School Board Meeting Date462016 Part 2

We are now into our public testimony.

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

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

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

When the two minutes have ended please conclude your remarks.

We have two interpreters here this evening who will be leaving at 545 p.m.

and to accommodate those speakers who are on the testimony list I will call them first to provide their public testimony.

Our first three speakers Laura Kramer, Sophie Schifra Gold, and Deanna Romani and Mary Jo Kelly.

He wanted to stay in Paw Patrol for free but I told him no.

Another time.

Hi, well thank you for becoming accessible.

I'm sorry that it didn't work out when the trip was not able to stay long.

Anyway, as all of you already know, my name is Laura Gramer.

I just wanted to like update with you on some things.

I did find out they're going to have a deaf hard of hearing rider meeting.

I think it's going to be in two weeks.

I feel that's a little too late.

But from my understanding it's going to be for our incoming deaf and hard of hearing students.

The ones that have IEP 5 or 4 and the ones that are just coming in.

These are information that parents need to make before they go into the school.

The last time I was here I talked about I had a problem with enrollment and when I left the room and I was talking to some people and they were talking about how they wanted help me get my son into a school in my neighborhood.

I would like to tell you right now that it's not important to me that my son go to his neighborhood school.

Right now what's important to me is that my son go to a school where he has 100% access to information.

If you go to the neighborhood school he's not going to get that and I'm not going to do that to him.

That's not fair to him.

So I want to make sure everybody understands that.

I also hope to work with the principal at TAP and the deaf hard of hearing director to work on reducing oppression.

I think that right now there are oppression issues going on at TAP that maybe people do not realize because right now the program, the deaf hard of hearing program is not really connected with the school and that is something we need to work on.

I said this is the last time I see the deaf hard of hearing classroom just as a general education classroom.

It's a classroom provides 100 percent information and direct access to information for deaf hard of hearing children.

And I'm also glad to hear that you are going to be working on hiring staff for this new school year.

I know you guys have a history of hiring people right before school starts.

Please don't do that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello my name is Sophie Schaffer Gold.

I am a first-year teacher at TOPS deaf and hard of hearing program.

I wanted to share my feedback as to why we need your attention in the Seattle Public Schools deaf and hard of hearing program.

My phone isn't clear enough for me to read so I'm reading the printed copy.

I want to explain to you that we wanted to provide an education to the students.

We want to make ASL the primary language or recognized as the sign language for all the students in the deaf and hard of hearing programs.

that will make the deaf and hard of hearing classrooms bilingual because we will be using ASL and English during specific times in the day and in specific classes.

We will encourage full inclusion for these programs and we are collaborating with CDHL, deafness and hearing loss, deaf parents, the deaf and hard of hearing community, sign language interpreters, deaf and hard of hearing aids, speech and language audiologists, speech therapists, school administrators and of course most importantly the students.

The students who are deaf and hard of hearing must provide equal and shared access without oppression from anyone else.

Deaf and hard of hearing students are thriving both emotionally and intellectually in the programs that are bilingual in this environment.

They are able to voice and express their concerns about issues.

The Seattle Public Schools deaf and hard of hearing program will become much stronger with all of your support.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

We are speaking on behalf of our foster daughter.

Maria a freshman at Southlake is an 18-year-old refugee from Central America with a healthy and happy seven and a half month old baby.

She came into our care this summer eight months pregnant having never attended school in the US and with only a fifth grade education in our home country.

This is what Maria wants to tell you about what Southlake means to her.

Southlake means that I can go to school.

The district wanted me to go to the world school because I didn't speak very much English.

I chose Southlake because I could bring my baby with me.

Being a good mom is the most important thing in my life but I also want to continue my education.

I love Southlake because it means I don't have to choose between being with my baby or being a student.

The teachers at Southlake worked very hard to help me get caught up in my schoolwork.

They spent time coordinating with my foster mom so that I could always keep moving forward.

They worked with me after school and even on the weekends.

I now have 8.5 credits so far this year.

I am on the honor roll and I have won awards for my attendance and performance.

All the teachers at Southlake really want me to do well.

Even though there is no ELL support my teachers make sure I understand the lessons.

It's a lot of extra work for us.

Having full support would make school much easier for myself and students like me.

Because Southlake is a small school the teachers can work with each student.

I've already learned so much.

My English is really improving and I'm doing well in all my classes.

The school also does things to help make students want to be in school like having chicken and waffle breakfast on Mondays.

The daycare takes very good care of my baby and I have learned a lot about child development from them.

They are helping me be the best mom I can be.

Without Southlake I would not be able to finish high school.

One day I want to be an immigration lawyer or maybe a police officer.

Thank you Southlake for helping me become the educated person I want to be.

Thank you.

Chris Jenkins, Eliza Rankin and Karen Towne.

My name is Chris Jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124. On the superintendent evaluation please simplify this process and spend your time on other things.

On the $1.4 million contract for Leschi geothermal wells, three points.

Number one, what are typical repair and decommissioning costs for such wells?

Number two, the report states that the project will harvest heat from within the earth.

This makes it sound like the project is tapping into hot springs.

Don't these projects simply store and circulate heated or cooled liquids?

Number three, the architect's recommendation referenced that the contractor's work at Jane Addams involved Abatement.

Should that word have been abatement?

On final acceptance of the Nathan Hale contract the project included $5.1 million in change orders.

Please publicly review these issues.

On the Laurelhurst and Salmon Bay and Decatur contracts, these actions were posted without any attachments.

On the contract for portables, three points.

Number one, the report states that 31 new homerooms are needed to support K3 class size reduction.

Number two, is the district strictly under state order to reduce all K3 class sizes or is the district choosing to do so to get more state money?

Number three, does the district look at specific schools to determine whether reduced class size is useful in serving particular students?

On Loyal Heights, the district's proposed construction project would reduce the size of the playground by 30%.

The project is too big for the site.

Please change these plans.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, so I have a first grader, a first grader son and something's happened recently that's pretty minor it's a little blip but it's been really impactful for me personally and has kind of put some other stuff into perspective that I just want to share with you.

So he has always been a little bit on the anxious side but recently his anxiety related to nothing specific just general anxiety has been keeping him up at night.

He is having a really hard time falling asleep and so at school he has been complaining about being tired.

And his anxiety has also started to surface a little bit at school.

And so he started going to the nurse's office which was unusual for him and no fever, no other symptoms, he's not sick he's just he says he's tired.

But because this has happened a few times over the last couple of weeks the nurse called me and just talked to me and check in is he okay what's going on and I kind of told her a little bit about his anxiety and But over the next few days I got emails from her, emails from his teacher, we talked about anxiety, his teacher made a strategy card for him called the calm down card that you know she sat and worked with him and what makes you anxious, what makes you feel calm and they worked on a strategy for him.

and that if he gets to step three and he is still not calm then he can come find her.

And what this means to me is that my son feels really safe and supported at school and he feels important and how he feels is important to his school.

And I got really upset on the phone with the nurse because as amazing as this is I know how many schools do not have a nurse at all much less a full-time nurse.

And I'm just wondering all the talk about assessments and where the funding goes and closing the opportunity gap and on and on and on how kind of totally pointless that is if kids are not in the building feeling safe.

and feeling like they are important and for who they are and if educators do not have the tools to support their students and also to direct their students to so that they can teach the other students in their class.

So as you prioritize the too small budget I think anything that doesn't Anything that doesn't support educators and make students feel safe and important is bonus.

Like toss it.

Just go back to the basic thing of like keeping kids safe in their classroom and feeling like who they are matters.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Karin Towne I'm a parent at Laurelhurst.

Laurelhurst is a rapidly changing school facing a substantial amount of learning challenges for all of our students.

We are the most overcrowded elementary school in the Northeast cluster.

We house multiple special ed programs including EBD.

We have a significant increase in ELL students this year.

We've had a concerning drop in test scores.

And on top of this Seattle Public Schools have placed us in tier 3 giving us the most non-optimal learning schedule.

We as a community as Jill is aware are in current conversations on how to improve our school's learning environment and while many of these solutions will take time there is one thing you can do for us tangibly right now that would make a difference for all of our students and we are asking you to please advocate with Peggy McEvoy and her routing team to make Laurelhurst a Tier 1 school.

As we have talked about before here research and teacher feedback have shown the negative effects of a 940 start time on teaching and learning.

So not only will our continued late time add to our learning challenges but it's also preventing a portion of our student population from getting the help they need.

One special ed parent wrote us the following she said I have to pick up my son early on a weekly basis to attend occupational therapy and we've not been able to attend social skills classes after school because there's not enough time to get there.

A two-hour window at the end of the day would make it much easier to arrange these services We are asking you one more time please do not let busing and routing add to our current level of learning challenges.

We have a very small population of students who use the bus and we have a large population of students who would benefit from an optimal learning schedule.

It's not too late.

We are asking your help tonight to help us relieve one, one of the learning challenges that is on our plate and we thank you.

Thank you.

Rita Green and Natasha Samuelson.

Hi I'm Rita Green Seattle King County NAACP education chair and Rainier Beach alum.

So I'm here to talk about opt out.

And I'm going to leave the opt-out bill of rights that me and a couple of other organizations, parents and students have put together.

But I want to share with you a personal story of why these tests are bad.

And that is my daughter Brittany Green.

She's a 2009 graduate of Rainier Beach High School.

She never passed the HESB math.

Six points.

Six points and seven points.

By today's standards she would not be allowed to graduate from high school.

She graduated from a university in four years.

She has a bachelor's in criminal justice and pre-law.

In June she graduates with a master's degree and then she will be going on to law school.

So this is a student by today's standards that would not be able to graduate.

So there it shows you one exam does not does not tell what the student's value really is.

So this is why I'm urging you to support the opt-out movement.

Also we know that the test results are delayed right so by the time the teachers do get the results they are not able to help the students improve anyway.

Also it takes too much time, learning time away from students.

Students need to be in the classroom being taught and learned.

They do not need to spend their time on tests.

We need to find a way to keep accountability and measure our students success but these high-stakes tests is not the answer.

Thank you.

Good evening my name is Anastasia Samuelson.

I want to thank you all for your service on the board.

I would like to ask you to please consider resolution 2015 slash 16-15 tomorrow in executive committee.

We are at a crossroads in assessment.

Now with the recent passage of the ESSA we have an opportunity to help shape policy with testing in Washington State.

We are the largest district in the state.

Smaller districts are looking to us to lead.

You have an opportunity that needs to be embraced.

It is before you in a well-crafted resolution.

It cannot wait until fall.

The time is now to act.

There is nothing standardized about the SBAC.

When it is delivered on a variety of devices it's very different when a child takes the S back on a Chromebook or an iPad or on a laptop or on a device with a monitor and a mouse.

The ability to see multiple screens, to access glossaries, to use the calculator vary greatly.

That takes the idea that it's standardized off of the table.

It's also riddled with inequities.

There are no glossaries or there were none last year for African languages.

The seat time that's being devoted to SBAC and to other tests in our district needs to be questioned.

The punitive measures that we are seeing take place around the district excluding children from carnivals, offering community service hours, offering off-campus lunch privileges, having photo booths and ice cream parties need to be addressed.

These are punitive in nature and inappropriate.

It should not be a gatekeeper for highly capable programs.

It was not designed as such.

That is a scare tactic that should be taken out of the language.

The time delay in results being tested in April and not having results until the fall is unacceptable and goes against what was promised by OSPI.

I implore you to consider the resolution tomorrow in executive committee and to advocate on behalf of students for equitable and efficient alternative measures to the SBAC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Sabrina Burr, Jennifer Lopez, Nan Johnson.

Good evening my name is Sabrina Burr and I think you guys met my daughter at the last school board meeting and I think part of her piece that she talked about was the 10 boys sitting in the back of the classroom feeling like they were going to fail in life because they failed every test.

That's the SBAT.

Last year I opted my daughter out.

I was a part of the bias and sensitivity committee for common core state standards.

I was also a parent to parent trainer for Washington State PTA rolling it out.

Rolled out it does not look like what they told me and it is not doing any good for our kids.

My daughter lost about eight weeks of learning last year being opted out.

This year I'm not opting her out of the prep because I realize I'm opting her out of major learning.

But this test is not helping our kids, it's not giving our teachers adequate data.

The data our teachers need is pre and post test.

What our teachers need is time to collaborate together and to data strand, to look at the gaps that our kids have.

we are wasting valuable time on tests that do nothing for our kids but make them feel inferior and inadequate if they are not ones like my daughter who her brilliance doesn't show up on the test.

So I am asking you to do what Anastasia just talked about.

I'm very much in support of that.

My daughter will opt herself out and she will be writing why and I will send it all to you guys so that you know from a student voice I thank you for what you do.

Thank you.

Jennifer Lopez.

Nan Johnson.

C.C. Smith.

So I'm going to be brief.

I am a Seattle Public Schools parent and I am a former WASA parent ambassador and I am here today with One America advocating for the home language campaign.

There are several of us here that are going to talk about it tonight and I am going to keep it short because during the break I was able to make some connections for the questions that I had but I wanted to share that the Biliteracy Seal program and The importance of having home language taught in schools helps families keep their culture And if I wanted to share just a little bit about my experience growing up and having friends who spoke languages other than English and being strongly encouraged to only speak English, they lost a lot of their native language and their culture and having the opportunity, it seems like our school district is advancing towards other school districts like Federal Way and Highline who have already implemented the biliteracy still and are doing home language programs.

I just want to make sure that Seattle Public School District is getting on board with that as well as, let's see here.

as well as making sure that parents are coming to the table when the meetings are happening.

Just sitting in here today was the first time that I heard that there was a dual language meeting that was going to happen on May 2nd.

So I task, my question or my challenge is to make sure that the board is making sure that it is getting out to the parents that need it.

And one side note, it would be great if interpreters could be here for the whole meeting and not have a cutoff time to make sure that families whose native language isn't English can understand the whole board meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Linda Chow.

My name is Linda Chow I am the co-president of the Laurelhurst elementary school at PTA and a parent of three elementary school children.

I would like to speak about moving Laurelhurst elementary school to an earlier bell time start.

We took a survey of our school community and the results show 78% of families preferring the 8 AM time.

Of the 22% left 91% preferred an earlier start time than 9.35 AM.

The discussion for a shift in bell times across all grades was originally initiated because multiple students find a significant, multiple studies find a significant negative effect that later start times have on teaching and learning in the shortened morning.

Including concerns about student fatigue and disengagement in the afternoon.

Our children are in school during some of the most critical ages for learning and remember our children only get one chance to learn at this age.

Laurelhurst Elementary is also one of the few schools with multiple special education programs.

The following three points are quoted from a Laurelhurst parent with a child in the special education program at our school.

One, a two-hour plus window at the end of the professional business day would make it much easier to arrange those services without having to pull a child out of school on a weekly basis.

I was not able to bring my child to attend a social skills class as an after-school program because there was not enough time to get there.

Two, families with special needs students struggle to balance regular academic requirements, additional after school supports and athletics.

If we are left out of phase one of implementation our special needs students would be forced to choose between these options while children in phase one would have greater opportunities.

Our special needs community would be further hindered from academic and social integration.

Three, SPS is prioritizing placing Title I students in the first phase of implementation.

Similarly, they should prioritize placing schools that have a large proportion of special needs students in the first phase of implementation.

In addition, with all but two of the Northeast elementary schools ending at 210, many afterschools will shift their start times to accommodate the majority of the students being released earlier which will exclude most of our children since there is a two-hour time difference.

Please conclude your remarks.

I beg you to please understand the impact your decision has on hundreds of families.

Thank you.

Dr. James Gore, Linda Leung, and Iris Stokes.

Good evening board.

I would like to submit copies to the board and one to the superintendent's office of proposal from the Jackson Street music program.

I am a volunteer executive director for the Jackson Street Music Program which began in 2005. I'm also a business owner in the city of Seattle.

Aerial Media is my company and also a taxpayer and a dual homeowner in the 98122 area and 98144 area.

My concerns is related to the FCC license station that is owned by the Seattle school district.

C89, KNHC are the call letters.

The access and inclusion for all students in the district.

is very minimum in regards to the ability for kids who possibly do not want to obtain a FCC license to become a radio personality, a radio professional.

We have my program the Jackson Street music program has developed a program related to storytelling which allows kids to interview their peers and to tell stories about what's going on amongst other students in the school district.

It has been very successful.

It was initiated by a parent who had a student who had been participating in the University of Washington's public station as an intern and she wanted to continue her daughter's ability to learn about just being on the radio.

And they developed, actually the program was really developed in part by the kids.

However, I found as I have a doctorate of education from Seattle University, I found that the experiential learning is very valuable and to have an asset as a radio station.

Please conclude your remark.

as a radio station in the 13th largest market that reaches from Everett to Tacoma without having the kids have many abilities to utilize the station is somewhat disenchanting.

So we have actually obtained a contract with the school district.

Some of the marginalization.

Please conclude your remark.

Some of the marginalization of they want us to be on 6 a.m.

on Sundays.

I think that is ridiculous for kids to work so hard and then have to be on 6 a.m.

on Sundays.

I am willing to continue to work and to advocate for the students and also work with the school district but it is challenging.

Thank you.

For the record, who should I give this to?

Thank you.

Good evening, my name is Linda Liao, I am a new immigrant to the USA.

My son is attending Swing Lake Elementary School.

I would like to address about the challenges that new immigrants face when they try to integrate with their school.

I am representing the Chinese community today.

I would like to talk about family participation.

It is difficult for people in our community to speak.

I understand that there is not enough language in every school in our school district to support us.

I have two suggestions.

First, I would recommend that every school in the school district put in some basic information Chinese translation Chinese translation Thank you.

Today I am representing the Chinese community.

What I would like to say is about family engagement.

Overall our Chinese community has language barrier.

I realize that not all schools in the district can provide enough support to all of us.

That is why I have a proposal for you.

First, I recommend that each school can display some basic information about the school and current school and community activities that need to be translated into Chinese.

In this way, when we visit our school, we know what is happening.

For new parents, this is the best way for them to understand about their school.

When they came across any problems, they know who they can contact at school.

Second, I hope school districts can set up a dedicated language hotline when parents participate in school activities or try to communicate with school staff, they can immediately receive Chinese support through this hotline so that their participation is more active and positive.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Iris Stokes, Florence Ibarra and Janet Woodward.

Hello thank you for the opportunity to speak with you all tonight.

My name is Iris Stokes and I am a parent of a one-year-old in the Seattle school district who will be a future hopefully bilingual student.

And I have gotten involved recently with other parents through the One America program representing a lot of different languages.

We are bilingual English, Spanish in my family.

And we have Arabic, Chinese speakers like you just heard Linda and as we know about 120 other languages being spoken at home across the Seattle school district.

We are really excited we just learned today about the dual language work and the biliteracy program that Michael Tully spoke about.

we will be coming back hopefully getting involved in those meetings and would like to be a part of the decision-making and planning-making processes.

But I think as we just heard from Linda we can see that the dual language programs are just only a part of the language needs that we have in our community and language access to get that family engagement that is so important to build thriving communities and thriving children in our schools we need the support for parents to know what's happening at school, to understand what their kids are expected to learn in their language so that they can identify if there is a gap there or some lack in achievement and they can find the right resources as well.

I think everyone should have a flyer that I put up there earlier.

This is an example covering more of what the parents are looking for.

We have been working with families in Federal Way and Highline where they are already advancing this.

And I just wanted to kind of share, I dropped the English copy off but they have got this in the languages of all of their top spoken languages in their district and we need that outreach.

going out in the different languages really inviting the community in to be a part in these planning phases so that we can meet everybody's needs.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you.

My name is Flora Ibarra and I'm proud to be here but it's an honor also because I like to say thank you to those who believe in me as a parent.

I'm a parent that I represent and I represent and advocate for families and students and advocate for students and families all over the Seattle school district sitting at the table at the CCR.

I'm the only parent in that subcommittee working in partnership with the roadmap.

This is time, this is an opportunity to give you time and opportunity for parents to be part of those great events and opportunities.

Honored to be here with a beautiful group of parents, mothers and strong women who are parents from the Seattle Public Schools representing families, diversity and students of color.

We are here asking the school board members and the district for funding for the dual bilingual program and funding and supporting trainings for parents and educational so we can have the skills and tools to navigate the system and help you to improve education and close the gap for all the students.

We are here with an organization who really cares for parents and communities and families.

One America.

One America is supporting to empower and mobilize and educate parents and One America is also guide us to achieve the success for all our students.

Together we can create an authentic family parent engagement.

We are here not to complain but we are here to offer our help.

Together we can find better solutions.

And also we are here to invite you to come to our next one American parents ambassadors training so you can be able to witness the grassroots of family parent engagement.

Let's work all together and to be the best district and role model for the other six districts who have the same needs.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Janet Woodward and Greg Seashore.

Okay my name is Janet Woodward and I'm the librarian at Garfield High School and I just came here to apprise the board of a movement for equity across the district for the district school libraries.

And this movement grew especially with the leadership of two elementary school librarians who collected quite a bit of data across the board on the different schools and I have given you some handouts And the one in particular I wanted to draw your attention to was SPS library funding a tale of two school libraries.

And rather than read through everything the main point is that a school that has free and reduced lunch of 83%.

is getting zero baseline budget dollars that's what their district baseline budget dollars.

Whereas a school with free and reduced lunch rate of 9% is getting $2,000 in baseline.

And then both schools go on to raise other kinds of monies from the PTSA or from grants or whatever a librarian is able to do from other sources but it works out to $2.14 for one school and $25 for another school per student.

Recommended nationally is about $10 per student.

And just as we went on strike in the fall about equity across the board for recess times in schools we feel that libraries across the board in this district should have equitable funding per student probably you know $10 nationally number would be good.

And we want to just let you know that these librarians who spearheaded this movement did meet with district leaders Michael Tolley and Shauna Heath to let them know we are concerned about this and it is an issue we want work done with the school district and the board of course.

And I've been very fortunate at Garfield high school to get a baseline budget and also money from the PTSA however I will note that it's been about the same amount for 10 years so there's no accounting for inflation.

And so just to let you know equity is on the board for district librarians and their budgets and my colleague will speak to what librarians do across the district.

Thanks Janet.

I'm an elementary teacher librarian in southwest Seattle.

Sue Peters visited my library recently and since this is national school library month I encourage all of you to take this flyer and say the pledge of acceptance.

The poem of liberty on the back because it's poetry month.

Go to one school library, better go to two, a fortunate and a less fortunate school because the equity issue lives at the library.

I am also the president of the Washington State School Librarians Association and when I finish that I will be the president of the entire library organization.

We have tremendous assets already in our schools.

Every school has a library and some of them have part-time.

Three legislative initiatives that are significant.

This pen the governor used last week to sign a digital literacy and online safety saying that the teacher librarians you have in our schools can help teach that.

There is no better teacher in the school who collaborates with all the students.

Last year the legislature passed a bill updating the definition of school library and information technology, LITS.

Let's get the answers.

Because a school library and information technology teacher integrates with teachers, is the principal's best friend for pushing out, is the Ed Tech Department's problem solver, And if you don't have a full-time library and information technology program in the school, the children suffer.

Low, high poverty schools graduate at half the rate of high poverty schools that have full-time teacher librarians.

We are losing elementary teacher librarians, all of our surrounding districts have restored full-time elementary teacher librarians and Seattle is lagging and I'm applying to a position that was vacated this fall midyear who was poached by another district.

So please restore full-time elementary teacher librarians and as I say visit and cite Janet Wong's poem.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That is the end of our testimony and now we are going to go back into the board comments.

Dr. Peters.

Well as always you know the public brings to us so many wonderful and sometimes troubling issues that I feel compelled to respond to some of them.

Thank you to our two librarians who are here.

Thank you for reminding us the importance of libraries and how we are not providing the same resources to all our schools.

I would like to ask staff and ask the Deputy Superintendent what we can do to bring more resources to our schools whether that is something we look at from our MSOC budget or where we look.

As you know was brought up in testimony nowadays our librarians are also doing a lot of computer technical library research work with our students so do we look at our IT budget for some resources for our libraries?

Can we be creative in that regard?

So, it definitely is an equity issue and so I'm really happy to be able to have this brought up again publicly so that we can keep this as part of our discussion.

Again, this is another one of the places where we should take a look at our budget and see what it takes to prioritize librarians, along with counselors, nurses, all those things that we know will definitely help our children.

We know those will help.

They are not experimental, they are not a fad.

It is something that is long proven to help our students and so we need to see what we can do to find the funding for that.

So that is a question I am asking Deputy Superintendent who is also sitting in for our as our finance person at the moment and so now is a good time to be talking about what we can do with our budget for our library.

And then also I wanted to follow up on what was brought up by Dr. Gore about the Jackson Street music program and the radio station.

I would like to know more about that.

I would like to know more about which students it serves and if we are broadcasting at 6 in the morning what can we do to change that because that is clearly not very satisfying to go through the trouble of doing a program only to have it be broadcast at a time when most people aren't quite awake yet.

So, this is a question to, I'm not sure who on staff can help me know more about this, perhaps you can report back to us in a Friday memo, give us an update about this radio station and what we can do to get more students involved and to make it more accessible.

And then I know I had one other point.

Oh and then to the different testimony that was brought forward about bilingual language in our schools and the value of our students knowing more than one language.

I certainly have experienced that firsthand and I definitely support that.

And I also support anything we can do in our schools in terms of signage, having information in multi-languages.

So this would be a question again for staff, what are we doing in that respect, in that regard, what more could we do and can we take any of the ideas that were brought to us today and move forward with some of those ideas.

Alright thank you.

Dr. Burke.

I'd like to follow up on a couple of the general comment threads that came up.

First thanks to everyone who testified because it's tough getting up there.

sharing with us and with the community.

I'll start by speaking to the opt-out assessments discussion.

This is an area that I'm really passionate about and I think it's going to be important that we as a board identify what we value in an assessment and what we value in our instructional time and how we balance those two things because we can't deliver a good educational process without assessments.

I want to be really clear about that.

But the question is what do those assessments look like?

What is the benefit to the students?

What is the benefit to the teachers?

To the families?

And what's the impact on instructional time?

And that's a tradeoff.

And we need to have that discussion.

In the past we haven't been able to have that discussion.

But the federal law has changed and so now we have the opportunity to have that discussion and to try to shape what things look like for Washington State and how that looks for Seattle Public Schools.

And while there isn't clarity around it I think when we're talking about the smarter balanced assessment or when we talk about summative assessment or what is the achievement level that our students are getting to.

The feedback that I get from most people that I talk to is yeah that's a data point we have to do that it's the law but it's not what really matters in my classroom.

And so that tells me that whatever we can do to minimize the impact on that so we can focus on what does matter.

is a good thing.

So I look forward to further discussions with the community and with my colleagues and there is a resolution that is under discussion should that come before the board that will stimulate further discussion that I hope the public will also weigh in on.

As a director that has A couple of language immersion schools I'm actually learning a lot about that.

My kids have not personally participated in that so it's a new experience to me and I'm really blown away by the depth of involvement that we have at some of these schools and I think it's amazing And we also have a lot of disparity in those programs between the schools that have a really well-developed really well-funded program and those that don't.

So that's something that we're also looking at and I really ask anybody who's passionate about it to go to the multiple community meetings that are taking place and I plan to attend one or two of them if I can to also learn more about it and have it shape the policy work and the funding decisions we make.

Just a second here.

I want to thank our librarian guests for joining us and sharing their message and sharing their really really clear visuals that highlight this disparity and some of the problems that we have to take on.

This is great timing being library month and while we are in a budget cycle this is something It's great to bring to our attention so thank you for that.

Sorry that was a serious oversight on my part not to acknowledge the people who came and testified about the smarter balance assessment and opting out.

I was the one who chose to speak first and I wasn't quite ready.

Thank you for showing us the the on-the-ground reality of what these tests mean.

You know the Smarter Balanced test is a state mandate at this point but the resolution that Director Burke and I are putting forth would follow the new flexibility that the new ESSA which is the federal law is providing states to re-evaluate how they are measuring accountability in our schools and we want to take advantage of that opportunity.

We now are going into our second year with Smarter Balanced and we are already hearing the same sort of problems we heard last year.

Administering it is difficult, it's problematic, computers are crashing, it's inequitable, the results are coming in so late that they are not useful.

So all the things that were promised about the efficient new test that will have instant results that's not coming to fruition.

and it is taking up an awful lot of our instructional time.

The test itself, the prep for the test, there's got to be a better way.

In fact we know there is a better way and so that's what we're hoping to pursue and I appreciate those of you who came and testified about that and I also want to strongly reiterate the fact that our students and parents do have a right to opt out of these tests.

and there should be no punishment for these students or these families who do that.

There shouldn't be enticements or bribes to students to participate in the test.

I know the district is under obligation to measure its students but we have to do it in a way that is fair, reasonable and doesn't involve any kind of punishment or coercion.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

And I would add to that list bribery.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

I'm going to give a special shout out to the folks from Laurelhurst who came and testified.

I don't get to see too many people from my daughter's elementary school here at these meetings so I wanted to say thank you so much for coming and participating in this process.

I think that it's really important for all of our schools to come and make their voices heard so it's not something that I've seen in my many years of being at Laurelhurst too many people do so I really appreciate you coming and doing that and I will take your concerns because I think they're good in terms of the afternoon and what it means to families with children with disabilities and trying to meet all their kids needs and participate in the same extracurricular activities that typically developing children do and are we really just crunching their afternoon so much that they're missing out and it is unfair.

So that is a good point thank you for raising it.

It's hard for me not to sit up here as well going to the whole testing issue.

and think of the absolute illogical situation that we are put into by having to comply with a law that is very expensive in terms of administering a districtwide test that we don't seem to get any benefit from while we are continually having to deny the people who come before us the funds necessary to implement all the programs that we have found help our kids, help some of our most vulnerable kids.

And if our state legislature can simply say we're not going to fund you, what is it that we can simply say we're not going to do?

And I think we need to think about that maybe and take a stronger stand and maybe we need to condition some of the things that they ask us upon them doing their job.

Ms. Morris.

Okay I wanted to talk about the EOC and the testing.

In my experience last year I took the biology EOC and I failed it by six points which was kind of disappointing because I tried my hardest.

I studied late at night having to take care of a newborn baby in order to try to pass that test.

And to find out that I had to take it again in February and not being able to find out the test results it really sucks because it determines whether I graduate or not this year and it sucks because being a teen mom it's hard.

It's hard to be able to do what you need to do and knowing that you failed a test by six points really sucks.

It just it makes me really sad knowing that I have to find out later and there's a possibility of me not graduating early just because I didn't fail something by six points which isn't fair for the students.

We shouldn't have to do so many testings and determine whether we're graduating or not.

It's just that we're trying our hardest.

It does not determine who I am because I know who I am.

And these tests do not determine who I am.

We all as students are brilliant.

We try our hardest.

And I want to say thank you for listening.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

And I want to thank you for speaking from your heart and I want to thank all the alternative high school teachers that have shown you how to do that.

There is a real place for that.

Thank you.

Okay I guess since no one wants to speak I'm going to go ahead and do my little bit.

For the Laura Hearst parents and I know you were asking about this bell time.

Ms. McEvoy is doing everything she can to hopefully to be able to make some changes we don't We are not looking at making any promises but realize that she is looking at it on a day in day out and I know I have had conversations with her and she is really doing the best she can to be able to hopefully move some of the schools but right now she is still working on it.

So thank you for coming and let us know we hear you loud and clear and we are doing the best we can.

One America program, I really appreciate this program because I remember when I first came to the United States I didn't speak any English for many weeks and months.

I had to walk around and the only thing I could say was yes.

As a matter of fact they didn't even have a name for me.

They couldn't pronounce my name.

So I was at the school for six months with no name.

Every time the teacher wanted to get my attention she would use gesture.

Her hands would wave at me. you know and I was only eight years old then and whenever she waved her hand I knew something was going but it took me a long time to figure out what do I need to do to learn how to speak English.

Well in those days they didn't have bilingual programs they didn't have language programs so I watched television for me to learn how to speak English that's how I learned how to speak English.

Still learning.

But it's so important, kids you know, I mean it's wonderful that we have so many programs that actually is happening in the school, the bilingual program, the language program that we have for kids to learn how to speak English and I think it's very important that our kids actually have that opportunity to learn how to speak English and understand exactly what kids are saying or what the teacher is saying because I know it was frustrating for me not to understand what anybody had to say.

I mean all I could say was yes and no and Lord knows what they were telling me.

So I appreciate you know that we are actually looking at supporting these programs and hopefully to continue to support these programs on behalf of our kids that don't speak any English.

And for the librarians thank you so much for coming down and letting us know exactly what's going on and you don't know how we really would like to see librarians fully funded because it's so important to our kids.

That's where a lot of our kids spend their time and I believe that you know It's really a bad thing that you know we are not having fully funded but hopefully you know we can look at what we have and be able to figure out what's happening.

And I think that's all I have to say thank you so much.

Now we are actually going to move into our Into our action items.

Our first action item amending the superintendent evaluation timeline for 2016 and 2017.

I move that the board conduct the superintendent's annual performance evaluation in June of each year starting in June 2017 and authorize the board president to execute a mutual written agreement with the superintendent to establish June as the annual evaluation date.

I second the motion.

I would like to ask the committee chair to please give us your recommendation.

I know it's me.

We the committee actually had asked to move this forward for consideration.

So are there any comments or questions?

Go ahead Erin.

Good evening Directors, Erin Bennett.

I did just want to call out one quick change that happened between introduction and action and you will see it in the title.

Originally it had said 2016 and 17 which is correct in that the evaluation will start in June of 2017 but I wanted to change it so it distinguished that there would be action taking place in 2016 in that the Board President would be authorized to work on amending that agreement.

So I just wanted to call out that change.

Thank you.

Is there any comments, questions on this item?

Seeing none, Ms. Ritchie roll call.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Our second action is amending policy number 1440 and this also came to the committee and it was recommended by the committee to move forward for full board approval.

I move that the school board amend policy number 1440 minutes as attached to the board action report.

Second the motion.

Ms. Bennett.

So there have been changes between introduction and action on this item as well.

Our archivist noted a change in the retention schedule so you will see on the proposed policy a section in highlight.

In particular the reference to the audio or video recordings being maintained.

There used to be a distinction between one year and six years.

It is six years and so you'll see that that language has been deleted in the proposed policy and the sentence that was not affected by the change we just moved it up into the paragraph above.

Any comments?

Questions?

Okay Ms. Ritchie roll call.

Director Burke.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

Okay number three PTA 3 award construction contract K5065 to Elliot Incorporated for green energy geothermal wells at Leschi elementary school.

I move that the school board authorize the superintendent to execute construction contract K5065 to Elliot Incorporated for the green energy geothermal wells at Leschi elementary school in the amount of $1,482,220.

$216 including alternates 2 and 3 plus Washington state sales tax in the form of the draft agreement attached to the board action report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent to take any necessary action to implement the contract.

Second the motion.

Can we hear from the chair of ops?

The operations committee heard this item on the 25th of February and moved it forward to the board for consideration.

Director Patu.

I'd like to find out, he said it's under consideration, is it all the missing parts in there?

Yes.

Richard Best, Director of Capital Projects and Planning for Seattle Public Schools.

Yes, we did not have the bid amounts for the contractor's name at the time we presented this to the operations committee.

We have subsequently added that at introduction And it hasn't changed, this bar has not changed since we introduced it to the board two weeks ago.

Director Blanford.

We had, if I am remembering correctly, we had extensive conversation about the nature of the geothermal wells and so I am wondering because a question came up during public testimony if you could share with us a brief overview of what the wells do and where they get their energy source from.

Okay the energy source is actually from the earth and I did hear Mr. Jackins comment about harvesting the energy.

I think actually a more accurate statement might be we are transferring the heat from the energy to the geothermal well.

geothermal well, it's a capillary, it's a tube that's connected to our hydronic heating system in the building.

We have approximately 60 to 80 on elementary school sites.

We transfer the earth's heat into this tube that has this fluid going through it that goes to our boilers and then throughout our building with use of circulation pumps that we use the earth's heat.

to heat our buildings.

We can also with heat pumps cool our buildings in the summertime utilizing the same methodology by transferring the heat in the building into these tubes and dumping it back into the earth cooling the pipe and then I'm taking that cooler fluent and back into our heat pumps.

So it's a way of using the earth to transfer both heat and cold to reduce our operating costs.

And it's a significant reduction.

Thank you for that geothermal 101 for us.

That's great.

Is there any comments?

Any questions?

Okay Ms. Ritchie roll call.

Director Geary.

Aye.

Director Harris.

Aye.

Director Peters.

Aye.

Director Blanford.

Aye.

Director Burke.

Aye.

Director Patu.

Aye.

This motion has passed unanimously.

We are now going into our introduction items.

Our first one is contract for new or meant library collections at Arbor Heights Elementary, Genesee Hill Elementary, Thornton Creek Elementary, Hazel Wolf K-8 and Seattle World School.

Michael Tolley is associate superintendent for teaching and learning.

I have to apologize the individual who is prepared to provide introduction information is not in the room at this time so if it's okay we would like to bring this back in a few minutes when he arrives.

That will be fine.

Thank you.

I will bring it back later.

The second one is BEX IV award public works contract P5072 to Mike Werlich construction incorporated for construction phase 3 at Jane Addams middle school.

Yes Richard Best again director of capital projects and planning for Seattle Public Schools.

We opened bids for the Jane Addams middle school project phase 3. The BEX IV capital levy contemplated three summers of work at Jane Addams middle school.

This summer we will be implementing seismic improvements and then in addition we will be Implementing, we will be constructing a new special education classroom, a new computer lab, two new counselors offices and also implementing some technology upgrades.

Seven bidders bid this project and Mike Warlick construction was deemed the low responsible bidder so we are recommending that this contract be awarded to them.

They have previously done work in a very satisfactory manner for Seattle Public Schools.

Can we hear from the chair of ops?

Ops committee heard this on March 17 and moved it forward for consideration.

I don't believe that, were the bids just coming in at that point?

The bids had just come in.

Thank you.

Is there any comments, questions?

Director Harris.

A point of clarification seismic issues we will have hit every school at the end of BEX IV for seismic issues is that correct?

I would have to go back and check Director Harris.

I know that we have hit a significant majority because there are approximately 50 on BEX IV when you include the 17 schools that are being replaced or modernized as part of BEX IV.

But I don't know the work done in previous capital measures and so I will go back and get that answer for

Can we address that as well perhaps in a Friday memo because I know that is an issue of extreme concern to folks and that we are making progress on it.

Thank you.

Is there any more comments or questions?

Okay we are moving on to the next one.

BTA 4.3 final acceptance of contract P5064 Western Ventures construction incorporated for the Bagley elementary school seismic upgrades, re-roofing and interior waterline replacement modernization projects.

Can we ask the chair for ops what is the recommendation?

Sure the ops committee heard this item on the 31st of March and moved it forward to the board for consideration.

Yes, your final acceptance of the project is required for us to submit state closeout paperwork to three state of Washington agencies.

They are the Department of Labor and Industries, Department of Revenue and Employment Securities.

This project at Bagley Elementary School included the replacement of the roof, seismic improvements tying down the roof to the structure And then we replaced some interior water lines, the drinking fountains and then there was some ceiling tile that had been damaged from roof leaks that we also replaced as part of this project.

The work was implemented in the summer of 2015 and it was implemented by Western Ventures Construction Incorporated and the architect and the project manager have both indicated that all the closeout documents are included.

The change order amount was $54,930 primarily for unforeseen conditions that were encountered during the construction.

Bagley Elementary School was built approximately 1930 and so we are asking for final acceptance for this project.

So we can submit those closeout documents.

I misspoke and this was moved forward to the board for approval when Mr. Best said that it was final acceptance that triggered in my mind that we had all completed documents.

Okay, thank you.

Director Peters.

Can you briefly speak to the change orders?

What was the nature of the unforeseen conditions?

It was dealing primarily with the building envelope.

I do know that there was some terracotta that was damaged up at the parapet where you have your coping flashing from your roof coming over and that was replaced.

We did work with, this is a landmark building so we had to work with the landmarks board on this Director Peters.

And by that do you mean that landmarks board restricted what could be done or made some determination that resulted in extra work?

No the landmarks board did not.

require additional work we work with the landmarks board on the exterior edifices of our schools that have been landmarked to make sure that the work that we do is in compliance with their oversight.

We had some envelope work that we needed to do on this project both at the roof where you have the coping flashing and then also on the chimney stack.

and the boiler chimney stack and so that's where this unforeseen condition work occurred.

Okay thank you.

Any more comments or questions?

Thank you.

PTA 3 and BEX 4 final acceptance of construction contract P5061 with CDK construction services incorporated for the infrastructure improvements at Eckstein middle school project.

Can we hear from the chair of ops?

The ops committee heard this on the 17th of March and moved it forward to the board for approval.

Thank you.

So again this project requires your approval to get the closeout paperwork submitted to the state agencies I referenced earlier.

This project was also implemented in the summer of 2015 and it included the installation of a fire and suppression system at Eckstein Middle School some, a new water service to the school, some minor HVAC improvements and then also we replaced some skylights.

Hawthorne Hagen and the project manager have both indicated that this project is complete in accordance with the contract documents and that all the closeout documents have been submitted to the contractor.

The reason this is a negative change order is there was a portion of line that we discovered in the tunnel that we did not need to be replaced.

It had been replaced by our maintenance facility.

It was already copper and we were replacing the copper and so we did not need to replace a portion of the copper line that was in the utility tunnel.

And so that's why we have a negative change order amount.

Director Harris.

So are you saying you have money left over?

I am saying that the work that they bid at bid time costs less today than what we had anticipated.

Yes, we have money left over.

Thank you for that.

Any chance we can get those water bottle filling stations into both our basic contract documents and use some of that savings?

Flip Herndon associate superintendent of facilities and operations.

So we have not heard back yet on the grant from OSPI and the water bottle filling stations but we are taking a look at that.

And we have committed to making sure that we can get those in all of our schools either through the grant or additional money that we might have in capital.

We have a way of using those, we have a water bottle filling station that costs substantially less than some of the other ones.

So we have a pretty basic one that should work well and our goal is to have one of those stations installed in every school.

and the John Stanford Center.

Any more comments or questions on this item?

Okay moving along, BEX III final acceptance for contract with Abster Construction for renovations at Nathan Hale High School project 2. Can we hear from the chair of ops?

March 31 the committee heard this and moved it forward for approval.

Thank you.

So this is a project that began in early 2008 and for all intents and purposes construction work was completed in 2011. The reason this project did not go forward for final approval until 2016 is that there was a dispute between the general contractor, the electrical contractor, and Seattle Public Schools.

In August of 2015, Associate Superintendent Herndon and myself mediated the dispute with Absher Construction and Prime Electric.

We were able to successfully resolve that matter.

We brought that forward to the board for approval.

You subsequently approved the resolution to that dispute.

And then we finalized getting the closeout documents that we did not have in place so that we could bring this forward to final completion.

All intents and purposes this was the major renovation work that you are probably all familiar with at Nathan Hale High School.

And again that project was implemented between 2009 and 2011. It predates both myself and Associate Superintendent Flip Herndon.

Both of us have been out to that school on numerous occasions though to confirm the work is complete.

Thank you.

Can we hear from our ops chair?

On which one?

The final acceptance for Nathan Hill.

I'm sorry Nathan Hill the 31st move forward for approval.

Thank you.

Director Harris.

I have a question as to how we track capital projects that are in mediation does that come to us under the legal heading in terms of tracking mediation litigation etc.

And how many more out there are there?

I'm not sure how it comes to you.

I know that we had set aside funds in the BEX III project budget to address this matter.

But I'm not sure how you are kept informed.

I think a couple of things on this that we actually learned from this Nathan Hale mediation.

We do as part of the overall budget have some contingency funds that are in there.

However, it is a bit of a challenge.

We don't go into projects hoping that we have to do mediation.

We go in hoping that everything is completed on time but that's why we have contingency funds based in the budgets.

Our challenge though sometimes is as a strategy of mediation it's best if the other party doesn't know how much money we have set aside for said thing.

This is part of a negotiation.

So by publicly saying this is how much money we set aside which unfortunately in this particular case we had actually, there had been a statement previously made in a meeting about that it kind of put us at a disadvantage in the negotiations.

But we do try and track that anytime we have a mediation we try and let people know ahead of time that we are going into mediation and then once it is resolved obviously we bring that to the board.

Director Harris.

I wasn't suggesting that we broadcast what our bottom line is as a litigator that is absolutely not my idea.

What I am asking however is are these potential mediations docketed and are we advised by legal about these on a regular basis as well?

Yes so if we have them we do speak with legal first and then sometimes our in-house legal will represent us sometimes we contract that out.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Director Peters.

Can you speak to again the change order on this and the size of the change order of $5 million?

The change orders totaled 13.07% of this project.

not being personally involved in this project, Director Peters, I can't give you great clarity.

I can tell you that I do know that there were a substantial amount of electrical change orders on this project and hence why we had the electrical claim.

There were allegations that The electrical primary feeds in this building had not been well thought out as relates to the phasing and that was the electrical subcontractors request for an equitable adjustment is that he had to do a lot of the design during the phasing parts that that had not been brought into consideration during the design phase.

So the language here says that the majority of the change order work was due to owner changes to the scope of work.

Who is the owner?

We would be the owner.

We would be the owner.

And that is not uncommon.

This was an occupied site when this project was going on and essentially it was a multi-phase project.

I believe there were five phases to this project.

We were relocating kids from into classroom space, permanent classroom space, into portables.

We may be accelerating work because we had some changes, construction changes that no one knew the existing conditions.

We might be accelerating work to achieve our schedule so we can go on to the next phase on time.

I do know that occurred on many occasions throughout the course of this project.

That was also alleged in the dispute with the electrical subcontractor.

And then We had just normal routine construction changes that you run into every day.

What complicated this project is this multiple phasing that had to occur.

We had to hit certain milestones, winter breaks, spring breaks to make these transfers of kids occur somewhat seamlessly and to minimize our impact to staff and students.

So am I recalling correctly that this was a project we did while the students were still on site?

Correct.

Okay.

How often do we do that and is this something that we should consider not doing because it seems like it complicates things.

It complicates things greatly.

Generally it is preferred not to have students on site.

I have done lots of projects with students on site but you know having an interim site is a true blessing but as our capacity needs continue to grow those interim sites become fewer and fewer.

So this was an instance where the John Marshall building was occupied, Lincoln High School was being occupied and the decision was made to keep the kids at Nathan Hale while we implemented this rather complex high school modernization.

Okay two more questions.

So what is the plan for Queen Anne Elementary?

Are those renovations going to be done with the students on site or are we moving them to an interim site?

No we are moving them to an interim site.

We are moving them to John Marshall.

Okay.

Loyal Heights moves out.

Queen Anne moves into John Marshall.

Queen Anne moves out, Bagley moves into John Marshall.

So is it fair to say that there were some lessons learned from this particular project or is it always preferable to move the students out for a project if we have an interim site?

I think if you have an interim site it is preferable to move them out.

Now there are ways as we look at future projects we have some large project sites.

that we could keep kids at the existing school and build a new school on a field so the existing school is kind of the interim site.

There are ways to look at projects in that manner too.

My final question has to do with the construction companies that we worked with on the Nathan Hale project.

Was there anything about the work they did or the relationship we had with them that may have contributed to the high costs of the change orders that would make us reconsider working with them in the future?

No, Absher construction is very well thought of in the construction industry.

Prime Electric is a top-tier electrical subcontractor as well.

So this was a very difficult period in the economy.

This was the 2008 when Absher started as the GCM to 2011-2012 time period where the economy was you know for all intents and purposes in dire straits and so I don't know what happened during that period with these companies and their personnel.

And the bids that they accepted.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

You provided some guidance to us about the question around the size of change orders during our last ops committee I'm wondering if you would share that I think it might help to respond to Director Peters question.

Generally during construction projects on new projects so I'm thinking projects that you can relate to Genesee Hill Elementary School where we had an existing school we demolished that existing school and we've replaced it with a new structure.

I generally look for change orders not to exceed 5%.

On major modernization projects like Jane Addams middle school implementation phase 1, phase 2, phase 3, phase 4 I would look for that not to exceed 10%.

And then historic structures because you by their nature, the word historic, they are relatively old.

We do not have great documentation from the 1930s, the 1940s on those buildings and in addition we have numerous improvements that have been made along the way by our maintenance staff.

I generally look for those projects not to exceed 15% of the total construction value.

The contract value.

What was that last number you said?

15% of the total contract value.

So this one it was 13.7%?

13.07.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

To the concern that was raised about what would be most efficient as far as moving kids to a different site while construction is being done on the building.

Does the school community's preference factor into when we make a decision to move to a different site or not?

Definitely.

And I would guess that in many cases or in some cases that the school community would actually prefer to stay in the site?

Has that been our history?

So I think it would vary depending on logistically where the interim sites might be.

So we've had this issue presented before where a site might be available at the other end of the city and busing students over there might require an hour, whatever long bus ride which is not preferable but sometimes logistically the modernization of the building on site doesn't work either.

So, we try and figure out if at all possible what's going to lead to the most efficient, speediest completion of the project while minimally impacting the students as much as possible but at the same time we just want to be able to you know support them as much as we can.

And I ask that question just because I didn't hear anything about the preferences of the school community and I think it's important what's efficient for us you know may not be efficient for the school community and so we want to factor that into the equation when we're making these decisions and it sounds like that's something we already do.

Yeah we try.

Great thank you.

Any more comments questions?

Director Patu I'd like to make one additional comment and I did share this with the operations committee members.

To bring projects like this to conclusion quicker.

I think this was really a dispute between the subcontractor and Seattle Public Schools to incentivize the general contractor to work on bringing this dispute to resolution quicker.

We are going to revise the general conditions of our contract to tie the warranty period to your acceptance of the project and so what that will do is it will incentivize the contractor rather than just to say well to get the project complete and brought before you because that's when the warranty period begins.

I've done that at previous school districts and the attention to a project closeout is much greater.

Thank you.

Our next one is PTA 3 award construction contract K5068 2 for upgrades at Laura Hearst elementary school.

Can we hear from our ops chair?

This one was heard on March 31 and was moved forward to the board for consideration.

Okay Richard.

So we had anticipated that this project would be bidding today, we postponed it one day so it will actually be bidding tomorrow.

We will be implementing interior renovation improvements at the administrative office area We will be creating an ADA accessible ramp at the front entrance to the school and then we will be implementing some pavement upgrades, some miscellaneous roof improvements primarily roof drains and some exterior door upgrades as well as part of this project.

We are anticipating we have seven plan holders right now so we are anticipating that several of those will bid and we will have a pretty good coverage and a successful bid opening hopefully.

Thank you.

Director Geary.

And I'm sorry for having missed the meeting where this was presented.

I have spoken with several people at Laurelhurst and it appears to me and I was trying to talk with Mr. Herndon about this as well.

It appears to me that the plans as written or I have been told are impractical in terms of how the building itself works in this space.

It's a very limited space and there's going to be the nurses office which will have access to the hallway will not be able to be supervised well all of the time and certainly we know there isn't a nurse there 100% of the time.

I also know the community is very excited about moving forward on this project but that there are some impracticalities in the plans as they have been drawn up currently and so what is the best way to go about looking at that and making the space work and be in line with supervising children making sure that there's staff available to do that while they're trying to perform their other job of being you know front desk administrators.

Because right now that's what I've been told and I haven't seen the plans but I also want to make sure that we're moving forward on something that works for us.

So I'm somewhat familiar with these plans.

I do know that the nurses area is visible from the office managers desk.

We've got relights both on the north wall and on the west facing wall so from the offices you should be able to look into the nurse area as well as from the office managers.

There was some consideration given to a future larger administration area and I don't know how that's impacted the design Director Geary but I'd be happy to look at that.

I do know that Principal Talbot was involved in the conversations.

I'm going to assume the office manager, I participated in one meeting with Principal Talbot.

I wasn't involved in meetings with the office manager or the nurse but generally they are involved in the layout of those spaces to make sure that their voices are heard and concerns like what you've expressed tonight are addressed and so I can go back and look at that and I will reach out again to or I will have the project manager reach out again to the principal and the school nurse and office manager and make sure that those concerns are addressed.

I'd rather we get a solid plan up front rather than dealing with change orders on the back end.

And I just raise this because Dave brought them to me and I didn't have enough time seeing as I got the email at 2 o'clock with the list.

So we can get that to you and talk about that and make sure that what we are bidding can encompass maybe some flexibility that way as well.

Thank you.

Director Burke.

I was wondering if you could speak to the timeframe of this because I share some of the concerns of Mr. Jackins around the lack of clarity and the attachments that I'm not seeing.

Well we had anticipated to open bids today.

We are going to be opening bids tomorrow.

We postponed it one day because in our We had issued an addendum and in our general conditions and instructions to bidders we say that we will allow seven days from the issuance of the last addendum to the date of bid opening.

The work is to be performed this summer so we need to get obviously a notice to proceed to the general contractor.

They then begin acquiring the materials in which to build the project and it's not an insignificant effort.

implementing a multimillion-dollar contract or this will probably be in the neighborhood of 1.5 million in two months.

And so we want to give them time to get those materials ahead of time, get them lined up, begin dialogue with the architects and engineers, make sure the intent of the documents is clearly understood, and then implement the work during the summer.

This summer poses greater problems than previous summers because it's school lets out on June 24. So they begin literally July 1 and we have to turn this around roughly by obviously August 31 but we are trying to get it turned around by August 15.

So this is maybe more of a process question.

What is the protocol to have these formally reviewed?

When will they be available for public consideration?

The BTA projects we have in the past brought them to you for introduction without the low bidder known or the low financial amount known.

The BEX IV projects the 17 large BEX IV projects the prior board had said no we want to know who the contractors are.

We want to know what the bid amounts are when they come to the operations committee.

So that's why you see the smaller BTA projects coming to you with some blanks but the BEX IV projects have never gone to the operations committee with blanks.

I guess specifically the architect's recommendation, is that part of?

The work scope?

That will be, the architect's recommendation will be made after we know who the low bidder is.

He will do a responsive responsibility check as well as our project manager.

So that's why there's a lot of documents missing at this moment in time.

They will be there when you go to approve the project.

Thanks.

That explains the interconnected part.

Thank you.

Any more comments or questions?

Okay our next project BTA III and BEX IV award construction contract K5069 to CDK construction services incorporated for seismic upgrades at Salmon Bay school and Decatur school project.

Can we hear from the ops chair?

This item was heard on the 31st of March and moved forward with a recommendation for approval.

Okay Mr. Best.

So we are recommending that CDA construction services be awarded this contract.

I will note that Salmon Bay is funded through the BTA III project for the seismic improvements And then the Decatur building which is at the Thornton Creek site is being funded through the BEX IV and so hence my comment earlier to Director Harris about why I want to go back and check on how many schools because different capital levies have funded different seismic improvements.

The work we did not believe could be implemented fully in the summer of 2016 at Salmon Bay and because Thornton Creek will not be moving into their new facility until August, we structured this project such that the contractor will complete work at Salmon Bay this summer, phase one.

He will then go to Decatur building and implement the seismic improvements that have been identified there during the fall and winter months and then next summer we will finish the seismic improvements at Salmon Bay.

So that's how this is currently structured.

The seismic improvements at Salmon Bay are rather significant.

We've got roof to wall tie-downs and wall to structure or foundation tie downs.

In addition we have a lot of masonry that we will be reinforcing at all of the exterior exit ways so that if we have a seismic event the masonry is physically attached to those walls.

That's one of the seismic improvements.

At the Cater building the seismic improvements are not nearly as significant.

Any more comments or questions?

Okay.

PTA 3 and BEX IV award contract number P1448 for purchase and installation of portable classroom modules.

Can we hear from our ops chair?

This item was heard on the 31st of March and moved forward to the board for approval.

Thank you.

So we are looking at constructing 63 new classrooms this summer to address capacity issues, class size reduction and part of the solution will be the purchase and procurement of new portables.

This BAR purchases two new single wide, single classroom portables and seven double wide, so they are two classroom portables and then we place them at the schools that are listed in the attachment to the contract.

And I do know, We place two of the double wide classrooms at Hamilton middle school.

We place a single classroom at Leschi elementary school.

We are actually placing six classrooms total, three double wide classroom portables at Mercer middle school.

We placed three classrooms at Viewlands Elementary School, two classrooms at West Woodlands Elementary School.

This is based upon enrollment data as of March 1. We will be looking to see if that enrollment data changes on June 1 and we can adjust this contract through change order.

So either up or down.

Director Peters.

Did you say you placed or you are going to place?

We are going to place.

So this will be work that will be implemented this summer Director Peters.

Okay two questions come to mind.

One of them is Hamilton where are you going to place them on the basketball courts?

We are going to place the four classrooms on the basketball court for one year.

Next year we have both Meany middle school and Robert Eagle Staff middle school that will come online and then we'll take those portables off that basketball court.

So that will mean then, will that take up all of the basketball courts or half of it?

Do you have any idea how much of that space will be used up?

I do not know.

I mean I do know that we are placing it, I've seen a site drawing but I don't know in that relationship I can find out for you.

Well then the question I'll add to that which perhaps can't be answered at this moment is if we take away play space from our kids, space that's already pretty limited and yes these are middle school kids but they still need to run around.

Can we get some sort of permission to use the field that's behind the building like the Wallingford playground?

Because I know right now they're not allowed to go there except under controlled situations like after school track or something.

Right, so we would have the conversation with the parks department on that.

That would be fantastic if they could, at least for that year, I think that would be really helpful.

Okay, and then my other question has to do with the placement of these portables.

You gave us a list of some of the schools, are any of the schools that are going to get portables, are any of them schools that are also going to get new pre-K classrooms assigned to them?

I don't believe so.

I'd have to take a look obviously the middle schools are not location so I'd have to take a look and see if either Leschi or Viewlands are places that are having a new preschool but it's not coming to mind right now.

I know Arbor Heights and Thornton Creek elementary schools have pre-Ks.

I know Warren has some of the new Seattle public schools pre-Ks.

I don't think either of these do but I'd like to check that.

And then when we do put a portable on a school that does have a pre-K in it, is there any kind of priority as to which classroom gets put in the portable?

Do we prioritize K-5 over pre-K and before and after school class in terms of using the actual building versus the portable?

Do we have any kind of priority?

So there are a couple of things that we've tried to put forward in the board space prioritization.

We try and modify the spaces within the buildings first.

So if we have a classroom that has either a pre-K or before and aftercare they would lose that space first before we would order a portable if we are putting in a new teacher.

There are a few cases, one or two I think where we are placing a portable because it is actually cheaper than modifying the classroom that is currently occupied by something either before and after care or pre-K.

So this comes down to an efficiency which way is going to be the most cost-effective and still give us the space.

As far as placement, principals have that authority to place teachers in the locations that they feel are best going to suit the needs for the So, I'm not aware of a prioritization of these grades going to portables before these grades.

I think it's each principal at the building location makes the determination about where they're placing their teachers.

Because what I think would be problematic is if we bring in portables and put some of our K5 kids in the portables, meanwhile we're adding preschool kids to the more desirable location inside the building.

That to me would be problematic.

Director Harris.

I've heard from a number of community folks that want the concept of a portable as opposed to kicking their before and after school program to the curb.

Can you elaborate on that concept at all please?

Well that would be an additional cost.

So the budget for a portable is about $160,000 that's purchase and movement and utilities and we base that on interim capacity needs that's why we come annually for that.

So we have put that into place.

The cost of moving someone who is in a dedicated space is merely a change of furniture which is a lot less of a cost.

So we have not budgeted those pieces in.

Previously it was we shouldn't be spending, we should be spending the dollars out of the levies on K-12 instruction first.

So that's what we've been spending the money on.

That's why we go for the interim locations.

So in this case this would get to Director Peters position of so if we're buying a portable and we're keeping the space for a provider inside the building then we're adding an expense and K-12 instruction is happening in a portable and not in the building.

So in these cases if we need a space then the community-based organization is displaced and we do not purchase a portable.

Any more questions or comments?

Dr. Burke.

Back to the portables at Hamilton the fact that we are looking at this does that mean that we have landmark approval for that site or is this a contingency?

Right now it's a contingency we haven't heard back from landmarks board on that.

So to illuminate the Hamilton site is a landmark site and any changes we make to the entire site we have to get approval from the landmarks board.

So that would mean adding portables we have to get their approval to do that.

And so far we don't we've made the request but we've not received an answer yet.

We've had several conversations with the administrator for the landmarks board in the department of neighborhoods though making her aware that this request was coming because of the temporary nature of this request that we're only asking for it for one year.

Director Burke, she does not anticipate significant pushback from the landmarks board.

Director Blanford.

But let me understand this, any change to the site even if it is not to the physical building, if the building is landmarked is going to require the involvement of the landmarks board?

No, if the site is landmarked and at Hamilton the site is also landmarked and the building is landmarked.

So, then they also landmark the interiors.

So, and we work with them through what they call their controls and incentives plan.

And we have to go and show them how we are honoring the intent through the controls and incentives that are placed upon the project.

So, would you say that the majority of the, I don't even know how to ask this question, sites that we have the building is landmarked but not the site and this is an exception or the other way around?

We have probably a third of our buildings that have been landmarked and fewer sites have been landmarked.

I would say I don't know the number offhand but I think the practice has been the site and the building so I would say there's probably I don't know offhand but it's probably more sites and buildings than I would prefer.

I would prefer zero quite honestly.

Thanks for your candor on that.

I'm not even going to start to get wound up about the subject for tonight.

Any more comments?

Director Burke.

I don't want to put you on the spot but I was wondering if you could share with some of my colleagues in a way better than I could some of the discussions that have taken place at the BEX oversight committee around portables.

I assume it doesn't apply in this case but we've had some really great discussions around portables.

you know the advantages of portables using portables in a modular way and I think maybe if you could provide a brief.

There are two BEX oversight committee members who have really questioned if portables are the right solution in a densely populated urban environment and it is a good question to ask.

They note that portables may make sense in a rural or suburban environment in which elementary schools are on 10 acres, middle schools are on 20 acres, and high schools are on 40 acres.

when you look at Seattle Public Schools site sizes none of our sites are that large.

And so they have asked us to look at and we've had two months literally of presentations and this Friday we will have a third month on are there other solutions we should be looking at is modular construction multilevel a more appropriate solution for the densely populated urban environment.

And the conversation last month was very good, it provided some good direction.

I think the conversation this month will be very good and it's a compelling question and it's making us look at what's the correct solution.

Thank you.

Okay we are going to go into our last.

Introduction items, contract for new or amended library collection at Arbor Heights Elementary, Tennessee Hill Elementary, Thorn Creek Elementary, Hazel Wolf K-8, and Seattle World School.

C&I Chair can you give us your recommendation?

This was discussed at the March 14 meeting of C&I and was moved forward for consideration of the full board with some amendments as discussed.

Okay.

Eric Caldwell I'm the manager of library services and instructional technology and tonight just bringing forward as you mentioned new library collections at five sites all of which have existing collections.

What we are trying to do with these schools is make sure that they have appropriate collections for the increased size of the sites that they are moving to given that they already have collections that may be older and really for a smaller building.

So for the most part, four of the five sites, we are actually looking at not what would be a full collection, a completely new collection, but amending the existing collection that they have.

The only exception to that is Arbor Heights Elementary.

Arbor Heights existing collection was combined with K5 STEM at Boren.

So they have a combined collection And pulling that collection out now and bringing it to Arbor Heights would create some issues.

And they don't have a complete collection that they own.

So we're proposing purchasing a complete collection for them.

The process is kind of unique for us in working through purchasing.

Typically we have not had the amount rise to the level that it had to come to the board for approval.

And so we've gone through a bid process in all of the prior processes.

but we haven't had to kind of structure timing with board approval and the process for actually getting collections together.

So in this process we first go through and go for bids with vendors and we have a set amount in this case $400,000 total that we won't exceed but we are trying to get the most value for that amount so that we get the best collection possible.

And we ask that a number of conditions are met as part of the purchase contract.

So the vendor has to help the librarian and the library services department work to develop the collection appropriate for each school.

So it's not a generic collection but one that's tailored to the needs of the school looking at their existing collection.

They will work through that process after they've been selected.

It takes roughly a month.

We anticipate that that process will be done by the end of June.

At that point they would then have a set list and they would have a month and a half to two months to actually put the collection together, process those books so they're ready to actually be put on the shelf.

And then in August, after the first week of August, after August 8th, they would actually deliver the books on site.

They would shelve the books.

They would remove all of the material.

And then the library will be ready for use.

So the process really is kind of staggered.

We have to select a vendor.

That vendor has to be approved as part of the process that purchasing has asked us to follow.

And then we work with the vendor to actually come up with a list that then is approved by the librarian and the school.

And then we go ahead and go through the process of actually having them put that together.

So we've gone back and forth.

Originally when I came to the C&I committee of the board.

and said that we would not have a contract for action because we would just have a vendor and we would actually have a contract available after the book selection in June.

In talking through purchasing because this is kind of a new process for them as well they have agreed that they can in fact have a contract ready for action so we'll have one at action.

It was really not clear what the board would be approving if there wasn't a contract.

And so that makes for a neater process.

So we will have a contract for approval.

We should have today the bid actually closed and so tomorrow or the rest of this week we'll go through the process of selecting the vendor based on best price and whether they met all the conditions of the actual bid.

and then we can move forward to action and at that point we will talk to the vendor about actually building the collection with the librarians.

Director Harris.

K then 5 STEM now K 8 STEM in Arbor Heights.

Arbor Heights was never intended to stay there.

Correct.

So are we spending additional money for having combined all those books?

In hindsight, would you do it again the same way?

I probably would.

I mean actually being able to store a collection somewhere and make sure that it would still be in reasonable shape is a hard thing to do.

Being in one location that shared for two years was new for us and I think that you know originally we had taken steps to be able to take the collections apart but really after two years of kind of living together and developing it together it became kind of a singular collection and it's more complicated now to take it apart than it had been.

We did at the time look at the possibility of having two library locations at the school and there just wasn't space to do that.

And the next question would be how did the decision that Arbor Heights gets the new library as opposed to K-8 STEM.

I think that's just a logistics one.

Well there are two parts to it.

One K5 STEM when the school was created did have a new collection that was built for them.

And so kind of the basis of that collection was already new and already designed for them and then the Arbor Heights collection came in.

So they had the advantage of already having a newer collection there.

The other is just logistics so if we were to move that whole library out to Arbor Heights and then have a new one brought into K5 STEM that would be a more difficult process than just having one put directly into Arbor Heights.

Thank you.

Director Blanford.

I'm wondering given the size of this item where the issue around culturally responsive and anti-biased books are.

Is there a filter through which we make the choice of books that would be purchased?

Does it look at culturally responsive and anti-biased?

So in building the collections, and it's noted here in terms of board policy, there is policy around building those collections.

So part of what we do in working with a vendor is saying that that's a consideration we want them to think about.

But then also in each school they have specific needs associated with their curriculum and the librarian at that school is responsible for making sure that they have a diverse collection that meets the needs of their particular population and those issues are addressed.

So through that process of actually looking at the books that are both selected by the vendor and what is being asked for by the librarian we will do that evaluation in the month of June before we settle on the final list.

And it sounds like your answer answers the question that I asked with the exception of one point I heard you a couple of times use the word a diverse collection and my understanding of there is a difference between a diverse collection and a culturally responsive anti-bias collection.

Correct.

So which would it be?

So I think it's both.

And in looking at whether or not books themselves, so it's a monumental task to look at especially a new collection.

So a new collection for Arbor Heights will have roughly 11,000 titles, 11,500.

We are looking at adding probably about 4,000 titles to each of the other schools.

And so looking through that list it's harder to do the same kind of comprehensive filter that you would do in an adoption where you really are able to look through each book really deeply.

But part of the process in evaluation and in actual collection development is leaning on reviews by other organizations and those are all within the collection development tools for each of the major vendors that we work with.

Those tools are available and so you can generally take a look and see whether or not there have been positive reviews, for instance, for issues around bias and for diversity.

Does it mean that we're going to be able to guarantee 100% that every single book is going to meet that?

Unfortunately, probably not, because it just would take way too much time.

And then, honestly, what will happen over the course of just kind of living into that collection, As a librarian we will look through these books and there may be some further filtering that happens after the fact with things that may have missed that initial filter.

Director Burke.

Thank you very much.

When this came to C&I there was some really good discussion around it and I wanted to follow up on that in light of some of the public testimony about the concerns of inequity in our libraries.

And I know that some of the comments that directors were talking about which you've made some changes to the language here I appreciate that.

One of my notes was to include breakdown of number of material essentially the approximate number of materials by school so that we can provide some transparency into how we are serving our different schools with new materials as part of their collections.

Is that something that you could add prior to approval?

It is yes.

So just to be clear Looking at what we are adding through this process, roughly adding 11,000, 11,500 volumes to Arbor Heights and the remaining schools roughly 4,000 volumes.

If you want to know the total volumes of the schools that's a different issue but we could also do that as well.

It's harder to know because librarians right now are going through a process of weeding their existing collections to make sure that they have the most current and up-to-date collection.

So until they are done with that process I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly what those numbers are.

But I can tell you approximately what we would be purchasing.

Thank you.

Any more comments?

Questions?

That is the end of our meeting.

Meeting adjourned.

It is 737.