May 14, 2020 School Board Meeting

001thank you good evening i'd like to call the order this business meeting of the tacoma school board of directors thursday may 14th 2020. general counsel would you please call the roll yes good evening president hines here vice president cobb here director bombright here director keating here and uh director leon is absent uh is he excused president excuse this evening yes thank you and we have a quorum great thank you item number three adoption of agenda is there a motion to adopt the agenda i don't i so move it's been moved in second and all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries 4-0 item number four recognition 4.1 recognition of seven tacoma high schools for earning national academic recognition from u.s news and world report mr gopel thank you president heinz and members of

002the board this is a great opportunity to highlight the excellent work of our high school leadership our teachers and our support staff each year u.s news and world report evaluates high schools nationwide and this evaluation looks at how all students in the school and disadvantaged students perform against their state's averages they look at whether graduation graduation rates meet or exceed a national standard they look at participation and performance in advanced placement exams and based on that data the magazine issues national and state rankings for the best among the best and based on this formula tacoma public schools had seven high schools make the magazines 2020 rankings that's the most schools we have ever had make that list and this year's tps honorees and their state rankings are the science and math institute at number 47.

003wilson high school at number 121 lincoln high school at number 185 foss ib world school at number 210 mount tahoma high school at number 220 school of the arts at number 241 and for the first time oakland high school made the list tied at number 249. so a great honor for all of those schools to accept the recognition tonight on behalf of all of the high school principals is executive director of secondary education doug hostetter doug congratulations thank you dan and thank you president hines vice president cobb members of the board superintendent santorno and deputy garcia it's great to be here this evening uh to represent the high school principals as you know they would much rather be there be here in person to receive this recognition on behalf of their hard-working staffs but the

004virtual nature of our school board meetings at this time makes that rather difficult as dan mentioned the metrics that the u.s news and world report uses to measure a school's effectiveness i find it noteworthy that they closely align to the board's goals and benchmarks for high schools here in tacoma that's clear evidence that what's get what gets measured gets done and so uh the high schools you know have been working very hard at building programs and systems in support of the three areas graduation performance on state tests and uh college preparedness uh we've gotten some statewide recognition and it's also great for our high schools to continue to receive nationwide recognition as well now if principals were here they would no doubt be spreading the credit around to their teachers staff administrative teams and i

005joined them in doing so i mean they're the ones on the ground level working with kids each and every day but since i'm here for them i want to make sure to give our high school principals a shout out because research is very clear that there are very few instances will you have a high performing school without a high performing principle so thank you board for recognizing our three our seven high schools i'm very proud of them i know you're very proud of them uh and their teachers and students and strong leadership teams continue to do outstanding work on behalf of our students so thank you very much for having us here this evening for having me here this evening thank you are there any questions or comments from board members vice president cobb oh

006i just i'm just excited for the continued success of all of our high schools and it's all of our high schools they're all doing great things it's not one part of town where all the accolades lie or all the so i just love to see how we continue to get better and learn from each other in tacoma so congratulations to all the high schools thank you director keating yeah i just echo what vice president cobb said as the schools are being listed when i read about it earlier um i i just thought about all the teachers and the hard work that they have put in um and are continuing to put in and um and the instructional coaches and so i just want to congratulate um everyone that made this possible thank you director bombard

007any questions again uh yep just again everybody is saying all all i wanted to say just fabulous news and um thanks to all the kids the students who have been working really hard to be part of uh the change and to be leading the change and so it's the all of the employees the staff that are working with these kids but the kids have drive and power and i'm proud of them so thanks for the work that you're doing [Music] and i would just add this is awesome and with all of the challenges that we've faced as a district and as a community as a state and a nation over the last several weeks it sure feels good to stop and celebrate exhale and just recognize the amazing things that are happening in classrooms on

008campuses throughout the city in the tacoma public school district it's just awesome and hopefully it's motivation for everybody to continue uh we will get through this but it is nice to be able to stop and recognize um i feel like in the past when we've had these ceremonies is there a banner or something that goes with this oh i'm sure i'm sure dan and his team will put together something nice for us so it would be awesome uh you know at the appropriate time to be able to do that recognition because it is so rewarding for those principals to be able to stand up and publicly acknowledge and thank their staff and the students i think if we could figure out a way at some point to get out to the schools to do that

009that would be uh great um so there's my two cents super santorno did you have anything that you'd like to add i'm just really proud of those uh principles of the work they do and the way the teachers come together in collaboration what's so nice is that when you get this award it's real evidence that the teachers are working together everybody's not going into their own classroom and doing their own thing but instead they're collaborating working with each other talking about best practices and that's what you see at each one of these schools and that is really really exciting so proud of them thank you uh and doug thank you for your leadership you're kind of the glue that cements all of that uh secondary learning together so uh appreciate all of your work and

010leadership and uh let's keep it going we've got a good thing going in tacoma let's keep it keep it moving absolutely thank you very much for having me you bet thank you uh we'll move on in our agenda item number five superintendent's report uh 5.1 is the budget update superintendent santorno yes i've asked rosalind to give you a budget update so i'm going to turn it over to rosslyn thank you so much and if tom will bring up our presentation we have been working to continue uh feverishly to balance our budget it is a long process and we are making great headway on achieving our goal of a balanced budget i do want to give you a brief update on the process and where we're at with it i think if you can just go

011to that next slide for me please so just a reminder that we do um run a two-year budget cycle and the first year of our budget cycle was last year and that is where we seek proposals from individual budget writers and they tell us what they think that they need in order to accomplish our strategic plan goals in the second year we have aligned ourselves with the the state legislative cycle where they have a larger budget in the first year and the second year is more of a supplemental adjust and review type year and so we're in second year as the legislature is and we expect this year would normally just be some minor modifications addressing any significant issues that have occurred throughout this year and then addressing any state revenue changes that might come

012next slide please so in our bigger budgeting process we offer an alignment to our strategic plan that includes these steps it identifies funding it determines our priorities which are actually our strategic plan goals it allocates resources out to individual priorities within our strategic plan goals we work as a team a cabinet team as well as in the departments to identify what it is that we're trying to accomplish those are generally benchmarks but sometimes in other departments where we don't have benchmarks we try to identify what goals we're trying to accomplish and with that we find which proposals make the most sense to support once we're done with that process we start the buying process this year we really only do three things we identify our funding we buy and then technically we communicate everything out

013as it's occurring or after it has occurred so at this point in time we're at the buying stage we're trying to identify we know what our revenues are now we're trying to identify what our expenditures should be and then work through the communication aspects next so go to that next slide for me please as we're working to identify all of our cost components we will be provided with or we were provided excuse me with the the guiding principles from the board so these are the things that we're discussing and working through first and foremost as we start to identify what adjustments need to be made to the budget and if you'll go to that next slide for me as well these were approved on february 14th by the board but they were done after a

014couple of months of review and these are the criteria that were also included in that set of expectations so this is something that we'll talk about at cabinet level and we talk about it in the budget office pretty regularly you know are we doing things that are meeting these criteria so that we have that framework in mind your framework in mind as we work to move forward with balancing if you'll go to that next slide for me please within the development cycle there are a number of tasks i would say there's probably a couple hundred tasks that need to be accomplished in order to balance the budget and various different types of um analyses that we do those are those are usually incorporated into our revenue estimates and expenditure impacts we have pretty much completed

015those two tasks we have a pretty under a good understanding of where our revenues are for this next year with some holdouts we get some of our federal allocations a little later in the summer so we have to make some estimates to that and then as far as expenditures go we go through all of the details and try to go line by line and um accounting by accounting unit to make sure that we've incorporated all of our expenditures so we have done work most of that work and at this point in time our work in process would be these light green boxes with the dark black around them we're we're now in the process of identifying if we have a deficit and we do have a deficit but we're identifying how big that deficit is

016and then we are working to identify what adjustments need to be made we will do that through cabinet evaluations and recommendations and then from there we will bring that on deck to the board at this point in time our expectation is that we will set up individual board meetings or meetings with each of you in some fashion so that we can have a conversation around our budgeting process so you can ask us any questions that you have and that we can share with you the identified strategies for addressing the deficit that will give you an opportunity to preview those before we bring those out to the public and to provide us with any concerns or worries or expectations or needs beyond what we might have seen in our development process we'll also work to communicate

017and identify any staffing impacts if there are any we want to make sure that we are communicating with individuals that might be affected before there's a couple a public communication component and then finally depending on all of those activities we will make any modifications that may be needed next slide please so as i indicated there is a deficit for this year and i it's i feel like i'm in such a squishy place and i hate to say that i'm not a squishy person i'm a finance person we like absolutes and numbers and hard facts but what i can say is that uh we are fairly confident in our basic education shortfall being around seven million dollars and um that is a number it's a big number but it's a little less than two percent of

018our budget so we feel we have a pretty good plan in place to work to address that deficit where we're struggling is that we have categorical impacts that are more difficult to uh deal with than we have anticipated and every year we expect our categoricals for the most part to live within their means of revenue and we have a few things that have popped up this year that are making that very challenging to do so without going too far into detail because we're still working through those details we will be able to share more information when we get back together with the each of the board members in their meetings this year we really expected to be our normalizing year it's the uh we had such significant cuts last year that we were expecting that

019this would just be a quiet year and it's not as significant as it could have been but we are are surprised with covid and all of the expectations and and worries and wonders for what's coming as to how to address things we do have a number of strategies to address our deficit that we're working towards and we want to work on making sure that we're utilizing any non-renewable funding sources first and foremost uh trying to cost shift where we can into available program funding or categorical funding that has very specific purposes associated with it we are working on identifying reductions and eliminations and we're trying to identify what kinds of fund balance or savings may be applied to to offset our deficit go to that next slide for me just to share a few next

020steps around our budget in addition to the meetings that we'll be having with the individual board meetings or board members excuse me we will be bringing back a budget and finance update regularly we're also working still on preparing public feedback options we want those to be meaningful to what we're experiencing currently and so there's a little bit of a put the cart before the horse if we get too far down the road with public feedback without having the the real impact of of the decisions that we need to make and then we are still on target at this point for a july adoption and a june budget hearing although i'd say the next two weeks are somewhat critical in identifying whether we'll be able to meet that deadline or not and it's a self-imposed deadline

021we're required by the state to adopt a budget by august 31st so we have time but um we want to try to get a budget in place so that we can start working on next year's issues so i'm happy to field any questions and i thank you for your time questions or comments vice president cobb i have one question and one comment um can you say a little bit more about the sources of the deficits you mentioned that there's some challenges with the categorical programs that you're still working through we'll hear more about that but big picture where the source of that seven million dollars deficit yeah it's uh the primary that's a great question i i mean if i were to list out the things that are driving the 7 million deficit i'd probably

022need to list out 25 different things there's no one linchpin certainly salary expenses are 85 of our budget they drive a good portion of our increases and uh you know a couple of things that impact that would be implicit price deflator you know the state gives us a cost of living adjustment that we pass on for our state funded individuals but we also pass it on for non-state funded and so that drives a cost um salary increments drive a cost those are some of the cost impacts that we're trying to address but there's no one thing um director cobb okay that's helpful um then my comment is in the last couple of years we've had to make significant cuts that you've already alluded to and i remember some of the well and i'll say i've

023done a fair amount of reading on just different strategies for reopening and all these scenarios and planning and what reopening looks like and a fair number of the recommendations make reference to planning and coordination being led centrally and so i know that a number of the cuts that we made were to central office staff and just as we were transitioning to distance learning a lot of the i know understand that a lot of the team and cab were working to put together like the continued learning packets and there was a lot of coordination happening centrally so just as we um move forward with all the different scenarios and planning as they unfold i just i one thing that i want to keep an eye on is what if we have enough staffing centrally to do

024some of the coordination work that will need to happen to adjust to the new norm delivery mechanisms and if we do need to add capacity there being um being mindful of communicating clearly or documenting clearly you know just having the rationale in place because that was a point i believe that we need to have central a lot of central support for certain things in order to ensure equity across the district so if we do need to um add capacity back there um just i just want us to be talking about why and where that capacity needs to go this is a comment i know you're all still figuring out the hundreds of decisions you need to make or plan for but that's just something on my mind lately thank you thank you director bonbrite questions

025or comments um nope i think i i think i understand the process and i'm looking forward to um seeing as it develops and and figure out what questions i have in the one-on-one meetings thank you director keating questions or comments um i think um no and actually um director cobb's questions kind of was along some of the things i was wondering about um one question i think i have and i i just don't know that i have enough information is um so on the um wanda calls the um state school board director calls that i've been on there's a lot of talk about um collection and impacts that that may have and i know that it's very different from community or county um to county is there any are we looking at facing any of

026those kinds of impacts so pierce county did give a um tax delay uh until june 1st to pay your personal property taxes and it was for individuals or businesses that didn't already pay through their bank so we got about 40 of our revenue through the bank automatically without any worry about delay at all but we have been tracking very closely what's happening because we use those resources right um we've been tracking very closely with what's been happening and we're seeming to be okay we had about three million dollars that was different between what we expected to see in april and what we would see in april normally but april's our highest month we get about of our taxes in april so it hasn't been a significant impact for us and it really i expect that

027it's more likely to be just a delay a timing issue more than it will be that we're going to lose revenue okay thank you thank you uh rosalind i just have two questions one where are we sitting with uh with the reserve at what percent right so um we are right around six percent right now uh but i actually believe that it may be just slightly higher than six percent when we get to the end of the year okay and by policy we have to maintain at least five percent correct what is that what is that six percent let me phrase it this way if we have a seven million dollar deficit what's the delta between the five percent and where you think the fund balance may actually land six or seven percent yeah i

028feel pretty comfortable that we have about five million dollars that we could apply towards next year and be in a in that conservative space okay i'm also mindful that when we went through the capital bond that the guidance or the feedback we received from our bond council is that lenders actually would like to see that higher than five percent so i think that we'll need to think about be thoughtful in how we are applying that money but that's why we set the the five percent it's nice to have the flexibility to use that money if need be uh so thank you for you and your team's diligence on putting us in that position um when i looked in the appendix i saw uh on the 2021 state budget slide the eight and a half million

029dollars increase under seb that there's a net savings of 1.4 million dollars correct savings from what because my understanding was our district costs had actually increased and pretty sizably since the state mandated everybody be covered through seb yes it's that's just the budgeted amount from last year to the budgeted amount from this year and i think we've had this conversation before so i think what you're asking is if i look back at the total cost it's been um upwards of eight million dollars that we've had to invest into seb but from last budget to this budget we had to allocate less for the purpose of spending on seb okay so it's still costing us more than pre-sale but you anticipate 2021 will be less than last year correct okay thank you are there any additional

030questions or comments all right thank you rosalind appreciate the presentation thank you item number 5.2 the covet 19 update superintendent santorno yes um thank you uh i've talked about so many of the different features of cobit today i'm going to really focus on two and that is um the um school access planning you know what are we going to do about school in the fall and secondly uh what is on everybody's mind uh graduation um so to give you a little bit of feedback about that first or a context for it i want the public to know and i want the board to know that we have had this emergence this emergency operations command so it's an eoc we have come together since february in the beginning we met multiple times a week we met

031saturdays we met sundays we met twice daily and it was to make all the decisions that needed to be turned on a dime we've gotten lots of accommodations for uh commendations for you know getting things out quickly the the packets and the food and the day camps and all those are because of the flexibility that was built into that eoc and so they continue to work and they're also the ones that provided the professional development for put it online for the teachers i really want to make sure that i've spent time talking about how incredible my leadership team is they've done an incredible job so the two challenge the challenges that i'm going to talk about is school school school in the fall and i'll be honest with you there is not a day that

032goes by no matter what group i'm in no matter what call i'm on uh that somebody doesn't say carla what's school going to look like in the fall what are you doing what you know when are we when's the first day of school when's you know are we going to summer school and um unfortunately most of the time my answer is we're not sure and part of that has been is that this board has been adamant that we follow the guidance um i think uh director hines always says that he is a recovering emergency management person and i think that he has dirt he's been the one that is breast follow the guidelines of the pierce county health department follow the guidelines of the uh you know of the pierce uh emergency management system follow

033the governor's mandates you know and that's really what we have done and so um we don't know what school is going to look like in the fall but what i want the public to know is that certainly we are planning for scenarios any of you that have been reading who knows uh director cobb sent me an article today that there's lots of ideas out there about what it is going to look like and there are some good there is good advice about what you should prepare for and so we have set out three different small groups a subset of our eoc with additional um additional uh personnel that you know fit those different categories and the first one is just about school access planning our parents are very aware that our graduates and that are

034our school students and our teachers still have materials in school because when we left we thought we were coming back soon and so uh the governor's guidance has in the medical uh the pierce county medical health has said no do not let people go back in and get their their belongings yet so we have followed that advice and we have not let people go back in to get their materials so we know that we're going to have to do that so we're putting policy in place and protocols protocol's a better word protocols for how to return uniforms textbooks musical instruments uh school property we have had emergency procedures for students who need to go back in and get medication and things like that but it's been very methodical we have seniors who need to get

035personal things out of their lockers and their desks but again we're adamant that we're going to keep it um on a socially distanced protocol and make sure that we do it so that no one so the team is collaborating specifically and directly with the tacoma pierce county health department through chalet to make sure that that management um is based on protocols claiming and staffing needs to be safe and we are adamant and i have been adamant um that we want to make sure that we keep all of our personnel safe when they do that so one group is looking at school access planning another group is just talking about work re-admittance protocols how do we get people back to work and how do we how do we get kids back to school what are the

036procedures what are the protective personal equipment that we're going to need what are school modifications you know what kind of tape are you going to put on the floor that shows you know that you can move you know that you're separated by six feet and how long will it last and where are we going to get it and how many school systems across the united states are ordering all the same things so there are so many decisions that need to be made about how we modify and how we look at school differently based on a scenario that we really don't know uh exactly what it exists but we want to make sure that when the governor lists the restrictions on the workplace that we have our staff both cab staff our uh ceo our operations

037folks our annex folks at our school buildings that they know exactly how it's going to work when they get back into school so we have a subgroup working on that and then the other thing is just about the fall return and again we're looking at different scenarios and if you're like me you've heard lots of different ideas and rumors about what schools can start or that it may not start and so we have to prepare we have to be really nimble and flexible to talk about a lot of different options so this team again is closely following the guidance from the governor and state superintendent the state superintendent just put together a back-to-school return to school task force and we're trying to make i have personally advocated for uh director heinz and our nurse our

038our head nurse person chalet haas to be on that committee because we want to make sure that there's a good liaison between our folks and the folks that are on this committee we've looked at all kinds of different ideas but we know it's not certain but it you know if we prepare for different scenarios staggered days staggered hours grade level options a combo of in-class time and remote learning and um you know we're just really looking at all the options from a to z so that we can make sure that when the guidance comes out we're ready to act and to move to the next step um the work of this team will be critical in getting our district prepared to deliver successfully for our students and staff and certainly we've learned a lot along

039the way we're most we're better prepared today than we were two months ago to do this work certainly devices and access to internet are two things we're still in the middle of working on and delivering and have people that are working on getting that done and it's all a part of that committee so anyway i'm confident that we'll be ready for whatever that scenario is and that uh we're just waiting to make sure that it looks well graduation um we've had a lot of emails from incredible students and their families about graduation and um i know that we've said it before that we grieve the fact that um you know that we're not gonna have a traditional that it doesn't look like we're gonna have a traditional graduation and um i've gotten some criticism from

040people who say uh that i you know that i've already buried it and that we're not considering another option which is not true if the guidance again we're following the guidance from the governor if it changes and the governor says yeah you can have a regular graduation we still have a reservation at the tacoma dome we will turn on a dime and do graduation if it happens before our dates that have been established but right now we're working to stay within the governor's direction and the state superintendent guidance has come out as late as today about criteria and what we're confident about is that we have stayed within the guidance and the other thing i want public to know is that we have had a planning team that has included our high school principals who

041are talking to the leadership teams um of our student of our students and so they've had input so um deputy superintendent dr garcia doug hostetter prince the mount tahoma principal david mccolgan gray principal sean martin our public information office team have all been collaborating with the high school principals on a a ceremony that will meet those guidelines and um you know we've talked frankly with our students and i don't believe there's a student well maybe a couple but most students if you talk to them they'll say you know we would have rather had a regular graduation uh and we are working to provide some of the things that that they're used to in a traditional graduation will it be the same no it will not be the same so um we've been working from a

042template of options each high school has planned what it wants to do to have included in the celebration so we've tried to make it um special and each school has put a little bit different spend on it spin on it and we will do a virtual graduation because it really does fit with the governor's and with the state superintendent's guidelines we'll have a lot of the traditional elements including student speakers and guest speakers we'll have slide shows of the graduates and we're going to make sure we have instructions for the family so that if you want to host an online event or your own meeting that your own meeting you can do that and we will be showing the graduation in multiple in multiple ways and uh i've heard positives and negatives i've heard people

043who've watched their nieces in new york you know or their grandkids their grandkids in florida and they said they loved it because they got to see every piece and they got you know to see a picture of their students and others that felt like oh no it was just too sad so i you know we're going to have a multi multitude of opinions but we will be streaming on facebook streaming with a closed caption on our website and for any family um who doesn't have an online access we'll broadcast the graduations on our tv station which is channel 25 on comcast and channel 26 on click and uh i know our board members went in yesterday and recorded uh you know their remarks and their announcements i know i did mine and it wasn't it

044was not the same but i do know when i went to my car um i thought to myself whoa you just did 10 graduations and so it's not it's not the same and we'll miss you know we will miss being with those students on that day we did have um guidance from the from the state superintendent that we could have a healthy socially distanced mast ham cap and gown distribution parade and so we did do that and if you've watched them on facebook they were pretty exciting um one of the things i thought to myself i was worried about just even the kappa gown exchange because my experience with teenagers is it's not easy to keep them apart once they see each other but our principals did a good job of keeping them distance the

045staff members did a great job of directing and we feel really really good that the parades gave our high school staff an opportunity to see their students to hand out the materials safely and a brief time to celebrate together and catherine mccarthy if you uh have seen the signs of the custom class 2020 yard signs that are out um in the gr in the yards i think they're great and thanks to catherine mccarthy for designing those signs so just in case the guidance carla you went mute it's the wrong button thank you um the guidance that came today said that this it starts with the safety health and well-being of our students staff of their families is the top priority and so uh our goal all along has been um to to to have a

046graduation ceremony that um that we can predict that uh it'll be safe and socially distant so virtual of the graduation models that met social distancing guidelines in phase one and tacoma is currently in phase one a virtual ceremony that has the online you know has the online virtual ceremony that's similar to traditional uh graduation ceremonies and you know we've had uh lots of incredible parents that have sent in models and said do this or that and um have said hey in federal way they're doing it better than you why don't you adapt to theirs and i just want you to know um dr garcia or one of his or one of the people on the committee have called every one of those districts and said what exactly are you doing and what we find out

047at the bottom of it is the very they're most they are doing virtual graduations they may have a variation that they're taking pictures you know in the stadium and our students are taking pictures you know on their own there's variations but uh those people who are adhering to the guidelines are doing a virtual uh a virtual graduation uh we're asking our graduates to record and submit individual videos that comes right from the guidance from the um from um chris reichdel and then social media you know highlight all you want on social media and let the kids know what's going on out of home they said uh before you plan a ceremony make sure this is uh the safest option is for right now is for everyone to stay home and so the virtual ceremony is

048the best thing to protect um our loved ones at home and our adults and our kids and um secondly they did endorse a gallery drive which that schools or districts that can print and post large signs uh with pictures of the names of the graduates and if you watch what happened and each one of our high schools when they passed out the cap and gowns i think it was a good evidence of a uh a gallery drive um we're not we're not going to make everybody happy i already know that and you know that's not my job you know my job is to do the best we can and honor the guidelines from the state and also to keep our our folks safe and i do want those that haven't had a chance to look

049at it to see what some of these drives look like um and so we have a clip from stadium thank you very much for the community and the way you hung in there and that you suggested things uh some of the things that were suggested were we did do and i just want you to know um you know who knows and maybe that was the other thing is if the guidance changes before our graduation dates we'll pivot and and we'll provide that we're we're ready to do that so watch the cap and gown thing at stadium it was great [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh it's really cool no sound i think they didn't [Music] [Applause] [Music] we're so proud of you okay i'm sorry that this year happened to go this way but uh it's really

050exciting to have you here okay awesome thank you we're doing the best we can and the kids are like with it [Music] happy happy times [Music] they already know parents teachers staff everyone cares about them a lot but i think to show it to see it to see all these signs to see the excitement out here really brings it really home and they understand just the emotional way not just a you know kind of cognitive ways [Music] for recognition right to show them that we're still here so we're still a community that we are that we love them um and they have support and it sucks and a lot of things got stolen from them too but we're all making the best of it i miss you guys [Music] oh gosh my staff is so

051excited i hope that the kids feel the love that we have for them that this is not the way we wanted to say goodbye some of these kids you know i may not see again and it just kills me because we've gotten this far together they're a great great group of kids um but i want them to feel like we do honor them and they are special and we did have these moments and this is a celebration [Music] thank you thank you kevin kevin you guys are not mike i mean you're uh you're not muted and um so anyway i'm sorry that you missed the i'm sorry you missed the music the music really the really music really made it but i think it gives you a flavor of how exciting it was um graduates

052of 2020 we love you and we can't wait to see what you do next so thank you very much you superintendent um i just want to reiterate a couple of things that the superintendent said uh with respect to graduation so in the last 10 days i've twice spoken with governor inslee's office and you know based on input from the community and i will be the first to tell you that as a board member this virtual graduation is disappointing when it's compared with the energy that we all feel and experience uh those in person and graduations i mean i think it's why most of us do the work it's so rewarding uh to see the sense of pride that those kids feel and the families feel and that right of passage of walking across the stage

053um and uh there really isn't anything that we can do to replace that and and i understand you know the feelings that some parents and families have um and so i took that issue up with the governor's office to uh articulate that position and the governor's office um was completely understanding of that and the governor has been pretty consistent in his communication that his top priority is public health and we have uh thoroughly looked at ways that we could have some sort of a variation of in-person graduation and it just is in conflict with the guidance that the governor's office is providing and he's providing that guidance based on the department of health and what those subject matter experts are telling him and so um you know we are uh still in a position where

054if that guidance changes but my last conversation with the governor's office was yesterday and graduations are upon us and it takes time and i know all of the work that's going on behind the scenes to try to make this alternative graduation feel special it just takes an incredible amount of staff time to make something like that happen so i think we're in a period of time where we probably have a couple of more days and if that guidance doesn't change then the virtual option is the best safest option and i think that's been the metric that we've used is how can you have the most enjoyable graduation ceremony in the safest way to do that with that i'll ask for questions or comments from board members vice president cobb um i just have a comment

055a minute i guess it relates to both the topic of the covet update and the graduation planning and i really appreciate all the details that you shared tonight about graduation planning it is a really important rite of passage as director hines said this will be my 20th anniversary of graduation this year so i just it makes me think about how special that moment is so i appreciate all the time and energy that's going into making this the best case scenario as possible but i do want to raise a consideration for us and for the public as we think about both reopening schools and alternative graduation planning i think it's not just about whether or not the option is actually safe i think when we think about equity and equitable access it's also about whether there's

056a perception that it's safe i can imagine that if our option right now was in person graduation there's a good percentage of our students and families who wouldn't perceive it to be safe so a good percentage of our students and families who would opt out of participating because of coming having to come in contact with so many people right on the eve of just opening up and just it's just a a time where people are still trying to figure out how to engage in social life given all that has happened so i again i appreciate all the time and energy that's gone into making graduation as special as possible and as we plan for reopening schools in the fall i know you're already considering this but in addition to thinking through all the steps that

057we actually need to take to make schools safe to open i think a point of engagement with our families and community is just ask the question of what do parents and community members and family members of all kinds need to be in place in order to feel like school is a safe place again i think we need to address those issues too to the best extent that we can if that means like hand sanitizing stations on every floor in every hall i don't know if we can get there or what where we'll need to get to but just hearing from the community and families about what they would need to see in order to feel like it's safe to send their kids to school again i think that's a a important area of consideration that

058we need to take into account in our planning but thanks for all the work and the updates about what's happening thank you director bombard any questions or comments well thank you um thank you uh vice president cobb uh many of the comments that you made were top of mind for me as well with really taking a serious consideration as we reopen in the fall whenever and however that looks to make sure that we've done some some really thoughtful and intentional work of engaging families in those decisions and making sure that everyone's feeling comfortable and um so that was one of my comments and the other was i just i wanted to share that um as these cap and gown events have been happening and they've been popping up on facebook um it has just been

059so uplifting and watching them and seeing the kids and then i have lots of family and friends in the community who have had kids or graduates this year at various high schools and um there's such joy um and such appreciation for the teachers and it's a loss for the kids for sure and the families um and for the for the staff that have been working with these these um students to get them to this point uh and i think um i really want to thank everyone that had um who put those uh events together uh i think it was um therapeutic for for everyone and inspirational um and then i i just wanted to say that i saw the um the guidance that the superintendent was talking about that came from the department of health

060the state department of health today around the graduation ceremonies and what was allowable and and what was not and um you know i think it's i think the planning as uh um director heinz has said that the planning for something like this is is so intensive and it's most people never see what has to go into something like this but if you've ever thrown a party of any kind you know um that even if it's a birthday party for you know someone in your family and you're calling a few you know people together it's logistically a nightmare often and think about this for for 10 high schools and how that all plays out and it is i just really want to thank the administrative staff at cab and all of the the principals and their

061staffs at each of one of the schools that have made this happen and all the parents that have put in time and energy in the printing unit for you know making the boards and it just goes on and on and and um so i'm deeply appreciative for everyone uh to be able to pivot during this stressful time to make to give these um these graduates something to remember thank you thank you oh you are muted the foundation for uh tacoma students uh paid for the printing of the sign so we're very grateful to them oh that's fantastic it's great to have partners in the community thanks so much to the foundation thank you uh director keating any questions or comments um i just uh really have more a couple comments i think um and i

062appreciated by um vice president cobb's comments around um feeling safe perceptions of safety um because there's still a lot of um discrepancies on how people do perceive safety amid this pandemic um and so as i read i also read through the guidance that came um today about graduation and um was reading into what phase two will look like and we still don't know exactly when phase two is going to happen there's an estimate and there's just so much that is unknown um that it feels i feel that as difficult of the decision it is to have virtual graduations versus the traditional in person um i feel the safety of our community is utmost so i appreciate the diligence that's gone into that and i realized that there's grief of loss of expectation and celebration and

063there's really no way that that we can make up for that um and so i just want to reiterate or echo that i really appreciate the diligence that's gone into trying to make something meaningful um and celebrate the work that's gone that our students have gone um put in um and i will say that i actually drove by and i watched some of wilson's um cap and gown ceremony and took pictures and it was just really inspiring and uplifting and the music miss ray was amazing and um and then i also went by mount tahoma and i just got to give mount t a huge shout out like they had an airplane flying over they had i mean it was crazy it was like going to the fair but in their parking lot so it

064was just really um heartwarming um to see people embrace the circumstances that we are faced with right now so much that are out of our own control um and so i just i i appreciate um the community that has embraced where we are for the sake of everyone's safety and i just want to say thank you to everyone who's i know we're all sacrificing to some level um and i just want to acknowledge that and say you know thank you because we really don't know where this is going to end um and so there's a lot there's just so much unknown and that's really uncomfortable to not know what's coming and um to just embrace and accept where we are right now i think is the best thing we can do so um thank you

065for all of that information uh superintendent thank you i would add you know graduation ceremonies is not a board decision that's an administrative decision but the board has been very involved in this process uh given the potential public health implications the feedback that we've received from the community and i don't think any of us take lightly that responsibility as elected officials we are charged with uh working on behalf of the collected community and i think we have made every effort possible to listen uh thoughtfully and authentically and but ultimately we have to make a decision and i think the decision that the superintendent has made to date on the virtual graduation is supported by the board knowing that it may be unpopular with some i don't think we get into this work to be allotted

066and over over-appreciated but i think we're confident that that is the tough decision that needs to be made at this time in the interest of public health so uh carla thank you and your team i know you guys have spent hours and hours to get us here and i know um nobody's probably uh ecstatic about what this is going to look like in terms of graduation for 2020 um but i do think you and your team have made the right decision and i know my colleagues feel the same way so thank you for making those tough decisions in the best interest of the city of tacoma i did have one question on the reopening as i listened to vice president cobb and director keating and director bomber i talk about the assurance of the public

067and listening to the public parents and students around what will make them feel safe how do we do that with staff i mean we have around a dozen different bargaining units that provide different services and supports in the district that have you know maybe a different perspective on what makes them feel safe how do we take all of that into consideration so that people truly feel protected and listened to and comfortable coming into the work environment as we prepare uh to try to get back to some sort of normal operations in the fall so we cert you're you're certainly right and um that the team that's working on the re-admittance protocols uh has certainly heard it not even not solicited but you know heard from people that are saying hey i'm not coming back if

068this isn't in place and this isn't in place and this is in place so we know that we have um you know different you know we have people that have loved ones at home that don't want to come to school and have their uh young ones you know they're either their older relatives or their younger relatives exposed we've heard certain lots of stories of our own employees that meet the outreach categories and so we you know we have to figure out a different procedure for them they may not be able to teach in a classroom you know right away so you're right and uh we're gonna have to talk to them and get all the different perspectives of what it looks like and again we can't meet probably all the guidelines but we can be

069really clear about what guidelines we we had in place and who we listened to and who we heard from so that that's part of that uh re-admittance uh group uh thank you and you know we've all uh the board has all seen the guidance today that came or the the preliminary work of the back-to-school reopening school working group that ospi pulled together that was over 160 people representatives from the washington state school directors association the washington association of school administrators the washington education association state legislators state department heads and staff nonprofit groups that are uh supportive of k-12 education in the state and they still have work to do i think there were seven different scenarios uh my understanding is that they had a six-hour zoom call i can only imagine six hours on zoom

070with 160 people what that must have been like uh and the poor moderator that had to herd all of those cats but i do think that uh and the the commitment from that working group out to local school districts is that they will have product for our consideration late may early june with the acknowledgement that while you can have aspirational uh hopes of when you might open the school and where under the executive authority of governors they can mandate the closures of schools but ultimately the reopening lies with that local education authority and this school board is going to have to figure out what's in the best interest of the tacoma community to address a number of the issues that my colleagues have raised this evening and so i would anticipate while there's no date

071set that we'll probably as a group need to have some sort of a study session or committee of the hole so that we can review and evaluate the thoughtful work of our colleagues that are on that working group and apply it to what we think makes most sense in tacoma so that's probably a you know a mid-june a mid-june expectation for all of us you know we're certainly i get it all the time what's school going to look like in the fall what's school going to look like in the summer and it's all up in the air right now because it's so fluid but i do appreciate that that ultimate decision to open tacoma public schools will rest with us as the school board uh taking uh recommendations from the superintendent in her capacity as

072our ceo uh superintendent deputy superintendent garcia did you have a comment uh just real quickly uh just to represent the uh planning committee um one of the things that we hope folks understand is we looked at this spring as a series of events versus one event so we looked at all the evidence practices that were out there uh you'll see uh the pio office is going to launch a really great social media opportunity for kids um we're getting pictures in there uh the car feature was taking the best of all these different examples and not just having one event but trying to piece together as many memorable opportunities as possible so just wanted to let folks know that we're hearing you out there and we're not trying to replicate it all in one vent but

073really try to create as many of these unique opportunities to honor our seniors as much as possible right thank you dr garcia um are there any last questions or comments on this topic vice president cobb your hand icon is waving at me i just have a quick comment related to the task force that the state superintendent's office has pulled together i'm absolutely biased because i used to work for the superintendent but i will just say um in the last four years of his term i think he's done a great job of building like relationships and coalitions of education stakeholders so that list of people i was looking through it and i think there's a really strong membership there of people who care and have a kids in the same way we do so i'm actually

074really looking forward to seeing what some of the recommendations are that come from the group i know that those people don't all agree and don't all think the same so i expect there might be some push and pull in the recommendations so i just wanted to say to our uh us colleagues on the board that i think we should really pay attention to what comes from it not necessarily take it all but know that it's going to be thoughtful and well considered and that's it it's a good group of people from my perspective yeah thank you for sharing that vice president cobb uh and yesterday i had formal written communication with the governor's office and ospi and i thanked them for being data-driven and evidence-based in the recommendations that have come out so far uh

075you know it's easy for us from our tacoma perspective to lose sight of uh they have 295 school districts in the state of washington two thousand of which are two 200 of which have 2 000 students or less in the entire school district pockets of covid in some areas and really no kovid and others so yeah i would echo your sentiments and to let you all know that i i thank them uh because there's clarity we may not always agree with the guidance that comes out but there definitely has been a methodology applied that um leads us to better understand the rationale and superintendent santorno before we move on i just want to thank you for um also sharing the lessons learned i think it's easy especially in this board meeting format to come in

076and to have it be all the raw raw look at all the great things that are going on uh and we're in unchartered territory and as a continuous improvement organization a learning organization uh we have to better understand hey this didn't quite roll out the way we had intended and i saw an example of that you know the board very thoughtfully at our last board meeting which was three hours and i will endeavor to keep us south of that three-hour mark tonight but in that meeting we took up a grading policy and there's a lot of thought put into that final decision and adoption of that final grading policy and then the rollout right across uh dozens of schools and hundreds thousands of teachers and how do you build continuity and i think initially there

077was some miscommunication but i will tell you on the parent side i've seen the communication improve i've seen buildings learned from the rule out i've seen there be more understanding of what distant learning entails and how to send emails that don't overwhelm parents how to coordinate at the building level to deconflict hey we've got the access to microsoft teams that students don't have uh competing calls at the same time lead time trying to get students and parents uh some information ahead of the upcoming week so that they can plan accordingly knowing that we've got a lot of kids and families that are working out of the same home that are sharing devices that are competing for the bandwidth uh those families that are fortunate enough to have access to the internet and multiple people trying

078to get on so i would ask on behalf of the board that you continue to give us the good but also lessons learned so that we can figure out in our oversight capacity what things we may be able to do to help streamline and also to demonstrate that we're being responsive um and a lot of these things have happened in near real time some things have taken a little bit longer but i do appreciate that there's evidence of us learning um because we've never been in a nine-week distant learning uh platform before so there's a lot of great opportunities for us to learn and get better and given what i what we're hearing about what the fall may look like we may be in a distant learning posture for a while so uh so thank

079you for helping us as a board and as a community to better understand what's working well and and what we can continue to get better at thank you thanks very much on the agenda is members of the public wishing to address the board uh i will remind the viewing audience that we have a new protocol in place that is based on the governor's emergency proclamation and as defined by the attorney general's office as it relates to the open public meetings act and that we are accepting written comments 24 hours in advance of the board meeting uh are there any written comments that have been submitted for this board meeting superintendent no there have not okay thank you and when there are those written comments become a part of the formal record they get noted in

080the minutes and they get posted and board members have an opportunity to review uh whatever is expressed by the person submitting the comments and have conversations and follow up with the superintendent vice president cobb did you have a question or comment i think you're muted i just have a comment and while it's not like formally part of the public record i do want to let all those folks who are watching us live know that i'm sure at least i do i think all of you do we all go back and read your comments after the meeting is over so if there's something that you didn't get a chance to submit in advance just know that we're going to read it so please keep the info comments coming we take it and consider it and appreciate

081it thank you item number seven essential matters uh 7.1 approval of resolution number unlimited tax general obligation refunding bonds 2020 tax exempt ms medina uh thank you i'll just give a quick intro and then i think you might want to introduce it that several years ago congress eliminated tax-exempt advanced refundings when they revised the tax code and we have heard that congress is entertaining the opportunity for districts or any municipal agency to be able to sell tax-exempt advanced refunding or refinanced tax-exempt bonds excuse me uh the resolution in front of you is a mirror to what we presented on april 9th resolution 2075. and it basically provides us with an opportunity to choose either the tax-exempt market or a taxable market provided that congress allows us to do a tax-exempt refunding so at this point

082we have approval to move forward with the taxable refunding uh that would are refinanced on our current outstanding bonds that would save taxpayers money uh this just provides us with yet another opportunity to save even more money if we're able to do a tax exempt refunding the market is recovering pretty nicely we have an expectation that we could be in selling bonds to a refinance as early as june maybe into july and we're watching congress very closely it's been heard that they may include this as part of the covet legislation the next the next round of stimulus for covid so no guarantees that this will come to fruition but we're being poised nicely to act with whichever opportunity is our most advantageous opportunity for taxpayers thank you and i believe you need to call the

083motion president well okay is she going to read the preamble to recommend that we approve it uh i think uh first we need a motion to uh to uh hear the resolution okay is there a motion to approve resolution two zero eight one i still move a second thank you the chief financial officer recommends that the board of directors approve resolution number 2081 providing for the refunding of current outstanding bonds and the reissuance of unlimited tax general obligation refunding bonds 2020 tax exempt are there any questions or comments hearing none all those in favor say aye aye and do you want a roll call vote on the resolution president uh sure uh so uh president hines aye vice president cobb i uh director bob wright hi and director keating all right resolution passes four zero

084alrighty thank you item number 7.2 the second reading and adoption of policy 6000 revision management support is there a motion to approve i still move wait a second is there a second a second and the general counsel uh and the chief financial officer recommend that the board of directors adopt the proposed policy 6000 uh through the work of the committee of the whole we found that there were some updates needed to this policy these revisions bring the policy in compliance with best practices as defined by the government finance officers association and also with the wazda model policy uh thank you and i would add this is one of the board's priorities that was established during our uh retreat and it is nice in these unusual times to continue to be making progress on items that

085the board is identified as as a priority and uh especially would like to thank our general counsel and our chief financial officer with all of the other things that you've had going on because of this public health crisis uh thank you for the staff time to get us to this point where we can take formal action and cross something off the list are there any uh questions or comments on the policy 6000 revision hearing none all of those in favor say aye hi hi opposed abstention motion carries 4-0 item 7.3 approval of minutes of april 19th 16th and 23rd 2020 school board meetings is our motion to approve the superintendent recommends that the board of directors approve the minutes of the april 9 april 16 and april 23rd 2020 school board meetings thank you are

086there any questions or comments vice president cop no no questions and comments from me okay your hand is up [Laughter] all right your virtual hand was up all right hearing none all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstention motion carries 4-0 item 7.4 approval of increase in purchase order to washington state employment security department is there a motion to approve the assistant superintendent of human resources recommends the increase in the purchase order for the washington state employment security department for total expenditures of five hundred thousand dollars during the 2019-20 school year thank you and dr norland can you provide us an explanation of why this is necessary yes certainly um as of april 30th uh we have processed 334 unemployment claims due to the fact that anyone who is in a non-paid status which

087mostly represents our substitutes and hourly employees have filed for unemployment this is an increase over um 17 claims the previous year so our original purchase order was for 000 but in order for us to meet the claims that are out there we anticipate that we will need an additional three hundred and one thousand dollars at this time okay thank you are there any questions or comments hearing none all those in favor say aye opposed abstention motion carries 4-0 item 7.5 the second reading and adoption of the 2020 2025 strategic plan benchmarks is there a motion to approve i move to approve is there a second [Laughter] the superintendent recommends that the board of directors approve the benchmarks for the 2020 to 2025 strategic plan i would uh again this is an item that has been

088on our priority list for the year and in the midst of the craziness we were about to have a strategic plan that expires i commend the board for the great work uh coming through a committee of the whole in multiple study sessions and the superintendent and dr garcia and their internal team uh i think we did a lot of really thoughtful work on this a couple of weeks ago to get it to this point and while the delivery method i know that there's been some questions around focusing on the strategy right now and the benchmarks right now i think what this strategic plan represents is the expectation of educational outcomes for all students and families in tacoma as expressed by the board and i think what inevitably will have to change is that superintendent santorno

089as the chief executive will have to identify how those delivery methods may change as a result of what we're experiencing with this public health crisis and as a result of what we've learned during this public health crisis uh but the the the strategic plan and the benchmarks represent the expectation of the board and our oversight responsibility so again it's great to after months and months of work to be in a position where we can cross something else off of the list are there any questions or comments on the strategic plan uh director bombard goes old school and actually director um yeah thanks um yes i just had one clarifying comment for something that i had in my notes that we'd said that didn't end up in the second uh reading materials and that was um

090and it might not be necessary but under the um goal three early learning we under preschool where we'd had number of students being served in preschool programs i i know that we noted in the conversation when we had it that we put in to tacoma public school district preschool programs because it's a little confusing otherwise given that how many other preschool programs kids are in um that are not tacoma public schools so i didn't know if that was a needed clarifying point so uh dr garcia i don't know if that makes sense to you or not but if it's clear the way it is i'm that's fine i just want to make sure all of our data is based off of the tacoma public school students with us um we have no problem though if

091we want to amend that and this would be the time to do that but the data is just for tacoma public school stuff okay and if everyone's clear i'm fine with it i just it's the only one that's so confused i mean there's so many preschool programs out there i just want to make sure we were clear so i'd what's the if anybody else thinks it needs to be done we can then my other comment is is a comment and that's on as you may recall we had quite a long conversation last time about social emotional learning and um since that conversation i have um uh met with some of the district leadership around sel and and had a long um kind of debrief about what we have and what we what what would make

092um you know where we're going with with social emotional learning and how we can track that and one of the um i just i know that we are not doing prioritization of benchmarks at this point but i i just want to put into the ear of those of the board members to to know that when we come to goal four which is the um health and safety one we have that new one that's under all schools each school will complete and publish a summary of the annual social emotional learning plan i will uh when we get to the point of talking about priority i will be recommending that we make that a priority uh benchmark so that that gives um dr garcia and um superintendent center center on the staff a guidance around um coming

093up with uh touch points and um some benchmarks internally that they can come back to us and so we can guide that understanding of how social emotional learning is developing and how it's tracking with kids so um just that's just a heads up on this note thank you for all the hard work um that that uh superintendent and deputy superintendent you've done and the team has done to get us to this point and the many conversations i appreciate it thank you are there any additional questions or comments on the strategic plan hearing none all those in favor of approval say aye opposed abstention motion carries 4-0 item 7.6 approval of a resolution regarding emergency waiver of school days and instructional hours is there a motion to approve a move approval on second superintendent the superintendent

094recommends the board approve the resolution adopting the district's continuous learning plan and supporting the application for a waiver of school days and instructional hours and we've got uh malay genre and dr garcia that can speak to the continuous learning plan ready thank you or malik did you have a repair statement sure yeah so this resolution 2082 comes about as a result of a change in the law that took effect on april 29th uh our number of school days in the school year and number of instructional hours we offer to students is set by state statute because of the covid school closures a number of school districts in the state including tacoma are not going to meet the statutory minimum number of school days even by adding some days to the school year as a result

095of that the new law provides a process for school districts to apply for a waiver of that statutory number of school days minimum number of school days and minimum number of instructional hours and this resolution speaks to that so the eligibility criteria for this waiver are addressed in this resolution it includes extending the school year up to five days until june 19th 2020 it includes this school board adopting the district's continuous learning plan which is an outline the various ways in which the school district intends to continue distance learning through the rest of the school year and the resolution also includes this board's approval of the superintendent's authority or authorization for the superintendent to file this school day and instructional hour waiver which comes available tomorrow may 15 from osbi if there's any questions happy

096to go into any future thanks malik yes thank you deputy general counsel dr nolan did you have anything to add from an hr perspective certainly um and i would like to add that although we won't meet the number of days we will actually surpass the required instructional hours so our community can rest easy that our students will still have access to even even above the number of instructional hours that are required of course extending the calendar means lots of conversations with our labor groups and we are poised well to move forward and continue to serve students through june 19th this is definitely a collective effort and all who participated in this are very appreciated i think that we've got a great product to support students and to meet all the criteria that was laid out

097by mali thank you superintendent santorno what's the communication plan to let families know that the school year has been extended so uh director dr keating i mean excuse me dr nolan has already started and has worked with uh dan vapel and they've got communication all ready to go and it'll include um you know our typical uh and i think they've gotten a preamble haven't they uh dr dolan or no no preamble yet uh yes there's um there's there's been a preamble our staff it's been communicated with all of our staff so our staff are aware that we will be extending the calendar and our principals have talking points and many of them have re introduced this concept to our families but rest assured in that sunday night robocall there will be communication that goes out

098to our families extending the days a side note we have varied dates for graduations the official last day for seniors will be june 15th um that's part of the obligation that says that that set forth in the emergency ruling but that's their official last day and their graduation dates will not be impacted and so i think families will be happy to hear that um and then it will be on our website and our calendars are all ready to go to be posted online when this meets your approval thank you so i hear we'll adopt it tonight and then this is part of the regular sunday communication out to families as well as social media and website abroad announcement to make people aware of the change thank you any additional questions or comments on the resolution

099hearing none general counsel i believe this requires a roll call vote yes thank you president hines aye vice president cobb aye director bombright i director keating hi and director leon the resolution passes 5-0 alrighty thank you item number eight the announcement of future board meetings the board will be meeting next thursday at 6 00 p.m for a study session the topic of the study session is family engagement family engagement was one of the three priority policy issues that the board committed to undertake this year appreciate vice president cobb's leadership on keeping this on the forefront particularly given everything that's going on uh the purpose of this study session will be to examine uh kind of that overall policy but also to have conversation around what are we doing in real time given the public health

100crisis uh with respect to family engagement so i look forward to that it's an important topic um and it'll be great to learn from the superintendent and her team uh recommendations for how we continue to think about engaging all our all of our families in tacoma then we'll be back on thursday may 28th for a regular business meeting uh as of right now uh then the next formal meeting i believe is thursday june 25th a month is way too long to go given how quickly things are unfolding during this public health crisis and as i mentioned earlier we anticipate needing to come together in some form of a committee of the whole or a study session probably mid-june to begin working through what reopening options make the most sense for tacoma so definitely put that

101as a placeholder in fact i may ask tanya to send out a placeholder just for that second thursday in june uh director cobb and i will work with the superintendent during our normal agenda review and we'll also work individually we'll reach out to make sure that that date's going to work for board members but i think it's becoming clear that that's going to be vitally important for us to get together mid-june is there anything else for the good of the order superintendent santornos i'm good all righty uh i have a comment for the good of the order sure vice president um in our last board meeting we had a lily the discussion about grading policy and we adopted a policy the one lingering question that's been on my mind um in part in response to

102some of the comments that we had in the facebook feed were concerns about um the fact that seattle had adopted an all a policy and that's not the direction that we went and just um concerns about disadvantage that they might that that might put some of our students in how it might disadvantage some of our students who are competing with seattle students for positions at like uw so the question that's been lingering for me is with is whether the ospi guidance requires that districts note on the transcripts in addition to the fact that that was a coveted trade it the question for me is whether ospr is requiring that we indicate what the policy was that was adopted during that period of time i think and i might be wrong that if districts were required

103to indicate what the policy was related to that asterisk or whatever that that provides the level of transparency around what the policy context was for that a or for that b so i just had a question about whether that's a requirement i know that we have a state transcript and all that and if it isn't a requirement i would just ask whether if carla and the leadership team could consider whether or not that would be a good ask to put to ospi not saying that i think the board should take that action but just considering whether that would be a good addition to the guidance to request that ospi adopt we can investigate investigate it further um we hadn't talked about that at all so thank you from a technical side osbi is working with

104uh on that universal transcript all grades across the state uh will have the same common covet indication and um you know we have we have other partners that went through uh surrounding school districts that did an a through d model for example uh and there so there is uh there is not one way anyone's doing it um and um but all high school transcripts will have an indication with a covet impacted grade which i know a little different than your request but just yeah i understand that i knew that that indicator was required but what i'm asking like you said is if there could be a companion notation that explains what the policy was thank you thank you very much uh thank you everybody uh stay safe director hines sorry our president hines i actually

105have a comment okay director keating somebody else out there is not muted if you could please mute your phone um i just wanted to say last thursday um i attended virtually um the urban leagues um uh state of black tacoma and i wanted to um comment about uh superintendent santorno's um presentation and i thought it was really um there was a lot of transparency behind it there was a lot of just acknowledgement of not fully understanding the depths of the inequities that our families and students face in tacoma and i thought that it was just really an excellent presentation and i really appreciated um just the honesty around what do we really what what are we facing and as we're in the middle of um i mean we've talked about equity especially in this pandemic

106and so i just felt that it was really important um to hear that from our superintendent particularly in that forum and then the other thing that just gives me a lot of encouragement around equity is i've been participating um in a racial equity course um that's being put together or i think we have one more session by jamal canley and it's been one of the most dynamic um equity courses i've taken and there are about 175 people i think taking it and the vast majority of people are tacoma um educators um teachers instructional coaches principals we have multiple schools that have their entire staff um participate are there teaching staff participating um and i think and i know director bomb bright um is also participating in this work and i think that it really um

107gives me a lot of hope in terms of addressing um systemic racism and inequities and how we can institutionalize this work so i just want to share that um i've been um it's given me a lot of hope um of what how we can actually move forward and bring the community together and um move help deconstruct these barriers um on behalf of our students and um education so that's all i have to say thank you we will be back here next thursday march 21st for the family engagement study session everybody be well we are formally adjourned i think i think uh director leon is trying to he's joined us are you kind of impressed i'm sorry who's i don't see who's talking yeah it's in it's uh director lamb we can't we cannot we can't

108hear you director leon i mean you're kind of garbled oh that's where i have a poor connection where i am okay if you're i'm pretty garbled i'm gonna save my comments uh for the next meeting oh we can hear you now though i'll hear you now but it's better now okay all right um so i just make a few comments uh uh the graduation uh process that we're going through and now thoughtfully it's being done and safely is being done here in roma and i'm speaking for a parent of a senior graduating center know that there's a lot of ingredients going on in our community for not having the celebration in the world i want to reassure all of our parents and students that the way we're going to have it is going to be

109thoughtful to have these big public events a lot of folks have been recommended but it is something that is real in the grieving process is something we're going through in my family uh with my daughter in the same shoes that many of our families are in but it really is the safety of our community that's important and of all these families that are involved with our students that we're thinking of as a primary uh primary goal so the last and the second part of this is is equity pieces around um folks thinking about bringing uh parades with cars we've done cars already but not all of our students have access to a car car that they feel comfortable being seen in so it's important to think about that as an equitable that is to be

110considerate of and the last thing i'll mention is that i was at the stadium in the lincoln high school diploma and gown um pass out session which was also a celebration from the teachers that were there and it was one of those schools i mean there was emotion and wonderful things that were being said joy i'm sure there were tears of sadness there from teachers and students but it really really was thoughtfully done and safely done so i know all the schools have done something similar and even not exactly the same we have done something in person and uh i congratulate all those seniors that are out there and have gone through that process that's all i have alrighty thank you director leon anything else for the good of the order all right we are

111adjourned have a good night everybody i