001Well, good evening. Welcome to our board meeting tonight on January 18. Can will you please stand up for the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic of which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call, please. Director Garcia? Here. Director Howell? Here. Director Alvarez? Here. Director Hagos? Here. Director Van? Here. And to my left is Dr. Duran, our superintendent. Do I have any changes or additions to the board meeting agenda tonight? Yes, Director Van. I'd like to make a couple of changes. I'd like to make a motion to move action items 8.4, 8.8, and 8.9 into the consent agenda. OK, I hear that director-- Can I get a second? I can second that. All
002in favor? Aye. I'll do a roll call vote for that one. Roll call? OK. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. We don't have any recognitions this evening. We're going to move on to our scheduled communications. Before we get started tonight, I just want to thank all the speakers that signed up. As you see here, things are changing a little bit. So we're going to have our speakers come right up front. We have posted the norms as well as the guidelines. Please understand that the board will not be able to respond to you directly tonight. But know that we are listening, and we will respond to you with the contact information that you've given us. For our audience members, please respect
003our speakers. Refrain from outbursts, clapping, finger clapping-- or finger snapping and things of that sort. So we'll move on to our-- get started here. First up, Ruth Storkel? Good evening, school board, citizens, teachers, and parents. I am a teacher, parent, grandparent. I was a nanny for 17 years. I love children. I love to teach children truth and to see them grow up and to happy stable productive citizens who have found their divine purpose, accomplishing great things and developing their gifts to the highest potential. I am here to express my grave concern over a damage being done to our children by teaching inappropriate sex education at an unreasonably early age in schools today. Children in elementary school, and even junior high, do not need this information, especially not in the way it is being presented. But
004now I have another subject to highlight for a moment, a curriculum question. I want to ask why our third and fourth graders are not being taught driver's ed. This is a very important area. We need to get this program into these grades right away. Why would we teach driver's ed to 8, 9, and 10-year-olds, you ask? Because they will all be driving when they are 16, 17, and 18. So we need to start teaching them about it immediately. We need to teach them how to turn on the lights, windshield wipers, change tires, fix a flat, and doing oil changes. Informing them about all the laws and expenses. We need to show them all the ins and outs of car repairs, driving fast, using cruise control, et cetera. We need to show them even how to
005change a Cadillac into a Jeep, take a blowtorch or saw, and burn or cut off some of the parts of the Cadillac so they can make one car into another. How to cut bumpers off, break windows out of the Cadillac to make it look more like a Jeep, et cetera. When will we be offering driving classes to our young ones? After all, someday they will be driving. So let's get on with it right now. I'm using this analogy because it's a highly relevant comparison in this present hour. It is very clear that young children do not need driver's training. And it is equally clear that our children do not need to be taught sex education at early ages either. It is not even age appropriate. Furthermore, it has always been the parent's responsibility and right
006to choose what and when to teach their children about sexuality. At this present time, multitudes of parents nationwide are standing up against this sex and gender education. Because it is proving to be harmful to children physically and mentally and is taking our children's attention off the vital areas they need to be learning, like reading, math, history, and writing. This harmful teaching is opening doors and causing undue stress about their very self-identity. Holy scriptures say that our Creator designed us with two genders. Male and female created He them. Children are having confusion, stress, and turmoil because some society leaders and educators are trying to cloud this truth. Our children should not have to endure this. They should not be subjected to pressure to undergo mutilation and abuse if the transgender crowd wants to push them. I
007ask, why teach third, fourth, and fifth graders about sex, and especially with strange perverted ideas? They do not need sex education until much later when they are nearing adulthood and can behave responsibly and morally. Just as you would say, our children do not need driver's ed until it is time to drive. In this district and all over America, I say, let's get back to morality, common sense, and truly meeting the needs of our children so they can be happy, stable individuals focus on accomplishing great things, living up to the potential they were created for. Let's give them the basics, the three R's along with encouraging their creativity and art, music, good literature, et cetera. Let's give them age appropriate learning with the same care that we select toys for our grandchildren. Thank you. Next up,
008Kristin Pleschke? Hello. Thank you for letting me speak tonight. I'm coming to you as an Evergreen High school teacher and a representative for the IRI. And I just wanted to say thank you so much, board. I appreciate so much as a teacher in this district. And having taught in other districts before, I took a poll of my students today, I took a survey. And I asked students about how they felt at school, and how they felt with their teachers. The majority of the students, over 75% of the students said that they feel welcome and included by teachers at EHS. Knowing names, learning styles, and respecting identities, whether they be religious identities, gender nonconforming identities, and just wherever they are on the learning spectrum. A very few students, in fact, actually 83%, said that they have
009not been harmed by teachers at Evergreen of the students that were surveyed. So I just wanted to bring that up and say that another one of the correlations that I have is that students were asked to describe the teachers that had a positive impact as well as the environment and as well as the curriculum. There is an absolute positive correlation between teachers being open, honoring emotional needs, honoring pronouns and religions, and having respect not just between teacher and students, but also between students and students. And having dialogue and having open communication. All of this was positively correlated with learning in class. In fact, 80% said that they were learning in these classes, as opposed to classes where there was neutral or negative going on when teachers had a low bar. They were impersonal. They did
010not respect the identities of students. Maybe they were impatient and they seem like they didn't want to be there for the student. Those students said-- 48% said, yes, they probably learned something, while 33% said no, and 19% said maybe. So I think that's really powerful. And I do think that instruction on race and identity and social justice standards has a big part to do with this. Students are under the identity standard, they are developing positive social identities in multiple groups. They are expressing comfort with themselves and with people who are different from themselves. They are responding to diversity with empathy, respect, understanding, and connection. As far as justice goes, they are recognizing unfairness when it happens to them, but also with each other or with other students. They are identifying, and they are looking at
011perspectives when it comes to historical bias as well as acceptance. And then as far as action goes, they are recognizing their own responsibility to stand up to exclusion, prejudice, and injustice. I'm seeing it in the class every day, as well as being courageous and respectful. When they have been hurt or wronged by bias, they are standing up. So I just wanted to say thank you so much. I think we need to keep up the good work and keep it expanding. Thank you. Next up, Patricia Bailey? Good evening, Highline school board. SEL, social emotional learning, as portrayed on the Highline School District website entails common sense, universally agreed-on values. It helps students identify feelings, regulate emotions, develop a "can do" attitude, and cultivate a do unto others as you would have them do unto you mindset.
012These are all excellent concepts and practices for the classroom and for life. However, SEL underwent radical changes in 2020 and is not the value-neutral program it used to be. In this testimony, I will quote extensively from Max Eden's research on SEL. Eden is an education researcher at the American Enterprise Institute and testifies before Congress. I will send Eden's concise testimony to you via email. Mr. Eden has four major criticisms, but I will cite only three. First, he found SEL has become an ideologically-charged enterprise. Second, he maintains the data collection involved in SEL implementation poses major risks to the privacy of students and their families. Third, SEL implementation tends to resemble the practice of unlicensed therapy. Number 1. In 2020, the neutral competencies of seal became value-laden with values derived from critical race theory. It is
013now called transformative SEL. These values are clearly not morally or politically neutral. Public documents and leadership statements suggest an open embrace of political and ideological goals. Number 2. Even parents who are broadly sympathetic to liberal ideology on race and gender may still be perturbed by the skewed surveys that have become central to SEL implementation. These surveys ask students highly sensitive questions about their mood, their beliefs, their family, and even their sexuality. Parents are not always informed about the nature of these questions, nor do they have strong reasons to trust that the answers will remain private. Hackers recently Stole personal information of over 820,000 students in New York City Public Schools. There's expectation of further hacks and data privacy violations. Number 3. SEL in practice effectively asks teachers to act as therapists. Teachers are encouraged to
014uncover and address trauma, probe into students psyches, and teach a certain schema through which children learn to see their relationships. School boards must realize the dangers in this. And that medical ethics prohibits the practice of therapy by unlicensed individuals like, for example, classroom teachers. In summary, Max Eden predicts there will be parent outrage against the new iteration of SEL. And policymakers need to address the political, privacy, and ethical concerns that SEL raises before implementation. Thank you. Next up is Katy Radelich? Thank you so much for this time board directors. I sent an email to all of you this morning. And I just want to reiterate what I had stated. I am asking that you please do not make any revisions to the board policy 14-30. As a parent, I find this the most important time
015during this board meeting to come to learn to hear what the teachers, fellow community members, and parents have to say in regards to what they feel important that you all should hear. So my ask is please reconsider making any changes tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next up, Sandy Hunt? All right. There you go. All right, thank you. Hi. Thank you so much for the opportunity to address the board and for your service. My name is Sandy Hunt. I'm President of the Highline Education Association. I'm here to talk about Black Lives Matter in schools. This is a week of action that comes up in February. We have not addressed this at the board in a while. And so I wanted to get you up to speed on where we are at. And I think
016we kind of had that pause with the pandemic. And now we're hoping to be back on track. Several years ago prior to my even being president, Black Lives Matter at School became an important component. And it was actually started in Seattle of the curriculum in states. And, well, I would say cities around the country really promoted by a national organization called Black Lives Matter at School and then picked up by the National Education Association, as well as other unions. So at the time when my members were attempting to bring this into schools, it had a mixed reception from amongst the administrators there. And so some administrators said this is not part of the curriculum. You shouldn't be bringing this into the school. And other administrators really embraced that. So as a union, we came forward
017and asked the board to-- OK, can we just have a standard policy that allows schools to incorporate this into the work they're doing? This was before the IRI was actually part of what we are doing in a strategic standardized way across the district. So that was great. And at least people could move forward on that. And the Union developed lesson plans both in our council level through our Rainier Educators of Color Network. Those have been pushed out and will be pushed out for this year. The National Education Association has the resources. And of course, the National Black Lives Matter at School program has resources for people to work on. We at the time then asked the board to go to the next level. And we're kind of at that stage where the board did support
018the idea of looking at making this part of the work that we're doing in Highline and part and parcel to maybe the IRI work. It might make sense at this point as to where we are in the strategic planning process, where we are as a district with this work. There are 13 guiding principles, several demands that I feel really good that we have been working on both at the district and state level. And we're seeing those demands being met. So I will send you those links, because I only have a certain amount of time this time. Otherwise, we'll be telling you about them more. But we do have the theme that's coming up starting the first week in February. We are launching that with the Rainier Educators of Color Equity Workshop. It's something we invite
019you to each year and try to do a better job of making sure you get that information. It is online, and it is amazing. We have speakers from all over the country as well as locally, providing equity workshop topics to teachers and with clock hours and that type of thing. And then we'll launch on Monday schools that are choosing to do this work. Monday, the theme is restorative justice, empathy, and loving engagement. Tuesday is diversity and globalism. Wednesday is trans-affirming, queer-affirming, and collective value. Thursday is intergenerational Black families and Black villages. And Friday is Black women and unapologetically Black. So whether a school decides to do it that first week in February, or they're working to make sure they've incorporated it in successfully, we do hope many schools will do this. Thank you. Next up,
020Jerry Jordan? Sorry. [CLEAR THROAT] Excuse me. Good evening. My name is Jerry Jordan. I am born and raised here in the Seattle area. I currently reside in unincorporated King County. I currently am the director of the park program, which is a registered pre-apprenticeship training program. And what that is, is we get folks from the underrepresented population in our community trained to work in the construction trades, all right? And our focus, again, is the underrepresented population. I stress that in our community. It's been around since 1998. And the reason I'm here is I just want to say that this is an excellent program that is in King County, throughout King County. And this county has grown. This is our community. The King County Community is our community. Seattle, Auburn, and what I've done is as director
021is we get folks into the trades, all right? We get them into different trades, construction trades as far as laborers, carpenters, those things on building our community. And it's an excellent program. Gives the opportunity for folks to have a livable wage, right? That's where I am now. My background prior to that, I was fortunate enough to be a navigator for King County and represent all the trades. And I would go out to K through 12 schools and speak to the opportunity of construction trades as a career. And I want to thank and commend Highline community, Highline district. I've also been to all the schools there that you guys have those programs for these folks. A lot those are some of those folks who're from-- or all the folks are from the community, all right? So
022being from the community, and they get the opportunity to learn different things in the trades with different opportunities as far as having a livable wage and working, which I think is the beautiful thing. I think I look at it as an option. This is my story. Again, thank you for this opportunity. My story is to give these folks, these young folks, an opportunity to make a choice-- either go to college, which is fine, or have a career, right? And I appreciate that opportunity that the school district has done. And with that being said, I also always thank you guys for working with the CWA to give these young folks an opportunity to go to Highline School District schools, and hopefully get the opportunity to get a career in the community and build their own community.
023I commend you for that. Continue to do that good work. I tell my students all the time, you can't be what you can't see. So if they're in this-- is your community here, and you're working with the building trades to implement the CWA and some of these construction [INAUDIBLE] of schools and remodeling schools [INAUDIBLE] stores. And you see these same students that went to Highline School District. And they're able to work and have a livable wage. And they're able to buy a home here in their own community. I mean, that's why I'm involved in this. And this is why they asked me to come. And hopefully, you continue to do what you do. And I will say, right now if you can, the iron is hot. Thank you. Just stick with it. Thank you very
024much. Next up, Alex Myrick? Good evening, Superintendent Duran, President Van, and school board directors. I have read the proposed policy changes to audience participation and the rationale. I have also listened to nearly 100 short speeches to school board directors. I have never heard one that was totally irrelevant. The speaker may have different priorities than you. They may say something that is uncomfortable for you to hear. However, I respectfully submit that it is still a vital part of your job to listen. I would like to point out that over 99% of your constituents never step up to this podium or even enter this room. How then can you possibly justify further limiting input from the tiny percentage that do show up here? Each of us who signs up and shows up represents hundreds, perhaps thousands, of
025community members with similar values and opinions. The proposed changes are unnecessary, counterproductive, and of doubtful constitutionality. I am not a litigious person and personally have no plans to sue the district. However, as a long-time resident of the district, I have paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes. I want my tax dollars spent on decent teacher salaries, good facilities, and teaching materials, not on defending the district against lawsuits that can be avoided simply by refusing to implement this misguided policy. Thank you. Next up is Jennifer Patrick? My name is Jennifer Patrick. And I am an apprentice with the Ironworkers Local 86. I personally grew up in the Highline Public School District schools. I'm here tonight to thank you and the Highline School administration for working with the Seattle Building Trades to bring a community workforce
026agreement to us. And I ask that you act quickly on this agreement. The CWA-- excuse me, I'm moving. The CWA will help create economic opportunity for thousands of working people, particularly women like me, people of color, veterans, and those otherwise historically disadvantaged from the community. The CWA will help people like me who have faced many different challenges into the construction field through registered apprenticeship programs and training. Me at an early age, I found drugs and alcohol, which led to finding myself in heaps of trouble, which ended me in dead-end job after dead-end job for so many years. I decided on some training at a local community college, where I was referred to the Ironworkers Union. I then applied and tried out and made it in. Everyone I knew thought I was absolutely crazy. But here
027I am almost three years later, a single mom finally renting my own place in my community and setting goals and achieving them slowly, but surely. I wouldn't be where I am today without this career. And I'm just one story, one example of this. I know so many women whose lives have truly been changed and transformed from programs like this. I agree with Seattle Building Trades that the job sites should reflect the community. Through strong training programs and partnerships, the building trades are building the next generation of construction workers from our own local community. You should care about this as well. And you need to not make excuses or cause delays, but to make this happen for us, for people of the community. People do all-- please do all that you can to help get a
028DWA approved and implemented so we can increase equity in the construction workforce, Highline Schools construction projects. Plus what an honor it would be to work and help creating building the new area I went to school, where I grew up and where my kids went to school. Thank you very much. And thanks again to all of our speakers this evening for showing up and speaking to us. Move on to our superintendents updates. All right. Thank you, Director Van. Yeah, I'd like to start a couple of things. I think one thing many know that we have really been working in our district. And we're thinking about how we can better serve our students who receive special education services and creating more inclusive environments. Well, last Friday, we had the opportunity to go up to Northshore School District
029and visit Ruby Bridges Elementary School, which is a school that is a state model site for really the work that they're doing to exemplify inclusive education in our state. And they're a model for other schools to go visit. And really had a powerful learning experience there. Went there with quite a few of our staff members. Sandy Hunt from the Education Association was there. We had Hilltop, Gregory Heights, Marvista, Bow Lake, and McMicken staff there. But the principal and staff there really just opened up their doors so that we can learn. And it was a really powerful experience. And so much of it was an opportunity for us to ask questions and really think about the work that we're doing, or how we can better expand the work that we're trying to achieve. A couple of
030the teachers that were there spoke, and I really appreciated some of the insights they talked about around how they had to really think about and address some of the biases they had around what students can do, what students can't do, and how much of the inner journey they had to go through in order to better serve the students in their school. So it was a very powerful experience. And I have a couple other notes that I just thought was just key highlights, but one of them was we don't teach kindergarten or first grade or PE. We teach children. It's our work to have spaces ready for our children, not barriers and hoops for allowance and entrance into spaces. We must flip our propensity for confirmation bias around who doesn't belong, and instead build conditions for
031belonging. Everything is-- new word-- "figure-outable," but we need to sit with and work together on our challenges and inclusionary work. So it really just speaks to when we come together and have the conversations that we need. We really can create and solve for anything that becomes a barrier for us. And then the last one, I really appreciate it, because I think it really relates to overall systemic work and anything that we say we're doing at the district level, system level, how it's really being played out at the classroom level. But the principle is in a way can just say, the stories we tell with our words are only ones we are selling at any level of organization if the system, structures, and practices don't prove them true. We can't say everyone belongs if we really
032mean "everyone except for," fill in the blank. So really powerful learning for us and really excited to think about how we continue our journey to create more inclusive environments for all of our students. And then the second one is-- I think many of you know we have this superintendent-student leadership team. Shout out to Kisa Hendrickson in the back there and our chief of family communication and all the work that her team does to organize the group. But we have students from every one of our schools that represent and part of that group. And today, we had the honor of having Toyia Taylor who runs an organization called Speak with Purpose. And part of the work that she does is really working with the youth, as young as elementary school, to really learn how to do
033public speaking, and to not be afraid of it. It's one of the number 1 fears in America. And she just had some really great tips. And also, some things that students said today really resonated with me that I just want to share with the public, because I think it's important. But part of what she talked about was just how you find your voice, and what do you use your voice for? And really talk to students around how they can create spaces to share their stories and talk about their experiences and how they can engage the audience more, how you can use visualization to think about your success and the idea around how you embrace your inner coach. And one of the students said, is that kind of like the voice in the morning that tells
034me I need to get out of bed? And it's like, yeah, exactly, that's the voice we're talking about. But some of the things that the students said when we started talking to them around, how is your voice being utilized, what are the things that we can do, what are the things that need to happen as we continue our work with each other. But one of the students really spoke to when you're in different situations, and you feel like you're kind of being broken down either from negative experiences or what other people say. That really feeds your inner coach. And it can be really draining. So thinking about the words that students hear on a day-to-day basis. Student talked about using their voice to openly talk about just how things are going, just what's happening. Just
035not especially about the academics, but really more so just about, how's life? How are things going? How was your weekend? What worked? What didn't work? And really encourage our teachers to spend that time having those conversations, because I know many of our students today expressed they want to be asked that question. Another student, I can't say it any better, but along those lines, it's just, how do we ensure that we are prioritizing the whole being and thinking about just the success that we want to have for our students at an academic level, from a mental health level? And then the other one I think is really powerful was the ask of both staff, teachers, principals, all of us just connect with students as a person, not as a student. And final one I'll share is
036that talking specifically about your voice is, you will have your name and voice forever. Don't let anyone take that away. So that's from the mouth of one of our students. And I think that's a powerful way to really think about the work that we want to see all of our students as we prepare them for the future that they choose. So thank you. That concludes my updates for tonight. Thank you, Dr. Duran. Appreciate that. Next up is our school board reports, a legislative report. Just got an email from all of our WSSDA team. And if you're planning on attending the legislative conference and The Day on the Hill February 26, 27, let us know and we'll get you signed up. We have a lot of scheduled meetings with legislators. So knowing that you'll be there
037will help us get it on the calendar. In addition to that, if you have an inside road with your legislator, please email them and talk to them about our legislative priorities. All right, that is it for the legislative reports. I'm going to move on to our director's reports. I'm going to start with you, Director Howell. All right. First I want to talk about the MLK celebration that happened at Maritime High School to celebrate the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Maritime High School's MLK assembly spotlighted dreams, courage, hope, and growing. Author Arshay Cooper grew up in Chicago-- [SIGHS] the documentary is so good-- and became captain of this country's first all-Black high school rowing team, an experience that changed his life. His memoir, A Most Beautiful Thing, was adapted into a film
038in 2020. You should see it. It was really great. Last Friday, Arshay visited Maritime and gave an inspirational speech about leaving no distance between your dreams and your actions, and about learning to act beyond yourself like Dr. King did. He brought a number of guests from the rowing world, including directors of local rowing centers, a U-Dub rowing coach-- go dogs-- a 1980 Olympics crew team member and former rowers now in local careers. They also brought 10 rowing machines and taught some rowing techniques and also shared their personal stories about their pathways to crew, college, and career. One more thing to share. This upcoming Friday night, January 20, North Hill Elementary School will be hosting a multicultural night. Their PTSA is putting it on. It's from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. And it's a night of entertainment,
039crafts, and potluck food while we celebrate the wonderful diversity of our North Hill Community. Food is always really exciting. So that's this Friday night, January 20, from 6:00 to 8:00 at North Hill. That concludes my report. Thank you, Director Howell. All right, Director Hagos. I'll have to check my schedule for Friday night. I just may show up for the food, we'll see. Yes. And then of course, everything else that goes along with it. And kind of just going off of your announcement about MLK, it's really fun to see the different ways that schools celebrate MLK. I know that some schools put on assemblies. Some schools put on different kinds of events. And there are some that just talk with their kids and have all of the work that the kids do up in the hallways.
040And it's such an inspirational time. So I always enjoy seeing what the schools come up with for this time of the year. And I know that for our own family, we usually spend our three-day weekend in service. So we spent-- my three day weekend was a lot of service this weekend. But it was good service, and I enjoyed it. So thank you for starting us off with that announcement. I know also that there is a winter job fair going on. And so just if you know someone-- do you know someone who would be a great addition to the Highline team? Please invite them to our in-person winter job fair on Saturday, February 25. That goes from noon to 3:00 PM. And it's right here at the central office. The school and department representatives will be
041present to share about their programs and vision and goals. And of course, to learn more, you can always go to the jobs website. And I'll read it off. It's jobs.highlineschools.org. And then quickly just going back to the spirit of service, Des Moines Elementary School has this reading buddy program, or reading partner program, that they're advertising right now to support students. And they're asking for a volunteer of one-hour per week. And if there is anyone out there that has about an hour to spend reading with a kiddo, that school is looking for some of that support. So just a quick announcement on that. Thank you, Director Hagos. Director Garcia? Any updates? Yes. I can't remember what I was going to update everyone on. But I will update that there is a Cat Lunar New Year happening
042at White Center Heights this Thursday from 5:00 to 7:00 PM. So if you have the time, feel free to come through. Thank you very much, Director Alvarez. So first of all, I'd like to give a shoutout to Kisa and her team, Lolita. We actually-- a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday, all her team came out, Lolita included, and all the amazing staff and taught workshop on navigating our school systems. And it was bilingual. And it was in Federal Way at the community Center. So I came as-- I was going to come to observe or to come-- I ended up participating with the team around what-- because they went through the whole system. They had the whole school board. It had its own slide, Dr. Duran there. And what do we do? But also who
043to contact, and I just kudos because they had-- a lot of times you call a number and you know who you're going to get. No, not only did they have the center, they had everybody's extensions and emails. It's like, you need help, just contact us. But the other piece that was so exciting is that the audience were just asking a lot of questions around, how come my school is not like this? It was like Highline was really, really just hit it out of the ballpark. So just again, kudos to her team. And always, always engage in our community and really looking at what our community needs. So I'm just so thankful to have been part of that. But also, Highland Schools Foundation Gold Star nominations. Do you know someone who has made a significant impact
044on our students and schools? Perhaps it's a teacher, a principal, a counselor, a bus driver, a custodian, or another staff member. Now is the time to nominate them for the 2023 Gold Star Award through the Highline Schools Foundation. To nominate someone, please visit the foundation's website. The nominations are due February 10. So again, thank you. Nominate. Thank you so much. I'm going to piggyback on that in regards to the Highland Schools Foundation. You don't know graduations around the corner, and our seniors are getting ready. It's time for them to apply for the Highland Schools Foundation scholarships. The foundation is accepting applications for the 23 scholarships cycle. 19 scholarships with a total of 32 awards in amounts ranging anywhere from $1,000 to $30,000 are available for eligible students graduating from any of our schools in June
045of '23. Scholarships are available to students who plan to attend colleges, university, trade schools, and vocational schools. Also, graduates also entering the military or similar career pathways may also apply. Please visit the foundation's website, highlandschoolsfoundation.org. And applications are due February 28. That one going to-- graduation is just right around the block. And that is it for our directors' reports. Moving on to the consent agenda. Can I please have a motion to approve our consent agenda? I make a motion we approve our consent agenda. I second. A motion and a second. All in favor? Aye. Aye? Any absence? None? Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to our action items here. Action item 8.1. Any questions or comments in regards to the project and construction management services for Evergreen High School? I hear none.
046Can I have a motion, please? I move that the school board directors approve entering into contract with Vanir Construction Management in the amount of $2,845,240 for construction management support services, supporting the Evergreen High School Replacement Project. I'll need a second. I second. Can I have a roll call please? Director Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you very much. Action item 8.2, this is to approve resolution 04-23 Highline High School Acceptance of Building Commissioning Report. Any questions or comments? I hear and see none. Can I have a motion, please? I move that Highline School board approve resolution number 04-23, Highline High School Acceptance of Building Commissioning Report. I'll second that. Thank you. Can I please have roll call, please? Director Alvarez? Yay. Director
047Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you very much. 8.3, this is to approve Evergreen High School Replacement Project-- award of general contractor, construction manager, or pre-construction services. Any questions or comments? Hear and see none? Can I have a motion, please? I move that the Highline school board approve the Evergreen High School Replacement Project-- award of general contractor, construction manager, GC/CM contract for pre-construction services contract which allows the superintendent, upon receipt of all submittal requirements, to sign the construction contract with Cornerstone general contractor in the amount of $462,152 plus state sales tax of $46,677.35 for a total of $508,829.35. And I'll need a second. I second. Thank you. Can I have roll call, please? Director Garcia? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay.
048Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. We moved 8.4 to consent. 8.5, this is to approve resolution 07-23, White Center Heights Elementary, Water District 20, Easement and Bill of Sale. Any questions or comments on that? Hear and see none. Can I have a motion, please? I move that the Highline School board approve resolution number 07-23, White Center Heights Elementary School, Water District 20, Easement and Bill of Sale. I'll second. Go ahead. I second. Director Howell seconded. Can I get a roll call, please? Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. 8.6, this is for an approval to award MicroK12 contract for security video replacement, phase 2. Any comments or questions? I have none. Motion, please? I'm going to get into
049it. I move that the Highline school board approve the award of the contract for installation security video replacement phase 2 which allows the superintendent, upon receipt of all submittal requirements, to sign the construction contract with MicroK12 in the amount of $1,646,305.08 plus Washington sales tax. Or plus Washington sales tax. [LAUGHTER] I second. Roll call, please? Director Garcia? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. Moving on to 8.7. This is to approve the use of the 26 bond contingency for projects listed in the 2016 bond prior to the sale. Any comments or questions? There's none? May I have a motion, please? I move that the Highline school board approve the option to use funds from the program contingency budget to pay
050expenditures. The projects and expenditures may be reimbursed from proceeds from the 2023 bonds. I second. Thank you. Roll call, please? Director Hagos? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. We moved 8.8 to consent. So we'll jump on over to-- 8.8, 8.9 got moved to consent. We'll move to 8.10. This is to approve the revision to board policy 14-30, audience participation and approval of new board procedures, 14-30. Any questions and comments? I would like to-- oh, just a second, let me-- this is 8.10, right? The revision? Mm-hmm. To see if we can have Holly come up, and I'd like to hear a little bit more, I think, openly around what our surrounding districts have. I want to know more about, what is not the
051norm, but what is the expectation around community opportunities to come speak at the board? How long do they have around-- or are we really far off like what is? Yeah, thank you for asking-- sorry. Thank you for asking the question. This was first brought up at the school board retreat in December. And you all asked me to go out and do some research on this question. So I went and did that. I started with the WSSDA model policy, which is always where we start because that sets the baseline for all 295 districts in the state. WSSDA does not list a specific number of minutes that districts would use. That obviously would be up to each individual district, but does specifically name that boards can set a specified time for speeches. Also, the model policy requires
052that speakers use a level of civility, including avoiding comments that violate, for example, our HIB policy or non-discrimination policy. So that's kind of the baseline that says, yep, all 295 districts in the state, you can set a minute amount if you would like to. I then went and looked at our surrounding districts. Not everybody has this policy. Not everybody has limits. That's true. Yeah, but the ones that did have it listed on their website where I could find it. Seattle Public Schools uses two. Tacoma uses three. Kent uses three. Bellevue is up to 2 minutes. And interestingly, they take all their speakers in and randomized them. So you don't know until the day of the board meeting whether or not you'll get to speak regardless of topic. I didn't see anyone else doing that. Lake
053Washington is up to three. Issaquah is 2 minutes. And they call that the generally accepted amount of time. And so that's how Issaquah does it. And then Auburn simply says, brief comments. So I don't know what brief is, but generally probably not real long. I also looked at a couple of city councils in our region just to see since they also take testimony. Seattle City Council uses two. Burien City Council uses two. Cytec in Normandy Park all use 3 minutes. These were stated on their website. So our 4 minutes is longer than our jurisdictions, both city council jurisdictions and school district jurisdictions around us. So there you go-- 2 and 3 seems to be the common numbers there. Very common theme to include in the policy that the board meetings are not a public forum
054to talk about anything that people want to talk about. It is supposed to be talking about information that is before the board or items that are before the board. And then the other change I wanted to mention that's not having to do specifically with amount of time for that people are speaking. But Director Alvarez, at the retreat, you had asked about the line around vendors speaking. Went and looked at-- did some research on that. I could find no basis for that statement. Thinking back about it and talking with our purchasing folks about where that might have come from perhaps someone at some point-- it is in the WSSDA models policy. So once WSSDA does it, a lot of districts just put it in without necessarily doing an analysis of it. So somewhere along the line,
055maybe someone thought it was good to name that. We've never seen it in my 10 years here. And there wouldn't be any reason to exclude anyone. So we did go ahead and take out that sentence since we couldn't find a basis for it in the model, or any rationale for it. Happy to answer any other questions that you might have. Directors, any other questions? Thank you, Holly. I just wanted to make a comment. I was keeping track a couple of the testimonies tonight. And they were right almost around 2 minutes. There was one that went over, but the majority of them were close to 2 minutes. OK, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for that. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? OK, I do have a comment. Since we put this on our board action
056report, we've had some members reach out to us via email. And I greatly appreciate that. Thank you so much for reaching out to us and contacting us this way. It gives us another opportunity to converse with you versus being directed to here at the board meeting. I encourage you to reach out to us via email so we can respond back to you and get back to you in a timelier manner. Because during our board, or when you speak, we can't respond back to you. So it builds a relationship when you can send me an email, and I can call you up, or vice versa, and have that communication. So I greatly appreciate our community members for reaching out to us and just sharing your thoughts. With that said, do I have a motion? I move
057that the Highline school board approve the revisions to policy 12-40 committees. I'll need a second. I'll second. And we have a second. 8.10? Hang on. Let me try that again. My computer's stuck. OK, here we go. So this is 8.10. OK, I move that the Highline school board approve the revisions to policy 14-30 and approve new procedure 14-30. I'll need a second now. I second. Second. Director Howell seconded. Roll call, please? Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Nay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van. Yay. This motion passes 4-1. Thank you. Moving on to 8.11. This is to approve revisions to board policy 12-40 committees. Any questions or comments? I see none. Hear none? Motion, please? I move that the Highline school board approve the revisions to policy 12-40 committees. I'll second. Roll call, please?
058Director Garcia? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Hagos? Oh, I'm sorry. Director Howell? Yay. Director Van. Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. 8.12, this is to amend existing contracts with Soliant Health. Any questions or comments on this one? I move that the Highline school board approve the contract amount increase of $947,000 with Soliant Health LLC, which increases the total contract amount from $540,000 to $1,487,000. I'll need a second. I second the motion. Thank you. A roll call, please? Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you. And moving on to our last one, 8.13. This is to amend existing contract with the Community Care LLC. Any questions or comments? Hear none? Can I have a motion? I move that the
059Highline school board approve the contract amount increase of $485,000 with Community Care LLC, which increases the total contract amount from $225,000 to $710,000. I'll second that. Thank you. Can I get a roll call, please? Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you very much. And that concludes our action items. I don't see anything in the two-- I don't see anything in our intro and action. Moving on to our intro, I'm going to read through these. If you guys have any questions, please ask them and/or you can email the lead person on that on staff. 10.1, this motion to approve resolution 02-23, issuance of bonds. Questions? OK. 10.2 is the motion to approve resolution 02-23, requesting a waiver for parent-teacher conference days. 10.3,
060this motion to approve annual PSSC Perkins Grant. No questions? Intro item 10.4, this is to a motion to approve Tyee High School design project-- approval of contract amendment number 2 and increase of purchase order P201436 Integrus Architecture and Engineering Services. Questions? Comments? OK. Number 5, 10.5, motion-- Can I have a quick-- I do-- Sure. --have a question, because I think some of these we would be able to move into consent. So Scott, for instance 10.5, it's to approve Evergreen High School design project, approving this contract Amendment number 2, an increase of purchase order. So basically, we're just approving amendments of these contract purchase orders that already have happened. That's correct. So in 10.4 and 10.5 for their respective schools, we had original architect bids. You can see on the second half of the document what
061the total bid was. Our phase 1 of the work in those bids took us up to 50% construction drawing for the most part. Phase 2, which is what we're asking for the approval of, takes us out to completion of construction of those projects. But it's no increase to budget. This was the original quote. That was the magic word I wanted to hear. There was no increase to the budget. So OK, thank you. OK. That was 10.4 and 10.5, correct? Correct. Thank you. So 10.5, I'm going to finish reading that. That's to improve the Evergreen High School design project-- approval of contract amendment number 2 and increase of purchase order P201331, Bassetti Architects Architectural & Engineering Services. Scott answered that. And 10.6, this one's to approve the resolution number 08-23 capital projects fund budget extension adoption
062fiscal year of 22/23. Any questions or comments on that? OK, and last one for intro 10.8. This is to approve resolution 10-23, authorization of signatures for bond projects and state-assisted projects. Comments or questions. I hear none. Well, directors, any items that you would like to add to the consent agenda? I mean, hearing Scott's magic words of not increasing to the budget, and these are stuff that was expected that we had already had conversations around 10.4 and 10.5 and also 10.3. I was looking, and it's very clear-cut. It's basically approving a PSSC Perkins Grant. But because it's over a certain amount, we have to approve it. So I moved at those three. I don't know if others want to move others, but I make a motion that we move the recommendation moving 10.3, 10.4, and 10.5
063into the consent agenda. I second that motion. Thank you. Had a second. All in favor? Aye. Thank you again. Roll call, please? Director Alvarez? Yay. Director Howell? Yay. Director Hagos? Yay. Director Garcia? Yay. Director Van? Yay. This motion passes 5-0. Are there any others that want to be moved? I just-- Any other words that you guys can think of? Are you guys good? All right. And then next step is our unscheduled communications. We have one participant, Karen Dove. Good evening. My name is Karen Dove. I'm the executive director of ANEW a nonprofit that provides pre-apprenticeship training, placement, and retention services for people who desire a career in the construction industry. We focus on recruiting women, people of color, people transitioning from incarceration, opportunity youth, veterans, foster, and homeless youth among other underrepresented populations. I've been
064working and living in South King County for the past seven years. And I believe it is critical that we ensure the community is benefiting from our public construction dollars, from our tax dollars. The workers on these job sites should represent the community they are in. And the bottom line is right now, they don't. Community workforce agreements are proven to ensure just that. People in your community, people with kids in this school district, and your graduates who want a career in construction, they should be the people building your schools. I highly encourage you to approve a community workforce agreement so that we can ensure people in the community have access to family wage careers, including your students. We can't have social justice until we have economic justice. And this is a policy that moves people, including
065Highline School District families out of poverty and straight into the middle class. Thank you very much. And that concludes our board meeting. Can I have a motion to adjourn? I make a motion we adjourn. You have a second? I second that. All in favor? Aye. I don't see anybody upstanding. Thank you very much everybody. Have a good evening.