July 13, 2023 School Board Meeting

001all right good evening welcome to the board meeting of the Tacoma Public Schools for this day of July 13 2023 uh would uh everyone please rise and join me in the black slip to you thank you foreign public schools acknowledges that we are on the traditional ancestral and historical lands of the Puyallup private Indians we honor with gratitude the land itself and the Puyallup tribe this acknowledgment serves as a first step in honoring our nearest tribal neighbors and partners who have inhabited this Region's time immemorial and to whom we give thanks for allowing this passage to their lands we shall intentionally create inclusive and respectful Partnerships that honor indigenous cultures histories identities and socio-political realities thank you general counsel Ben Roe would you please call the roll yes president bomber here vice president George Keating

002here directly on here we have Quorum and director Mikhail Roy will be here shortly she is stuck in traffic on the way from Seattle okay may I have a motion to adopt the agenda I move to adopt the agenda yes sir any comments questions additions to the agenda hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the abstentions classes for zero we have an agenda all right um item six public hearings 6.1 public hearing of the 2023-2024 budget and before we dive into this I'll I just want to explain for the public who's maybe listening or who's here today that this is a unique situation I mean every once in a while there's a topic that we hold a public hearing within a public hearing so we are now calling to order this

003public hearing on our annual budget and I will turn it over to the superintendent who can kick us off thank you madam president I'd like to turn it over to our Chief Financial Officer yeah if I'm here and while she's fiddling with that I will say that the board of directors um will hold this public hearing today on the budget and that anyone may appear uh that's here maybe um appear in four or against any part of the proposed budget and we're here to hear that but the approval of the actual budget resolution will happen next month at our the single meeting that we have in August which is uh the 24th and we will officially pass the budget that time right before the deadline of August 21st thank you very much so the purpose

004of tonight's hearing is twofold one to inform the board of the public of the budgeted use of resources that we have planned after having gone through our process of developing the budget and that would include info interactions that we've had with the public as well as with our internal teams and ensuring that we're aligning ourselves to our strategic plan and that we're funding the resources in alignment with what we expect to be able to do um and what is what you expect us to be able to provide to the public uh we will also be presenting our preliminary budget so that you can see it for the four-year projection and that's a state requirement we're required by the state to show a four-year projection where we think we're going to end and an expenditure summary

005of for each of the different funds that we budget for we always start our budgeting process with the development of our guiding principles these are principles that are set out by this school board thank you for the direction that you've provided us and that has been used by in and during all the conversations that we've had around the development of the budget and in all the decisions that we were making in order to identify how to come to a balanced budget at the end of the budgets uh at the end of the budget process we have identified how we are using our resources in alignment with each of the Strategic plan goals you'll see that over the years these numbers have changed slightly sometimes that's in relationship to different funding sources or different initiatives that

006may have been in place during periods of time this year you'll see that academic Excellence declines slightly but early learning increased slightly as an example of that to give some context around how some of these numbers might fluctuate from year to year we've added some transitional kindergarten programs and those had previously been something that we've provided through a excuse me uh the graph through OSBI Grant or a grant through ospi um and it was the first Warrior peer model preschool program thank you I've been on vacation I'm a little rusty coming back um and so those resources as we shift around uh different components of funding where we identify that some of those things go within specific packages as we're calculating the budget those numbers might fluctuate slightly and that's what you're seeing represented in

007these minor shifts between different pillars of our strategic initiatives well I also just like to add very quickly that it may seem kind of misleading sometimes when you're saying well you're only spending 2.3 percent of your total budget on health and saving often our goals have much crossover amongst them so we asked the team start to identify some level of first level priority or Direction but many of our goals have crossover so as you're looking at this this is just an indicator of where those are how they are targeted all of them are targeted to the ccg plans in that space so maybe an example of that superintendent might be for example would nurses be under the academic Excellence or would they be under health and safety is that just a that's an example right

008but yeah and they are so they're in the health and safety category but they really could fit and Associate themselves with any like you know a number of those categories right something like counts yeah we may have crossover in both areas so to dig in the beginning we are required to hold a public hearing this will be the public hearing for our budget as director bonbar indicated we won't be adopting our budget until August 24th so we are providing some time in between so that people if they have concerns or questions can bring those questions forward and we can work through any Communications that may need to occur around questions that people have interactions that people will have regarding the budget if they haven't had a chance to have already and uh we'll start with

009going through each of the individual funds that we have so we have different checking accounts here at the school district and these are defined by the state accounting manual we don't have discretion over which ones we utilize we're required to utilize them in a very specific format and so they're identified here on this in this Slide the general funds are operating funds this is a checking account that we use for all of our general operations anything having to do with what's happening during the regular school day after school programming early morning programming and whatever that may look like that's where we're going to find all of our resources going in and out of that checking account then we have a Debt Service fund our debt service fund is used to make payments on our bond

010repayments so we have about a little under 900 million dollars in outstanding bonds we have a tax that we collect the tax resources go into The Debt Service fund and then we make payments on the bond similar to how you make a mortgage payment at home that's what's going in and out of that fund the associated student body fund are funds that are held on behalf of our students for student specific purposes they Define how they're going to be utilized when you just hold them in advance for that the transportation vehicle fund is used to make purchases of yellow school buses or major repairs story all school buses and then we have trust funds trust funds might be scholarship funds that individual donors May provide to the school district on behalf of very specific circumstances

011of how they want those dollars sent out these are actually not our resources we don't budget for these monies we just hold them on behalf of others the board would approve an appropriate trust fund agreement before we would take those resources and we would have specific instructions on how we would utilize those dollars so they we do have a checking account for them so that we can manage and maintain them but we don't actually do any like expectation we don't have any expectations around Halloween is and I can add to that that we as a board see that list every year and we see you know so we're keeping an eye on that even though they're not our funds we're helping maintain this and then we have a capital and Technology Levy funds so any

012of the levy dollars that we collect um for building making buildings building buildings refurbishing buildings or major improvements as well as our technology Levy um those resources go into the capital and Technology Levy fund and we can't account for them there so we budget for the five funds other than the trust fund and that's what we're going to be covering this evening so up in the upper right hand corner you can see that which slides are associated with which of the different types of funds that we'll be discussing tonight and our first is the general fund so on our general fund our anticipated revenues and other sources of funding for the next year 22 excuse me the 23 24 school year will be 552 million 327 748 dollars very specific number right expenditures we're anticipating

013will be 554 million 285 289 and then that would leave us with a fun balance drawdown of 1.957 541 dollars we have been working to right size our budget and this is a conversation that we'll continue to have our expenditures need to be in alignment with the revenues that we're receiving from the state and other sources and so in this circumstance the fund balance drawdown are resources that are coming out of our savings account when we had planned this year in the 22-23 year we had planned to utilize nearly all of those resources and so we don't have many resources left to use out of our savings account we had planned that that was what we expected we're anticipating that we'll have a couple of million dollars to utilize towards next year's budget if that

014doesn't come to fruition the superintendent and I will have conversations around how we'll work to find Savings in the 2324 school year as we progress through and work to make sure that we're staying in alignment with the expenditure limitation that we enlist here because of the way the state requires us to adopt our budget when we identify what the expenditures are 554 million and some change we can't exceed that number in our expenditures for next year without coming back to you and suggesting here's our plan for how we're going to pay for any of those resources if we do go beyond that and we have to have an afford adoption around that expenditure of change we can spend less than that and we can collect more revenues but if we're going to change that expenditure

015number we have to print that this Reserve expectation so our fund balance Reserve is planned at five percent of our revenues defined in our policies we usually have them on hand for emergencies any kind of bond or to maintain our bond ratings any kind of extraordinary events that we may see and to ensure that we have enough resources for income cash flow fluctuations that happen throughout the year and we typically use our fund balance for several things sometimes that's for enrollment changes or program impacts we use it for a carryover of resources some of our programs are required to carry over resources from one year to the next year we plan for that in the budget we take those resources into our fund balance and extend the knot again in the next year it's typical

016practice so when we're looking at the details of the budget on our Revenue side 70.8 of our budget is from State resources that's a little over 391 million dollars the next largest area would be our local Levy it makes up about 14 of our budget at 77.9 million dollars and then uh followed by our federal resources which is about 8.7 percent of our budget and 48 million dollars and then we do have one more year of Esser funding planned and we think that we'll have about 14 million dollars left in the current year to extend on resources and expectations for the 23-24 budget and that that will be the end of our Essa resources that's 2.6 percent of our budget and so when those resources go away the expenditures associated with those will either need

017to be absorbed into the budget and we'll need to make room for that would by eliminating other expenditures or we'll need to eliminate those things that are funded in Sr so that's a challenge that we're working towards in the next year and then we have 1.9 million dollars excuse me 1.9 percent of our budget 11 million dollars towards local non-tax those are things of where we built other school districts um and then 1.8 percent of our budget or 10 million dollars in other revenues which could look like interest payments on money that we have in the bank on the expenditure side of things our largest expensive certificated salaries means of about 46.4 percent of our budget followed by classified salaries 20 of our budget that's 113 million and then 94 excuse me 94 million dollars

01817 of our budget is in benefits those three together the salaries benefits excuse me search and classified salaries and benefits it comes to 84 of our budget number majors and for supplies materials and other Capital Equipment as I mentioned we're required to do a four-year budget this is our preliminary four-year budget you'll see 2324 is representative of everything I talked about so far and then we project out our revenues based on what we think we understand about the complexities of the next couple of years you know removing Esser changing our enrollments based on the projections from our filmographer and we've developed what those revenues look like and then we've matched our expenditures to that because we don't anticipate it we'll have fund balance available in those future years and we need to prepare them for

019a balanced budget and so that gives us kind of a target of what those expenditures could look like in the next four years moving on to our other funds uh in The Debt Service fund we're planning for 72.78 million dollars of expenditures as I mentioned we have just under 900 million dollars of current outstanding bonds on the associated student body we'll have 4.88 million roughly of expenditures Authority that we will ask for your approval on in all August assuming nothing changes in that time frame between now and then the transportation vehicle fund we're anticipating the purchase of six buses that's 901 thousand dollars and then capital and Technology Levy we are anticipating up to 154 monthly million dollars of expenditures to maintain and upgrade and refurbish or replace current buildings as well as make technology

020purchases we've done a four-year on this as well these are a little more squishy on what the next four years looks like we've got some ideas of what the revenues could look like expenditures or something that we'll have to to keep tracking and monitoring but we're required to present it and so we have so after having said all of that we still have some engagement and opportunities we do have information out on our website we did about a budget calculator early on where people have been able to provide feedback we have the draft of our presentation for this evening as well as other information posted out on our website currently and we will be doing a recorded presentation that we can push out with on our website so that people can engage as well as

021there's always a feedback a mechanism on our budget webpage where you can submit a question if you wanted to ask a question about what we have going along with the budget or any specific questions around anything you've seen in the budget or heard please feel free to engage with us you can always also reach out to Kristen and I if there are any questions from this group and our adoptions plan for August 24th we anticipate having no concerns bringing that forward to you that's what I had to share for the evening thank you so much okay well before we open it up for a public comment anyone up here on the dice have any questions or comments I just was wondering um earlier in the spring we had a budget advisory committee can you just

022for those who may not be familiar or listening in can you talk a little bit about that committee and their contributions yeah thank you and we did submit for a budget advisory committee we put out recommendation or we put out a request for people to join um I can't remember the total number of it it was like I think 26 people that ended up engaging in the process with us we did a two-part series an educational part where we talked to them about how we get our resources and how we send our resources and what that looks like to inform them and educate them on what our budgeting process looks like and how complex being in a financial environment is in school districts and then we followed that with a series of meetings with individual

023program managers who presented information about their budgets and their programming to help guide the committee members around helping make recommendations to us from there we sat with the the advisory committee and developed some formalized recommendations and presented that to you in a Friday report and in a formal presentation packet of recommendations from that committee it was a pretty robust um series of meetings several hours each meeting over several weeks I think we had five formal meetings then we had an online meeting after that so they invested a good 15 hours into participating in our process and really it was an incredible thing to have all of these really financially engaged people so we don't usually go to that people aren't really that interested in what I do so well we're very interested I appreciate it

024so it was a you know that they were able to provide us with some feedback and we presented that to the cabinet cabinet was able to engage with that information and we did make some recommendation changes based on some of what we saw in those feedback items thank you okay anybody else have comments or questions okay Madam president before we turn over I do want to give a special shout out to our budget team uh I am so sorry or I will turn it over to our CFOs yeah I go on vacation it's like nothing happened while it's gone uh while I was on vacation this entire team made the budget presentation happen made the budget balance so uh the the it takes a village to balance the budget it was not just the budgeting

025team but the board set for hours and guidelines and gave us Direction the superintendent and the cabinet team were diligently over a series of four-hour meetings I think we had seven four hour meetings to work through the details of the budget as a collective budget and program managers participated in the budgeting back priorities process they spend hours training and submitting proposals and requests about how they wanted to spend their money and why what they did tied back to our strategic initiatives and we reached out to the community on a number of different occasions either through the budget calculator or the budget advisory committee or having people just generally reach out to us about our budget and then we had our entire higher budget team led by Kristen Bell give all the very serious details I

026don't know how she didn't have a stroke while I was gone I'm super thankful that she didn't she's really she looks a little tired she is exhausted and I will be encouraging her to take most of August off so super appreciative I appreciate it thank you madam president thank you CFO yeah well thanks absolutely to the staff I know how hard this was and especially in a year where we're trying to right size after all that Esther money came in and you know we have a production student enrollment which of course is the Big Driver and I think one of the things that for me is so important to understand is that 84 of our entire budget which is almost a billion dollars when you add everything to death but of the general fund anyway

02784 of the general pendants is spent on Staffing that working with our with our kids so it's probably it's the priority in the right place and so thank you for following our our guidance around to putting the priority in the classroom so we appreciate that all right so now we will move on to the public hearing part and I am not sure did people fill out the same blue cards Malik or do we have I guess I should offer them folks that because we have two public hearings today tonight one is on the budget and that's where we are right now and then later on we'll have the public comments on the other items on the agenda so for those of you who are here to speak on the budget I'll turn it over to

028our general counsel and you'll call folks up yeah we only received one card that could potentially apply to the budget conversation and that's from Christopher Nordman uh but this also might be general public comment it wasn't specified Mr Nordman is the comment for the budget or for the uh the general comments in a bit um it's about cutting a program for that count points for Budget yeah I think it would yeah come on up and please if you wouldn't mind reintroduce yourself so we can um my name is uh Christopher Norman I'm a member of the class of 2023 from Stadium High School and um I want to speak for a brief second about um the class that I feel very um thank you um very confident about that Stadium which is multimedia to more

029popularly known as Tiger neighborhoods the school's Navy and Technical class um the teacher uh is retiring this year Mr Randall Cruz um and uh there has been talk of cutting the class all together and um I think that would be a very very bad decision this class the videos it produces it encourages and facilitates school spirit as well as boosts morale around the school on a more General stance um students in this class learn virtually everything there is to know about producing videos and how to work the media landscape and making quality content for the public I myself have learned many many things from this class and I'm happy to say to help me get to where I'm going to college that being Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles California school of film and television

030I submitted part of a few of my tiger News videos to their Board of Admissions and I was admitted the very next day you have to represent those I was also admitted to uh USC and events a different story uh um I think congratulations thank you and they didn't offer me as much money that's a long story I'll tell you guys later um but anyhow I think it would be a very brave mistake to eliminate this class especially as Seattle and the greater Pacific Northwest is becoming a very large part of Hollywood's uh landscape across the United States and who could forget the films made here 10 Things I Hate About You I love you to death Three Fugitives this area of the country is becoming very vital to the film industry and I think

031giving kids a free education just to get them a star will inspire them to go bothering this and we can have many many Steven Spielberg's come in Tacoma area I just don't my brother God bless his soul 16 years old police not bad his birthday yesterday I'm on a roll tonight uh he took over for editing every video the entire news every single video um but he was the chief editor and he loves this very much and I think he's going to go very far in life and I think this is going to give him a chance to do that so I implore you to rethink cutting tiger news um thank you for your time I'm sorry about all the humor um it's great thank you okay I'll ask if anyone else is in the

032audience would like to speak on a budget item or having to do with the passage of uh annual budget hearing none um general counsel did we read or actually I don't know if it's a board secretary did we receive any written comments on budget no we did not okay so having said that is there anyone else in the audience who would like to speak on budget all right so I hereby conclude this in this budget hearing and we will move back into the regular order of business on our regular budget I mean our regular agenda so thank you everyone for that so we have moved on to item number seven recognition of staff students and Community 7.1 recognition of Washington's school safety organization school security officer of the year superintendent I'm gonna turn over to

033our general counsel because I think we do 7.1 first Madam president what'd I do we went to 7.2 and we're all excited for 7.2 and we have passed officially 7.1 but let's give it a second yeah 7.1 state holidays and Civic observances this is for the entire month of July this being the only meeting in July we have one state holiday this month and that's on July 4th which is Independence Day on Independence Day this is the annual celebration of nationhood for the United States and it commemorates the passage of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on July 4th 1776. there are no other state holidays or Civic observances all right now 7.2 the recognition of the Washington School Safety organization school security officer of the year thank you madam president we're very

034excited tonight we try to leave the name off it for a little bit of surprise but I'm going to turn it over to miss Pace to celebrate one of our own amazing team members thank you assistant superintendent of K-12 support recommends the board of directors proven State wine war and acknowledgment or CSO Jordan Potts from Hunt Middle School I'm going to introduce to you Mike Rupert director of security who has a few comments today as well oh I think it's safe to say our surprise works Mr Rupert thank you um safety security like were you leading to the mic thank you to everybody support Jordan on this this award tonight uh we had it's uh principal Kim master smith kept a great secret uh it was tough uh on that last night you got the

035whole family here with him so let me give you a little background about Jordan Jordan uh well I met Jordan probably around 2020 and uh he told me he came up to me and saying I want to be part of I want to be part of the safety security team and I said well what are you doing now he's a very educator he had a full-time parents came up doing his job and I said okay I said well I could probably you know let's see if we get your foot in the door get you into Spartan herself and then he goes Jack I'll do anything I just I just want I want a lot of support the kids okay in a different capacity that's okay so that's about 20 20. I know he put in

036a few times uh before he got selected for an interview so on 2022 he finally came through where I could actually see him and we interviewed him and from that day on we got it was it was unanimously good last step we got him down to soda our School of the Arts that's where he first started as a cso2 or excuse me as a CSO and then from there he uh eventually an opportunity came open at Hunt Middle School and that's where he is currently and so I get this thing across my email one day and said hey for this this uh this uh award from the wsso can I start reading I'm like well this is Jordan Potts I'll fill this out right now and I started building in a long story short I

037sent it to the uh to the award committee um and of course about a week later they called said hey your guy is going to get the state of War out of everybody so I want to introduce uh yeah and I also want to bring um I want to bring up the president of the wsso who is going to present this award to Jordan yeah Miss Kitty Gillespie good evening and I have the honor of serving of the Washington School Safety organization board president um on behalf of the WSS the board I have a great pleasure tonight to award a member of the Tacoma School District with the Washington school safety security officer of the year award just a little bit of background for you guys um the board did not award an SSL of

038the year in uh coming out of coven 19. um our board wanted to focus on hosting our first conference after covid-19 impacted us all but in 2023 the board that we needed to recognize the hard work that our security officer that our sros are putting in every day to ensure safety for our students we put a board committee together three members we had a question there with about 10 questions they had a scoring rubric the committee said this was not an easy decision when they elected the award but they also told me CSO Jordan Potts with everything we wanted and in an award winner all right that he embodied with the Washington School Safety organization wanted and stood for so for the board and Jordan these are a few of the comments that the board

039received Jordan embodies the position of an outstanding Steward representing the finest in building with positive relationships with students staff and the visiting public Jordan continues to bridge the gap between law enforcement and our own behavioral support staff for offering students an opportunity to speak with an adult and establish a future relationship that will potentially act as a preventative measure Jordan has a dynamic personality that is charismatic caring kind people are drawn to him and kids want to seek him out for help Jordan is teamed with students staff and finding areas for improvement in keeping schools safe from the Tacoma School District Jordan is an informal leader amongst its peers and continues the support and improve not only his campus but all of the schools in the Tacoma School District Jordan it is my honor to

040present you with the 2023 Washington School Safety School of security officer of the year Jordan where do you think you're going singing back to my scene yeah so were you surprised uh completely surprised I love the pace um I just want to thank everybody you know this opportunity I have thank you thank you for bringing me on thank you for the support I couldn't have done it without the gene you know we're a team in the district and it's just something that I've taken on from playing sports and when it's a team you know it takes a village to raise you know a child and so we all got to come together and that's just what I do and I love what I do and just I'm thankful I'm thankful for the opportunity thank you

041guys thank you everyone thank you can bring the reward up and we can get a picture and actually um if you have family members you would like up or whoever you want anybody who wants to come up can come up it's gonna be a big picture let's go Thunder Mike got it thank you ladies and gentlemen if you could go ahead and just clear out in real quickly we'll do thank yous afterwards one squeeze the Antarctica in the middle and I'm gonna try to fit this Zoom Outlook please one two three I'll start smiling smiling smiling smiling smiling we have one more just regular here Jordan one two three [Music] [Laughter] all right well that was fun all right moving on to item number eight what Madam president if we could wait just a moment

042if anybody wants to go ahead and leave celebrate Jordan then we'll get back into the next piece it's gonna be hard to trick them next year yes hold it in a whole different place yeah maybe hold it a hunt okay I think we're ready Madam president all right well I'm turning it over to you for 8.1 grading regulation uh 2420 R regulation updates so I have uh Dr Josh darling uh joining us who's our director of Dart um we wanted to come back to you uh we've had a number of conversations a lot of community input a lot of listening sessions and you have adopted a policy and one of the things you asked us to do is give you some updates on the process of the regulation we have collected ongoing feedback we've made

043some adjustment and Josh is here to share with you the actual regulation and its content I'll remind you you don't officially adopt regulations unless they are officially a part of your board businesses series and so there is this is for information tonight hi Josh welcome hello thank you madam president I'm bored and everyone here I really appreciate each of you you were all part of this process I started spring of last year and we had a chance to visit all the students and I believe that visiting and doing those listening sessions with our students with our staff with our families really helped us yeah so the board policy some of this is review I know that we had a adopted our policy 24 20. and so some of the main key pieces for the consistent

044grade scales making sure that grading is reflecting learning not attendance Behavior or attitude students schools working with families regarding late work and missing work and that no one assignment will be able to have a greater impact and wonderful letter grade on the students semester grade teachers will continue to add report card comments for each trading period and finally that the student is going to get an e or not pass the class they cannot have that happen unless the family has have been communicated with in enough times the students can actually make that right so those were our key elements from our policy and we made sure that those are reflected in the regulation as well I know this is real small for the folks in the back but if you have students in Tacoma schools

045Not A lot's changed as far as the grading scales for elementary you still have the 4321 scale and for secondary you still have letter grades you still have the GPA many of us had gpas same exact thing percentages look very very traditional and these policies have not changed our berating scales we do have an eight point scale for our ID so that stays consistent as well for the folks in the back I know it's really small but the the major takeaway for our listing sessions were retakes revisions and item Corrections whenever students we ask them what they like the very first thing they said was we love retakes we love item Corrections we love revisions we love to be able to improve on our learning so we really want to honor those voices we also

046heard from teachers and from families every single time this topic was brought up so we really wanted to make sure that our regulation as well as policy but really our regulation got into the details of retakes revisions and item Corrections so all students will be able to have a retake a revision or item correction for their summative assessments for assignments and it is the teacher's discretion if they would like to have them have more than one the retake revision item Corrections will be accessible by all students and the regulation again will outline that process once the student gets their feedback or their grade then the clock starts ticking and then they have 10 days within that 10 days they have a chance to do the retake revision or item Corrections again it is the teacher's

047discretion if they want to extend beyond that 10 day teachers may require students to provide additional evidence of learning before the reassessment so what have you done to make sure that you've learned before you do your retake and then also the retakes must be worth the same maximum grade of what they retook so if their assessment was for points then the retake would also be four points within that 10 day scale and the retake is a replacement not an additional task so it's not as though this is your grade and then you do a retake and it's over here it actually is for the exact same grade foreign [Music] to the grading scales the retakes revisions item Corrections and then also keeping attendance and discipline out of the grades are key points for 24 20

048are is that all families kindergarten through 12th grade will now have live grade books so that way you'll have real time information to be able to support your child with what is happening and they're going to be getting that through Synergy and then we get a little more information about how that works through parent view through synergy we also wanted to make sure that grading is a balance between the formative and summative so your practice your homework is going to account for 20 percent of their grade whereas the end of Assessments or the summative assessments or final projects will count for 80 percent teachers will provide feedback for submitted work without penalty of losing points when it's turned in within 10 school days and know again this is a theme that keeps coming brought it

049back up no one assignment can have a greater impact of more than one full letter grade over the course of the semester so you cannot have it where you have a final exam and you didn't do well and it also drops you more than one letter grid and to help communicate the progress of families elementary teachers will continue to have the free text where they're typing in for the Elementary report cards and the secondary middle school and high school will have two comments that will be required but Synergy also allows the middle school and high school to do free text as well similar to the elementary and again I know there were a lot of questions from the community and from some of the um from the folks earlier on worried about traditional grades and

050gpas in college nothing has changed in that for six through twelve traditional letter grades and gpas will calculate as they always have done in the past so now the work begins which is the implementation and the communication and so we're going to be working with our communication Partners our communication Department currently for a communication plan to share with our families at the start of the year they also will be getting Synergy parent view information so that way they'll have the tools to be able to see that live grade book for large Tacoma educator support we are currently we have been working on an internal page of this entire process right now the policy and the regulation are on that page for those folks in the audience or at home that would like to see the

051regulation it's on our policy and regulation page but an easy way is to go to the grading practices and project implementation page or project page and they'll be able to see that there once that internal page of how to do each of the different elements of the regulation are complete we'll be sharing that with principles so that way we'll be able to get going on those next steps the next steps as far as implementation goes it's going to be principles instructional coaches and the team I work with the dart coaches will collaborate together and support those teachers they work with on this implementation to make sure they have the best practices and supports needed to make sure this becomes the way it is done in Tacoma any questions oh well first before we go into

052questions I just really want to thank you Josh and the whole team I know this this has been a year-long process as you said and we've participated throughout the year on different ways and it was extraordinary to be able to have those listening sessions with the students and really hear what they wanted and then to see that reflected in this final product I just have to commend you and the team for listening to every because I know it was hard the teachers were sometimes at odds with what the students wanted but it looks like it all rounded out and every it seems very fair so I want to um thank you and the whole team for the work that you do thank you so does anyone up here have a question comment for Josh vice

053president there's one full clarification you mentioned free text and just for those who might not know what that is on the actual report card itself there's a spot where teachers can provide student-specific comments versus codes for elementary and for secondary they both have the opportunity to type in and write um some of them write very long details some write shorter they'll have the opportunity to do both secondary didn't always have that ability they will now listen yes so Synergy so it seems and and correct me if I'm wrong please so it seems like with the um with us implementing Synergy that this is allowing a lot of this additional communication for us for teachers to be able to communicate to students and families is that absolutely okay yeah the um the implementation of synergy allows

054the work that we're doing here to be done yeah to be done in a more efficient and effective way in comparison to where we were before with school in comparison to strategy with a gray book of schoology compared to Synergy yes so when we write policy and regulations we don't write it based on the tool itself so you are 100 correct the tools as they Advance enhance we looked at your anti-racist policy we looked at what is evidence-based practices we brought Educators together to say so what are the pieces and then we made sure the tool could deliver on those pieces as well in that space and so as technology advances those opportunities in the opportunity minus the free text we could do that with several platforms as far as common grading scales what is

055the practice of retakes and consistencies in those and so even for tomorrow if our tool had to change the regulation would be relevant yeah and and I just wanted like the consistency I know like when we did our listening sessions like the um having more consistency across the board was whether it was with a tool whether it was through practices and implementation like that was something so I just appreciate that that is reflected and then I just wanted to add a comment that um as I was review reviewing this in preparation for the meeting I had my recent senior who just or my graduate read through and I was like I just be curious about what you thought about this um the regulations and what her takeaway was she really appreciated the retakes she said

056because it wasn't consistent from teacher to teacher and so she throughout her experience so and she always appreciated because she didn't always do well and testing was not necessarily a strength of hers that didn't mean she didn't understand the information it was just having to communicate that information in in a test form so I just wanted to say um a an Alum was very appreciative of just the details and the approach um that went into again that consistency in across the board for grading practices so thank you and I know it was not you and it was a collective so no I think we had a whole team that was part of this whole process and from all the members of the team those that had a chance to be part of the listing sessions

057and get that really what is qualitative data to be able to make a more informed decision rather than making assumptions based on numbers you need both and so this that process and being able to listen to their voices definitely made better product and I'm sorry it just that just made me think of like the whole purpose of why we set this as a goal was around like looking at our grading practices and in affiliation to mental health of our students and so that consistency also just ties into that so I'm I'm really um excited for just how this will impact and positively impact our student and I guess my comment um which is along those lines is this is a change for some teachers um uh they're you know they they may not have been

058in the habit of allowing or even encouraging the retakes what are we what are we going to have in place so when we hit the ground in September and it really starts the semester off that teachers are aware of and understand the expectation yeah so what we're going to have in place the first piece is we will have Synergy in place that actually is completely aligned with this and so the practices that are part of this policy we will make sure that that is set up in Synergy so they're in complete alignment we've already done that process because the team that I work with the assist team is part of Dart as well also is doing Synergy so it's all completely aligned in that way that's one step bigger lift if you will is going

059to be around professional learning or grading practices we have grading for Equity we have green from the inside out we have 15 fixes for broken Grays we have a number of different books and resources but when it comes down to it adult learning is going to be around how do we do this practice in the classrooms every day for our students and we need to do that instantly consistently so our principles are in line with our instructional coaches in line with teaching and learning so that way we completely give Rob around support and we also make sure that we're addressing that these things are happening in addition to that we want to make sure that our families and our students know what their new rights of the learner are so that way they can say

060yeah this isn't in line with what I'm supposed to be able to do and then we have those conversations as needed and so superintendent I'm I'm assuming that if a parent or a student has an issue with maybe one of their teachers who doesn't seem to be following the rubric the way it's been set up that their first point would be to see to talk with the teacher and if that and the super then the principal is that right that's correct and I just I I want to use this moment I know we're talking at a very high level is you have a lot of Educators that have been doing this for years so you have a lot of Educators in Tacoma that have been doing this for years and so when you you unpack

061this there may be some and those tools that we've developed are important for folks to have resources we often every year we get new Educators and so maybe they don't know these things um but we've had the same grading practice for policy practices per se but policy for over 20 years and so for all of our Educators many of them have been doing these highly effective practices for years and so their colleagues will be there also for supports um in there but it starts with policy it gets to the regulations then there are supports questions always start with your classroom teacher if there is questions in their practice making sure everyone's under the same page and understanding and then yes they would go if there was a concern at any level to their principal next

062and then obviously to us at the central office of their School director thank you okay anybody superintendo Garcia I was just wondering um for the next steps communication and implementation I was wondering if in the fall um this team can come back and kind of present the communication to families because I think when we hear live we think like 24 7 Action teachers are adults with jobs and sometimes we clock out um so you know if I'm on my phone at 10 pm is it that live or just like coming back and explaining what that communication strategy will look like I think we do a really good job putting things on our website but I think when it's it's heard it can be replayed and so those with like an audio it'll be easier for

063more people to get that information do you think that's a possibility absolutely director all right and I just want to add to your comment is there is not an expectation that our teachers are working that 24 seminar although I do recognize that many of them do put in that time and effort in their support what live means is when the teacher inputs it it is being able to be seen by the student and the uh the family at that point and so there is that opportunity but that clarification is important we're not asking our folks um you know I know as a as a parent sometimes I'm like hey where are you at son or daughter with your grades and you send an email and sometimes as parents we have to take a step back

064and recognize that we're all human beings I ask families at any time that you know give folks you know 48 hours to respond to you even if there's a question or concerns our classroom teachers have a lot on their plates and at that point a friendly nudge is always welcome um and then we'll we'll win that be in that space so we will work on an update for you on how our communication is going thank you so much thank you so much oh uh director Leon yeah um thank you this is referred the right direction to go or equity and better evaluation of just knowing what how kids are learning and let them understand um where maybe they're doing well learning they need to put more more effort and learn some other topics I do

065have actually a bunch of questions from staff and parents and some from students and some for me I'm just they're all kind of you know it's going to give you an order of the presentation here um and some of these have been talked about before and you've mentioned some of these in your presentation already I have heard from some teachers around they think it's positive change but they're concerns about the balance of work on re-grading and re-grading where they're going to get support for the regrading time so I'm just going to give you one question at a time how well is there a plan for how that might be handled some are already doing it obviously some questions might be coming from folks that haven't done this as much so each teacher is in charge

066or has the ability of how much work they sign in relation to the standards and so it is not a set piece of so what does that look like for support in there what we tried to do based on educator feedback and others is set a reasonable Target there's some accountability on the student side the student has to demonstrate that there's evidence that they have participated in relearning I know as I as a student I would just come back to you and say okay now I'm ready okay but what did you do in an effort to prepare for that we so we put shared ownership back on to the student we tried to put his timeline in there to provide supports because sometimes students will say well three weeks later four weeks later I'm ready

067now or I want to do it now and that's not fair to the educator that has 150 students on their caseload and that ongoing pieces and so we will work with their supports that Josh has mentioned uh inside the school in those supports but we try to put parameters to also support the Educators that it wasn't a open-ended end of the semester I want to make up all 35 assignments that I've missed so I heard you say is maybe they also give less assignments to grade and then there's this timeline of the 10 days while I'm at the end of the semester there's a recognition that education at all levels is complex and nuanced and that the Educators have to have the freedom to how determine what is the best way to assess now we

068we spend a lot of time in professional development and practices around how to assess that educator has to to feel comfortable that that student has that knowledge and so it is a case by case on how much they choose to assess based on their standards okay next one is I've heard some consternation from some parents and some fact some staff around this what's the definition of academic dishonesty and if someone is dishonest or cheats on the second time they take the test how many times are they able to give them a second or third test I don't know the answer to that with an example of something like that yeah when you come challenge to behavior and choices just like we would if you made a poor choice and got into a fight that wouldn't

069impact your grade making a poor choice academically as far as academic dishonesty but in the same way it is a behavior that your principal your system principal your Dean will work together with a family with a student and with the teacher to say okay what are our next steps moving forward and deal with it as a behavior so really the grades are going to reflect your level of being able to accomplish the the standards and the class not your making poor choices you will have a consequence for that so that goes to the administrators the teacher doesn't deal with that and then uh grade that eventually they get some grade for some formative or summative evaluation they they do honestly so we actually have a policy and a regulation that talks about academic dishonesty and

070it's under student contact it's 3240 that would outline the steps what Josh is mentioning is there's a recognition that a child sometimes maybe um each step would be the first step is what happened is it awareness what is that Continuum of dishonesty did I not wear you know open the door even further directly on with AI artificial intelligence what is dishonesty right and and so it is a we are entering a new world what we're trying to do is with this is is use this as a learning tool and opportunity and so if a student is blatantly copying another student and theirs they would have to and just Layman's turns simple pieces they would have 10 days to demonstrate to retake it there may be behavior for held accountable that does not relation to their

071grade based on the situation there may be discipline in that space But it is not a penalty that behavior would not be a penalty their grade and so many cases that would have been an automatic zero you failed a class that's maybe how we grew up this would be a start of a conversation in that place between the teacher the student the administrator the student but policy 3240 under conduct and the regulation would outline some of those what does that mean good I've heard others folks being concerned about the attendance not accounting obviously for your grade and I just they were I'm curious what has happened to other districts when attendance has encountered I've heard from some districts that folks aren't showing up as often maybe they're still learning so has that been a is

072there evidence of that happening in other districts that have had this happen a big rise and kids not going to school every district has a different policy different implementation of that and so uh where districts have moved away from is a required number of days to sit in order to pass so back in the early 2000s for example there was a movement in education that if you miss more than 10 days you automatically failed the class and that was a real push in Washington state and others and so that pendulum has been shifted to save so how is that evidence-based learning and actually the Washington state legislators rewrote legislation around evidence-based learning Mastery based learning and so you're hearing a lot of narrative right now around different Pathways around Master experimenting that seat time is

073not required for mastery-based learning there are some safeguards in here in this space so if a student continues to miss school those are unexcused absences they only have so much time to make up the work mess up that work there is an encouragement and we have interventions around trying to encourage students to attend so our attendance policy has not changed in that space But one District what they hear anecdotally I haven't seen any evidence of reports about the relationships of attendance to grades okay the um not dropping more than one letter grade for one assignment um what happens when they're at a 92 percent or 90 for an A and that one test brings them to 89 that is one letter grade is that is that not going to happen or is it two letter

074grades we're talking about an ageless c letter grades not plus and minus so if you had a b he couldn't go down to a d okay so that's two letter grades that's considered well integrated more than one letter grade more than one letter grade which is skipping the one in the middle okay that makes sense it's not intuitive but so maybe that just just needs to be clarified for the public too a lot of this will it would continue to be make meaning right so sometimes you read this for the first time and you haven't had a chance to practice it what does that look like and so that's where a director McElroy is very wise and saying let's really talk about what are the implementations and the more that we talk about this the

075more that it will become part of our culture these would be kind of questions that great experience I've had for me already so I think I think you probably already have them in your FAQs or whatever um no fails without a notice um with within with time to improve uh for the parents time to improve if they're the final exam causes them to fail um there's just scenarios around that where it sounds like there's no time there to give Improvement if it's the last test but the big intent is to get kids and families understanding that maybe they're not doing as well get them to improve so is there any details there that you don't have to give them to me now but for the future for families to understand is that going to roll

076out in the communications on like slide number six that's a part of that say that last part again um on the slide I don't know the exact number I just had them in front of me that's the next steps in communication so will those questions be answered in the family and student support um we working we are working on a communication Department on a communication plan to share out at the start of the school year correct and so these will be answered I don't know what all these are yet but that was the intent of these questions in that spirit is is cassette and so in that situation is it remember the intent here is that and there are multiple tools and I want to be very clear here is teachers have tools that we

077currently have and some of these tools may some may not say are effective but it is important to recognize that they play a role one of those tools is when you get a phone call as a parent that says your child is in danger of not passing and it's an automatic phone message those are important pieces that helps our Educators Reach Out multiple times those are documented that we've reached out and tried because a teacher and I'm going to use a high school teacher for example not that that is any more complex in an elementary or middle but as a high school teacher doesn't have enough time in the day to make all the phone calls in every that space and so there are a number of ways that they we are trying to provide

078some supports but the intent there and nothing is perfect the intent there is is to say hey you can't go from a a b to an F overnight and drop that but then as director Leon mentions there are some subtleties as well what if the final is a d and an F and you go there so then there is opportunities to say so what does that retake look like there's policy language already around how long can a grade be extended and those other pieces will be woven together but these will be part of the communication Suite so I'm looking forward to hearing about it in the fall there is another the language in here around the teacher seeing if the student has put forth the effort the definition of put forth the effort that could

079be very subjective not really objective so that may be different in each classroom so I don't think there's a definition black and white of what enough effort is but that might need to be delineated somehow in each class or what might be the plan for that so teachers would say to a student here's the evidence that I need to see at work I need you to do this worksheet for example take notes as we do this I need to see your Cornell notes that you have read this material that would be a practical example of that and we can go through these each one by one right now or we can get those as a FAQ and we can put those in the FAQ it's whatever works best for you these are questions that will

080come the regulation has been adopted yeah and so as we make meaning these are very important conversations that we all share and demystify but we'll have to Archive these in a manner so it sounds to me like this is something you're working on that we're planning to do an FAQ in September and I think what you're bringing forth directly on are more of the individual case-by-case basis situations um and so um and to be included in the FAQ yes so I bring them up because this is what my constituents have asked me to bring forth today so rather than going through a list of options maybe we could you could provide um the superintendent with that list of questions and then the dart team could work on including those new fhus we can definitely have

081a part of that internal page like we said part of the communication process and the implementation to make sure that every single section and subsection of the regulation is part of that process we're working on it currently and many of the questions that you brought up I think are great ones and we'll make sure that we have that ironed out and there are some questions as far as when it comes to professional judgment we have professional Educators that are assigning and Grading work and they are professional Educators and we're going to make sure that they have all the tools they need to make sure this happens and the last one I have is that can some folks want to know if homework can be retaken or redone too so yes yeah okay great okay so

082thank you can we get a copy of those questions for you you can do that yeah that would be helpful and then let's have a little more oh awesome okay and then so staff education you mentioned the website and support so is some of this also maybe in-person small groups teachers that are more experienced helping each other I presume that's that's my team okay yeah and our team has coaches yes and we are out in the buildings and we go out and make sure we're working with plcs we work with whole staff we will ensure that each of the schools are supported principals instructional coaches and the teachers when it comes to grading practices that's we know that's our left we all know that but I think it's important knows that too okay thank you

083and I want to add there's coaches inside of buildings yes and so the many of the things that you're talking about are are elements of professional development how would I do this effectively and efficiently if I'm an educator and that's the resources that we try to provide inside the buildings as well so it is not just that our team's responsibility it's all of our responsibility and so if any Educators out there that's asking those questions those are great questions reach out to the curriculum instruction team reach out to your instructor coach reach out to your principal and if you get any pushback on that then let me know and we'll provide some additional supports Josh mentioned a number of different evidence-based books of why these things but not only the whys how is the technology

084helping you on the house and what does that look like now if there's a philosophical piece that is a struggle for an educator that's where you have already made a decision around policy and Regulation and so that's that's a different conversation those at this point is you would have to change your policy and redirect us at that point if it was a philosophical but there's always ways that we can help our folks try to implement these practices and we are committed to doing that thank you thank you okay well that sounds great any other questions comments all right thanks Josh and we appreciate it to the team all right item number eight we just finished that item number nine staff report to the board we have none this evening so we are on to members

085of the public wishing to address the board which is item number 10. so I will say that start with the written comment we have three individuals or one individual has written two different letters but we have had three uh individuals submit letters which we all had a chance to look at prior to this meeting and the other option for communicating with the board is an in-person here tonight and so I'm going to turn it over to general counsel who will explain the process and encourage folks that are here to come forward and speak to the board yes public comment proceeds in a board policy 1430 and under board policy 1430 the board president May interrupt and or terminate comments when the speaker exceeds the time allotted Owen comments are abusive obscene or irrelevant you can

086find a summary of board policy 1430 on the front and back of the blue comment card and you can find the full text on our website at tacomaschools.org so tonight we have six verbal comments and starting right away first one is by Tui noon foreign hi my name is Tang Nguyen and I'm here today as a community member and as an organizer with the people's assembly to declare our full support of the renaming McCarver Elementary while renaming McCarver Elementary is not a replacement for justice it is a necessary disruption to the whitewashing of the history that precedes and continually informs our world today it is a critical step towards Reckoning with the psychological and cultural violence that is perpetuated went any place especially a school Bears the name of a significant actor of white supremacy

087this violence is exacerbated with every call against renaming under the guise of preserving history let us remember that every day students of color and particularly black students are subject to the reminders of systematic racism both past and present the enshrinement of public spaces and the names of oppressors at the very least serves as an endorsement oppression and at the very most it is a celebration of such oppression with that I vocalize my enthusiastic support at the renaming of McCarver Elementary to Edna Travis Elementary I understand the board has been appraised by Dr Travis's Life and Legacy so I won't be redundant by recalling the many examples of a tremendous impact in the city and especially in the neighborhood of Hilltop what I will say is that names have power and the act of naming is

088a powerful act one that was revoked from enslaved Africans brought to this stolen land when parents could not name their own children because that power was reserved for the white man in this motion to rename a Carver Elementary let not another man or system of white supremacy hold the authority to select a name for a school where a diversity of children learn and grow let the people who have wore the brunt of Erasure and racism be heard let the school bear the name of an honorable ancestor chosen by the community she has shaped thank you [Applause] our next speaker this evening is Helen Babin good evening my name is Helen Babin and I would like to express my support for renaming McCarver to Dr Anne Travis I have been in education for over 40 years

089in five different districts across the country and outside of this country and I understand the importance of a name it inspires it gives hope it's it brings it helps our Scholars and our school Community see themselves Windows we're always talking about Windows and mirrors in education and renaming Dr Edney Travis and McCarver in the hilltop and for me I've been living in the hilltop I'm a resident of Hilltop for over 20 years really lends itself to being window and mirrors for our Scholars and for our community Dr Adney Travis she was a woman of God first and what does that mean that means that you build community that you serve people that you love people she served homeless people had her soup kitchen did prison ministry and also she is a current role model for

090our Scholars for our Scholars first are Scholars of color are African-American Scholars and our Scholars our white Scholars who can see what that the inspiration and the importance of community and people of color bring to our society so I would really I really think it's important to have more people like edny Travis in our communities and that we uphold them we see them for the heroes that they are and that the way that we do that is by naming schools after them and and have that inspiration and being able to hold their memories and all of the things that they have done in their lives thank you [Applause] our next speaker this evening is Robert Penton Madam president and members of the Tacoma School Board I want to First say good evening I am a

091Reverend Robert Penton a member of the name change committee and a community leader Minister for more than five decades in our city I'm here this evening to come to comment on the late Dr Edna E Travis who I consider an extraordinary and exemplary leader who humbly served the hilltop and the greater Tacoma Community Dr Travis was a woman of prayer Faith purpose and Hope her faith was in her compassion and actions which was to improve the quality of life especially for the unrepresented in the hilltop community it it did not deter her whether she were whether you were gay or straight she served everyone it's my hope tonight that you the Tacoma school board will vote Yes which is in concert with the will of the hilltop community in doing so your vote will reverberate

092throughout the community with a shout we have been heard on behalf of the hilltop Community I thank you in advance for your consideration bless you [Applause] bless you our next speaker is katricia Barker foreign good evening I am katricia Barker I am Aetna Dr Edna Travis's granddaughter I live in Houston Texas I am the owner of a franchise owner of Godfather's Pizza there in Texas Houston Texas we also own a couple of other businesses and I thought it was important that I get on a plane and come here and let you guys know how my grandmother impacted the world I am the eldest grandchild and she has not only had a great impact on me but like I said a great impact on the world I lived overseas in Korea and I was just telling

093someone that I was shopping in the commissary and someone said to me or screamed across the commissary Dr Travis's granddaughter with that being said 5600 miles away from home uh her life definitely shine bright um Not only was she all about including everyone she was all about diversity she was all about making sure that each person had a fair chance here in society whether you were white black purple green it didn't matter she would pick you up off of the streets and feed you and make sure that no one you know was left feeling alone we many times during Christmas and uh Thanksgiving we'd have people sitting at our dinner table that we didn't know just because she was all about community and making sure that no one would sit at a dinner table alone

094so with that being said we would really appreciate in the community with benefit by the name change of the school being named after her thank you [Music] [Applause] all right our last speaker on this topic is Joe Bowman good to see him Madam chair and board of directors superintendent thank you for this opportunity I'm going to again say please consider renaming um the school to Edna U Travis Elementary I am her oldest and most handsome grandson I want to set the record straight um Dr Travis a mother Pastor humanitarian she forged to build a community in the name of dignity honor and human kindness she journeyed from a gin Crow South Hattiesburg Mississippi in 15 years old had a train ticket to Chicago and then being married to her the love of her life migrated

095to Tacoma through the military and as a result of that she continued to do the work that she had done for so many years all of us here tonight but behind me if you're here to support this initiative I want you to stand and say I am Dr Travis so even though we know her remains are at Mountain View the reality is we still live the Legacy that she set forward for us she loved her role as a mother and a nurse at Madigan Hospital in the nursery supporting newborn babies and in 1985 I was about this size I was 12 years old and I was living with her on 16th and M Street and she had made liver and onions now I want to make this real for you that's one of the best

096meals she could ever make somebody said liver doesn't taste good yes it does when she made it and that meal she prepared she brought that meal she gathered it and we came in front of the church at 2156 MLK in those days it was K Street and exactly what she prepared was what was needed for the family that was sitting in front of that church that night those folks were invited inside they had a wonderful meal and their lives were better because of it every single day Monday through Friday she continued that just until 2020 that Mill service was there for folks of all colors all people all ideas all religions she never despised anyone for where they were 1988 Hilltop was a drug infested gang-infested place she stood outside of that church when the

097crypts in the Bloods would walk through and the police were scared to stop she would stand out front and say Lord I Thank you for my community she would turn to the taverns on both sides of the street and say you're going to close but Lord don't affect the business owner's Pockets make sure they stay successful but close the taverns she knew that it would be full of mixed family income it would be mixed family housing and it is to this day because that's the community she prayed for I have two seconds and I thank you [Applause] all right our last week of this evening is Heidi van Harper I can't follow that I so support that my name is Heidi van Harper and I am 23 year certified Ka teacher who has taught in

098four different states across the country and what I'm finding that's being taught here is that teen girls don't want to be girls anymore why are so many kids feeling that their body is in conflict with their brain why are Educators worrying unnecessarily about normal childhood behaviors that 99 of kids will grow out of I'm struck by how many girls want to be identified as they or he in one seventh grade classroom 14 of my students at a 96 wanted to be identified as something other than a girl the last straw was when my fourth grade son came home with a report report card that was entirely written in they pronouns he doesn't have gender dysphoria what is happening to the kids here so I researched I don't like reading about John money who we based

099the idea that sex and gender are two different things learn about David reimer's suicide and John money's abuse learn about the term cisgender German sexologist vogmar saguch a known pedophile yet schools Now teach including first through third graders see your curriculum using the book Jamie and bubby that gender is malleable and disconnected from one's sex or the flash sex ed curriculum which separates the category of sexual orientation and gender identity in June I attended a workshop offered from the Puget Sound Service District about lgbtq inclusivity in schools it was stated as a fact that gender affirming care reduces suicide rates or puberty blockers have been used in cisgender teens for decades and have been proven to reduce suicidal ideation and trans youth I thought this was great news until I read the fine print and

100directly read the research studies quote Dr turbin reports receiving textbook royalty Pavements payments from Springer nature quote Dr Kerrigan stands to receive future textbook royalty Pavements from McGraw-Hill education quote there's a paucity of data capacity meaning meager that's not a word you want to read in any conclusion of a study or quote lack of standardized questionnaires it was also taught in the workshop teachers don't need to tell the parents about kids pronouns follow the rabbit hole there's a pamphlet on the ospi website so let me understand this a student who is underage can't vote can't smoke can't legally drive get an idea or drink watch porn is not allowed to see NC-17 movies or video games and by law can't even get a job can change their name and pronouns without parental consent seriously I

101can't I can't agree to teach contradict contradictory inconclusive information from unreliable biased research okay thank you tone down the pronouns thank you hey all right that concludes general counsel all right that concludes the public hearing part of this meeting moving on to item number 11. I move to adopt the consent agenda second it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions about the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed and the abstentions passes five zero item number 12 policy matters we have no policy matters this evening item 13 financial report the district's next quarterly financial report is planned for August 24th when in fact we will adopt the budget that we heard the hearing on today uh if you're interested on our monthly financial statements they can be found

102at our district website at https colon slash slash www.tacomaschools.org backslash departments backslash business and finance all right item number 14 curriculum and instruction 14.1 approval of the contract tsd-17-007 addendum number 11 to purchase i-Ready reading learning application for the 2023-2024 school year good evening good evening I have to use my broken glasses tonight excuse me the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning which I own on behalf of here tonight obviously I'm not I was going to say you've changed um recommends that the board of directors approve the purchase of i-Ready reading learning application for the 2023-24 school year and the amount of 843.16 inclusive of sales tax and shipping funding source cni you have a motion I moved to adopt item 14.1 it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this item okay

103hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions passes five zero thank you item 14.2 approval of contract tsd-22-196 addendum number one to purchase Synergy mtss and Synergy analytics for the 2023-2024 school year the director of dart on behalf of the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning recommend the board of directors approve the purchase of synergy multi-system multi-tier systems of support or mtss and Synergy analytics for the 23-24 school year in the amount of 246 145 funding source Tech I moved to a doc item 14.2 it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions on this particular item which we've discussed a little bit tonight already all right hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions passes five zero thank you thank you item number 15 uh 0.3

104.1 hang on a second um all right let's see now we're going to go back 15.1 sorry business matters 15.1 approval to award the contract to Meadow Suite Farms Incorporated from b23020b dairy and juice products the plane Here Comes Morris the executive director of Planet construction for the chief operation officer recommends that the board of directors award contract for dairy and juice products to metal sweet Farms Inc and authorize the superintendent to award the contract for the period of August 1st 2023 to July 31st 2028 funding source nutritional nutritional service budget it up item 15.1 second moved in seconded any comments or question on this item hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed extensions passes 5-0 item 15.2 approval of the bid acceptance for the hunt round building Remodel and site

105Improvement project the executive director of planning and construction for the chief operation officer recommends that the board of directors accept the bid for the for hunt round building Remodel and site Improvement project for Christian general contractors in the amount of 1 million eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars excludes sales tax funding source 2020 Capital Bond I moved to Darwin 15.2 second it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this one director Leon yeah just um the round building will it stay as a theater just a long-term plan it should still still be a theater we're doing some upgrades within the theater itself and just making the building more accessible uh and doing some upgrades that just sorely needed so there's for those that are out there it is not solely for theater use

106it is a Community Asset so if you are out there and would like to use the round building there is a facility use but it does not have to be just for theater items thanks okay any other questions um all those in favor say aye any opposed any abstentions okay passes five zero item 15.3 approval to award Titan earthwork the bid for the demolition of central Administration Annex Building located right there the executive director the executive director for planning Construction for the chief operation officer recommends that the board of directors approve the superintendent to award the bid to tighten earthwork for the demolition of the building located at 708 South G Street Tacoma Washington 98405 and parking lot design the total award is for 224 346 excluding sales tax funding source 2020 Capital Bond I

107moved to approve item 15.3 second it's been moved in seconded questions on this item hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions all right Morris we have it five zero item 15.4 approval of the amendment of the superintendent's contract and as the president of the board of directors I recommend the board ratify the attached amend amended contract with superintendent Garcia effective immediately July 13 2023. and what we have here is the the superintendent's got a three-year contract which rolls over every year and he has not asked for an increase and of any kind in the past a couple of years since he's been superintendent and so we we have discussed it with him and he has um we have are awarding the superintendent the same one percent increase that all

108of the administrative and exempt staff in the district get the cabinet level and and exempt staff get are getting a one percent increase along this year and the superintendent we are now offered him that same one percent so does anybody have any questions or well actually do we have a motion I remember 15.4 second will you anyone have any questions or comments okay I'm going to turn it over to general counsel to call the roll absolutely president bomber how do you vote I vice president Stroger how do you vote aye Mr Keating how do you vote aye Dr McElroy how do you vote hi direct Leon how do you vote aye motion passes so thank you for with passes 5-0 and I would just like to take this opportunity to say that we are so

109grateful to you superintendent Garcia for the work that that you put in day in Day Out 24 7. um I mean you don't even I mean on vacation you're not on vacation so I just appreciate this year one of the things we just completed is evaluation and one of the things we were talking about is the things that are just above and beyond that make Tacoma so special the Innovative work the investment in this time in community building things like you know the ins he was the inspiration for the late nights that were happening right now in the summer and within eight you know just six short weeks was able to raise the money and turn it around and get it up and running I mean these are the kinds of things that are one

110of a kind superintendent that we have here also for those that are listening that may not have been aware just was it last month time flies but he was invited to go back to speak and before the U.S Senate health education labor and pensions committee which is an extremely powerful committee and where all of our funding comes through for schools and um he was the only local superintendent that was invited to speak and he literally blew them away so I just have to say that we are very lucky to have superintendent Garcia and as board members we know that every single day and we hope that you and the community know that as well thank you and thank you for allowing me to work with such an amazing team you and all of our staff

111and Community Partners I am extremely grateful and humbled at the opportunity I appreciate you thank you all right so um other business we are going to move on to the next exciting item on the agenda which is 16.1 the approval to rename McCarver Elementary School to Edna Travis Elementary School I moved to adopt item 16.1 my second and I have a comment okay well let's go through the process first it's been approved I mean it's been moved and seconded so I appreciate that now yeah so I wanted to take the time from the dice to address the heart of McCarver and what it was and what it will be when it changes to Edna Travis Elementary School I know that we have to have a vote but I'm saying that with I will vote in

112favor of changing the name because of her heart and her passion for Community I feel that often in community it's terrifying to put yourself in front of people and tell them your truth because as soon as they know who you are they target you and I think erroneously Dr Travis has been labeled a bigot labeled a malicious person the attacks on her character are something that haunt me because of all of her good work and her good deeds I'm someone who follows in her footsteps and does good works and Good Deeds what will I be labeled when I'm dead I really appreciate everyone on the naming committee I appreciate every member of community who's reached out to me I appreciate everyone who knows my true story I was born and raised in the church in

113Hilltop I'm not a bigot she was not a bigot and that's why I will vote to change the name and in Tacoma we don't tolerate bigotry and we don't attack others for their identities and I appreciate everyone on this board because that's what we believe in that's my comment [Applause] thank you thank you director McElroy anybody else have comments on this sorry Corey vice president Stroger I have no gun no comments okay anyone else so for those who uh I well I should turn it over to the superintendent to go through we didn't go through the process of how we got to this point I think we should officially uh State some of the agenda items so the superintendent recommends the board of directors rename Martin M McCarver Elementary School to Edna Travis Elementary School

114I would like to thank the community and the renaming Community they put in a lot of time there were a lot of efforts I know there was a lot of discussions I am proud of their recommendation I support their recommendation it is an important recommendation and opportunity and so I hope you consider our recommendation so it's been moved and seconded we've had one comment I would like to say that we've heard a great deal from the community pro and con mostly Pro almost exclusively Pro but we really appreciate the community and the family that's here today to rise her up and celebrate her in ways that I can only I'm only excited for when our school children our elementary school children at uh if we if we vote on this that that they'll learn about

115this amazing woman and that um served so so nobly in the community in which they live so all those in favor of renaming I'm a Carver Elementary Edna Travis Elementary say aye aye any opposed any abstentions let it be so [Applause] so since since the entire family seems to be here do you guys want to come up and have a photo with the board come on up oh that was a yes and no I heard both you don't have to but those of you that want to we would be honored to do to have a photo with you thank you and these lovely ladies made such an impression last night [Music] okay ladies and gentlemen here's how it's gonna go we're gonna squeeze in we're really friendly if you're getting comfortable it's okay Edna thank

116you yeah I grew up here I will make sure Tanisha Gets it in season yes I will work on it we're the lessons Okay so thank you to Edna Travis's family and friends for being here and making this A celebratory moment we will all see you in September when we or whenever we get to the renaming physical part all right so moving on to um 17 board comments and reports and I'm going to actually start tonight because I have um I have something to share which is pretty exciting and it's uh we talked about it a little bit earlier when Rosalind was talking about the the budget and how there are different funding streams like scholarships and things that help our students and so I have an announcement about a scholarship that um has already

117been given out to six of our high school students and it's the Mi Centro David Almonte scholarship and actually David Almonte was a friend of mine so I I really um I'm so pleased every year when the family he passed he passed quite young unfortunately and left a family um it's still in mourning I think and Lisa El Monte's wife and she worked with me Centro to make sure that his legacy continued the good work he did in community continued and they have this scholarship and so six outstanding Tacoma graduates received two thousand dollars each and are going to be celebrated at an awards ceremony on July 19th at 6 pm at me Centro and I'm going to read the names of the recipients because we are so proud of them they are recent grads

118and uh Stefan Pugh from Lincoln High School Lauren scheit the Drone from Lincoln High School tiraz cantante from Mount Tahoma Jasmine D Santiago from Mount Tahoma Natalie rabati Lorena from Stadium High School and Carol rag Rangel from Stadium High School so I just want to say to the families out there and to Lisa Almonte and her children and her and the rest of the family thank you for putting together this annual award and uh and for me Centro for carrying it forward and congratulations to these six students who are going to take this scholarship and put it towards their post-grad future so I'm very excited for that um the second thing I was going to say before we turn turn it over to other comments is uh to remind the public that if you can

119see this that we have late nights summer late nights happening uh in 12 different locations here in town and we've been putting that you should see these signs they're everywhere um which is great so we want this is for middle schoolers grades six to eight and um senior and high schoolers 9 through 11 meaning Rising seniors too that are going to uh the open for Monday through through Thursday from 5 P.M to 10 p.m these locations are places to go hang out visit with friends chill just be safe and that's the whole point we've got Community Partners that we've been working with Metro Parks green trike others who are bringing in guest speakers and and dinner free dinner for everyone that comes and we really want kids to to join and uh it we it's

120only been two and a half weeks actually just the closing about three weeks I guess tonight's the end of three weeks and we tomorrow tomorrow again tomorrow's Monday oh it's Monday through Friday sorry my mistake Monday through Friday um and it's tomorrow is the end of three weeks and we have had over 761 separate kids uh registered to to drop the drop-in situation but to to join and it's and we're getting more and more every day so thank you to the families and superintendent has something more to say I just want to say we had six more since we talked so we're up to 767 individual TPS students that have registered and attended at least once so exciting and um and we've still got uh what seven more weeks of summer so there's plenty of

121time to access this and if you want to know anything about it just go to our website and parents you can just sign your students up and once they're signed up they can just drop in any night they want so it is very exciting and thanks to all of our Community Partners that made this happen and they're making it happen every single night keeping our kids off the street and safe and and for Pierce Transit who's been working to make the the bus routes align and just you know it's just the community has really stepped up to help reduce youth violence in our community and this is um we're very proud to be part of this so I think and then the only other thing I have one more thing to say and what was

122it I think that's it so we're good so who else wants to talk share vice president strozier is pushing his button yeah pushing a button on July 6th this is just feeding off of the Teen late nights on July 6th uh vice president Corey Schroeder he him and uh Christina Walker Deputy Mayor and Lori Jenkins well Laurie Jenkins and I speaker of the house we able to hit the East Side the Charlotte Community and doorbell for uh teen late nights and it was amazing how many folks opened the door and said I got an email I just I just heard about that I'll take a flyer I can send my kids win can I send them tonight so it was beautiful like so the word is getting out there folks are attending uh kids are

123having fun and that's the most important thing other than obviously staying safe so uh hats off to everybody all of our partners who have joined in to get the word out to provide the spaces to bring in food it's a beautiful thing man so this is a great effort it looks like it's working out and I'm glad that the word is being spread because literally every door that I knocked on that ant was answered someone had already known about this opportunity and had their kids participating in it so that's all yeah and also meant to say the boys and girls club and the Y um it's just it's a really Community it's a big Community lift so thank you and he went okay who's next is that it um Dr strozier did you have anything

124else you wanted okay director Miguel Roy yes so taking off Ford hat putting on preschool teacher hat it is summertime and your children under five years old need about two ounces of water per like the age that they are um or something like that I almost get it wrong but I had it right at parent-teacher conference yesterday either or um so if there are two they need about 12 ounces of water so it's six times two because they're two and then six times three if they're three um there's just a lot of dehydration going around in the younger younger children this time of year and I got an email just reminding me that we need to be telling parents so from this seat I'm gonna tell more parents and probably your older children too um

125the only reason I'm speaking about the youngers is because I think their parents are newer to the game so they might need the reminder the older ones you guys got it I I have faith in you please hydrate your children this summer and if you're looking for things a place to cool down all the splash products are open at Metro Parks you can go to their website and find them and it's really nice to drive by and hear the kids just like screeching and wailing to squealing oh I'm getting all the summer feels um every time I leave work I get to drive past too um so yeah please hydrate your children and if you're looking for places to cool down the splash grounds they're really good for that that's it it's super exciting I

126don't remember it being that cold when I was little but I know it was the same temperature so that's cool so director heating um I just want to say um that on jet so in Tacoma we have a tradition of starting pride in July after national pride at the end of June and that's really was started over gosh at least 25 years ago so that there wasn't competing interest so that families and people that wanted to go to the big city on Pride festivals they could so what started out at Wright Park out in the park a long long time ago has turned into a huge Street Festival that happened the pride flag raising on City geek the city hall happened Friday evening and the pride awards were given out it was just like always

127really meaningful and beautiful to get together with community and those that are serving and have contributed and then Saturday was the all-day pride festival and there were over 20 000 people that attended which is even bigger than ever every year we say oh my gosh it's bigger than it was last year so um and the thing that I um I'm always moved by is there is an opportunity or a point where elected officials are invited to come on stage and speaker the house Lori Jenkins and um current County council member Ryan Mello they had started this tradition of inviting elected officials to come to Pride and when they first started or when speaker Jenkins started no elected official would come and now there were about 40 of us packed on stage which made me a

128little nervous um just for like being that many people on stage and what I think was even more remarkable this year um is we had um our Congressional leaders we had States legislators we had County council members City Council Members um and from multiple cities throughout Pierce County we also had our Parks Commissioners were several were there Port Commissioners were there and over half a dozen of our judicial our judges were also present and the purpose of it is to demonstrate a commitment to the inclusivity and safety and the rights and dignity of lgbtq people in Pierce County and across the state as elected officials and so it's always a really special thing to be a part of and just seeing everyone gathered together was really meaningful and so um I just wanted to say

129like you know it's just a really beautiful thing to see people and families just fill the streets of downtown Tacoma and the photographs always get me even more so afterwards so it's a really beautiful event and a beautiful side of Tacoma thank you all right Dr Leon do you have anything okay cool all right well that then conclude oh announcements of our next board meetings are August 24th uh 2023 and then we start up in September um and we have a retreat on August 30th as well but then um September 14th um and again on September 28th and school will be fully in session by then so it seems like the summer just flew by anyway okay it's still hot um all right so that's that and so we are now officially adjourned until August

13024th stay safe everyone and stay cool great job directors thank you