Welcome to the May 29 2019 regular board legislative session.
As we begin we want to recognize and honor the first peoples of the Puget Sound territories by acknowledging that we are on the land of the coastal Salish tribes.
We'd also like to welcome Hemini Kalei is that correct.
Oh it's not.
I apologize.
Who is joining us on the dais this evening.
She'll have a chance to give her comments later in the evening and we look forward to those.
Ms. Ramirez roll call please.
Director Burke present Director DeWolf here.
Director Geary here Director Mack here Director Patu here Director Pinkham present Director Harris here.
For those of you that would like to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance please do so.
Do we have our presenters from the Seattle Skills Center here.
OK.
The board members and the superintendent would like to.
It's all up here.
We're not moving.
Terrific.
Take it away, please, Mr. Golosman.
All right, thank you.
Thank you for having us.
I'm going to give a little bit of an intro, just a review of the Skills Center for our guests who aren't familiar with the Skills Center.
And I'll try to be quick and make sure there's plenty of time for Mr. Reed Forrester to present some student work and introduce our student who's here tonight.
And he will lead most of the presentation with some examples of student work.
So just a little bit of background.
So I'm Dan Golosman, principal for the Skills Center.
And for members of the audience who aren't familiar with the Skills Center we prepare students for college career and life and we do that through our school year and summer programs.
In the school year we serve 16 to 20 year olds and in the summer incoming freshmen through 12th graders.
And it's easiest to think of the school year courses as a half day option school for career and tech ed classes advanced career and technical education classes are career connected learning opportunities for students.
And this is all part of the pathways that we're building from middle school on up into high school to give students opportunities to learn skills that they can apply right out of high school in careers or go on to one two or four four year colleges and even graduate school to to create a better life for themselves and create more opportunities for themselves and their families.
So all courses are credit bearing.
And many include cross credits like math and science, and many of our courses offer free dual credit, college credit as well.
Let's see, we have lots of different courses, medical careers, IT, skilled trades like maritime vessel operations or construction trades.
And one exciting thing that we're doing more of these days, we also have a course that prepares students to enter the career of teaching.
And so two of our students this year are heading on to teaching college and also the aspiring or the rising educators program through Seattle Public Schools.
They're going straight from our course into that program too.
So we have lots of different programs and hopefully students take advantage of these classes in summer and school year.
uh...
also this year i just wanna highlight some of our seniors are heading on to college and professional certificate earning programs couple examples uh...
two of our firefighting students are heading to university of alaska fairbanks for their fire science bachelor degree program and i believe they have full scholarships i want to confirm that but they have at least partial scholarships to do that and then uh...
several of our students again each year from our nursing program decide that While they love getting the Certificated Nursing Assistant certification, they want to do more and keep going, so they're heading on to nursing college, so to get their either LPN or RN degrees.
Let's see.
Last but not least, oh, and just a reminder, of course, that the CT annual plan is being discussed, I believe, tonight, and that the skill center is included in those seven strategies in the CT annual plan.
And just to talk a little bit about the course you'll be learning about tonight.
So tonight we'll be highlighting the media arts course that's located at Seattle World School.
And this course was developed with the generous support of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the City of Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.
as part of our efforts around creative advantage and just a reminder the creative advantage is our citywide initiative to establish equitable access to arts education and these courses that we have media arts course several CTE courses during the school year and then our summer courses as well provide just an example of how we provide district wide opportunities for students to engage in career connected learning through the arts.
So I'd like to introduce Reid Forrester and our student, Zahra Ahmed.
And Zahra may come up as well, I hope.
Yes.
Hello welcome or thanks for having us.
My name is Reed Forrester and I'm a brand new teacher.
It's my first year.
I came out of industry I've been a graphic designer for 15 plus years and I had the chance to teach this class.
Like Dan said it's it's best thought of as like a half day alternative college or class high school.
My kids come from all different schools and they get bused into my class.
in the afternoon.
So we've had two and a half hours a day all year long to work on our various subjects.
So there's really time to cover a lot of stuff.
So we start with graphic design and print media.
Then we move into web development and web design.
Animation is next.
And then finally right now we're in the middle of our AV production unit to wrap up the year.
There's really a lot of time for the students to get some really deep experience and skills and a really broad variety of skills as well.
So I just wanted to show you a few of the pieces that the students have made over the years.
So over this year.
So we'll start with a print media.
So our first.
Our first assignment, it's the idea of media arts and the skill centers classes is project-based learning.
So this is a project where the students were given a brief, which is a short description of a logo that someone needs.
This one happened to be a sushi restaurant.
And then they work up various types of various concepts logo concepts.
We started out with 21 logo concepts then they had to refine to three.
We had critiques and then they had to polish their final version.
So my goal with this is really to give the students the experience of working for a client which is a lot of what media arts and graphic design is in in the real world.
So, yeah, so these are like the stage of having three logos that were worked up.
This was the final logo for a different imaginary company, which was a nonprofit film-focused company.
So in three different colorways, we had those.
Next we did some posters.
These are 24 by 36 posters are really large and the charge for the students was to have a meaningful message and illustrate it.
So these are really impressive like when you see them printed out on the wall.
And this one is also funny.
So what the students are learning practically is to use the tools of the trade, which is Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign for the print media stuff.
So then these are more Photoshop.
The stuff we've been looking at so far is illustrator based.
So this the assignment here is to make a landscape out of pieces of photographs of food.
And if you I think I made it a little bit closer you guys can see there's like cars made out of mangoes with like curly fries for reals.
So we also you know try to have fun in the class but there's a really a large amount of painstaking work that goes into being able to composite a whole bunch of different photographs like this.
Again we did movie posters because that also has there's a lot of like really specialized techniques for compositing a bunch of different images in a way that that looks pleasing.
So you can see we had a movie for some guy and his dogs.
Um, and then I wanted to, so we, I couldn't really, web development's a little challenging, so I'm not going to show you any examples from that because it's a little challenging on the screen, but I did have a short clip for, uh, of the, some stuff from our animation unit and some stuff from our AV production unit, which we're currently in.
So the animation clips, there's going to be three of them.
There's no sound, so don't be surprised about that.
And they may seem really short, and the truth is animation is really hard and it takes a long time to do.
So there's some short little clips, but they're really quite accomplished, I think, for the amount of time that we had.
So there's going to be three animation clips, including one is going to be the fishing person you'll see is an example of a looping clip.
So kind of like a GIF, if you're familiar with that.
So it'll loop four times, but it's constructed to be like a GIF, like to just go on forever.
And then there's going to be three little films.
The first one is also silent, but the last two have sound.
So can we watch the video?
She's good.
Okay.
Bye!
So yeah, there was a lot of other great stuff, but I didn't want to take too much of your time.
But it's been really, really fantastic to work with these guys.
They are all amazing artists and really dedicated.
Do you guys have any questions before we wrap up?
All right, thanks so much.
Director DeWolf is that a question.
Thank you.
I'm curious.
The short films they're short.
But there's it's likely like an iceberg I'm imagining.
So how much time do those shorts actually take because that's maybe 10 seconds but I imagine it's I just I have no idea.
Yeah I mean the first two that you saw there was they had an assignment to tell a story in six shots.
I would say we worked on that.
Remember we have two and a half hour classes I'd say it was a week maybe to get that down.
And then the last one you saw was I believe I gave it was I believe I gave them a list of like 12 shots that they needed to construct a story out of and that probably we spent closer to two weeks on that one.
Yeah.
Same with the animation it's very short but it's there's just a lot of effort that goes into it to make it do to make it look like that.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing your talents.
Thanks.
Thank you very much for coming.
I will now turn it over to Superintendent Juneau for her comments.
Thank you.
So two things before I start my usual.
and a presentation.
I would just first like to acknowledge our dear friend and colleague who is moving on from Seattle Public Schools.
Dr. Brent Jones has accepted a position to help King County Metro expand their access to underserved populations.
I will miss him.
I know we will miss him as well across the district.
I'll miss his leadership.
In his second tour with Seattle Public Schools Dr. Jones has planted and grown the seeds for the racial equity work that we that we are now doing and is established across the district.
It is through his efforts large and small that we are moving toward institutionalizing racial equity building a culturally responsive workforce and creating a welcoming environment for everyone.
And just so you know there is a reception to honor Dr. Jones at the John Stanford on Friday June 7th from 11 to 12 in the third floor comments but Dr. Jones if you would please stand so we can recognize you.
Thank you for your years of service and look forward to watching you do great things over at Metro.
Second I would like to call forward Gail Morris and through the work and the advocacy of Director Pinkham continually asking us about welcoming and native language you know that we see the banners hanging in places and other schools and here.
And why don't we have one for native language.
Well.
We have delivered and so I'd like to call forward Gail Morris to talk a little bit about this new banner that will hang here at John Stanford and across our schools in Seattle.
Hello Board of Directors Superintendent Juneau an amazing student.
With the help of Nancy Bob who is enrolled Lummi and also Muckleshoot and Duwamish we put together a welcoming sign for Seattle Public Schools.
It's something that we've been wanting to work on for quite some time and.
We were I was lucky to hire her to be one of my consulting teachers and so not only did we create signs for the lobby but we're also teaching some of the language in our little after school programs two days a week and our students are extremely excited about that.
We're going to move forward hopefully and start presenting this idea to do the welcome signs in the international schools get those going and then move on so that we can have them visible for all students to see the welcome sign for Seattle Public Schools.
Before I roll that out I just want to make two little acknowledgments as well.
We also put the Lushootseed font on every.
Every person that email ends with Seattle schools dot org.
So that is on there and we're excited that we've been able to use that as well.
I think my staff is really excited to to use that.
And again we couldn't have done that without Nancy Bob who has really helped tremendously in getting the Southern Lushootseed going in the school district and the importance of the visibility and then also.
Director Pinkham and working with getting the adoption of five languages.
We have some people that can help with that which is the Lushootseed, Haida, Nez Perce, Lakota and Diné or Navajo.
So that's really exciting in case that didn't roll out.
And then finally our film I Am Native won two awards.
We won an award of.
We won an award of excellence from the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts, and the Best of the Northwest Alliance for Community Media.
And that one I memorized.
It's two provinces, Alberta, British Columbia, and seven states, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and Utah.
One for Best Instructional Videos.
I'm so excited about that.
So thanks, Carrie.
And now we're gonna show you the banner that hangs at the front door, both side doors.
So it says, welcome to Gallaudet School.
And we'll just swing around and show everybody here.
So we just put this up really quickly.
We were able to get some funding for it.
It's really exciting.
And then we went on to school for the next mission.
So my lovely assistant.
All right.
Thank you.
I don't know you can ask.
Can you.
Yeah.
Before you leave.
Can you have someone read that in southern Lushootseed so we know what it sounds like.
Nancy was going to come with me today but she had to get home.
She had a child care issue and we're putting it together so that you can hear it.
And we're almost done so that we can mail that out so people can learn how to say it in Southern Le Chute State.
It's just taking a minute because we don't have the right equipment to record it and then save it and put it.
It's techno it's technology jargon coming soon.
We're coming soon.
Ask one of our because I know we have Tom Spears here.
If he would you know how to read that and pronounce it for us.
Thank you.
It's out.
Can you come to the mic please Tom.
I don't have it memorized but I could read it and understand it and it said welcome to little place where one crosses over Zitzelalitch which was the name of the lagoon down by King Street station that was all filled in now.
But that was the name of the big big Elliott Bay Duwamish village Zitzelalitch and then it said houses of houses of teaching schools.
So Nancy Bob did you good.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Gail.
And then I guess I'll just give you a little update.
One quick call out to our Amazon partners.
This was the first time that I'd been to the spheres.
They're pretty cool.
So if you haven't visited, you should.
Their living wall is almost as great as the one at Hazel Wolf K-8.
I had the pleasure I had some students from my hometown of Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation who were in Seattle and they stopped by to visit.
It was really good to hear their voices and hear what they've been up to.
And so nice to see these fierce young people in my new home.
I just know they're going to continue doing great things.
They were touring colleges and touring the area and so that was just a lot of fun for them to come in and see the work that we're doing at Seattle Public Schools and have a good conversation about that.
These leadership students at Loyal Heights Elementary and their principal gave me a great tour of the newly remodeled Loyal Heights building.
This is a picture in their beautiful library.
When I visited Thornton Creek it was dress like your favorite storybook character day.
Some of these clever students were dressed as I asked what they were dressed up as and they said it's myself in the yearbook.
I then I decided I was myself in the yearbook.
I thought that was a good idea.
Thornton Creek students also created this game called Pogo.
It's very similar to four square but different.
It just again like they were really nice to me and let me win this game.
So I was thankful for that.
It's not good.
TOPS K-8 students were working on animal research projects.
The young man on the left was so engaged that he couldn't be bothered to talk to me.
Laurelhurst Elementary students were engaged in their reading.
The little girl across from me tells me all about spiders and their lives and which one was her favorite.
So she knew a lot about spiders.
View Ridge Elementary values art as was demonstrated by these wings hanging on the wall.
Emile and Ellery were great hosts and they shared their perspectives about their school.
These Wedgwood marmots told me all about their library and the librarian was just so very proud of their knowledge about the space they were able to give the tour talk about the books talk about all the reading programs that are going on.
These young Adam Middle School journalists asked tough questions about highly capable programs segregation in our highly capable programs.
They talked about the achievement gap.
So I would just say watch out Dahlia these students are coming after your job.
Staff Salmon Bay K-8 principal Garens believes in the K-8 model as a means to provide leadership and mentorship opportunities for eighth grade students.
The eighth graders at Salmon Bay do things like supervising the playground during recess.
They attend kindergarten field trips to support their mentees and so a lot of cool things going on because they're able to build the system of a K-8 and hang on to those students and build like mentorships and such.
School administrators at Thornton Creek were dressed like rock paper scissors from the legend of rock paper scissors.
I think I need to read the book because the review says it's very funny.
These TOPS K-8 leaders gave me a tour of their building.
Did you know that this that TOPS is one of the most diverse K-8 and has a majority minority students in the building.
They're doing a lot of good work there.
Laurelhurst Elementary with Principal Snyder.
He's focused his first year on relationships with staff students and the community.
And did you know that Tim attended Laurelhurst as a student.
He joins a long list of Seattle Public School principals who work at a school they attended.
View Ridge Elementary with Principal Roos and some of our Star War enemies.
I said these are not the droids we're looking for.
Principal Liu at Wedgwood is quite the dancer in PE class they were doing a dance party and so we participated in it.
I didn't shoot video because nobody needs to be subjected to that.
But just know we were very good.
Jane Adams middle school with principal Montgomery.
Yes we got photobombed.
Jams is building a strong reading identity and all of her students.
Kudos to her librarian and ELA staff for the intentionality in selecting diverse books so that all students can see themselves in the stories they read.
My partner Dana and I attended the GSBA scholarship gala dinner where students were honored with scholarships and directed to Wolf.
and I got to hang out in a reception line.
I held a meeting with several tribes and community based organizations working on American Indian issues to discuss our work with native students and early literacy.
It's a very powerful experience and I'm excited to see the great things that will continue in partnership with this group and others.
This team as we get strategic in our work our partnerships become even stronger and I just want to thank Amazon for their continued support and I look forward to our continued work together.
Thank you to the Alliance for Education for allowing me to give the opening remarks for their luncheon.
We have so many people in our students corners.
This concludes my remarks.
Thank you Madam President.
Thank you Madam Superintendent.
Hamani.
Kaleila.
Hello.
You are up next.
And I get to read a little bio about you when I find it.
Nathan Hale high school.
I was remarking to one of your colleagues how distressed I was that I missed your extraordinary plant sale.
So usually the second or third weekend of May Great deals extraordinary quality and you will thank us later.
Kalali is one of the strong student leaders at Nathan Hale and was recently elected the associate student Nathan Hale president and will serve next year.
She's been instrumental in the creation and execution of many school wide projects including our recent unity in the community event.
And I hope she's going to tell us what that means.
And she's been a leader in the creation of an inclusive and caring community.
She represents Hales best.
So tell us a what you think we should know what works for you what doesn't work for you and why is Nathan Hale special.
Thank you.
So just to start I did not know I was going to be talking as much as they told me.
But you know these are things that I think about on a daily basis when I walk into school and when I'm in the leadership class and such so I feel like.
Nathan Hill we try and make progressions and make sure people are represented because if we're going to be in a diverse community such as you mentioned TOPS we need to have like staff that represent the students as well.
So like an issue we deal with and at most schools too is kids skipping class in high school.
That's you know even a bigger deal but it's like that's a danger of a single story where trying to punish these kids because they're in the hallways and stuff but we're not questioning why.
Why are they in the hallway to begin with.
Why aren't they in class.
There's an issue there.
And after numerous conversations I mean one issue is that these kids don't have.
Teachers that look like them and that's the issue.
And as a person of color I can I can say that I haven't had a teacher that looks like me.
I make it happen I make it work.
I excel in school and the things outside of school.
But for some kids they need that support and they need someone that can represent them because imagine walking into a building every day for six hours a day but you don't have someone that that's representing you that looks like you that can understand how you're feeling on a daily basis in and out of school.
I'm a junior as well and I guess this is the first time that I've been in contact with the district.
This is the first time I've been to a school board meeting and such so I feel like if more kids have the opportunity to do this.
I mean I'm not sure how this whole agenda works.
You know just being real but.
I mean you guys are representing us right you're working for the school district you're representing students so I feel like if more kids had the opportunity even at a younger age too.
I've been in school you know since kindergarten so I feel like this is the first time that I'm actually having contact with the people that make things happen every day and I appreciate it greatly but there's issues that need to be addressed and I I feel like a lot of the teachers don't understand that we have a life outside of school.
We're coming to school with a lot of things on our mind and I feel like some teachers don't acknowledge that and just some administration in general.
I would like to shout out Mr. Jackson.
He is one of the assistant principals at Nathan Hill and I greatly appreciate everything that he's done for Hill because he addresses me as a human being.
Not someone that's lower than him or in any way he understands how students feel and he's doing what he can to represent the students as well.
We had a day unity in the community.
Mariel will talk more about this but this is a day where we suspended all classes and we had workshops about things that happened in the real world.
Some kids complain you know if you're in a math class like oh I'm not going to use this like 10 years from now.
But we actually took a day to talk about things that, yes, this is what you're going to face in the real world.
And he helped make that happen, as well as me and Mario as well.
Yeah, to talk about many things.
Implicit bias, Islamophobia.
We had someone speak that was a Holocaust survivor.
And we made that happen.
That's important because that's real life right there.
You know.
Yeah I can I can go I can skip a day of math and science to learn about things that are actually going to impact me and relate to me as a person of color.
I feel like there's there's bigger world problems that affect our inner community problems as well.
Just you know the injustice of people of color in this society.
The lack of woman rights as well.
And those things do trickle down and they affect inner smaller communities as well like our schools and the little neighborhoods that we live in.
But it's like I feel like if we can start with our little communities first we can make bigger impact elsewhere.
You know we're all representing different communities around Seattle.
If we all try to actually take action because action speak louder than words if we actually take steps forward and try to actually do something about things that we can come together and make bigger change too.
So because right now I'm just saying a whole bunch of words but I can prove it with the things that I've done at Hale as well and with the things Hale is doing and Hale is not perfect.
There's times where we struggle but I feel like we're trying with good administration as well.
I mean that's really all I had to say that I could think about.
But if you guys have any questions for me you may ask them.
Do you have ideas of where you're going after high school and what you want to accomplish and whether or not we the Seattle Public School District has done a good job to prepare you for those.
So.
I had a conversation with Mr. Jackson the other day about what I want to do outside of high school.
I play basketball and my goal my really small mindset at times has been to play basketball in college.
I want to get my college paid for for that.
But he helped me realize that I do bigger things as well.
Like I've been in leadership since freshman year but not one time I really thought about what can I do with that.
Literally like what can I actually do what roles in society can I do with that.
So he has helped me specifically.
And I know that we have days within school like job fairs and stuff you know at most places do that.
But I feel like that's something that needs to be focused on more because a lot of kids after high school don't have a plan really.
They kind of just resort to community colleges maybe like Shoreline but even then they don't really have a plan.
So I feel like we need to make adjustments on that too because not everyone's as strong as maybe I am.
You know so yeah.
And I hear a rumor that a plan is going to be part of the curriculum in the future.
Is Mr. Goldsman still in the room.
Nope.
It'll be part of the curriculum and Director DeWolf please.
Thank you to President Harris.
Thank you so much for being here.
You did great.
My question is what students do you believe at least in your from your perspective does our school district make or not see or make invisible and how can we as a district do a better job of making those students feel seen and be visible.
I feel like this is the case at most schools but specifically at Hale.
The students that you may see in the hall that are skipping class are young men of color and and young people of color in general.
And I feel that goes back to the issue that there are not leaders within the school who they can relate to and actually talk to.
We have Mr. Jackson but we don't have enough.
And I feel like that's one thing that we can a step we could take in order to like fix issues like that.
I just I feel appreciated when I walk into a classroom and the teacher just genuinely asked me how are you doing.
How's your day.
You know how's things at home.
And they're not getting all up in my business but they're just simply asking me you know it's not like why didn't you do your homework.
It's like you know are you good.
Do you have time.
Do you have the resources to do homework in the first place.
You know I may have derailed from the question but here you go.
You mentioned wanting to be engaged and help students be engaged at the district level.
Did you know about the student advisory committee to the superintendent that we have.
We actually you know about that already.
Yes.
Yeah.
So I'm wanting to just kind of highlight that that is actually a really great way for students to get involved but I'm not sure about the process of like will the membership be turning over for the coming year or it's set for this year.
It's set for next year and then so the following year there's a process that students apply to and how can you do you mind sharing a little bit about how that works so that everyone knows that there's you know there is a way to engage and students have an opportunity.
Thank you Director Mack.
We're actually working out the process and so this was the first year of student advisory board.
We have two students from each of our high schools that.
There's a nomination process they can nominate themselves a parent a teacher anybody can nominate a student.
The student then has to make an application to know they're serious about being on it as well.
Then a group gets together and sort of goes through all those applications and we are building.
We've invited two people from each of the comprehensive high schools some of the alternative high schools to belong and we are heading into our.
third or fourth or fourth meeting for the year third meeting third big meeting for the year they've met interim and will be presenting some projects that they're going to engage in next year.
So that's why we're holding them on to them for next year because they developed workforce you know how to diversify our workforce how to.
If not great things are happening or racial incidences or things that need to be reported.
What are a student's rights in reporting that.
And so they're helping us develop processes for that.
They've looked at our health curriculum and are working with Lisa Love on our sex ed curriculum and kinds of what kinds of content needs to be developed in that.
And then a group is looking at ethnic studies and how to make sure that that gets more robust in our high schools.
And so there have been groups that have formed as a part of the whole board who are working on those individual things and they will present that to a group who will give input and then next year they'll sort of have a project at their school.
So we'll hold on to that group for another year so we can kind of develop all that.
And then I think we'll come up sort of with a way to stagger terms on the board so that we can maintain some seniority and then half will cycle out and half will cycle in.
So not next year but the year after watch for the half to turn over and invitations to come out.
But it's been great.
And as I said every time and we have student advisory board member here right now too.
Every time I gather with them and hear the conversations just like I'm hearing tonight.
It's like if we are producing students like those students I have the honor to speak with in our in our school system.
We're doing pretty well because they are strong they are smart they are powerful they are wise and and I just every time I leave that their presence I'm just so hopeful for our future because you know I tell people it's like they are not the leaders of tomorrow they are the leaders today and we need to work to catch up to them.
And so I just want to thank my student advisory board for their leadership.
Thank you for your leadership and just keep on keeping on.
Director Pinkham please.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ I want to first of all congratulations on your upcoming position next year and hopefully you'll continue to do great things.
I've been to the Nathan Hale graduation last few years it's the high schools in my district and what I really appreciate is that they do welcome everyone in as many languages that the students speak at the high school.
So I appreciate that.
You mentioned about the lack of seeing educators teachers administrators of color in your school.
How can we help encourage students of color to pursue education as a viable career.
Because I've asked this other people they mentioned this lack of teachers of color then I asked them well would you be willing to become an educator.
They'll say no I don't want to do that.
Is education something you would be interested in.
Oh so you're asking me personally.
Yes actually it is something that I've thought about because I've been in leadership roles one way or another whether it's on the basketball court or in a classroom or for the school or for my class.
So and I just enjoy.
being the voice for others you know being the voice for those who don't have the confidence yet to speak for themselves which is what I'm doing right now too.
I guess I as a representative Nathan Hale I'm representing Hale in a strong way but that doesn't mean that like there are kids that are not struggling at Hale right now.
You know not everyone may have the same confidence or strength as me but going back to the question.
Yes it's because I do want to be an educator but I just enjoy helping and I enjoy helping younger kids in general too.
I mean I worked with special needs kids when I was in middle school and even now too like I just take the opportunities that I'm given that are given to me like leadership and helping my class now helping my school as well so.
It's something I thought about.
I honestly I don't know what I want to do for sure.
Like their concrete plan after high school.
But I got time to think about that.
But definitely that's something I want to do and just being a leader for the community.
Director Burke.
I think my colleagues have already given you some really good questions so I just want to thank you for your energy and enthusiasm that you bring here because it really is contagious and so it's great to start out the meeting with smiles and the messaging that you're putting forward.
So appreciate that.
Thank you.
Can I make one more comment.
We have time for that.
Two things.
Someone brought up curriculum and that's that term is thrown around I feel like and people have lost kind of like side the definition of it because I've heard teachers say like when kids are passionate about learning something else like we did a climate justice day as well in the community.
Some teachers didn't agree with that because they said that it doesn't go well with their curriculum.
You know and I get it.
You know they have a plan for the year.
You know it is what it is.
But I feel like that's something that just has to be.
I mean addressed and like communicate with teachers as well.
I just communication with teachers who like this is I mean we try like as students like I feel like there's a team like you know we've got students and the teachers and then you know district and I feel like.
The students when they're passionate about things they will make it happen.
They will communicate to teachers.
But I feel like there has to be more communication from the district to teachers as well.
You know I'm pretty sure you guys got your plan with that.
So I have faith it's all good.
But I forgot what else I wanted to say.
But it's OK.
Thank you for having me though.
Appreciate it.
Thank you for being here.
Now here's the deal.
If you stick around when the board asks questions of presenters.
You get to ask questions as well.
So it might be worth your while.
And I suspect you've got some pretty darn good questions.
OK cool.
You are welcome and you will participate.
Don't get to vote but you do get to ask questions.
So wave or nudge Director DeWolf next to you and we'll make it happen.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
OK.
We are at 6 A consent agenda.
May I have a motion for the consent agenda please.
I move approval of the consent agenda.
Second.
Does any director have items they wish to take from the consent agenda.
Seeing none.
All those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye.
Aye.
Excuse me.
Well we're going to board committee reports now.
Who would like to go first.
I juggle and you protect me.
So you're up Director Mack chair of operations legislative liaison.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So going back to board reports and also a brief touch base on the FEPP levy oversight.
There's lots of meetings recently.
So for operations we had our last meeting on May 16th.
The agenda is posted if you want all the materials I think there's some 400 pages there.
You can ask the board office for those.
We have 10 items that are coming into intro tonight.
I don't know if you saw our agenda but I think we have 25 intro items tonight half of which are ops related.
We had some really good conversation around some model some policies that are moving through and I think a couple of those are coming in the form of board action.
more solidified the 6900 facilities planning and 6901 capital levy planning as well as the other policies that we discussed and also the advisory committee for facilities planning that we've been discussing that will come in draft form in a BAR I believe and the BEX BTA oversight committee also had their meeting on the 17th.
They did some great project updates around the buildings that are opening next year.
I think we have four five.
I can't remember the number and it's not listed here unfortunately but we have Magnolia will be opening up.
That's one.
And Lincoln.
Right.
Those two.
So those will have ribbon cuttings in the fall.
That'll be exciting to participate in.
Watch out for those.
dates and times.
We talked about the portable management plan.
They had a rich discussion around that.
There was a bit of discussion around the landscaping at new buildings.
And interestingly somebody brought up the concept of do we reserve some of the landscaping area for science instruction for gardening and that kind of thing.
And so there's an interesting discussion there about the connection between curriculum and facilities.
We also talked about the GCCM certification and the district potentially becoming its own certifier and the process for that.
There will be further discussions on that in the future.
Operations also had a full board oversight meeting on the 22nd on transportation.
All of those materials are posted and that was a really good update on the progress that's being made around improving our transportation services and some of the challenges that we've we've been facing.
Director Mack.
Can I point something out in the middle there from the transportation work session.
It was stated affirmatively on the record both by SEA staff and first student representatives who are in the room.
That the story that suggested our bus drivers do not go through background checks and that the great city schools report addressed is categorically false and that each of our drivers go through background checks.
That's an important clarification for the record.
Yeah I think that's good to clarify.
Thank you.
You betcha.
Yeah.
Let's see.
So.
The FEPP LOC meeting which is the city's levy was on the 23rd.
We have a rich discussion around the last year's report and future reporting and actually some interesting conversations around data and what data is available student privacy around that data whether or not to have longitudinal studies of students going from preschool all the way up through and.
Next we will be having on June 5th next week a full board work session in this room on student assignment plan transition plan and boundary changes proposed and considered for the 20 — 21 20 20 20 20 21 school year.
We're already in the planning processes for those that agenda and materials will be posted at least two days ahead of the meeting next week.
So look for that and sorry.
I want to interrupt.
There's been some discussion about moving that particular work session I believe.
No.
So I have people who should be.
I thought we had.
So I was asked about it.
Stay tuned folks.
There's been discussion.
So just people should if for some reason it switches.
I just wanted to make it aware.
Okay.
And I apologize.
I just want to make sure that if it does move that people check the board calendar.
I was asked about an alternative date so I apologize if I'm wrong.
So currently it's scheduled for the June 5th and if that changes then we have a few days before.
And trying to coordinate seven directors and all the SEA excuse me the SPS staff to present to us is a magician's moment.
It's a very complicated puzzle.
The last thing the last update is the legislative liaison work.
The legislature is closed for the session closed.
They finished their work but I sit on the WASDA which is a state school board directors associations legislative committee and we have our first meeting after session coming up this weekend Friday and Saturday.
Which means unfortunately I'm unable to attend the retreat that's on Saturday.
That's been scheduled for four or five months and unfortunately I'm really disappointed that I can't make the retreat this Saturday.
And I think that that hits all the high notes and we'll have more more later.
Director Geary.
Thank you.
Chair of Curriculum and Instruction legislative liaison as well.
Right and there's a lot going on in curriculum and instruction as many of you are aware.
So tonight will be the vote on the three different science curriculum adoptions elementary middle school and high school.
We also have a number of introduction items later on in the agenda as well.
I think the most exciting news is that at our last curriculum and.
instruction committee meeting we moved forward to the board for introduction on June 12th.
The STI BAR board action report so that we will be introducing since time immemorial on June 12th.
And should everything go as planned it will be brought before the board for action on June 26th so that we should have that taken care of before we are out for the summer and in effect for the beginning of our new year.
So I think that's really exciting that we managed to do that.
So our next committee meeting is June 11th 2019 430 to 630 here at the board offices.
It's not quite as heavy an agenda as we've had recently.
Two of the sort of more interesting policies the dress code with regard to the dress code and electronic devices have been removed from the agenda for the time being to do more public engagement and routing to make sure that we've gotten that right.
So those will those will not be up for discussion necessarily at our next committee meeting.
We will be looking at the creative advantage partnership the CSIP annual approval the open doors contract and then we'll have some special attention items around our music programming our ethnic studies update the annual assessment.
report around our testing schedules and an advanced learning update.
And then we've added to the special attention items because Chandra Hampson the president of the Seattle Council PTSA and I have decided to work on drafting or looking at creating an anti-racism policy for Seattle Public Schools because although we have the 0 0 3 0 policy around racial equity that we don't have one that actually is anti-racism and doing some research there has been a district back in Virginia that actually brought an anti-racism policy and passed it.
So we would have something to begin to look to model it model it upon.
But surprisingly there are not more.
Of those very definitive statements for policies in schools around our country.
So once again we'll be looking to draft something for Seattle Public Schools and really looking forward to engaging the public on and getting their input on that as we move forward on making safer environments for our kids.
So take a look again.
The next committee meeting is June 11th and we're still moving forward and discussing the adoption policy 2 0 1 5 which is our curriculum adoption policy which has been at the center of much of the discussions lately and then equitable access quarterly report policy number 2200. That's it.
Thanks.
Director Pinkham chair of Audit and Finance.
Thank you.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
At our last Audit and Finance meeting on May 20th we had 11 BAR items and you'll see them all tonight.
One was will be an intro and action item.
We had definitely some good discussions around most of them had to deal with SPED and some compliance issues that were required and mandated to do.
And so.
won't really kind of bore you with some of the legal issues that we have to go through in approving of these but other issues that came up include like some of the bars that came forward and picked the first one for the head start for preschool.
They mentioned surveys and we asked those things to be added to the bar so that we can see those and hopefully show that we are making good sound decisions.
Also I appreciate Director Mack's input on the replacement for vehicles as we're looking at that discussing that we're really seeing what funds can we use and can we help save some money or use certain funds in certain ways.
And they agreed that they'd look at that but we're still want to do an intro and action on that item tonight to see again how best we can spend.
The money and fill the needs that we have for our diminishing fleet vehicles looking at some of those that are like 30 years old that are still in our fleet.
And.
Thanks to our.
Shop people who keep them running but it's getting a little bit too expensive to maintain those vehicles.
Other things a lot of informational only items we discussed at the last one one included and actually noted that we do as a board have two employees the superintendent and our internal auditor.
And we were looking at maybe ways for how we can make sure the whole board is overseeing our internal auditor not just me as the chair of audit and finance that everyone can hopefully feel like they have a voice and as we're looking at those things.
Yes it could mean more meetings but I think it's kind of what we have to look at what we commit to when we signed up to do this.
We will have our next quarterly A&F meeting June 2nd which is Tuesday.
Again this is something we do every three months.
So if you want to come out and see what's happening as we get the internal audit and finance update every quarter to kind of check how we're doing and progressing with the different fundings and making sure we're in compliance.
The next A&F meeting will be right before the Monday before C&I.
I haven't seen the agenda for that yet.
But again if you can make it and come and listen to what we have discussed because a lot of these things that are different committee meetings that there is some thorough discussion on the items amongst the committee members and then come in here to share with all of you as well.
So there's another opportunity for you to come and listen to discussion that's happening and that's at our various committee meetings.
Watch for postings with those.
Given the time I really don't have much more to share with Audit and Finance.
And again the quarterly meeting you also see what audits have been currently completed as well.
But thank you.
Qeˀciyéẁyéẁ.
OK.
Last but not least the exec committee we met last Wednesday a week ago.
We discussed the superintendent's goals.
And we added back in an operations goal which will be to redo the operations data dashboard in addition to reading by third grade which braids through all of our work.
And there is a healthy set of rubrics there that we're still working on.
Executive committee is actually fairly rowdy and thoughtful and it's a good place to watch policy or the beginnings of policy happening.
We also heard from our we about a year year and a half ago we started inviting in our labor partners just to chat what's on their minds answer questions etc.
It's healthy.
Brutally honest.
And we heard from our SEA partners President Phyllis Campagno Vice President Michael Tamayo Race and Equity Director Markita Prezing and they expressed overwhelming support for the adoption of the science curricula that we are going to be addressing this evening.
When asked if they had heard any pushback from teachers that were reluctant to come forward or were in fear of retribution they suggested one person.
And you know we as board members hear from a lot of folks Most folks don't sign their names so you don't know what kind of weight to give folks and if you are corresponding with us please sign your name and tell us your story so that we can weight appropriately and weight W E I G H T not W A I T. We also discussed the hope for process for the appointment of the successor to our beloved director Betty Patu and we hope to have that figured out next week make it very strong in community engagement and are going to be inviting communities especially communities in the southeast region of our school district to send in questions so we can use those as part of our screening tool.
And it's our hope that we will be in the southeast to meet the candidates.
And after July 1 after we we solicit and get a wide group of folks that want to join our team here and work their hardest to do good things then we will release those on the website.
So it's a good transparent and hopefully interactive process.
We discussed the potential of working with the technology access foundation for it to assist us with locating a school in our district to start in September 2020. We have signed an MOU with technology access foundation and we're working on the community engagement plan now.
And obviously the community engagement plan is going to be the keys to success for this technology access foundation has done some pretty extraordinary work.
with the Federal Way School District Sahali TAF Sahali and Federal Way and our teachers and principals will in fact retain their collective bargaining rights and TAF will have input because this will be a different model.
And frankly folks we need to try new things to see if they work and address needs in our schools.
Last we brought up community workforce agreements again and we need to follow up that work session that we had get the information that we requested determine what our next steps are whether it's a task force whether it needs to be a resolution keeping in mind of course the costs and our bandwidth and our CTE programs because it could be a beautiful thing.
And with that we're going to take a stretch break until 530 when public testimony starts and we have a packed public testimony calendar and I would make a personal plea to those folks that have already testified once twice three times whether they might cede their time so that one of our folks on our 38 person waitlist might have an opportunity to testify.
Thanks.