001good evening i'm calling this meeting uh thursday april 14th 2022 of the tacoma public school board of directors to order would everyone please rise and do the flag i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all the 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 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 indigenous cultures histories
002identities and socio-political realities general counsel uh renee trueblood will you please call the role yes good evening president bondbright here vice president keating here director strozier yeah director mcelroy we have a quorum and i'm not sure if we have any of our student representatives here tonight okay all right okay um moving on to item number uh six oh five adoption of the agenda do we have a motion to adopt i move to adopt the agenda i second it has been moved and seconded any comments or adjustments to the agenda hearing none all in favor say aye aye on the opposed we have an agenda all right item six recognition of staff students and community 6.1 civic observances the districts general counsel recommend that the board of directors recognize the following state or federal civic observances
003that directly align with the district's strategic plan and we'd like to honor uh as rcw 1.16.05070 acknowledges april 10th as dolores huerta day and ms huerta was significant along with cesar chavez in the civil rights movement and formation of the united farm workers and we are appreciative for her contributions to the labor movement right thank you um and i was actually gonna um just make a comment about um that you know that we these two months in a row i think last month we did cesar chavez and it's um really important i think to think through you know these people that that change the way we think about um the people in our community and the way we interact um and what we depend on for for our livelihoods and how that all works and
004so i um have we are going to hear from director um miguel roy she is going to provide a prayer for us today yeah so um cesar chavez wrote a prayer for the farm workers struggle and um this prayer it transcends so i thought it was really important that we use his words and the work that he did with dolores huerta and recognize that he says show me the suffering of the most miserable so i will know my people's plight free me to pray for others so you are present for you are present in every person help me take responsibility for my own life so that i can be free at last grant me the courage to serve others for in service there is true life give me honesty and patience so that i can
005work with other workers bring forth song and celebration so that the spirit will be alive among us let the spirit flourish and grow so that we will never tire of the struggle let us remember for those who have died for justice so they have given us life help us love each help us love even those who hate us so we can change the world amen thank you for sharing that all right anyone else i just would like to add i've actually um had the privilege of um listening to uh dolores huerta several times um give um just public speeches and i had the immense privilege of being able to meet her with my daughter and actually have a one-on-one conversation um and it's really humbling um that we that to even have the opportunity that
006she's to even be able to meet people that have so significantly impacted the lives of people awesome all right 6.2 recognition of the district's newest national certified teachers and recently renewed board certified teachers thank you good evening our national board certificated teachers uh this year i just want to first shout out not only is this a huge challenge to do on a regular year but these folks actually submitted during pandemic and so when we think about the landscape at which we were teaching it was not a traditional setup and so the amount of adjustments and changes and what abouts on top of any other anxiety that the last couple years have kind of brought so this is a special crew of rock stars the national board certificate doesn't replace the state it's actually complements that
007piece these folks volunteered to do this to take on this extra chance to reach our students to test their practice test themselves to see what they could kind of lead and do the national board certificate is built upon national board standards and five core propositions which include teachers are committed to students and their learning teachers know their subjects they teach and how they teach those subjects teachers are responsible for managing and monitoring student learning teachers think systemically about their practice and learn from experience teachers are members of learning communities this process to certify is performance based it's evaluated using multiple metrics a lot of writing a lot of reflecting videotaping having other people come in and critique you people come in and critique what you've written and submitted it's an ongoing this can take a
008couple three years it's not something they just woke up on a september and decided by december they'd be ready to rock and roll folks sometimes put this off and these folks again chose to continue that we also have a lot of folks out there that are currently in that journey so a shout out for them taking that challenge as well however tonight we do recognize that in tomo public schools we have 242 teachers that are nationally board certified and this year we want to honor and welcome 11 newly certified teachers to the ranks and tonight we have the privilege of recognizing these educators please come forward no pressure as i call your name and read the list so again these are our 11 newly certified national board teachers francesca basilia kelly crawford sarah lane natalie
009rezka megan douglas joni harris and then i got just an updated attendance list so did i miss anybody new here look at that we are on track nice then we have a number of folks that weren't able to make it tonight uh but are also part of our new group molly higgins jessica coho teresa dixon yvonne overfield and jennifer taylor however new and as awesome as new is nice work we have some people brave enough crazy enough willing again volunteered to renew to not just do it once but do it twice maybe some might even be on their third and we have 20 teachers that elected to renew their national board certificate and would you please come forward as i call your name catherine culver tracy frank charae holbert katie kurovacl robert mcpartlin lisa metcalf
010tj purdy hilary speer karen jascar lilia petroskia anybody else show up awesome so a round of applause for these folks and their work all right yes we're gonna follow you all the way across the edge well done [Applause] thank you thanks for what you do and again as we have uh supported this process i did find out a tidbit of information uh this morning that our uh great uh passionate leader rita chaudry is one of the first folks to kind of bring national boards to tacoma it's been about 20 maybe 21 years ago so this has really had great momentum for us a lot of support curriculum instruction puts them in cohorts gives them support as they get ready to prep and go through the process so uh thank you tonight for that thanks zeke
011and thanks to the group that's uh now i'm assuming going out to party congratulations everyone thanks thanks for all the hard work you do [Applause] all right item number seven uh superintendent report 7.1 legislative wrap-up uh good night good evening good night good night good evening board of directors uh it is springtime although it would be hard to tell as i was covered in snow walking through town today crazy and it's there so we're excited i want to just take a moment before we bring up our guest to thank all of the staff and and our families uh i'm i'm i'm grateful that everyone had a chance to take a little bit of a breath over spring break but recognize that that breath was short we are in our final stretch of the 22 school
012year it's hard to imagine i think it's exciting there's a lot of exciting times ahead of us this spring with celebrations and a lot of hard work still left ahead so i'm just wishing everyone an amazing spring and deeply grateful for everyone that's leaning in our families our community partners and all of our staff to support us to get through there so with that director keating and myself who work with our legislative affairs consultant mr charles brown from cascade government affairs have asked mr brown to give you a high level summary tonight of some of the highlights knowing that uh we could spend days going through the debriefing of the legislative session and um so with that i'd like to introduce mr brown and mr brown will take us through some of those highlights well
013thank you very much superintendent garcia and members of the board i am charlie brown and i want to thank you first and foremost for trusting me to represent you in olympia it truly is an honor and it means a lot to me to be able to represent tacoma school district the city in which i live down there in olympia and the work that you all do and everybody does and those teachers do every day is what really makes our society and our town but our society in general such a great place to live and so um thank you uh for that uh i i will say that i believe we had um uh just a a terrific legislative year in education this year um overall for education uh there was an increase in funding by
014about a billion dollars in this legislative session and a lot of that went into enrollment stability to help the school districts as they move through the the what we all hope is the waning days of this pandemic helping to you the school district to maintain your staffing so that when things get back to normal you've got the supports there and i know that there's going to be additional need certainly for supports for the students because this has been a traumatic time for all of the students and and the work that the teachers and the classified staff and your administrative school building staff do is just tremendous and that enrollment stability was incredibly important i'd say that that was kind of the number one issue in in on the minds of all the school districts and
015i believe certainly here of the 281 million about eight and a half million goes to the tacoma school district so that's a pretty big deal right for you guys to be able to manage through the rest of this year we also saw some rebasing of the uh inflation for our your school staff and and so that number is pretty good from the state for support for the for the school districts all the way around and then uh on the support for for additional staff which is really this is new money this is this is additional new money that will go into the future for additional for supports like student counselors and student nurses and a lot of your classified staff and there's another several hundred million in in that arena so just overall the 145
016million so overall the the numbers that went into uh school education this year i just i have to applaud the legislature there and it was a bipartisan effort there are a number of uh members on both sides of the aisle who understand that putting a lot more money into the prototypical school model is so critically important because we need to keep up with the changing landscape in education we need to keep up with the needs of our students across the state and quite frankly we're just a growing state i mean what a blessing that is right and we're a growing state and to be able to invest in more into that so i kind of went back and i looked a little bit at our tacoma public schools legislative agenda that we had adopted back
017in 2022 and which is you know quite frankly uh an agenda that uh a lot of the other school districts uh tend to follow you know when we all set this agendas together we all get together and we're working together on things and we succeeded in so many ways student enrollment funding we succeeded in some additional funding for student transportation i will tell you director keating we're going to have more conversations about student transportation funding as we go forward i was on the phone this morning with superintendent chris reichdall and superintendent reichdall is saying that we need to go in and just do the student transportation funding formula correctly we didn't get all the way in the policy document but that's okay because we still have opportunities in this next legislative session to do that
018we made big gains this year in the prototypical school funding mandate and i would argue that um although we didn't get quite the uh gains in the extended learning services and support for a student a whole child we got some of that stuff there's some outdoor learning money there's some other areas where legislators felt that there was priorities and they were able to invest in that so you know of the critical district issues i would argue that we did very very well and i'm really pleased with that issues of high concern we i got some additional funding for special ed funding and i think again director keating we're going to want to have a conversation with all of the staff and everyone about special education i don't think that the legislature is going to do
019a um another enrollment uh stabilization bill i can tell you that they aren't going to do it they actually wrote it into the language of the bill that they passed but they do have a very strong interest in going in and finding out where the state is short on funding for school districts and they agree that special education is one of those areas where they are short and so they want to start working on issues like that so i think special education is going to come up as one of our issues that we'll want to talk about along with transportation i think that what i'm most excited about because this is near and dear to my heart is opportunities for skills uh center and developing cte and um and i don't know why it's so
020near and dear to my heart but it just is darn it so that's where we go you all uh wanted to go out and and try and put together a maritime skill center and you asked the legislature for funding to start that development process and every one of the members of the pierce county delegation of the uh in the legislature got on board and made it a pierce county priority and they offered they allocated 250 000 to the district to start that process of moving forward on a skill center it's not so much the fact that they allocated some money for you all to start doing the research on this is the fact that every one of them got on board and said this is something we really want to do and i just think
021that that our opportunities to work to take the lead leadership position for tacoma public schools but also to work with our other sister school districts our adjacent school districts all around the county and do something great that gets kids jobs right down here in the port of tacoma and keeps our kids here and does really good things for long-term uh growth of these kids i mean that's me is just a heck of a lot of fun so um i i guess i'll kind of leave it there i gave all of you a um i gave all of you a a document that i had sent out just right after the legislative session had ended i can't believe it's only been a month since that legislature ended it seems like quite a quite a bit of
022time has passed but um uh overall the the district did very well education in general did very well and i just want to thank all of you for the leadership and your time that you give here at the tacoma public schools because honestly a lot of legislators a lot of the policy makers in olympia look to tacoma public schools the work that you've done the great work you've done and and they say is it good for tacoma and when i say yeah i think that's good for tacoma it generally gets done so that's a real testament to all of you so i'd be happy to take any questions thank you charlie well um before i'll turn it over to vice president keating but before i do i want to personally thank you and your team
023for all the hard work and guidance and wisdom that you provide for us um and it is a 24 7 job from before session starts till as you can see after session is over so um and i know that you are the tacoma public schools are near and dear to your heart and it shows and i hear it from fellow electeds and from uh in the legislature and so i want to thank you because i know when you're down there speaking for us it's it means something to you and it means something to them so vice president keating as i just wanted to see if there were any if anybody had any questions okay i mean you you broke it down really well charlie so um yeah i want to say that the advocacy that
024you um did for us particularly this session um like it was a team effort and we really rely on you heavily and when you say i need you there like we're if one of us can't we're gonna find somebody to be there um and so i think that um your ability to understand the landscape of the session um and and you know where where to push a little bit harder where to just step back a little bit um has been really educational for me um in terms of learning how to um uh more sophisticatedly is that a word i'm not sure that's where i might have made that up um but i've it's it's helped me be more strategic and sophisticated in understanding legislative advocacy so i feel very grateful to get to work with
025you so i'm very very thankful for everything that you've um put together for us and you help us look real good so thanks it's pretty easy actually you guys do the real work so anybody have any questions for charlie and i'm sure we'll be seeing you again in the not too distant future um with another for next year's uh legislative agendas i hope so yes absolutely and i also want to take the opportunity on behalf of my colleagues and i to thank um vice president keating for all the hard work that she does as our legislative um representative both tawaza as well as working with mr brown and his team down in olympia and also at the national level so it has um it has been one of the best things we ever decided to
026do was um vote her in that that role so thank you for all the hard work it is a lot of work and so we all appreciate you thank you so round of applause i'd say for all the great groups thank you very much all right thank you charlie madam president i just have one more uh comment under the superintendent's report on behalf of the staff of the tacoma public schools happy birthday oh thank thank you very much i there's no place i'd rather be than right here on my birthday so okay you all heard that right for next year okay okay good all right wow jeez all right moving on item number eight staff report to the board we do not have one tonight item number nine members of the public wishing to address
027the board we have an all the protocols are the school board members and are encouraged um to have 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 the board at board tacoma.wad.k412.whatcoma.k12.wa.us please contact the board office in advance of the meeting for disability accommodations so option one is in person here at the open meeting and the general and if you have signed up the general counsel will call your name when it's your turn to address the board please speak into the microphone you may have up to three minutes to share your comments or if there are
028a large number of speakers time may be limited at the president's discretion and option number two is written comments and as far as i can tell we have no written comments this evening so back to option number one yes thank you we do have two speakers who signed up the first one is charnay green ross and the subject is stewart middle school hi i don't know you guys know what's been going on at stuart as far as um a couple of the protests the kids had as far as anti-bullying and also advocating for students of suicide i have a couple of issues one i know it's hard to talk about is race i've had specifically a teacher tell my child that a caucasian student using the n-word was just him using his white privilege and
029that kind of hit home growing up i've never had to deal with this sort of thing and um being a mother of color and having biracial children as well as children that are strictly of color it's kind of hard to explain to my child that that's not okay i have also met with the principal i've sat down with the vice principal many of times i've sat down with the dean of students i have another child that i have been going to stuart since october because she is being bullied she's been threatened to be jumped um just friday when they had their choose-a-thon before spring break happened she was threatened to be beat up by a number of girls she wrote a list down of the girls who wanted to fight her at no time did
030anyone from the school contact me i am still waiting to hear from someone about what happened i have went up there teaching my children when you have a problem you talk to somebody you tell someone not all children are raised in that manner but mine are and i feel like my child's pleas are falling on deaf ears because i also have a caucasian niece she was bullied one day her issue was solved her mother went up to the school spoke it was taken care of i on the other hand have been going up to the school since october and my child is in counseling because she has self-esteem issues she have things has things that's going on and they are not being taken care of she has expressed that she is not being heard at
031school she is not being listened to and at this point i just kind of want to be put on the record that it's not just my daughter there are children who can't go to their parents and being that i worked at an elementary school i have a lot of students tell me staff is not listening to them they're telling them solve their problems themselves personally me i have three children at the school my 14 year old is very intelligent if she has an issue she lets um staff know hey you can call my mom she'll come she'll talk the principal has refused to call me on multiple occasions um it's just it's getting to the point where it's hard to advocate for my especially my one child that's being bullied and going up there and
032trying to stay calm and trying to remain respectful when like i keep bringing this issue but it's not being solved and coming and even saying i have a caucasian niece how is her problem solved but i'm still coming to you months later and my child her grades are failing now she's saying she doesn't want to be at the school thank you so much for sharing i appreciate you taking the time superintendent would you doctor nolan make sure dr nolan would you follow up please thank you and our next speaker is judy zerzan thule regarding daughter and lowell elementary hello i'm here today to make you aware of concerns at lowell elementary that sadly are pretty similar to what the last speaker just told you in february we filed a harassment intimidation and bullying complaint surrounding
033events perpetrated by two boys on our fourth grade daughter who is black some examples of the incidents include notes that read kick me and shoot me i'm stupid put on the back of her chair a violent picture drawn of our daughter dead fingers pointed as guns with shooting noises and verbal assaults such as white is better than black go to another town and you are my slave the principal met with the boy's parents but did not inform us that this bullying and harassment was reported even though our daughter another student and the other student's parents told lowell's principal about these instances after our formal complaint the district investigated while they did not find evidence to support our complaint they did find there was evidence of violent behaviors actions and notes by the boys additionally the
034district found lowell was not compliant with social emotional learning requirements or racial justice activities we appealed our complaint due to inconsistent implementation of the safety plan by lowell's administration resulting in continued bullying and harassment of our daughter the district has responded appropriately help improve our daughter's safety plan and noted they were unaware lowell was not following district expectations we appreciate those at the district level who are initiating and supporting this work at lowell i am here because my wife and i strongly believe the school board should have knowledge about the ongoing cultural insensitivity poor communication with families lack of follow-through regarding behavior issues and marginalization of the non-dominant culture supported by the principle at lowell as an example when our sixth grader learned what was happening he told us that nothing would ever happen at
035lowell and complaining about bullying didn't help he stated the principal talks to kids they keep doing it and nothing changes when we asked him what would happen at mason his current school he immediately listed three adults who would listen to his concerns and address them as another example our daughter is doing a great play about lewis and clark where some children are cast as native americans and need costumes this is disrespectful to the indigenous people whose land we live on we're concerned there has been too much of a focus on the specific situation and this misses the larger picture of an environment that allows hostile acts and racism to thrive there needs to be a proactive stance to change the climate at lowell and it sounds like other schools as well we feel confident based
036on the district's commitment that training will happen this year but are concerned this won't continue in future years part of lowell's response to this incident is told to us by our two children is that the principal went into classrooms and told the class they would be suspended for bullying threatening suspension is not an appropriate response we've seen multiple ongoing microaggressions that occur at lowell when you are not part of the dominant culture we know that parents and students are not heard by the principal when concerns are raised we want to collaborate to improve the situation at lowell and make it a welcoming and supportive place for all students thank you for your time thank you for coming and sharing and um superintendent would you please um work with us with uh judy to make this
037we'll follow up thank you i believe we have your contact information okay okay item number 10 the consent agenda i moved to adopt the consent agenda do you have a second a second all right it's been moved and seconded um anyone have any uh comments or issues on the consent agenda hearing none all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed any abstentions passes 4-0 item number 11. policy matters all right we have 11.1 second reading of policy 3224 student uniforms and student dress codes general counsel yes the general counsel recommends that the board of directors adopt the proposed revised policy 3224 right and move to adopt thank you do we have a second second all right it's been moved and seconded um and i'm opening up for comments or questions on this uh
038and or actually would you um i know we talked about this last week in first reading and um so i since first reading we have actually this is this item has gone to the equity policy review team who gave some fantastic input and actually the superintendent joined us for that meeting and walked through um some of the components of that and i didn't know if uh superintendent you were the council true blood would like to add anything to what uh well it was great to have superintendent garcia at the equity policy review team meeting and i thought um what was great is that i i didn't realize before working with superintendent garcia on this policy that he had a group with students that were regularly advising him and so i think that's really the most
039interesting thing about this policy revision is that the majority of these revisions are coming from students so if you want to share more about that i think you guys have captured it and uh grateful for the students and then we also had a group of staff members come up from around the district that gave insights and reaffirmed that our kids were on the right track i think what's really important about this is is that it it requires us as individual schools to revisit the practice on a regular basis and it requires us to have restorative conversations when there is a situation that needs to be addressed and so i i'm hoping that you guys as board of directors will move forward with your approval tonight and if not i know that we will um keep
040working at it to make it better so my comment on this was at the last meeting there was a specific wording that was related to um gang apparel and gang signs and things like that as a black child who grew up on the north end of town like our former parent just spoke of um being dress coded for gang-related things when you're black and there's no gang affiliation to you or your personhood it can become demoralizing and i really appreciate the students the equity review team the parents superintendent and all who are involved in revisiting this policy and making it equitable by talking about those who promote violence that's much different than just saying you look like a gang member so it takes away that um racial profiling that often happens especially on the north
041end of town so i'm very appreciative of this policy revision and that's why i moved to adopt it thank you um director strozier do you have any comments director king and i'd just like to say for those that don't have it in front of them the purpose of the this is the uniforms and student dress codes and the purposes provide is to preserve a beneficial learning environment and assuring the safe and well-being of all students is the primary concern and key priority of this board of directors the district intends to balance these priorities while also supporting students individuality self-expression identity religion and culture through the students choice of dress appearance and hairstyle and we go on to talk about you know the in this what happens with schools that have uniforms versus those that don't
042and it's very thorough and i have to say i'm very impressed with the student input and um it was thoughtful and and their self-advocacy was impressive so thank you for that um so any other comments before we vote all right i call the vote all those in favor say aye aye aye any post any pass is 4-0 all right financial report item 12. the district's next quarterly financial report is planned for may 2022 monthly financial statements can be found on the district's website at https dot colon backslash backslash www.tacomaschools.org backslash departments backslash business and finance item number 13 curriculum and instruction this evening we have no items for curriculum instruction item 14 business matters 14.1 approval to award wayne's roofing for stadium high school gym roof replacement project we've allocated roughly 20 million dollars in
043the 2020 bond to address roofing concerns across the district it is one of many roof replacement replacements that are going to occur over the next four to five years the chief operating officer recommends that the board of directors authorize the superintendent or destiny award to wayne roofing high school gym roof replacement the total award amount is 600 000 excluding tax do we have a motion i move to adopt item 14.1 second it's been moved and seconded do we have any questions or concerns hearing none all those in favor aye aye aye aye any opposed the abstentions passes four to zero item 14.2 approval to negotiate an award design build alternative alternative method contract with sanska usa building inc for bryant montessori k-8 school replacement project the chief operating officer recommends that the board of directors
044approve the superintendent to negotiate and award a contract to skanska usa building inc for the design build alternative method for brian montessori k.a school replacement project okay we have a motion i move to adopt okay move dan seconded any questions or concerns okay hearing none all those in favor say aye aye any opposed the abstentions passes four zero thank you mr williams item number 15 other business there is none tonight and so we are moving on to board comments and reports and have we have do you have any other student reps have shown up okay so um who wants to go first i'll go first okay director um i'm just grateful to be here every day um this is my first year on the board i haven't even made it like six months and you
045guys sent me down to san diego and i went to the national school work conference and uh yeah okay whirlwind for me i don't really leave the state often um but i would say that it was really nice to meet other school board directors from all over the nation we deal with similar issues we are all going through this together and we're all trying to do what's best for children so it was nice to find community and people who don't look like me who don't serve the same demographics who aren't in the same state and just understanding that we all have a heart for children and it brought my work more meaning so i'm grateful for the opportunity to serve and that's my board report well it was a pleasure traveling with you and and
046in learning with you it was a wonderful learning environment the vice president keating and and i and uh director michael roy went with um superintendent garcia and we actually had a we presented and um on our whole child initiative and had a great reception was well attended lots of great questions and so grateful that the superintendent was there because he uh most of the questions were about implementation so that was great he did a great job and so we actually had some bonding time too so that was fabulous so director um do you have a report yeah i'll go um so this uh we uh last week had our uh jmac beach for the month yeah i should have left it out just i'm kidding uh we had a presentation from uh carrie wilheim from
047the city of tacoma regarding vision zero which is a city of tacoma's goal to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2035. it offers jmac partners a model for creating and supporting similar policies to improve community transportation and safety which is huge right a lot of times we we got the accident report that they put up on the screen and where it showed you know fatalities in in school zones in the city in general and it's like fam we got to slow down so it's good to see that you know organizations the jmac organizations are working together to see how we can support that work because it's important it impacts our kids and we want our kids to be safe so that was a great presentation outside of that we are still working to figure
048out our way forward uh we are tapping into individual resources figuring out how we can work together to support the mission of j.mac and then let the community know what jmac is doing and the work that we're doing but we got to find a way to put that in in layman's terms right we can't speak in you know uh you know uh topics that only we know we have to put that in a way that the community will understand because a lot of work is happening we have to find a way to communicate that out so that work is happening and going to continue as we move forward uh moving on from j mac i hope you guys are happy i gave a jmac report yeah i need that totally i need that the tps
049hiring event at people's community center i was able to pop in there i couldn't find a parking spot so let's start there couldn't really find standing room in the gym we can also start there there's a lot of students a lot of vendors that were ready to hire our young people saw people in tot there were a couple kids where i was like wait a second is this a student or an adult they were dressed to impress ready to get their jobs so it was great to have that event be so successful because it's it's uh definitely needed so a lot of students can be earning some dollars this summer and beyond which is great uh then last night i went to browns point elementary's pta family reading night and at this event there were
050they had two wish trees going they had an apple tree and a some other kind of tree i don't know it wasn't no fruit on it but uh instead of the fruit being bloomed they were putting wishes on there right and then they raffled it off to students it was a lot of people in there that night had the opportunity to serve as a celebrity reader which was okay um and it was funny because there were young people had they looked pillow pets blankets uh blow up mattresses i mean you name it and it was on the gym floor and i got to read two books neck and neck and too many toys and we had a little dialogue about having too many toys and giving toys away so it was overall exciting i think
051the reason why caitlin isn't here is because she was there as well the daffodil princesses were in the building every time they hit the corner kids oh ah mama a real princess it was it was nice to experience the young people just be so excited about them bright yellow dresses they looked amazing and they read books did arts and crafts participated in the wish tree it was overall good night i don't like working that late but last night it was worth so that's all i got for you awesome fabulous can i sneak in with the my thing being on the way because i want to just capitalize on your bringing up the daffodil princesses and um i attended the um the coronation the daffodil coronation ceremony um and we actually had five uh we were
052our five uh comprehensive high schools were represented by their princesses and um um shia ali from foss kate uh caitlyn lee from stadium who's our rep board rep one of our board reps um aish aishiya ishia um hassan from lincoln um then hof no from mount tahoma and andrea gelvin from silas and i want to tell you these women were impressive they each gave a speech a one-minute speech and then they had to answer a question that was they were unprepared for and they had poise and grace and um commitment and it was really uplifting it was a long night but it was a wonderful night and um and at the end they crowned the queen from the 24 of the princess's reach of the high schools um that enter and the queen this year
053is queen clara from curtis high school and uh there everyone was very excited about all of that and then as you know what happens is then the queen and her court the princesses go out and do uh service and and good in the community and um so caitlyn representing um you know uh stadium and ishid and ish isha from lincoln and uh then ha from mount tahoma and andrea from silas are out there every day putting stimulating the community and encouraging young young students to to step up and be the best they can be and i just want to say i was impressed with them and thank you to all the people that made it happen at each of the high schools and all the other kids that tried out and congratulations each and every
054one of them so um that was i just wanted to add that since we were talking about daffodil and then uh my other one thing that i wanted to say and uh was um i actually also went to the salmon release field day trip with for edison elementary which was freaking amazing i mean it really was it was at the foss waterway seaport works has been working with um the school district and i think there were 11 or 14 i can't remember the exact number of elementary schools that were given by the pyola tribe of indians little eggs salmon eggs coho salmon eggs and they put them in a you know in a tank and they've raised them since they were eggs into little fishies that are about this big and this was the big
055release day where each elementary school had two hours two and a half hours out at the creek to swan creek to do a whole bunch of water testing and see if the if the water was healthy and then to actually get their own salmon which they could name and then release and um it was just magical watching these kids and watching them do the science experiments there were four different places that they um you know tables that they would go to and this was out at the creek and it was a it was a bit of a cold day but it was everybody was laughing and having a great time and i just want to thank all those that made this happen i just went to one elementary class it was this went on for
056a four or five days morning group and an afternoon group so you can imagine how much it took for the volunteers to be there all day doing nature conversations so these are the kinds of lessons that i think transform the way our kids feel about what they learn and how that relates to their world that they live in and um and i will say this i wasn't going to tell you this but i i'm going to at the end um there were two little fishies left and so i was asked to name them and release them so um i named them josh and carla and i released our josh and carla into the river and wished them well as they went off to do their fishy salmon thing so there you go and i'm supposed
057to follow everybody sorry there was a there's so many thank you director bronbright for that honor so many different partners in different levels and uh thank you to the tribe of indians um the foss seaport waterway miss angie neville and teaching for learning has really been a leader behind the scenes the department of ecology metro park sammy there are so many different folks in this and so it is truly a a wonderful opportunity for a group of students that may never be able to see that and in the swan creek is is a critical salmon run and so we continue to try to find ways to to work together to bring real relevant opportunities to kids from all across the city so we haven't arrived but we're we're committed to keep on trying well i
058i definitely didn't name to fish after you or carla so um that did not happen since our last meeting um so i'll just echo what chelsea said about the nsba conference and also elizabeth i think it's um it's really grounding and um helps center the work that we're doing by being with directors school directors from other parts of the country um and um just understanding the similarities and the different challenges um so i i just um and also there's usually a pretty large contingency of our wazda colleagues so it's always great to be with them and also you know just advocating and being in conversation i find is um you often will find me during a conference out the hall having conversations uh rather than in sessions because sometimes that's your session um and then
059i also so director strozier and i attended the job fair yesterday which was amazing i drugged my kim kid with me and um it was so cool to see families getting out of their cars i also drove around for 10 minutes or more trying to park which made me excited um but to see kids um students show up with their folders and they were like dressed and they were just like it was that you could tell that there was a level of um real excitement and energy um and just the opportunity it was it was really inspiring to see um see the whole event and we're very excited i believe i can speak for both of us to see where it's going to be next time because it definitely needs a bigger space and it
060was it was amazing to see all of the partners and different companies and corporations there just um just really really cool and i we didn't realize um until we heard like the call from mount tahoma students to get on their bus we were like wait what you bust kids in for this so like just the level of um detail and planning that went into this event i know took a a large team of people and community members and it was really exciting um so huge congratulations to all and i know there's a long list of people that were involved in that event um and thanks to the people system or people's community center that's just i always appreciate going there and for events and then i did start my morning yesterday with elizabeth and deputy
061mayor ushka at galt i was not allowed to bring sparklers out of excitement but we did get to see the beginnings of the demolition of galt which was just felt really exciting for next possibility and opportunity so so yesterday was full and really awesome and we've got some fun things next week uh the wazda director area pierce county um uh i don't know dinner gathering meeting all of it probably all of it so it'll be good to after post session to be with other school board directors within the county um to just kind of be in conversation and talk about what's next um and um what else i also was at the daffodil coronation i didn't tell you i was hiding in the back um and it was really impressive i mean every student that
062spoke was extremely impressive and it was i just really appreciated all of our students that participated in that and the stories they shared and the pieces of the there was a theme of resiliency and overcoming the impacts of covid and mental health and so i really just appreciated the honesty and vulnerability of the princesses um in in all of their stories so um and they'll i just want to say something on more of a personal note um part of my professional life is to track national or policy through state policy in other states regarding lgbtq issues specifically transgender youth and lgbtq youth and um to say that it's been grueling is quite an understatement and to um i think that when we we don't always when when it's not in our backyard there aren't issues
063they're not issues that we necessarily pay attention to individually or even as a community if it's not like in your face and you're directly dealing with it and what i will say is that the [Music] the rhetoric around parents like myself people like myself my own child and those who support lgbtq youth and families the the rhetoric is dangerous um it's hostile and it's um i might ask and my hope is that anyone if you are if you witness hear any anti-lgbtq verbiage i i know it happens in our community i know our we have we have a a large number of lgbtq students in our district um and i just just because this legislation is happening outside of our state borders does not mean it's not impacting people in our state and in our
064own community and so i just it is really hard to read read about such intentional harmful um lies being told about lgbtq people um and so and tacoma has a long history of being inclusive and advocating for lgbtq people regardless of age and so i hope that i just think that if you know anyone within the community check in on them see if they're okay let them know that you recognize that there's a whole lot going on on out there in the world that is specifically targeting them and people like them so i just felt it was important to just acknowledge that because i talked to a lot of families locally who are just struggling with how to process what's happening in in across our country that seems counter to who i believe we are
065as people thank you for sharing well now i have to follow that so there payback um so anybody have any other comments or questions or things they want to share all right well next is item eight seems to have skipped a 17 should be 17. announcement of regular board meetings um april 21st 2022 six o'clock we'll see you here for the study session um that that'll be really exciting um and april and we're going to be talking about equity and the work that superintendent santorno has been doing this past year to move our equity policies and implementation forward and then that will be part of it and then after that's done the board is going to follow up on our retreat that we had last month or february february i don't know i don't know
066where the time went but anyway um so the last board retreat which was a few weeks ago which was on equity and our equity policy and so we're gonna have the conversation here what the superintendents um on special assignment santorno has been doing for the past year and where we're planning to go and then we will take it to the policy level and to look at our policy and dive deep into that so it should be an interesting and exciting conversation then april 28th is a regular business meeting 6 p.m and then again may 12th another business meeting so that is is it unless somebody has anything else for the good of the order nope we are adjourned go apes [Music] you [Music]