001foreign good evening I'd like to call this meeting of the Tacoma board of directors at Tacoma Public Schools Board of Directors for Thursday October 27 2022. please rise and join me for the flag salute I pledge allegiance to the flag of United States America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Tacoma Public Schools 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 this acknowledgment serves as a first step in honoring our nearest tribal neighbors and partners who have inhabited this region 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 the indigenous
002cultures histories identities and socio-political realities uh general counsel benrow would you please call the roll here okay let me have a quorum okay and could you acknowledge the student reps in the room foreign sorry we're just getting used to be having student reps back on them first win and we had uh here we go okay thank you all right so now we would need someone to motion um to approve the agenda I move to adopt the agenda second it's been moved and seconded any changes or comments around the agenda nope all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed any abstentions we have an agenda 3-0 item number six recognition of staff students and Community 6.1 approval of the recognition of gold star Community partner award to Julia Berg of the Foss Waterway Seaport
003good evening board of directors uh colleagues and Beloved Community my name is Amanda Scott Thomas I'm the director of the Community Partnership office and it is my pleasure to bring to you today our nomination for the gold star Community partner award for October a little bit of background Tacoma Public Schools defines partnership as a Cooperative relationship between students families schools the school district and the greater Tacoma Community Partners are committed to supporting student academic success and the success of the whole child Partners work with and invest in the education of our children and youth whose future in turn will affect the quality of life in our entire Community Tacoma Community when it comes to Student Success TPS recognizes that schools cannot do it alone and in recognition of an investment of time talent and resources
004for TPS students families and staff the gold star Community partner award signifies honor and thanks to a partner who has made a difference by doing what's best for kids tonight we have Julia Berg and her team at the Foss Waterway Seaport they've partnered with Tacoma Public Schools for over 10 years however Julia's dedication and commitment to TPS since the pandemic has been beyond compare Julie and Julia and her team have curated created distributed and taught lessons to thousands of Tacoma students over the last three years after much planning and an awarded Grant she teamed up with the an algae scientist based in San Diego Matt Huber to create a unique Hands-On learning experience both at home and at school for nearly 2 000 fifth grade students around brine shrimp when covet hit and we were
005all unable to participate in field trips Julia quickly pivoted to a virtual hybrid model in order to engage all TPS 6th graders in an exciting science phenomenon Julia and her team designed and built weather station kits that were aligned to our sixth grade weather and climate curriculum and distributed them to every sixth grade student in Tacoma in addition Julie and her team produced weekly video lessons and built out technology resources so that students who built weather stations at home could record their data and a short video clip describing their experiences students who completed the project and submitted whether on whether data entered into a drawing and several sixth graders received valuable prizes and gift cards over 700 students submitted flip rear videos which were viewed almost 7 000 times in 2002 22 and 2023 so
006this school year Julia will be working with us to provide Hands-On Museum and boat experiences to every seventh grader in Tacoma Public Schools along with the brainy Briny shrimp for all fifth graders and a salmon project to 18 Elementary second through fifth grade students we're truly grateful for all of Julia's determination dedication and energy that she has and to put she that she has put into leading these great experiences for Tacoma students and teachers we are incredibly blessed to have her and her team to partner with to bring amazing experiences to Tacoma Public School students at this time I'm going to invite Julia up and Angie Neville who's our curriculum instruction director that might want to say a few words as well congratulations there you go you're gonna take the podium uh thank you so
007much for this incredible honor I want to first thank everyone that I work with at the seaport and those who support us including our Administration and the amazing grantors that have funded all this work over the years and I also want to say how lucky I feel to work with so many amazing teachers and administrators at the Tacoma Public Schools who are deeply committed to creating Hands-On learning and Outdoor Learning experiences for our students thank you all [Applause] good evening I'm Angie Neville one of the directors in curriculum and instruction and I oversee science and um I just cannot say enough about Julia and the work that she's done she is I think I have her on speed dial we've uh called each other on vacations and she's just phenomenal has gone out of her
008way to make sure that our students get what they deserve and uh so exciting to see kids who have never been on a boat before out there and enjoying themselves and getting an experience that they wouldn't normally get so I just am so proud to be partnering with her and bringing this kind of phenomenal experience to our students thank you Julie I just want to thank you and your team too because I know I've actually benefited by going and joining in some of these wonderful field trips and activities releasing salmon uh those you know and and just going out on the boats and and I just see the those students just come alive they are jazzed they are learning they're just sponging it all in and it's it's applied learning so they're learning in the
009classroom and then they're actually touching and feeling it in real life and it makes a huge difference and I just want to thank you and and everyone that you on your team that makes this work happen for us thank you so much and did you guys want to come up for a picture yes we're gonna do a picture real quick foreign Mr Leonard would you be so kind to join them up on stage tonight Mr Leonard ladies and gentlemen is a quiet hero that has been a champion on our partnership for years and so I just want to thank him for his continued service to support all of our kids and partners all right thank you thank you so much and congratulations thanks well deserved okay item number seven superintendent's report whole Chi 7.1 whole
010educator recognition principles we have Dr Forest Greek here to join us tonight um before forced uh starts this off president bomb bright and vice president Keating Dr Stroger I want to remind you last time we talked uh it is October's vulnerability month it's part of our Equity work that we strive to do um I want to take a moment to ground my comments and I think many of the agenda items to move forward with is our definition Equity is just and fair inclusion where all can participate and prosper our goal is for all to reach their potential Paving a path towards meaningful change as I reflected on October I know that there's so much more that we have to do in order to meet those words behind you every student every day and I know
011for many of our children many of our staff it can be a harsh world and so as we close out October and I've had a chance to experience the vulnerability through many of the conversations I just want to let you know that all of our students we honor you all of our staff we honor you we're not done with our work to make Tacoma Public Schools fair and just and inclusive and it's going to take us all to do that it's going to take our Community Partners and even when we have to make adjustments we will make adjustments to do better and in that Spirit it is a great pleasure and honor that we take some time to recognize some whole child champions that are truly whole Educators that fight on behalf of our kids
012and our colleagues every day to make sure that they are seen heard and honored so with that Dr Greek thank you Dr Joshua Garcia and members of the board it's uh my distinct pleasure to recognize our whole educator board recognition for the month of October to our principals our principles are value member valuable members of the TPS team they are the keepers of our vision every student every day and key to ensuring that we serve the whole child principal's lead staff and work closely with Community Partners and families to provide support to our students we look to our principals to guide the culture of each of our schools thank you for all that you do for Tacoma on behalf of Tacoma Public Schools thank you principals and in attendance today uh on behalf of this
013whole incredible group Donna basil and Don Kreider if you can stand up here [Applause] thank you again for your service and continued support of Tacoma Public Schools on behalf of Tacoma Public Schools again thank you I would say that um the unsung heroes who are there every day for our students and our families and um just first point of contact last one to turn off the lights always always there thinking of the kids and we cannot thank you enough the principles are really the heart and soul of every single one of our schools and they're all different as different as our principles as different as our communities so thank you for taking taking on the challenge and we really couldn't be more grateful okay super thank you all right now we have item eight staff
014report to the board and the 8.1 is a benchmark report on safety and discipline so tonight we are joined by two of our staff members Miss Laura Allen director of whole child and Miss Tony Pace our assistant superintendent of K-12 and support so this is our annual Benchmark data around student discipline thank you and good evening good evening like uh superintendent Garcia said this is our annual report on discipline we're going to be focusing on Third and fifth grade discipline as a priority benchmark I guess I'll clicker here I don't know if this is the right way there we go just remind the the board what the goal says it's a health and safety goal it's goal number four that all schools will create and maintain safe learning environments that promote academic achievement with every
015report that we've done so far we've added in the timeline just to refresh our memory on where we've been where we've come from as far as what we've done in schools starting March 16th we closed our schools and we were remote all the way up through September through January to 2021 then in February 2021 we would we had K1 hybrid and 2 through 12 were still remote starting march to 2021 we were all hybrid through June 2021 summer was a mix of hybrid and in person and now start beginning in September of 2021 to the present where we've been all all in person so just refresh your memory where we've been as we look at this data most of this data represents the first year back from all being remote and hybrid so with that
016I'm going to turn this over to Laura Allen who will take us through the data uh key points and next steps good evening you have to make this lower for me uh before diving into the data I want to take a moment to level set that uh for families watching at home and all of us in the room I think we can all agree that the goal is to have safe and supportive environments where students can Thrive and flour socially emotionally and academic we all want the same thing in that the reason that we take a look at exclusionary discipline is twofold one is that nationally it has historically been applied inequitably secondly research shows that in and of itself it is not um it is ineffective in changing behavior and we want to exclude
017some behaviors but not children so uh with that I'm going to dive in a little bit in the data and we'll take time to disaggregate it as well okay so what you see in front of you are some dates on the left hand side and even though it says 2022 that's not this year that was last school year and at the bottom 2019 was a pre-pandemic that's when uh things were relatively normal now the yellow bars are our third graders and we can see that in 2022 our third graders 98 went through the year without any exclusionary discipline and they met the district Benchmark of 97 percent blue bars are our fifth graders and our fifth graders last year 95 percent had no exclusionary discipline which fell just shy of their Benchmark of 96 percent
018another way now we're going to dive into student groups just a reminder that when you see the numbers higher is better breaking it down by student group we do notice that compared to the year prior when we were remote all student groups either stayed the same or declined now the most significant change was with our Native American use youth that declined by six percent for grade five we see the Native American Youth on the flip side they had a positive swing of eight percent conversely the bottom row if I can draw your attention to the bottom row it says frl that is free and reduced lunch and what that means is that these are students who come from homes that are struggling economically and they experienced an eight percent decline in exclusionary discipline and our
019black youth did as well the same eight percent now um while it wasn't compared to last year I do want to draw your attention to the second to the last line our students in special education as they improved um from the previous time that we were fully in person for a year significantly they went from 88 to 97 of all students with disabilities going through the year without suspensions or expulsions that's a trend that we'll see throughout these charts tonight uh key findings for third and fifth grade third grade met the district goal of 97 percent um third grade for third grade nine of 12 students uh Metter exceeded that goal for fifth grade it was seven of Thirteen students now um I just want to remind everyone that last year was challenging for many
020of us that while we were back in person it was far from normal um many staff and students were quarantined sometimes repeatedly through the year which meant a lot of loss of being in class time um short staffed students had to endure the day were in a mask and teachers had to teach through masks and just that stamina of being back in person but given these challenges we were remarkably in line with pre-pandemic data and in fact improving upon pandemic data almost entirely two areas I need to point out that are in the appendix but are not being shown exclusively here tonight let's just click to slide 10. okay well we sure can let's just jump right to where we have to continue to focus our work I don't have the slide numbers but I
021believe right slide to be at so slide 10 starts to show or excuse me the slide that in there if we look at 2018 2019 which is our full first full year pre-pandemic and where we are unfortunately continuing with the national Trend you can see black African Americans had 68 meaning 68 of black students were not excluded and you can see in 2022 82 percent we still have a very significant disparity between the all group and black students 18 percent of our students are being excluded if you go to the next slide in grades eight you can see 69 percent were not excluded pre-pandemic and 2122 we still had 25 percent of our black students experiencing an exclusionary practice if we go one more two more sides to the ninth grade we can see that
022similar trend of disparities between the all group and several other categories and so Miss Allen and the team have been working hard to unpack what are the support systems that we have in place where are they working unpack the data to see are the same students being excluded is there different students working with individual schools part of their continuous achievement plan when we can go back up to the next steps let's do your thunder but I think it's very important that you know typically we look at our priority benchmarks um and oftentimes in the the appendix data there's data that says very similar to what we see in the priority benchmarks unfortunately in this Benchmark we're not seeing that same trajectory and the other grade levels and so we need to pause we need to
023be explicit about it and then we can talk about what are our next steps yes so for next steps um we know that when students feel that they belong that they're connected and respected that they can Thrive and so uh this summer all administrators all staff were trained in restorative practices we do circles not only for students to build relationships with other students but also with staff and amongst staff even at the district level we use circles to go deeper um Elementary social emotional learning curriculum has been adopted for a few years now we do now have a last year we adopted the secondary social emotional learning curriculum and all staff and all administrators were trained on that curriculum now when we look at disaggregating data The Continuous achievement process or our cap plan we
024take a look at the discipline data each school does they disaggregate their data they find disparities and then they make action plans to improve and so those go into the cap plan and are monitored quarterly as of uh day to day we also had a protocol for all staff where they looked at that disaggregated discipline data and had a protocol to walk through a root cause analysis we have grant funding that provides Advanced tier supports for students struggling with depression with trauma with anxiety with social skills and attendance as well and we have upcoming PD on whole child signature practices discipline systems restorative practices SEL curriculum lots of good stuff we just finished two days of full day trainings on restorative practices now not on the slide we do have a district work group that
025has assembled to achieve Equitable and consistent protocols from school to school district-wide around discipline also under the leadership of Deputy superintendent Nolan we have monthly Equity questions for all staff to discuss and that's not only at schools that's also every Department in Tacoma that we are creating Brave spaces for vulnerability and growth and as superintendent Garcia mentioned earlier we do have empathy interviews where principals talk to students and hear about their experience at school Street data so given all that I just want to Circle back with one last uh Commendation because we do need to acknowledge the great work from Elise Friedrich Nielsen her team the teachers that teach our students in special education and staff that work with them the families the kids themselves it takes a village it is no accident that for
026eighth grade they went from 69 exclusionary discipline pre-pandemic to this year at 90 percent huge jump and a hundred percent of seniors went the entire year without any exclusionary discipline that takes a village and that takes effort and intention and so hats off to them for that thank you thank you does anyone have any questions for either Laura or the superintendent I appreciate the the data I appreciate diving deeper and we are all on board to to reach some parodies in these areas so thank you team yep thank you team okay 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
027up with you after the meeting if action is needed instead of speaking at the meeting you may also send an email to the board at board at tacoma.k12.wa.us and please contact the board office in advance of the meeting for disability accommodations so we have two opportunities to to speak to the board one of them is option one is verbal comments in here in person and the second option is written comments and I know that we I've seen that some people have been giving their cards so I know we have some people willing to speak here in person so I will turn it over to general counsel benrow who will coordinate this process yes we have uh eight speakers this evening first one is uh by Jennifer for Saint Jennifer uh from Grant and Manitou yes
028please you can come right up to the mic there's a little clock right over there sorry president Mom right go you go so that clock went there and you'll hear a one minute Bell and you still have a minute left so I apologize I misled you well it used to confuse people so we now we don't do it anymore because everyone stopped and it was two minutes okay my name is Jennifer I'm a parent I'm gonna paint a picture for you to help understand where I'm coming from imagine you're a four-year-old child starting your introduction to school or your 11 year old transferring to a new middle school middle of the year a 13 year old the same each of them having survived various traumas throughout their life love books and computers or you struggle
029making friends you're excited about starting your introductory to school those emotions you could feel are nervous excited sad scared you name it these are just a few to name that my children have experienced now being a new kid is tough but being a new kid being harassed intimidated bullied and attacked is even harder when added to these scenarios all of my children have spent the last several months from last year to now having this happen they have come home upset scared return to school scared to even return to school skipped classes hid in the bathroom mad or fought me to get ready for school in the morning they feel they're alone they feel they they aren't getting help we've tried everything including filling out forms the Hib talking to admin there hasn't been Improvement the
030school admins are often sitting there very clearly their hands are tied when these kids finally decide that they're done being attacked and bullied they fight back and they're the ones that get in trouble they're the ones that get suspended from school they're the ones that get taken out of school as parents we're hopeless we feel helpless there's nothing we can do I have taken probably about 40 hours off of work in the last three weeks to take care of three kids going back and forth to school trying to figure out what's going on my 11 year old has gotten notes threatening her life my 13 year old has friends that are giving her notes that other kids have given her saying that my 11 year old deserved to be attacked at this point I am
031begging you guys to do something because the discipline that is happening at these schools is not helping I'm ready to yank my kids from school and homeschool as a parent we shouldn't have to do that thank you thank you very much a superintendent would you make sure that someone addresses her issues Mr space can you so um who's next FedEx speaker is Toby tamini from Brian last spring I was honored to be selected by Bryant Montessori principal Scott Munson to serve on the design advisory committee as the parent rep for our rebuild as community members had ideas and hopes for the new building they would share them with the DAC members and we would be responsible for taking them to the meetings taking the issues to the meetings I looked forward to serving my community
032in this capacity my expectations of the meetings and the reality of my experience are in stark contrast there's 45 minutes of presentation by The Architects and designers which leaves very little time for discussion when the teachers other parent rep and I had a chance to speak we were met with hostility by project manager Michelle Jones being told that we needed to have respect for the time of the professionals at the table before the meeting ended I asked for clarification of my role and the process as well as stating that the tone of the meeting had turned hostile and that it didn't feel right two days later last week I was called into the principal's office and told that Michelle Jones and Morris alteridge had decided that my quote participation is hindering the progress of making
033decisions unquote and I was removed there were no specific examples given I asked for them to reconsider as I am willing and able to serve my community and that's why I am here today despite Mr Munson's Promises of community involvement and Mr Aldridge's statements that the administrators would not be the exclusive voices at the executive DAC principal Monson and vice principal Ariel Becker are the sole Bryant voices on the table it's concerning that two administrators who have no Montessori training and have each been with the school for vastly less than two years have the only voices at the table the process has wholly excluded Bryant Montessori experience teachers and staff the people who have served the Bryant Community for years and are most knowledgeable about the needs of our Hilltop neighborhood pre-k through 8th grade
034Montessori School the community has not once been meaningfully engaged in the process there have been no focus groups no surveys no q's and A's nothing from the project team executive team the community has had no real input the DAC of three teachers and two parents now one haven't been even able to offer input being told that the DAC meetings are neither the time nor the place although this is disappointing the good news is that it is not too late I'm asking for this part of you Dr Garcia and the board and urging everyone involved to embrace that it is not too late for us to right this wrong right now the tone is very go go go we need to get the building built with a growth mindset and setting aside our egos we can
035slow down this freight train refocus on our shared values and invite teachers to the table to make sure we are designing a voter-funded building focused on our community and tps's Innovative program we are on the same side and we want the same things we have one chance to get this building that will likely serve our community for the next 60 years right the best way to achieve that is together we must do better thank you thank you superintendent will you make sure somebody connects in with Dr Nolan's gonna make sure that we have a phone number and contact thank you thank you Dr Nolan yeah uh before the next speaker I do feel the need to remind um these are potential future speakers that we do have a policy that governs the public comment it's
036what governs the amount of time it's what governs uh what full comment on one of those criteria is about personally directed comments the idea being that if there's a personally directed comment about a very specific staff member who might not be here that follow-up would occur with a superintendent or any of his designees in that area rather than using the public forum for personally directed comments so what I what I think you're saying is don't use person individual names um in in your comments um if possible because that's something to take up with a superintendent but just speak generally yeah this comes from uh board policy 1430 that just describes what the of the comment process looks like animation our next speaker is Lynn Chadwick can you repeat your name too when you hi my
037name is Lynn Chadwick I'm a lifetime Tacoma resident um and so I would like to talk about an incident that happened yesterday at tollefson Plaza a group of us gathered to for a free speech event at tolifson Plaza the content of which is not relevant to this discussion um according freedom of speech is the right of a person to articulate opinions and ideas without interference or retaliation from the government the Supreme Court requires the government to provide substantial justification for the interference with the right to free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of that speech our event was met with substantial violent harassing intimidating action the vast majority of which were Tacoma School of the Arts students and their principal this is unacceptable completely unacceptable my friend was assaulted her hand is broken
038my other friend had a full water bottle thrown in her face people at work shouted at I was followed down the street by a pack of no less than a dozen angry high school students jeering at me screaming at me lunging for me and threatening me I could not go to my car I had to duck into a nearby pizza place order a Coke and try to bore them to death and thankfully their security officer told them to leave at which point they did um so this is unacceptable don't forget that you made children excuse me it's my turn to talk right now ladies and Gentlemen let's please honor the process thank you please honor the process okay um so we were not there to protest anyone we were there to exercise our right of
039free speech upon which we have a constitutional right to gather in a public forum and exercise our right to speech no one has to like it the students of the Tacoma School the Arts do not have to agree with us we don't particularly care whether they agree with us but they are not allowed to come and harass us they did not need to be there I want to know why public school students children they're not adults these are children why were they allowed to leave school and attend a potentially violent event I want to know that I need an answer and I want to know why the principal was there looking on and I want to know if their parents were notified that they were allowed to come to a potentially violent event without their
040parents probably even being aware excuse me it's not okay okay yeah let's just let's just let one person in time talk um anyway those students should not have been there during the school hour at by any means thank you that is thank you yep hey thank you well I I'm not done because I was harassed intimidating all right okay thank you we have three minutes per person thank you uh I may also have to remind this is another board policy on public comment that um and obviously I hope that this doesn't go the direction but the board does have the authority uh to refuse to accept or to terminate public comment period if it renders a board meeting um unfeasible because of disorderly conduct hopefully we don't go there but I feel the need to
041tell you that as well right thank you so before we go on just please everyone whoever speaking has the mic no outbursts from the from the audience or we will have to shut it down so let's just try and get through this okay who's next yes uh next we have Chris Dotson from Stafford man can we turn the phone off thank you sorry sir go ahead before you start the clock I'd like to ask if it's located for a motion to receive two additional minutes I understand that the board can shorten it can we allot two extra minutes it we usually don't if everyone has three minutes then everyone has three minutes but I'm not sure what I'm speaking a lot of school shooting in Tacoma so I understand that it may be unusual but
042I'm requesting that okay well let's let's just see if you can get it through in three minutes understood and can you um before you start the time can can you also repeat your name again yes my name is Chris Dodson okay so I'm speaking on a shooting at Stafford Elementary on September 29th um I'm a parent of a student in kindergarten there uh I found that to be a major issue that no parents were notified for an hour and 13 minutes until after the shooting uh then when it was portrayed to us it was portrayed that it was an off property shooting I have pictures sent to me while I was in Kirkland at my business uh showing exactly how close it was superintendent would you agree that that's probably about 30 yards or less
043to the back of the room it's a rhetorical question because I know that you want to answer it but I think that that would deem probably a life-threatening situation um not only were we not given Timely disclosure what happened it was reporting to us wrong false it was on property no part of the crime scene tape was off the property uh I followed up with the director of elementary schools Scott Rich the next day as well as the principal Donahue um I don't know why director Scott Rich felt the need to tell me that he had felt it was safe for kids to return to school the next day um the understanding from the public was that this was an exchange of gunfire between a male and female of a student at the school on
044School District property nobody was apprehended no other information was given why would we feel it's okay to send a kindergarten to school the next day he says to me I can assure you our district said it's going to be safe I have complete confidence in that that was on the 30th that was also supposed to be the David awards ceremony was canceled because why safety concerns right but there was no safety issue it was rescheduled for the 5th of October and then in on follow-up email was sent out saying that typically they allow parents to come and join the award ceremony but we weren't allowed to that one because the situation from the week prior was an ongoing investigation safety concern I'm confused we sent all the kids back to school and then not only
045that you sent out an email explaining the lockdown procedure for the next day while they're in school in school saying that two through three is going to be released here K through 1 is going to be released here you sent that email to the exact same parents that have a kid at the the school why would I feel safe why would I put my daughter into that you gave the exact same information to us that you did to the parents who were doing the shooting it's disgusting it's neglect and then after I kept my daughter out for six days because I didn't think it was safe when I did feel safe for her to return she was required to have a covid test to come back for health and safety concerns this is the concern
046this is health and safety right here somebody needs to come up with answers not not the next shooting today right now I appreciate your sharing I understand your your concern superintendent we make sure that he's following step back thank you all right next public comment is from Cheryl angle thank you can you repeat your name like one more time hi I'm Cheryl angle um I really appreciate this process here um I will just mention I'm a graduate of a high school in Tacoma and I'm here because I I attend an event at tollefson Plaza I was a Civic leader in our community I came because I'd been paying attention to a speaker in London for a couple of years who organized Grassroots Speakers Corner they went throughout the United Kingdom and women gathered mostly women
047in a public space to articulate their concerns in their community the leader Kelly J Keene came at her expense and is on a national tour of the United States it's called let women speak USA she is making a documentary the filmmaker was here and I showed up because it's Tacoma because I care about women's rights and children I'm a former Foster mother and raised two children that are now taxpayers I have siblings that are teachers so at my Christmas table I have a hundred years of accredited teacher conversation at the Christmas table it's rich I really respect the school district I love the Arts I was most recently until covet ended my most recent career fundraising for the Arts I feel my peers have been teachers at your school I came to events 20 years
048ago to support him in his classroom I came yesterday and what I wanted to say was um we were outnumbered there were 40 of us and possibly 200 of them our speaker asked the the she saw that the youth come and she said it was looking like it wasn't a safe environment that it looked she was getting a death threat this is filmed so someone in her face is threatening her and she's saying this isn't safe for these kids but there was you know not an opportunity the principle indicated not naming that it was uh he would be in a worse position if he tried to shut them down and I understand that I was a an activist in my senior year of high school and as the Girls Club President we got jeans for
049girls in school we got to wear pants in 1971 but um what I wanted to talk about was my feelings that I've discussed with my brother who's an educator and a football play football coach in this community how scared I was when um we were surrounded and for week made a circle around our speaker and there were two and three people behind me who were yelling and I have never been called a more times in my life in one day I was I was uh bullied and harassed but thank you that's true okay thank you appreciate you thank you speaker is Don land thank you you need me to do it this way hang out before just one second before you start no problem I'm short I always have to adjust just away there you
050go we had a little technical difficulty and I'm sorry can you also repeat your name before you go again yes ma'am shall I do that now yes go ahead um my name is Dawn land um and shall I begin okay um Perfect all right go home you're not wanted here nobody likes you if if phrases like these were said to someone who was disabled or someone of a racial minority the anti-bullying policies of Tacoma Public Schools would certainly ensure that the aggressor face repercussions but yesterday all of this and more was said to me and a group of women holding a peaceful Free Speech rally in Tolleson Plaza we were yelled at spit on had projectiles thrown at us shouted down and were physically attacked my friend April had her hands smashed and broken as
051someone from the mob violently ripped her cell phone from her and threw it as we left the plaza the mob of aggressors followed us spitting jeering threatening harassing doing their best to terrorize us and the majority of these assailants are students from the Tacoma School of Performing Arts and I know this because the school principal made his way through the jeering mob of students from his school and spoke with me personally he asked of our group could end our Free Speech rally at 1 pm so his students would go back to class after lunch I asked him will they go back to class the principal assured me his students would go back to class because the mob was continuing continuing to harass and attack us even threatening to kill and there was no police to
052protect us we did end our rally about 1 pm a full hour before we intended and of course our assailants did not go back to class like the delusional principal assured me I'm addressing this board today to make sure that you understand I expect these students to face consequences some of them deserve to be arrested for their crimes but all of them deserve to be dealt tough consequences for their bullying their harassment and their violence against a group of women peacefully assembling the principal saw his students with his own eyes but his school will have a record of every student who did not return to class in the afternoon attendance records as a graduate of Mount Tahoma High School I'm a product of Tacoma Public Schools and this abhorrent Behavior by these students is why
053I homeschool my kids I can only conclude that Tacoma Public Schools now teaches their students to bully everyone they disagree with if these students face no consequences this will only confirm that Tacoma Public Schools groom kids to hate every single person on this board ought to be appalled and deeply ashamed at what happened in tollefson Plaza yesterday thank you all right um that's where we uh just have first name Maddie I'm sorry one second please thank you okay Maddie go ahead okay hello my name is Maddie I'm also a local and um I was also in the events at the plaza and I want to give y'all a heads up that I will be sending an email with video footage and I um the students that we have been able to identify through social media
054posts that they have made and you will be receiving that from my name um I understand students wanting to let students have the experience of like a protest and being part of that and um like even though I may have some gray hairs I was I wasn't in high school I was in high school not that long ago and I was also very politically active there was a student among all the other students who was really interested in having a discussion they really wanted to talk about it and to understand and that is welcome but and I feel bad for him because he was denied that he was denied an actual learning opportunity if you want to teach about civil um discussion um it was very a very stressful experience to be part of that
055and to see the faces of just you know teens with this righteous anger that directed straight at you they like I have it on video of the spitting of um students trying to take signs and what we're asking for is just a bit of accountability especially towards the adult in the room and we appreciate your time I know I'm a little early but thank you thank you next speaker is Angie may I was a teacher in Tacoma I've been a special education teacher for 10 years and first I'd like to say that I love to see that social emotional learning curriculum going down in the schools I can tell you firsthand that when I made social emotional learning the center of my self-contained classroom learning flourished students flourished it changed everything and I'd also like
056to just make a comment that I'm really proud of the students that stood up to hate speech at tolston Plaza yesterday as a long time advocate for disability rights transgender people are seven times more likely to be autistic and autistic people are seven times more likely to be trans so in Tacoma's mission to be inclusive um I think it's really important to remember that transphobia is not just homophobic it is also ableist and those women are associated with such local hate groups as the proud boys and actually went as far to me as to mace high school students yesterday so thank you you have one last speaker for tonight is April Morrow [Music] hi there I'm a 57 year old woman who's had a double hip surgery I have fibromyalgia I attended yesterday as a
057woman who wanted to speak out against what's going on in the prison system here we have pedophiles we have rapists and we have serial killers inside the women's prison I showed up to speak about that I spent 300 on signs and staked them into the ground I was there as a journalist with my phone on a pod just trying to get the footage I am not a violent person at all when I showed up and I saw the kids up above I thought they have the right to be here that's fine everything's cool but then as everything started and our speakers began to talk the first one they came down from one tier after another pulled out our signs stomped on them picked up the stakes threatened them with us encircled us this was very
058scary I've never been afraid of a group of children in my life I am a teacher I have taught in Tacoma I have lived here my entire life I have never witnessed such violence from children like that I saw people be spit on I saw water bottles being thrown my phone was grabbed and my hand was crushed and it is broken and I no longer can teach dance I was thrown to the ground police were called 23 times telling that women were being assaulted the principal at the school did nothing women came there for freedom of speech and it was shut down by these students we are not a hateful group if they would actually just listen to us they would see how much we care about children and what is taking place and if
059we could just be heard and not shut down I don't want to be afraid to live in Tacoma I don't want to be afraid as a journalist I don't want to be afraid as a woman I have the right to speak in public without being threatened and bullied and pushed to the ground and my hand broken do you not agree I don't even feel safe living here anymore now every single one of your students know my face I have been threatened they were all happy that I was hurt every person I walked by was cheering that this 57 year old disabled woman was hurt that is sadistic thank you I'll apologize yeah it's the end of public comment thank you [Music] yeah the only other thing I'll point out is uh again the public comment
060period isn't something that sort of the rules are made up as we go it's governed by a board policy which is backed up by the open public meetings act so you might as a commenter see that the board isn't commenting between every comment that's uh again not a thing they're choosing to do the board policy governs this period um and so follow-up as necessary with with staff is is typically the follow-up after comments thank you all right there and thank you for everyone who came today to speak we appreciate hearing from you um and so I understand too that we also we have the second option we have to communicate with the board is written comment and I'm do we have any written comment from for today uh not tonight okay so no no writ
061more written comment so the public um presentation speaking portion is now over thank you everyone for coming okay so moving on to item 10 the consent agenda I have a motion for the consent agenda I moved to it up second okay it's been moved in second all those in favor all right any opposed okay passes three to zero item 11 policy matters there are no policy matters tonight so we will move on to item 12 which is a financial report uh the district's next quarterly financial report is planned for November 10 2022 monthly financial statements can be found on the district's website at https colon backslash backslash www.tacomaschools.org backslash departments backslash business and finance item 13 curriculum instruction 13.1 approval of contract number tsd-22-153 addendum number one between Calo and Tacoma Public Schools from September
0621st 2022 to August 31st 2023. the deputy superintendent on behalf of the director of student services recommends that the board of directors approve contract number TSD 22153 addendum number one between Calo and Tacoma Public Schools from September 1st 2022 through August 31st 2023 for an estimated cost of 494 433 dollars funding source student services do you have a motion I moved through dot item 13.1 second it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this item hearing none all those in favor say all right you opposed any abstentions passes three zero item 13.2 approval of the contractual between operation and Tacoma Public Schools for the annual Innovation contract for soda Sammy and idea for 2022-2023 the assistant superintendent of K-12 support on behalf of the director of schools recommends that the board of directors
063approve the contract between elements of education and Tacoma Public Schools for Innovation at soda Sammy and idea for October 28 2022 through August 31st 2023. thank you second it's been moved and seconded any comments or questions on this one all right hearing none all in favor say hi any opposed any extensions abstentions um all those okay it's 3-0 passes three zero 13.3 approval of the interlocal agreement between Pierce County Juvenile Court and Tacoma Public Schools from October 2022 to August 31st 2025. the assistant superintendent of K-12 support on behalf of the director of schools recommends that the board of directors approve the interlocal agreement between Pierce County Juvenile Court and Tacoma Public Schools from October 2022 through August 31st 2025. I moved to adopt item 13.3 second it's been moved and seconded any questions about
064this item hearing none all those in favor say aye aye can you post any abstentions having Health passes 3-0 item 13.4 approval of the JROTC contractual agreement between the U.S department of armed forces the Army and Tacoma Public Schools from September 2022 to August 2027. assistant superintendent of K-12 support on behalf of the Career and Technical director recommends that the board of directors approve the jrot ROTC contract between the U.S department of armed forces Army and Tacoma Public Schools from September 1 to 2022 through August 31st 2027. I moved to adopt item 13.5 4 oh sorry 13.4 second it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments about this agenda item hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any posts extensions passes 3-0 item 13.5 which will look very similar to the one
065we just did approval of the JROTC contractual agreement between the U.S department of armed forces the Navy and Tacoma Public Schools from September 2022 and August 20 2027. this is a superintendent of K-12 support on behalf of the current technical director recommends that the board of directors approve the JROTC contract between the U.S department of Armed Forces Navy and Tacoma Public Schools from September 1 2022 through August 31st 2027. I moved to a top item 13.5 second it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this item hearing none all in favor say hi hi any opposed any abstentions passes three to zero thank you thank you moving on to item 14. good evening Morris uh 14.1 approval of the guaranteed maximum price GMP amendment number two to contract number tsd-22-041 between Tacoma School
066District number 10 and former construction for the pools upgrade project the executive director of planning construction for the chief operation officer recommends the board of directors proven authorized the superintendent of designee to sign GNP number two in the amount of six million 400 and 8 544 excluding sales tax funding source Capital bonds as approved by the voters on February 11 2020. I moved to adopt 14.1 second it's been moved in second um any comments or questions hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed abstentions passes three zero 14.2 approval of donation acceptance from the off from Office Depot to Title One lab to accept school supplies for macarber elementary school year first uh for the school year 2022-2023. the deputy superintendent on behalf of the director of Title One lab recommends that
067the board of directors approve acceptance of the donation from Office Depot in the amount of 58 699 and expenditure of funds in accordance with accepted guideline guidelines and donor intent to accept gift cards gift card funds for McCarver Elementary School for the 2022-2023 school year funding source Office Depot start proud program I moved to the dot bottom 14.2 second it's been moved and seconded any questions or comments on this item here I'm none all those in favor say aye any obsessions any negative okay it's three to zero passes um other business 15.1 adoption of the 2023 Tacoma Public Schools legislative agenda the superintendent superintendent recommends the board of directors adopt the proposed 2023 legislative agenda I moved to adopt item 15.1 second it's been moved and seconded and before we proceed further I I want
068to just say that this is a topic upon which we had a study session last week and um and and I will now turn to vice president Keating who has been leading the uh the path forward on our legislative issues and has worked very hard on on this particular agenda and to see if you had any comments or questions I know because you were away on business you weren't at the study session but we had a very robust conversation and seemed to get all of our questions uh answered by Charlie Brown our contract lobbyists so if you have any other comments or questions I just want to thank um I work really I don't do this by myself I work with uh Josh very closely and um also Charlie Brown and his team and also
069my colleagues and our staff like this is this is a collective effort um and so I'm just grateful to be one of the point people in this effort to advocate for our students all right did you have any comments or questions director Stroger all right hearing none all those in favor say aye no pose no abstentions so it passes three to zero thank you for that all right that's a big lift for looking forward to the ongoing legislative session gives direction to our contract lobbyists for those that are wondering what the heck a legislative agenda is for um among other things all right going on to the board comments and reports and before we turn it over to our student reps who might want to make comment tonight I wanted to open with a bit
070of Joyful news something that which we're very proud about and that is that director strozier ran for election with the wasda the Washington School Directors Association of Washington state um for a position on a committee the inter interscholastic activity commission committee and he was elected by his peers to that committee so we're very grateful for him to dedicate time to a Statewide issue around Athletics and um and other I guess inter Action Sports interactive sporting um issues and appreciate because I know how much time that is for you to dedicate and so I just wanted to um thank you and congratulate you on that uh on that thing yeah awesome um the second thing is I just mentioned that we had a study session a legislative agenda last week and um the other couple of
071things since I'm already babbling I'll just go Um the superintendent had a had a breakfast with parents and principals last week Friday it's been a blur and it was a fabulous morning it was so great to see everybody back in person and just want to thank all the staff who made that event happen I know it was not easy to pull together the meal was amazing and that was I think cooked in-house wasn't it something yep yep it was delicious and I think that the parents were very engaged there was lots of you know breaking up into committees and talking about different topics and I know that the social emotional learning room was packed so I think uh thank you Laura you did a great job on that one and I think our comms team
072they had a packed group talking about you know what we do for communications so I just want to say thank you to the superintendent for making that happen and for the principals who took the time and the parents who took the time to come um the other was the last couple of days we've had some exciting openings uh for so I always want to start by thanking the public for supporting our bond measures and our levees that make education possible in this community and improve upon what what we've done in the you know what we can do with just our state funding which doesn't cover the full cost of by any means and um so we had celebrations of the opening two brand spanking new buildings which is so exciting the first one was Skyline
073on Monday there was an opening for the for the community to come and see the new school and then last night was Downing Elementary so those kids are super happy in their new space and you can tell that they are ready to learn and and enthusiastic and the teachers are very jazzed as well so thank you to the voters for making that possible and to the construction team and and all the folks who who've brought it brought everything in on time and under budget that's you got to love it um all right um I think other than that there's one other bit of happy news I wanted to share tonight and then I will turn it over to my the uh art my colleagues and the and the student reps to make their comments but
074um for many many years Dan vopel has been the head of our Communications Department here at Department of at the Tacoma Public Schools and we have reaped the benefit of his genius and his creativity and all of his hard work and I guess he's he's had a long-storied career in um public relations I started you know he was a he started a career in um in journalism and he worked for the city and he's done just a lot of great work across the board in Tacoma and um so the last at its annual meeting on Wednesday night the Puget Sound Chapter of the public relations Society for America awarded Danville Pell the J Rocky Lifetime Achievement Award and I guess it was absolutely spectacular he just there was so many people were there to to
075congratulate him and they did you know they did the Starfire Center up in Renton and uh and Brad Evans from the X Sounder came and presented Dan with a t-shirt that said he's a Sounders fan if you don't didn't know that and with a Sounders Jersey that said it had a number one on the back in vopal they had his name put on it and anyway it was just a great way to celebrate Dan and um it's just it was great so he I just wanted to mention that because it happened in in recently and I also felt like you know Dan was with Tacoma Public Schools for a long time and we appreciate all the work that he did and then in the same note I'd like to welcome our our new director chief
076of communication Tanisha jumper who's here has heard her second day of work so appreciate you spending the evening with his uh Tanisha so um so that is that is my report today so I will turn it over to the student reps oh any vice president well they we're going to do Student Records first thanks though um so does who wants to go first Malik we're not shy I turned to to and and Corey was pointing I took my I took my instructions from Corey Logan my name is Amanda Peterson and I go to Lincoln High School um just a few updates on Lincoln we just finished our spirit week and our pep assembly and homecoming um all of which were very successful um we sell we sold out on our homecoming tickets we saw a
077lot large amounts of participation in spirit week and in all the events we had at the pep assembly as opposed to last year's Spirit Week another thing Lincoln adopted this new thing we call it homecoming Heroes as opposed to a traditional Homecoming courts for homecoming Heroes so we tried to make it less as a popularity contest and more like okay who are the people in our school who are making an impact and deserve to be recognized so this is like a Microsoft form that we made and we sent out to students where they would write um like some why that person is your hero per se and that turned out really well we announced it on our pep assembly last Friday other than that our ASB is now working on pursuing a haunted house this
078Monday during lunch um on the 31st on Halloween and that's all I love that idea of the the homecoming hero that's that's great thank you um thank you very much okay who's next come on up hi my name is Siobhan uh Javon Smith I'm the senior I got to see me um update with Sammy currently we are working on all Halloween Carnival level planning it should be uh next week on Monday so the first day back of school we're having a little Festival you guys should come to it school gonna have like popcorn and like cotton candy and stuff maybe play a movie some games um other than that we don't really have any major events we plan on having a talent show in the middle of November so that's going to be a major
079thing that we have coming um we will gonna do a homecoming but if we didn't have enough time to like actually buy a venue so we didn't do that um it's mid-tones so the student body is kind of like scared about that because we're having a lot of AP tests coming up and like students are worried about that along with the test all some college apps are coming to an end too so this all senior class is kind of like stressing but like we're all putting in work at the same time too so it's good seeing that um yeah that's about it don't forget you have access to tutoring online in schoology or if you forget it's on the website I don't know if it's 24 7. I think it's but it's like two to
080ten seven days a week so make sure that you just take a breath until all your all your friends too it's like we got help online okay I had one more thing too uh we talked about the lunches last meeting yep that never went through and then I also asked like a couple of like the students that I know on a day-to-day basis something that I can bring to the student board and it was about the food so if we can find a way to improve the food or like nutrition value at Sami that would be very helpful because I'm tired of eating cold peanut butter and jellies yeah okay thanks good evening everybody my name is Lisa DeLeon and I go to Lincoln High School um like Amanda said we just finished our spirit
081week our prep assembly and homecoming which we're all very successful and we've seen a large increase of our cultural clubs here at Lincoln um this year our clubs have jump started because of last year's braces that's full of Multicultural assembly um we now see active poly clubs BSU which is black student union Vietnamese Latino Filipino Tai Lao Cambodian and many more cultural clubs so Lincoln is very inclusive and we are very happy that we get to represent the cultures here at Lincoln and that's pretty much it the wipes always she beat you to it yeah yeah that's good it can never be said it can never be oh my God you're so funny all right thank you um everyone uh all right uh Corey we got a rock paper scissors like how are we gonna
082solve this oh feel free I was gonna just click on you vice president Keating fine fine um I feel like I've been at an event every day since Friday um and the superintendent's parent advisory breakfast was um it was just really joyful to be at and just be with just see a lot of people that we haven't been able to see over a long time a long period of time um and then on Tuesday um I got to um saddle up next to Laura Allen um at a listening session with Congressman Kilmer um at the Multicultural Center um that was centered around mental health and it was a complicated conversation and a fascinating conversation with our local providers Community providers Mary Bridge Children's Hospital comprehensive life resources I'm not gonna remember everybody that was there
083but just talking about what the congressman about ways the challenges barriers and then the needs around providing Mental Health Services and Transitional Care and just the complexities around mental health support so it was a really um I was really pleased to be there and Lord did an amazing job in her presentation during that conversation and then what else um Skylander Downing were really fun and I want to give a shout out to the Boys and Girls Club at um uh Downing and um Jess Smiley is the I believe the director I'm not sure if that's exactly her title but she um oversees that facility there and we got to speak with her staff and they were just um really welcoming and I'm excited to talk to people in the community and just share um we
084got to walk around and we saw the teen room which is super cool and furniture that I want to go lay on that apparently the teenagers like to lay on um but it was just like it was really um it just felt really good to see such a positive inclusive space for Youth and the different programs that they provide in addition to the beyond the bell program so um I just wanted to give a shout out to um the Boys and Girls Club at Downing and then um what was the oh and then yesterday Deputy uh superintendent myself and Kathy Doss got to go to an event up at Lumen field with um the vice president vice president Harris to talk about um the infrastructure um funding around electric buses and just the rollout of
085that recent legislation and so that was a really exciting and interesting event to attend um and then finally I just want to express um to our transgender students our lgbtq students our non-binary students that um you are deeply valued um and that um I am deeply grateful to the superintendent and then the staff and the mayor's office as well who all anticipated the need to keep our students safe safe yesterday as best as possible and protect them um from um harmful views and bigotry and um I'm just really grateful because that is something that I've been personally striving to work on in our community for well over 10 years and that's that just shows me how valued our trans community and our trans students and staff are and it is deeply personal and I'm just
086very grateful so thank you Lisa you should have made me go first yep yeah there was still a chance that I could have yeah I should have dropped the ball there um first of all I'm gonna Echo those comments I'm not going to add to it I'm going to Echo those comments and just know I stand uh proudly beside you as you do that work in any way that I can assist alongside our staff here I'm with it so I just want to make that known um I got some things written down here and an odd order so I'll just start here and say today I got to go to Foss on my way down from King County because Stewart Middle School played against Hilltop Heritage Middle School for the basketball championship and uh Hilltop
087Heritage one um Hilltop Heritage one and I believe their their girls team won last year we were there and raced here to a board meeting so similar to a check on your phones in the middle of the board meeting so that was uh exciting to see it was a pack gym so when I can go into a high school gym and see it packed out for our middle schoolers it really sets the stage on it gives them an experience like what to expect when they move up so it was exciting to watch and it's symbolished man I will say that I got to go to Silas this morning before going to work and it was throwback day spirit week and it was throwback day saw Letterman's jackets I saw bell bottoms I didn't get offended
088but I was kind of taken aback a little bit when I saw some people dress like I used to dress when I was at Lincoln so I didn't say anything I just kind of like huh all right that's I'm throwback now all right um last last board meeting I was able to share about narrative changes and I didn't have a date a time or place negative changes is taking place on the 2nd of November at the people Center so anybody sixth to eighth grade that needs to come by and be a part of some powerful conversations uh I want to invite you personally right now and also any adults that want to come by and potentially serve as mentors vice president Keating is going to be there to our young people that that door is
089open for that as well so because people might not have been here last week when you want to give a like a one second of my script no kidding yeah narrative changes is a is a collective effort by some Community leaders to really help Young Folks reframe what cool is in school so that we can re-change their focus uh to help them make and build better communities within their school building so doing what they can within their power it's all student-led when we come to the ideas of what's going going to happen we as leaders are there just to assist so it's a good opportunity and time the narrative changes will be taking place on November the 2nd next week at six o'clock at the people Center I love that voice I just switched that
090yeah uh finally uh as it relates to the IAC to interscore interscholastic Activities Committee I just need to share how interesting that race got so in 2020 when I first got on the board I was convinced to put my name in the ring you've been on here for an hour yeah on the board I think yeah it was like my first ever and I put my neighbor I don't think I got I didn't get any votes outside of the people that sit up here that's outside of our team I didn't get any loss this time it was a tie between myself and director kid from Fife Public Schools um so shout out to her because we she was at false today and I saw her and we got to have a conversation about the work
091behind the committee so either way it would have went if I would have won or she would have won we would have been in good hands so uh luckily for me I was able to pull it out thanks to her so yeah I'm excited about doing that work and stepping into that committee and you know I love Athletics and I love activities and I understand that those are vehicles for our young people to be successful so if we can have somebody from our team at the table why not me that's it all right anything else before him on all right item number 17 um announcement of regular board meetings you'll notice we have a our next meeting is November 10th that's our next business meeting 6 p.m here in this room and then the one
092in December is December 8th 6 p.m here December 15th the board will be having a retreat at a location to be discussed later so um that is it is there anything else for the good of the order before we adjourn tonight I just want to thank everyone for their patience and um and empathy tonight it's it's it was a it was a difficult difficult night tonight um and thank you for hearing out everyone who had stuff to say appreciate the team that is going to help out those who who had um issues that still need to be addressed thank you superintendent and um assistant Deputy superintendent and all the staff that helps keep this uh this great District running on behalf of our kids all right everyone have a great great evening this meeting is
093adjourned go Apes shoot