Part 2 Seattle School Board Meeting Oct. 18, 2017

Second half of our board meeting this evening.

We do not have any action items tonight which is unusual.

That means we will not be voting tonight on anything.

Instead we have a nice array of introduction items for us to discuss.

So we will now move to the introduction portion of the agenda.

Item number one annual approval of the written plans of programs or schools using the alternative learning experience model.

Chair of C&I would like to speak to this item.

This was brought to the curriculum instruction committee on October 10th and moved forward with a recommendation for approval.

Good evening.

To address this item.

My name is Caleb Perkins I am the director of college and career readiness for Seattle Public Schools.

And as was shared this is an annual item that needs to be reviewed by the board as required by state regulation for our four alternative learning experience programs.

Those four programs are the Cascade parent partnership program the interagency Academy School Nova High School and Middle College High School.

I should say joining us tonight is principal Jennifer Knisley from Middle College High School.

And principal Gonder from the Cascade parent partnership.

Principals Perry and principals Andrews also wanted to be here but could not given family obligations.

Principal Perry was here earlier but could not stay.

So the importance of this of course is that we need to have these alternative learning experience programs to provide a wide array of options for our students so that we can ensure all students are getting the best and most wide variety of options to get to college and career.

These programs have been enormously helpful and invaluable to parents and families and students across the city to ensure that that all students are on a pathway to college and career readiness regardless of their experiences and regardless of whether they have success in a traditional model.

The process by which the board is being asked to ultimately consider is that the two reports that each of these programs submit one a checklist of related to the state regulation and another a report that outlines their approach to the to their alternative learning experience.

And the logic behind this is that it's to strike the balance between flexibility and accountability.

So each of you has received two documents for each of these programs that goes into great depth on or goes into some depth on how they meet the various things that are required by the state rule.

The written student learning plan tracking the progress of each student and essentially assure ensuring that there is adequate rigor while still taking advantage of the flexibility.

So with that I am here to answer questions and I look forward to your consideration of this item.

Peters Are there any questions or comments about this item?

Director Harris.

Harris I've said it before.

I'll say it again.

I'll probably go to my grave saying it.

Our students are not widgets.

They do not come in perfect little packages.

They face very very different learning environments multiple intelligences and oftentimes come with a great deal of baggage.

And the fact that we have the space to meet them where they are is something I'm extraordinarily proud of in this district.

I would also suggest that this is a pushback on the scourge of charter schools that take money away from public schools.

I particularly have an affinity for Middle College.

I know of at least six students and children whose lives have been saved.

And we need to keep doing this great work.

High personal touch.

And thank you all of y'all for working so hard to make that happen.

Peters Any other questions or comments?

Director Burke.

I also want to share a couple words of gratitude for for coming out and representing.

But you know recognizing that that is really just the pinnacle of the work or a sign of the work that actually takes place to orchestrate your school environments.

And I think Director Harris said it pretty more eloquently than I could.

I believe strongly that our district needs to maintain a very deliberate component of choice in our educational offerings.

And I think that the the environments the climates that you've built at your school.

are a critical element of how we build out our entire city infrastructure for serving students because really they you know there there is an amazing amount of individually individuality in each of our kids.

And some of them fit in a you know in a comprehensive school some of them fit in an option school and some of them fit really well in the programs that you've built through alternative learning experiences.

So thank you.

Thank you.

So item to amend board policy number 50 10 non-discrimination and affirmative action adopt new board policy number 52 0 7 prohibition of harassment intimidation and bullying and adopt a new policy new board policy number 52 45 non-retaliation.

May we please hear from the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee.

This came before the Audit and Finance Committee on October 9th was moved forward for consideration.

OK good evening Clover Codd assistant superintendent of human resource.

So just a little bit of framing before we actually talk about the changes that we're proposing tonight to these policies.

So the district has been working to create a culture that promotes engagement collaboration and problem solving and empower employees to resolve conflicts at the lowest levels.

Currently typical workplace conflicts are immediately escalated to H.R.

We're approaching this problem from multiple entry points.

We're looking at the training of our supervisors and managers.

We're looking at creating a continuum of supports that help mediate conflict in the workplace.

And then as part of this larger effort we are also needing to attend to our policies and procedures that deal with discrimination harassment intimidation bullying in the workplace non retaliation and whistleblower protections.

So our 3000 series which is where our student policies lie.

They are confusing and inconsistent timelines from the various procedures and have different notification timelines.

And by some employees they're not seen to promote fairness or equity and often leave all parties feeling unsatisfied that the concerns have been properly addressed.

So our goal here tonight with these proposed changes is to have season procedures that are fair and objective, that are consistent, transparent, support due process for all parties involved, encourage alternative dispute resolution and problem solving, and maintain appropriate board oversight.

So as we revise these policies we sought feedback from internal audit, Title IX office, our labor partners, legal and HR partnered on this work, our policy department which is one person, individual board directors and external legal perspective per director's request.

So at this time I'm going to turn it over to John to talk about some of the regulatory changes that we made that were made to state law and how those inform the changes that we have proposed tonight.

Hello again.

Before I jump into the The three policies that you have before I would like to call out and thank Nate Van Duzer.

He's been a great asset to keep us on track to get these policies done.

I'd also like to thank Stan Damas the executive director for labor for reaching out to our three labor partners.

These are employee policies that have a huge impact on our labor groups and he was able to walk through the proposed changes to the policy and the procedures with our labor partners.

I also want to thank Director Harris for putting me in contact with a retired judge.

So that I could get some feedback on our due process.

So thank you.

So the three policies that you have before us tonight is a non-discrimination policy that's 50 10. The main change to this policy is and I believe it was Director Peters at one time said how are we dealing with individuals who may be dishonorably discharged because of their sexual orientation.

So we wanted to put a statement Affirmatively that the district will not discriminate against any veteran who was dishonorably discharged solely because of their sexual orientation.

After talking to our labor partners and in light of the current climate in Washington D.C.

we are going to be adding or gender identity.

So that is a change that we are making to policy 50 10. That's the one change to policy 50 10 that's before you for your vote.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

The next policy is 5207 and it is originally was in the 3000 series as Clover said that was 3207 and now we're asking that we move it and adopt a policy against harassment intimidation bullying for our staff and our employees and volunteers.

So this really models what is currently existing.

We're making some of the changes to move and be parallel with the other policies for students and move stuff so they the training prevention interventions that they're now contained in the procedure.

that you have a copy with.

So that's a very similar policy to what we currently have.

So there's really no significant changes of a substantive major nature to this particular policy that's 5207 for harassment intimidation and bullying.

The last policy that you have that we're asking you to vote on is policy 5245. It is a new policy a non retaliation policy we currently have.

a very confusing retaliation policy in the D section.

So we're creating a non retaliation policy that's 52 45 and it protects individuals who employees when they bring forth items about making a complaint or referring something for an investigation and participating in an investigation and requesting union representation.

I'm advocating for the legal rights of a student or family that we're not retaliating against those individuals who are bringing those important issues forward.

So this policy highlights it and it also designates the compliance officer for this which will be the human resources department or at least for the superintendent.

So then what you're not voting on are the procedures and we have procedures that tie into all three policies.

And I won't go through in detail all the procedures but I want to highlight kind of the changes that are in the procedures.

We have a one year filing deadline so the regulations were changed in 2014 and we were just now getting caught up and I apologize for the delay.

But it says that you don't have to go back and investigate complaints that are 10 years old seven years old that complaints need to be filed with a one year filing deadline.

We're incorporating those in the procedures.

There's a new language on how to get an extension if the investigation is complicated we need to ask for an extension.

We can do so if there's exceptional circumstances.

So we're following the law and putting that into the procedure.

They're talking about a flat 30 days for an appeal that used to be 20 and 10. Now it's just 30 days.

So we're trying to mirror the state law on that.

There's a discussion about appeals.

They previously were required to go to the school board.

So staff is recommending that we'll send these to a hearing examiner.

So we're including those into the procedure as well.

And we're recognizing that now appeal decisions have to get forwarded to OSPI so we're putting that on the policy so we don't mistakenly forget to do that.

We're also including a lot of ADR provisions that we want to try to eliminate as Clover mentioned disputes at the beginning and not have to put all the resources into doing an investigation.

The only so there's three corollary procedures that incorporate those changes and put those three times in the different related procedures.

The only other procedure that we are amending is one on whistleblower and improper governmental actions.

We're making a change to that one to reflect that it's no longer the city of Seattle that it's Andrew Medina and the ethics officer.

and we're having it match state law with respect to what is improper governmental action and that if you're claiming retaliation for violating a district procedure you now will have a retaliation policy and procedure that will protect individuals But that those claims are not the type of claims that should go up to an OAH and an administrative law judge say you know you violated the you took a rule book was the example from another athletic team or a playbook and I want to go up to the state to see whether that's been harassed because I retaliated because I brought that forward.

So those are going to be.

modified.

It did raise an issue in committee about whether there should be a global discussion with the ethics officer and I believe that that was put on a list to be considered in the future on how policies and procedures are addressed that impact an employee who reports to the school board.

That's it for my presentation.

Same here.

We will open it up for questions.

Director Geary.

A few questions, so looking at old policy 3207 there was Two questions one students and parents were included in that as well as there were a number of bullets that appeared to be sort of aspirational in nature.

A belief that a positive school climate built on principles of acceptance and respect is conducive to learning and thus allows students or adults to do their best.

and other beliefs.

And so I just was wondering what was the thought process and if you could explain how we're being sure to be aspirational.

How how why we decided to take those out in terms of the changing of the policy and how is it that families would know where will they go to find the policies addressing their participation and students.

Yes so 32 7 still exists as is.

What we've done is taken the language out of with respect to employees created a new policy and so the language that was talking about school climate educational climate we took that language out because we're now talking about employees in the workplace.

So.

I don't know if we have aspirational language in the 5207. I believe there's some committed to a safe civil and equitable environment for all employees volunteers district desires a work environment that is free from harassment intimidation and bullying.

But we did take out the stuff that's specific to schools and students because that still stays over in the 3207 policy.

Does that help?

I wanted to make sure that was very clear.

And then the other question in terms of when we talk about non-discrimination and discrimination policies you know these are things that are meant to address inequities when we know and we are being given a lot of information about structural racism, institutional racism And the corollary then is how to build or support the equity piece within our environment.

And I'm just wondering if I'm not I can't think of any particular change that I would make to this policy but sometimes non-discrimination from a neutral perspective is different from non-discrimination when you're trying to build in structural equity as well.

So I don't know if anybody's looked at it with that lens but it might be an interesting way to do a review of the policy in line with our policies around equity and making sure that we're being consistent not to treat things as a neutral starting point but to understand how this is all interfacing.

So one thing that I did do I don't know if I wrote this in the bar and if not I probably should is looked at policy 0 0 3 0 specifically with respect to workforce equity since that since this is a 5000 policy.

So if I did not put that in the bar I did actually consult and talk with people about that and it did inform my thinking so we could add a little bit to the bar to make sure that we address that so that we're explicit about it.

I would appreciate that especially because we did not use the district's racial equity analysis tool on the policy which I'm also not entirely clear why that wouldn't happen on something that is clearly to address or would come up in certain circumstances.

Peters Harris.

First off thank you very much.

I know you all have been working really hard on this and to say that some of our hearings have been less than spectacular is an understatement.

And I'm pleased that we're moving forward.

I would ask a couple of things.

Have we changed that obnoxious form that allows people to check off five different procedures?

Have we done that already?

Because that doesn't require a bar.

I don't believe that is complete.

I know that that is in process but you're right that doesn't that is just administrative management tool.

So but but it's a tool that has cost us goodness knows how many dozens of hours.

And and that's an easy fix.

Separate separate form for separate issues and separate claims.

Will we have in the procedures.

Simple rules about whether or not folks are going to testify under penalty of perjury since people's careers are at stake.

Will we have five year olds testifying to a hearing examiner in the future?

Are you referring to the actual superintendent procedure or are you referring to sort of the rules of engagement?

At the end of the road are these things going to be fixed?

Because some of these things were exceptionally embarrassing.

So right now we do not have that in the superintendent procedure.

I think what I would like to do when we get if this moves forward and passes is to get the processes done about when documents can be turned in and get like an internal guidelines we can give them to families and staff members so they understand I'd like to work with.

Jill Geary who has some administrative hearing experience with you who has a legal background with some of the individuals who might be our hearing examiners to make sure we've established a fair process.

So it is something that is on my radar to do as soon as I can get to that after these are adopted.

Respectfully sooner rather than later because again it has not been as elegant or a proudful moment for us.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Pinkham A couple issues on the new 5207 I just had a question on what refers to repeated unreasonable actions so if they do it once it's OK?

And Director Pinkham where are you reading on that?

It's not the prohibition harassment intimidation bullying.

The one that the edited form looks like that I'm looking at right now.

And the section 1 harassment intimidation bullying defined in the second paragraph HIB in the workplace refers to repeated unreasonable actions of an individual.

Yada yada yada.

So that sounds so do we need repeated in there.

To me that sounds like doing it once is OK.

So this is probably the definition that we are using for students at a usually isolated events unless they're significant might not be.

considered discrimination.

HIP for adults is not a statutory cause of action discrimination.

So when we adopted these many years ago we adopted an adult and a student.

So I assume this definition was created from the student.

But there could be an isolated incident that could be considered intimidating that's not repeated.

So.

I'd want to consider that and look at whether we need to make an amendment back to this particular language on repeated before action.

Yeah because just to me when it says repeated it needs some clarification.

And then on the section for disarmament discharge veterans what you did add as far as the gender identity and whatnot.

Do you see that maybe again the current climate that we're in that some may also add some other reason that someone's just on a discharge because of their religion because of their other characteristics that we need to not exclude or maybe need to somehow also address hate or other reasons that again may address either some kind of their protected status that we list up above.

That may come up just just that it doesn't just focus solely yes I see that need for that.

But then does that then exclude other possible dishonorable discharges that could violate I think you know again religion national origin etc.

Another great comment.

So I think the focus was on Director Peters concern with sexual orientation.

But yeah if we were discriminating against somebody if the government did discharge them because they were say a certain religion that was not favored we would want to make sure that we would hire that person even though they were dishonorably discharged.

I don't know factually if that's happened yet but we could certainly look at building that into the policy.

Director Geary did you want to follow up?

I only have the thought that perhaps putting an or or an and slash or between the unreasonable repeated and or repeated may allow us some discretion in terms of weighing the severity versus the repetitiveness because small small little intended actions can have a really negative impact.

So it is a balance that we should allow.

So it's a good catch.

I have a couple of questions on the non retaliation policy.

I'm wondering if we could give it a more descriptive title.

I know the titles are always tricky but non retaliation.

I mean it used to be called anti retaliation policy and that to me was more explicit.

And then.

Let's see.

So this is an update of an old policy is that correct.

In that case.

Yes.

Which I'm looking at.

Yes I see what it was it was D 51 0 0 being replaced.

Is that what it is.

OK.

And so you updated an old policy.

OK.

And so students and parents are taken out of this version of it.

Do they live in some other policy.

Does the protections for them live somewhere else.

Yes they're in D 51 still.

OK part of the phase two or maybe now it should be phase three.

OK I see.

Same same sort of thinking that we roll that into a thousand series.

OK.

So you took a template and you just repurposed it.

But the existing templates the previous template still exists as another policy.

Correct.

OK.

And then let's see.

And so then for the policy that addresses.

Is it the policy or is it the procedure that addresses how grievances will be handled.

It's in the procedure.

That's in the procedure.

OK.

Have all our labor partners agreed to these changes.

I'll have Mr. Damas come up and answer that question.

Stan Damas executive director of labor and employee relations.

We've reached out to all of the labor partners and invited comments on the drafts that were circulated.

The SEA and International Union of Operating Engineers local 609 sat down with us and went over the changes and the thoughts that they had were incorporated in the presentation that you've already had.

Beyond that we had no other comments.

Peters And so does this mean then that for an appeal that appeals no appeals will come to the board anymore?

So what we've written into the procedure is that the board will not hold the hearing and make the decision on whether discrimination did or did not occur.

That would be held by an outside hearing examiner and what we would be looking at is mutually agreed upon hearing examiners.

And then once the hearing examiner makes a decision that decision and all of the documentation and any other pieces of evidence that were heard at the hearing would come back to the superintendent and the board in a meeting afterwards to talk about any legal implications or potential disciplinary actions against a public employee.

So there's still an opportunity for the board to provide oversight look at the process improvement kind of look at what went wrong.

What might need to happen so that we can have that discussion with senior staff and the superintendent with the board in a closed session.

But the oversight would not be one pertaining to the actual grievance right?

It would be oversight of what to do in response to the grievance.

In other words it doesn't sound like the board would have a role in the actual appeal process.

Is that correct?

So in the actual fact finding they would not.

So we're kind of modeling this after the student discipline hearings that we have that there would be fact finding done by an individual and then the board would have oversight over whether there needs to be corrective actions based on.

the outcome and the decisions and the concerns that are being raised by those actions.

And that is the state law was changed that they're no longer required to go to the school board.

So that's where our recommendation is that they're going to a panel or an individual who hasn't participated in the process.

So the hearing examiner and I just want to clarify that it'll be we will come up with a group of hearing examiners but they won't be mutually agreed upon at each particular time we're going to come up with our labor partners with a panel that that's trained and that is skilled in the area to handle the area or the issue at dispute.

Peters just to clarify.

So you're saying that the district will compile a possible selection of hearing examiners and our labor partners will need to agree to this selection.

I believe they want to.

International Union of Operating Engineers wants to participate in the process of how we do that.

So one of the recommendations that we got from the judge that I spoke with is to give someone a contract for a year so they don't do one decision we don't like the decision that we don't rehire that individual again.

So we want to incorporate those things and work with the union partners to make sure that we do have a fair hearing for employees to come forward to.

So one thing I remember suggesting when we were discussing this and we discussed it at length is we're switching to a different approach here.

And I've always been nervous about taking the board completely out of this.

Not that it's a it's a I mean the experience of an appeal hearing is a very intense and serious serious experience.

But I worry about taking the board out of something and taking away the oversight role.

So one of my suggestions and I'm going to bring it to you again now is can we have you report back to us in six months or a year and give us some kind of review as to whether this new approach is working well?

Are people genuinely happy with the sense of due process?

I know people won't necessarily always be happy but will people feel that justice was served in the capacity that we're offering it?

And that would mean checking in with our labor partners checking in with the board and saying do you feel that you see good results because it sounds like the results will be brought to the board so the board can review what how to make corrective action going forward.

But the board will not weigh in on the decision.

Yes I want to make sure that we put on record that we definitely want to pay attention to the implementation of this new process and make sure that it's going well and as planned.

Even in discussions with our labor partners they did feel that this new proposed process is more fair to employees.

And so we want to make sure that it is more fair.

So that is the intent of the new process.

And so we will come back whether it's six months or a year to sort of review what happened and how is it going and talk with our labor partners to make sure that they do know that.

Can you please add that to the bar between now when we vote on it.

You will report back to us either six months or a year and we should figure out how that would what form that would take whether you would report back to the whole board in a board meeting or whether it would be in a committee.

But some way for the entire board to be aware of this.

Director Geary.

Well one of the models used for administrative hearings is that sometimes the fact finding tribunal makes an initial decision and sometimes it makes a final decision and when it makes an initial initial decision that decision then goes up automatically to the initial agency that did the action for a panel within that agency to just review not to do another appeal but just to review the decision itself.

and then sort of certify that it believes that the process was fair and did that.

So that's another way.

It's another model that could be looked at.

And if it turns out that this isn't sufficient and I'm not saying that we have to at this point but it is a model that in the administrative process you can either have a final decision making at the administrative and then the next review you'd have to go about into a whole different forum or you can have an initial with just a final oversight.

So if not an additional hearing not an additional hearing it's just sort of the certification of that initial hearing because that agency wanted an opportunity to look it over to make sure that it was complying with all of the policies within that agency because the hearing was on such a narrow point.

And they felt more satisfied rather than letting the office of administrative hearings have the final say before it went on to a higher appellate place that there would be this inner intermediary check.

So that's another model that could be looked at at some point if not now.

Peters

So when it comes back to the board as as we've discussed at some length the board's oversight authority the fiduciary aspect of that is something we take really seriously.

And in past hearings this last year and a half we have done findings of fact and conclusions and direction to senior staff and the superintendent to make certain things happen.

Where is the enforcement aspect of when we meet to review the hearing examiners report?

Do we then need to come back with a resolution?

We did not write that into the superintendent procedure.

It's a real question because one of the things that we were able to do on things like special ed program placements and option schools we were able to require the superintendent to bring forth that department to explain where we were.

Taking away board authority.

were perceived board authority and being able to enforce our decisions is.

It's pretty important to the folks here that got elected citywide.

So if there's a mechanism.

I would hate to have to bring resolutions.

It seems.

There needs to be something that comes out of that review process potentially.

A process.

So we can look at that and see we have the paragraph in there about the review process with the school board so we can look at how we can both.

And whether the board issues a report whether the board issues direction to the superintendent.

Our only employee other than the internal auditor to address some issue that came up in.

this process especially if it's a systemic issue.

Thank you.

Director Pinkham.

Just one more comment since now we're seeming to be splitting up between students and workplace.

What if a student is an employee or volunteer?

I think we'd follow student.

So if the student is an employee then they would have a right to file a complaint under the employee process if their complaint is based on them being like for a team read tutor.

I would argue that they're an employee and they could file under the employee if they're a student who's being tutored then I guess they would have the right to file under the student discrimination or HIB process.

So it would depend upon their status of what they were engaged in or what they're being a victim of.

And would that decision be left to the student or up to us that we don't.

This applies to the workplace and this one case applies to the student or would that be up to the complaint.

We would want to direct them to file the right complaint but it would be up to the two compliance officers the Office of Student Civil Rights and Dr. Codd's office and HR to determine what is appropriate policy and procedures for that individual to go under.

that be added someplace to direct students that may fall in that situation.

Like you may want to refer to the student HIB or the student.

I think we can do that in education when we send out the policies that if you're an employee you file under the 5000 if you're a student I believe we put that in the SR&R's here's the applicable policies.

So I think we can get there through education.

But if I can reread the procedures I can see if I could add anything to clarify that.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

Sorry one other thought.

Director Pinkham's comment again made me think of it when we because we're pulling these out and now we have two sort of almost parallel procedures one for employees and one for students do we want to I see that you you refer to the old policy.

But do we want to cross reference these policies as well so that if we make changes to language in one we know in the future to also refer to the other to make sure that there is parallelism and that we're not creating inadvertently two separate tracks of standards.

That would be just a sort of a check because I know we pulled it out and you don't think to cross reference that way when you refer it as a prior but just to make sure we're keeping track of it.

Okay and I just had one other small point and that is there's something about the use of the word timely in these policies that didn't look grammatically correct to me.

So I don't have a search function right now but if you could just review that because timely I think is being used either as a It's being used as an adjective.

Well it's being used incorrectly I think.

So we don't have the phrase in a timely manner but something else is being used.

So I can take a closer look and email you what specifically I'm referring to but because these are policies I'm going to stand for years we want to make sure we have everything correct in there.

And I'm sorry I'm my father's daughter and my grandmother's granddaughter and I'm a little bit pedantic about these things.

Sorry.

Peters OK thank you very much.

So we now move on to item three.

We're only on three.

OK.

OK everybody.

Jill's got a plane to catch.

Repealing school governance structures policy and procedures F 20 dot 0 0 F 20 dot 0 1 and F 20 dot 0 2 in adopting new board policy number 4 1 4 0 collaborative governance structures.

May we please hear from the chair of C&I.

This came before the C&I policy committee on October 10th and was moved forward for consideration.

And I will let Nate Van Duzer describe why it was moved forward for consideration.

Sure good evening Nate Van Duzer director of policy and board relations.

So this action report is also a part of the board's phase two policy cleanup work.

It repeals one board policy and two board procedures that were last touched by the board in 1996 and in their place it adopts a new board policy 4140 on collaborative governance structures.

And the new policy has much higher level language than the old documents.

And this was intentional.

Since the time the F 20 series was adopted the district's collective bargaining agreement with the Seattle Education Association has evolved and has come to include a lot of detail around collaborative governance structures in the CBA they are called building or program leadership teams.

And as you know state law and board policy are clear that when you have a conflict between a collective bargaining agreement language and board policy the collective bargaining agreement language overrides the policy and that's what we have to follow.

And so since these don't fully align at this point the practice in the schools has been to follow the collective bargaining agreement.

And the bad result of that is sometimes there's confusion when members of the community go to our policy book and see these policies and say how come we don't have how come this isn't matching what we're seeing in the school.

And so to resolve this conflict and confusion what staff would recommend is that you make this change adopt a new policy that has the higher level language that states the board's intent to encourage the district to keep collaborative governance structures but leaves the details to other policies or sorry other procedures or collective bargaining agreements.

We talked with our labor partners SEA and PASS about this.

They both are in favor of this approach.

At committee this came for consideration.

We had some discussion about the language of the new policy and the direction of the committee director Geary helped me wordsmith that a little bit.

And so the language you have here is a little bit different from what came in committee.

The other question from the committee was there was a request for benchmarking.

And so I looked at neighboring district districts around the around Seattle and Tacoma and Spokane looked at their search their policy books and looked at their collective bargaining agreements.

None had policies that were as explicit about how collaborative site based governance structures should be formed.

A couple of them had policies that encouraged site based decision making or local level decision making.

And then in their collective bargaining agreements most of them had.

some level of detail about what a collaborative governance structure looks like or collaborative decision making process looks like.

So I include that in the research section of your BAR.

I think that's all I have to present to you so I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Peters.

I want to be a little differential and respectful to my colleagues because I was not able to attend this C&I meeting.

But I do have some concerns with the level of we've gone from a very fine level of specificity which was something that we couldn't realize to a level of generality which is in my mind not really governing anything.

And so I'm just trying to think of how is there a way within this process that we can.

that we can establish some sort of you know I heard the word earlier parallelism between the CBA language and the policy language because that's sort of a would be a product of mutual collaboration.

And I find myself as a as a governance person uncomfortable with not having a board approved or board oversight.

governance process for our school sites.

Recognizing the CBA is board approved.

But it's through a collective bargaining process as compared to a board of directors putting together a set of ideas and principles.

So I say that not with a real solution or recommendation but just that it gives me a little bit of pause that when we talk about.

how important our CSIPs are and you know what type of I've I've heard one of my colleagues mention the responsibilities grid.

I won't steal her thunder or anything but the how how we provide a systemic level of oversight in our schools and still give them enough autonomy to be innovative is a really nuanced thing.

And for the board to reach a level of consensus on that would be a really important output of that policy work.

And I don't believe we're there yet.

I hear that concern.

I think one of the challenges is the legal landscape in which it says we have to follow what the CBA says.

And so in that case if you're wanting policy to match what's going on on the ground you either have to align it directly with the CBA or try to wrap it around in a way where there's it doesn't conflict or or use the board's role in the CBA process to try to get there.

I appreciate you bring that up because I want to be crystal clear that this is not something that I would want to be contrary to the work of the CBA or you know the contributions of our collectively bargained teams.

Rather it's a way that.

All of us behind the dais can can reach a common agreement that I think could maybe help stabilize some of the communication.

But I could see the challenge of trying to have a parallel policy that that lives in policy land and a collective bargaining agreement that iterates every you know every every contract cycle.

Director Harris.

Oh I can't recall the specifics there was a lot of discussion around this.

And I can't recall whether or not we can actually identify the the structures that exist under this per school.

We'd do we know exactly who this is impacting and where they are.

So this the entities do we know where all these entities that all the entities are that would be that would arguably fall under this policy.

I don't I don't know if I can answer your question.

So this policy when the building leadership team structure came into place it essentially went in a completely new direction with school governance structure.

So prior to the building leadership team there were site councils there were there were all kinds of things happening in schools.

And.

And the building leadership team structure was was a very thoughtful partnership between then superintendent and and the school board and the Seattle Education Association.

And so I don't think that what was then when this was written really even exists in current state current state the building leadership team is the.

school governance structure that has the decision making matrix the bylaws there.

I don't believe there are other structures in schools currently today that have those kinds of practices in place that I am aware of.

So when we say these entities were we intend this to mean the BLT's.

Because these entities is referring to something that would exist within our structure.

And didn't we have kind of a wonderfully thoughtful wide ranging discussion about things like instructional councils and race and equity teams and MTSS teams and wasn't it clear as mud?

But but those aren't school governance structures.

Those are committees.

They do committee work.

They do.

They do work that.

But the governance structure would not apply to any of those teams.

Is that correct.

I don't believe so.

Those are that wasn't clear at the meeting for sure.

Or I missed the memo entirely possible.

It.

Is that what you were referring to?

I think I'm raising this now because we did talk about it and there was some misperception on my part what this would pertain to.

But we never fully clarified unless it is the BLT that this is pertaining to.

And I'm just trying to get back to Director Burke's point of we're making a policy and are we really clear as to what we're governing.

And in that case because a lot of why we did this is because we had a policy that was meaningless and that it couldn't be implemented without violating the law.

And so then the question becomes and I don't know is I'm entirely sure that this policy needs to exist at all.

Because that would eliminate an inconsistency in terms of if we are approving the collective bargaining agreement and this work is being covered by that and that's the board's authority and that's the policy that we're implementing by approving it then what is this doing and how where is the conflict in the interpretation if.

Other other than this policy needs to be brought up put next to the CBA and we need to do the double check.

Did the CBA meet this policy and do we want to go through that task?

So so I would say it's up to the board about whether you want this new policy.

I think the one thing that I would state is I don't I don't think this is an issue in the current climate because everyone is kind of behind the idea of BLTs but it establishes from the board for the record that we want something like a BLT in our schools and BLTs aren't referenced by name here because as agreements evolve maybe the name changes and So this is essentially an intense statement from the board saying we like these collaborative structures.

You don't have to make that statement if you think everyone agrees with it and and it will live on.

So if we are saying we are fostering this then is there a place in the CSIP that a school identifies that it has such a governance piece.

Is there some place where we can check that this is existing in conformance with our desire that it exists?

I can look into that.

I don't know the details of what's in the CSIP.

I think there somewhere we must be checking how schools are following the CBA and what that looks like.

I mean there's sort of a natural accountability because the school CSIP is designed for the building leadership team and that's one of the four functions of the building leadership team is the CSIP the program budget development professional development plan and the decision making matrix of the school.

So every school has a building leadership team which is why we're doing our trainings that we're doing over last year and this year.

So there is sort of a natural accountability that that is the governing body that designs the CSIP.

Director Burke.

Okay thank you this is this this conversation is helping me be maybe a little bit more clear with my point of concern.

You know the language here says that it's the policy the school boards that the district encourage and facilitate through the implementation of collecting collective bargaining agreements or other applicable procedures.

So already it's like well other applicable procedures could be anything.

And these entities will be formed to work with the building principal or program manager to improve student achievement and may include community representation as appropriate.

So we've got a lot of mays we've got a lot of coulds we've got a lot of… It's called wiggle room.

So I'm wondering if there is there something at a level where we say wow school governance systems are great.

We should have them.

Should they be the same for all schools as governed by our collaborative agreement?

Or is there an opportunity for schools to have unique ones?

What are the key elements of a school governance structure that the board feels are important?

And you know we talked about guiding documents some type of guiding principles whether that's bylaws you know at some level we get down into the weeds where we start to do we start to create you know friction or or or conflict with the CBA.

But can we go to a level where we're generalizing the things about that that over over time as a district we've converged on as what we consider effective models and enshrine that in policy because I believe that gives us more stability more transparency.

That's where my brain goes.

I'd be happy to talk with you more about what kind of what would fall in that level and what we might be able to add between now and action.

Peters Harris.

So when a board member comes to senior staff superintendent etc. and we have a concern about a particular school the kind of go to answer is well you know sorry Les that's building based management.

And and I'm not OK with that because we were elected to do oversight and and giving away Our oversight duties being collectively bargained yes I appreciate the law but collective bargaining agreements can change depending on the politics.

We talk about the CSIPs as though they have been grounded for the last several years.

And I think it's a fair comment to say that this year we attained our goal.

And for many many years we had not attained our goal.

I used to tease Shawna Heath on a regular basis saying well so does that mean that we have 105 different or at that point maybe 98 separate schools with different policies.

I I'm uncomfortable with not having administrative oversight and building based management more clearly defined.

I'm uncomfortable with not having an answer or the BLT written in here and the other committees either accepted or listed.

It's it's a fine line.

I believe very much in boots on the ground innovation alternative schools.

But I also believe we ought to be able to know where it falls on a matrix.

In our collective bargaining agreement not too long ago we collectively bargained lunch and recess time.

I recall speaking with labor relations director Stan Damas and asking him you're not going to bargain away any of our policies are you?

Oh no absolutely not.

Well actually we already have.

So I I'm truly uncomfortable with this.

I think this deserves a much deeper dive in terms of.

Transparency and in terms of who owns what for accountability and responsibility.

I want to follow up because Leslie gave me a great segue and that is how we've been bargaining away policy.

And so I feel like we're kind of in a pickle right now because it seems like that's perhaps what happened.

And so.

And there's a law that says that the collective bargaining agreement overrides policy.

Is that correct?

There's a state law that says a collective bargaining agreement will override any policy we do.

So there's no point in us doing a policy that will conflict with collective bargaining agreement because it will be a moot point.

And I think the reason why you're here today is because we have three policies that have now been rendered moot by a collective bargaining agreement or two that we've since bargained since these policies were written.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay so we bargained away some of the things that were in this these policies that we're currently updating and so you're doing your job by saying well these don't mean anything anymore let's get rid of them, let's condense them, let's make them aligned to the CBA according to state law.

But what we're struggling with is the fact the realization that things got bargained away that we think should still be there.

And what we've got is this predicament right now where we have something called site based management where schools are allowed to have a certain amount of autonomy and a certain amount of autonomy and creativity is something we all embrace.

But we've reached a point where it's not clear where that begins and ends and where our governing authority begins or ends.

And so what I'm hearing here is a desire to restate some kind of governing authority from the board over our schools within reason.

And it seems to me the only way to do that is to put that in the next collective bargaining agreement.

Is that correct?

I can't answer that.

I mean.

Jill.

My thought would be.

When as we go through a collective bargaining agreement it is only fair and transparent to our board that when a provision of the bargaining is going to negate a policy that that is made transparent to the board that then has to approve it.

And before it is approved and so that there can be the discussion.

And so it would take a certain level of like in you know deep familiarity with the policy so that when something came up whoever you know enough members on the collective bargaining team knew that it was conflicting or potentially going to conflict with a policy so that policy could be polled reviewed and raised as an issue.

And so it then seems to me that.

a board that approves a collective bargaining agreement that negates a board policy without prior notice and opportunity to consider that provision should be null and void until that process has been completed.

And I don't know if such a provision in a CBA is ever contemplated.

No but I think what you're talking about is a process review before we bring tentative agreements to the board for intro and action that we've done a policy review to see if there are any if anything conflicts with current policy and then bring that forward and be really transparent about that.

So just to be clear to the public and the people in this room.

The collective bargaining agreement around building leadership teams, that was bargained 20 years ago.

So we're talking about long before, I wasn't even a teacher at that point, and certainly Nate, Nate was born, yes he was.

But so so we are in a pickle right now.

But I think what I understand the concern and one way to address that might be that we add in an additional process that before we bring tentative agreements forward that we have done a thorough policy review to make sure that we're not sort of undermining something that's already currently in policy.

Peters.

And huge shout out and props to you Dr. Codd for getting the training in for BLT's.

Thank you for that.

It's a 20 year old policy.

I have heard the stories I have served on BLT's at great length and I have seen how some work and some perhaps do not as intended.

So that's that's huge.

Big props again.

I appreciate the fact that we are delegating a great deal of authority to our buildings.

But we were elected to work on policies and we've got to find that fine line here.

Thank you.

And one small point it sounds like there's an interest in having BLT's named in the policy and even though you know as Nate pointed out that could become outmoded eventually.

We could say currently known as BLT's building leadership teams just so people know what we're talking about.

Okay well thank you.

If anybody has any other thoughts they want to share with staff between now and when we vote on this please please send them to them by email.

All right.

Thank you.

All right so the next item is item four amending policy number 21 61 special education and repealing policies C 62.00 graduation for special special education students and C 69.00 procedural safeguards for parents.

May we please hear from the chair of C&I for this and the following item.

Busy day in curriculum and instruction October 10th.

First item that we're looking at now was move forward for approval and the next item was moved forward for consideration.

Hi there my name is Trish Campbell and I am the director of special education, nice to see you all tonight.

This board action is to incorporate policy C62 and C69 into existing policy 2162 which would then repeal C62 and 69. We are condensing the old letter policies into an existing policy which is 2162 and these edits are clerical in nature and this motion will help continue the cleanup of the policy book.

That's what I have for you tonight.

Any questions on that?

Director Geary.

In reading this I just want to clarify for the record you said twice 2162 and I believe it's 2161.

That's right.

I'm sorry.

OK.

Just in case there's a yeah a typed out record of it.

You're right it is 2161.

And I just wanted to comment that I appreciated when this came before C&I we had a discussion about including some language around being aspirational and that YFJC worked with me and we put that in.

I understand that this was a cleanup but I think anytime that we as a district can take the opportunity to add language that asks us to do more than the minimum.

And so I just wanted to call that out and say my appreciation for that.

There's no further questions or comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Next item adoption of board resolution 2017 18 dash 3 career and technical education CTE partnerships.

See so.

Director Burke I think you should lead the discussion on this since you are the author and co-sponsor.

So I would like to tag team a little bit with my colleague Director Patu on this.

First of all thank you to Betty as well for the assistance and the support.

And so this is this is sort of formalizing a concept that has come before the board a couple of times in words and in and hopefully now in actions.

The premise is that we have a large body of work going on right now in our high schools.

We've got our our equity commitment.

We have all of these streams of work that are that are proceeding through.

through our system and there is there's been a historical what I consider a squeezing out of elective programs and not just CTE electives but any type of elective has been squeezed out as a result of an underfunded system.

And when we don't have an underfunded system and we have a set of graduation requirements then generally the funds are going to be focused on those graduation requirements.

And so what it what the education system looks like now versus what I believe it looked like in the past like when I went through it.

There are less opportunities for students to use their hands to learn things that are that are tactile to learn things that are potentially relevant to hobbies or careers or just things that are fun to do in school.

And so we fight for the arts and we fight for a lot of you know the music.

And so this is this is a way of saying you know what we also need to really look at our career and technical education.

And we have some some staff that I see represented here that that are working on some of this as well.

So this resolution is around trying to look outside our current.

Look outside our current universe because we know that our K-12 system is underfunded.

We know we have a lot of a lot of mandates and a lot of work to do.

But a lot of the career and technical education when it's really good.

It's aligned to post-secondary.

It's aligned to workplaces it's it's.

In some senses it's it's job preparation.

And so that means we have to go look outside past the 12th grade and say well what are our kids going to do when they graduate?

What do we want them to be able to do?

What is the city or the world want them to be able to do?

What are we preparing them for?

And if we take that and reach out to those those partners And those can be those can be employers those can be community college those can be university those can be labor organizations.

Pretty much any place where our kids might go.

We should be talking to them about what those pathways look like and try to build that in as much as possible to our high school model.

So this this resolution is essentially a partnership resolution that says you know and I'll just go to the the the last point of it.

You know it builds a story around we don't have enough money to do this.

This is really important.

And the final the final be it resolved is we encourage our partners.

Parents parent organizations higher education labor organizations government agencies industry philanthropic groups community based organizations and others in case you weren't in the list to join us in support of sustainably funding implementing and expanding high quality middle and high school CTE programs in Seattle Public Schools.

So this is an ask to people who maybe before have tried to work with us and said oh you guys are too much of a too much of a burden to work with or you know you don't you're not interested you're not committed.

This is a way of leadership saying no we are committed.

Help us out.

And I'm I'm on a I'm on a rant now so I don't know if you want to go from there.

What's the nice thing about it is that we have been talking to a lot of labor unions leaders and they really have been very acceptance in terms of us trying to push the CTE program within our Seattle Public Schools.

And what we are looking at hopefully is starting apprenticeship programs for our students in high school and lead that into also to getting them real jobs when they are actually doing apprenticeship training by partnership with corporations that are willing to actually accept apprenticeship for our students.

And like I said talking to some of these organizations and these companies out there They have been really a great support for Seattle Public Schools and they think it's a great idea.

So I think it's something that we're going to continue to pursue that hopefully by next year we'll have apprenticeship programs for our students within our high schools.

Director Harris.

Director Burke you know what a big fan of CTE I am having spent 15 years on worker retraining in Highline when I was young.

Not anymore.

Two I've spent 35 years working with labor unions.

And these are my people.

These are the people that I work with every day.

And frankly they have found our district very difficult to work with in the past in terms of engaging.

And in many ways this is aspirational.

And in fact I believe the superintendent sent you a memo about how we shouldn't be creating more work under the communications protocol.

And we don't have a communications protocol that was killed a year ago and I was proud to have done it.

This is this is a signal.

This is this board is going to stand up and fight for our kids to have a pathway.

And we're going to go out and we're going to beg for dollars and we're going to work together and we're going to open the doors wide because our kids deserve it.

Director Geary.

I think this is a really important piece of the EOG puzzle that we need to fill in.

It is the opportunity.

And we're building all the scaffolding and we're doing the MTSS work.

But what are we building these kids to?

What are the opportunities that they see in the future that are pulling them through maybe when they're bored or maybe when schools not just the right fit.

And we talk about athletics as being one of those pieces of opportunity and something that gets kids to school.

Well I see this as something that gets kids to school to the opportunity.

I think we all you know at least from my experience in high school there were those kids that came to hang out with the shop teacher.

And those kids still had to go to math and they still had to go to English and they still got their high school degree but they felt safe in shop.

And that was where their opportunity pulled them.

And so this is just this isn't inconsistent.

And it is highlighting to everybody out there that needs to partner because this is a pathway that we can get them to the door that you know we can put them at the end of our schoolhouse.

But they've got to go out into the world and we need to say we're ready to create that runway for them.

And you city you be ready to receive them.

And so I think this is very consistent with our work.

Thank you.

Burke.

I want to be responsible about airtime here but one of the points that I've neglected to mention last time in the resolution and in the build up to it there's there's some talk about attendance.

And we had a student guest today Alyssa Chin that was from Chief Sealth International High School.

And they have a group you know the Academy of finance.

They also have an Academy of tourism and hospitality.

And within that Academy structure I'm looking at the statistics from 2015 16. This was Ballard Franklin Chief Sealth 376 students.

Graduation rate.

100 percent.

College bound 89.6 percent.

Forty five internships completed.

This works.

This is a big deal.

And so it's really important that as we're having this conversation that this is a conversation that we couldn't really have 10 years ago because there was a much more heightened stigma around you know CTE classes are where those kids go.

And those days are gone.

I hope we need to be relentless that CTE classes are for all kids.

It's not those kids it's our kids.

I'll close with my story in high school.

In addition to taking a late arrival.

So that I could do floors at a safe way in the wee hours of the morning to put myself through school.

I took two sections of wood shop and two sections of metal shop.

That preparation in high school.

Enabled me to get a technician job at a company where now I run it it's a 30 person company.

And it's amazing and I love coming to work every day.

So this is really personal to me as you probably know.

Yeah.

Stepping stone.

It's it's a it's a it's a piece of opportunity that I want for every single student in Seattle Public Schools to have so that they can choose their trajectory and not have it chosen for them.

Peters.

When you say that you are part of this that the directors reached out to Seattle Colleges.

What exactly are the colleges?

Is it North Central North or South or does it include University of Washington Seattle University?

to go into the name list.

I think the you know the the interaction with some folks from Seattle colleges that you know our staff is engaged with now has been part of shaping this.

I know that there has been a desire to do more outreach to the University of Washington our our neighbors and I look forward to maybe talking more about that in the future.

Okay thank you.

And within this can we have something that really maybe emphasize women in minority owned businesses as being a key collaborative partner?

Okay that was a very good discussion I thought.

Okay let's move on to item 6 the 2017-18 legislative agenda.

This came to the executive committee on October 12 where it was advanced for approval.

Good evening Erin Bennett government relations and strategic initiatives.

As you mentioned I'm here to present the proposed 17 18 agenda.

It was developed in consultation with our board legislative liaison Director Jill Geary as well as our district lobbyist.

The proposed agenda is based on and very similar to last year's agenda and that is mainly because many of those issues are still unresolved.

Unfortunately.

Although the agenda and this is noted in the bar as well is typically focused on a limited number of priorities the formal agenda does not limit district input on other topics and I just wanted to make that clear.

There are sort of three main focus areas that are being proposed.

The first is ample and sustainable funding for K-12.

The second is funding capital projects and removing barriers.

And then the third is around eliminating the opportunity gaps and there's several things called out under that section including we kept the language from the assessment language that we had last year regarding the resolution that this board passed.

I just wanted to flag that that stayed.

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Director Geary.

I will only add very quickly that having attended the Washington state school directors Association legislative agenda building meeting that this policy will allow us to partner with some of our other school districts.

It is broad enough to be able to join with our other school districts and lobby for certain things without creating a conflict or any reason for us not to be able to do that which I think is positive.

And when we talked about this in committee recently we talked about one aspect under the eliminate the opportunity gaps strategies was address fair and equitable assessments.

And it says there adopt an alternative summative assessment framework to allow use of assessments other than smarter balance assessments and that grew out of a resolution that the board passed about a year ago.

And you mentioned in committee that other direct districts have now expressed interest in that same sentiment that there's some other districts that would also like to take a look at using alternative assessment.

Can you recall which which districts or maybe Director Geary you can recall which districts are also interested in looking at this?

I should have gone back and looked at the comprehensive list.

Spokane for two years running has joined us with this and then beyond that I believe some of our neighboring districts.

I don't want to speak on the record out of turn.

We could contact WASDA for that.

As I recall perhaps Tacoma.

Mercer Island.

But I'd want to double check before.

But I do know that it was of greater interest.

It's hard in the voting process to know because they do a weighted vote where everybody puts up their they collect the paper ballots.

And so it's not necessarily easy being in the audience to know who voted which way because they take it and it's a blind count.

But I do know that Spokane came and talked to me and now that it's getting far enough away in time that it's not as clear but I have a sheet somewhere that I could resurrect around that.

In terms of our legislative agenda again as I said if that's something that we want to move forward on we need to talk about proposing something and finding a sponsor and moving if we want to do a targeted ask.

Thank you.

But we could if we wanted to do that I could definitely resurrect resurrect the list and or contact WSSDA to find out what other districts might be available to work on that in terms of finding sponsors.

OK.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

I think perhaps one of the most important things about our legislative agenda is to encourage all of our parents and guardians to get out and vote in November.

There are a couple of very very key races that could switch.

the leadership of the legislature which could make an extraordinary difference to this district and other school districts in the state of Washington.

And I don't believe I can go to PDC jail for this.

I think I touched the line and backed up.

And I was within nudging distance too.

OK.

Are there any other questions about our legislative agenda?

OK.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Right.

Item 7 kids in the middle grant from the Nesholm Family Foundation.

May we please hear from the chair of the Audit and Finance Committee.

We proudly move this forward at the Audit and Finance Committee on October 9th because the Nesholm family foundation is making a huge difference in our three middle schools Aki Mercer and Denny.

And moreover they brought in other funders for the pathway schools and it's working and it's working well and we thank them.

Good evening Michael Stone director of grants.

Yes.

And we're bringing this to you now.

Normally we'll bring we'll bring this to again in the spring when we get the letter from the alliance at a sooner date.

Again bring this forward.

This is we're on year 15. of this support from the Nesholm Foundation almost six point six million dollars to support Aki, Danny and Mercer to for their literacy programs.

As you can see by the data that's been provided we are seeing tremendous growth at those districts or at those buildings.

Sorry it's getting late.

So this is funding that comes through the Alliance for Education from the Nesholm Foundation and as Director Harris stated it has now blossomed into other support from the Satterberg Foundation to the feeder schools to those three middle schools.

Director Geary.

Just a huge thank you to the Nesholm Family Foundation and hopefully we can leverage this as a challenge to other potential foundations out there who want to join us in this great work and make sure that we're able to offer these opportunities to all of our schools.

We're working on it.

Thank you.

And there's been an invite out to the Nesholm Foundation to be here for action.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Next item award three year contract to Hobson's Naviance for new career and career readiness software solutions services and support.

Did we hear from the chair of ops on this?

This came to ops.

I'm sitting in for Director Blanford.

This came to ops on June 15th and was pushed forward for consideration.

Thank you.

Caleb Perkins again the director for college and career readiness.

I'm joined by Nancy Peterson director for enterprise systems with the division of technology services.

This is a proposal for a three year contract with Hobson's Naviance a very important tool for our guidance counselors our families our students to learn a great deal about the pathways to college and careers all the.

Discussion recently around the career pathways we were just discussing this would be enhanced by this kind of tool.

It's been something that has been reviewed and vetted through many channels starting with the 24 credit task force.

They've been calling for this kind of tool for counselors since the beginning of that work and since then as Ms. Peterson can elaborate on.

There's been a great deal of input and research on what exactly is the right tool to provide our guidance counselors, our families and students so they can get the best information possible as they consider their pathways to college and career.

It also provides a great enhancement to our high school and beyond planning and will be a wonderful companion to the recently developed online tool for that planning as well.

And again we appreciate your consideration.

If there's technical questions I invite Ms. Peterson to come up.

If there's programmatic questions I'm happy to address them.

Oh I'm sorry.

The WSIPC is the reference to the Washington State tool that is free.

It's a very basic tool.

It's just the one that takes the high school and beyond planning tool and puts it online so that we can easily record how students are doing.

Naviance adds a wealth of resources to connect to that conversation to help students think about where they want to go in high school middle school and beyond.

Director Burke.

I don't know whether this is programmatic or implementation but what what is the student experience look like in terms of using this and I apologize for missing the demo but maybe you could summarize when during the day will this be will this be integrated as a like a required part of advisory or is it an afterschool?

What's the what's the student facing element?

Yeah, I think there's two parts to that question.

So one in terms of the actual interface, which we're happy to share more information and share links to demos if that would be of interest.

It is a customizable tool in which students through a self-assessment process are then given access to a wealth of resources that are then tailored to how they answer specific questions and the kinds of experiences that they've had in school thus far.

I mean, for lack of a better connection, think of any of those sort of personalized social media sites that this is tailored specifically to college and career-oriented resources.

That's the student interface.

In terms of when it will happen in the day, definitely advisory is one key place that we imagine this will happen.

But as was shared in the districts that we've been talking with some use the counselors who push into classes and actually do lessons using this tool.

And then of course there are the other opportunities such as after school.

So there's a wide variety of options and we think this will be part of the high school social emotional high school middle school social emotional working group that the SCA pass and and NPS are working on developing to support the rollout of advisory at the high school level.

Director Harris.

Associate Superintendent Tolley we were talking about this 18 months ago a year ago.

How long has Bellevue been using it because Bellevue's foundation has provided it.

I want to say five years.

We had that conversation.

Honestly I don't know the answer to that question but we can definitely research that and get that to you.

OK.

And I have real concerns about data privacy.

So we're we're addressing that straight up protecting our students data.

Correct.

We are and I'm going to call up Director Peterson who got that same question in the operations committee that.

Thank you yes Nancy Peterson director of enterprise applications in the Department of Technology Services.

Yes we're very concerned about data privacy and as a result we have we are continuing to work on the contract terms with the vendor to be sure that we have the correct privacy and security parts to the to the contract.

We include information about who data can be shared with or whether it can.

We include in fact we included information in the RFP and in the selection process assessing the various vendors and what their security stance is.

We insisted on encryption of data at rest.

and encryption of data in transport.

And so there are a number of different layers of protections that we have.

So that will all that have been negotiated by the time that it comes into us for action.

Yes it will.

OK.

Our current high school counselor to student ratio is 1 to 450. Is that about right.

The number I have is 400 to 1 but.

Close.

In any event we can agree that it's way too high.

But yet we keep talking about career and college but we can't get them there.

So we have to have those tools.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

Quick follow up to Director Harris's question.

When this comes for for action will it have the actual contract attached and can you also include the data privacy agreement or whatever whatever types of document we have in place that governs that.

Yes we'll include the contract with all of its stipulations as well as the data sharing agreement.

Thank you so much.

I'm reassured to hear that because that would align with my questioning which was also about the data privacy aspect of it and so I'm hoping what you'll provide will tell us what kind of information will be gathered by this program and how it will be shared or not be shared and with whom.

Because my understanding of these programs are that there is like a Myers-Briggs element to it where the students do almost like a personality test and then they match who they are, what they are like, their interests to their subjects and to colleges.

There is an awful lot of very very personal material about each one of these students that could be you know a goldmine for a marketer of some kind.

So, just like with Facebook, we have to be careful, you know, how much information we put out there, whereas here we have a chance to put some protections around it.

And so that's something that I think we're all very interested in knowing more about.

Thank you.

Okay next item item 9 2018 19 implementation amendment to 2013 20 growth boundaries plan for student assignment.

This came to Ops.

This came to Ops on October 5th and was moved forward for approval.

Good evening my name is Ashley Davies director of enrollment planning for Seattle Public Schools.

And so the board action report around the Boyle Heights and Whittier boundary change is an update to the 2013-2020 growth boundaries plan for student assignment.

that creates an alignment in the Whittier to Adams sorry Whittier to Loyal Heights boundary change for the 2018-19 school year.

So there is two other boundary changes that are part of the 2013 through 2020 boundary change that had already been approved in November 2013. So the board action report that is in front of you today for introduction is just about a four blocks within the current Whittier attendance area that would be what we would call an island since the other boundary changes are approved for 18-19 if this area is not approved.

So that is that boundary change that we are requesting per this board action report.

We've had two community meetings, one in June of this year and then one in September to inform the Whittier and Adams communities as well as the Loyal Heights community about the changes that are happening, the ones that had already been approved and then the one that is being proposed in this board action report.

The recommendation that we have along with The 2013 2020 boundary changes as well is grandfathering for all impacted areas.

So this year different from previous years there is no informational bars which is where we would typically put the information around grandfathering.

So one thing that we will do is in the background make sure that it's clear that we are recommending grandfathering for all these changes.

Well I'm glad to hear you say that because we did get some testimony tonight about that and I did have a question out about that so two things yes so you're saying that grandfathering will be allowed for the changes to areas 127 and 128?

That is the recommendation yes.

And does that include so that would take care of the sibling?

Or is that a different issue?

So the grandfathering means just students who are currently at the school.

Any siblings would not be included in that which is typical with all the previous instances of grandfathering we've had across the district for the many years.

Siblings would continue to get first priority if they apply during open enrollment.

during the school choice process.

If they again apply on time they get that sibling tiebreaker which is the first priority.

Okay so grandfathering yes siblings preference no.

And then will transportation be provided for any student whose grandfathered?

So transportation is not included within the grandfathering recommendations again and that's per previous boundary changes.

We have not.

The board has not approved transportation with the grandfathering with the exception of last year where there were a few elementary small elementary changes where there were transportation with the grandfathering.

Peters.

So the lack of transportation has been run through the race and equity tool.

So we've heard some very powerful testimony tonight and we've read some pretty powerful emails about how this will be affecting single parent working families with no cars for instance.

So we did not specifically run that through the race and equity tool.

Our transportation department is looking at various options though given the students who are in that area and given some of the potential opportunities to maybe use some shared buses with the students who would be in those areas traveling to Whittier and or Loyal Heights.

Director Burke.

I want to put a frame around the issue first.

So what we're looking at right here is modifying a boundary just for change area 128.

127 sorry 128 is the area the four block radius.

Yes sorry.

And so 127 and some other ones were part of the previous boundary approval.

Yes.

A board prior to our time that are going to implement at the same time as this one.

So the actual implementation of all of these boundary changes would be fall of 2018. Yes.

But only this one shows up in this board action report.

Because the others are captured in the previous work.

OK so that answers my question around the comments a lot of the comments were families from Adams and areas that weren't affected by this.

So I understand now that the comments that are attached to this board action report cover the broader community engagement that refers to area 128 and all the other areas is that correct?

Yes.

So at those meetings is also an opportunity for us to not only talk about the board action report which is just area 128 but also to inform families of the change that is coming up in the coming year.

So that's why the comments also reflect families who are providing their comments, concerns, questions around changes that had already been approved.

Thank you.

The the it states in the bar here an intent to grandfather which I believe was also included in the conversations around the other areas that are not covered by this boundary.

Where will that be included explicitly as policy will that be in the student assignment plan that we're talking about on the 25th or will that be where will that exist as a as a policy approval.

So we are going to include that in the background of the bar itself.

That will have a line that will actually reference the fact that we are recommending grandfathering with the previous areas as well.

And so recommending versus implementing.

That's what I'm trying to understand the actual implementation the actual approval of grandfathering.

Is that staff's responsibility the board's responsibility and where what document is that governed in?

So the bar will actually read as if we say there's grandfathering.

So when you approve the when you approve the bar if you approve it as is it will be with grandfathering.

So I use the reference of recommending as staff with the notion that the board will do the approving.

OK so any conversations around grandfathering or transportation for area 128 and all related areas on this would be covered under this bar.

So the one exception is transportation will be included in the transportation standards.

So they have a portion of that that includes exceptions.

And so if there is transportation provided for grandfathered students in those areas that would be included in the transportation standards which won't get completed until after the boundary changes are approved as well as some other changes.

So their timeline is after ours.

OK to be more specific if I would like to say as a board director I would like to offer transportation to these impacted families because that's what we did in our previous amendments.

And I believe that's consistent with the previous intent that has come out.

Where does that sit?

Does that sit in this discussion?

Where do I put that as a motion or an amendment or a conversation?

Yeah Flip Herndon associate superintendent of operations and facilities.

You can by making that comment now if we can have that as an amendment in here to make that as the marker and then also include that in the transportation service standards because we're going to have to put that in that anyway.

Because it's a it'll have a budgetary impact on the transportation service standards portion But we can also put it in this particular bar if that's a line you want to include With the grandfathering.

Okay.

Thank you.

So that will Transportation just refers to areas 127 and 128 or any of the other boundary areas impacted by transportation based on their distance.

I believe the other change area for Adams was in the walk zone of both schools.

So there wasn't any transportation associated with that to begin with.

But I'll double check that to make sure.

Yeah if you could check that and include that clarity that would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Harris.

Let me see if I understood this please because this feels a little like PTSD last year when someone came to the dais and said Oh by the way this is going to cost eight hundred thousand dollars.

And it wasn't it wasn't our best moment.

Will the transportation costs be part of the bar.

We can include what the cost of transportation would be so that it's highlighted for you so you understand the impact the financial impact of off during transportation.

Yes we will include that.

Thank you.

I just needed it real clear.

Yes.

Director Geary.

The transportation issue is interesting in that if transportation is offered it may alleviate some of the transportation needs from that area for anybody choosing to go over to Loyal Heights.

So I don't I think that's a curious analysis.

I would also We did receive some email around the shared transportation option and I'd like that to be explored as well because I think that the appreciation for the provision of transportation is one that I think the two communities would be happy to coordinate and work and make happen.

My guess is that we'll probably have to put a maximum parameter financial impact on the maximum parameters of transportation because you won't actually know until the families take advantage until it's offered to them.

So what we can do is give you the maximum financial impact and then anything less we can do.

through the various modes whether it be shared transportation or realizing that there would be one less bus going to Loyal Heights as opposed to Whittier.

We can figure that out but we at least want to give you the maximum financial impact.

Peters All right.

Thank you.

So the next item is approval of the Washington state auditors SAO annual audit services contract for the 2016 17 fiscal year audits.

May we hear from the chair of audit finance committee please.

Went through A&F October 10th for approval not like we have any choice in the matter.

Good evening, Erin Bennett.

You're probably surprised to see me standing up here.

I am standing in for JoLynn who had a family obligation.

JoLynn Berge, our assistant superintendent of business and finance.

This board action report would authorize the superintendent to reimburse the Washington state auditor's office for its services.

We are required by state law to be audited annually by the state auditor's office and the auditor's office informs us of the cost.

which for the audit of 16 17 is estimated to be $346,890.

And since this exceeds the $250,000 threshold it is required to be brought before the board for your consideration for approval.

And we had discussion at A&F and we thought it appropriate that it come before the board.

There was an argument that because it's required We could just run it through but you know people need to know that these are the constraints that we work under.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments on this item?

Director Patu.

Is this the same amount that we pay last year?

I don't have that information.

I can find out.

It's gone up a little bit by the hourly rate.

But again you don't have any competition.

This is a done duck.

Statutorily required.

I guess that's it, thank you Ms. Bennett.

Now onto our final item 11 approval of the superintendent's professional practice goal and rubric for 2017-18.

This came to the executive committee on August 24 and we advanced it for consideration because it was still a work in progress and one of the main people working on this was Director Burke.

And so I will allow him to address this item since it's near and dear to his heart.

Well given the time we'll be brief.

So as as you all may recall there is a set of SMART goals that we adopt as a board.

Four of them MTSS EOG budget and engagement collaboration.

There is a fifth SMART goal that refers to professional practice.

and the board previously adopted approved the four first four SMART goals and then we engaged in a collaboration process with Dr. Nyland to try to understand well what are really the professional practice processes or the professional practice goals that that align with really building capacity of the district and what moves the needle.

And so as we know our superintendent has been doing this for a while so he has a lot of insight and opinions on the matter.

And then our board also has opinions and passions so we had some really rich conversations aligning those and what is attached to this bar is a rubric grid and the process by which that is evaluated.

There are essentially three categories of professional practice with ratings for each basic proficient distinguished.

And this was.

I'm happy to say developed in partnership collaboration and agreement with with Dr. Nyland.

So we will be including this as a component of the I believe the June evaluation process.

And that includes reviewing all the other smart goals.

And then I wanted to add one more note.

There's a fiscal impact note on this bar that we carried that when we were doing the documents we carried that forward from last year which identified 1.5 million or from a previous discussion.

Since that time the board has had a work session where we allocated an additional 1 million to smart goal work so that notation will change to 2.5 million in the final version.

Just as a point of clarification you mean a total of 2.5 million for all of the goals not just this one correct?

Correct.

One of the things that came up in discussion a lot is that professional practice infuses all the other goals so no additional budget for that.

And then also this is a brand-new goal for the board?

I'm trying to remember if we had anything like it before because I remember multiple times going through a superintendent evaluation and having a conversation, I think Erin Bennett can help us with this, and this board and the previous board felt like we are kind of missing something.

We would like a goal that addresses while professional practice and leadership.

And so my understanding is that this developed out of that.

And so Erin is this a brand new goal for the board?

So we had a professional practice S goal not last year but the year before.

What I understand that this goal within the process itself it provided a little bit more focus on leadership and other qualities that were found both in alignment with the Washington State School State School Directors Association rubric as well as other things.

But two years ago there was a something like professional practice but it wasn't exactly like this.

This is this is a new model.

The board had an actual amendment to their process in February that captured what this process would look like.

Peters Thank you.

Any questions or comments?

Seeing none that completes our program for this evening.

Thank you all for joining us.

I call this meeting adjourned at 10 minutes to 9. Thank you.