Seattle Schools Board Special Meeting Jan. 14, 2026

001Oh yeah. Heat. Heat. Good afternoon. Just a quick warning. Um, we will be calling the board meeting to to order in a moment and SPSV will begin broadcasting. All right. This is President Topp and I'm now calling the board special meeting to order at 4:33 p.m. I would like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puget Sound Coast Salish people. For the record, I'll call the role. Vice President Briggs >> here. >> Director Laval >> here. >> Director Song. >> Here. >> Director Smith. No. One more time. >> Here. >> There we go. Director Miseri >> here. >> Director Ranken >> here. >> Uh, director Manglesen >> here. >> Director Massudi >> here. >> And this is President Top. Good evening everyone and welcome to our first meeting

002of 2026. Um I just want to take a moment to sort of ground us in where we are and where we're headed. Uh this is an important stretch for the board. We have a full January ahead. Our February retreat sort of on the horizon and the start of Superintendent Ben Schultner uh tenure at the start of February or the start of second semester of the school year. Um sort of turning to our board work I've shared the board liaison appointments updated dis seating um under our current board policy uh liaison assignments are the responsibility of the board. I approached these appointments uh with an eye towards balancing the interests folks shared um with staff and being mindful of workload. Um I also want to thank those of you who reached out with questions about the

003positions. Um, I appreciate the engagement and I also know not everyone got the roles that they'd hoped for um, moving forward, but I hope that we're all willing to sort of work together as we we sort of transition and start these liaison roles. Um, board staff is also ready to support folks directors in their liaison roles and can walk you through the responsibilities that are in our policies, expectations, and near-term timeline. So, please connect with Carrie to schedule time to get oriented on those. Uh, January will be full of work. Tonight, uh, on the 14th here, we have our work session focused on the baseline setting for our progress monitoring goal, um, college and career readiness, uh, along with a legislative update, and we'll have our lobbyist, Cliff Traman, join us for that. Uh then

004we go to our regular board meeting on January 21st where um we will have updates from our student board directors on the student board director policy and a presentation on the student assignment plan. Um and then we move then into the January 28th where we'll do a deeper budget work session building on what Superintendent Podesta previewed for us at our last board meeting. Um that then sort of moves us right into our February board retreat um and the start of Superintendent Ven Scholdner. The agenda for that retreat is still in development, but it reflects priorities I think we've heard for many board directors raise. How we work together as a board, how we work together with the superintendent, uh the board self- evaluation, superintendent evaluation, committee structure, and how we show up as a governing

005body in 2026. Just want to thank close by before I hand it over, I guess I'm going to close by thanking you all for the work that we're about to embark in. It's a lot uh three meetings in January is is a lot of time to be dedicated, but we've got a lot of work to do, and I'm excited. So, with that, I'm going to move into progress monitoring. Um, Superintendent Podesta is not able to join us this evening, but Associate Superintendent Dr. Dr. Taus Morales will lead this discussion. I'm going to turn it over to you, Dr. Torres Morales, to start the presentation. >> Okay. Good evening. Thank you, board directors. Today, we're going to talk about progress monitoring for our third goal, which is our life ready goal. And as a reminder, this

006is a baseline report. We came before y'all recently and did math and language arts, and now this is our life ready portion. Um, I do know there were some questions in advance and so we're going to incorporate as many answers as possible into this, but do know that if we miss something, feel free to ask, but we are also capturing those in writing. And so it may be that I say, "Hey, yeah, it's coming in writing, but we're going to try to get as many in into this presentation for for the public as well." So when we think about progress monitoring, this is for the life ready baseline goal. This is so this is looking at where we are at currently. And so this is as the end of 2425. If I can get us

007to go here. Okay. So the purpose of this report, it's going to be review the board adopted smart goal and the five-year target trajectory. We're going to share the baseline student outcomes for the life ready goal. So for example, when you see these data, if it says 10th graders, that was the end of last year. That would be our current 11th graders. So that was the end of 2425. reflect on lessons learned from the previous college and career readiness goal and outline some potential emerging future strategies to achieve goal targets. This is going to be important because when we come forward here in a couple weeks, I know one of the things we've heard clearly from the board over the past few years is how are you attaching budget to strategies? So really paying attention

008to this part. I want to go back to these are draft. We're not trying to get ahead of our incoming superintendent, but there's been a lot of intentional work to think about what worked, what hasn't worked, what direction we potentially want to go moving forward, and how is that going to long-term impact our investment strategies of the dollars that we do have. So, uh, if you look through the bottom here, you're just going to see that, you know, the board sets the goals and the guardrails. The district designs and implements the strategies. Superintendent and board monitor the progress. We make some course adjustments, ultimately improve student outcomes. So here's the plan for progress monitoring. You'll see that this slide has been updated to reflect that we did cover goal one early literacy and goal 2

009math in December. We are now in January. So now we're coming forward with life ready for the baseline portion of this. The rest of the information is the same around what end of year uh baseline reporting is, what progress reporting is, and what planning reporting is. So I will pass us forward on that portion. If there's questions, let me know. We've also seen this slide before and basically this is talking about the aligning, the monitoring and improving at all levels. So that you know the superintendent and board are the tip of the iceberg. But when you go under the water, there's a lot of intentional work that is happening at the district level around strategies, analysis of data, educator support, etc. aligned to what we're we're discussing here today. So the life ready goal itself

010as it stands at this moment is the percentage of students that graduate having completed Washington state graduation requirements consistent with their individual high school and beyond plan and having completed one of the following. So I'm going to I know I'm reading but I want to make sure that we capture all this. It's dual credit work in ELA, world language, the arts, social studies, STEM, or CTE, or a formal work-based learning experience, or their FASA, WASA application, which I'm going to review here in a little bit. We have a slide on this because we need to talk through this uh with you all, or applications to one or more college, a formal work-based program or other post-secary program. And we're saying that this will increase from 84.8% of June of 25 to 94.8% in June of

0112030. One of the things to think about is that 2 percentage point increase per year. We've had some conversation on this in the past and I think it'd be worth really um talking about that a bit again like is that a realistic number or is that a wish as some people would would question. And so it's it's worth um considering and talking about when we think about why does this around graduation requirements plus the extra or one of the three things. A lot of that was a push for the system because what we were seeing was our our graduation rates were going up. We were getting towards a plateau. So it was kind of like hey where's the next thing for us? We need to push and it continue to push our system not just

012say the graduation rate but the graduation rate and something hence where the three different options came from. Uh the other thing I will add is that there are endnotes in this presentation. So where you see the superscript, there's endnotes and definitions for each of these things at the end of the presentation if you're curious. I'm going to turn it to chief accountability officer for a minute just to review with us our performance status and how we're going to be looking at these goals going forward. >> Good evening everyone. As we uh take a look at our performance status, I think you've seen this before where we are building a structure and you see the metrics off to the left, but the descriptors as we build this uh actual performance data for everyone to see and

013be transparent around it. And so it's pretty straightforward um with what we are attempting to move forward with. At the same time, I will pass out a flyer and shortly so you guys can kind of see how this uh fits in and transparency around this. >> Thank you so much for that, Chief Howard. I think one of the things to just uh reiterate here is why are there four one it this helps with our planning internally when we're talking about if we're authentically going to get engaged in systems work we need to know is it declining meaning we need to get into some sort of abandonment quickly with the strategies are they maintaining if they are what is it that we need to add on to them if they're improving yep these are going great

014and met target means okay we got there so that's why there's actually four different measures so we're going to start getting into the actual baseline outcomes. Couple things we wanted to share was there were some district and state changes that have occurred. I want to say some of these started as early as 2020 as noted here. In terms of state changes, there was SPS co grading policy of a incomplete for the graduation requirements. Uh go back to 2019. That was the first graduating class required to earn 24 credits and pass the SBA to graduate. And the SPS waiver existed for that until the class of 2021. 2021 was the first graduating class in SPS required to earn 24 credits and pass the SBA to graduate. In 2021 also, there was the emergency COVID core credit

015waiver. Uh those were pathway waivers. 2022 first graduating class with additional graduation pathways. Students may use the SBA, SAT, ACT, dual credit, CTE sequence, or military pathway to graduate in addition to the 24 credits. So that also aligns where we were saying we wanted to push our system a bit on our graduation rates plus something else. And then 2025, the graduating class ability to wave core credits and pathways for individual students discontinued. There is still, just for context, a two credit waiver for non-core credits still available. At the same time, we were doing some work on our grading beliefs within Seattle public schools. And so, you'll see some of that listed here. A lot of this is really just talking about how are we getting more towards standardsbased grading or mastery based grading. And what

016that means is that for every standard that we assign to a kid or it's part of the curriculum or it's in the state standards, there's skills and knowledge that go with that standard. And what this is saying is that moving the system into understanding if we're getting our students ready for life, ready for college and career, we're really it's not that we don't care about the grades. That's not what it is. But we are we do care that they have mastered those skills and those knowledge and each of those standards so that when they go into college or career of their choice, they're actually ready for those those things. And so that's that was a lot of what those grading belief shifts were unpacking there. Okay. So, for our measuring of the progression of the

017life ready goal, what you're going to see here is that we're going to talk with you all about the high school and beyond plan. I want to thank some of our student board directors because I know they've put this front and center around like I've never done this or I don't know what this is and so we're going to talk about that here in a bit, but it does matter because it is part of our goal and so we should look at it and say like so what's happening here. Also, it is a state requirement. The state does say we have to have it done by 12th grade. we've given ourselves a little bit more of a rigorous target on how we broke it out and at what grades we expect things done. So it

018is one of the measures we look at. So in eighth grade we'll be looking at that. 10th grade we're going to be talking about credit earning. For 11th grade we're be talking about the high school and beyond plan and credit earning and the formal uh work-based learning experience. And the actual topline measure at graduation would be the completion of the high school and beyond plan, the earning of the credits and the formal uh work-based learning experience. So, I'm going to start us off here with some data. And so, here's the topline measure with baseline. I know there was requests in the past for additional data. Those do exist and they are in the appendix of this presentation. So, we do have those as well. But in terms of keeping this so that we can just

019see it a little bit clearer on the screen and and get keep the focus on the topline measure uh what we're looking at is currently as of 2425 84.8% of our students and that's all of our students. We also have it broken out for students who receive or are elig eligible for re free or reduced price lunch are African-American males and our students of color for this from educational justice. And for context, this number is looking at the percentage of students that graduate having completed Washington State graduation requirements consistent with their high school and beyond plan and having completed one of the following. So this goes back to the goal we were stating earlier, meeting all the requirements and completing one of the following. And then if you look for at 2526 through 2930, you'll

020see what we're predicting as a trajectory for the goal. Once again, I think it's worthy of us having a conversation, especially with incoming superintendent, around what are what are realistic targets and why. Um, not saying that these aren't necessarily, but they are very uh aggressive targets and and we need to just own that. This is our FASA completion data. So one of the things was when we set up the topline measure, FASA completion was one of the things that we were interested in looking at as a system to see I is this a measure that we should include or can include. One of the issues with the FASA data and especially given a lot of the context going on politically now there is it's very proprietary information and we necessarily cannot get that pulled out

021from our sources at the student individual level and there's a lot of things that have to do with family status, immigration status, all these sort of things where we necessarily might not want to. So in terms of analysis, what we're suggesting is that we should look at the FASA completion data for our school district and use it to inform decisions but not pull it into the aggregate of the measure, meaning not included in those uh one plus activities on the graduation because there's a lot of implications to that and what we can even access down to the individual student level from the data sources. So that what you see here is the actual uh FASA completion data for the district. These numbers are not baked in to the previous measure for clarity. So they're not

022baked into here because we can't necessarily aggregate it down to the student level and use it for those purposes, but we can use it for our plan planning purposes to say are we getting better at the number of kids completing FASA in the aggregate that we can do. So that that's how it's presented here. I'm going to pause for a second. Anything you'd like to add before we move? No. >> Okay. So our first interim measure as I was noting earlier would be the grade 8 high school and beyond plan. So it's interim measure 1A. What does this mean? It's the percentage of 8th grade students of color furthest from educational justice who have participated and completed the state required tasks in the high school and beyond plan. And so for 8th grade, those two

023tasks we've determined should be the educational and career goals and a four-year plan for course taking. So the way this works is when the students complete the lessons of the high school and beyond plan essentially their exit ticket or their end assignment or when they're done with it is that portion of the high school and beyond plan. So what we're looking at here is that the number of eighth graders who've completed that lesson on the high school and beyond plan and done the task. And so if you look at it, we are at 52.5 of our students have met this. When you think about our students receiving free and reduced price lunch, that number is at 41.5. for African-American males 39.4 and for students of color furthest from educational justice 44.3. I go back to

024one of the things that we heard clearly from I would say board directors and specifically student board directors were I don't really remember this happening or what is this or how does this work and so what we're seeing and we're going to see another stark data point here in a minute just prepare yourselves that uh we now our data is showing that this is confirming what we're hearing from community from board from directors and so this really begs the question as we go into a new strat plan as we're talking about graduation rates what are we going to do when we start talking about strategies because the data are here right in front of us as to what's happening. It's not that it's not, but if we're saying that it is important for us, we're

025determining that by eighth grade these two tasks should be completed, we really need to do something about it strategy-wise. And when we get to 11th grade, it'll be even more eyeopening. So, here we go. Grade 11. Yeah. So, I think that's kind of what what we've been hearing. So I think I we've heard clearly in this space that from students and from parents that it's not happening. It's not happening. And it's not that it doesn't because students need to complete it. But there's a difference between saying that we're going to set a goal, it should go at a certain cadence, a certain pace, and that it's done by the time, you know, we say that these are the things that need to be done by 11th grade. And there's four things that need to be

026done. In reality, if students finish it by the time they're ready to graduate, they finished it, their high school and beyond plan is complete. But it shouldn't be a check the box activity. It should be something that actually happens throughout their academic experience to get them ready for their college or career. So for us when we think about this interim measure for grade 11 for the high school and beyond plan, the activities that we believe a student should should have completed by the time they finish 11th grade are to have reviewed the course plan, complete the strengths explore, build or update the resume and my life my decision costs. So those are the activities from the high school and beyond plan. Essentially those are four lessons with accompanying tasks. If they were done, the number

027would say, "Yep, these are the number of kids who completed it." There's a little bit of nuance in here that we do need to talk through though. If uh in the appendix, what you'll see is that there are some students that are done with some of these. So some of our 11th graders have completed two out of the four activities or three out of the four activities. That is not captured here. These data are pretty raw in did they complete all four of the four things, yes or no. And you'll see here that our our numbers are pretty stark. Only 4.6% of our students have met all four of those things by the end of 11th grade. Another piece of nuance to think about is we're moving to school links away from Naviance. In Navian,

028the feedback we've received is a little bit clunky. So there's a little bit of there there around that. So it's not that none of our 11th graders have resumes. A lot of them do. They have them on a word doc. They have them somewhere else because it's too difficult to actually do it in the system. But if it's not in the system, it's not going to be captured in the data. So part of the part of the data should actually just move strategy-wise when we move to school links, which is actually a statewide system versus using the Navon system that is going to be coming in the next year or two. >> Please do. >> So what is required from the high school and beyond plan for graduation? like completing the entire plan or >>

029you got to complete the entire plan. >> Okay. >> And and it has to be done by the time you graduate. We we internally have said that we believe these are the tracks that you should be on. By 8th grade, you should have done this. By 11th grade, you should have done this. If you have it done by the end of 12th grade, though, you have it done by the end of 12th grade. But that's not what our goal is. Our goal is to actually set it up so that it becomes a functional plan. That's one of the things we've heard clearly from the board is it shouldn't just be a checkbox. like this should actually be something that kids are able to use. >> So should be a road map that explains why students

030sign up for their master schedules and taking a look at when they make a decision on what career or what even if they change their mind are they on the right track to accomplish where they want to go, what they should be doing, what colleges they're looking at. But by 11th grade, if you haven't completed that, then it says where where are you doing that at? Are you doing it in another platform? Some students are choosing Big Futures, some are choosing Zillow, some are choosing other platforms besides Navvian because it's so clunky. And we saw that students are using a different road map to get to where they need to go. And so taking a hard look at Naviance, why aren't they using it um for your common app? Does it work? Does it not

031work? We got students who are sitting here right now and I know this time of the year early decisions or late decisions if you're a senior. What have you been using? So I'd be interested in picking our brains of some of our our students here to see if you're using Naviance why you're not using Navian. And I also uh earlier in the year some of the students on the superintendency group actually analyzed about six different platforms. Uh they did an international one. I don't want to name them all, but I will share with you guys uh some of the questions they had uh as they looked at school links. So, just as a peak, what what do you guys use? >> Common app. So, you use the common app to actually go through and once

032you fill out the common app, you send it out to all your schools that way. What I had done was I had just made an Excel sheet and I just like wrote down all the schools that I was applying to and then like specific like major and like um programs that each school offers for but I didn't use Nviance. Um and then I put that into the common app. >> You put it into the common app. What' you use? Well, I am a junior, so I haven't quite had to worry about it, but I also have an Excel sheet that I use and um uh just to keep track of ideas and um I have a couple questions that I'm saving for later, but um I have not used Novian. >> So, when you're going

033through the high school and beyond plan, the plan and preparation some of these pieces that uh Dr. Dr. Torres has talked about, have you seen that these pieces were helpful for you or did you find it kind of clunky or um >> So I like I said, I have a couple questions, but I honestly I remember briefly doing this maybe freshman year, okay, in like math class, >> okay? But um I really I remember being confused and not really understanding why that was useful at the time. So >> Okay. >> Director. >> Oh, okay. >> Director Yun, anything you'd like to add? >> Oh, yeah. I was also just going to agree with what director Massudi said about using an Excel sheet for um jotting down what colleges we're applying to. If that's a pathway

034um a student would take, that's what most students use. And then we just copy and paste um the colleges we're applying to from the Excel sheet to common app. And in terms of my Nvian experience, I've actually used it a lot my freshman year. Um, I actually really like the resumeé format um because it allows me to add a lot of activities and not keep it in one page, which I know it's supposed that's how resumeé format is supposed to be, but um I could see how it is helpful. You just got to play around with it a little, which most students don't. >> Cool. Uh, from the students perspective, I got to ask you guys this question. Parents are always involved in every part of this. Were your parents involved in this part at

035all? >> Um, no. But also, my parents really aren't involved in um that sort of stuff. So, they they leave me to my own devices pretty much with all of school stuff. Okay. Um, but I do know that some of my friends who have parents who um are more diligent about checking on their their grades or or missing assignments um who I don't think this is really a discussion that they have with their families. >> Okay. >> Or I mean I mean obviously students are discussing college and um where they're applying and and everything that comes along with that, but I really don't think that Navian specifically has been part of that equation. You just want them to write the check. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I was just going to say the same thing. My

036parents kind of just left it up to me to do and um they didn't really help me on like a lot of college application process. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> If you needed some help, where do you think you would have went? >> Um they talked to my counselor at school or if I asked them for help, I'm sure they would have helped me. I just kind of did it myself. But my school counselor um or even like the teachers I asked for a letter recommendation could probably help me. >> Okay, thank you. >> Okay, we're going to move to looking at the grade 10 on track. So, what we're looking at here is the percentage of 10th graders that have completed the Washington State history requirement and earned at least 12 credits. So, first

037the Washington State history requirement is not a credit bearing course. It's a it's a middle school course, but there are provisions that let's say a student just moved to Washington that would not this would not prevent a student from graduating per se. But in terms of our measure, we are interested in seeing that the student has completed that history requirement and earn 12 credits by the end of of 10th grade. One of the things you're going to see if you look at all students is 68.5% and be like, "Huh, what's going on here?" Because that's that's drastically lower than our actual graduation rate. So there's a couple things at play in this measure since it is a life ready goal and around college and career readiness. We we when we looked at the 12 credits,

038you'll see there's an asterisk and a footnote there that explain what we consider to be the 12 credits. It could be that a student has 12 credits, but not necessarily in these specific content areas. Those credits would still allow them to graduate. The reason we're specifically looking at these courses is because that puts them on track for the Washington State graduation requirements. So, for example, the four credits of language arts, the three credits of math. So, yes, that 68.5% looks slightly low, but there's a little bit of nuance in there as to why and we know and it also does beg the question that regardless, we do need to start thinking about in strategies what is happening that we're pushing so much because even even if it is that the student has the 12 credits

039in other areas, this is still showing us that there is some credit recovery going on in 11th and 12th grade. So what is happening with our courses that that is a thing but overall 68.5% of grade 10 met this and what did that mean? This was at the end of last year. These are current 11th graders. So 68.5% of our current 11th graders are on track having done the Washington State history requirement and 12 credits in the in those core content areas. Finally, we're going to look at grade 11 dual credit and workbased experience. So these are our current seniors. And what this interim measure is looking at is the percentage of 11th grade students having either of the following. Dual credit work in English language arts, world language arts, social studies, science, technology, engineering,

040and math or STEM or CTE or career and technical ed or a formal work-based learning experience. And you'll see 91% of our students have met this measure. So that means that 91% of our seniors are actually on track with with this measure with the dual credit workbased portion. So we're going to start talking a little bit here about uh draft strategy plan, draft strategic plan development. We've shared this with you all before, but looking about thinking about that the goals and the guard rails established by the board help drive the priorities, help drive the strategies, ultimately drive the initiatives. And so when we think about the life ready strategies, it is important for us to look back at the previous strategic plan. And all of this would have fallen under what was called the college

041and career readiness goal in our old strap plan. And so some of the initiatives were around credit earning and on-time graduation, for example, grading for equity, support for nth graders, improved data data tools. And what we learned was we did see some improvements in graduation rates, but we do know that we still need some refined grading guidance. And this is all from our previous strat plan. These are what we what we did and what we learned. Dual credit access, equal opportunity schools, advanced placement, international baloria, college and the high school for all. Uh focus on improved access and had some significant results. But the question becomes how are we going to align offerings with post-secary plans so that you know all students have access to some of these things and it's not just dependent on

042where you live or what high school that you attend. High school and beyond planning the implementation of Navian. We know that the electronic tool improved student access but it was too much of a compliance exercise and we understand the system was clunky. We are moving to school links which is the state-based system and away from Navian given that workbased learning and CTE career connected learning coordinators and highly qualifi high quality pathways were some of the things that we did. What did we find out was there was a significant increase in highquality career and technical education pathways that help with graduation and career exploration. Uh the work site learning is quite labor intensive and collaborating with many external partners can be challenging. One of the other things that we were running into was just the commutes

043of where the programs and where the kids go to school and going back and forth across the city. How how are we working through that? that was a challenge for some of our students that were interested in certain programs. And then post-secary applications for Seattle Promise and for example the black college expo Seattle Promise results in large majority of students applying and completing the FAFSA. Uh but the degree completion rates remain relatively low meaning when they get into some of the programs they don't actually finish or they finish not within two years per se let's say if they're at one of the community colleges. So looking ahead thinking about the strategic plan for 2627 and onwards and this is draft I want to keep reiterating this is draft thinking but for example one of the

044things when we started doing an analysis of the credit attainment we noted that ELA math and science are the three areas where students most likely do not have the credits and so the question becomes what are we doing around our high quality tier one core instructional materials for our high schools Prioritizing those materials in language arts, math and science ultimately to promote credit attainment, improve graduation, pathway completion and ensure uh resource alignment or providing the appropriate resources and cultural inclusivity. The next thing that we are thinking about is tier 2 supports available for schools within and outside the school day. I know I've been before y'all many times to talk about multi-tered systems of support. Some of the feedback we've received is you need to flesh that out a bit more. What does tier one

045mean? If I'm a parent, what does that mean? If what does tier two mean? If I'm a parent, what does that mean my students getting? What we're saying here is think really getting clear on what the tier 2 supports are for students. And so some of the emerging initiatives are to develop and implement high school expectations for those supports regarding credit earning uh centrally coordinate credit recovery processes for access reasons and promote collaboration between small and comprehensive high schools to assist with credit earning. Another uh key strategy would be access to life ready coursework. So the emerging initiative is to improve and refine dual credit offerings to improve pathways to post-secary success. For example, college and the high school access and advanced math pathways at our schools. Finally, in the rigorous and inclusive academic experiences,

046thinking about post-secary planning opportunities for students, promote schooling implementation to make high school and beyond planning more meaningful. That is something that you've heard me note a couple times this evening. and then establish foundational expectations across high schools for college access support. The other the next two priority areas, one is around recruit, develop and retain a diverse and effective workforce. The other is unified leadership and systems of accountability. So in terms of recruit and develop and retain a diverse and effective workforce, an emerging initiative to develop career and technical education and other content area educators to support the life ready goal, an increase to the high school and beyond planning and provide work-based learning to more um SPS students and performance manage uh management. Prioritize life ready metrics in Seattle public schools accountability system beyond

047credits and dual credit earning to include the high school and beyond plan and post-secary data. Thank you so much. I'm going to pause there for questions, wonderings, thoughts, concerns. >> Perfect. So, I think we probably have about 40 minutes. So, give this uh baseline thing, baseline conversation an hour and a half. And I'm gonna start with Director Lavali only because I cut her off last time and she didn't get to get all her questions in. So, we'll start there and we'll different different subject. I know. I'm sorry. But we'll go uh ask one question. We're going to go all the way around again and then uh if we have time, we'll go go around again. Sorry, I didn't mean to catch you off. I was so prepared last time. I'm less prepared this time for

048all my questions. All right. Um going into it and thank you so much for including additional information in the appendix with the um additional information of highly capable students as well as um multilingual learners and students with IEPs in that appendex as well. um are we differentiating any strategies to those stu to different types of students >> moving forward when we're thinking about you know the tier 2 supports and those sort of things that is part of the conversation when we think about students with IEPs their their plan will drive what their supports would be but in terms of what would a tier 2 um support look like for a student who requires multilingual services those are some of the things that we would consider knowing that in a lot of ways when you think

049about a tier 2 support it is supposed to be a research and evidence-based practice and so thinking about for a multilingual learner what is a research and evidence-based practice for that so saying a lot to just say yes >> um within the IEPs are we evaluating the um kind of not correctness I'm trying to figure out exactly how to phrase this question again I was thinking I'd have another few um like are we evaluating if these are being correct to each students? I've heard some inaccuracies in them that people have been reporting to me being like, well, this didn't do the right thing for my student or my students were all, you know, emotionally when somebody else's student was all, you know, academically based for their IEP. So, are are we evaluating kind of if

050these IEPs feed into the graduation rates that are super low within this chart that we're seeing in the appendix? >> Can you expand on the question? And I think I think I I'm I know where you're going and I just want to make sure that I answer what you're >> what you're wondering. >> Yeah. I mean, so and and the specific thing that was reported to me is that there's some disparities between, you know, race in how these IEPs are written. And so are we in any ways seeing if um the IEPs are kind of correctly written and are impacting kids graduation rates in various ways, especially as we see that our graduation rates for students with IEPs are down in this past year at 65.5%. Um, we also, um, I'm I'm not aware of

051the number of students with IEPs in the district. And so that is concerningly low figuring that. I think it's actually something >> between 16 and 20% off the top of my head. >> Um, if I'm remembering that correctly. So, I'm just trying to figure out if if we're looking at this and we're seeing that 16 to 20% of our students are at that 65% rate, that is a big kind of call out there. And what are we doing to be like, okay, what are we measuring here? Are these IEPs correct? How can we improve this? Because that's kind of a big red flag that's only covered in one of those strategies. >> Okay. So, I think I got it. So, but tell me if I tell me if I didn't. I'm not sure I asked

052a good enough question or but it it was just I I had that little bit of tension within seeing only one strategy listed for this when I've heard a number of things and the data itself is showing a concerning trend. >> Okay. So I first when it comes to the IEPs those are done with the team and with the family. So ultimately those goals aren't something that for example I would establish out of this building or a team would. So that's done in conjunction with the family ultimately and with the team the team meaning the teachers any related service providers etc. So they're the ones that would determine ultimately the goals for the student and so if the question is what is the level of the rigor of the goal that is something that we

053can take back with the team and start talking about I feel like the other thing embedded in your question was around the actual intersectionality. So the way the data presents here is for example you could look at African-American male students or you could look at students with IEPs and I think one of the wonderings is so what's happening for for example our students of color with IEPs specifically and we will be able we could cut that data as well add it to the appendix and or have it but I think in terms of your question in there it would be um important for us to continue that level of analysis to see at an intersectional level what is this looking like as well not just merely um not just merely on at at one or

054the other. I think one of the things related to this is the extensive work that we did to work on our significant disproportionality. We have looked at a lot of the IEPs especially for our students of color. We most definitely though looked at their evaluations and how those were going to try to get bias out of them. But I I I like the question because what it's pushing us to is okay so y'all have done that now for the evaluation. are you actually doing that level of analysis for the IEP and the written IEP to see is the level of rigor there different based on race for some of our students and that is some analysis we can do um ultimately the goals are set by the IEP team so we can't necessarily dictate but

055it is good to know >> uh from our lane if that's a thing so that when we're doing coaching with our special education supervisors or specialists or special teachers we can put that on their radar like >> do you realize there's some implicit bias going into how we're actually creating these so thank you. >> Yeah. Um, kind of going backwards. Oh, yeah. Okay. >> One question. If we have time, we'll come around. Sorry. Sorry. >> Director Song. >> Um, thank you. I did submit a list of questions um in advance, but I think and I won't go through all of them, but I think I'll just pull out like the kind of the meteor question that I have, which is um you know, I had the opportunity to serve as a city of Seattle liaison

056and had the benefit of seeing some of the presentations from the promise team and something that kept coming up was that our students are showing up to the Seattle community colleges unprepared. there is a lot of coursework that our students need to do um in order to kind of continue with the program. And so my general reflection is that while our graduation rates are quite high, I have a I'm not sure that this is a exercise in um knowing what our students know and can do when they're graduating if we know that when they go to promise they're not prepared. So, I kind of was trying to really ask around like what about these metrics gives us assurance that they are accurate reflections of what our students know and can do. Um, and I don't

057know if it would be useful for us to also look at I assume the kids still take ESP back in high school and 11th grade maybe. >> Yeah. And do they have to take any standardized testing when they graduate to as part of their graduation requirements? >> Talking about like the SAT or ACT >> or or no, just like a kind of like a capstone standardized test to show like what level of learning that >> No. Okay. So, I just wondered if we have any standardized test scores that we can refer to in high school. Um, and is it commiserate with our relatively high graduation rates? I seem to recall that at least at a state level it doesn't quite match high graduation but kind of middleish >> test scores. >> There's nothing that um

058the state requires but most districts including us we uh participate in NAPE uh which is a national level. We take a look at those and see how our students do across the national system. Uh also I would say that that is a a big telltale sign. Also, accreditation is what uh is another piece that we take a look at that's really important to see how our students are doing. And so, as we move forward with accreditation for our high schools, that's another piece that we'll be taking a hard look at for all our schools from our alternative schools to our comprehensive high schools to see where we're at, where we're maybe falling down, where we can improve, and where we need to develop more strategies. But you're absolutely right. I looked at the same data

059uh across the board with a deal to see where we were struggling and the supports they're giving us to help u kind of mitigate those how we could make those more robust but at this at this present time the schools have really developed their own um I would say strategies with their cips that you guys get a chance to look at and approve and we're trying to move to more universal systems so it's all high schools doing it and not just individual schools participating through their C7 >> and the only place I'd point us is I think if we go to slide oh here we go slide nine under graduation requirements there is some detail there around some of the standardized assessment I think one of the things we run into is the number of

060kids who complete it and being able to use it for statistical analysis for decision-m but July noted in the question like do we need to revisit that and think about some sort of valid and reliable statistical measure that can be used across across the system to help. So, thank you for, you know, pushing us on that. >> Yeah. The big predictor that a lot of high schools would use is would be the PSAT to see if we are actually on track moving forward at early 9th and 10th grade where students may be needing some support in different areas. And that was a predictor that we could actually make some shifts around 10th, 11th, and 12th grade with the rigorous courses we could be taking across the system. But, um, you see up there is SBA,

061uh, SAT, ACT, and then dual credit. um you know uh those are things that uh we currently have in place but there still NAPE is probably the most I think getting to your question what we're looking at across and see how we rate Missouri or New York or Florida with the courses we're taking >> second question is around the grading for equity piece so um I'm just curious like what can you talk a bit about like what kind of reflect like I it's interesting that we are now pursuing standardsbased grading. And so what are our reflections on having pursued this as a strategy that we feel confident that it has actually helped with our students um you know what they know and what they can do. Yeah. >> So >> I think we feel like

062it's definitely helped in that in that realm, but we've also noted that it is going to in in going forward. We need to think about the strate the strategy and how it's implemented. What does it mean? What does the guidance mean? Who's following the guidance? How does how do a lot of those things work? And so I want to looking here. Let's go here. There we go. So here um you'll see like the credit earning and on-time graduation and what we learned was that yeah the the graduation rates improve but there is a still a continuing need for for refinement on on the grading practices and so we're noting that unapologetically so and thinking that in a future strategic plan what does that mean and how do we do that? Okay, we'll go to director

063Yun, but just to keep things fair, everyone gets two questions in this first round and then we'll go over and then we'll go back around. All right, director Yun. >> Okay, I only have one question, so I'll just ask my own question. Um so based on the presentation my understanding is the life ready metrics considers whether a student is ready just by completing um one of several options including the FAFSA uh submission the workbased learning or dual credit. Um how do you ensure that this metrics um this measure metrics like reflects like actual and like meaningful preparation for life after high school rather than kind of just having students check off a box of things they need to saying their life ready just cuz from my experience the FAFSA wasn't that hard like yeah I

064need to kind of bug my parents to come here and do some tax information but compared to um dual credit or a work-based learning like internship for instance, it's a very different um experience. So, I'm just wondering what that would be and also what strategies are kind of in place to encourage schools to prioritize the skill building experiences um more. >> Yeah. So >> the FASA is something that we're going to consider taking out of the measure just based on some of the informations we talked about around the proprietary nature of it. But when you think about the dual credits etc that is something that we're considering taking forward in strategies in in the future plan. And I think the other thing is having an an honest conversation on the high school and beyond plan

065that we've been talking about this evening because if it's done well and as intended that does help with actually like a map or a pathway as to where you're going and why. And what we've noticed is as you're noting director Yun that it has often just become a compliance exercise and that's actually not the intent of it at all. It's actually supposed to be helpful in thinking about are you ready for for college and career. And so the idea of the access to life ready course work and dual credits is something that we believe needs to be a continued strategy in a future strategic plan or in a future initiative. So we we agree with you. I guess I would say >> and I would say to to you right now um what what is

066in place is a combination of a lot of different things. your community service. Uh giving you that experience is really the important part of you trying to explore your careers to see if that's something you want to do. Also, college visits are really important. But the biggest biggest piece that I've seen as we started this process with high school and beyond plan which started in 2008 and where they are now talking to colleges, some of the colleges made a big shift in this process because they weren't hitting their numbers. One of the biggest things they did, and I I know it was a shocker to me when my kids went to college, was they gave the student loans to the parents now. Uh so students could actually make sure there was some accountability that they

067weren't in college for 8 n 10 years. And if parents wanted to pay for it, great. But you're you're fitting the bill. So where's the accountability? Um we're talking about grading. We're talking about standard based gradings. you're talking about credit uh retrieval, but we we miss the part where the actual experiential piece is so important. Students going to see if this is a job that they want to do or a career path they want to experience. So those 80 hours, those 70 hours or 60 hours of taking a look at that early as possible, whether it's eighth grade or ninth grade to see if that's something you really want to do. The other piece is um you know, I'm old now. Uh so I I'll own that. Most of us, we went in careers, we

068didn't switch careers. We know students are switching careers five or six times before they end their working career. And so, are you prepared for that? If you decide to go off in computer science and you decide that's not something you want to do and you want to go into nursing, what does that look like? Do you have those skill levels? So those are experiential pieces that uh the flexibilities we're trying to build in with uh experiential pieces, but it's it's no substitute for what we used to do when we were kids. When you went to elementary school, you did career day. So people came out, took a look at careers, what those careers are, but visitations to college and the most experience that you can get is going to look at those colleges and having

069conversations. So, uh, we got to do not just the asynchronous conversations, but we got to get you out to the experiential pieces so you could see if that's something you really want to do and if you're good at it and do you like it. So, those are the other pieces that we're working on um to make this more of a web base uh because you have a roadmap, but this is a web base of uh of schooling of actual experiential pieces as well as you get a chance to have those conversations with your teachers and people in the career. So, great question. Um, we got more more to do. We're growing it though. >> Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to um emphasize also the importance of getting actual work experience. There's only so much

070you could learn in a classroom and you really only get to learn what you enjoy and what you don't enjoy doing through work experience. So I really appreciate the emphasis on um giving students the opportunity to pursue different career options through internships and also the emphasis of you know the 80our or 60 hour volunteer service requirement which I did my freshman sophomore year with my friends. a lot of times that it's not very the options to meet that requirement is not advertised much. And what I mean by that is everyone just kind of does the same volunteer service. And there's nothing wrong with that. It just would be great if there could be more support from teachers, counselors, and such on the different types of volunteer service we could do, not just something everyone does

071for it to be again another compliance method like, oh, I need 60 hours of volunteer um I need 60 volunteer hours to graduate. I'm just going to kind of do it with my other friends who do this. And again, there's nothing wrong with that. Just having more options available and I kind of see um the direction headed that way. So um yeah, thank you. >> Thank you, director Msudi. >> So my only question was I was just wondering what would the implementation cuz here it says promote school links implementation to make high school and beyond plan more meaningful. What would that implementation actually look like of school links? >> So we're actually in process of drafting that now. We you know earlier I said a year or two to get rid of Navian. Honestly, we

072want it done by the end of this year and be into school links by next year. And so happy to come forward with sharing um just the details of what that intended implementation plan for you for the board and we'll get it in writing to you as to what we're thinking the cadence needs to be of that. But there is a draft cadence for us to get out of Naviance and into schoolings hopefully by the end of next school year. >> My question is more like how is it going to be different from Naviance? Yeah, it's so my understanding and I'm not going to profess to be a complete expert in this topic one, but that it is not um it's not as clunky. It's more user friendly. It aligns more with um what would

073be needed for example like the resume writing those sort of things are and so that's a lot of it. The other thing is is that it's a statewide thing and so it's not that it's just each district gets to choose their own and some chose Navian and some didn't. So, we're going to be aligned with what other the other school districts are doing across the state. But a lot of it has to do with the userability of it. Um, user friendly and actually purposeful. And so, yep, I'm passing out uh some of the questions that some of the students who got a chance to look at school links in 2024, the superintendency group, and they looked at five different platforms. And so you get a chance to see some of the questions they came up

074with and ask uh Katie who was a developer for school links and they got a chance to interact with them. You also have a handout where you guys get a chance to go in and you can ask for a demo as well and take a look at it and learn from it and give feedback as well. And so it is supposed to be a platform that continuously evolves. Um it's like you know it's not going to stay with the 1970 close. It's going to move to 1980 2000. and it's going to keep evolving. The haird going to keep evolving. So that's what this is supposed to do. So your feedback is so important. So you may see something right now and then it may shift. Uh as an example, I got a chance to go

075out and see school links in federal way. Uh they were one of the early adopters and one of the things the students were asking for was videos. They wanted to see videos of people in careers that look like them that did some of the CTE courses whether it was firefighting or other things and and they wanted to interact with them. And so some of the videos are up and you saw students saying what was successful for them, what wasn't successful for them, what what actual courses they took, what courses they didn't take, and they wish they would have taken. So you get some reflection pieces, but they're students who've just went through the system. So I thought that was really fantastic. But some of our districts have some early adopters are already into the programs

076and doing things and they're learning, they're giving feedback. So it's a good thing to be kind of where we're at because we're not on the forefront of it. But we were asked to participate in 2024. Uh and you see some of the questions that students were asking. Um that's just a short list of questions. But they looked at uh Zillow, they looked at Naviance, they looked at Big Future, they looked at a couple of international ones as well. And they gave feedback about what they saw in school links at that beta testing time and what was working, what wasn't working. So you guys get a chance to see a preview of that u from them. Director Manglesson. >> Um, all right. So, I actually just have one question because one of my other questions is

077answered by that. I was just wondering if the if AP classes were counted in that dual credit. Um, so I see that. Thank you for that. Um, I also wanted to bring up um and just thank you for recognizing kind of the transportation issues that come with the CTE skill center classes. I was I took um the careers and education skills center last year and because I was a sophomore, I obviously could not drive yet and I ended up taking the bus for an hour each morning, which was um kind of something that my family and I talked a lot about about whether or not it was feasible for that to keep on happening and having to go through um downtown each morning. Um, so I'm kind of curious, um, are there future plans to

078assist in transportation because I was able to get that midday transportation from, um, Franklin High School to West Seattle. Um, and I'm cur and I know that there used to be options for transportation in Yeah. in the in the morning or in the afternoon depending on which program you did as well. So, I'm just curious if that's something that is possible in the future again or if that's or if that's something people are discussing. >> It is it's something that we're aware of and discussing. There's no solid decision on this is what's going to happen, how and why, but it is something that we know clearly. We heard it from students and we heard it specifically from some of the high school principles, especially when it came to scheduling and what that means for the

079student trying to get the courses at their their their neighborhood or home or their enrolled high school. and then also um traveling across city. So, we're aware um to say that it we've landed on some sort of decision, not yet, but we are aware and thank you for bringing it up and raising it again. >> I have Okay, I have one more um little question that has to do with that. Um it just adds on to it. So, I was also the only sophomore in my skill center class. And I know that a lot of people um or at least I I've gotten asked about this a couple times, but I feel like a lot of people kind of think of skill center as um like a an option that's um it goes along or

080or instead of completing um or taking AP courses or just or almost like a last resort for some people. And um I was kind of curious about um what exactly if there is an idea about kind of expanding that like accessibility of taking skill center classes. I also took the careers and education one. So it was um teaching which is something that you do have to get a college degree for. And so I was curious about if there are plans for kind of expanding those CTE options beyond um necessarily things that would take you down a different path um instead of college if that makes sense. I kind of phrased that weird, but >> I don't know if that really made sense, but >> no, uh, it's to explore those careers is something that, you

081know, at sixth and seventh grade in the high school and beyond plan is what you're supposed to be doing, the planning and and exploring. So, um, exploratory courses, what we offer at our high schools, uh, the ones where you get actual certification in it is at the community colleges. And so Running Start offers a lot uh for students to be able to get the certification and even job placements afterwards. But you're right, we don't offer a plethora of all those different pieces, but we've depended on Running Start to actually uh whether it's nursing or whether it's veterinarian. We're depending on our our partnership with the community colleges to fulfill those pieces. So it's it's a big piece, but that's kind of what what our plan has been right now. Now, for the future, we can

082keep talking about it. You You're sitting on the board with your board director, so who knows what changes will come. >> Thank you, >> Director Ranken. >> Um, sorry, I'm trying not to ask too many questions. Um, I will say the the looking ahead, the strategies, these feel like the right strategies. >> Okay. to me um uh kind of along with what uh Director Song was bringing up in terms of you know why we set goals, why we do progress monitoring, what we what we really are getting at is what do students know and what are they able to do? How do we know that they know what they know? How do we know that our system is preparing them not just to check the box, but to go to community college and not have

083to take a bunch of makeup classes? How do we know those things? The strategies feel right. I am wondering, and this doesn't have to be answered right now, but when our um when Superintendent Schner arrives, being an instructional leader, I wonder if our topline measures are the right things to measure. I I don't know if they actually tell us what students know and are able to do. And I think um part of why I mean it's I'll just be totally frank in a well functioning like high achieving system going from setting goals to getting metrics should just take a couple of months. We've been in this process for like two years. And that's not I'm not trying to throw shade on anybody. I don't think anybody is shocked to find out that like we don't

084have that muscle as a system to like really easily get that information. So, um, but I'm wondering if, uh, as we're looking at these things, do do those will those top measures be the right measure to tell us if students are actually graduating life ready? >> Um, which is funny because you would think you would need to set those and then create your strategies. The strategies do feel like the right things to get at >> where I think there's uh >> a lack of systemic support to address those things. But I so I just wonder about Yeah. How do how do we know? And um also with that that discrepancy between you graduated, what did that actually mean if you graduated and now you can't demonstrate that you can do these things that you're supposed

085to be able to know to graduate? Mhm. >> Um, so that's more of just just a wonder that I imagine we'll be revisiting those topline measures of should we be measuring not not change the goal but is is the outcome measure is there something that's that's that will be more helpful for us um going into the and I think oh sorry grading goes along with that. I think during the pandemic, we didn't want to penalize students for what was going on and our grading practices changed. And I don't know if we have revisited those as robustly as we should given that we're no longer in a pandemic. And you know, I have a high school student. Evan has high school students. The whole 50% thing, kids are gaming that and well, I don't have to

086turn that in. I can get 50% and I can pass the class without without doing that. you can graduate with straight D's. I I don't know that that is setting kids up to to take the next step in their lives that they want or I will I will say it's not. It might at the time be like I'll just do this to get through this thing that maybe doesn't seem relevant to me right now. Um but that's to me feels like a failure on our part to actually prepare kids to do the next things that they want to do. So, grading practices um in terms of the I I promise I'll ask a question. The two the tier 2 supports available for students within and outside the school day. the expectations for two-tier supports um

087from personal experience right now as the parent of a junior that feels critical and I'm wondering um where the counseling audit that was done not too long ago that was reported to um the audit committee where that work dovetales with that there were a lot of um pieces of information there about I I would just I guess I'm asking is uh the counseling position. Um, do you anticipate that being a way to implement this strategy through counselors or is there something different that may be coming on? There was a lot of really valuable information about the role of the counselor in that. I would say not specifically at this moment saying the counseling position is what's going to do the tier 2 strategy but noting the feedback when we're thinking through tiers 2 strategy thinking

088about how are we leveraging counselors to do some of this we think about tier 2 needs to be research and evidence based but there's a lot of different tier 2 strategies depending on what the actual need is and so it wouldn't be absent from saying potentially some work with counselors um so basically just duly noted thank you for sharing and raising that so that we can take that into consideration as we're fleshing out what those supports could and should look like. >> Okay. >> I think the big piece we have to do is systems have to be aligned. Um and role clarity has to be uh put in place uh for high school and beyond plan. It has to live in a place where there's some accountability for it. Who owns that? Right now it's

089in most high schools or in middle schools. It's either in your advisory period or your home room period. But who owns that? is our is our second period. >> A lot of our schools don't even do advisory or homework. >> And so those are the systems that we have to design to get aligned and so we have some accountability there. So if Dr. Torres looks at 9th grade or 10th grade to see if these are complete, he could see if things are complete or not with the dashboard or the accountability around those pieces. So we got some work to do as we build this infrastructure. So the goal that the board has put in place uh is fantastic. We have to actually come up with some quality indicators along the way as we design this

090to make sure if things aren't working, we can catch these things in different places. Whether it's in the home room, whether it's in first period, second period, third period, whatever class periods that we set this up, but we got to design it first and then it kind of falls back to the same question you were analyzing. How do we actually make sure that this this is the right metric that we're actually measuring? And we have to continue to analyze that with our teachers and quality teaching and and principles doing walkthroughs, us doing walkthroughs with our principles to make sure those things are in place because if we're not walking through and modeling that, then of course teachers and other people don't see that as important. So we got we got some work to do and

091you guys have given us a blueprint for that to start to happen. Um, so what should we So I I mean I will be looking for evidence of those things on like if we get another report of corrective progress on per excuse me progress on corrective action plan for example from the counseling audit. That's one thing I know I will be looking for of are we moving in this direction. Um, I will also be looking at, you know, next year's budget as it's developed. I imagine will show us where maybe investments are moving. But what else can we as board directors be looking for to ensure that those structural shifts are actually happening, not that we're layering new things on top of a structure that already didn't provide what we needed it to provide. So

092just to clarify, meaning the structure shifts within the system. So to say it a different way, let's just say multi-tered system of support, like where are the evidence points that this is happening for the board. So I think a lot of that is going to have to come through what the work that we're bringing forward in these progress monitoring sessions. So if we run this through a scenario, if we're saying that is one of our strategies, we're coming forward and we're investing it. We're clear. We're clearer with you all like what is a tier three mean for a family, a student, tier two, tier one, working with teachers and we're saying we're doing it yet our data when we come to these spaces is not moving. For me, that would be the indication of well

093we need we need to retool this machine because something's not working correctly. Whereas if we say we're doing these things, we're coming before you all with information and data on students and we're showing like nope look this is moving. I think that's also an indication know that the system is shifting. >> Thank you. >> Director Misarah, >> I think my question is more of a clarifying one. So on um interim measure 2A, the 10th grade interim measure, you you said it briefly, but maybe I didn't quite catch it right. Um can you explain the Washington State High School requirement? That's the one that I I I get the other one and why how that fits into the whole picture, but yeah. >> Yeah. So, in in Seattle public schools, it's not a credit bearing course.

094It's something that we do in the middle schools. And so, it is a requirement. We currently do it in the middle schools. There are a few districts, and I want to be clear a few that in the state of Washington do as a credit course. Most do not. We do not. And it is done in the middle school, but it is a requirement. But let's say, for example, you just moved from Kansas to Seattle. You're an 11th grader. There are options for you to not necessarily wave that credit, but do some sort of project base to align to that credit andor you have evidence that you completed something similar in your home state. We would accept those sort of things. So, please let me know if that >> and helps clarify >> if we're able

095to up the percentage of students who are doing that, that's going to put more students on track to graduate. Is that >> Yeah. The reason it's in the measure I'm missing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. >> Yeah. The reason it's in the measure, it is one of the requirements in the state of Washington. So although it doesn't bear credit because it's it's done in the in the middle school, it is one of the requirements for graduation. So not having it for whatever the reason being and being able to look at that in data will let us know that hey, we need to do something with this essentially. That's why it's part of the measure. >> Okay. And then on intermeasure 1B, um, if I heard you correctly, a lot of this stuff might be happening already, >>

096but it's just happening later. And we want it to happen earlier so that the actual like benefit of the plan >> is enjoyed in a is actually like not just jumping through a hoop or checking a box, but actually the the students actually getting some benefit from that. So I guess one of the things that just is not listed explicitly in the strategy or maybe it's embedded in there implicitly or whatever but is just making sure that whoever at in the building is in charge of making sure that students are doing this thing that they already may be doing in 12th grade just say got to move that up a year, right? Um so making sure that's just adequately communicated out because this may be a very functional way to make these plans a lot

097more useful just to get schools doing it much earlier. Mhm. We we feel that this is one of the measures we should be able to move relatively quickly because when you look at what it really is, it's a technical exercise versus when you like an output more so than an outcome. When you think of your outcomes, it's like we're trying to get our academic data to grow. This is literally a technical exercise with an output that we can put some strategies around and say, "No, this is when this should happen for students, not if your school is advisory, this is when it happens." Those sort of things and move those numbers quickly. So just co-signing your check that Yes. Yep. >> Yes. >> Great. >> Yeah. You we're we have to shift and turn into

098a growth mindset for our students so they understand that um we want them to go to college or we want them to explore uh and we have to do some more work around exposing that to our students. Um there was a question that you asked a little earlier about you know are students on track early enough? Maybe that's a question we need to ask and reflective. Um the other question was implementation accountability indicators. What do they look like uh at each grade level? Should we be doing this at kindergarten, first grade, second, third or should we wait to sixth grade? That's a big piece. Uh equity and guardrail indicator. What does that look like? Um so we are demystifying that and everybody understands that so they understand what their role is. So if somebody is

099off track or not on track, what the next step is to help that student get there. So we need to have tools to help our students get on track but also a pathway for the students if they are off track how to get that and that should be seamless. Um the third piece that was talked about generally but not big enough was the parent participation in Naviance there was a parent portal for parents to be able to go in and get that information. Do our parents do it or not? Why aren't our parents doing that? That's the other accountability that some parents are and some parents aren't. and how do we involve our parents and use them as a leverage to help their students? They were the first teachers of their student. Why do we

100abandon that by the time they get to college? We we need to have them be a part of that as well. So, those are reflective pieces that we're looking at as well. >> Well, on that point, when it comes to things like the FAFSA, um is there any way to pull out data on first and family to go to college? >> Do we have that? I don't even know if that >> No, I I don't we we don't. I think we can take that back to the team and see what we'd be able to find out, but um not that I can think of in the moment that we have that really readily accessible. Um and I just want to call attention to in the um in the appendix there is a little bit more

101detail on that question around like but you know what has been completed. So it does it we do know that it's not that nobody's done anything and so yeah it's when >> director Smith Thank you. Um sorry I'm moving the mic around. Um so for these metrics um I think it's a very difficult thing to measure our students life ready and so you know it's a work in progress. Um, I'd say for a lot of them, um, the high school and beyond plan, the FAFSA, the, um, 12 credits, there's there's the risk of, you know, every metric can become a target. And I think these are things where the way that it's been been discussed today. I don't think that that's happening, but I think it is something we want to be aware of because

102if we said, oh, hey, we just got every student in their senior year to fill out the FAFSA, that wouldn't be actually making them more prepared for life. So, um I mean if they were also going to college it would but and not not necessarily. So I think that's um I don't know if there's a question here. That's my comment. Um and I so yeah for those three metrics in particular um and with the high school and beyond plan the way you're talking about it is like is it a meaningful and useful thing for students to do? Um because I think if we want it to be a target that we want to improve, I think just making sure that it is something that will actually improve the intended outcome of life readiness, not just

103checking the boxes. But um I do appreciate that the way you're discussing everything, it's like, oh, do I even need to bring up my questions? Like this is all very good. So um I didn't ask a question, did I? Do you want do you have any comments or should I move on to the next one? you you highlighted the important part. It's not just the plan, it's the readiness. How do we get students ready uh for the real world and that's a question that's ongoing every day, but the readiness is is so key. Um and that's what you're pointing out. It can't just be a plan plan, but the readiness is the important part. That experiential piece has to be there. >> Yeah. And I know a lot of other directors and your responses have

104have really covered that. Um, and so I think for my for my two points that I'm bringing up, the second one is um going back to the intersectionality of, you know, um, students with disabilities and race. Um, I think there's a risk there of a bias towards students of colors having IEPs that target behavioral issues versus um, >> sort of like learning issues. And so tracking that, I think, is something we will want to be focused on. So I think it's been touched on so it's less a question and more a request. >> Yes. Thank you. And I just related to what you're noting, we are very intentionally thinking about how do we make the high school and beyond plan more meaningful. If we're saying it's a metric, we're saying it's important, it's codified in

105state law, what does that actually mean? So it is something that's on our radar. And I think the when you take a look at school links the handout that you're you're taking a look at that road map that's the transparency that has to happen. Uh we need to have all eyes on it including board members including our parents has to be transparent around that. If we're not doing that then how do we improve and as we take this on um we don't have to defend anything. We we're this is a um fluid piece of what the work we do. We're going to see things. We're going to improve. things are going to change. Um, you know, it's uh I I often think back of asking for help when students ask for help when we ask

106for help. I remember my parents asked for help on how to program the VCR, you know, now I ask for help on my on my cell phone, you know, for my students. Uh, just quicker way to do this, you could do it this way. And I'm like, uh, show me, you know, but asking for that, uh, we have to get to that point. Um, I I'd be remissed if I didn't hit this point that you're bringing up. During CO, our students lost some skills, communication skills. They love to text, but students didn't know how to walk into the classroom and communicate and be able to express their ideas, but they could do it on the computer. And we're trying to get them back to expressing themselves, to be able to articulate that. And that's the

107other piece that when you say readiness, that's the other piece that we're working on. Um, and that's new for our teachers because that was something that was so many opportunities for that to happen. But how do you break them out of that skill? You got to give them more opportunities to practice at it. >> And then how do you come up with a metric to measure that? >> There you go. >> We have an expert in the room that might be able to help us with that. So, >> um, I appreciate the conversation. I think as we were developing our goals, I think the number one thing heard that that I heard at least was, I want my kid to be able to be ready when they graduate Seattle public schools for whatever it is

108that they're going to do next. I want them to be prepared for that next step. So, I think this goal is is really important. Uh, I have two questions. The first one being uh uh Dr. Dr. Taurus Morales, you put the seed into the conversation that this target might be a little aggressive. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? >> Yeah, there's multiple things around that when you look at the top line. One, just thinking about something I was noting earlier between what an outcome is and an output. So, when you think about that, an output is more of basically almost like a technical exercise like I'm going to do these things, the steps I'm going to complete. It's almost like when you have your to-do list and you check it off. Oh,

109I got through the nine out of the ten things on my to-do list is very different than saying that you're going to do shifts in actual student outcomes and attainment data and those sort of things. And it's not that we're saying we don't want to have aggressive targets, but when you think about what a 2% per year target is for any uh student outcome data, it is it is it is very it's it's a press. Um, and so even if you look at some of the largest districts across the country that have had some great success, when they're seeing some of their gains at let's say 10%. That took years. It took over to 10 years to do that. So thinking about for us, what does that mean when you look at a target like

110this? The other thing is that our graduation rate is relatively high already. And there are other factors in here that we need to consider. Not that we don't want all of our students to graduate, but there are students that are on alternate standards for certain reasons. And so, are we setting up a condition whereby we're not actually doing things that we want to by pushing that number all the way up there? I don't think that we necessarily shy away from it. I think that we engage in more authentic conversation around it and then really determine what what do we mean here kind of thing. And hopefully that answered your question. >> Yeah. And then I guess the second question that I have is there's some conversation a little bit around, you know, does graduation rate

111uh really show what students are able to do? And I guess my question is should graduation rates be an indicator of what our students are able to do and if so why why is there sort of the sentiment or how do you fix the sentiment that it doesn't or is it not and that's just a something we should be uh aware of or understanding. >> I think it's definitely further conversation because at the root if a student graduates it should be that you're graduating and you're ready. what we're hearing at least from this conversation and part of the reasons we even do these are to say like hey so this is where we're at what what do you all think you're you know you're the voice of the community and so what I've taken from

112this is yes and and so not necessarily that we would shy away from the idea of a graduation rate but what does it really mean when you think about skills and knowledge are students actually ready I think director song really hit on the number of kids that are going to community college and then needing to take remedial courses and so that is going to push us as a system to think about behind the curtain like so what's happening then so if this is the graduation rate and we're pretty excited like look at this is a great number especially for a large urban school district in the United States the question then becomes is it a great number because what's what is that what is baked in that number so more of a um duly noted

113receive thank you and wondering more wonderment I guess around like so what what is a different way to look at this then that can capture the actual life readiness that was the intent of the goal and it I don't think that we necessarily shy away from the graduation rate, but I think we think about what are what are we missing kind of thing >> and also wouldn't it be nice if graduation rate said our kids were ready for what's next. Yeah. >> Um but thank you Vice President Briggs >> is definitely a predictor. >> Um thanks. I uh I guess I'm going to tie in not shockingly uh little tidbits from what my colleagues have all said before me. Um but specifically around um yes what what we were just talking about what does it

114mean to graduate from Seattle public schools. Um certainly I I think it's happening to kids who who are going who are graduating at the top of their class and getting into a college that they were excited to go to and then finding out that they that they need to take remedial classes there too. It's it's not just happening for kids who are going into the Seattle Promise. Um and that's you know that makes it tricky then to rely on the data around graduation for as as has been pointed out. Um so I think Liza's question around is this is this given that situation is is this the correct measurement to use? But I guess my question is to what extent are you all aware of that um that issue of of the the perception of

115kids graduating from Seattle public schools showing up to college or community college um unprepared to to um move forward in their coursework? Is that is that a surprise to to hear that in this conversation or is that something that has already been on your radar? >> I I would say it's something that's on the on our radar especially given like some of the work that director Song was talking about like the city has been pointing out some of these things. I think the part that I would say is a little bit more I don't know if I would use the word surprising but interesting and and good to know is that it is not just our students that are going to the community colleges. even the students that are graduating at the top of the

116class because then it really begs the question for us around the level of rigor of the courses. And so I I would say that the latter is more um thoughtprovoking and interesting to think about. Um but to say that we weren't that we're not aware that some of this is happening, no, we are aware some of this is happening for sure. >> Okay, great. And my examples are all anecdotal. Um, I obviously haven't gathered stats on this, but it it seems like worth looking into it. And I think academic rigor is um or lack thereof is something that we heard a lot too um >> during our community engagement meetings and that obviously ties into what we're talking about. Um my other my second question um in the two minutes that we have left um

117>> Okay. Okay. I think I think we can wrap this up. Um is uh oh my gosh, I just lost it. No, it's back. Um what are we in complian? So you you were talking about um the high school and beyond plan being codified in state law and um I was curious if we to know if if you know if we're in compliance >> around that. Um, and because I I'm pretty sure um it's I I think in state law kids are supposed to start that process in seventh grade. >> Mhm. >> So um Yeah. Yes. And so the way that we've mapped it out Yes. Yes. We are the intent is that they go along the pace and that's where when when you even look at some of our metrics, we've even said like

118these are the things that we think should be completed by certain time. So like in eighth grade, you should have completed these two activities. By 11th grade, you should have completed these four additional items. What we're So yes, I would I wouldn't say that we're out of compliance. I would say that we're not meeting some of our own um benchmarks at all like when we're showing this to you. So ultimately for the student to graduate, they have to complete it. But what something like this is telling us is that a lot of students are just rushing it in 12th grade to just get it done and checked off. And so terms of compliance, yes, in terms of spirit of the of the law and the intent, that's where we that's where we're having some more

119conversation because it should be more of a a like a plan, like a pathway of where am I going versus I need to get this done so I can get my diploma in 12th grade, >> right? Yeah. I guess I guess by compliance I meant like is that happening across all of our middle schools? cuz I mean having had two kids go through middle school >> in Seattle public schools, I never saw uh any high school beyond anything at all. >> So So I I guess my my question is just then like in in what sense are we in compliance? >> And I think that's partly like like this one I'll show you right here. If you look at the grade eight measure, this is the middle school measure essentially. So these are the students

120who have left and are current nth graders in high school. And so we say they should have completed these two activities by then. But if you look at our data, it is saying only 52.5% of students across the city have completed this. And so that's where we're talking about strategies going forward. It's around like how are we tightening this up because it should not be that we're saying this isn't this needs to happen, but only half of our kids are doing it across the city. And then it even begs another question around like and so who are those half of kids the other half of the kids and where are they and what are the schools? So really thinking about what is the actual guidance around this and the strategies that need to be put

121in place to pull us more in compliance with with what you're noting. >> Yeah. I mean and I guess that becomes a question then of like to what extent are all middle school educators on the same page about >> about% need to be in compliance and ensuring that that's happening in their buildings. Yeah. >> Yep. Yep. Yep. I can tell you what we what we've seen speaking to your anidotal we've seen is basically presented to students as optional. It's uh asynchronous for our students and then it's a add-on. So it's nobody really owning it uh at sixth grade or seventh grade or eighth grade uh to say at the end of sixth grade you should have had this experience. uh and it's more of a prevention not just an outcome because if students are doing

122the high school and beyond plan then they get a chance to get access to the courses the master schedule they're thinking about growth mindset so we're changing the culture mindset but we got to get some ownership from our teachers to actually make sure that this is not on the students you had their students speak and say I'm not using this I I created my own system well how come we're not using the system that we have and how we use this as a prevention model uh not just an outcome based model. We can do both with these. But you're absolutely right. We've noticed those things and now we're as you guys set that goal, we looked at these indicators and now how do we flip that? >> All right, we're going to wrap up the

123progress monitoring life ready baseline report. Thank you Dr. Torres Morales. Thank you chief accountability office Howard for the presentation. Uh board directors, we're going to take a 7 minute. So really come back here at 610 break. 610. Um uh and we'll continue then and we will uh have a legislative session uh portion update uh with Cliff Tman and Julia Worth. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Hey, hey, hey. Okay. Heat. Heat. N. Heat. Heat. Second. Found. Heat. Heat. It is 610. So we will join back together here. All right. Director Song, Director Smith, Director Laval. Thank you. >> All right. So, we are going to move into our legislative session update. Uh we are we gonna pass it off to our director of board relations and strategic init initiatives uh Miss War. But uh we are

124also joined by Chief Redmond who is filling in for uh superintendent Podesta this evening and then Cliff Tman um will join us as well. So I'll hand it over to you. >> Thank you, President Top. Um, uh, as President Topp mentioned, I'm joined by Clifford Traceman this evening, uh, who is our district's contract lobbyist, um, and has done exceptional work for us, uh, for the past 19 years. I actually just found out this evening. Uh, Cliff, anything you would like to add for your introduction? >> No, I mean, I would just Is this working? >> I think so. Try one more time. Y, >> it is working. I would just say I'm happy to be here and appreciate all the collaboration um from everybody here on staff and board and superintendent um and making sure

125that we speak with one clear voice in Olympia on our legislative priorities each session and we do do that. Um I've been lobbying in Olympia for many many years. I work on a lot of environmental issues in addition to K12 and have a few other areas I focus on. But my passion with four children who I put through uh Seattle public schools with uh in June I could say it in past tense. My daughter's a senior at Roosevelt High School, but um I was doing the math in my head. Um I've had a child in Seattle public schools for the past 23 years. So in in June that will stop for a while at least until there's maybe grandkids. But um uh this is my passion and I'm happy to be here. >> Great. Thank

126you. Um so we're going to provide some foundational information um for you all this evening going into the 2026 legislative session which kicked off uh on Monday. Um so a quick review of our 2026 legislative agenda which was passed in November uh 2025. Um there are uh three main priority areas. So addressing funding gaps in basic education. Um and the priorities in this area cover special education, transportation, material supplies and operating costs. And then protecting and maintaining funding levels uh that are already set by the state. Uh supporting student learning and well-being which covers areas of highquality instruction, safe and supportive schools. um and uh a request to limit any new state requirements um particularly if they do not come with additional funding for implementation. Uh and the third area is efficient and reliable operations.

127So priorities in this area around highquality and sustainable capital investments uh and then uh addressing an issue with sales tax on retail services that school districts are now subject to. Um these priorities are available on uh the district website which is linked at the top of this slide and also at the end of the presentation and you can read more detail about um the priorities themselves there. Uh just to note that these priorities were developed in collaboration uh with our partner districts, statewide associations, and based on previous community engagement. Uh that was also aligned to our district's needs in order for us to meet our goals. So they represent um a lot of work that has happened over the last couple of years uh to support uh the district strategic plan and goals going forward.

128So, I will now pass it over to Cliff to provide a bit of a landscape uh view of uh how things are looking in 2026. >> Um yes, and and then uh probably best to do when we get to the point of doing Q&A, that's that's probably the best way to do it. But, you know, in a general sense, it's going to be a very frustrating year. Um the state is faced with at least a billion dollar deficit. If you look at the four-year outlook, it uh is much larger than that. And um they have to by law pass a balanced budget by the end of session. Um last year was a long session year was a 105day session. Uh this year is what's called a short session year or 60-day session. In the 105day

129session last year, they set a two-year budget. And in the second year, in the 60-day short session, they alter that budget. um unfortunately they have a budget that uh is not balanced based on case loads and the deficit that they have and so for us we want to make sure that in any budget cutting K12 education is held harmless at the very very least uh we can't afford any more reductions in state investment in basic education that is a non-starter for Seattle public schools in the K12 uh community broadly um our kids and our families should be demanding that and we are I would say uh beyond that we're still asking for additional revenue. Um, we're always underfunded on special education and there was a increase last year on the multiplier and the safety net

130dealing with special education and our strong delegation led on that and we had some success last year but they didn't really succeed on funding what's called materials supplies and operating costs otherwise known as MSOC um or on student transportation. And so we are seeking um uh the passage of legislation that would increase the MSOC funding that would help Seattle public schools and to at least fund what's called the transportation safety net so we have more state funding for um our special populations uh homeless and McKini Vento populations and we'll be pushing for that as well. And as the legislative agenda um uh laid out, the um Senate Bill 5814, which is now law, last year, which is um a sales tax on retail services, did a tax on temporary services that uh negatively impacts um

131Seattle public schools and school districts, uh special education contracted services, security contract contracted services, those sort of things. um live presentations. Um so, uh Kurt Butterman, our CFO, and others will be calculating those costs and we're going to be pushing the legislature to try to um remedy those potential uh negative impacts from the law last year. I would say those are the highest priorities. Uh we're blessed with the strongest delegation in Olympia, great leadership in the House and Senate, and we'll be pushing on all these and other areas uh beyond just saying no cuts. Um and then finally, um we don't want the passage of any new legislation whatsoever that would uh force us to incur more costs. uh legislature has a tendency to sometimes I I say with a smile pass legislation that doesn't

132come with the necessary funding to implement that uh given our dire budget situation uh throughout the state for school districts uh and in this tough economy we really cannot afford more costs and more deficits as as you well know and under your leadership you've been working hard to reduce uh those deficits. I think those are the major areas and and Julia, you'll let me know if I forgot anything. >> Thank you, >> President Top, would you like to take some questions now on session landscape or wait until the end? And >> let's see if there's any questions now for uh Mr. Traceman on sort of the landscape in Olympia. >> You got off easy. Oh, director Song. >> Um, were there any specific pieces of legislation that um are currently being considered that related to

133supporting student learning and well-being that we should be paying attention to? >> Um, at this point, you know, there was the um, uh, K12 funding equity workg group. Um I sat on that representing us uh talking about doing a new um K12 education formula that eventually will have to happen uh in in a future legislature. I don't expect them to be making changes to the formula in this short 60-day session. There are always bills that we monitor on a week basis. some that we weigh in directly, some that we weigh in behind the scenes, but um most of this year will be about really quite honestly uh reducing um hopefully um getting um support from the uh from the legislature on funding and making sure that we're not swept up in the budget cutting discussions

134that are going on in Olympia. >> Um the $1 billion deficit, do we know what is driving that? Is any of that coming from K through 12? Is there a reason for us to think that we wouldn't be able to maintain the levels of funding? >> Uh, it's a complicated question that I don't really know the answer to. I know that um we have been pushing that um any um savings in K12 that um the legislature realizes be reinvested in K12. Um both on the capital side and on the operating side. Um but uh no, no one is blaming K12 education for the for the statewide deficit. Uh, I know that there's been a lot of discourse around um progressive revenues, but it doesn't seem like we would immediately benefit from that. Are there any

135other conversations that around maybe like further levy lifts, levy cap lifts that could bring in a little bit more revenue opportunity for Seattle public schools? >> That is a big one for us. And last year we were successful. We were one of the winners um if if you will um around that levy issue. they did allow us to um increase our uh levy cap. So, we were able to capture more of those dollars that our voters already were uh approved. Uh and that helped greatly. I believe the number is 12 million um this year alone. So, last year through the leadership of our delegation, they pushed really hard not to go home without that. Um so, we were lucky to have that last year. this year that's off the table. There is discussion and a

136bill in the legislature focus focusing on what's called LEA levy equalization that helps those districts that are the non levy districts um have funding. Uh it's complicated because the the governor cut that uh in his budget um slightly. Um uh so there are discussions about LEA levy equalization assistance but not around levy um for this year. Um but it will always be a priority for Seattle public schools to be able to um help solve its own problems on the local level without letting the state off the hook. Um and then on the issue of um the revenue, there is going to be a bill that will be introduced um any week, and there's only a few weeks in a short session here on what's called the millionaires tax. Um and many legislators, including legislators in

137our delegation, are talking about that being uh something that would benefit K12 education. And um if that millionaires tax or so-called millionaires tax were to be enacted into law um the earliest that the state would probably see revenue from that would be 2029. So it is out in the future. It is something that could help K12 education but for our immediate needs um probably not. >> Uh I happen to be at the education committee um session this morning. So thank you so much for your incredible work. The committee did pass the safety net transportation unanimously by the Senate. >> Yeah. And it's um a big source of deficit spending for this district. So, thank you for lobbying for us on that. We >> appreciate and we testified on that yesterday. So, they're moving quickly. >>

138Yeah. >> Director Lavali. >> With what you were just talking about with the millionaires tax, is there any you said that it would likely benefit education. um how would we be or would we be able to push in any way to I mean we can't get a guarantee but get any sort of prioritization of that um within that getting passed. The concern being that oftent times when things like this are passed, they get redistributed based on a bunch of jockeying from different entities that want a share of that. >> No, it's it's an excellent question. That's something we need to really keep a keen eye keen eye on and make sure that um to the extent that that bill is in any way tied to K12 education funding that um it's real and that we

139benefit. And again, we're lucky to have delegation members. Uh when I say SE Seattle delegation members, those are the legislators in Olympia who represent our region um who'll be supporting many if not all will be supporting that legislation and we'll work closely with them on that. >> Okay, Director Ranken, >> thank you. Um, just to add to that, if like there's lots of things that in the past have said this is for education, but if there's not actually a appropriation or a spending plan, that's exactly what you're talking about. So that's in our priorities. We have had we have sort of had a acknowledgment that um progressive revenue that more revenue is needed from the state that we need sustainable funding sources and that progressive revenue is something we support. But it's not like we're

140not going to become an advocacy arm for progressive revenue at the top because all that revenue could come in and it could and K12 could see, you know, not a single dollar of it. So the um the the prototypical model that Cliff was talking about that that it's a longer project to get that to change. That's where we would see the inc that's where we need to see the increased spending is to have that be like here's what is planned to spend on K12. Um otherwise exactly what you said that we could raise the revenue which would be great and and not see not see any of it. Um I have a question too. There's always been attention and it's probably not going to come up this session but attention between the levy lid and

141LEA. Um, LEA is being talked about right now. Is that being talked about in the way of because you did the levy lift last year, now we need you to do LEA. Um, or is it being talked about because the governor cut it? Um, because the the the levy lid is really really important for us. A lot of other districts in the state don't either can't raise a levy or or just or don't. And so the LEA dollars come from the state. So when when we're advocating for the li for if we advocate for a lift to a levy lid and we do it without bringing in folks who need the LEA dollars, our legislators, as strong as they are, can't pass a bill on their own. So what's the conver sorry that was like

142what's the conversation about that that tension and how in looking at deficits how a state deficit how might we still have that conversation cuz I can see on the one hand hey not to let the state off the hook but like we need more revenue we can get it here if you will let us and that means less you know that less that you have to find but we also don't want to leave other children in Washington state without those without the resources that they need. >> No, I'm glad you asked that question. Under your direction and and leadership um the school board, we you have always directed us to support um education funding for all the kids of Washington state. So, we have always supported um increase of levy equalization assistance, LEA funding from

143the state even though our kids and our families don't directly benefit from that. you've always directed us to advocate for that because we have a very generous um voter base that passes our levies. Not every district in the state is blessed with with that propertyrich district um uh political environment where they can pass levies. And so LEA is supposed to smooth that out on some kind of a percentage um basis, not a dollar for dollar, but last year when we got our levy lift, we also advocated for an increase in levy equalization assistance because we care about all the kids of Washington state and their education. And the legislature, for all kinds of reasons, uh passed the levy bill and not the LEA bill. So, the bill in the legislature uh introduced by Representative Steve

144Burrquist um from the 11th Legislative District uh would help smooth that out. That was unrelated uh to the governor's cut uh which I don't fully understand honestly on exactly how he cut it, but um it was by $100 per pupil um for a short period of time. And I know um under your direction, we've always supported no cuts to LEA and in fact enhancements. So I hope that answered the Excuse me. I hope that answered the question. >> Yeah, I think it did. Just to like put an even finer point on it, our legislate, our delegation can advocate hard for us to support a levy lid only, but it needs a lot more votes than just our delegation to pass. And so we care about the rest of the children in Washington state and also

145we can't pass what we need alone. >> Exactly. Right. >> Well, yeah, but like Yeah, that but that was that caused a lot of hurt. >> Yeah, >> I guess. Yes. Yes. >> One more question. Director Lavali. >> Yeah. As this is a short session and we go into 2027, are you working on priorities for that longer session in an attempt to get more of that special education, transportation, and MSOC funding that we weren't able to get in the last longer session? >> Uh the short answer is absolutely. um when the bill last year passed led by Senator Jamie Peterson and under his leadership to uh increase what's called the special ed multiplier and and lower the safety net threshold which allowed more revenue to come in to serve our neediest kids. um that or

146or our our children with with high needs that um that was something that got whittleled down and weakened each and every week during session. And the reason was the um the probabilities of a larger revenue package kept dwindling as well. And so although it's the state's constitutional duty to provide ample funding for K12 education with or without new revenue, um the new revenue discussion, um good or bad, was tied to special ed last year. And so we were able to get some benefits from the legislature, but they knew and we told them in real time, this doesn't get the job done. It doesn't close the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of underfunding for special special education in Washington state. So absolutely we'll bring that back. Obviously that's up to the board to adopt

147that agenda, but uh the work is not done. >> Thank you. >> All right, let's move on to the board legislative advocacy section here. >> Great. So, I'm going to go through some of the technical aspects that govern the board's advocacy activity, but want to start by emphasizing again that one of the most critical elements of the uh legislative advocacy program is coordination uh and unity throughout uh session around the legislative priorities and strategy. Um so, collaboration uh between staff, Cliff, and board directors is really key to our success. So the board advocacy program uh is governed by board policy 1225 and state law. Uh a couple of key activities uh highlighted here in board policy 1225 is to develop an annual uh legislative agenda which you all have done. So check uh support and

148work for legislation that promotes quality education within SPS the region and state of Washington. Uh so again to that point even in board policy that uh our advocacy also takes into consideration the rest of the state uh staying informed on pending legislation uh and actively communicating concerns uh that you may be hearing uh to uh fellow directors as well as staff so that we can take that into um our uh strategy discussions. Um and then uh uh the last bullet here is a direct quote from the policy um that board members individually or as members of professional organizations will not represent positions conflicting with a district uh on legislative matters um unless it's made clear that you're doing so as an individual and not uh in your official position at the district. So being very

149clear that the district speaks with one voice. Um we are also legally only only allowed to advocate on the board's adopted priorities. So uh the priorities that we just discussed are the topics that we are allowed to advocate on the positions that we are allowed to advocate on. So anything that conflicts with that um as a district official uh under the the state law and using our district resources, you're not allowed to advocate. Uh so segueing into the state law on board advocacy activities, what is allowed? Um communication with legislators on legislation that's related to the adopted agenda again in coordination. Uh discussing legislation at open public meetings that's related to the board adopted legislative agenda. Uh so that could be updates on bills. Uh, it could also be a discussion of legislation that the

150board wants to take a position on. So, it could be that there's a bill that gets introduced during session that was not contemplated on our agenda, but that the board feels strongly the district needs to advocate around. Uh, you can have a conversation and then take official action as a board uh to add it as an allowable uh topic uh and position for us to advocate. Um, so that can happen at a a public meeting as well. You are also allowed to work with staff and use uh district resources like your laptop or district cell phone uh or district paper and printers uh to uh prepare materials uh related to the board adopted legislative agenda. Uh so if you want support on developing talking points uh or uh data requests and analysis um if it's

151on the board adopted legislative agenda you are allowed to use district resources in that way. Um and then finally communicating with legislators uh at their request on issues related to public duties of the district. So if a legislator reaches out to you and says, "Hey, is this bill going to impact the district in some way?" You are allowed to reach out to staff and ask that question and then uh communicate back to the legislature on that. What is not allowed uh is to communicate with legislators on legislation that's not on the board adopted agenda like we just discussed. um especially on behalf of the board. Um you are not allowed to work with staff or use district resources uh to prepare materials that are not related to the board adopted agenda. Um so if it's

152not a topic that the board has taken official action on either through the legislative agenda that's been adopted or uh other official action uh at a board meeting. Um you cannot ask staff uh to produce data or talking points for you. uh on that or used your uh district devices to advocate on that topic. Um also importantly uh elected officials uh schoolboard directors are not allowed to solicit advocacy from families and community members on behalf of the district. Um so while you as public officials can advocate you cannot go to the PTSA or from the dis encourage or ask parents in the audience to go and advocate for the district on a specific piece of legislation. Um so uh you may get requests from parents like what would be helpful um for me to do

153to support the district and getting additional funding or passing this bill. um you are uh encouraged to direct them to the district website uh which has our legislative priorities and then also other resources uh so that if folks want to get involved there's a link to the state PTA to our Seattle council PTA to other advocacy organizations there's contact information for their legislators so they can then take it upon themselves to get connected with those advocacy resources um versus you directing them and what they should do in order to advocate. Um so uh that is always a a bit of a a tricky thing to navigate. Uh every session there's at least one one instance where there's a question. So uh just being very clear, you cannot solicit advocacy or ask folks to do something,

154but if you are asked, please direct them to our available resources. Um, you are also not allowed to provide materials that were created with district resources to families or community to use and advocacy. So again, if you get a question of, hey, do you all have any talking points on this particular bill, you cannot provide the district created talking points uh to the the community member who may have requested that from you. Um so again directing them to advocacy organizations that can support them uh in their desired efforts is important. Uh then moving into supports for board advocacy. So this is really how the work gets done during session. Uh as mentioned before there's a lot of collaboration during session. So the board president appoints the uh legislative liaison. Uh the liaison term is for

155two years. uh that board director works with district staff and lobbyists and the lobbyists to review pending legislation uh discuss strategy uh that is aligned with the board adopted agenda. So the legislative re liaison is kind of the single point of contact but certainly not the only board director that's allowed to engage in advocacy. um they are just the point person for uh staff and lobbyist collaboration uh and then help facilitate the strategy around testimony or talking points or what information needs to be shared with the full board. Um legislative session moves very quickly. So it's very important that we have a single point person to go to and say hey how would the board like to approach uh this piece of legislation that we just found out is being heard tomorrow morning at 8

156a.m. Right? So, um it's it's uh helpful to have that single point, but other directors are definitely encouraged to be tracking legislation, reaching out to staff and the lobbyist with question. staff and Cliff, sorry, I keep referring to you as the lobbyist uh with questions, you know, um and uh uh uh going and coordinating uh if you would like to um testify on a bill, we're happy to help you with talking points, analysis, um and keeping those lines of uh communication and advocacy o open. Uh and I believe that that is it. uh happy to take any questions. And then uh just a couple of uh resources that were referenced here. So the government relations page is where you'll find uh our legislative agenda. Um and then other advocacy resources that you can point community

157members to. Uh board policy 1225 is the board's adopted policy around advocacy. And then uh the public disclosure commission uh has a really helpful resource around uh guidelines for allowable lobbying activities uh and not allowed activities under state law uh that gets into more detail on things like uh grassroots or indirect lobbying and things like that. So uh if you have uh the need for more information, those are also excellent resources. >> Okay, gonna move to questions. I'll just really quickly just kind of promote a little bit about what was said here of I think we all have a responsibility. We all have different relationships with legislators to be advocating for our for our shared agenda and and you know this is a quick 60 days but we we we all have a responsibility in

158those 60 days that questions for Julia Julia on uh on sort of the dos and don'ts and what we're allowed to do. Uh, Director Smith, >> this isn't exactly on the dos or don'ts, but um when you say we can direct people to the um legislative agenda, >> um is that in these links because it doesn't look like it unless maybe on the government relations page. >> Yes, on the government relations page, uh there's both a printable version of the priorities as well as a web embedded version where you can >> open it up and see all the detail. Okay, perfect. >> Vice President Briggs, >> this is also not a dos and don'ts question. Um, I guess maybe it could be considered, but um are we are we taking an official position on um

159Senator Hansen's bill around uh prohibiting ICE agents from coming onto school property? Because that's something I'm hearing that families are concerned about. Um, so yeah, just trying to figure out how to talk about that and is that yeah, do we have an official position on that? And is that or is that something that we need to discuss? >> Um, so that is something that would potentially fall under our safe and supportive school environment. So um depending on the specific language of the bill, we would work with the legislative liaison on if our current agenda covers uh advocacy on that or if the board does need to take a specific position. Um so still TBD, but um a lot of our agenda uh priorities uh are kind of broad in that area to cover things that

160we may not have anticipated. Uh, Director Ranken, >> thank you. Um, I wanted to ask specifically because this is and I know we've talked about it, but I don't know if we've specifically um, you know, advocacy is it's a group project. We cannot no one district can get done alone what the what our kids deserve and no one board director can can do all of that. So, we all have a a role in that. Um and different boards there's different you know we some some boards have people that came to the board because legislative advocacy with their thing and they've been signing in and giving testimony on bills for years and some folks may be like sign in what I'm sorry who so um the specific question that I have is we have sort of

161had a shared understandingish and we we have a lot of new board members but in the past that if you're going to sign in on a bill like basically don't sign in on a bill without checking with Cliff first. Um um that typically if there is an official Seattle public schools support of a bill, Cliff will sign in on our behalf. So if individuals have other um bills that are maybe not part of our uh platform that is still something that for an individual is important to them and they they do want to sign in on it. Should we just leave? I'm I'm not pl I don't have any specific thing. I'm just thinking should it's come up before. Should we leave the um you know it will ask you for your name and your

162organization if we haven't run that by you. Just leave it blank. >> Yeah, I would say that in all my years >> or would you say don't don't sign in because people know who the board directors is are and that muddies the waters. I would just say in all my ears I can't recall where there was ever a problem where um there was any vagaries about um a Seattle public schools position on a bill. Um what you do as individuals I yeah I don't know but um the the rule of thumb that has always worked is always check with Julia. Um she is excellent at working the entire bureaucracy and getting what we need. Um if a legislator or anyone asks questions um and and we have to give an answer, she's excellent at getting

163the answer and getting it to me to get to the legislature. Um, I can't think of any time we've had a bill where uh I'm sure it's happened, but where a school board director signed in where we didn't have a position or we didn't know about it. But I understand the question. It's it's a good question. I I just don't recall there ever being a problem. And I would say as you know individuals you are of course allowed to sign in or advocate on issues as long as you are not indicating that it is the position of the district or the board. So I was trying if there's a question on if there's a district position on something or if it falls under the legislative agenda then I would heir on the side of leaving

164your SPS affiliation off and signing in as just an individual. But as Cliff said, please reach out to us and ask and say, "I would like to sign in on this bill if it's something that we do support or oppose, you know, whichever direction you are going." Um, and uh, and we can provide you with that information. >> Great. Um and then my other question in the same vein of it being a group project is um one of the most important things that I have found in terms of advocacy is collaborating across the state. Um and I this is not a personal thing. People may have different reasons why they weren't available, but it was pretty disappointing to be the only one from Seattle at the WASDA legislative conference. It is an annual opportunity with

165WASDA WASA which is state administrators WSBO state business officers superintendents are there to talk to other folks around the state and work together on our shared priorities. There's also training opportunities. This is how I learned about effective advocacy and how WA was works and all these things. And so, um, it I don't know what the reasons are, but it is really disappointed that we are here as representatives of our community, and if we're not in places, our community is not represented. Um, I did bring back some talking points on some of the WASDA positions that are aligned that I'll give to you, Julia, in case I mean, some of the WASDA stuff is, you know, it's all in the same vein, but there's slightly different emphasis, but in case that's helpful. Um, and then the

166other thing I wanted to mention that I'm not sure how this happened is that our student board members couldn't didn't come. I was I offered to chaperon um last year the students had a really great experience and we even had a student on a student panel and I'm not I'm not sure what kind of fell through the cracks that the students didn't get um signed up for that again but I'm just noting it so that as we're moving forward and documenting some things that we make sure that that's written down somewhere that our students have the opportunity to come to legislative conference um and that that's a I mean if we agree that that money is going to be allocated to that, but just that um it's something that's uh kind of a standing expectation

167um so that they get to do that >> others. All right. Thank you so much, Cliff, Julia, Bev >> for your presentation. >> Thank you. >> All right. Well, thank you everyone for the work session tonight, the good discussion uh sort of uh between now and when we meet next on January 21st. I hope folks will uh do some work uh to move our agenda forward in Olympia. But otherwise, uh our regularly scheduled board meeting will be on January 21st. Um, and there being no further business on the agenda, the meeting stands adjourned at 6:50 p.m. Thank you everyone. Have a good night. 10 minutes or no