June 8, 2023 School Board Meeting

001[Music] foreign [Music] good evening everyone I'd like to welcome you all to this meeting of the Tacoma Public School Board of Directors for a business meeting tonight on June 8th 2023 and would everyone like to please rise and join me for the Flag Slip the United States of America for all Tacoma Public Schools acknowledges that we are on the traditional ancestral and historical lands of the Puyallup tribe of Indians we honor with gratitude the land itself and the Puyallup tribe we acknowledge this acknowledgment serves as a first step in honoring our nearest tribal neighbors and partners who have inhabited this reason since time immemorial and to whom we give thanks for allowing us passage to their lands we shall intentionally create inclusive and respectful Partnerships that honor indigenous cultures histories identities and socio-political realities general

002counsel benrow would you please call the roll yes President Obama yeah vice president here excuse me here director McElroy yeah and I think uh directly on the way yep and what about and do we have any student reps in the room this evening I think Amanda's it was less competing with her last you never know you might just chill because they love being here so much Richard yeah okay thank you general counsel um I would like to have a motion for the adoption of the agenda please I moved to adopt the agenda second it's been moved and seconded anyone uh looking at you have any comments questions or additions to the agenda hearing them okay all those in favor say aye aye any opposed any abstentions okay we have an agenda item number six recognition

003of staff students and community 6.1 state holidays and Civic observances and I will turn this back over to general counsel benrow for a discussion of this point yes we have one Civic observance for this meeting in June and one state holiday uh so item 6.1 a lgbtqia plus pride month under RCW 43.114.070 the legislature declares that June of each year will be known in Washington state as lgbtq pride month with the stated purpose of celebrating and recognizing contributions made to the state of Washington by lgbtq people in the Arts science Commerce and education the RCW also encourages educational institutions public entities and private organizations to designate time for appropriate activities in commemoration of the lives history achievements and contributions of lgbtq people our second item 6.1 B that is Juneteenth under icw 1.16.050 the legislature

004declares the 19th day of June shall be recognized as Juneteenth a holiday which celebrates the emancipation of those who have been enslaved in the United States on Juneteenth the legislature encourages that this be a day to revisit our shared solidarity and commitment to anti-racism to educate ourselves about the history of enslavement in the United States and to continue having conversations that uplift every Washingtonian so this year Juneteenth falls on a Monday so for our students and families listening there will be no school on Monday June 19th and school and district offices will be closed thank you anyone have any comments from the diets are you doing this okay so moving on before we move on I would like to say that you might notice that superintendent Garcia is not with us this evening and we

005have our illustrious Deputy superintendent Lisa Nolan here in his said the reason um Dr Garcia is not here is is a very Noble one and we're all very proud of him today this morning he testified before the U.S Senate committee on health health education labor and pensions which is probably the biggest policy Committee in the Senate on behalf of student um social motion well-being mental health and he was on a panel he'd be the only superintendent from the entire nation they are today testifying and talking about the impact social emotional health and well-being have on our students and some of the some of the tricks of the trade we're using here in Tacoma that that seem to be working so he did really well and um answered some tough questions and answers and I gave

006a great presentation so we are all very very proud of our superintendent for representing Tacoma well so that's why he's not here this evening so item 6.2 recognition of students admitted to PLU as part of the TPS PLU degrees of change partnership and I see our assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Zeke Edmonds is here to introduce this item yes this is this isn't a superintendent of teaching and learning recommends that the board of directors recognize the district's first members of the seed teacher apprenticeship program and to give you more on that I'm actually going to turn it over to Pat Irwin director of educator pathways good evening board board president Dr Nolan and everybody here my name is Patrick Irwin director of educator Pathways and I really should come to more board meetings because

007I only come giving you good news every time I come here and this is good news um this is I'm going to introduce the um the idea behind the seed teacher partnership this is a relationship we have with Pacific Lutheran University in just a moment president Belton will come up and speak and it's a partnership with degrees of change in the incoming CEO Marquis Dixon will come up and speak as well and then I'll introduce all the students to you but really before we get started I want to give credit to Dr Garcia because this was his idea he called me last year said hey I want you to come downtown I've got this idea and this was the idea that he had in mind and we can get into the particulars or the details

008you've got information in the board report but the bottom line is we need to have a dedicated teacher pipeline of sending students to us so they can become teachers and who better to teach our kids than our current students so we started recruiting in about January of this year and it was a little tough initially just because a lot of students already had their plans in place they wanted to go to UW Wazoo wherever and we ended up with 16 Elite excellent candidates we'll introduce them to you shortly but it was it was a great journey and in the coming years our plan is to have 20 students every year going through PLU through the seed partnership and then in the course of four or five years we'll start to reap the benefits of having

009these students come back to us to become teachers in Tacoma Public Schools now as we say we're better together and in the audience tonight you have the students you have their families we have representatives from PLU degrees of change we have representatives from our schools that is teachers who nominated these folks and also I want to give special recognition to Lisa eganis who's over on the wall there if she wants to wave to everybody and she started a program called teach253 at Lincoln High School which is a pre-teaching program that was part of the inspiration for this and then shavonda Simmons Smith Siobhan is in the back who is her cohort at Mount Tahoma so at this time I'm going to introduce president Belton following him will be Marquis Dixon then I'll come back up

010I'll introduce the students we'll have them come up here shake your hands and pose for a picture thank you the evening board members community members thank you for having us here tonight and thank you for sending such wonderful students to PLU we are about to welcome one of the largest classes we have in the last decade and I'm happy to share that we've set a record for the number of students coming to PLU from the Tacoma school district and that we are there are none none that we are more proud of than the 16 future teachers coming from various Tacoma schools to PLU to become teachers it will be our distinct honor to take care of these 16 students for the next four years and to happily send them back to Tacoma from beautiful Parkland

011in four years to become teachers in this amazing School District thank you thank you foreign board and community members my name is Marquise Dixon I come to you wearing two hats this evening I come to you as an employee of degrees of change where we've been investing in Tacoma Public Schools students for the past 21 years that we've seen close to 80 students receive poor tuition full needs scholarships to our partner colleges I come to you again as a father of three amazing young children who a middle child who wants to be a future educator so if you walk into the Dixon household you'll walk in you'll see our daughter teaching her stuffies and it's because of the commitment and the passion and that teachers have instilled with her our child is very shy reserved

012but her teachers have been able to influence her and build that belief that she can be be in there she wants to be and it's because of teachers so if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she said she wants to be a teacher so I'm thankful not only to Pacific Lutheran University who we partnered with for the past 16 years and they've had over 110 access Scholars on our campuses I also want to say thank you to our c teacher scholar dollars for accepting this call because my children will have the opportunity to be able to see someone that looks like them leading them in a classroom so thank you for your time and we're grateful for our partnership with CPS Pacific Lutheran University thank you thank you [Applause]

013okay so at this time I'm going to announce the students who are the recipients of the seed scholarship and they we have 13 of them here so I will call them up uh and I'll name their school so we have Jocelyn Alanis who's from Mount Tahoma High School come on up Jocelyn Talia kariaga kaliga from Lincoln High School come on up Coleman Fleetwood also from Lincoln High School coming up Coleman Elizabeth Garcia tapale from Lincoln High School Lillian Garibay from Lincoln High School Kyla M also from Lincoln High School Eminence from Tacoma online Rebecca Prieto also from Lincoln High School Amy Stevens from idea delita from Mount Tahoma High School batima Yana's Prieto from Lincoln High School [Applause] Yeager from Sammy and Crystal zakapu from Lincoln High School so at this time I'd like them

014to come up and kind of do the circle and shake your hands and then afterwards when you finish stay on stage so we can have the group photo [Laughter] exactly my name is subscribe make sure you listen to board member McElroy she's got this all figured out all the time that's it one two three and just to recognize we also Jasmine to Santiago from Mount Tahoma will be joining us in this program Maya Folsom from Sammy and Karina Lopez Pacheco from Lincoln High School they cannot be here tonight but those are three others who will be here thank you thank you so much thank you Pat for your hard work and this new project we appreciate it and uh all right and thank you to PLU and degrees of change for partnering with us on

015this experimental project and we really appreciate all of you and working so so diligently to help us create a pathway for these youth to become teachers and return to Tacoma Public Schools and give back we appreciate that all right item number seven superintendent report 7.1 a budget update and I see our CEO Rosalind Medina what CFO CFO it's been a long day already it's quite a promotion yeah um Podium so well good evening thank you so tonight I'm going to give you a real brief overview of some things going on in the budget as well as a financial update of where we're at right now we actually hope to be just a little bit further along tonight but we are are working our tails off the poor budget team has been um really putting in

016the midnight hours burning the midnight hours trying to get these things put together and we just weren't able to make it there tonight so instead of bringing you data that we know is going to change significantly we held off a little bit however I will say that we have plenty of other information to share with you and to give you kind of a taste of what's coming in our budget and that we'll be bringing you a presentation a little bit later on in the month to get you uh where we're going to be at imbalanced in our balanced budget for our financial update this is as of February uh it's actually two two components there's one in February there's one in April we wanted to give you an update on where we're at and um

017our current year this is a 2223 impact and so we've talked a number of times over the last uh several months about how we ended last year a little bit lower in our fund balance than we anticipated that we might some of that was a timing issue some of that is just trying to understand where we were at the time of uh with with Ester dollars and we were coming out of the pandemic still and so it's a little more difficult to estimate where we're going to end those years so we came in a little lower when we started the beginning of this year our revenues are right now being projected at 527.6 million dollars roughly and that's about 42.6 million dollars lower than what we had budgeted uh part of that is capacity where

018we budget to receive additional revenues in as well as Esser funds we weren't anticipating that we would get the answer funds to the to the level that we budgeted and so it's not unusual or unexpected but at this point that's where we're at in our revenues and our expenditure projections are at 552.6 million dollars and you'll see there's a deficit between those we had anticipated even in the budget that we would be using fund balance reserves to help balance us and we're seeing that that is coming to fruition we are using those resources in our projections um what we saw in February is that our fund balance would be down to about 19.3 million or about 10.5 million dollars lower than what we thought it might end in that from our projection excuse me from

019projection to budget but where we're at right now in April is closer to 23 million so we've closed that Gap just a little bit uh this this is one of those years where we knew we were going to be really close on our budget and our fund balance um and we had budgeted our fund balance down to the five percent Reserve amount uh where it stands right now with our projection we're going to be below that five percent Reserve now we don't want to be in that space that's not what our anticipation is and that's not what the policy requires for us however it's kind of like trying to land an elephant blindfolded on a on a peanut I mean this is really very challenging uh difficult work there are 200 people that work in

020managing our budgets the revenues change one expenditure can throw us off in our projections and so uh if we have a large project if we have a large expenditure that comes in last minute and we weren't anticipating that would come in it could throw off our projections and so what we've done is worked through some mitigation strategies we're scrutinizing the way that we're hiring for positions we're pulling back on some of the discretionary resources that people have access to that budget managers have access to to try to control and and shift that projection for the year end and and those are typical budget strategies that we've used in past years as well our anticipation is that we'll see the fruits of those labors in the next projection or so and that we still have an

021opportunity to help us mitigate any of these uh any where we're at in our fund balance Reserve but what you see here is that in February where we were projecting ourselves to be at 3.7 million uh right now we're projecting ourselves at the end of April to be at 4.4 percent and so we wish we should be getting um some updated numbers here in the next two weeks and and get you a revision back on where where we're going and what that looks like but I do expect that with some of the mitigation strategies that we are employing currently that we'll see that number continue to grow to the point where it's possible that when we're done we even have a fun balance Reserve that's closer to six six and a half percent it really

022could swing that much just depending the importance of fund balance and this is probably more for the public than for you because you've heard this so many times from me you could probably present this slide yourself but the reserve requirements by policy are five percent we keep those reserves on hand for emergencies uh to help us with our bond ratings and in case of an extraordinary event so that we can make payrolls in a situation where um you know there's an emergency an earthquake or something like that or you don't have access to your bank accounts on a regular basis or revenues aren't coming in from the state because there's something wrong with the state at the state level we try to set our internal goal between five and eight percent clearly we're not quite

023there right now and so that's part of the mitigation that we're working towards as we work towards finalizing our budget this is our our large budget year and this was also the large budget cycle for the legislature State Legislature they went a little longer we go a little later that we do our bigger process where we run the budgeting by priorities where we ask people to submit proposals to us and then we make determinations about which of those proposals we will fund and in order to help us prepare for that work you have provided us with these guiding principles and these guiding principles have been what the cabinet has used to make decisions about what positions to eliminate what adjustments to make in our budget what improvements to make in our continuous improvements efforts and

024those are pretty standard practices I would say despite the fact that we have announced a 10 million shortfall we are doing a pretty typical business practice in the way that we manage the budget the cabinet is getting together on regular intervals and going out and seeking suggestions on what we think we might be able to change shift adjust add modify and then implementing those as we process through each of those items from our enrollment perspective for next year we're going to be down about 226 according to our demographer 226 student FTE the primary area that we will be losing enrollment will be in the Middle School level about 200 no I have the number right here let me not guess 242 students in the Middle School level and we'll be down 13 at the high

025school level but will be up 29 at the elementary according to our projections so we'll be watching those projections very closely come October when we do our first real official count to see if that will have an impact on our revenues for next year as well as I said this was the larger legislative cycle year and some of the biggest changes that we are seeing are special education got quite a bump many many millions of dollars it's very exciting to have those resources available to us uh and we will be employing those resources primarily within the special education program they did adjust the multiplier we've talked about this a little bit in the past they adjusted the multiplier and they adjusted the cap which gives us two components that they're monkeying around with on the

026calculation methodology which is a great news for us because we'll get those additional resources but it also puts us in a position where it will change the way our safety net is calculated and so while we are gaining some resources over here it will change some of the resources that we have access to over here so that was a new wrinkle for us that we found as we were processing through all of these adjustments and then we have some prototypical allocation enhancements they had promised two years ago to make some improvements related to physical social and emotional supports and this was the last year that they made that they finished making those improvements so we got some resources for that and then on the msoc we went up 45 on our end sock so nsoc

027is a Material supplies and operating costs that's just a generic overhead allocation that they provide to us from the state on the wages and benefit increases from the state legislature perspective we did receive a 3.7 cost of living adjustment called the implicit price deflator and that 3.7 percent we receive revenue for 3.7 percent of the people are excuse me 3.7 for the people who the state funds but all of the people that we fund through our Levy or in excess of what the state provides funding for we have to also pay that 3.7 percent and we do not receive any resources from the state in order to do that and so what that means is we have to make room in the budget carve out expenses and set those aside so that we can make

028increases to the salaries and benefits of those staff which are not funded by the state so that helps to contribute to a deficit that we've expressed earlier on the sub benefit so Seb is our school employee benefit board that is our health benefits and that increases also going to have the same impact as the implicit price deflator uh the said benefits are our monthly contribution that we pay on behalf of each of our employees for their for their health benefits that we only get the portion from the state in Revenue that they actually fund staff for and the remainder of those staff that we fund we have to pick up the cost of those staff's health benefits increases and then on the retirement we had talked earlier about how under the sentence version they gave

029us this really preferential savings and we thought oh that's really great and we maybe said that seems a little strange we didn't think we would actually get something like that but on the house side they didn't have any improvements it turns out they figured out where their error was and they reduced the revenue down and they reduced the expenditure down so for us it's pretty much a wash but there was a modification to that I just wanted to Circle back with you on that and then as far as budget adjustments go we have we have annual maintenance level cost increases and changes every year this is nothing overly new or exciting I think probably the most remarkable piece will be that the SR funds are winding down so this 23 24 cycle will be our

030last cycle with the federal stabilization funds called Esser those resources will probably be around 10 million dollars that we'll end up budgeting for this next year and anything that we don't spend by September of 2024 will be reverted back to the federal government so enrollment fluctuations are another Revenue impact and then of course State enhancements will be an increase for us for those resources that we're getting in that we didn't have in the budget before we have standard cost increases every year people move up the salary schedule we call that incrementing or step increments we have cost and inflationary increases gasoline keeps going up utilities Insurance costs keep going up and so we have to build a budget room for all of the those expenses as well and then of course we bargain 11 different

031groups so we have salary increases that have been negotiated with each of those groups that we have to make room for in the budget as well and then a new item that's kind of exciting is our transitional kindergarten plan uh where we'll be expanding our traditional or excuse me our transitional kindergarten programming I think we will receive a few more slots available for preschool so that's exciting so with that I'll say that we will have a few components of budget coming up June 22nd I will not be here but Kristen Bell will be and she's our budget director she'll present you with our balanced budget with uh any luck we should be able to get there by then at the end of June we'll also do some budget video launching and release the budget calculator

032with the 2324 budget information included within it give people an opportunity to engage with the budget understand a little more about the changes and the impacts of what we've got going on in that budget and then we'll have a formal July 13th hearing I will be back for that and then August 24th is our planned adoption for the budget be happy to answer any questions go ahead and director Keating I was wondering if on let's see slide six when talking about just for the those who are listening um for the special education increases if you could just explain what it me what the cap means and also like the money that has been allocated or increased for spend that special education funding that's not just for the school district that and just touch on that

033that it's a Statewide increase okay so on the cap we only receive funding up to a certain percentage of students in our whole population and that pop that percent went from 13 and a half percent of our population we could get funded up to that if we have students identified so if we have 12 percent of our students identified as special education we get one of our funding components funded up to that point now that they moved it up to 15 if as long as we're in excess of 15 we'll get that full 15 of our population included in that calculation so they've expanded the number of people with which they will provide us with resources for I don't think I understood the second part of your question thank you but but just and I

034feel like I think you touched on it last time when you presented us but there was a significant amount of investment by the legislature in special education funding but not all of that goes to Tacoma Public Schools like that that it that the money that's been allocated is for across the state and maybe I'm still not asking my question as clear as I house so the I mean are we talking about the multiplier specifically or are we talking about safety net the the amount of funding like the like I think there was I feel like you we did touch on this a little bit last time last time you were presenting to us but that there was maybe this um to clarify that the amount of money that has been allocated for the increase in

035special education funding is is across the state it wasn't specific to Tacoma Public Schools so we'll receive about in total nine million dollars roughly of new special education funding within the Tacoma School District I think Statewide we they received an allocation of 300 million dollars roughly okay thank you okay yeah totally thank you okay wait I remember something too so and then also Dr Garcia was there when we talked about it last time is that the cap is just the amount the state's willing to fund but just also for the public we have more students than what we are actually being funded for so we're creating it we're getting an increase which is good so we can serve more but we even have more students than that identified that we continue to serve and meet

036IEP goals even though we're not being funded through this thing right absolutely correct okay there we go and while we're on this slide there's another point for the public because I think it's you know there are a lot of acronyms that we've been throwing round and I think one of the things to just clarify what I believe Roslyn was saying about why we have the impressed the implicit price inflator deflator you know that 3.7 percent when you say it's only for those that are funded by the state and people are going to thinking well what else could they be funded by so we have other programs that are like Federal programs that are come that have come down or ones that are funded by you know local Pro local resources the levy or other resources

037and they're not considered state funded so we don't want to treat our own employees differently so we are giving all of our employees across the board this 3.7 percent but we only are getting enough money from the state to cover the state-funded employees and so that's yes thank you it's the same thing for the um for the Seb and the retirement so it's it's we don't pick and choose among our our staff by who they are funded by their staff and their treated equally so thank you thank you anybody else have any other questions or comments hey thank you very much thank you very much Rosalind and we will look forward to seeing Kristen next board meeting all right and then we have to get back to the let me do that right I'll just

038do it off of here all right so we are going on to item number 7.2 the McCarver Elementary renaming process update Deputy president and members of the board I am happy to report to you that there's an update on the McCarver renaming um proposal and behind me to my left are many members of the committee here this evening but to share the update and to share the information related to The Proposal that they shared with superintendent Garcia Stephanie Wright our principal at macarber elementary will come up and moo Knowles who is not only a Committee Member but an alumni of McCarver Elementary oh okay good evening Deputy superintendent Nolan president bomb right and members of the board as principal of McCarver Elementary School I proudly stand here with McCarver alumni Moon Knowles on behalf of

039the McCarver renaming committee to bring forward a proposal for McCarver school name change tonight we would like to share our process that has led to our recommendation and proposal board policy 6970 was initiated last fall when a Community member reached out to the superintendent raising concerns about McCarver Elementary School being named after Morton Matthew McCarver a known racist the Community member asked the superintendent to consider a school name change her policy 6970 as principal McCarver Elementary School I was advised to establish a committee gathered the voice of our stakeholders and submit the findings summarizing the support or opposition to the proposed change after a pre-committee phase of researching Consulting with schools that have undergone the process and communicating with staff a committee was established foreign the school name change committee consists of 18 members representing

040staff students parents alumni and community members the committee gathered eight times starting in February with our last meeting concluding in May the committee began by setting our purpose and committing to a fair and Equitable process in eliciting community voice in this decision members of the committee dedicated time to providing historical context and designing a community survey we discussed opportunities for outreach to ensure we gathered all the voices from our McCarver and Hilltop community we wanted to provide more information to our community by hosting a Community Information event which allowed our community to learn more about the historical context to this proposal while also giving alumni an opportunity to revisit a remodeled school and to eliminate any barriers in completing an electronic survey as we had a paper pencil survey at the event during meetings the

041committee viewed the status of the survey results to see what audience we were reaching the community members also created a student video for the current Macabre students that included historical background and proposal information a survey was then administered to Alma Carver students when the survey closed it was open just about four weeks the committee analyzed the survey results the committee used the results to make this recommendation and proposal that went to the board actually in June not in May as we did extend our timeline due to an additional meeting I wanted to just take a moment to acknowledge the work of our committee and thank them for their dedication intentionality and care they took in this process so if you were part of our committee can you please stand for acknowledgment my turn good evening

042this is my first time in this building my name is um at least I think so my name is Moo Knowles they them pronouns born and raised in the historically black Hilltop neighborhood um and I'm here tonight to just tell you a little bit about my role and the committee's role and also the Outreach we were able to do so I um before I do that I just want to give a little background to myself I am a Macabre alumni um and I was a part of the xenolenic park project um raise your hand if you know anything about the xenolenic park project maybe you know maybe you remember her story right I was actually in fourth grade when the event happened and tragedy struck our community and our goal as a community at that

043time that was back in like 2008-ish Obama was President um and uh we continued to build community and that was kind of a key moment in my life in order to build my leadership skills I was a key stakeholder I spoke in front of the um Senate budget committee city council the list goes on and this was just as a 10 year old right so we got this experience to build this project together and that has shaped my journey um so far in my life and I just thought that was an important aspect of this because it's kind of a full circle moment for me especially being on this committee because I had the honor of playing the role as a facilitator I am an experienced facilitator I might be young but I do have

044experience I work in the community a lot um so my main goal was to make sure community members that were on this board which it was a diverse room of individuals um that they were included and that their voices were valued throughout this process what I like to call it is a participatory process so we come from different backgrounds we have varying kind of abilities and gifts to bring to the table right and we also had different levels of capacity as you all know you're on the board so coming to a committee meeting in the evening time is not easy we have parents we have students who are here we have you know Educators and people who have varying needs in order to be able to participate varying responsibilities so we really have the opportunity

045to balance each other out and really harness our Collective power together um in our work as a committee I would say in my experience facilitating this space we did our due diligence in order to explore the diff the different complexities that come with renaming a school especially with someone like Martin McCarver more Matthew McCarver someone who was outwardly anti-black um and his anti-black racism actually led to legislation changing um and it impacted the black community across the um United States but in particular on the west coast um and our goal as a com as a committee was to really build consensus and through that consensus building we really made sure to utilize the community's voice and the survey results in all the community Gatherings that we were able to have um we use those as

046our guiding compass in our decision making um I also had the opportunity um Stephanie spoke of the community engagement night that we had I had the opportunity to emcee that and we seen familiar faces faces we didn't know that were part of the McCarver community and we really got the chance to have more of a personable experience right and I think that's really important when you think of community engagement and the most effective ways to really reach community in these kinds of moments where the decision is really important um so we I believe we were really able to truly harness the community's voice and really promote the survey in a way that allowed us to see the decision we needed to make and that decision was built upon the voice of the community so thank

047you I'll pass it to Stephanie unless you want me to say something else but that that's what I came prepared to share is just that we were really focused um on centering community and growing up in the hilltop that's really important to me because it doesn't happen often thank you moo and Outreach was really important for us as the committee we wanted to reach as much of our community as possible in collaboration with the TPS Communications Department and the affiliations of our committee members we used a variety of platforms to get our survey out communication went out through the global School Community email and phone systems family newsletters social media the News Tribune and our community event our survey results when asked when they when asked whether they supported a name change the survey results

048of our community survey showed 74 in support of a Macabre name change and 26 percent opposed to a macarber name change this reflected 831 responses including TPS stat staff TPS students 300 TPS parents 160 alumni and more than owned 160 community members the survey results of our current students survey showed 70 percent in support of a name change and 30 percent opposed to a name change which reflects a 198 responses when asked about potential names for the name change the community survey results showed that 53 percent of our community would like McCarver to be named after a person and 74 percent wanted a local role model the community the committee used this data to create criteria for possible names the criteria included being a person who embraced diversity and equity someone with a direct connection

049and contribution to the hilltop Community along with consideration of year and time of service in the community and someone connected to education and or dedicated to working within supporting bipok children the community also had an opportunity to write in name suggestions two names were suggested multiple times Tacoma resident and leader Nettie Asbury was identified 16 times through the survey and Tacoma resident and leader Dr Edna Travis was identified 71 times through the survey the committee decided to take these two names into consideration and time was spent to research and gather information about the two candidates and a meeting was dedicated to share and align the findings with the criteria that was established by the committee based on the survey the committee thoughtfully listened to and heard all sides of the strengths and considerations for each

050person before voting on the final recommendation the committee then met one final time after the vote to continue further discussion and address any other thoughts or concerns before voting to move forward with a proposal to change McCarver Elementary School to Dr Edna Travis Elementary School Dr Edna Travis overwhelmingly embodies each Criterion established by the committee she was a humanitarian Advocate and mother whose daughters attended McCarver Elementary as children she was one of the first black women Pastors in Tacoma founding the New Covenant Church on the corner of 23rd and MLK just a block from McCarver Dr Edna Travis championed many causes during her life of 90 years including opening a feeding program which served many families served many Hilltop individuals and families experiencing food and housing insecurity five days a week Dr Travis was known

051to be a constant source of Hope courage and comfort to many in her role as a community leader and her children and grandchildren continue her Legacy through their Community organizing and service Mutual Aid and Outreach efforts and advocacy for the empowerment of young black and brown students including those who attend macarber today Dr Travis touched many corners of Tacoma leaving many residents of Hilltop with personal stories of their connection to her beautiful spirit Dr Travis spoke to power built Community open safe transitional housing and carved a space in the neighborhood that welcomed all who sought a place to be seen acknowledged and valued proposing this name gives Tacoma Public Schools a great opportunity to honor The Life and Legacy as well as the seeds of equity planted by Dr Edna Travis again on behalf of

052the McCarver name change committee we thank the board for your time and consideration of this proposal thank you very much uh doing many of my colleagues have any questions for the committee I just want to thank everyone on the committee all of you that are here today and those that weren't able to show up I know how much work this is um believe it or not it was uh in the past 20 years I think there have been two name name uh new schools named Willie Stewart Academy and Tacoma online and then uh so it's it's a really unusual and all of a sudden since we've been on the board several of us it's we've done this will be the third name change so it's like out of nowhere this has been um really a

053lot of work for you and not communities to do this and for us um as well it's a wonderful experience so thanks for all the hard work and appreciate that and um what we're gonna going to do here is give the opportunity of each board member to hear what you've said think about it and at a one of the next couple of board meetings we will take this up for a vote but we really appreciate all the work that you've put in and um and and and the the input from the community I'd also like this uh to take this time for those listening to if you have thoughts on this issue to write to us at board at tacoma.k12.wa.us and that'll give us an opportunity also to hear from from others that might not

054have answered the survey but um anyway we really appreciate you and you are awesome representatives of the hilltop region and we're thrilled to have you here tonight thank you thank you so much thank you all right so now up item number eight staff report to the board number 8.1 strategic Benchmark monitoring report Partnerships volunteers and organizations yes thank you director Scott Thomas for sharing this evening we look forward to the monitoring report all right good evening uh board of directors Beloved Community my name is Amanda Scott Thomas I'm the director of the Community Partnership office and I come before you about twice a year to kind of update you on some key benchmarks for partnership we have a plethora but we highlight uh two a year that we come and report and let you know

055what we're how we're doing uh so we'll get started and we're pointing in the wrong direction oh here we go volunteers all right so um as you know um and have been paying attention the last couple of years um the pandemic hit our volunteers volunteers number it numbers in a serious way um of course people weren't able to volunteer and so it took us a little while to pick up the momentum for of course Safety First making sure that our families and students were safe and there was incremental opening of buildings and we are back on Trend I'm excited to say that we set a 10 goal uh or an increase of 10 percent for the year and we have exceeded that goal um we were last year we had 2967 volunteers where we stand

056out is about five thousand or five thousand five hundred and seventy one so it's an 88 increase versus the 10 so woohoo we're trending upward volunteers and families are back in buildings back volunteering Our Community Partners have been excellent um and so we're really excited about meeting and exceeding that goal this year for volunteer numbers um as you know historically um about 50 percent of the volunteers for an entire school year usually register because we registered them annually they usually register in the first couple of months of school so September and October is our biggest push for volunteers but what we've been seeing um since the pandemic is that we're having volunteers engage and register throughout the school year and so we had our regular normal big bump in October and September but we had

057another huge bump in March um so that's a time where there are a lot of field trips and a lot of different things going on so we're seeing a little bit more consistency as far as registered registration with our volunteers happening throughout the years not just um the beginning of the year so 41 of our volunteers registered in February and March and April of this year and that's something new and again we we uh surpassed our goal our next steps um in in terms of increasing volunteers and working on this Benchmark is that we're continuing to um not have a really good support system within the office that's helping with us with Automation and cleaning up some of our processes so we're going to continue to keep um the watch users um updated so that's

058a list of in our district who has access to volunteer information and able to run volunteers at the school site when we went through and did an inventory of that list we had hundreds of people on that list we were able to find out who was still active who should have access to that list so that was a great piece of work this year so we've cleaned that up and we'll continue to manage that we're continuing to work with the comms teams they've been supporting us in volunteer engagement getting the word out making it easier for folks to volunteer a lot of our processes have went online though again we do not have a centralized system so people have to volunteer at a school you have to go to a school and fill out the

059form and so we get a centralized system of that's the way we do it and we're tracking that from the partnership office we'll continue to support buildings with family and Community engagement and events and activities it's a great way to engage folks in volunteerism they come to school have a great time participate in one of the family fun nights the paint nights and they're also asked to volunteer so you'll see a continuing increase in our number and we're really hopeful the next priority Benchmark that we take a look at each year I can point um to you and talk to you a little bit about um our former partnership um these are when we say formal Partnerships and this is good for the public to know the district has formal Partnerships and we Define those

060as partners that are either entered into a contract or an mou with the district that doesn't mean that if you have heard of an organization that works with the school district but doesn't have a contract or an mou doesn't mean that they're not a partner it just may mean that they're in an informal partner and they may be working with one of our formal Partners or working in an informal way but we we do track and we keep in a database are our formal Partners um and though that formal partnership database is really um district-wide and our Focus here is around expanded learning opportunities and working with community-based organizations to support students so we track a number um every year that defines um or that looks at those particular organizations as you can see um

061again these partners for this year our number was 61. the other thing that impacts this data is that our partners we bring on new partners every year but we have partners that their mous or contracts expire and then we have some that are multi-year so the number um stays around um in in the 60s usually so as you can see we picked up from last year we had 40 last year we're back at 61 this year and that's for those community-based organizations that support um students and those were the ones that were established the beginning of this school year September 2022 to now September or may 2023 so those are new partners that were established that it fit that ELO community-based organization's student support programs 61 for the year doing pretty good um you like

062to take a look every year about what partnership looks like throughout the district we know that the partnership office is not the only Department that establishes mous and contracts they happen throughout the district um we do a chunk of those and work with a lot with community-based organization but that gives you kind of a visual to see how out of the partnership pie that's how it's split up across the district and who creates and establishes those Partnerships throughout the district um our key findings again I share that these the data that I shared with you reflects new Partnerships or the Partnerships for this year um we've implemented again we're always trying to make things easier for our constituents and stakeholders and community-based organizations to partner with the district um that we have an open door

063policy but it's not always easy for people to find a pathway to partnership and be directed in the right place so we have implemented an online partnership intake form so when somebody comes to the website how to partner with Tacoma Public Schools there's a link to say yeah this is uh who I am this is how I would like to partner and we're able to filter those applications or those intake forms to direct things to Green trike if it's more of an ELO after school program that fits beyond the bill or for something that we would support or help to establish an mlu might service high school students and we know beyond the bell and school Beyond is for middle and elementary school students so there are lots of Partnerships that come in and we're

064kind of the uh liaison and filter those and and support people in establishing those um we've ex established 10 external extended or expanded learning opportunities this year through mou and um the Esser funding so I'm really excited about what the Esser funding allowed us to do um our department usually seeds out of our budget a couple of community-based organizations small community-based organization expanded learning opportunities because we got some Esser funding I had some Partners In The Pike that have already been delivering great services and Esser was allowed to enhance some of those programs and expand and then see some new programs um so this year we have Alpha kalpa Alpha sorority they've created a mill program at Steph Safford Elementary we had proyecto mole which is a mentoring Organization for Latino Youth and Young adults

065as a long time partner that has been doing good work without any funding from the district so we were able to support some of that work we had rock paper scissors foundation and they did a social and emotional learning trafficking sex trafficking prevention and mentoring program at our middle schools at a couple of our middle schools we had big homie Ministries International they did an after-school program for students to engage in anti-violence counseling and gang avoidance that was something that was able to be seated by Esser funding we had uh Dr push gains push Inspirations he was able to provide a social emotional curriculum and character development program for middle school students through an after-school tutoring and mentoring program we had money verse which was Financial education done at elementary middle and high school at

066the high school level for students Bill to lead an organization that's a community-based organization run by a person of color as well offered social emotional learning and leadership development workshop and activities for middle and high school students we had El Camino which is the Multicultural Center they provided education in early intervention for students at risk of drug or substance abuse and then student connections was a peer-to-peer tutoring counseling program they had offered free academic support and consistent academic Role Models this was created by two students and we were able to support that and then kid Vantage which was a formerly Eastside baby center we were able to work with them to provide Early Learning supplies basic needs for infants for some of our families so those are some of the Partnerships that were just established

067this year super proud of the work that we were that we were done we usually established anywhere from four to six new expanded learning opportunities but with the Esser and just with the community engagement we were able to do 10 this year so I'm happy to report on that next steps we'll continue to focus on partnership around the district goals and Benchmark data so everything we do supports um the Strategic goals of the Benchmark around family and Community engagement and also Partners supporting Student Success those are the strategies and benchmarks in the partnership office will continue to develop the partner portal a platform for partners to access data that's still ongoing it is a machine uh that we are working on and with all databases and systems it takes a while for things to really

068you know work like a well-oiled machine we'll continue to work with the contracts office to refine and report on elos and student and family support partnership data the reason this is interesting and key is because when we have so many people throughout the districts establishing formal Partnerships they don't always check the ELO box where they might be establishing an expanded learning opportunity so we work with Dr Garcia we got our definition for expanded learning Unity so it's going to take a little bit of a learning curve for everybody to understand hey when I do this mou or contract this actually um does qualify as an expanded learning opportunity and that will be in our partnership data that will be able to report to you um also um just to give you a heads up um

069uh myself and Victoria keys from the partnership office are going to be presenting at a National Conference in DC or now Atlanta this summer it's the nwea which um that project that we got grant funding through the gates project and we created those family engagement model modules they invited us to come and present about our process and about the module so we'll be doing that at the end of the month so we're excited to share that good work partnership is working to support again the city-wide summer late nights um and continuing to engage the faith in social service provider Community um this summer we do have a meeting with some of the folks that we met with during the school year to brainstorm and strategize and get a head start on this upcoming school year

070um and so those are our next steps I keep going backwards that was it and but while I have the microphone I wanted to um also talk about a work um or a partnership um and some Community work that we've been doing so as it was acknowledged earlier this month is Juneteenth um June 19th we'll be celebrating uh Juneteenth in our in our state and in our country um the district has um uh will have a HR table at uh Juneteenth event that's taking place at Stewart Heights Park um it's called the juneteen celebration road to economic freedom it's a all-day event we'll have an HR table out there will be in community but I did want to Hype up and let make sure everybody knows and was able to come out we're having our

071first ever Miss Juneteenth scholarship pageant and program so um we actually have seven candidates five of those candidates or TPS students we opened it up around the county and we got five TPS students to participate we're super excited the first place winner will win a thousand dollar scholarship the second place winner a I think it's a 700 scholarship and then um or it's the first runner-up and the second place winner will win a 500 scholarship but we've raised enough funds from community that have been buying ads from the program and then just gifts from colleagues and supportive community that every girl that participates will walk away with a scholarship thank you so please come out and uh join us if you want more information it's juneteenthwa.com is where you can find um information about the

072event and the day but we want to support our young people and I just appreciate the district's support and always engaging in community events and just walking the talk um but we'll see you hopefully all on June the 19th to support our young ladies Amanda as always a very full report does anybody have any questions have any questions well I have one quick question yes because I can't remember I know you've told us before but yeah I think that's the theme of my questions tonight um is that when on slide seven yes um there's and I feel like this was a data input there was something about software but that's why I can't remember so in 2020 to 2021 there's that jump from the previous year from 127 to 366. and then clear that so

073could you talk a little bit about why there those numbers are the way they are yes so user error it was um how we were counting the Partnerships that um Josh told me like get all the expanded learning opportunities use the database and we were counting on Partnerships that actually were not they were Partnerships but they were not expanded learning opportunities so what you see right there is kind of a fluctuation in definition and defining the data that we were providing for you and so it was just a larger number because it was they were actual Partnerships but they weren't elos thank you anybody else have any questions thank you as always Amanda great job and thank you to your expanding team yes thank you a shout out to Victoria and Wren I appreciate them

074and good luck next month and presenting all right and I have flyers for anybody yes you can put them on the back table okay people can get them on the way out all right thank you so much all right moving on to item number nine members of the public wishing to address the board school board members encourage public participation your civil input is appreciated board members will not respond to your comments during the meeting the superintendent or a designee will follow up with you after the meeting if action is needed instead of speaking at a meeting you may also send an email to to the board at board tacoma.k12.wa.us and please contact the board office in advance of a meeting for disability accommodations so as many of you or maybe all of you by now

075know we have two ways to interact with the board you can write as we had just said an email ahead of time which we all read before the board meetings and so that is the um written comments and you'll see on the uh on the on the agenda that there are some individuals that have done that and then the first option or the other option is verbal comments and I saw several people filling out blue cards tonight so I'm going to turn this over to our general counsel and he will read the first tell you how to do this and then he will read the names yes thank you uh public comments proceed under board policy 1430 under 1430 the board president May interrupt and or term make comments when the speaker exceed the time

076allotted or when comments are abusive obscene or irrelevant so we have 13 public comments today so I will ask to stick close to the time if that's possible to give everybody is everybody time to put their comments in uh so our first public comment is from Morgan Powell okay stepped out so uh we'll we'll uh come back we'll come back uh our next comment is and Travis Parker all right we're a little slow take your time oops sorry she has a tight problem I have a knee problem okay you're a great pair I love it we big one good pair we are Dr Travis's daughters this is Beverly I'm Anne Dr Travis had four girls our youngest Sister Lisa passed just a little over a year ago but they're here in spirit Lisa was a

077school principal won many awards our older sister Sharon path seven months ago she was a medical social worker I retired from Bank of America at the pool vice president Beverly retired from DSHS as a social worker the careers we had it was was because of our mother she pressed education we press education with our children all of our children have degrees and our quite successful because of Dr Travis but I wanted you to understand why she would it would be an honor to name the school after her because she pressed poor education many things people don't know about her our home was open to anybody in need I can tell you right now we never ever lived alone we all can time would wonder maybe this Christmas will be for us no Dr Travis found

078somebody that needed to live with that and had to we had to help and then she started uh situation where you had to take your best Christmas gift and give it to someone else we had to learn that and today my great-grandchildren have to do the same thing she went on not only opening up her home she went on to open up the seating program we only got 54 seconds you want to say something okay the thing I want you to remember what Dr Travis was at the hilltop that she stayed when Minnie bled that was gang violence even at her house there was time we would come to 1606. you couldn't get up there because there was how many gang members but she would say to us treat them nice they're just lost right

079now and we did and they didn't do anything to us her nephew was murdered in the churches parking lot his brains was blown out and we thought well now we're going to leave she said absolutely not and so I wanted you to understand that we have a house called the Shalom House okay I'm out of time that's existing today thank you for your time thank you for coming right our next speaker is Reynolda Grant hey Chelsea hi I'm Ronaldo Grant hello Tacoma school board I would like to speak on the renaming of McCarver Elementary um after I received my driver's license I was driving Dr Travis home down 19th Street here in Tacoma I was in high school at Bellarmine and nearing the end of my high school career she asked me what are you

080going to study in college and I told her I wanted to be a nurse but quickly decided against that after I realized that field wasn't for me as we approached 19th and Union I looked over at Key Bank as we stopped at the stoplight and she said to me you should study computers she said one day everything will be ran by computers even cash registers and I thought that was absolutely crazy but being of 1970s baby I learned to respect my elders and just listen and you have to realize this was like 1987 and now everything is what ran by computers we knew why she said that she had vision for the future she said to me this famous statement that she told all of us stay in school get your education because I don't

081want you to have to work hard I don't want you to have to lift anything heavier than a pencil use your brain today I can say her encouragement on that particular day was a vital force in my life I graduated from Bellarmine I went on to Tacoma Community College graduated in 1991 with my associate's degree I went on to Langston University in Oklahoma and graduated with my Bachelor of Science in computer science and I've worked at City University to get my MBA why because of her influence in education today I'm on the project right down the street for Hilltop link extension to make sure that we activate at link extension in our neighborhood why because she inspired me in education her impact on youth goes Way Beyond me hundreds of Youth and adults because she

082went on as an adult to get her education as well has impacted this city and today I encourage you to rename McCarver Dr Edna E Travis school thank you [Applause] our next speaker is Michael Malvo uh hello board and everyone else uh I also would like to uh encourage you to rename McCarver after Dr Travis I was her neighbor for a couple years of eating at Thanksgiving at her house several times I've heard her preach even though Church isn't really my thing um and I can't think of anyone who more embodies the spirit of education for everyone um naming the school after her would be the most fitting thing I could think of thanks our next speaker is Janelle Walter okay uh shall we let's Circle back to Morgan Powell all right so those were

083the speakers who had signed up to speak on the carpentemon project uh we'll keep working problem we'll keep Janelle Walter um we'll move on to the next topics okay the next speaker we have is Joseph Gavin Morgan props five time thank you good evening to the Tacoma Public Schools board and to our community members here in the great state of Washington my name is Gavin Morgan he him pronouns and I've been joyfully teaching social studies in the district for 12 years the last five of which have been at Baker Middle School Baker Middle School home of the Bulldogs it was my pleasure to Pilot this Edge curious curriculum my colleague Jill partrick had already introduced me to the dbqs document based questioning a strategy that strives to help teachers help students read smartly and think

084and write clearly with educational documents and teacher development so they jump to edu curious inquiry-based learning was smooth inquiry-based allows students to explore and ask questions of the world around them there are some of the questions these are some of the questions that our seventh graders explored this year what decisions and whose stories Define Washington State how can dams in Washington serve the common good how does innovation impact communities in Washington and how are people in Washington connected to each other and to the rest of the world in the poster summative in the first unit connected you can see how students communicated their learning about how apples Aviation salmon and hydroelectric dams connected us to each other and to the rest of the world through the use of interactive community bulletin boards and I will

085show those in a minute imagine how impressive how 30 of these interactive community bulletin boards would look hanging around Baker Middle School exploring these questions helped our 7th graders develop critical thinking and problem solving skills the edge of curious curriculum also aligns to the standards and the C3 framework of college career and Civic life it is exciting watching my students learn history geography economics and Civics through inquiry-based research evaluating primary and secondary resources including multiple perspectives for evidence it is rewarding to watch them collaborate come to consensus and then process press forward with sharing what they've learned with the community as in the examples provided earlier it was also extremely rewarding to watch my students learning about the Puyallup tribe and whose ancestral lands we live not only does the Puyallup tribal inquiry work validate

086the many tribal students in my class it also allows me to comply with this since time immemorial requirements which helps us increase racial equity in our schools I would like to express my gratitude to Nicole Everett the K-12 social studies instructional facilitator who skillfully and gracefully facilitated this pilot and to Ryan Whitlock and Robin strong my Uber dedicated Washington State History partners in crime from Hilltop Heritage and Mason respectively we joyfully spent many hours together collaborating to tailor this curriculum to most effectively and efficiently meet our students needs and I have six seconds fantastic interactive bullets and Boards QR codes um people walk by could scan the codes interact write on them ask the kids questions it was fantastic so thank you our next speaker is Ryan Whitlock um good evening to you members of

087the Tacoma school board and Community my name is Ryan Whitlock and I am currently the Washington State history teacher at Hilltop Heritage Middle School this is my third year teaching the course and I hope I'm given the opportunity to continue this journey next year during the first year I developed my own course content independently the second year I attempted a different pilot and this year I was able to Pilot the educarious curriculum I am here today in support of the adoption of the educarious social studies curriculum for 6th 7th and 8th grades as a project-based learning curriculum students are encouraged to embrace inquiry they are inspired to dig deeply into topics tailored to our state and region with a wealth of inclusive and varied resources articles videos treaty transcripts podcasts infographics Etc these resources build

088on the funds of background knowledge our students already possess creating connections between self and community students are afforded opportunities for rigorous reading and writing throughout and multiple modes with which to demonstrate their understanding of the priority standards from this curriculum students have learned the major industries like Aviation and agriculture that connect Washington State culturally and economically across the globe how our state history is the product of the many voices of indigenous people immigrants and early settlers and the importance of considering the common good when planning and developing major public infrastructure projects throughout this year I have seen students find their own unique interests in the story of Washington state for example learning that Boeing is one of the largest producers of aircraft and other Aviation and Aerospace technology in the world inspired one student to

089design their own airplane I also have no doubt that the majority of my students will remember that Washington produces over 12 billion apples each year they were fascinated by apples I have also seen students who would normally be content to turn in an essay and never talk to another Soul get up in front of their peers and discuss the key features of the Stevens treaties it was a student's line of questioning that taught me how immigrants were able to send money back to their families in China in the late 19th century as an educator I find Value in giving students voice and options with rigorous content work edu curious does this I strongly recommend the adoption of the mid-level educarious curriculum for social studies thank you for your time all right our next speaker is

090Arthur Perkins Klein all right good evening school board and fans of the school board my name is Arthur Perkins Klein I'm a middle school social studies teacher I teach sixth grade social studies which is ancient history and I'm also here in support of adopting the educarious curriculum I'm not sure how many of you remember your ancient history social studies class but um getting students to buy in do connections on how it actually you know applies to their life is almost impossible and I thought that until I became a social studies teacher and then I got to experience this curriculum from the very first lesson that we did I could tell that this curriculum was different it was supposed to be a 30-minute lesson investigating the remains of some early humans and it turned into a

091three-day lesson of inquiry where the students tried to just find out exactly what happened to these people which was fantastic I wanted to stop it because we had other things to do but I couldn't stop the inquiry um so this is a project-based learning curriculum as my colleagues have just let you know and the first thing we did was a project based on food instability in our community and this is something that was very close to home to the students at Hilltop Heritage um further on WE focused on issues that indigenous communities across the world face and we had similar posters the ones that you just saw with the QR codes where students were able to research their own issues of choice and share that information with the school through posters we also had a

092few debates about the best form of government I had my face put on a poster that said dictatorship so that was fun um and then most recently we did uh debates on the most influential candidates of the Islamic Golden Age the all-time winner was Fatima who helped create the first University in the entire world in fact not Health she created it and it is still around today so um let's see I got a minute left nice so edu curious as a company has been incredibly involved in our work uh with us and anytime we've had an issue or needed some adjustments they have worked on that gotten us the materials and so partnering with this company I think would be an excellent choice for the students the staff and everyone in Tacoma Public Schools thank

093you okay moving on to our next topic our speaker is Kristen Hall foreign school board members thank you very much for the opportunity to speak tonight my name is Kristen Hall and I have a distressed TPS high school student over the past few weeks rumors of significant impending changes to the grading system have been circulating these rumors which originate from teachers include the following one TPS will be switching to what is known as standards-based grading two the grading system will change to a numeric system ranging from one to four three teachers have stated it will be impossible to achieve a four thus a students will be downgraded to a B on the traditional GPA scale and for this change will occur starting in the 2023-24 school year these rumors appear to have a basis as

094the school board is set to approve revised policy 2420 which provides broad authority to the district to implement significant grading changes while the term standards-based rating is not used in The District's proposed policy the bulleted items described in the policy mirror the principles of standard-based grading the Optics are bad it appears as though TPS is quietly making policy changes to fundamentally change student evaluation without informing constituents why hasn't this policy change been communicated in the agenda from your May 18th study session on grading there's a presentation discussing TPS grading policy the presentation includes the two opportunities that the parents have had to comment on grading a listening session and a family survey I took the survey the questions did not suggest such a major shift in assessment practices was coming the family survey had 2

095469 responses TPS serves about 28 000 students assuming a one parent to one student ratio about nine percent of TPS parents responded in no way can the results of a survey with such a low response rate be considered valid as the number of respondents is too small to accurately represent the opinions of the TPS parent base yet these results are being used as evidence that families have been engaged and supportive this is bad science and bad governance improvements in the existing system can surely be made my expectation however is that my school system will communicate explain and justify any proposed changes to existing grading policy and provide an opportunity for parents to have their questions addressed I thus asked the board to postpone voting on revised policy 2024 2420 until all stakeholders have been engaged

096and the rumors dispelled thank you our next speaker is Amanda O'Halloran um good evening school board members and District Representatives my name is Amanda O'Halloran and I'm attending the board meeting this evening to also discuss my concerns regarding revised policy 2420 which is titled grading and progress reports I understand that the district is asking the board to approve revised policy 2420 at tonight's meeting I also understand that pursuant to this policy the district is planning to implement a new grading system in Tacoma Public Schools referred to as standards-based grading as Kristin explain standards-based grading will it's a significant change to our long-standing grading policies and reportedly will involve eliminating student gpas and converting to a new system which grades students on a one to four scale well there's been some mention of the district sending

097families a survey and conducting listening groups regarding these grading practices it doesn't appear that the district has really fully informed the constituency or been fully transparent with respect to the intentions behind instituting this new grading policy and also it's worth noting that the revised policy 2420 is also very vague on this point it does not mention standard based grading however I have children at Stadium High School and many Stadium High School teachers have shared with my children and other students that they do in fact intend to impose or in Institute [Music] standards-based grading and so it's disconcerting I think to parents I can speak for myself and other parents I've talked to that this information regarding this very significant policy change is being shared by teachers to students but we as families aren't receiving the

098information directly from the district um so instead of approving revised policy 2420 this evening I'm requesting that the board encouraged the district to provide parents and families and community members with a fair and open process to learn to learn more about the policy we want to learn more about what standards base grading means and what the impact is I would recommend that the district put information on the website that clearly defines the proposed policy I would recommend that the district hold meetings to answer parent questions and I'd really like to hear a discussion about how adopting this new grading system may impact students at various levels because clearly you know standard based grading on a scale of one to four is going to impact an elementary student more severely than they would it would impact

099a high school student and I think there's just a lot of issues to to address and questions about how this is going to impact College admissions how it's going to impact grade points and so I'd really ask if you could just create a fair process so we could all learn more thank you our next group here is Tamara Jones um thank you madam president members of the board my name is Tamara Jones she her pronouns I'm here also speaking on policy 20 24 20. um I am a product of Tacoma Public Schools I am a very proud fast graduate class of 95 a few minutes ago and I am very proud that my daughter nieces and nephews will also be products of Tacoma Public Schools I don't have a position on standard-based grade grading or

100the actual policy because I simply do not have enough information I have lots of questions am I asked to the board tonight similar to those who went before me is that we simply slow down there's a lot of process questions as a public servant who works in public policy in the last five years there's been a great shift of stakeholders expectations to be involved in decision making nothing about us without us this does not seem to be happening I was really excited to hear the McCarver Community update earlier and hear how extensive the community involvement and stakeholdering was because unfortunately I have less after a long list of where Tacoma Public Schools hasn't done that whether it's from the Stanley playfields Bryant Community involvement in the new building and the list goes on and on

101um lots of questions my daughter at stadium participates in college in the classroom we don't know how this change would translate to grades that the colleges are giving them for this work if this feels like just another thing the they've already spoken I'm going to skip on things that have already been talked about um one thing that when I started talking to teachers about this the comments that I received is they've submitted right in writing comments those were supposed to be publicly posted they said when they went through the website none of their comments were posted from any of them the only comments that seem to be posted are those that are in support of the policy change that's concerning so again there's a question of why now a core principle and change management is

102to not to make multiple big changes at one time we know our teachers and students have been through a lot of change in the last three years our teachers are stressed to the max next year TPS we are already rolling out social emotional learning curriculum it's important coming out of the last three years it's needed but this feels like an unnecessary another change that is to something as radical and simple fundamental as our grading system so again my ass tonight is simply that we slow down we allow for more Outreach we get more input from teachers and parents thank you foreign our next speaker is Penny Kramer good evening my name is Penny Kramer and I am speaking to you tonight as the president of the Tacoma Education Association about the revisions to board policy

103uh 24 20. while many Educators have been involved in the revision of this policy there are a few concerns that may not have been addressed regarding our collective bargaining agreement in section 41 it states quote the teacher shall have the authority and responsibility to determine grades and other evaluation of students end quote there is some concern that the first bullet point under the grading practices headline limits the rights of the teacher to determine the grades because the grading scale will be determined by the district that bullet point reads based on District adopted standards the district will establish consistent grading scales at the secondary elementary levels first of all for those of you who don't know teaching is a performance art it is not only about being an expert in your content area it's about building

104relationships mostly and then learning the skills to know how to deliver the content how to assess the learning and revising and reteaching over and over again so that each student can access learning at whatever level is needed for their individuals needs and skills it is one of the most difficult jobs to do well and as you've heard we have many Educators who are doing a fantastic job of it now for our main concern if the grading scale is the same throughout the district and the weights of the categories of classwork within the class are determined by the district then the individual teacher does not have the right to determine the grade teaching a performance art is practiced by skilled degreed professionals who differentiate for each class and each student that they teach because of this

105we urge that the implementation of this policy not include setting consistent percentages for the summative and formal assessments within the classroom here are a few examples why this is important in Socratic seminars participation is a part of the curriculum and the process of learning in music classes if a student is not participating in their performance-based class they may be able to just demonstrate their individual Mastery but their lack of participation affects the learning and the progress of The Ensemble as a whole in multilingual classes these are often targeted focused on targeted support for other class contents and participation is essential for progress while I see that the word generally has been included in this policy it's important to leave these decisions to the degreed professionals I represent the over 2000 members of the Tacoma Education

106Association and on their behalf I extend an offer to partner with District leadership on the implementation of these grading policies policies if they are approved so that our Educators can continue to meet the needs of students thank you our next speaker is Michael Green good evening everyone my name is Michael Green I'm coming to the school board as a higher Tacoma Public Schools educator with a rights and a parent of two students enrolled in the district with the rights because my rights as both are being damaged by the decisions of the Tacoma Public Schools and a handful of its employees and both my livelihood and my character are being attacked I'm first asking for your help from you leaders before I seek help from the American civil liberties Union legal counsel and the local press

107among other organizations why such strong language because the district has placed a de facto restraining order on me without Merit I have been told not to have contact with my child's teacher sounds terrible right I must have done something awful right be careful not to instantly criminalize me did I break any laws or rules no am I banned from the school's campus no but for unjust reasons I have been told I can no longer observe or volunteer in my child's classroom this stems from a student conference in the fall in simple terms the teacher told me my child was acting up and I attempted to schedule a class observation the teacher was a reluctant to allow this and only allowed it when I got the principal involved this is a major Point she never wanted

108a parent in her classroom observing she never wanted me there at the classroom observation I was not pleased because I did not get to insert observe any instruction and that was the primary area of concern mentioned in the student conference that my son was struggling during her instruction all I got to observe the whole time was students doing one-on-one testing and students doing desk work independently so I'm left in the room watching my son the teacher the adult other adult giving tests and the kids with a frown on my face part of the time waiting and expecting some instruction to happen and eventually realizing none would take place remember that she never wanted me to observe so the fact that there was no instruction while I was there could have been intentional and keep in

109mind that she decided on the date and time period that I could visit why do I make this accusation because this teacher has continued to take steps to keep me from seeing her teach my son and be in the classroom without justification she just never wanted me in there in any real or perceived actions from me incur occurred after this dance had been taken already by her after the observation I attempted to schedule another one another observation for my child in the instruction environment to see how he and my teacher interacted because besides the misbehavior mentioned in the student conference by the Fall I was getting more and more reports from my son about the teacher treating him unkindly and unfairly was there any Merit to that maybe maybe not but I have the right

110to see for myself and have the opportunity to attempt to evaluate the interactions between my son and someone that spends several hours a day with him whether they maybe a babysitter family member coach or teacher but I've been denied that right Administration told me I could not visit the classroom anymore let me jump to this parallel nowadays if you say you're scared of someone you can often get away with hurting them so that because this teacher says she's uncomfortable with me she's leading Administration to hurt me something needs to be done and you'll be getting this full information very soon okay uh finally circling back to Morgan Powell and to Janelle Walter okay that concludes uh verbal comments for this evening thank you everyone for coming this evening and for listening to each other that

111was all right moving on to item 10 on the consent agenda I move to adopt the consent agenda it's been moved and seconded any comments or additions or subtractions from the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor say aye aye the opposed the abstentions okay agenda consent agenda passes five to zero okay moving on to item number 11 policy matters um 11.1 second reading of revised policy 24 20 grading and progress reports and I see the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning Zeke Edmonds coming up to the podium and I know Ezekiel we're listening so you've heard some of the comments and I know that we've had some letters to the board that we've shared with you and we've also had conversations so I'd love it if you could respond in your presentation to

112um the questions at hand and the confusion um that would be really helpful for sure so we are not going to a abandon at the secondary level the traditional grading system that we're used to a is a minus B plus B's it's still a 4.0 GPA scale um I'm wondering if maybe in our communication the 4.0 GPA scale is part of that thinking at elementary we do a one to four that's developmentally appropriate for kindergarten through fifth grade but in sixth grade we go back to that traditional letter grading system all the way up through high school we have no interest in taking on the colleges and universities and changing all that and so in our system for grading Synergy as our new student information system teachers will be able to go in they still

113pick their assignments all the standards are loaded in there but they're not loaded as in you better do them in this order it's still that teacher making 90 plus percent of those decisions so right now we're working on this assignment I can name it however I've traditionally named it I can assign my standards and then I plug in that traditional grade score so what a kid would see when they log in or a parent or the staff is Zeke Junior got a C minus on this assignment and then over the course of the semester those would add up and calculate into average GPA and letter grade as we've seen historically so there's no change in that piece report cards transcripts all would look the same with no interruption between what a kid might receive let's

114say I'm a sophomore so I've already earned a freshman sophomore year worth of credits I've got about a dozen going into next year as a junior it would accumulate the same way it has historically okay I I just have a question I was wondering so you mentioned Synergy information system can you just explain for those things and who may not know what that means yes so we've been using uh e-school um and another system they may have seen is Schoology we brought on during covid to help us with the remote learning so you can see uh grades and grade book that the teachers put in before we brought in schoology in the e-school system or HACC and that's where we store all our student information so when they go to look up how do I

115contact family all your contact information is in there your health information all your grades and transcripts have all been logged into that and that's our running record that reports to the state so we have to have some kind of system like that in our current one e-school the grade book just we've had it for well I think since 2011 so they hadn't made a lot of updates it just kind of got dated so we were using our schoology system as a live Gradebook and we'll switch now over to our new Synergy system so the thing we use to store all student information and report to the state also has a Gradebook for teachers to use where they go in and uh you know at secondary I could go in there's my first period class second

116period class here's all my students and go in and assign assignments assessments quizzes projects all uh teacher discretion um if we do move forward with adopting a change to a policy does that also change the resolution attached to that policy or would we have to have another ability to change the resolution attached to upon the regulation regulation resolution we'll do one thing at a time right here because I was trying to keep track of it all because once um the parents started talking I really wanted to understand was it a resolution was it a regulation what was I missing and does that change when we change a policy so yes we will update the regulation in alignment so when you look at some of the bigger bullets that are in the policy for you to

117review the regulation gets into the specifics of how those function and so uh when it talks about uh students having an opportunity to earn from missing work we in the regulation unpack that block step so in in you know kind of taking that to the next step if you're looking at the red line that's when I was before us and you're seeing the the policy is really at this level correct and and so some of the rumors that have been going around are sort of hopping to what the regulation might be correct which isn't necessarily accurate and so I'm I'm saying tonight passing a policy doesn't put into place a regulation it actually sets the groundwork for the regulation which is what's what is stated here correct right so those pieces of superintendent or superintendent

118designated to then lead that work through cabinet here so then who's this on because I know we have a pause review team they go through policy but they don't go through every regulation no so who goes through regulation cabinet produces regulations anyone else nope um there's a flowchart on how it goes from an idea to something written is that on the public-facing website so people can find out it may be in the policy about how regulations are passed but not specifically for this uh for this regulation um it includes things like sending um the regulation for review by principles and like some of these other steps but uh it's it's for all regulations not like one in particular perfect but we do have the authority that was my question right and plus I also I

119heard Penny Kramer um offer or rather enthusiastically and uh that you and you know be willing to work with the administration to make sure that the issues of the teachers are you know reflected um and I guess my suggestion is unless there's a difference of opinion but I'm looking at the grading policy which is what we're adopting to give direction to the superintendent and his team to look at the regulation and I don't see anything in here that is troubling in terms of changing um any of the specifics that were mentioned in the comments so I'm I'm feeling comfortable doing the policy but I do think that if the regulation you know we could always ask for it the regulation to come back to the board you know for for a look so anyway I'm

120I'm just thinking at this point it's really at the regulation level where it gets to that minutia piece correct will that will we be able to request a like at a public meeting to hear about the regulation I do read them on my own but I am not even in the 2000s yet I'm still in the 1000s okay and I skipped around to 6 000 because I learned that I need to know that um so for me I think I'd like to hear back on the regulation publicly when it does go through if that is a possibility legal counsel if you guys could do that certainly a possibility to request okay so um the issue of bringing back the regulation to us and the new ship thank you in January our roles and everyone in

121the community probably knows this but not everyone knows this as we set vision and policy but we don't get into weeds uh detail and that is a job of superintendent and all the staff to do right um but um and backing this up a little bit more maybe we can expound on this a little bit more the reason we brought this up as a whole issue around grading is that there's not the current system of grading that's been going on in the world since the University was created by Fatima in thousands of years ago different ways of grading but not always um Fair let's just say and we know that there's bias standards institutional racism and institutional biases in grading has been going on for a long time yeah we're trying to get away from

122that and improve our system there um I've hear the parents that spoke today the Educators have spoke today I've been we've been hearing from them you know through our contacts online and everything very recently more than prior so I'm hearing this concern around not enough time I think their voice they feel like their voice hasn't been heard um we give an opportunity to the community to partake um 2000 people survey it doesn't sound like a big number compared to what um what our district is um I don't know the basis of or the facts around this comment that was given around negative feedback not being printed on the website I don't know how to uh account for that nor if it's true or not so um but I hear the concerns of folks but I

123want to make sure everyone understands why we're trying to find a better way and a better system to do this and hope you've reassured some folks in the community around the grades and the numbers versus the letters and how that corresponds to people that want to choose to go to Collegiate level work and how that won't be impacted um so I just don't want to think about us doing the minutia work up here but I also want the public and to be nobody's ever going to be comfortable and really comfortable everywhere at all times when we try to make improvements and change so I'm not sure what to how to do this right now I'm not sure if it's time to go ahead and have the vote now and wherever however it goes and then

124later have more information more involvement from teachers the union parents students as the details get ironed out because there are intentionally some general language in this right around the word it's even in here therefore do not generally include gender include but there's a lot of latitude there I know there's similar language like that um so I would like to hear from you and I want to just clarify what what I meant I didn't mean bring back the regulation test for a vote because that isn't something we vote on but it that you would bring it back to explain it for sure to vote on it so I want to be crystal clear about that I mean so anyway so but we so okay so one more thing so the other idea we could have is

125to I was calling this for a couple weeks um or we vote now but I'd like to hear from all of us I think that you kind of spoke to the heart of the reason why it was being adopted for change is to get away from we passed a policy policy 1600 that's an anti-racism policy and in grading practices there are power and dynamic within our school within our district than every school in the nation and even across the world where there is a power imbalance between students and their teachers and there's someone who holds your life in their hands with their grades and their grade will dictate who you become and where you will go and where you're allowed to go and we we touched on that we passed that anti-racism policy and you

126touched on it the way you said it really clarified for me because I was getting into the weeds like you said and that's not what we do our job is to guide The District in the right direction and I really appreciate the way you worded it and it helped me understand and remember why we wanted to look at this policy and it's it's General language but this General language aligns with our anti-racism policy and our Civility and unkindness to students policies and so I feel like we should hear from everybody but I I really appreciate that you brought up the heart of why we looked at this policy can I expand on that to your point we also we're looking at mental health yep like this tied to a board goal in August of last

127year so we have been talking about this for well over a year even before because we were talking about the modifications we made in um spring of 2020 right and that actually was the first time we started as a board talk at least in our my involvement we started talking about the needs to upgrade our policy our grading policy because we knew the policy implements or impacts the implementation and practice and so when we set this the goal around mental health like we were really focused on how does our grading policy impact the mental health of our students and they sometimes feel it's so confusing to be told how we're not transparent that we don't ever communicate what I cannot imagine how many additional ways besides going and knocking on someone's door and saying hey

128this is what we're doing we actively are trying to communicate and engage on a genuine level to do things that decrease the barriers and the systematic racism to increase Equitable Equitable um practices and I just like on a personal level feel really frustrated when we're told that we're not doing our job that we're being accused of not being transparent that we're not actually engaging the community because just there are so many different ways that we do work and continue to improve how because we have like we didn't up until almost three years ago there was no way to engage with policy on the website there is now and if that's not communicated we'd say it almost every single board meeting we talk about how every time we talk about out of policy this is where

129you can find it and I think the thing that we've I feel we've talked so deeply about in terms of mental health is how do students get impacted by homework by grading by the the way that they're treated in classrooms and this is one of those steps for us that we have I believe in a genuine authentic way been working towards something that is um less harmful that actually meets a student where they're at and provides those metrics and the framework to do the kind of work that we are trying to do through our policy and through our governance Thank you Lisa and in addition to that some of you may not know that when we were talking about mental health we actually all of us went out and met with students in classrooms for

130middle schools and high schools with the administration and Zeke was at almost all of those meetings and Lisa was too Lisa Nolan and listening to kids students about what was stressful about grading and what they'd like to see differently about how their teachers were treating them and their their work and what's reflected in here is exactly what we heard back from the kids I mean they were the ones saying we want to make these changes so it is confusing when then we have we hear from from parents who don't understand but I understand that it's just because we maybe in some way haven't communicated what those result might be but that's because you haven't written the regulations yet so we don't have anything to communicate what we're doing today is passing a policy that's going

131to give you a new framework to look at how to pull those regulations together so um Madam president it might be helpful for assistant superintendent Edmund to remind us of of the opportunities that were available in addition to the survey the listening sessions everyone I was at there was at least one educator in the room um but invitations participation uh surveys that went out multiple times and unfortunately we're not able to make people participate in a in a survey as far as opportunities if if you can just uh and on March 9th you shared publicly on May May 18th you shared publicly we had a whole study session on right so um yes would you mind giving us that and then I want to make sure that um director vice president strozier has a moment

132to say something he's like nope I'm I'm done okay so yeah so we started with our first small teacher group in December uh cabinet was looking at Great data through last spring and this fall uh and in part two kind of monitoring what's happening as we come out of covet and kind of realign uh and then in January we started listening sessions with board members at different schools we did most of the high schools half the middle schools we also made it into three elementary schools to hear from uh even down to third graders so that was great we then asked each principal to send us to teacher names uh we could not host every teacher but we wanted to engage them so we had two different sessions and we kind of did a phase

133one in phase two and in phase one it was their input they also had a chance to hear what kids wrote so as you saw and you mentioned the staff members we took notes during those student listening sessions so they could hear from students as well and we did our first survey out to all staff which included teachers as well as administrators based on that we took kind of the big ideas and themes and then drafted up our second survey and in the themes that you saw those are what also went out into the family survey and back out to staff we did a second listening session as we got those results we've been trying to do our best to publish all those on the site both the data from the survey as well as

134the quotes part of the reason we did not put all quotes on there is on the family side I did not commute so in the first round I had sat in the survey we will be sharing these and the second round I did not so uh and I appreciated people's transparency but it probably wasn't something I should post so we didn't get all those on there except for the ones where we did communicate we will be sharing these publicly just to be fair to the participants since it was Anonymous and then in that second round of teacher piece really digging into kind of time out the weeds or that granular level what does it look like if a kid is going to retake and we're not here to let every kid retake every single assignment

135over and over like there has to be limits there is a reality to the school year there's a reality to the workload so those were kind of those thematic buckets that we started getting more feedback on so what would be realistic what does it look like to do this within a week or within 10 days so getting into some of those metrics so that's the content we pulled back out which helped us draft some of this General language and then start drafting what might show up in a regulation but we heard from kids you know we've got a lot of athletes out there people working we heard a lot from the kids about life After High School and so part of that GPA it's NCAA approved right like we're just not looking to change that

136okay so any other questions or thoughts before we proceed to actually do what you came up to the podium to start I'm on your time along that line if you just keep on how the parents their uh input was brought in through emails or text how are they our parents or Guardians yeah so we uh we also have our superintendent breakfast so we did two sessions there was a fall one and uh spring-ish one um so we did listening sessions and those as well for the families that were present and then in the survey uh the communication office directly sent that message out to families so we saw a pretty immediate turnaround for a lot of folks and then we left it open for several weeks so folks had time we've done updates on our

137public site under the curriculum instruction we've done a lot of updates on our Hub and internal staff principals also had listening sessions they've had two instructional coaches have had two at every level so we've same thing kind of phase one big Ideas phase two unpack the Big Ideas um all right so do you want to continue with the reading the item so that we can start I think Malik that's your no no not the Rhythm oh you have to do the you can do the record yeah assistant superintendent the assistant superintendent on behalf of uh general counsel and teaching and learning recommends of the board of directors uh adopt the revised proposal policy 2420. I moved to a doctor okay it's been moved and seconded any further questions hearing none all in favor say aye

138aye any opposed the abstentions okay passes five zero thank you everyone and we will be uh thank you surprises okay so now hang on a second here so item 12 is a financial report District next quarterly financial report is planned for August 24th 2023 monthly financial statements can be found on the district website at https colon backslash backslash www.tacoma schools.org backslash departments backslash business and finance 13 curriculum and instruction 13.1 approval of contract number tsd-23-060 between callow and Tacoma Public Schools from September 1st 2023 to August 31st 2024. the deputy superintendent on behalf of the director of student services recommends that the board of directors approved contract number tsd-23-060 between Kayla and Tacoma Public Schools from September 1st 2023 to August 31st 2024 funding source student services I move to adopt item 13.1 sure moved

139and seconded any anyone have any questions hearing none all those in favor say aye any opposed any abstentions passes five zero 13.2 approval to adopt and purchase educurious curriculum materials grades six through eight for the 2023-24 through 20 30 31 school years the assistant superintendent of teaching and learning recommends that the board of directors approve the adoption purchase and delivery of grades six through eight EduCare social studies curriculum materials before the opening of the 2023-24 school year and the amount of 515 400 including sales tax shipping funding source curriculum instruction basic headphones it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions I just want to say it was exciting to hear that how well it worked in the classroom so that's I do I want to thank the Educators that did come and share again

140like tonight and then last time thank you thank you for helping us right um understand learn through you yeah you guys a lot of times spent on this and the fact that you love it gives us great hope so thank you all right um I know no other comments uh all those in favor say aye aye any opposed passes five zero all right um business matters is item number 14 14.1 approval of the guaranteed maximum price GMP Amendment 4 to the contract between Tacoma School depart District number 10 and absner construction for phase two of the Safety and Security upgrades bundle project okay so we we had a small mistake that we need to just correct amend on 14.1 okay the amount listed there 7 17 million six hundred and seventy one thousand four hundred

141ninety six that's actually the total contract and not the GMP that we're approving that GMP is actually a 180 000. 653 so the executive director of planning construction for the chief operation officer recommends the board of directors approve the GMP amendment number four which states that the guaranteed maximum price for purchasing installation completion of Access Control intrusion detection intercom upgrades and authorizes the superintendent of Destiny two set GMP number four in the amount of one hundred and eighty thousand six hundred and fifty three dollars excluding sales tax yeah if I could have one thing in the agenda item for this item uh they do have that 18653 noted correctly and properly contextualizing it with the 17-4 being the total amount so the actual item itself has the accurate information yeah so before we move it

142and second in um Tracy I just want to make sure that this is reflected in the minutes so and that we get a corrected version of the of the actual agenda so that it's all related from future history all right do we have a motion I moved to adopt on a 14.1 okay thank you it's been moved second and seconded um any comments or questions for Morris on this one okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed abstentions passes five zero fourteen point two approval to purchase playground equipment and fencing at Stanley Elementary School from game time and care of Greater Western Recreation the executive director of Planet construction for chief operation office officer recommends the board of directors authorized superintendent and or designee to expend 454 814 excluding sales tax

143for playground equipment and fencing at stanling elementary funding source Capital project bonds to adopt item 14. 2 been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this one appearing none all those in favor say aye all right any opposed and extensions classes five zero thank you okay and thank you Morris um appreciate you're coming um item number 15. the 15.1 adoption of resolution 2124 a resolution of the board of directors of Tacoma School District number 10 to support the prevention of gun violence yes the district's general counsel recommends that the board of directors adopt resolution 2124 in support of the prevention of gun violence in our community and Country remember been moved and seconded and he comments her question I would just like to say that I want to thank the general counsel and his

144entire team as well as everyone up on this diocese for all of the work that you guys have put in that we have put in over the years but especially recently to work with our Community Partners and really put put out a statement about gun violence in our community because we have lost way too many of our youth to gun violence this year so thank you I think it's important to note that this piece of paper isn't going to change anything so the idea here is that we continue to engage with our Community Partners which I know we're going to do to all take a stand to understand the importance of preventing this from happening I can tell you that the summertime is is near and it's going to be hot so I can tell

145you that the school district is doing our part and we're doing a little bit more Our Community Partners are stepping up and they're going to continue to step up but just know that just because we pass this resolution doesn't mean things are going to immediately stop there's still tons of work to do more work ahead of us than behind us but this is the first step in making sure we keep our young people safe thank you yep director Leon as most people know I mean this is a public health emergency and it is the most common reason children die it's gone violence so it's it's the most common reason in America for death of kids um and for that reason and it's important that we stand with our other partners in the whole Community to

146work on this on this terrible problem and also so folks know that is one of the reasons we are doing the late nights for summer from Monday through Friday from 5 00 P.M to 10 p.m at 12 different locations six of the Middle School six of them high school and every Community around our of our in within our district for Tacoma Public School students to come and find a free space to come where it's you know relaxed and it's off the streets and they have um available ability to just have some quiet time some chill time or maybe play some basketball and that is pardon me and dinner and dinner forgot about the dinner yeah there's food and it's uh so keep keep looking at our website and other places to find out more about

147the details of where that is but again it's only open to Tacoma Public School students you will need your student student ID to get in but it is because we want to keep you safe and so parents um you know you know you have that as a as an option for your middle schoolers and high schoolers so and this resolution is just the beginning of the work that we're all going to do with our community to help change the trajectory of violence in our in our community they oh no no it's resolution uh so we'll do a roll call vote um president aye vice president aye Dr Keating how do you vote hi Dr McElroy how do you build aye directly on how do you vote uh the resolution passes 5-0 all right thank you

148everyone all right we're on to board comments bro who wants to go first I know we have a long life I can do it [Music] so um as many people know I'm the newest person to the board very new um but not so much anymore you don't get to know I am new because you all been here longer than me which makes me the new hot commodity so what I did when I got here on sport I really joined the board to understand the way students are treated in school because that was where I was as a community partner I would only hear about um the student experiences so I spent a lot of time diving into the student policies policy 3000 I learned a lot about what students can do what they can't do

149all the kind of cool stuff but I've been learning about other policies because of my committee assignment I am the Early Learning director rep and today we had our Head Start Federal review uh they asked me a lot of questions these are National people talking about what do we do as porn and how do I communicate with you all yeah they told me that like how are you talking to them I'm like I do talk to them in what way and then I tell them about Quorum and all the rules and regulations on how and when we can communicate that was really interesting because again like I said I'm new so it's like being thrilled on do you know the laws on how to be a school board director and I passed but that's not

150the thing of course you did fingers crossed though our federal Head Start review they were really keen on our Pro our program they loved our parents the ones who come here to present to us they our policy Council parents are amazing our Head Start teachers have been meeting with them the past week and they were impressed with our teachers our staff our assistant teachers even like our janitorial staff and the food services that Willard they were like this place is amazing if I had a kid I would have a kid in Tacoma so I could be a head start here so that was really nice to hear um but then also I was thinking about our committee as a whole um I talked about in our last word meeting I talked about places where people

151can find information in community yes on our landing page our team nights are right there posted but then also at all of the Metro Park sites they've been having these co-create to recreate and I think they say recreate because it's like a rec center but it's recreate and um go to these events and you learn about what's happening in your neighborhood um within the boundaries of their specific like community site they feed you dinner my kids were there they were doing their thing tonight um but also there's a lot of people from the community who just pour in they come for the free dinner and they learn about the services in their community and I really think but what we do here at this dice we don't get into the weed but there are places

152in the community in Tacoma that are really getting into the leads of who we are and what we do and so that was really cool to I got a report back already from one of the parents they're like did you know all these things are happening I'm like yes I told you to go last month um and then lastly just talking about like who this community is and where we come from um I really appreciated learning about Dr Edna uh Dr Travis and the work that she's done in community I am a pill a descendant of pillars of the hilltop Community my grandfather read churches in that neighborhood all of my childhood my father was a gang member who was saved by a church in Hilltop Community because somebody dared to go into that violent

153neighborhood and say I care about you I will feed you and you don't have to make bad decisions um hearing her story in paralleled mine in so many ways and the the legacy of impact um I don't lean one way or another in anything but just understanding who black people are and who and where we come from I think it's really important when we have these conversations about who a person is because the pillars of our community We Come From Slavery and the church was the place that fed us that clothed us and that told us that we were okay and that we didn't have to be these Misfits of society that Jim Crow laws and so many laws and so many people made us feel and so I feel that we have to roll

154back sometimes and imagine who we would have been in 1958 sometimes when we reflect on people so I'm taking taking deep reflection on what we're going to do and who we're going to be but also understanding exactly who I am and who I'm going to be so thank you all for giving me a platform always all right anyone else sure I had I mean there's I don't know there's a lot of really great events we had the TPS Rainiers night which was really fun and I have lost count on how many schools participated and were there but it was I thought 20 or so I'm looking at w Superintendent at least I just remember that scroll on the screen like there was a school after school um and it was really um I'm grateful that

155it happened this year on a non-school board meeting night whereas in the past that has not we have been here while that has gone on so it was really fun to see that and what I didn't realize was that it was also um raising funds for beyond the bell correct did I get that right it is beyond the belt I think we're probably extracurriculars but yeah but yes but not for us but for their program and that ticket sales five dollars of each ticket that was sold went to that and I was sold I thought by Catherine McCarthy that we raised over two thousand dollars plus there was the auction of the um Jersey that was designed by one of our students correct I'm looking I'm looking at it vice president because we sat together

156um oh um but I just like there was pieces of that particular night that I didn't realize were happening or were part of it until we were there so um that was that was really exciting and just to see um so many families and staff were there it was really really fun um and then um I had um attended so stylist had their honor cord um ceremony and then um a couple it might have been five days later or the same week I don't even know um they also had um their uh they call it the senior awards ceremony but they were giving awards also to community members and because of covid there were words that of people who had um contributed specifically to Silas and or previously Wilson because some of the folks were

157honored prior to the name change um and so it was really amazing Xavier Cooper was one of those individuals who was the um the Community member that helped initiate the change of Silas there was a retired Transportation um TPS employee that was just hilarious and wonderful and just there were a number of different people on top of students who were honored for different scholarships and awards that they'd received so just seeing all of not just in one space was really meaningful as we have already started our graduations and next week is the marathon week of that um and then I just wanted to say and of course you know mostly it's just our wonderful staff predominantly in the audience now um I wanted to talk about Pride um and talk about it in two different

158ways um so pride month often every pride month there are people that you know have feelings about why it shouldn't exist or what's the point or um often even far more bigoted opinions about it um and I just want to say as someone for and 12 at least 12 years that have been working with staff directly with families directly on the inclusion and safety and acceptance of lgbtq students regardless of their age um on June food first when the district's Facebook page changed their profile picture to include the progressive pride flag and the history behind that is that it includes to represent lgbtqia people of color as well um was extraordinarily meaningful and I remember buying one of the first TPS pride shirts um over five years ago and I learned from um the director

159of whole child Laura Allen um that we have sold the district over a number of years has sold over 10 000 of those t-shirts and sweatshirts now like six of them are in my house but I just you know um but that and and at the on the Rainiers um the rainers game night I saw dozens of people wearing TPS Pride t-shirts and I go out in the community and I see a number of people I go into buildings and I see people wear them we were at a groundbreaking yesterday and today and people are wearing that as yes as a as a as a reminder right as as a direct reminder and a symbol of you are you are welcome and belonged um and during a time when um the lgbtq community is on

160the number one list of domestic terrorism right now for the Department of Homeland Security against people no the threat of domestic terrorism threat to lgbtq people and the community is the number one threat we and and that that is like so incomprehensible the the level of violence The Pride celebrations are deep grappling with threats of severe violence and there is a point where we we have to as a community and I know we are getting we are better at that at stopping that language and that those sentiments at on the onset and I will say on our Facebook page on the district Facebook page it had a number of vile awful comments and Community mentors came in and said no this is unacceptable not here and I just as as challenging as this month is

161in terms of the rhetoric around lgbtq people and trans people um have continued to reach epidemic levels of threats violence at the same time we are a district and we are a school board that says You Belong you are valued and we stand alongside you and I just want to say how meaningful that is to me um to my family and to so many staff and family members and students who are among the lgbtq community thank you for sharing that she um anybody on this side [Music] yeah I did a couple of couple things uh since the last board meeting uh we did the on June 1st we had the TPS retirement celebration we had some one of our staff members were present and they had been working for 42 years Olga uh 42 years

162on in education long time but a beautiful demonstration of commitment to making young people's lives better everybody who was in that room uh celebrating their retirement definitely were committed to young people and we're glad that they chose Tacoma schools to do their work um TPS night at the rain years I hadn't been to a Randy's game I don't know how long but this was the opportunity to take my kids to their first game and uh you know kids are kids so they got to experience it they got some food some chips and had and that's all that they needed uh yeah that was exciting I got to do college familiars at Jeannie Jenny Reed um which is kind of like uh Hogwarts where you get separated by houses and then you got a fifth grade

163leader leading you through activities that's that's how that's how uh Miss Sloane broke it down to me I didn't make that up but uh fifth grade uh students are are the leaders of this of this for for their younger peers and man it's like I guess this is I don't know this obviously isn't the first time they did it this year but it was I heard multiple teachers say this is the best that it's been like folks who are students were falling in line uh one kid pulled me to the side and said hey I I got this college on my name tag does that mean I have to go there and I was like I I don't know do you have to no I'm kidding uh but it was he was excited to participate

164and at least show me around uh and how things went down so that was exciting to participate in some of those circles um what if I took so many notes here this is wow okay uh I was able to kick off our graduations uh with Willie Stewart Academy uh it was this week um remember which day uh Tuesday but we had 44 graduates that's the most ever I've got some history with Willie Stewart back when it was the re-engagement center in 2014 uh and just to see the growth from 1818 to where we currently stand at 9th and Broadway like the students really uh I don't think I'd be wrong to say that the environment in which they were in contributed to the number of graduate graduates that we had this year just like a

165place to call their own anyway so it was really exciting to see um families fill up that Mountain Home Auditorium I'm telling if we keep going at this rate We're not gonna be able to do it there I mean it was it was packed which is just a beautiful sight to see um and finally I will just share something happened at Lincoln yesterday I mean the Abe's were everywhere tonight so I guess I'll talk about this we broke ground at the uh for the Lincoln Ballfield project shout out to the voters for sure for the 535 million dollar bond that was passed in 2020 allowing us to do this uh something that's very well deserved by Lincoln athletes I can tell you that um our baseball team back when I was at Lincoln uh went

166out to the mud and if it was raining too hard then there was no practice there was no game um our fast same with our fast pitch team our tennis team which my wife uh played tennis would get on the bus and go to Stuart Heights and practice so it's always a travel but to be able to have the level of success that these student athletes have without uh their own home turf is is phenomenal so I'm extremely excited to see what happens in Abe land uh spring of 2024 when folks start to get to get to use these fields so really excited wedding and uh that's the end of my report well speaking of groundbreaking um director Keating and I were at Reed Elementary today for the groundbreaking of the new Playfield which a

167playground area you know and it's part of the Metro Parks everyone living 10 within 10 minutes of walking to a park project I know probably has a better name than that but that's the functional project and so Reed Elementary Stafford Elementary is the next place on the list but um but Reid we got the fifth graders got the shovels out today and we got to shovel some dirt and um hopefully within you know before school starts there will be a beautiful new park there um joint project with Metro Parks Tacoma and the um land the land trust the National Washington Land Trust so I think it's a U.S I think it's the Washington I'm just trying to picture the t-shirts yeah me too okay but anyway so that was a fun event um and then

168so that's um and also I did my tutoring again this week at Wainwright intermediate with the for fifth grader girls who are doing a project on child preventing child trafficking and it has been I think it's my fourth time sitting down with them and I'm just so relieved because they're they're you know really have gotten it pulled together I thought when the first couple of times I was not optimistic that this was going to come out to fruition but they have pulled it together in the end and the presentation Zone next week and their you know for their parents and I'm gonna go Tuesday night and get to meet their parents and and uh congratulate them on the finished project so that has been a fun experience a little I do have a deep deep

169respect for the teachers it's uh you know when you don't when you're not a teacher every day you don't realize how challenging it can be to Corral all these kids and their different perspectives and it's a lot anyway so yay to the teachers um so we are ready to move on to item number seven did you have something here he'd already said no item number 17 announcement over a regular board meetings minutes the meetings June 22nd will be our next meeting right here at 6 p.m and then we have one meeting in July and one meeting in August so June 13th will be the um I'm sorry July 13th will be the one in July and August 24th will be the business meeting at that point so I am going to officially adjourn this meeting

170and then this group up here five of us will be adjourning into an executive session so for this meeting is now a joke thank you