais we are elected to serve 53,000 students plus or minus a few throughout the district.

And we can't play favorites with one school or another.

And it didn't, I think it resonated with some of the parents who were in the room at the time, probably not all of them.

But I believe in my heart of hearts that this is a process that though imperfect hopefully will get us to a better outcome.

I think it is absolutely crucial that parents that are negatively impacted by our enrollment processes articulate their points and make sure that we know them.

So that if there are any tweaks or fixes that we can apply to the process then that gets us to a better outcome.

But I think it is particularly in this time when we have a budget deficit the size that we do there are plenty of pain points that people will experience and it's unfortunate.

I wish that there were different outcomes that we could point to.

But my hope is that we can all work in a spirit of cooperation realizing that even the students that we care about the most, the children that come to our homes, we have to be thinking larger.

We have to be thinking about all the students and all of Seattle.

and trying to make good things happen for all 53,000 students in Seattle and so I believe that is the intent of those of us that are sitting around this table and surely amongst those who are sitting against that wall and I believe that transparency is important and that we will get to an outcome that works for most students.

So thank you.

Director Pinkham.

I want to start by definitely thanking the South Seattle 13th year again just to be able to provide students that traditionally don't see college as an option to provide them a basically a free year of college is fantastic and I'm glad to see that it is growing and expanding that we will be able to help more students see college as a pathway beyond high school.

excuse me.

I'm going to go through this kind of quickly just want to thank the Seattle schools scholarship fund for their efforts in making sure that we are able to provide some funding for our students to go on to college.

26 right now but it's good to hear that when they started from just like $200 to now that is $2,500 although unfortunately I think tuition probably raised a little bit faster than that.

But let's keep on moving forward with those efforts.

Thank you to Maple Elementary school sharing your information with us and hopefully other schools will see hey we can do this as well and get their names up on the wall shortly.

Cielo Martinez and Gustavo thank you for coming here and sharing your experience with Seattle world school.

You know I'm very appreciative that we have the school for these students that need this support.

But I don't want to take anything away from it but as an indigenous person of the native of the United States I'd also like to see that we have a school that would serve the students of the indigenous of this area.

You know hey we got the Seattle world school to help students come to this country and help them out.

You know meet their needs that they have.

Well we also have needs for students that are indigenous to the land.

And students that may be here and also still in this country even though they're not indigenous but they have special needs as well.

But then people may say how far do we go?

But it's just one of my goals that we do see that we have schools that do serve students needs and Seattle world school good job that you're serving the needs of the students.

See what else, if I miss anybody I'm sorry I'm still recovering from whatever virus or illness is going around here.

I want to thank those who attended my community meeting this past Saturday.

One of the presenters was here today to share his concerns about the waitlist because that seems to be the thing that's going on here.

We've got waitlists and yes our families out there are feeling well if there is space available why can't my child go there.

So thank you to Flip and Jolene for coming and explaining the process.

Yes there is a process that has to go through that it isn't just that simple.

I wish that it was that simple but there are things that we have to look at.

And also appreciate actually Kelly LaRue's comment that probably if we do give our students the first choice we will probably have a better predictor for enrollment come fall.

The students get their first choice yes they are more than likely they are going to come versus if they are in their second or third choice schools oops are they going to stay here or not.

That's a bigger risk.

So I appreciate Kelly LaRue's comment there.

Thank you for that.

Other people at my community this past Saturday talked about Licton Springs and what they are going through there where we said yes let's see if Licton Springs increase their enrollment but Licton Springs is filling that but you are increasing our enrollment but you are also reducing our space.

So how are we supposed to increase our enrollment if our space is getting smaller?

So I'd like to see what we can do that to help out assure that what we see as a board that it is being reflected in what the school has as far as space and capabilities.

My next community meeting will be Saturday May 20 from 10 to 1130 at Lake City branch library branch and just want to again Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ thank you.

Peters also like to extend opportunity for other directors who wanted to continue something they might have begun before public comments and that would be Director Patu next.

Yes I actually would like to thank you to the 13th year promise scholarship from South Seattle for continuing to provide our students the opportunity to go to college.

Our three schools that actually that are in the southeast area.

I also want to thank you all the Steven parents and students for your presence tonight.

I really appreciate you coming out tonight.

Thank you to the Seattle schools scholarship funds for continue of their support of all our students that actually don't normally have the opportunity to go to college.

And thank you Maple school for continue to be one of our leaders among our schools in the southeast and continue on the successful work that you are doing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Peters

Thus far I think line of the night goes to director Blanford quote plenty of pain points to go around.

That that boy truer words were never said and to director Burke you know what they say about paybacks on the email comment.

So before I conclude with my remarks I want to offer Ms. Martinez another opportunity to speak or to add any comments if she would like.

I just want to say thank you because for me it's a big honor to be here for me and Gustavo because we are only high school students about to graduate.

We had a lot of big experiences because we were born as a leadership and as leaders so I am happy to be here representing my school and yeah thank you.

Director Geary.

I just forgot I wanted to say so this weekend is the WEAP raising voices oratory competition at South Shore.

And we've heard from the WEAP students several times now and it is always such a moving experience.

So another tissue event for sure.

And that's from 1030 to 2 this Saturday.

So I just I meant to give them a shout out and remind us all to put that on our calendars.

Thank you.

All right well I would like to thank our two student guests from world school Cielo and Gustavo you were fantastic ambassadors for your school so thank you so much for sharing with us tonight.

And to all the Stephen students who are here I know it's hard to sit still for a while during a meeting like this but you did a great job and thank you very much for showing your energy and especially the three of you who had the courage to speak to us.

I know it's not an easy thing to do.

So my colleagues have all given out a lot of accolades tonight to the different presentations we had and so I'm not going to restate everything but the 13th year promise scholarship emphasizes how important it is to help our high school students with the transition to college and I fully support any efforts we can do like that.

I see that happening with the running start opportunities.

I wonder if we should even take a look at offering the compass test to students in high school to show them that they can start thinking about college and we could even ease them in with community college.

I think it's important for all our students to know that there are so many different ways for them to proceed after high school.

And I know from having just gone through the whole college application experience in my own family that there is a college for everyone.

There are just so many opportunities and we really need to let every student know that if they are interested in that there is a place for them and that we can help them get there.

The scholarship fund committee is something that is I'm so glad we had an opportunity to have a presentation from you know Eleanor Taves on that.

I had the opportunity to be a member of that trustee committee for two years and it was fantastic.

It's just so heartwarming to be able to help students who are really overcoming some challenges and are just fantastic feisty students and it's a great committee and again if anybody wants to contribute to it and add to what we can offer these students that would be wonderful.

Otherwise please come to the ceremony next week.

I had the opportunity to visit two schools with Director Patu.

We went down to see Rainier View elementary school and Cleveland high school.

And I want to thank the principals there, Principal Pinchback-Jones and Principal Brayland for offering us graciously a chance to see their schools, see their schools in action, there's great things going on in those schools.

And the students, there were students at Cleveland who were with us and they gave us a lot of feedback and that was really nice to get directly hear from them on what the school means to them.

What I notice with both schools is both of them are schools that are somewhat on the smaller side.

Cleveland is not our biggest high school and Rainier View is not our biggest elementary school and I've seen a theme when we talk about our option schools as well.

They all tend to be somewhat smaller.

And I am coming to the conclusion that there is such a thing as a school that is too big And if we're serious about relationships between teachers and students we cannot have giant schools where students get lost especially if we don't have enough counselors and support staff to stay in touch with them.

So it seems to me that if we're compiling a list of what makes up our outlier schools and what makes things work we are also looking at the student to teacher and student to support person ratio and we are looking at smaller smaller schools.

I know that doesn't necessarily work out well in terms of the budget but I think we have to take a look at what works for our students first and foremost.

I attended the meeting at McClure middle school where we all talked more about the Magnolia Elementary opening.

The good news is the district recognizes that this is a growing district therefore staff especially Flip Herndon is looking everywhere for buildings for us to reopen reclaim.

Acknowledging that we are a growing city, growing district, that's the good news.

The pain comes in with having to fill the buildings in a way that allows these schools to have a start, you know a strong start from the beginning.

And that has involved redirecting students from other schools and that's the tricky part.

I'm really pleased to see staff listening to the community, coming up with multiple plans, I think we are on to plan G or H or something at this point.

And that's fantastic to see that feedback because we have members of the community who have great ideas, creative ideas who can give it to us on the ground realities of what these different plans mean.

And I have to say that the one thing that seems to be a recurring theme with this particular dilemma is please can we keep the Queen Anne kids on the Queen Anne Hill and keep the Magnolia kids on the Magnolia Hill.

That seems like a pretty basic place to start.

I also want to just say that this is just the beginning of a challenge in this region and this is my district.

We are seeing enormous growth there because we are located right next to South Lake Union where we have Amazon, we have Gates, we have UW, we have all sorts of different employers down there and people are moving in and they are having kids and we are seeing the impact in those neighborhoods.

So Magnolia Elementary is a great start but it's not going to be enough.

And so I'm hearing of some creative ideas and how we can expand the capacity of other existing schools, what we can do in terms of expanding the capacity of Queen Anne elementary school while respecting the fact that it is an option school and it is offering something different that students need.

I do appreciate the fact that parents have come together in these communities and we had representatives from each one of the schools at the meeting at McClure working together on finding solutions.

I think that is key.

And I really encourage these parents to continue to work together even after we get past the opening of Magnolia Elementary to continue the conversation on what we want these neighborhoods to look like, how we are going to solve the capacity issues Because the next thing coming at us is Expedia is going to be moving in and we will have some more families coming in and that will probably impact Magnolia and Queen Anne again.

I also want to do a shout out for teacher appreciation week.

I can never thank enough the different people who have been my teachers throughout the years.

When I was four years old my parents offered me the opportunity to start school at four or to wait a year.

And I was so eager to start school and to go to school with my sister that I did start at four so I was in school for many years as a result of that.

I also want to give a shout out to my brother who has been a public schools teacher for over 30 years and so I know how important that work is and I greatly value it.

To the Stevens community regarding waitlist I am also a little bit perplexed by the algorithms behind the waitlist.

And so I am I'm also asking staff for further explication of how we do this.

What I would like to know is whether any specific weight is given to the students who want to stay in their buildings.

Whether that to me seems like that could be an easier problem to solve.

If there's students if there's room and they don't need to move can they stay.

But I know that there's other questions as well.

But right now the whole process seems rather mysterious and it's been very hard for us to explain this to the community and to really stand behind it and say this makes sense.

So I would like to understand this better and wherever possible allow students to go to the school that they have chosen to go to especially if there is space there.

There have been a lot of questions regarding the possibility of moving to two tiers for bell times I just want to say to everybody we are still sorting out some details on that the city council has to weigh in and then we have some athletics issues that have to be sorted out so that is not the The finals plan has not been figured out yet and I am hoping that we can come up with a plan that will not have our students having to leave school early and will not be in a position for our student-athletes but also recognizing that first and foremost we do have to focus on the academics.

It is testing season and I'm starting to hear about the impacts that is having on our schools.

It impacts their schedules, their access to computers, their access to space and you know I do recognize that we are required to have assessments.

I still maintain that there must be a way to do assessments that don't take up so much time, so many resources.

that can give us information faster and information that is more reliable because it has an enormous impact and it's interesting to hear that Oregon is no longer using the smarter balance test that is something that we have said we wanted to look into as a board with our resolution last year and see if we can find something like the ITBS test something that is more Easier to administer, doesn't require, maybe doesn't even require computers and could be done faster.

Because I'm hearing about schools being interrupted for basically three weeks at a time because of the SBAC testing and it really is disruptive.

Shout out to the Ballard Viking robotics team.

Fantastic work.

It'd be nice to have a demonstration maybe someday maybe we could have them come in here and show us what they're doing.

That could be fun.

Make sure I don't forget anything here to the Rainier Beach students you're doing a fantastic job reminding us of the fact that we have a we have a responsibility to all of our our our student communities and our buildings and yes Rainier Beach needs to be on the list of schools that deserve the you know the full renovation that other schools have had.

I do believe that when we invest in the buildings more students and families do come to these buildings.

If you build it they will come.

We have seen that happen over and over again.

I mean look at Hazel Wolf, look at Hamilton.

You know when people invest in these buildings we tell the families and we tell the students you are important you deserve a good place you deserve an inspiring place.

And the students of Rainier Beach deserve no less.

So I would like to see that like number one on BEX V. I'm just going to make sure I got everything.

So I think I'll finish with congratulations to all of the students who have just gone through the college application and acceptance season.

By now you all are supposed to have decided and I know that it was a difficult decision and difficult process but congratulations to the students and the families and I wish you all the best of luck in your next adventure.

With that the board will take a 15 minute recess and we will return at 7 0 5. Thank you all very much.

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