Seattle Schools Board Special Meeting Feb. 4, 2026

001Good afternoon. It is 4:30. We are going to momentarily start this meeting. All All right, this is director top. I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4:30 p.m. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. Like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puet Sound Coast Salish people. For the record, I'll call the role. Vice President Briggs. here. >> Director Lavali >> here. Director Miseri >> here. >> Director Ranken here. >> Director Smith. >> One more time. >> Here. >> Perfect. Thank you. Director Song >> here. And this is President Top. Good afternoon everyone. Um we've got a work session ahead of us in two parts but want to first uh just do some introductions. We have our superintendent Shelner here with us for

002his first sort of board meeting and I just want to pass over the microphone to him to talk a little bit about some of the events from this past week. >> Hello. Uh good afternoon everyone. Uh it's an honor and privilege to be here. Um it is really wonderful to be able to actually be here physically present uh with all of you. Um thank you again for uh welcoming me with open arms to this community. Uh of course I do want to make mention of the two students who were tragically killed on Friday. Uh they are our students. They are our children. They are the people that we are supposed to protect. They are the people that of course we love. And I just want to send our condolences, uh, our grief, our thoughts, but

003also to know that these types of events need to call us to action. And so I just want to make sure that everybody in the community uh is mourning with us and we we understand the mourning. We understand the feeling. We are sorry. We're gravely sorry. Uh but I look forward to working with this community so that we can help uh try to end these types of horrible tragic incidences. Uh thank you very much uh President Tom. >> Thank you Superintendent Shelner. I think moments like this public service doesn't pause and even though it's difficult um and it's weighing on us we do have two portions of our our meeting tonight and we will uh push through and sometimes moments like this call call for more from all of us more doubling down on our

004work. Um so uh the first part of this evening is on progress monitoring. At the conclusion of that first work session, we'll move into a continuation of the budget sort of work session and we'll start kind of right where we left off on the 28th. Um just a kind of quick housekeeping thing. Uh staff received some questions later today or late today. So not all of them have responses yet. They'll work they tried to respond to as many questions as possible and maybe I'll let them speak to this. Um, some of those questions were answered. Um, but they will continue to answer questions. Just so as we think about how we spend our time or what questions you specifically want to ask as we go around the U, know that they they are not ignoring

005the questions. They let me know that they're going to be working on getting further responses. Um, but with that, I'm going to hand it over to uh Dr. Torres Morales for the presentation on progress monitoring. >> Good evening. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, board directors. I know we're hitting the time of year we actually get sun later in the day almost. So, good afternoon board directors. I'm here to present our progress monitoring on our math progress report. As you recall, we were before you once already and we did uh baseline reporting at that time over where we were. We have our first set and slice of data for this year to talk through. And so, as a reminder, the purpose of this report is for us to review the progress of the board adopted smart goals

006in our five-year trajectory. We're going to share an update on the student outcomes in fourth through sixth grade mathematics, reflect on the current data, and make adjustments as needed, and outline emerging future strategies to achieve our goal targets. So the plan for progress monitoring, you'll recall we were in front of you all in December and then we were in front of you in January. We're now in front of you in February for this is our progress report on goal number two for math. And as a reminder, a progress report is the performance report delivered during the middle of the school year summarizing progress to date on goal metrics and our strategic initiatives. This we've looked at before, but just worth looking and noting again is the iceberg analogy where we look at the the top

007of the iceberg is a school board and the superintendent and then there's the below all the other things that are going on to make some of this work happen. Um, and the progress monitoring part is just the tip of the iceberg, the top. There's a lot of other things that go into this into this work. So to review our actual mathematics goal, the percentage of sixth graders prepared to succeed in math coursework in seventh grade as measured by sixth grade Smarter Balance Assessment will increase from 56.8% in June of 2025 to 66.8% in June of 2030. As a reminder, in our previous set of goals, it was seventh grade. One of the things that we heard clearly from board and community was feedback that we wanted to move everything back a bit because if our

008kids weren't hitting it at seventh grade, why aren't we taking an earlier look at things and making adjustments earlier so that when they do hit seventh grade, we've we've already addressed some of those gaps. And so also just the differentiated targets to address achievement gaps, we did set accelerated five-year uh goals for our students of color for this from educational justice, African-American males, and free and reduced price lunch students. And to note, we do have an appendix based on feedback we've received from you all around um data for students with disabilities, our ML students, etc. that receive or students with disabilities receive services, ML data, etc. So, in terms of measuring the progression of the fourth through sixth grade math, there's two assessments we're going to be looking at or that we do look at.

009One is the Smarter Balance assessment. One is the MAP or the measures of academic progress. So the SBA is a computer adaptive test and requires performance multi-step performance tasks with reasoning. This is basically like your summary endofear assessment that all of your kids would take. The MAP on the other hand is also computer adaptive. Um it measures standardsbased skills in key areas in math like algebraic thinking, numbers and operations, geometry and statistics and probability. It provides instructionally useful information. So for those that are not aware, the map is actually aligned to something called the learning continuum. So as a student receives a certain score, it'll tell you what skills a student knows and what skills they should work on next. So it is an instructional tool. And along with curriculum embedded assessments, it can help

010identify skill gaps, plan for instruction, and monitor improvement throughout the year. And as you see below, for fourth grade, we'll be looking at MAP and SBA as well as for fifth grade and for sixth grade. reporting on the interim would be the uh SBA for fourth and fifth and MAP for fifth and sixth. But the ultimate top line we've aligned to this the smarter balance assessment for the end of sixth grade. Just to review our performance status, if we're in the red, we're declining. That means we didn't meet the target and results decreased by more than more than or equal to 1 percentage point from the prior period. Maintaining is we didn't re meet the target but results did not change by the plus or minus 1%. And proving we did not meet the target

011but results are increasing or equal to one percentage point and meet target or if we met the target it means that we have exceeded our current target regardless of the direction or change. As a review here is our overlying topline measure. This is also worth some conversation at some point, especially with Superintendent Sheldoner with us now. But if you look, we are already uh for all students, we're at 56.8% as of the end of last school year, and the goal is to hit 66.8% within 5 years. While that does account for 2% a year, that is a very aggressive target and as I noted, worth some conversation. And you'll also see that we did we do have differentiated targets for this three subgroups noted earlier and that those are on an aggressive track intentionally so

012given some of the historical issues we've had in serving those groups of students in our district in the past. So here's our first set of data and this is grade 5 SPA prediction for spring of interim measure 1A. The percentage of students of color furthest from educational justice in grade 5 who achieve smarter balance assessment proficiency in math will increase from 34% in spring of 2025 to 44% by spring of 2030. So what we have on the left here, this is called the projected spring 2026 SBA proficiency. This is based on fifth grade fall 2025 map. So what does that mean? When a student takes a MAP assessment, the system will produce a pro produce a report for you that talks about the predicted proficiency summary. So what it says is that based on the

013way a student scores these this percentage of students are predicted to be proficient in math on their spring assessment. For this specific interim measure, we're looking at fifth grade. Hence why this was the fall fifth grade map data. If you look all students for the current year was at 48.9% for last school year was at 47.2%. Overall, we did rate this as maintaining because while the overall measure is saying that we will we will increase to 44% by 2030 and 34% by spring of 2025. What you'll note is where we our starting point at where we're at in the fall. We're pretty much even where we have been in the past. So, we know that through the instructional practices, the curricular materials that we have, and the things we do in our schools, we can

014predict that we're going to fall right in the same range as we have in the past. This does beg the question about okay if we're maintaining then what are we going to be doing different because we're not really interested in maintaining. The point of this is to say that we're going to exceed especially with the aggressive targets that we've set for ourselves. But based on fall look to a fall look, we're pretty much in the same ballpark if you look across even for our subgroups where we're at. Hence why at this time we've rated the goal as as maintaining map growth goals on fifth grade spring map. So this is interim measure 1B among students of color furthest from educational justice in grade five who did not achieve smarter balance assessment proficiency in math. The

015proportion who me or exceed their growth target from fall to spring map test windows will increase from 47% to 57%. In this area, we're actually noting this as declining because if you look at our metrics, uh especially for our students of color, further from educational justice, we are not keeping track with where we were before. So, this begs the question again around what are our current strategies? In our previous metric, we saw that we're maintaining which isn't awful, but we also want to grow this. And so when we look at this metric, we also see that we're declining in this area. So begs the question over as we're thinking about potential strategic plan, as we're talking about budgets, as we're talking about strategies, what are those strategies going to be? Because the strategies we're currently

016using are actually keeping us at a maintenance level and or declining in certain areas. Next, we're going to go to fourth grade. So this is grade 4 SBA prediction for spring of 2026. This is our interim measure 2A. So this is the percentage of students of color furthest from educational justice in grade four who achieve smarter balance assessment proficiency in math will increase from 39.2% in spring of 2025 to 49.2% by spring of 2030. So once again, the measure here, it's the projected spring 2026 SBA proficiency. And these data are based on fourth grade, fall 2025 map. So this was the map that was taken in the fall by our fourth graders. Once again, what you'll see here is that we're in a m a maintenance state. Want to call attention to yes, we know

017what we want to hit in the spring, but based on historical trends, when we're in this ballpark, we we're going to maintain where we where we've been. And so it also begs the question around strategies. Again, we see that we know we'll be able to grow our students but basically maintain our current proficiency rates and so need to push the conversation over our overall strategies. Finally, we have grade six SBA prediction for spring of 2026. So this is interim measure 2B. The percentage of students of color, furthest from educational justice in grade six, who are projected who are projected to achieve smarter balance assessment proficiency in the spring as measured by the fall math map will increase from 29.9% in fall of 2025 to 39.9% by fall of 2030. So, this is a look at

018how our sixth graders this past fall, our current sixth graders performed on the assessment. Once again, what you'll see is that we're in a maintenance stance here. Our d our data did not move drastically in either direction. So, we are maintaining. So, we know that if we stick with our current strategies and our current practices, we'll be on track to hit right around the same proficiency as we have in the past. So, we're going to go through pathways to success. So, here are some of the district-wide strategies and expectations. If the bottom graphic looks familiar to you, hopefully it does. The little chart that's actually from some of the work we've been doing in budget sessions, in progress monitoring sessions, some of that all pulled from some of the ERS strategic plan work. But when

019we think about the strategic plan, one of the priority uh draft strategic plan, one of the priority areas was around rigorous and inclusive academic experiences. So you'll see here one of the strategies that the district is interested in moving going forward is high quality tier one instruction and aligned assessment. So using reinforce some of the universal design for learning um that we've been doing as a district and then also expand the use of our curricular embedded assessments to align instruction to timely student data. What that means in practice is actually looking at assessment data. Let's say your unit test or your chapter test. disagregating that data to say what are the skills and knowledge that the kids know or do not know and then making plans to on how we're going to address those things.

020Additionally, one of the strategy areas around multi-tered systems of support to actually improve the data system and collaborative structures districtwide for progress monitoring and coordinating support for students and then provide clear and consistent guidance for school-based implementation of tier 2 and tier three supports versus just leaving it up in the air as to what does a kid get if they need a two tier a tier 2 support. also reflecting on data making shifts. This is specifically for fourth and fifth grade. So the the data we looked at on interim 1A, 1B and 2A were the fourth and fifth grade uh focus. So really thinking about monitoring progress in grade level content and addressing the learning gaps. This goes to the use of the CAS, the guidance for PLC's, and how we can actually leverage those

021things to make sure that we're getting to instructional improvements and also considering how are we using our expanded learning opportunities, for example, summer quarter in 2026 for students eligible that are demonstrating um foundational gaps in math based on some of the assessment data. Finally, reflecting on data making shifts in the sixth grade focus. This is our interim 2B. So thinking about how are we uh monitoring progress in grade level content and addressing the learning gaps via the standards. Also thinking about tier 2 and middle school transition supports. How are we providing curricular resources and ongoing professional development for the math empowerment course in our district that's similar to almost like a math lab. We're working with kids who have e who need extra support in their math foundations. And then also once again thinking about

022providing expanded learning opportunities for students. Included there's also some endnotes with some definitions for you all and some appendices that dig a little bit deeper into into the different data sets and also provide some more information around the progression of key topics you would see in mathematics in grades four, five, and six. I'm gonna turn it back over, I believe, to President Top for questions at this time. >> Perfect. Thank you, Dr. Taus Morales. So, uh, we'll we'll go around the U just like in our normal fashion. We'll try to stick to one question per director and then we'll see where we're at from a time perspective. My goal here is not to cut directors off or their questioning off. It's just one time around the U takes us about 40 minutes. Uh so just

023as we think about you know our time time management and getting questions beforehand but with that uh we'll start with director Lavali. Hey um so I wanted to kind of ask about you you talked a little bit about some of the things that we're doing to make some changes although a lot of it is in the data analysis piece of it. What are we actually and the curriculum? What are we actually doing in classrooms to provide additional supports and how are we looking at that as well from a budgeting perspective? Because if we get new curriculum in classrooms and new updates, there's still one teacher trying to do that with a classroom of kids. So, what is the practical ways that you're implementing this in fourth, fifth, and sixth grade? Mhm. So, one of the

024things when we talk I I want to take a moment to unpack that a little bit and what we say when we say like data analysis. So, just let's run it through a scenario and this actually was a lifetime scenario. Superintendent Sheler were in and I were in a middle school classroom this week and it was clear as something I looked at. So, last year when we first started doing a focus on curricular embedded assessments, one of the things that we were looking at was completion rates. like is everybody doing it, using the curriculum, those sort of things. One of the things that me and my team were pushing on at that time is yes, that's important, but we also need to get into what what in the field we would deem as question analysis.

025Why is that important? When you think about u vetted and high quality curriculums, each of those questions in the assessment is actually pegged to some standard. And the standard is what should a student know and be able to do? So, at that time, I was really curious about sixth grade math. And the reason being is one of the issues and this is a nationwide issue in mathematics instruction is dividing fractions. And you say why? Well, it's the idea of what does it actually mean to divide a fraction? In traditional math instruction, what you'll find is that kids are told flip the denominator, multiply. Great. Everyone can do that. It looks good. It's great. The second follow-up question is why? And then you often run into a place of like kids are like, I don't know.

026That's that's what I was told to do and this is the answer. And so I share that because when we talk about doing analysis of questions, that's where we can actually see what's going on so that we can then provide supports that teachers would need in the classroom for how to address those missing skill gap type things. And so not surprisingly last year when I did this when I did this data analysis, what did I find? questions that were related to procedural knowledge of dividing fractions. We did amazing as a school district. Actually, across all of our schools, I don't remember the off the top of my head. I want to say we were like 60 to 70% of kids were knocking it out the park. The questions related to the procedural knowledge part of

027dividing fractions, we were actually across the district more in like the 20 30% area. And I'm not I wasn't surprised to see that. Fast forward this year, we were just in a classroom and we were looking at them dividing fractions. And so when we were asking students specifically like all right so what is it that is going on we would get the answer but we wouldn't get a clear reason the next thing that we were doing and specifically I started looking at what were the instructional materials and and they were our instructional materials they are our curriculum that we're giving teachers to use yet when I was looking at them I'm like I can see where there may be some potential gaps here as to the why and so the question then becomes what are

028we doing next in strategies in the absence of doing that level of data analysis though, we're really not going to know. Of course, you talk to teachers and you hear from them as well. But we also have a responsibility to look at like where are gaps, where are the gaps in our materials, how do we fill those gaps so that we're giving teachers what they need for that. >> In terms of the budget pieces, those are bigger questions. We're going to talk about that and I think in our next progress monitoring, but yeah, >> hopefully that answered your question. >> Yeah, thank you. I would tell you standardwise what we're doing for fourth, fifth, and sixth is we're looking at tier one instruction. As we look at tier one instruction, we're asking them to retach

029what they've actually ascertained from the curriculum assessment. We're also as we ask them to retach it, we're ask them to get together in their PLC's and actually get some coaching. Uh if they didn't do well the first time through, let's take a look at what happened. Let's look at that curriculum based assessment and look at what it can inform our instruction and shift those practices. And the last thing is we're trying to scale those practices up for everyone. So to get to mastery. So that's what we're doing with our teachers just at fourth, fifth, sixth, but all the way from kindergarten up. We're asking all the teachers to do that to look at that tier one instruction and learn from that. >> Director Song, >> um, I actually submitted a lot of tactical questions. I

030need some help kind of understanding the data pieces. So I might follow up with you on that. Okay. >> Um I my my comment is kind of similar to Jen's which is that I you know you are obviously instructional experts. Um sometimes this presentation is like the communication is like you would give to a peer. Um, and so, um, I use this I think of this as an opportunity for us to communicate to the public the work and strategies that we're doing to improve instruction and outcomes for our students. So, um, I think we should think about how we can present this information in a way where parents and caregivers when they see this, they will know what they're looking for in a classroom. So, that's just a general comment. Um I'm looking at slide

03116 and um you know often we come back to multi-ter systems of support. So providing clear guidance for a consistent school-based implementation of tier 2 and three supports. Um what does that look like right now and what are the things that you're seeking to improve around tier two and tier three? >> And then which slide are you on? What's the title of it? >> Um district-wise strategies and expectations slide 16. Yeah. >> Yeah. So currently, um, it's it's a little bit all over the place. And I think this is something that we've been talking about as a team, something that I've talked about up here and said, "No, we need to get this tightened up." Um, so is it happening in some places? Yes. In an ideal state, what would this look like? In an

032ideal state, let's say we do curriculum embedded assessment. Let's say it's me. Let's say I'm the student. I got questions 2, three, four, five, six, and seven wrong out of 10. I need something that's a little bit different in my next step. And so it should be that we're aware of who th those those groups of students are and we're able to meet with them, provide instructional resources and materials to the teacher to actually address the gaps in the skills and knowledge based on the questions that they missed and that they get whatever it is the instruction that they need to fill those skills and gaps and then get back on pace with what's going on. We have some of that going on in some of our schools, but not all of our schools. There's

033a whole another part to this that involves data analysis with our teachers and our principles at the school level. So, in an ideal state, we'd have one, a data tracking system that allows us to see those things more openly, and two, the vetted curricular resources ready for when those things happen in the moment. And then three would be the actual guidance for teachers and principles on how to do this. This the intent of this is to not get into some sort of like cookie cutter mandated you need to do you need to do but if you do need the support it needs to be ready and available for you and be clear and also be able so that it could be explained to families when let's say your child has needed to go into like

034a teardrough support multiple times why and how we're getting them out of there. Does it necessarily mean your child needs a special education evaluation? Not always. It just means that they need something extra. So, um hopefully that helps clarify a little bit. >> Yeah, it is it is inconsistent and and I also think that you know in Seattle our schools are unique and so if there's a school that's doing it well, great. We also have an obligation to provide them the support of here's the baseline of how this could look. If you all want to do it in a different way and jazz it up, great. We don't want to minimize that either. That's the art and science of teaching. But we do have an obligation to say here's the minimum of what you get

035and we're expecting. >> I can name the six things that we're doing. Um you've hit it right out of the ballpark. What is the biggest issue is inconsistent. Um what we want to do is have the experiences be consistent. But research has shown these are six things that are inconsistent in our buildings, which are our formative assessments, our curriculum coherence, our instructional feedback loops, our walkthroughs, our conversations with our instructors, coaching pieces there, scaffolding the grades, where kids are at, whether they are at grade level or below grade level. How do we scaffold that? And then the last piece is instructional coaching. Those are the six pieces. If we do those well, then we'll stay on course. That's what MAP SBA is predicting. If we do those six things well, we'll hit the goals. Right

036now, if we were to look at a temperature check, we our practices vary from sight to sight. Just we haven't been consistent with it. Uh we start uh our strategies and we haven't been able to take them to a fidelity of implementation. So, they're always there at that same level and growing. Um teachers leave, principles leave, it's inconsistent. So, things start over. So, we're trying to get better at that. And I think as we have those inconsistent practices, you'll see as we start to build on our goals, you'll see that stay consistent. But right now, as a temperature check, that's where we're at right now. >> I only had one question, but I was just wondering like what changes are actually different between like the fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Um that might why some

037of the progress looks stronger in certain grades than others. >> So I want to clarify I think the question you're asking like why the data looks different in each of the grades. >> Yes, >> exactly. And like what could cause some of those? So there's two when you're looking when you're doing these type of data analysis for like at schools. One of the ways that it's often talked about and I'll go back to one of these slides just so we can look at it is you need to think about it as cohort versus thinking about it as like gesture fourth grade. So you're spot on with the question. That's a different level of analysis we can do and happy to bring it forward if that's something the board would want to see in the future

038because there's for example you can have a goal and saying this is our sixth grade goal. Great. And then you always want to look at did we hit that in sixth grade. There's also the cohort level data though to look at. So how are the fourth graders doing when they're in fourth grade versus how they're doing when they're in fifth grade versus how they're doing when they're in sixth grade. Some of what we tried to capture gets to that because we went back a couple years. But duly noted around like we could and should maybe look at when we're looking at this. What about our current seventh graders? How did they do last year in sixth grade? just so that when you're thinking about it, it should it that is another way to look at

039data and it's important to look at it by cohort because it's a totally different group of kids every year that you that you look at this. So yes, >> director Manglesen. Um, so this is kind of kind of a clarifying question, but I'm looking at the SBA scores for fifth grade in um 24 25 as well as the MAP scores for 20 or 24 25. And I'm just noticing that there's a really big difference in the gaps between all students and students of color for this for educational justice. So, I'm just kind of wondering, especially because the MAP scores are being used for um instructional materials um and there's about a 15% difference um from the SBA scores if that makes sense. Mhm. >> So, I'm just curious um are these tests testing specifically different

040like ideas or concepts or and um kind of in what ways are they being used to inform things differently if that makes sense? >> Yeah. Can you expand on it a little bit because I one I I'm clear on the part around the gap that we see. So I think and I think the question is around like the use of the instructional materials and why a gap would exist if they have exposure to the same materials. Is that the question? >> I'm I'm just kind of curious because there's such a difference between the SBA and the MAP. There's such a >> I'm just curious are they testing different things or is it or why is there that big difference between the two tests? >> Yeah. So it is it is a a a projected proficiency

041and so it will the way the map works is it is aligned as standards and based on the way a student scores it'll predict like let's say it was me or it was you based on how I perform that assessment do does it look like I would be proficient on the SBA yes or no. So here where you see part of the gap what's not accounted for is how much we do as a school district in the interim there. And so that's why some of these are rated as maintaining even though they're less than what the actual goal long-term goal is going to be because our trend data and patterns show us that we get our kids caught up to whatever that certain level is. So duly noted and it is true like yeah that

042that does look why is it such a gap in general in our system even with that gap based on our practices we do usually get the kids to whatever that percentage is which is why it's maintaining. Begs the question though back to our strategies like what are we doing? Yes. And I think we need to just keep talking more about that and iterating on it because we know that the strategies will get us to a certain point but we actually want to go beyond that point. So is it doing that? Yes, the map is aligned to standards but it is an algorithm that is a predictor just based on how kids perform essentially. >> Does that help? >> Yes. Thank you >> Director Smith. Hi. Um, just looking in the end notes, um, what really

043pops out to me is the multilingual learners, um, seem like they're doing drastically worse. >> Um, both in terms of the raw numbers, but also or not raw numbers, none of this is raw numbers. um both in terms of in any given year the number of the percent that is proficient is lower but also looking at from the fourth grade assessment to the fifth grade to the sixth grade that number is decreasing and so I am concerned that that's saying that the longer a multilingual learner is in our school system the farther behind they're falling it's it does kind of touch on like that difference between you know cohorts um versus you know point in time. Um so do we have any way to help them? I think of course of course the answer is

044yes. There's always ways to help them. Um there's a little bit of nuance too in this around um students when they're new arrivals and when they take assessment and and those sort of things. So for example, we would have all of our students take a MAP assessment. um not all of our students SBA scores would necessarily be counted multilingual students depending on when they arrive but that is a fair question to ask like the number of time in program we do know for example we can get these data for you that our students who have exited our multilingual servicing perform quite well but I think the question on table becomes why is it the ones that aren't exiting are they not only not performing well they're actually looks like they're regressing and so I say

045thank you for the question I think I want to take it back with the team and and probe on it a little bit more and also pull the data for the students that um were were exited from the program and how they're performing because I think there is some sort of interesting juxaposition there around what how and why. So yeah, >> what you're leading into is the instructional strategies that how we're teaching our teachers how to actually assess, make some adjustments to tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four. If our teachers don't have those skills and we haven't really poured into them, then the adjustments in their toolbox is not going to be there. So, that's what we're working on to give those teachers uh with our MTSS assessments to be able to use

046those assessments to actually inform instruction and then help our teachers develop those skills and get to mastery on it. Our teachers haven't got to mastery on those pieces. So, can you scaffold from second grade up to fourth grade? And what does that look like with vocabulary? What does it look like with math vocabulary? What does it look like when you assess those students in various levels? and how do you build up their confidence and courage to be able to do that and give them more time on task? That is not a skill set that most of our teachers have developed and we're in the early stages of developing those types of strategies with our teachers on a regular basis. So you will see that that happens at certain schools and other schools it doesn't happen

047or you may see it at fourth grade but you won't see it at fifth grade. So, as we get our teachers to mastery and give them more time in PLC's to actually develop those skills, especially our EOL, our special uh need students and our regular ed students all in the same classroom, they will start to be able to differentiate that instruction and be able to meet the needs of students, but they're at the early stages of doing that. COVID kicked in, a lot of our students came back. Reading skills, they're working on reading skills and math. They're working on um their computation skills. Those are a lot of different uh things that we're asking our teachers to do along with working on communication skills with our students. So, a lot of barriers are there, but

048we strongly believe the longer our our students are with us, they'll start to develop those skills. And someone will always ask us, can we catch those students up? Well, we have to work on the students that we have right now. Catching the student up, we can't have them go back and do third grade. They can't go back and be 14 again or can't go back and be 12 again. But we can work on actually extending that learning time either through summer or through tutoring or through mentoring to actually help our students get the skills that they need. You um I think also the point about multilingual learners transitioning out of that program. Um it is kind of like some self- selection going on there where we aren't seeing the numbers for um some of the

049previous multilingual learners. So that's definitely a good aspect to consider. Director Yun, >> I had one question. So, how do you guys like make sure students get extra help, math help no matter like what school they go to? Um, I guess in this like presentation it I'd ask like what guard rails are in place to ensure tier two and three math supports are not dependent on a school staffing capacity because if we're doing like these summer programs, it does seem that it's a big ask for teachers to also extend their teaching time and such. So I'm just wondering um to ensure these um programs are successful not during the school year since in the summer um how do we ensure that's like kind of not dependent on a staffing capacity >> meaning for access to

050the summer program that we're talking about here. Yeah. >> A lot of times the way the team works it is it it is dependent on where the the map and the SBA scores are showing a student at mostly the MAP scores. And so when they're performing at certain levels or not performing at certain levels, those are the groups of students that will get an outreach to join um summer programming because they need something more. Not necessarily that it would fall completely on the teacher shoulders to say Sabi or Rocky need to go to summer programming. We have done some outreach um at the middle school level especially through our partners with the city of Seattle. So as an example, Media Middle School, Washington, uh were two schools that we reached out to, Mercer was another

051school, and we extended the learning for math through the community centers. And uh the big thing that we learned about that was how do we get those people that are teaching uh to learn our curriculum and get up to par. So there was a gap there, but the opportunity was there. The second thing that we've learned from some of our uh our 30 schools that partner with with deal, they're also extending that after school and they have extra support coming in through volunteers and they're partnering with outside resources whether it's varsity tutors or other tutors, tips tutors. They're providing those extra support one-on-one time for our students to actually develop the skills that maybe they don't really feel comfortable asking in front of their peers or they need more time uh because the vocabulary is

052difficult for them to understand. And so we've been doing that one-on-one. What we haven't done is to take it to all 107 schools. Uh right now it kind of um stays within those 30 schools because they are funded through deal. And so as we look at those pieces research- wise, how do we do that at some scale all the way across the system? We haven't been able to uh take that to scale uh in all our schools, but we're working on to see how we can do that. You Vice President Briggs. >> Um, okay. So, my question is on the um where'd it go? Uh, under differentiated targets uh to achieve um to address achievement gaps, we set accelerated five-year goals for students of color, furthest from educational justice, African-American males, and free and reduced

053lunch students. Um so looking at the interim measure 1A which is to me the most apples to apples comparison um with our with our topline goal um because it's the same assessment and it's just the year prior um what I'm seeing is that our topline goal for everyone is a increase from 56.8% to 66.8%. Um and then for interim measure A uh students of further students of color furthest from educational justice um will increase from 34% to 44%. So in that scenario the gap remains at 22%. Um across 5 years. So, I'm not I'm not seeing how I see that there's parallel progress that that both groups are are progressing, but I'm not seeing how we're closing the gap. >> I So, this was for And you're talking around the interim measure, correct? Yeah, I'm

054talking about interim measure 1A just because it's the SBA um assessment from from the previous grade. So it seems most predictive of of what will happen in the following grade. >> Mhm. >> Um but yeah, I mean I guess just the larger question is that there's uh it's written that that you said accelerated five-year goals, but I'm not seeing how they're accelerated. >> Yes. And I think noted in terms of for the interim, but I believe and I'm trying to get this here. Give me one second here. In our overall goals, it it is noted here that it is it's we are trying to close the gap in terms of the SBA for the sixth grade. So I think that's some work for us to talk to our data team about around how and why

055and the interim measure the way that we've think that getting to this is going to get us to the ultimate topline measure for the baseline. But uh the topline measure sixth grade SBA baseline we are we are looking at closing the gap because if you look at 2425 for example students of color for this educational justice we're at 33.5 and all students were at 56.8 8 which is roughly like a 23% gap and the goal is going to be that by the time we hit 29 2030 we're at a 16% gap. So I think thank you for noticing and I do want us to talk to our data team more interim measures to make sure that they're capturing that but that does not minimize that our over our overarching goal should be that we're closing

056those gaps. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think it's just that the the 10% the 10 percentage point increase in both the topline measurement and then for the targeted groups doesn't there there must be something else at play to explain how we're going to close the gap there because >> otherwise that doesn't pencil out and and so I'm I I just yeah maybe there needs to be data around um what what that look what are the metrics around gap closing because right now all I'm seeing is is a a parallel progress. Yeah. >> Situation. Okay. >> And so yes, and I think when we look at the topline measure, it's broken out, but it I don't think it is. I don't see I Yes, we'll see. Yeah, I got you. >> Okay. >> Yep. So,

057you got your MAP scores that are the predictive growth measures. Then you got your SBA that's supposed to actually make those summitive adjustments that will work on teacher adjustments. And so, they're predictive. And so as we take a look at those predictive measures, what are we going to adjust and make changes to? So we look at our inputs, we look at our outputs, what are we going to do differently? Because if we keep doing the same thing, we're going to hit the same numbers you see here. But if we make those adjustments that we are learning at the front end on our inputs, then our outputs are going to be different. But you're absolutely right. If we stay on the same trajectory doing the same thing we've been doing before, we're going to hit the

058same marks. We keep using the curriculum the same way. But the key to this is working with our teachers. uh having a little bit smaller class sizes to have these conversations with our teachers so they can have time to plan together. If they get more time to plan together as a strategy, you'll start to see our teachers make those gains. Um it's not about uh doing the same thing. It's about them having time to take a look and unpack that curriculum to see what's worked, what hasn't worked, and but they need more time to be able to plan to make those adjustments and do that. And as they do that, they will learn more strategies. So PLC's is a huge strategy to be able to do that. Number two, maybe working with the University of

059Washington or some of our partners to unpack that, to take a look at past strategies that have worked, other strategies that haven't worked, and abandon those strategies so we can actually make a difference with our students in the in the classroom. But we have to take a hard look at what we've been doing and our behaviors as teachers to make those adjustments. Our teachers are willing to do that. They just need more time to do that. And we we can't extend that after school when they're tired. we have to do find a way to do that in our master schedule during the daytime when maybe they get an extra prep and they could actually do that but it's a strategy we have to look at throughout the whole system so we can do that make

060those adjustments across the board most teachers who come out of the system they've had maybe one math class in their BA program and they're now they're in the in their teaching so how do we work with our universities so when we recruit more teachers they've have a stronger background in math and you will see that right off the board because this is cumulative we're talking about second grade going to third grade fourth grade going to fifth grade, they're learning these skills. And if we don't build on those skills, we're going to see kids struggle and then they won't hit their mark by the time they get to nth grade. And we want them to hit their mark each year. >> Can I just ask a really quick follow-up question? Um, I guess I guess what

061I'm maybe struggling with is it's less about like the pedigogy and like how teachers are going to manage to to um support kids and in increasing proficiency and and more about how we are what our expectations are um on our end like from the data. And so I guess to me mathematically it makes more sense to if we want to close the gap that that the um percentage needs to increase at a different rate. >> Um and so so it would make more sense to me if we were saying um that in interim measure 1A that we wanted to see a 15% increase instead of a 10% increase because then then you would be shrinking the gap. >> You know what I mean? So that's less of a question and maybe just like a clarifying

062where I'm coming from with my initial question. >> Thank you. >> Director Miss Rahi. >> Yeah. One of the benefits of going later is that I get a lot of the questions I was going to ask out there. Um, so I'll just say one thing that is just related to what Director Song was saying, but not my question, but I'm just going to say um I know that we just adopted uh well just maybe like a year ago adopted uh middle school math curriculum. And so I think it would be challenging to have consistent tier 2 interventions and better tier one uh uh strategies, you know, unless we're really making sure that that is being implemented across the district and that um it's actually being used in the classroom. So just I think that's an

063important point. um on the map testing uh specifically. I'm curious about um the um relationship to literacy. I know with one of my kids, I saw that um you know, she struggles with reading and her MAP score in math went way down in third grade because there's a reading component to it. >> Uh and it was essentially a useless score because it really had nothing to do with her math ability. It had to do with her reading ability. So, I'm wondering if we if we think there's going to be any benefit from our literacy goals in these overall scores and then also how much we think there's just a causal relationship between the MAP scores and the and literacy versus just a a correlary of like students who are struggling are struggling across the board.

064Um, and how we can >> approach that problem or is there another way to assess their skills with math that doesn't require literacy? Okay. So yes and yes and I think yes. So uh partly when you think about um the way that we have structured the goals I mean you all came up with them but you know we we had a lot of input and invite like conversation around it. The reason that foundational literacy is such so important because there's the whole notion of learning to read so you can read to learn. So that's why when we think about our second grade goal, it is very important to make sure that we're getting as many kids to read at grade level or above as possible because in later years it is going to show up

065and it is going it 100% will have impacts in math instruction especially when you get into what they start calling word problems and story problems in elementary math. And so is there also evidence that some students aren't doing well in in language arts and math? Yes. Is there also evidence that would say that some students who don't do too well with reading or maybe have some sort of disability potentially is that going to impact their ability to do certain math? Yes, that is true as well. So to your question around is there some sort of correlation for some students? Absolutely. And that's why it's very important when we start talking about foundational literacy and what strategies we're doing and getting students at grade level or above. It's really important because it is going to impact

066everything. Um, you can take it into science, you can take it into social studies, but it will also impact math because as you start getting into higher level math, it is not, especially nowadays, it is not just procedural math anymore. There's conceptual understanding math that involves reading of problems and actually having to do writing out answers of problems, not just doing the flip the flip the fraction, multiply. So yes, long way to say yes. >> Director Ranken, >> I have to ask one question to ask my second question. It's a two two-parter. >> We'll call it one A and one B. >> One A 1 A and one B. Um I am wondering about uh and I see the appendix but even in looking in the appendix this becomes even kind of more stark is

067students of color for from educational justice. How how useful of a grouping is that for the current context? Because as we saw with our student needs assessment, when you look at free and reduced lunch, um, multi and multilingual learners in particular, and to some extent students with IEPs, you're capturing because of historic and systemic racism, those demographics are capturing most of our students of color further from educational justice. And what I'm seeing now is that we're actually >> by using that bigger bucket, we're kind of uh invisibleizing some of these other needs that can actually benefit from some targeted strategies. >> And so that's a that's a question is is when we look at, you know, the ven diagram of students in different buckets that many students fall into more than one bucket. Again, because

068of the history of this country, students of color further from educational justice are represented or are over represented in these other groups. But then when you break down these groups, the fact that multi we are not specifically talking about strategies for multilingual learners when their proficiency is so far below and it's not because they are less capable of doing this learning. It's because they don't have language access. And that is something we have control over and that we should be investing in. So that's a a question of which which of these groupings of measurements are the most useful for this context. I'm not suggesting that we like never look at that category of student again. I think it's still important to look at that. But with the context of strategy when we're looking at instructional

069strategies, I have never seen this district say here's an instructional strategy that's going to apply to students of color further from educational justice. Never. But I do see that there are opportunities for strategies for students with IEPs for multilingual learners for other groups of students. So um uh uh and free and reduced lunch and and we saw that the Anyway, yeah, you get what I'm saying. So that being said, I am struggling because I actually don't see any strategies presented here. >> Tier one's not a strategy. Using curriculum >> is not a strategy. That's just a that's the that's the floor of teaching. We we have standards. There is curriculum. Um asking teachers to teach harder is also not really a strategy. So um and and kind of combined with Evans's point of the trajectory

070what I and I sent this some in the email and I know with not enough time to respond to it but the we seem to have current state hope for future state >> something magical in between and uh somehow statistically improbable consistent growth. I I don't know what we're doing that's going to be different that's going to create that growth because I don't see it here. Um I also would expect it's not going to be consistent. So I would like us and I would be really curious. I know Superintendent Schner, it's your your first day your first u meeting here with us. Um but if I know you've watched a lot of our old meetings and I'm probably repeating myself, you've heard me ask these same questions. What I want to see and this ties

071into our budget conversation. Where are we changing our strategies, changing our investments to actually target specific supports for the students who need them the most? Because if we look in the appendix 2, uh 90 97.1% of highly capable students are are meeting or exceeding standard. >> That's not a surprise, right? 56% of all students are meeting or exceeding, which is not great, but it also is like, okay, so for half of everybody, the standard tier, what we're doing now is working. But when we're talking about what our strategies are to do different and they're just we're just going to keep teaching and using the curriculum, I'm not seeing how that's going to lead to this upward trajectory. And that's what I want to see. I want to see we've here's here are supports and services

072we're providing to our teachers to our buildings specifically for multi uh multilingual learners here is we're looking at our IEPs we're looking at our services for students with disabilities and we're investing in these areas to give them support that they clearly don't have. So I know again first day >> but uh uh I am thinking a lot about you used one of my favorite quotes which is the first the the fierce urgency of now. I have been feeling urgency for a long time and and it's hard for me not to feel that urgency when this does not feel very urgent. Oh, well the question was about the the first question was about the >> Can we go to do one A then we'll do one B. >> So 1 A was mostly the >> what's

0731 A and 1 B the question >> and C and D the 1 A was the measuring of the groups of students. >> Yeah, I pulled it up because the how what can we expect to see strategies that actually specifically address the needs of these students who need the most support? >> Yeah. Yeah. No, I I'll just give a couple a little bit more detail on some of the things we've been talking about. So, for example, if you look at our current math materials, there's a thing called success maker, which is a tier 2 invention, which is available to all the students, which is something a little bit more specific than what we put in the presentation. But aligned to your question around like multilingual supports, we are starting a lot of that work with

074our math teachers around where are the multilingual lack of a better term at the moment the interventions that are already built into the materials that they need to start leveraging based on some of these data and also um director Oda and her team we've been having a lot of conversations around this around how are we pairing the instructional co the ML instructional coaches we have at the at here in this building to work with our curricular team so that when we're providing guidance to teachers. We're actually hitting on just high leverage. For example, the GLAD strategies. How are we making those more universal? I do think to your point, there's a difference between where we're at and starting those conversations and having needing it to be more robust. Like it needs to be this is

075what it is. It's more robust. It's available everywhere. And being able to almost detail that out for you all in a better in a better way. But it's not that it's absent. It's not that none of the things are happening. They are they are happening. And I think duly noted on your point here around the students of color for this educational justice because in some ways if we look at this specific slide when I was looking I was like it's almost minimizing how what's happening for other groups. And side note I also looked at yeah that include them but in the absence of actually calling it out it's we're we're then we're not doing strategies towards them. And then I think another thing that I just noted as you were talking about it was yes

076our highly capable students are performing at proficient levels but if you look at the interim measure for the grade five map growth they were not growing at the same rate as some of other students that begs the question is what are we doing for them as well? Yes, >> I would say to you, um, we're happy to come back and give you the strategies because they're not here. You don't see them. Um, but you will be able to see a robust, uh, toolkit for first grade, second grade, third, they're different for each situation. Um, and for us to be able to hone that in to say what we're doing for each first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade, all the way up, we need to be clear about what's working for our multilingual, our

077special needs students are highly capable and be able to explain that in detail. So, we wouldn't do it justice trying to tell you what's happening in sixth grade versus what's happening in third grade. Some could be redoing vocabulary for certain students, should be retaching the curriculum, give them more time on task. It's a lot of different strategies, but you know, we can be able to uh come back to you at another time or even provide that in your notes to be able to show you what what teachers are doing so you could get a real clear idea of what's happening. What's not happening and I can tell you it's not consistent across the system in all our schools. But so you'll see them and then you'll wonder why it's happening at this school, not at

078this school. So those are some of the things that are >> well and that would be what I would expect for a strategy if you all are seeing >> Yeah. Why is there this discrepancy between schools? What's what's maybe not what's what's getting missed over here? And how can we then come in and and support that? >> And we see it in the CIP because >> the the buildings are writing down what they need to develop through professional development and things of that nature and then the principles doing their walkthroughs are giving that feedback. So we see that we're clear about what what that is. We're also clear when we don't see the uh the data that data is missing. So we know we probe deeper to kind of find out why why isn't that

079data there? What's missing there? So we ask you know because it's continuous learning. So we ask those questions and we get our teachers and principles up to that. >> Do we have access to map data acer gets for one teacher is this student is proficient or excelling at this. They're ready to learn these standards. They're ready to learn these standards in statistics. They're ready to learn these standards in geometry. It's it's there's not a mystery again curriculum embedded assessment that's not a strategy that is a way to collect data. Mhm. >> I am not clear on if we're getting useful data out of that and if it's different data than we're seeing from the map when the map are and I'm not as familiar with >> ESPback that's just state required but the map I

080mean I would assume allows us to aggregate that data and we could we could get a snapshot of across the district in general students are really strong in SPS in these standards and not these. We should like can we see that through the map? >> Yes. So we >> yes and we and there is we have a team that comes together to look at that um and that's that is somewhat newer for us this year. We did a whole training with the team on what is the learning continuum and how do scores fall in certain areas and then from there having the team set up their own goals for okay so what does this mean? Um, but I I also go to say that yeah, we need to get we need to make that more

081of like almost like our muscle memory of like how do we do this and just do it more consistently. It can't just be that like oh yeah we looked at it this is great and then what does that mean down to the school level down to the district level those sort of things. So, yes, >> but Oh, hello everybody. Um, I want to make sure that there are no more questions. I know it's uh 5:32 and we're going to move on, but I wanted to address some of the questions. It's >> I think my question similar to director Rankens and I think it's more directed towards you uh Superintendent Schultner is uh you know are these we can talk about strategies but are these the correct strategies that are up here slashemerging initiatives and as

082we look at our goal um do do you feel like it's possible to get there? So, >> uh, hello everybody. Uh, I wanted to really let, uh, our terrific staff answer all the questions from the board. Uh, they've put together this presentation. They've worked really hard. I would never want to kind of one up them on any way, but uh, I appreciate Director Rankin. Uh, you know, I started the job on the first. I should be able to answer all of these questions, and I'm happy to do so. So if uh President Top doesn't mind, I'm going to try to refer to all of the questions that were asked because I think it would be helpful for me to give some kind of overview. So the first one is uh the question about making this

083make sense to not just education professionals. Absolutely. I think that we have as a job is to try to explain as best as we can uh to everybody listening what's in fact going on. So let me try to just point out a couple of things. So the question on that page 16 about well what are we doing right? What what what is it uh that the district itself is trying to do? I try to break it up into two things and president top was with me at three schools today. Uh we got to uh watch uh it was terrific. I liked uh going into the classes and what you're seeing is not only in different schools but even in different classrooms things are different. And what that means is that some are teaching to fidelity,

084some are not. Some are adding things, some are not. And so the first thing the district has to do is get into the schools to make sure that what's happening in the classroom is actually hitting the standard that we're supposed to. and then if they need to be differentiated happening. So a important strategy the district has to do is getting the instructional division actually into schools because they need to make time to see what's happening just like I did and just like President Top did and you know I was with you know Rocky and another day is you know when you spend three uh hours one at each different school you start to see what's actually happening. What I saw is really wonderful teachers, teachers who care deeply about their children, but even in two

085classes that were next to each other teaching the exact same curriculum, one class was rocking it out and one class maybe needed some more support. And so that's the what we have to do is making sure that the people in this very large building uh leave the building and go into the school so that they are really seeing where that is. Now, this is goes to the second. You talk about looking at data isn't necessarily a strategy. No, but that's step one because what we need to do is look at those two classrooms and say, I wonder how are each of those children doing in those classrooms. And then when they see that maybe one classroom is also rocking it out not just by me watching it but by the data then we as instructional

086division need to say okay we see in this classroom these students aren't necessarily doing well and then is the teacher actually differentiating the work or giving different kinds of instruction or different supports and I spent a lot of time with one teacher today who said look I need the district's help in with the differenti iation. I love the curriculum, but what happens when I look at the data and I see that, wow, I've got a group of kids that are not doing well. What are we going to do? And so, you're right, tier 2 isn't a strategy. That's just education ease. But what it really means is we've got to look at the data and then we have to say to the teacher, okay, what do you got? And then we go, okay, these groups

087of kids are, let's say, not able to do fractions in a certain way. are we giving you different ways of teaching fractions? So, those are strategies. Now, I don't want to bore you with what that might mean. Maybe we need manipulatives. Maybe we need to um you know, do a different type of evaluation. Maybe there's different ways of teaching it. There's a lot of ways I can happily go into it, but the issue is what are we as the district doing to support that teacher when they look at that data to say, "Wow, this kid is doing well. This kid uh isn't." And so, you're you're right. I think this is a very kind of topline thing. Um but what's important is that you see those two uh important but separate things. One is are

088we teaching the curriculum and and if not what's going on and if a teacher is let's say supplementing it with stuff that is not rigorous or supplementing it with is uh very rigorous we need to make sure that everybody at least is on on grade level because when you see students who are not making it a lot of times it's because the curriculum itself is not moving them towards success. And then the second of course is you have to look at the data to see which kids are doing well and not and then actually focusing on it. So to uh Vice President Brigg's point um if we're going to try to get to the numbers that we purport to get to it can't be 10%. You're 100% right. When I looked at that they're just

089it doesn't necessarily add up. But to to um Rocky's point on the page 10, it does add up in the sense that if you look at um the topline baseline from uh 2425 to 29 30 and this again is the sixth grade is that the all students goes from 568 to 668. So with 10 points but then the um students from furthest from educational justice goes from 33 to 50. So that's actually, you know, a 17% jump. So you're actually starting to move it. But you were right to point out that this interim gold just keeps it keeping on. So I appreciate you keeping you pointing that out. But the the the thing that we're focusing on, of course, the end result is the 10 and you can see some. Now, would I love to

090not see any differentiation between the colors that the blue and the red and the I guess that's a kind of gray and another gray like a green gray. Um, they should all be the same, right? which is awesome, but we got to be re uh real about what we're seeing. Um the other thing I would uh point out which I think is really fascinating is the ELLL scores, the multi- language learner scores scare me, right? They're super super low. But if you look at the growth rates, actually those students are in fact doing the the year of growth. they're just not at proficiency, which of course means that they started at a different level. So even if they did the growth that they needed to go, they're not making it. So that's a different way

091of thinking. So what that says to me is our teachers are moving our ELLL students when they get them, but they're starting at such a low level that we need to actually move them farther and faster and maybe we need to start differentiating much earlier. I will also say to to Rocky's point, sometimes the tests that we give, we give to all students and then the actual state exams you don't give to certain students because of you know just getting into school. There's certain laws about that. But what I'm encouraged by is that if you look at let's say page 26, I am getting old and can barely see that is that the multilanguage learners Yeah. the multilanguage learners actually the 52.2% 2% of MET is saying that actually our ML kids are growing even

092though they might not be at proficiency. The sad one about highly capable is that the kids that are not at proficiency who are highly capable are actually not growing nearly as much. And so I think what this says is are we not really engaging our HC kids? And then of course we're it looks like we are engaging our ML kids but not far far enough because they started at a different place. So you know what I see from this data is both scary and encouraging. Uh we're we're starting in a place where uh many of our students who are furthest away from from educational justice that are ML that are um uh special education uh that are free and reduced lunch are in fact well below uh our our total population. But at least the

093good news is there's there seems to be growth of students who are not necessarily at proficiency. We've got to get them to proficiency. And that's why what I really care about is that second piece teaching to fidelity and data analysis is what I have found in my experience is a lot of times teachers don't know or aren't supported enough to know when a kid is really close to proficiency but isn't just right there. And so we might have a ton of ML kids that are making progress, that are doing well, and they're just not getting over that proficiency level. But that's where the teacher comes in, goes, "Oh, wow. You're really close. I need to do this extra thing or that extra thing." And and you know, sometimes there's an old adage, you know, you

094teach what you test or you focus on what's being uh, you know, tested. I think what we need to do again is make sure that our teachers have robust information so that they can then look at how our children are doing and then move them forward. They're the experts. We have to help them by giving them differentiated instruction and things like that. But I think what is happening what I saw today is the students seem to be taught collectively and there might be some individual students that need support that isn't necessarily happening. That's hard. differentiation is really hard, but that's where we as a district can come in and support. So, that's kind of a a broad way of of trying to answer the questions. And I think the president's top question at the end

095is are basically are these numbers doable, right? And and I think I want to say yes, right? I want I want it to be a hundred, right? But I think we also in this district, and I know it's day four, um but we also have to recognize actually how good these numbers are. And this is not to be an apologist. This just means is I've spent a lot of my time around this country and the proficiency rates that Seattle has is actually extraordinarily high. So if you compare us to any other large urban district in America, we're actually doing quite well. And so it's unfortunate that doing well in America means 55% proficiency. But when you look at basically you take a big district, a Chicago, a New York, a Portland, a you know, a

096Denver, you you whoever, we're actually doing quite well. San Diego, you know, there's close there, right? But there's that when you just list all of the data points of cities, we're actually doing quite well, but we should do better, right? And so I think I want the 10% as a goal. I think that's a really great number. I'm glad that the board picked it, but I do want to couch that is if that if we get there, it really will be. We will be the best uh public school district uh urban public school district in America, which our kids deserve. But I just want to temper that though 10% might not seem a lot, that goal of, you know, 65 66% will actually put us in places that are incredibly high, which is awesome, but

097we just need to know that. So >> sort of final questions before we wrap up. Director Smith, sorry I just have um two questions. Um just one of first I just I do want to comment on the map growth for um I think it's page 26. So it's what's up there. Um, just doing some back of the envelope math. I am not as worried about the highly capable numbers there because the percent of highly capable learners that were behind. >> Yeah. I like I I I did the math. Um, and so if you look at the the percent of students for each category who both didn't meet their target and then didn't exceed their the growth or didn't meet the growth target, it's 2.1% for highly capable and it's over 20% for every other category

098once when you combine that. So I just want to I I I do math. Um and then my other question is about kind of overall I think that the map andor SBA scores have been rescaled and so there are a lot of mismatches between the numbers on different pages. Um so for instance like the top line plot you can look at the numbers listed there for 24 25 and those don't match the numbers later on for the same years for the same same tests. Um so I I think that that's I think that was like a very recent rescaling. Um but I think it would be very helpful to make sure we have consistent reporting on how the data is being adjusted as we go along. Um, and it also does have a tiny bit

099of concern that if these tests are going to be adjusted so that I I think it's based on student performance, it there's a little bit of like are we trying putting oursel in a position where we're saying we're going to get 60% of the students over the median like no, nobody will, >> right? >> Um, so just >> I wanted to comment on that and how will we how will we manage the that rescaling? Yeah. Um, so I I think there's kind of two things to highlight. One would be you're absolutely right to point out the very small number of HD kids that are not necessarily proficient. But it does at least point out that maybe the kids that are HD that are not proficient that we might not be pushing them, right? Because why

100is that HD kid not proficient? So, but the point is super well taken. I think the other concern and this is when you use a nationally norm test is you know there was an old radio show um you know the Garrison Keeler where all the kids are above average. Well that can't possibly be true right and so we just have to be really thoughtful about how we use um reference exams that have a national norm so that you're not necessarily setting us up for always being above average. But I think at least with kind of state exams, there's no question that we need to be at, you know, 65 uh, you know, whatever whatever the percentage is. So, I really appreciate you pointing that out. And what I would hope is as I get kind

101of deeper into the data analysis with the team is that I'd want to make sure that we do some explanation of the difference between map the difference between uh smarter balance but also um the kind of how we're looking at different chunks because some of this might be a little confusing because it says basically here's our proficiency numbers and then it's like here's our growth numbers, here's our growth numbers for kids that aren't proficient. but they all kind of don't make any sense if you don't have a broader view of it. So, you know what I love about this dialogue and thank you for having this is that your questions make the next presentation that much clearer and so I really look forward to whenever it is. Uh although I guess there's the next presentation

102in 8 minutes or two minutes. Uh but you know these are the kinds of dialogues that I want to see happen uh in my superintendency however long or short that might be. Uh and and it's also really important for the people at home watching because they need to understand what we're talking about too and that they need to have faith that the board and the district knows what we're talking about as well. So thank you Director Smith. >> All right, we are going to thank you uh Dr. Torres Morales, Superintendent Schner, and Accountability Officer Howard. We're going to transition now. So we're going to take a break for we're going to take a five minute break. So, we're going to be back here at 5:53 um in our seats so we can start um and

103we'll go into our budget discussion and we'll switch out staff too, I believe. All right. Thank you. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Call folks back to the tables. please. As promised, it's 553. I'm going to see I Director Rankin is back. All right. I'm going to start calling out people who aren't at the table. Oh, wait. Director Manglesson is back. Director Massudi is back. Let's see if we can get Superintendent Shner to come to the table. Let's see if we can get uh Director Smith to the table. Vice President Briggs to the table. Who else can I call out? Director Song to the table. All right, welcome back. So, this is budget study session part two. Um, I I really appreciate the staff and the detail that we went into in the first session. I

104think we kind of cut it off abruptly at the a point where we could actually sort of start having a little bit of discussion or director questions. I know that uh questions were submitted today but also somewhat late so they may not all be answered. So I think I'll pass it over uh to staff for a moment but then we'll really sort of get into discussion uh and and go around the table. So uh Superintendent Shelmer. >> Hi uh I am just extremely happy to be here. I watched the other one online and so uh thank you for uh continuing this wonderful conversation. I will hand it over to uh COO Podesta who's very happy that he's not being called intram superintendent. >> No, I um worked hard to orchestrate the last session. So, the

105former superintendent just presented and the new superintendent answered all the questions. Um but uh >> that that's why we have him as the COO. It's very smart. Um but we did we really ended and left it at the part um for Q&A. Again, we changed the structure a little bit to have um many if not all of our senior leaders here so they can speak to their own uh priorities and um budget challenges they face. Appreciate all the questions um you got in advance. And I was wondering, President Tou would work that if you uh did what you would have done, go around to directors and if they have written questions, maybe they could pick their highlights if they want us to talk about them or um ask whatever's top of mind because that's that's

106kind of where we were in the program. And so whereas we may not be able to answer everything this minute, but we'll do our best and and keep working with the board along the way. And I think that if you haven't gotten questions in, because I know directors have been very busy in the past week, um there's still an opportunity to get questions in and get responses, but we'll we're just going to go around the U, but we'll go the opposite way this time to kind of keep it fair. So, I'll start with Director Ranken. >> Thank you. And yeah, I did I did send in some questions uh but you know, like three hours ago and I know folks were you know, busy doing other things and at schools and whatnot. Um, at the

107same time, a lot of my questions were not brand new from me questions. Um, I guess I think the question I would like to ask is a little bit of a further further out timeline, bigger picture that not not to put you on the spot, superintendent, but realistically, I mean, it's February. We're not like, hm, what should we do about next year's budget? We're not we're not just cracking into this conversation. Pretty much as soon as we pass one year's budget, we immediately start talking about the next year's budget. Um, knowing that we were going through transition this past year of leadership, I I didn't expect massive changes to come for next year, but um this is my seventh year on the board. Um, and so what what have you looked at, Ben? What are

108you thinking about in terms of what where can we get next year? And what are you thinking in terms of because I know you've thought about it. Um, what are you thinking in terms of sort of a a five-year forecast and again not a we are here now, we will be here later magical things happen in between. But what what what can we kind of what should we be thinking about in terms of getting us to solveny >> but most importantly better aligning the resources that we do have with meeting the needs of our students not and I'm this is we have a we have a budget and a process very much focus on >> FTE >> and we exist to serve children we hire people into positions so that they can serve students. We

109have a budget that looks like children come to us so we can hire adults and give them jobs. >> Yeah. Well, first of all, >> so how can we shift? >> No, thank you for the question. And you know, the first thing I would say is all of the 9,000 plus employees uh that work for Seattle public schools I know are doing their absolute best to help put uh children first. And so what Director Rankin is really talking about is the system and structure of how we do this. Uh, and it's the same thing that we, you know, I said in the previous presentation, our teachers really are terrific. I mean, every classroom I saw, I saw people really wanting to to teach. Are we giving them the right facilities? Are we giving them the

110right curriculum? Are we giving them the right structure? And then, of course, are we having the budget in the right way? So, I mean, look, have I looked at the budget? Absolutely. And then more importantly, I've been into the schools and I've seen how we're using money there. I was at a school that had one child in a classroom. Two adults that can't possibly be okay. Is that a the right way to use the money we have to support the 50,000 children that we are to serve? Clearly, the answer is no. And I was in a school that had classes that were bursting at the seams. I was in a school that needed walls. I was at a school that needed uh certain facilities and then I was at a school that had at one

111point more adults than children on an entire floor. I was in a building that was shutting down a wing because they just didn't need the space. So, I think those are the kinds of things that we have to just be honest about and we have to be thoughtful about how are we using our resources in the most equitable way. Now, again, I'm not saying we're going to do one thing or another. It's day four, but that's one thing. I think a second thing is as we look at the org chart, we see a lot of different departments that have very similar positions and very similar types of roles. Now, that's happened because really great people, all of these awesome folks uh at the table and behind have been trying to build their departments to serve

112the things they need to serve, but there hasn't been quite a lot of alignment kind of as a district. So, what I think you'll start to see is some res uh recognition of where we're spending money well and where we're spending money not so well. I can't today say we're gonna cut here or we're going to grow this. But I will certainly give a very large plea to the wonderful city of Seattle. Uh everybody knows that there's something called deal and the feep levy uh and a big kind of sort of damocles ac over our heads is this very large funding stream. We are very much hoping that the city uh in its own beneficence uh re recognizes all of the things that it does and we hope that they are going to continue uh

113to re-up that money. Uh but that's also going to be a big question because that is money that we have to also understand because if we don't have that it's not like we can backfill that either. So I think early on my analysis is there's some misuse of facility space of staffing of staffing there's some inefficiencies in terms of um departmental structure and FTE uh and at the end of the month just so everybody knows uh we're going to have a really big meeting uh you know in this building with a lot of different folks so we can really just hone into the org chart and see what's what's going to happen. So, I appreciate that that answer is like sort of full and sort of mealymouththed, but I appreciate that there are buckets that

114we're going to look at and then hopefully we can start to make decisions pretty quickly. >> Director Misrai, >> I think I'll piggyback a little bit off director uh Rankin's question. Um, and I know it's day four, so not with an expectation that you're going to have a comprehensive budget solution for us. And I don't have it in the weeds question, more just uh you know on page 29 the the just the trajectory of the fund balance really makes me quite nervous >> overall and I think that's like that to me is just where the rubber hits the road on like are we in in in good financial shape as a district and and and once that money is gone that's that's like the nightmare scenario. So I think that um projection going forward really

115makes me nervous and I think that my larger reflection around um the latter half of this presentation I think the first half was great to just sort of see how the budget is aligning to our goals is that you know the solutions that we're talking about are still that just that sort of like chipping away around the edges of a really big problem and I think that um as you come in my hope is that we are seeing both on the revenue side and on the cutting expenses side of like let's find those big solutions you know, I don't I don't have any expectation, nor do I have like a it's this this thing that we need to fix. But but I think that um you know, trying to find the the systemic ways because

116because even the solutions offered here, which many of these are cuts that will impact families and students and will be impactful on especially low-wage workers lives in our city, >> but even with all that impact, they don't really solve our big problem, right? So, how do we get to those big systemic solutions? Um I think the FEP levy is super important. And I think, you know, continuing the conversations with the state is super important on the revenue side. So, we're not only talking about austerity. Um, but also finding um where there may be large inefficiencies or just ways that we've just done things forever that are going to maybe get to that larger problem. >> Yeah. I mean, look, I think uh as you said when hiring me, uh I I can be blunt, which

117I I love. Um yeah, we're in a lot of trouble. I mean, you look at these numbers, there's no way to sugarcoat it. You know, there's different ways of looking at it, and I would certainly refer to Dr. Bottleman, but you know, 87 million, 100 million, you know, depending on how you look at this, it's a lot of money, and we are in the hole. And so, we have to be honest about that. And so, I appreciate every single person who has come to me in the last four days asking for more money. That is not happening. It's going to be the opposite. We have to be clear about that. We have to not be $87 million in the hole. So I think in some respects the first thing we have to do is stop

118spending money we don't have. And so one of the things that we can start to do is building budgets kind of backward which is we build what we have that we need for schools and then what's ever left is what comes to this office. You know there are ways to not spend money you don't have. You take the money and you say that's all you got. You start with the schools because that's the most important where the children are. You spend it at the schools and then what's ever left is what goes to everybody else. You can also do it the other way which is you take the money off the top. You know, you got to have a superintendent. I'd like to, you know, I'd like these people. They should get a job. You

119know, and then then you say what's left and then you put it into the schools. The problem of course doing that is who gets hurt is the kids, right? So I think what we have to do and it's a fundamental way of rethinking a budget which is take our total budget what we have not wishful thinking that somehow 50,000 kids from you know somewhere else are going to pop up magically is that we're going to say this is what we think our budget is. This is what the schools need. Whatever's left is what goes to this building and we call it a day and it's going to suck and it's going to be really hard but if we are going to put kids first that's kind of what we need to do. Now, the good

120news is there is some revenue stuff. You know, there is some, you know, different pots of money that we can move around so we can cut around the edges, but that huge middle ground, we're just going to have to we're just going to have to deal with it, which is we fund the schools, whatever's left is that what's is is what we get for everybody else, and we call it a day. Um, it'll probably take two years. Um, I think what that'll mean is that we'll be in heirs for about another year or two. uh and then by then we'll be good. you know hopefully deal in feep levy hopefully um state is going to come through but again I can't promise that or plan on that and if it does all the better terrific

121so yeah it's a great question I mean I think there's there's a lot there I mean the other way to make people not as freaked out as they might be after hearing what I said is the budget is 1.35 billion we're a hundred million let's say in the hole that's still less than 10% right so you're still only talking about a 10% hit. So you're not saying we're getting rid of everything. We're cutting right down to the bone. What you're saying is we need to figure out about an 8 to 9%. Now one other way of thinking about it and this is definitely one we are looking at is in any organization even the most wonderful organization people retire people leave. So if there's FTEEs that become vacant maybe we don't replace them. And so

122even if we took let's say a 5% uh people uh retire or leave or you know go play for the Knicks or something which would be my dream but whatever uh is is that even that 5% you're talking about you know hundreds of folks that if you don't fill up that's FTE you're saving let's say on an average of a hundred,000 bucks. Now you you're talking real money here. So I think and they've all heard me say this is we can't start hiring more folks to more positions and then the f and the positions that let's say become vacant then we got to think about do we really need to fill them uh the good news is if we do that then nobody actually loses their job right and that's always what I want never

123want uh to be uh somebody that's going to lay folks off uh but we also have to be honest about where we are so those are some theory or some strategies Vice President Briggs. >> Uh, so I'm I'm a big fan of win-win situations. I don't know who isn't, but um but when you Ben were talking earlier um about wanting staffs, especially instructional staff to be out in buildings more, um I mean, I've I've been hearing from staff and families for a long time that it would be really great to see central office staff in buildings and that that could go a long way towards eliminating a lot of the disconnect um that that families um from what happens here and what's happening in their buildings. And so it just made me think about like

124a win-win scenario in which that was a costfree possibly revenue generating way to um improve outcomes for students and then do we need this giant building at that point and what can be done with it. So um anyway, that was just you know like a little thought that popped into my head when when you talked about that. Um, and I I was just wondering if you happen to have any other similar like win-win type ideas that you think could be um like because I think to Joe's point earlier and I mean we all we have all said this I know we all feel this deeply like the last people we want to to impact our kids in classrooms and so um like what are I guess I'm just thinking like what are the solution like

125are there hidden solutions that will actually save us money and be better for kids? >> Sure. >> Yeah. I mean that that is the question, right? And that's the the way we were always thinking about it. You know, look, I think being thoughtful about human resources is number one, right? Putting people in schools and, you know, maybe that's a a win-win as you said. I mean, I think we also have to look at some of the facilities we have that are not even being used as schools. Um, you know, again, day four, but I've looked at a list of all the stuff we own. We own a lot of stuff. You know, do we need it all? You know, are there ways to rent it out? You know, what's what what's the relationship that we

126have with um, you know, some of the places that are renting our facilities? You know, I think we also have to look at some of the places that we're using that we're renting. I mean, I was at a wonderful school that I love the principal. Big shout out to that principal. Uh, she knows who she is. uh is that but they're renting space like we have a million buildings what are we doing right so I think there are some uh easier you know win-wins um but again you know I'll try to give the board and of course the wonderful community a pretty detailed uh analysis but yes I mean when you look at how the entire district all 1.35 billion and all 9,000 folks and all the 50,000 kids is if we're renting something and

127we own something, maybe that doesn't make sense, right? Like those are the kinds of things that I think we just have to be honest about and maybe it'll be a little bit uneasy for some folks at first, but it's the right thing to do and it doesn't impact what happens in the classroom. So, yeah, >> Director Yun, >> Director Smith. Um, so I did submit most of the questions I had from last week um online, so hopefully they'll be covered. Um, but on the >> Hang on just a sec. Uh, Chief Operating Officer Podesta, uh, do you want to >> respond? >> Okay. >> So, I I was thinking for those that we've responded in writing, if like there and you had several if there's a highlight or if our responses need followup rather than

128me just or anybody just reading our responses that we've written. >> Okay. I'll have access to them and I believe the public does as well. >> Okay. I haven't I haven't seen them yet. Um, but I I'm not going to touch on that too much right now. Um, but I did just want to comment about um I had asked about the hiring freeze, which only impacts the non-represented positions. So, not not teachers, I think, not principles. So, it's a smaller number, but that kind of goes alongside the um the the strategy of not backfilling positions as people leave. And I I don't want to, you know, criticize that strategy because I'm not an HR person. I'm not that like that's not what I do. But it does seem a little bit at odds um with

129the desire to not just say here's what we've always done and so we're just going to do changes from there. We like um sorry I'm saying a lot of words here >> with regard to that in particular which I think is an option we identified. I think Superintendent Sheldoner also raised it that there's attrition and that can be leveraged. We have um had a hiring freeze um since 2023. Um and what it's not a it's not permafrost by any stretch of the imagination but it means that there's executive review of any um refilling any vacant position and specifically the leaders who look at um uh those requests for a variance from a hiring freeze think about the strategic priority of those position and that's one of the reasons I mean we I think um when

130we were writing budget budgets in 2023, we're looking at $132 million deficit. I mean, we this has unfortunately been a movie we've seen the past three years running. And so, we're teeing that up as a strategy not to just make savings that are just random based on who leaves and who doesn't. It's kind of harvesting. That's a really crude word for this. since we've um had this freeze and haven't filled these positions three years running because when we looked at is should this be an exception and thought this isn't a strategic need? No. Is now the f time to just take that off the books because those vacancies are written into our budget and so that's part of that $87 million. So it isn't I I know when you say well let's just not fill

131vacancies. That sounds kind of random. It hasn't been random. There's been thought behind no, this is something we do need to fill because it's important or this is something we could live without. And so those are kind of efficiencies that come up along the way. >> Um I don't want to cut you off, Superintendent Diner, but I am very satisfied with that answer that um it really addresses that concern that it's like is the hiring freeze meaning that our our cuts are kind of up being applied in a random way. >> No, no. And I appreciate that and you know, I'll try to reiterate it. Um the whole idea of when you set budgets for large, you know, districts or large organizations, you kind of have a list of these jobs that you think you

132need and that you think you have. And then sometimes they don't get filled for a year, two years, three years. You got to start making a decision when do you just stop putting them on? And if we do that, even with what we already have, there'll be some quite a lot of savings, at least in the way that we plan it. Now, somebody might be saying, "Yeah, but Ben, if you haven't been filling it for 3 years, you haven't actually been spending the money." Fair point. However, when you're budgeting, you've got to make sure that you're actually budgeting the right number. And so, this is a really good way to start to clean up a lot of the things. But to Fred's point, we do have to continue that not perafrost uh but that that

133soft cold because it is often times that somebody will retire and the question is do we really need it, right? And and again, we have to have the reality we're 87 in the hole. If if it's like a 50/50, we might have to make a decision. Hey, look, this is something we're not going to fill. Um, but you know, again, our people are what matter. Our children are what matter. Every decision we're going to make is to try to make sure that the people who currently work for us still work for us. But sometimes we will have to make the hard decision. So, thank you for the question, >> Director Manglesen. >> Director Song. Um, I just want to say how appreciative I am of this presentation because I think we, as we talked about

134last time, we've really made a lot of progress in terms of presenting what we plan to fund. So, I think I'm going to sound a little hypocritical, but um, I'm trying to at the end of the day, we still have to balance our budget, right? And so, what I'm trying to understand, it's not in this presentation, is what is our projected fund balance. So um you know this is the fund balance for the 24 or 25 year and then there's a table where it shows revenues versus expenditures. Um and that's like the contribution. So but where are we with a fund balance? Um it I know from the last budget presentation it sounded like we ended up using less of our fund balance than we expected. So, does it seem like we're in a more

135comfortable position than we anticipated for 25 26 and 26 27? I'm just trying to help I I'd like to know so that we can understand in the context of all the cuts that were um on the table as presented by business line like are these things that we need to seriously start talking about? And >> I'm going to ask my new boss. Do you want me to start or do you want to start? >> I'll start. >> You know, again, I think if we do the things that we've talked about today, that 87 million can go down, right? And so that's the good news. The right now, if you don't touch anything that we've done, that's the real number, right? And again, people have said, you know, I've said this very much in public. If

136you know what you're doing with a large budget, you can make it look pretty much any way you want, right? And so that doesn't mean that you're shady. It doesn't mean that you're hiding something. It just means that it's like from what comparison are you looking at? So that 8758392, that's a real number, right? Kurt did not make that up. He he said that is a number that is what we're going to be uh in in the hole. However, if you think about some of the vacancy stuff that we've talked about, some of the savings that we've talked about, we do think we can bring that down uh by pretty significant, which is great. And I'll turn over to Kurt to maybe either go, you know, through specific numbers or just give a general like

137where you think we're going to be. Um, but yeah, the good news is that that is real, but the things we've already started to do, we think we're going to bring it down, but we also don't know if there's going to be extra costs that have come out of nowhere that you know, we don't know, a roof, uh, you know, some some uh, you know, cola costs, some uh, I don't know, um, healthcare cost, you know, things that just happen, right? So, but K. >> Yes. So, just to sort of piggyback on that, these numbers assume nothing changes. The district continues to operate business as it always has, which isn't an option, as we've discussed, because we ran out of money. We ran out of fund balance if that were the case. So, there's urgency

138to do things about that. I think your real question is, is there some optimism in here or is there more pessimism in terms of where we think we're going to really end up for this next year? or is that >> like this 89 number that's not our fund balance that's the contribution to the fund balance. So my question is okay we know that we have a potentially a negative $89 million impact to the fund balance but where are we with the actual fund balance? So the actual fund balance is this 97 million that so if all that played out as that port pretends then you'd have that very little left but it's not going to play out because we're going to do some things to make sure that $87 million is not the reality for

1392627. If we don't erode that $87 million down to zero then there will be some additional contributions from the fund balance but not that $87 million. What is the current fund? >> So, it's >> the current fund balance is 97. >> So, 97 and we're expecting a $89 million hit to that. Um, >> if we don't do anything, um, and this is interesting because there's legislation currently in discussion about what is appropriate level fund balance for school districts. Like, do we have a internal target for where we're trying to get our fund balance? I mean, I know overtime we want to replace that rainy day fund. Like we're trying to get there, but like do we have a number that we're trying to hit? >> That's the parallel to that legislation that you're talking about

140is the district's economic stabilization account. So that's the 3 to 5% that's been utilized the last few years to help balance the budget. So the board's read on that currently is 3 to 5% is what should be held in reserve which is sort of the parallel conversation that's going on in the legislature that OSBI introduced this year. >> Yeah. What I will say just to give a not just uh Washington uh point of view that's really low. A typical fund balance in the rest of the country should be 10 to 15%. because you just don't know. Now, Washington has, you know, a view of this. We're also a very large district, so 10 to 15% of 1.35 billion is quite a lot of cash. But typically, if you look at, let's say, Michigan, where I

141was, uh, having a fund balance of 10 to 15 was considered healthy. Now, you could go down to five, but once you were under five, the state starts to really look at you. And so, what I hope, and again, not to short change any child or any adult, but the hope is that over the next five years, we can actually really build a sustainable fund balance at around 10%. I think that would be incredible. But let's just get out of the hole first and then we can start to to dream. Director Lavali. >> Yeah, I loved first of all your discussion on kind of I I briefly worked in a financial reporting industry for a brief amount of time and was working on top down and bottom up reporting. Um, so I really appreciate you

142kind of taking a look at that and being like, how are we doing it both from top down in the district, but then also doing that reverse and doing that bottom up process at the exact same time. So appreciate that. My question is um last year the budget and I was not at the board at this point in time, but the budget was delivered really late to the board. schools and the building leadership teams need to get staffing plans in by miday. Currently, if we're looking at the board budget development next steps on slide 60, um we've got a public meeting for the proposed budget on July 1st, two weeks after everyone goes on break. So, I'm really wondering if that's real public engagement or what the purpose of that meeting and expectations for that

143are. If it's two weeks into break and right next to the Fourth of July weekend, um then it looks like in August there's the adoption of that budget. Most other districts that I've looked into have that budget approval closer to the May time frame. So, I'm wondering if there's anything that we can do to move this in a direction that's more in line with both what our peer districts are doing and what schools are needing to do to project staffing for. >> So, a lot in that question. So, thank you. This is um last year was June and July which has been typical for sale public schools. Most of the Puget Sound districts are on this July August cadence. What the challenge here has been is the the board sort of um level conversation that

144we tried to have last week with the real sort of proposal that came later than was appropriate last year because all the staffing had already happened. So the intent is to get in that February March in front of the board something that says we are planning to grow this reduce this eliminate that so that the board the staff can figure out what the legislature did to us and how all that works together to come forward with this document which is the entire budget proposal which is the formal document that would be approved in July. The reason that the staff wanted to move the June to July was to have more time to have a more comprehensive document for folks to to work on um especially with the transition of leadership at Seattle public schools. But

145that February March time frame is the place where we would really like to get the board's sort of input on what they want to see in that July document. And there's been tension and like you said, you weren't part of the board last year around what level of detail the board wants to get in that information, what level of detail you want to get in terms of the decision making. And so that will persist and we'll work through it. Um, and hopefully it'll work through it a little more satisfactoryy to the the board going forward. And I'll defer to Superintendent Schner if he has anything he wants to add or subtract from what I've shared. >> Look, we want to get the budget as quickly as we possibly can. And I know I appreciate what

146>> you want to just just pause for a moment. We may >> Hello. There we go. >> All right. I will repeat. Uh I mean look, you always want to get the budget as soon as possible in the hands of the people that need to spend it. Um but I, you know, certainly appreciate Kurt's view of the Puget Sound area, which of course I do not know. Um if this is kind of the general time frame that they use, then that seems uh to make sense. But, you know, we're going to certainly I think the relationship with the board and you're all wonderful people. Uh, is that I think there's two ways of thinking about it. There's the kind of draft like what are the big buckets and then we can start to go line

147by line by line, but the line by line by line stuff comes later. And that's typical, right? That's when the other districts in the area do it, etc. But I think if we can move up or codify where the board's understanding of what the budget should look like, then we could start to really give sort of good guidance to the schools to make decisions. But again, there is this kind of sort of damocles right now of the FEP uh because of that which of course we cannot control. So >> director Ren, can you have a followup there? Um I wanted to add to that the the public it's it's required that there's a public hearing before the board adopts. So it's not necessarily that June or what we have been doing in June or or

148July is is not like hey every you know it's not it's not actual engagement. It's it's a it's more than just public testimony. It's a separate hearing that's required by the state before the board adopts the budget. It's kind of the last opportunity for members of the public to you know speak now or forever hold your peace before before we adopt. We have and I can't remember what is in our policy 00060 ideally would have a preliminary recommendation for the budget around January of just like what what are we looking at for the next year? Then the February March kind of response from the response from the board heading in you know that's heading into legislative session um February March a firmer idea based on board direction and then some opportunity for staff to actually

149take that to the public for a final development and in talking about what's what's what's in it what they're what they're considering before it comes back to us. The other thing at the state level is that May 15th is a requirement for uh notice of of layoffs. So that's where those are kind of the the the non-negotiable timelines, but the um depending on the size of the district, districts have to adopt finally adopt the next year's school budget by either the 1st of August or the 31st of August. Um, so we actually have been adopting on the earlier side >> and we have a back and forth with the ESD and the OSPI during that July August time frame to make sure it all makes sense. >> Thank you. >> So I'm going to hold

150my question for now, but I want to see if other directors have their have questions. We'll just kind of shoot around the circle. Director Misarah. >> Okay. Okay, I just want to dig in on this fund balance question because I I think maybe I'm confused. Can we go back to slide 29? Okay, so I want to make sure I totally understand this because I don't want to accidentally be bankrupt. Okay, so uh sorry, page 29, not slide 29. So I think go back one uh maybe two, maybe three. Oh no, go forward. >> Go forward. >> Forward. Okay, okay, okay. Uh okay. to page 29. So that is 89.8 million that we're taking from our fund balance at the for this school year that we're in right now. >> If everything went off as in

151this budget book, if every employee vacancy was filled throughout the year, enrollment was looking at now, right? So we kind of know a little bit about that, right? Okay. >> And then go back to the previous page. So we have 97 whatever in our current fund balance. So at the end of this year it will be 8 million like what is our fund balance going to be September one of this year I think is my fundamental question. >> Yeah we don't know that yet. somewhere in the range of 8 million to what 20 million I don't know whatever it's not going to be >> the last three years the average sort of erosion of it has been $31 million so if we use that as proxy the 97 would be 66 >> okay I guess

152what then if you go to the um next slide again >> I guess what makes me nervous is then okay so then we're going to be looking at a budget that on paper is negative 87. It would it's it it will feel strange in August to be approving a budget that if those numbers are panning out will be >> a negative fund balance budget >> and we can't proving bankruptcy. I don't think we can't do that. Right. That's not allowed. Right. >> Okay. Right. Right. Okay. Yes. >> I I don't think we can or should do that. So, so I guess the more we can know about what how how much we're on track for that 89.8 like how how much of that we actually think is going to drain from our fund balance seems

153really important as we head towards August. >> So I very much appreciate that question. So what you are highlighting is one of the problems that uh school districts have in terms of updating the board on where we are. Right. So Kurt's response of we don't know is because we haven't done the math in many districts and Kurt and I have talked about this so it's not like I'm telling him to do something that he doesn't know about. Uh is that what I'm going to like to see going forward is budget amendments that you will be presented with either twice a year or three times a year. That way you'll know is that 89 right now at 72 or is it at 65 because how in the world Joe can you make a decision? Sorry, director

154Ms. Rahi, can you in how in the world could you approve the 2627 budget if you don't know if we've got 97 million or 50 million or 2 million? Because if we got, let's say, 10 million in the bank, you can't possibly say anything other than, "Ben, we're about to be insolvent. You need to go fix it, right?" So, what we're going to hopefully bring to the board uh in the future is uh amendments to budget so that you'll actually see updates and Kurt and I are going to talk, is it twice a year? Is it three times a year so that you're not going blind into this? Now, Kurt is very good. He's not going to have you go blind at the end where you're going in you'll see the numbers but even today

155we're having this budget conversation and you know director song first question what's our fund balance correct question right and if the answer is 97 well it's 97 really as of a couple of months ago right we don't know what it is right now and so we are going to get there and the good thing is it's probably hopefully in a bank somewhere and we could just check uh but the more that we uh give you updates on a consistent basis, the more reality check we can all have to make the right uh decisions. And I want to publicly commend Kurt uh for his willingness uh and desire to do this. Uh it's a lot of extra work for him and his team, but it's what we need to do in order to kind of move

156forward. So, thank you. >> Yeah, thank you for clarifying sort of the question for me. One of the tools that we do currently provide is the monthly report. So, the monthly financial report has a trend analysis on the fund balance. So you can see how it's sort of been consistent throughout the years, but it's consistently been down for the last four years. And so not uh of course we'll provide what do Ben is requesting, but that's a tool that's currently available. So if you want uh have more information on that, we can certainly provide that. >> Director Song. >> Yeah, it's um been a information item. It was something that we used to review in the audit and finance committee meetings. Um, and something to kind of pay attention to is like for example how

157we're tracking with enrollment. We're a little bit off budget. So we know our revenue is a little bit off. But what I would say is like one complication in terms of our understanding of where we are of a fund balance is always the legislative piece. We don't know what additional funding they're going to provide us. We don't know what additional requirements that they're going to have us that are unfunded, for example. And so I think districts are in a very difficult position in terms of actually predicting where we are. But um and I think in the last couple of years we've really benefited from some extra money that we ended up getting for MSAC that was retroactive. But that's right. No, >> and I appreciate you saying that because that's also why you do the

158budget amendments is that one of the hardest things to do as a superintendent and certainly with budget and finance is you don't know how the state government's going to vote, right? You just don't know. There's I think one state in the union, Nevada, that their state legislature only meets once every other year. So at least that second year, you know what the answer is because they voted on it the year before. But other than that, you have wonderful people in Olympia that are going to make some decisions and we have to kind of estimate. And so I I we we have to be conservative about that estimation. But we're going to estimate what our enrollment is. We're going to estimate what the budget is going to be from the state and then we're going to

159move forward. But if we start to do amendments, we can then adjust based on when those numbers actually come in. when those enrollment numbers come in, when the state government numbers come in, then you can see uh you know sooner rather than later where we actually are because one of the hardest things to do is you have to estimate what your your enrollment is and you have to estimate what the state's going to give you to make a budget and then you hope you're right. Uh you don't want to be in that position for a year. You can be in that position for a couple of months. You then rerun the budget with the actual numbers and then you get a kind of a more real budget. So, >> other directors. >> All right. That

160was our two work sessions. I just want to plug a few things. One is Superintendent Schner is going on a whole bunch of school tours. I did have the opportunity to watch him assess some different classrooms today. It was uh it was great to be inside the school. So, please see the list. If you want to join, please get that to Carrie. Um, also um a email went out with the community meetings that he's holding. I think with there's one in each of our districts. Um, so please be tracking that as well. And then we have our retreat coming up this Saturday as we look towards more of the upcoming year. So I will see everyone on Saturday. But there being no further business on the agenda, the meeting stands adjourned at 6:38 p.m. Thank

161you everyone.