001Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] All right, good afternoon. We will start here in just a moment. >> So, Joe, Sarah, and Brandon are online. I believe director Sarju is somewhere. >> Oh, okay. [Music] >> All right. Well, this is President Top. I am now calling the board special meeting to order at 4:33 p.m. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. Uh we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and the traditional territories of the Puet Sound Coast Salish people. For the record, I will call the role. Um this is President Top. Vice President Briggs >> here. >> Director Clark >> present. >> Director Hersy back. Director Misrai >> present. >> Director Ranken >> here. >> Director Sergio is currently not here, but it
002sounds like she will be joining us shortly. Um, so tonight's meeting is sort of broken up into three parts. We're going to start with a pre presentation from HYA, our search firm for superintendent. They'll walk us through the leadership profile. Um then we will move to part two which is a uh presentation on civics's education in our district. Um this comes from a request from director Ranken. Um and then we will move into part three which is an enrollment update. Enrollment has been a major topic this year and an area we uh I think need know we need to see some changes and do a little bit better. So we'll get an update there. Um, so we're going to jump right in and I'm going to pass it off to uh Julia here to start
003our presentation um uh on the engagement portion of our uh that we just wrapped up on our uh superintendent search. >> Great. Excuse me. Thank you, President Topp. And apologies for the froggy voice. We have a summer cold. Um, the board office partnered with HYA to support the community engagement process for the superintendent search. Um, oh, can I have the Yes, thank you. Um, the process included multiple modes of engagement, including in-person sessions, virtual sessions, focus groups, single language sessions, the online survey, and then individual comments that community members provided via email, let's talk, and phone calls. Um to inform our Seattle public schools and greater Seattle community of the engagement opportunities over the spring and summer, we utilized email, social media, text message re via talking points, roocalls, and individual outreach by community leaders
004as well as the district website. And then Seattle Times also very graciously advertised um the community engagement sessions for us. Um, I do want to thank our community partners and leaders for their insights into what our community needed to be able to fully participate in this process. It allowed us to pivot mid-process and tailor um to ensure that we were reaching um the the voices that needed to be heard. Um I also want to thank our community partners um for their support and leadership in then facilitating, organizing and recruiting participants. um without them we would not have been able to reach the diverse voices that you will see represented in the leadership profile. In total, HYA facilitated 36 engagement sessions. There were seven general community and parent sessions, a combination of virtual and in-person. Three
005of those meetings uh were co-f facilitated and led by a community partner. So, a special thank you to the Seattle Council, PTSA, and the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition for their partnership and facilitation of those general meetings. Interpretation at all seven of these sessions was provided in American Sign Language and our top five spoken languages in the district um in addition to the language specific sessions that were held in the focus groups to ensure that um community members could participate in multiple sessions. 29 focus group sessions were held. Um I'm not going to go over this list. It also is in the leadership profile report. Um but uh the focus groups did focus on communities and voices that are not always well represented in our engagements. We held multiple sessions for some communities where initial participation
006was low. And this is where we really relied on our community partners and leaders to help recruit um and help us organize for those sessions. Uh groups with an excuse me, groups with an asterisk are the ones that we partnered with a community leader to organize, facilitate, and spread the word about both the engagement session and the online survey to increase participation there. I want to thank HYA and Mr. Ali for their leadership and partnership in this effort and for allowing us to tailor the process to what we heard from our community leaders that our SPS community needed including extending the timeline and then partnering with community leader and partners um to make sure that we were um reaching everyone who needed to be heard from. I will now pass it over to Mr. Ali
007to present the leadership profile report. >> So real quick before we do that, sorry Mr. I just want to make a note that we one of the things that we said to some of these community groups that we would go back out to present the leadership profile port uh report to them. So the board will bring the the the final report back out to community um and uh staff is working on details for that soon and board directors should be be ex uh hopefully uh willing to participate in in that process as well. So, we'll share uh you should be seeing more information soon on those next steps. All right. Thank you, Mr. Ali. >> Thank you, Madam President. And I would most certainly be remiss if I did not thank Miss War, Miss Redmond,
008Chief Redmond, as well as the HYA team. I tell you this was a herculean effort uh to work across the summer. We began before the school year concluded and we literally worked through the summer and were able to accommodate each and every individual groups whether it be challenges and or work around their varying schedules. and and so it most certainly would not have been able to be accomplished had we not put our collective efforts together. And so again, you're thanking me, but I want to thank you immensely as well as the other individuals within the Seattle public school system who were instrumental in assisting in this this vein. Also, I'd be slipshot if I did not uplift the community partners. they double down whether it was the indigenous Native American community, the black community, each
009and every community, they had something going on during this process and they were able to work with us. We were able to work with them very collegially to make sure their voice was captured as well as heard. And so again, that shows the type of individuals who are in this community who truly care about public education as well as the students within this school system. One last group of individuals I want to uplift, your parents, your parents as well as your teachers and your students really responded to this survey. The parental involvement underscores the fact that the voices are significantly important. In addition to that, they want to see a better Seattle public school system and they want to make sure that the individual who leads this system understands the challenges and the intricacies of
010this community. This is a very unique, very diverse community which is also very inclusive and that is indeed reflected in this report. And so without any further ado, I move right into it. So the profile, the development of the profile report, we collected data from multiple sources to develop what we call the leadership profile. We've arrived to a set of desired characteristics for recruitment. This report will be shared with the community in addition to all of the aspirants. Again, it's one thing to apply for a job, but it's another thing to actually read a voluminous document that's been extracted from a community to make sure that you align with the community's values and what the community desires to see and a leader leaning forward. As you can see to the left, district data was collected,
011board interviews, individual interviews, focus groups, and community forums. All of that data has been very integral to driving the leadership profile report, but also delivering that which we'll discuss in the uh succeeding slides. The focus groups, next focus groups and and protocols. So the structure of the focus groups open very open allowing individuals to share exactly what they desire to share free of any prohibition or encumbrance. Participants will ask the following questions. What do you as a stakeholder/constituent value regarding the schools? What strengths of the district do you desire to retain and build upon? What are the issues this district currently faces and as importantly will be facing in the next three to five years? What are the personal and professional characteristics you and your community expect a superintendent to possess? And I would tell
012you folks were very candid in the sessions that data is included in the leadership profile report. Individuals also expressed the ups as well as the downs, the highs and lows. They expressed their cynicism. Many folks were incredulous. We captured all of that because our objective was to hear and listen and make sure that we captured the not just the essence but the voice and articulation of the community. When you look at the survey, we had 3,526 respondents for nearly 52,000 students. Not bad. Not bad. Is there a specific rubric we can say? Can we compare Seattle with another district? Well, I wouldn't necessarily compare and contrast because each system is unique. We did the superintendent search in Clark County, Nevada, Las Vegas. 300,000 students, roughly 14,000 respondents. We did the superintendent search in Atlanta, Atlanta
013public schools, nearly 50,000 students, roughly 1,600 responses. So just think of a survey and the best example would be in politics. 10% of the people said that they love Mai Ali in America. Out of 350 million people, 10% said we love him. So guess what? The whole entire country loves him. It's a sampling. And generally you're on. Sometimes you could be off. We've seen it off. But if one parent has an issue with the school bus system, buses are chronically late. Generally, that's a sentiment shared by many. If parents have an IEP and they feel that the district has not been very responsive, well, I'm very confident others will feel the same. So, you could take that statistical sampling and draw a conclusion and we've done just that with respect to the development of of
014this profile. So when you look at 3,526 respondents, I wouldn't say, "Oh my goodness, it should have been, you know, 20,000 parents. Had we conducted the survey for a year, we would have received more responses." And I would dare say that may be indeed true, but we're looking at the content and not just simply looking at this from a a quantitative perspective. So looking at the survey, the common desires of responding groups, respondents were asked to choose the single most important focus for the next superintendent. 62% of the respondents stated preparing students to be ready for the next grade and ultimately college and career ready. If 62% of the respondents stated this, I'm very confident that 100% of the parents within Seattle public schools are interested in their child being college and career ready. I'm
015very confident no parent has sent their child to school to fail. 62% stated hiring and retaining quality teachers and administrators. 55% providing a safe environment for students and employees. 35% ensuring a well-rounded experience for all students. 33% addressing students social and emotional needs. What conclusion can we draw? The families, the communities within the school district are interested in seeing the next superintendent drive systemic change within the system and break through barriers. In addition, retaining and training administrators as well as teachers high on the list. safe learning environments extremely important in addition to ensuring that student voice is uplifted as well as the overall student experience. And then when we look at addressing social and emotional uh needs, what I'm drawing from this and based upon some of the comments made in the sessions, parents are
016not simply interested in the school system hashtagging or bumper stickering as it were, colloquial statements or idioms. and more interested in the delivery of systems that are scalable and can meet the needs of each and every child. The priority consensus now these are reported from the focus groups ensuring fiscal health. There's been a tremendous amount of discussion in the community as well as in the media with respect to the district's fiscal status. Parents are keenly aware of that and are interested in the district being very fiscally strong and fiscally sound because of course that then impacts the instructional program. providing prioritized instruction for students and then addressing the achievement gaps of all students in particular students who've chronically underperformed some of your lowest performing percentiles. We don't have to necessarily delve deep into that, but
017that's definitely an area of concern based upon a consensus from the the focus groups. Okay, I'll touch it. I'll touch it. When you're talking about achievement and opportunity gaps, specifically black and brown boys and the data is clear. The data is clear. So, this is not and and so parents are interested in and again I go back to that term systemic change. systemic change. The system bending to provide support to students as as opposed to the system bending to support adults and adults needs and desires. developing the desired characteristics. We were able to triangulate data again multiple sources in order to arrive to the desired characteristics of the next superintendent of the Seattle public schools. When you look at this the next slide, this underscores exactly what was stated based upon focus groups as well
018as surveys. One, equitydriven and student focused. Two, financial and operational expertise. Three, communicative, relational and authentic. Four, visionary and courageous change maker. And then the last is experienced and accountable. When we talk about the last the last bullet there experience and accountable there was indeed a push in many of the groups for someone who has seated experience. The community is not interested in uh someone who is cutting their teeth as it were >> Untested. Untested. walk into the role with understanding the accountability metrics and matrix that exist. There's been a tremendous amount of dis talk about someone uh having an an understanding of the community and being able to communicate the vision of the the district. Again, we we heart back on fiscal and operational expertise because that's what the community's heard a lot of
019over the past few years. And then of course, coma through media articles, you've had a chance to affirm what the community's also stated. And then when we look at equity and student focused is interesting how those two are inextricably connected. Again, we go back to looking at equity in the as ethics, doing the right thing for all students, black, brown, white, Asian, et indigenous, etc. students with IEPs, but doing the right thing by students, raising that level of student achievement, and doing it in short order. The community is not necessarily interested in waiting 3 to 5 years for curriculum to take root. They're interested in someone who can move the system, push the system. And so that concludes my review of the leadership profile report. Again, it's in draft mode. I've given you top level.
020If members of the board are interested in providing any comments and or anything in writing that we can then take and and uh envelop in the into the leadership profile report would do just that. >> Director Ranken, >> thank you. Um I I know it came in our email today and I might have missed it. what has been posted publicly because we have the more detailed draft. Is that also >> the full the full detailed draft has been? >> Okay, great. Thank you. Um yeah, I you know looked had a chance to look through that and um based on my knowledge of our community and just being a parent and an advocate for the last 10 years, this is completely unsurprising to me, which is not bad at all. Um there's nothing that I was
021like, "Oh, I had no idea that was a thing." This is very much in line with my experience as a parent, my experience out in community, what I hear from people all the time, not in this room, but actually out in community. And what we heard also um in our vision and values cuz a lot of this is not necessarily what is the one magical person that will solve all these problems, but just what are the things that are top priority. And this is very much in line with what we heard when we did um a year ago our vision and values engagement. And so what's important about that to me to note right now is that we're looking for a person who will bring this experience and focus. But that is also on the
022board to support a person doing that and to not back off and get derailed and spend four months talking about 10% of our students on an operational issue that should be handled at a staff level and not in the boardroom. And so I guess I'm I'm echoing support for this and kind of pledging in a way that when I'm looking at candidates, I'm not necessarily expecting some magical unicorn person who's going to come in and save us. We need to help that person. We need to support that person. And we need to be really clear what we expect of that person and then follow through on what we say we're going to. We can't demand all these things and then back off and say oh actually we really want to talk about I don't I
023don't know weight list some other thing that's not actually gerine to these things that our community is telling us our community as a whole are telling us are important and like you said Mr. really they don't want to wait. Oh my gosh, we've been waiting for so long. People I mean my kids I've gone my whole kids like educational lifetime um listening to people say they want these things and then watching their behavior be completely in opposition to it and actually fight against these things. And it's really incumbent upon us, the board, as the representatives of the community, to keep this in mind and support a person who's going to do hard things and make people uncomfortable because disrupting a system that doesn't serve all children is going to be uncomfortable for people for whom
024it does serve. And so, um, thank you for this work. It's really important to see the detail in the broken out version and also just the high level. And it's incumbent upon us, the board, to remember that this is representative of the full community, not just the people who can come down here on a Wednesday at 5:00. So that it's for the superintendents, but this is also a a mandate I feel like to us, the board. Director Miseri. [Music] >> Did you say me? I'm sorry. >> You called on. >> I I sorry. I said Director Misrai. Director Hershey. We'll get to you right after Director Misrai. >> Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Brandon. Uh so, so I'm curious. um from HYA. I know you've done these the type of engagement around the country and
025when I look at the list, obviously agreeing with director Ranken, there's a lot to agree with in here, but I imagine community members aren't ever going to say we don't want someone who's communicative or we want we don't want someone who's a visionary. Uh, I'm curious things that stuck out to you all that are very specific to Seattle. Things that you heard that are maybe unique and different to other places. I heard you lift up the idea of like people wanting an experienced leader, which I suppose is probably different than other places where they may say like we want someone with fresh new ideas or whatever, you know, but were there other things that um felt different to you about the wants of our community versus others that you've seen around the country? That's a
026phenomenal question and and yes, one thing that all would agree upon is respect the uniqueness of each community. While as an outsider, I see a Seattle, but once you get into Seattle, there are many communities that are represented under one flag, Seattle. Right? Someone has to understand not just the uniqueness of the respective cultures and subcultures but the needs of those particular communities. I'll give an example of what I've learned my short time of being here. There's a nomenclature that exist. There are words and phrases used in SPS and in this community that one has to quickly in incalculate themselves. A new superintendent coming in has to respect that. They have to respect that uniqueness and also respect uh the will and desires of of individuals. Now, is that the same across the country? To
027your point, sir, you're 100% correct. Some individuals want someone to come into a school system with brand new ideas. They want someone to come into a school system and completely reconstitute the system. That is not what folks are saying here. What individuals have continuously advocated is for someone to have experience, understand the challenges, and bring forth remedies. Now, I will say I will say there's been a tremendous push for an outsider. I would definitely say that and that's no disrespect to anybody who would apply as an internal applicant. I'm simply reporting what the community stated. They're interested in new ideas. They're interested in new concepts. They want there to be a different discussion, a different dialogue. look at the challenges. Let's find some palatable solutions. And to your point, yes, the board is part and
028parcel to that. However, however, the superintendent has a very distinct role as the instructional leader of the system. And if parents are feel are feeling that their ch their child or their children might need a little bit more instructional support and they're not getting it, that's kind of where the issue of disrespect comes into play. Director Hersy. >> Director Hersy, if you're talking, I think you're still on mute. >> I am tripping. Sorry. You would figure after like 18 years in CO that I would have that down. Um, again, I just said that uh I don't know what's going on with my camera. Um I just had it on a moment ago but now it's white but I will try to sort whatever that is. Uh my question was related to what you were just
029sharing. Uh Mr. Well, part one of my question was related to what you were just sharing. Um Mai, uh could you talk a little bit more about like from the perspective of receiving the information? Um because you know I've heard the same thing in terms of needing someone from outside. uh could you could you share any more insights around or any specifics as as folks were sharing that kind of information with you? >> Phenomenal question. Again, I I'll tell you there's one community DHH. >> Mhm. >> Deaf and hard at hearing. >> Yes, >> that's actually linked to my second question. So, love to hear what you're saying. >> That term is not used everywhere in that manner. But that particular community was very emphatic and in their desire of more supports and a dedicated
030appropriation of resources in order to address the needs of that population. That's an clear example. >> And so if now I I want to go back to equity and then I want to go back to ethics. >> Yeah. >> The community is saying we wanted appropriations. put equity in the parking lot. That's the right thing to do for students per the community. >> Yes, that is >> and they're Exactly. No, you're you're right. Doing the right thing for all students, but they want a superintendent to see that, look at the data, and then make decisions. The data must drive the discourse. If children within a particular percentile are failing, then we appropriate resources. That's equity, right? That's ethics. So at the end of the day, many of these families crying out for enhanced and augmented
031support for their child and believe that a new superintendent, particularly someone from the outside, can deliver that. >> That's super helpful. Um, which kind of leads into my second question. Uh, and and I could have missed this in your presentation, but was there any uh specific mention? I mean, I'm sure there was, but could you just talk to the um necessity of having someone who has navigated a metropolitan system um in relationship to special education in disability and accessibility? Uh, and if you've already went over that, forgive me, but um, it would be interesting to hear if there was any specifics like the example that you just gave around those issues in special education. >> Yes. and and I I'll underscore the point experience and when when you juxtapose that with SPS's sped data >>
032significant concerns the percentage of special education students the percentage of open IEPs. >> Yeah. >> The percentage of IEPs being implemented with a with fidelity. >> Yeah. >> AL data for sped. Mhm. >> Math data for sped and overall graduation data for sped. >> Those concerns were uplifted from parents. Now, now, as I said before in a previous presentation, >> the children with special needs, well, there's a little uniqueness. They come with an advocate and that advocate is called an attorney. So, they're going to they're going to have their demands met. The objective is to make sure before we get to that point, before we get to the 504, we've been able to address based upon child find. This is what the community is saying, especially that particular >> group within SPS. Someone with experience
033will understand that and be in a position according to what a couple folks stated in the sessions be in a position to answer the question as opposed to saying Mr. Ali I'll call on Miss Rankin. Miss Rankin is the director she can answer that question for no understand the issues because you have a level of experience. It's almost akin to one of the most important roles in this school system. We never think about this person, but this person is the most important person in the school system. The fulcrum of the system is a school principal. That's the official representative of the system in the community. That person has a greater level of touch point with families than anybody. >> Folks are saying principles need additional support. Okay, this is what the community is saying. These
034are involved individuals with a vested interest. The majority of the respondents to your survey parents. >> Yeah. >> Not employees. Parents. Which means they want the system to move. They want to bend the system in a direction to where it delivers on its commitment of providing a free and fair access public education all students. >> Thank you. do uh director Sarju and then we're going to go to director Clark and then director Briggs. >> Um first of all, thank you for this detailed presentation and what my observations were of your care and concern in doing real authentic community engagement, which is not something we experience here at Seattle Public Schools very often. Um I am I am absolutely not surprised by the finding. Um what it says to me is a call to action and
035that action is to start doing right by the communities that we have historically failed and that includes the DHH community. um that it shouldn't have taken what it took to get them interpretation, right? What that's a sign of to me is that equity is only in word here and not in action. Um and what parents are asking for is action. This this is a call. Um and not just to the loudest voices, right? like the people who are the loudest voices are the ones who have the privilege and ability to come down here at 5:00 and do this on a regular basis. It doesn't mean I'm just going to state it that black parents aren't interested. I attended the Black Family Summit. Not a single other board director was there. So, y'all don't know what
036those black families said because you weren't there. And what I heard is they are just as engaged. They want the best for their children. How they're able to go about getting what they need is different because of their life circumstances. Um, but nonetheless, they actually care about their children and they fundamentally understand. The 66% came up and my commitment to them was to just keep daylighting it. And at some point, I'm going to ask for a public verbal commitment from every single board director that you're not going to continue the status quo of allowing black boys to fail in this environment. So, when we talk about an outsider, it's not just that families are saying we want an outsider, right? What they're saying is we want we want somebody different who is not connected to
037the dysfunction the historical dysfunction which is in the Mossadams report. I don't know how many other reports with data do we need to actually believe what has been written historically and supported through data. And so I don't want us to get lost in this quote unquote outsider idea because there are some as I was told recently there there is a belief that a certain group of people have already decided who the superintendent is going to be that they had a meeting and that this person who is not connected with the school district knows who the superintendent is going to be. And I'm like well how can that be? We haven't seen We haven't seen anything. What that tells me is that there is a desire to not change the status quo because it's working for
038a certain group of people. Right? So, I'm this is affirming and confirming to me it is time to get moving. It is time for action. Director Rankin, a superintendent should be able to come in here and bring their own cabinet. It shouldn't take the board uh to bolster up that they should be able to bring in leadership that actually will support what the parents, you know, people who can do it. Maybe that's some of the people here, maybe not. But the parents have spoken. The question is what are we going to do? It's not about um and I mean we collectively. I'm talking about seven board directors. If some of you already think you know, well then put it on the table. Let's talk about it. Let's not do it in secret meetings, right? And
039I'm not making I'm not making I won't do an FCC violation here. I'm not making up stuff. I'm I'm speaking the truth. I'm speaking the truth here. And so we have a call like that meeting that happened before this was released. Y'all need to let that go. We need to follow what the parents are saying because at the end of the day it's it's their children's lives that we're messing with. And so I want to see us do the hard work, right, of selecting not there is no perfect person. I'm I don't ascribe to the concept of perfection. I ascribe to good enough. Are they good enough to get the needle moving in the direction that we know it needs to go so that we are not failing 66% of black boys in this district?
040That's what the data says. That's not Michelle's number. That's what the data says. What are we going to do about it? We can talk about equity all we want, but President Ali, your statement around DHH, that is equity. They deserve to be able to participate just like those of us who are able hearing, right? Their children should not have to interpret for them. Period. Full stop. Period. So, let's get to work. Let's use this. This is good work. And I think it's I don't think I've seen anything like this before in previous superintendent searches. I mean, I've been in this district a long time. Um, and this has not been my experience. And so, I just want to thank the HYA team because I was a little skeptical going in. You know, I told you
041I called you up and told you I was skeptical and I'm still a little skeptical, but I'm more optimistic now. Not hopeful, but more optimistic based on you actually gathering the data and reporting it as the parents stated. That's also important that their voices be heard in this. >> Director Clark Um yeah, thank you. Sorry, let me just get back to my notes. A lot has been said by my colleagues and I'm getting a little distracted. Um Mr. Ali, thank you and thank you to staff for all the work that you all did this summer um to keep help us keep our commitment to engage um our community. I really appreciate your your efforts. Um, you know, as I was reviewing the report, um, a couple of things stood out to me. Um, one of
042them being that um, I I feel that I'm reading some contradictory um, desires, I guess, like and I'll give you an example, but just as someone who spent the last decade working in, you know, community engagement and policy advocacy, um, you know, when I see, you know, um, characteristics like being a systems thinker, I think that's Right. Um but I also feel that um that that can be a um contradictory to being actionoriented. um you know we um you know and or moving at a fast pace um and I'm thinking specifically about um the last or the first ad hoc budget committee meeting that we had where we were talking about um some of the operational timelines that we have in Seattle public schools that um either are are integral to our budget development process
043and that if we are thinking about how we can reallocate resources that really we're going to have to redevelop these timelines and that the process of redeveloping the timelines in the middle of developing a budget, right, would delay the work um or the outcome of any resource reallocation for a full school year. And so I'm just curious from your vantage point, you know, as we move forward, how do we navigate some of the the complexity of of some of these, I guess, not just the characteristics, but the desired outcomes I think that I'm hearing that community has and that we all have, which is that we want change and right, that change is going to take time. Um, and we're at kind of this focal point. I would say at least I'm feeling this um
044from community that I've met with um and and I can relate to it and understand of just frustration and feeling like a tipping point like it's boiling over and yet you know there we're not going to just be able to turn on a light switch of really fast change once we onboard someone. Um did you catch my question in that? I hope >> absolutely I did. Okay. I was >> thank you >> taking out a few few notes >> with respect to the term systems thinker what the community is and again this is we're using top level top level adjectives top level nouns. So let me give the verb aspect. a problem solver, someone who who who is very uh adapt at being proactive to address solutions, and then someone who understands modeling. And the
045next superintendent is not just enough to have someone who's a supervisor of the system, but someone who's an actual leader of the system, who can model instruction, who understands facilities, who understands student nutrition services, all of the other ancillary components which assist with ensuring that instruction is deliberate. That's the systems thinker. the community is interested in ensuring is hired by this board in order to serve as the next leader of this system. The other component to that is understanding the interconnectedness of the system from a holistic perspective, not just that of an individual. And so when we talk about whether it's the deaf and heart of hearing community, whether it's other communities within the system, the interconnectedness, if if there's a need for funding, then the superintendent is not just looking to the chief financial
046officer for a solution. The superintendent's capable of of sitting down and coming up with a comprehensive plan and then of course the staff is working that plan and then plan comes to fruition. Right? This is not an elected office. You're not directing individuals through fiat or edicts. You you want somebody who understands how each and every gear works. And many many in your community have expressed not the fact that we're going to, you know, castigate any previous superintendent. We understand what got us through the point where we are today, but we want to move forward. >> Yes. >> And we want somebody to take us into a different direction. Right. And that kind of sums up what the members of the community articulated around systems thinker and any of the other terms that you might
047see listed. When you talk about somebody being communicative, right? >> Well, there needs to be somebody to communicate the true vision of the system. The board sets the overall vision. The superintendent carries that vision out. All right. But there has to be this symbiosis where the superintendent is able to engage the media. In other words, we're sitting down oneonone with print or television media to walk through significant challenges or barriers. Why don't we be honest and put everything out on the on the table up front? Hey, we're going to have some fiscal issues five years from now. Let's talk about it and what we can do. Let's not get up to the fourth and a half year and then say, "Oh my goodness, it's Armageddon." Right? This is what individuals are desirous of seeing. A
048different focus, a different strategic perspective that can help to move this very complex system forward. >> Can't see me, but I'm nodding my head. Thank you, Mr. Ali, for breaking that down for me. >> No, thank you for the question, >> Director Briggs. Okay, I think this is pretty quick. My first question is just very technical. Um, on the page about the survey with the bar graph, it says the survey was developed by the advisory committee. Who was the advisory committee? Oh, >> he said >> the uh internal HA committee and working with uh working with your staff and making sure that we had the appropriate questions loaded into the survey. >> Okay. So, so basically advisory committee is HYA staff. >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, and then my second question was actually related a
049little bit um to what Director Clark just said, but what jumped out at me was um the line and I'm on the page uh developing the desired characteristics even when conflicting, contrasting, inconsistent, and contradictory desires are reported, which is normal when surveying and talking to disperate groups. So, the disperate groups is the part that that jumped out at me um and made me curious to know what were the if you had any examples off the top of your head. I haven't had a chance to read all the way through the the draft report, but I'm curious what some of the contradictory desires from different groups were. >> Very good question. Excellent question. oftent times when you're surveying and doing focus groups of communities, right? We did general focus groups, but we also did some very
050specific focus groups. Those specific communities have very distinct desires and sometimes the system cannot exceed their desire. Perhaps it can meet it. That becomes a challenge. There ought to be more focus on English language learners. Okay. The system responds, "We're doing that. Not enough. We want more. What does that more look like?" Or there needs to be respect and appreciation and value for the indigenous native population. Okay. What does that look like? what would culturally relevant pedagogy look like for that community versus a different community in a very diverse system. Another point I feel is appropriate when you look at black student achievement that particular community believes that more ought to be appropriated not just instructionally but also other supportive services. Now my counter would be all of those children ought to be on par
051and we ought to be providing all the resources that we have in our arsenal to assist each and every student. That's where you find the overarching theme. Once you begin to drill down, there's varying levels of specificity. Common, very common. Perhaps child has a dietary restriction. Well, you're going to accommodate that maybe 1% of the population, right? But in some systems, it's not enough. So, you you find these perspectives, they contradict, but then the overall theme is well, we have to have somebody who understands that and they can assuage my particular issue or concern. And we can go on down the line with respect to whether school consolidation or new school construction. Some parts of the community, let's say it's growing faster. Let's hypothetically say that Seattle had this vast land mass that's going to
052be redeveloped and and new homes. There's nothing there now but farmland, right? Well, you probably get a few new schools, but there'll be communities that say, "But what about my schools? My schools are 100 years old and they're getting brand new schools. How, as a superintendent, do you take your capital improvement dollars and ensure that the resources are spent equitably in addition to or not withstanding providing school housing in a particular area, right? That becomes a huge challenge especially in communities where there's been historical polarization. Now again, you're not looking for a unicorn. Let me be very clear. Somebody with experience understands that. If you've dealt with that level of complexity, you understand it. You take a superintendent from a a small system or or a medium-sized system in in the US where they've never
053dealt with such a high percentage of spad. It's going to be a challenge. Or they've never dealt with very strong unions. We know very well Seattle has very strong unions. If you've never dealt with that, then how are you going to function in this system? You've never ever dealt with collector bargaining in your entire superintendency in your career, but then you come to Seattle. Well, why can't they just take the 2% and walk? Well, that's not how it works. Okay? There's a way things are done. There's a culture established. So, superintendent must understand that. But your community also understands the need to have someone who's going to view their concerns equally and not necessarily prioritize one community over the other. >> Thank you, Mr. Ali. So, that wraps up the engagement section of this search.
054And I just want to echo what you started at saying at the beginning. Thank you. Thank you to our chief of staff, Red, Bev Redmond, and to our board office who really pulled together all of that engagement work. It was on their their shoulders. Um, and also for all those who participated, uh, I look forward to going back out to many of those communities and continuing the conversation. But would you, before we let you off the hook here, um, go through a little bit of what the next steps are and what board directors should be expecting next? Okay, as a matter of fact, I have that teed up. Let's go right to my note here. The next step will be the board should expect well we're going to consummate the leadership profile report. So if
055there are any edits, members of the board will get the edits or desired edits to me. Then we'll of course finalize that document and make sure that the community has it. The next step will be interview protocols. interview protocols will be sent to the board >> walking through exactly how the interview process will go because after that then we'll there'll be the presentation of of the slate. We'll present the slate of candidates >> before interviews. Isn't there a reviewing applications? >> Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. But I want to make sure we have all of the documentation up front. So you get the protocols first and then we'll review the slate. >> The slate. >> Yes, the slate. So So let's go with nomenclature. So yes, to your point, we're reviewing the applications. We say review present
056the slate. But to your point, yes, we will review the applications after we send the interview protocols. >> And the Wii is the board and >> yes, the board and and hya. Yes. >> Okay. And I want to confirm because I had originally asked to have the names redacted. Oh, absolutely. Unequivocally. >> Right. >> And and I I want to be clear that's an edict and a request that the board agreed to. So this search will most certainly underscore equity. Everybody will walk in based upon sheer content and the character will emanate from the papers. Okay. So we have the presentation of the slate and then after that we'll move into final interviews. The objective is to have a uh special meeting in the middle of October in order to vote on a new superintendent.
057Then the superintendent will begin tentatively November 1st. >> And we all sometime around there. This is all >> calendar invites. Board directors have calendar invites sent for all of these different sessions properly labeled with the nomenclature that Mr. Ali used on in their board calendars. Um, and I think if you have any questions there since I know we're having a little bit of uh issues with some of our calendar invites, please see Carrie. >> Oh, Brandon. Oh, director Hersy, I'm sorry. >> No problem at all. Let me see if my camera is working now. Still no. Okay. Um, so my question would be, uh, along the lines of, you know, whatever we're calling it, the blind process, uh, in addition to the names, like is there any type of review on y'all's end that would,
058uh, also like be able to strip any identifying information? because I would imagine that like as you get deeper in there, uh, a candidate might say, "My experience as an insert, um, racial demographic here or uh, during my time at such and such school district, blah blah blah blah." I I think I already know the answer to that, but just wanted to put a put a pin there that there could be some not necessarily even nefarious, but just like unended opportunities to identify candidates that I want to make sure um we we are taking into consideration. The other piece is when we are accepting applications um are we also informing the candidates that this is a blind process and they should um they should submit an application with that in mind. I I'm just wondering
059what the actual nuts and bolts of that will look like. >> So director I'll answer your question. I'll actually take it in in three parts. The first part >> please >> is and these are excellent questions. I did not pay him. We did not talk before this meeting. So, I want to be very clear on the record. The leadership profile, we're rating and ranking and measuring applicants against the leadership profile report. >> And when you say we >> meaning the the internal team with an hya. >> Thank you. >> Okay. I want to be clear. There's once we're done today, Madame President, we walk out of here. While I love the staff, I love them immensely, they will not be a part of the review process. No one in SPS will be a part of
060the review process. So, we're crystal clear. There's no one who's been selected. No one has been privy to any of the uh portfolios. That's number one. So, we're going to again utilize a leadership profile report as the rubric. Okay, that's number one. Number two, the blind process was the lure knowing that individuals information would not be floating all around the US. Well, that's encouraged such a diverse pool of applicants and I commend the school board for being courageous and for trusting the search firm with that process. The third part to your question, director, once we've notified individuals that they will be slated, all of their information will be presented in a way where there'll be no identifiable characteristics. If someone put that they were an AKA, which is generally a black female fraternity, that will
061not be on the application. We would cuz it would instantaneously know. Hold on. We can draw a a deductive conclusion that she's black. >> She could be white. >> Some there's some white alphas. >> There's some white alphas. I know some white alphas. I'm very good friends with them. Right. >> You know, I know some white omegas, too. But needless to say, the the the point here is that they would not be in identifiable characteristics. If she says uh you know the mother of a child, who recently had his bar mitzvah, we can draw a conclusion that would not be included. We respect and value all of that folly aside, but there will be no identifiable characteristics so that we're going to make sure that the process is clean and fair all the way around.
062Now, let me also say this. When the board receives a slate, no board member has been privy to any names or the slate, not the least of which includes the president. I want to say that on the record, so there's no ambiguity. The president has not been privy nor has she asked to see any of the information or any names. I want to be clear when you guys receive the information, you receive it at the same time. Now, I will say I've had to talk to a couple of applicants for contacting board members and explain to them this is a blind process. We want to respect the process as outlined and laid out by the governing authority and we want to respect the community because none of us are above the community. They're expecting this
063to be a very fair process. They're not expecting to see Mali's mother slide in here as a superintendent. Okay? Let's be clear now. And she's retired, by the way. Okay? director. I hope I answered your question. >> Certainly did. Thank you. >> Then Director Briggs has a question >> really fast. >> Um I'm just curious how many applicants did we get total? I know that's we're not going to see everybody that you guys will um give us a slate, but I'm just curious how many people applied. >> Well over 20. And the process is still going on. It hasn't closed. >> Process is still the process. The the the vetting the vetting is going on. >> I thought the wind the application window closed, >> right? >> No, the application >> September 15th. >> Yeah.
064Yes. >> Did did we extend it or was it always that? >> Believe it was always September 15th >> or well we extended it when we extended engagement. >> Yes. >> Okay. Okay. >> So the application closed to September 15th. >> The d the suggestion from you Mr. was that we wanted the leadership profile complete and applicants an opportunity to really see if they uh uh aligned with the leadership profile report. >> Right. Thank you again, Mr. Ali. And >> thank you. >> Really appreciate it. Uh board directors, do we want a break now or do we want a break after the civics update? >> I'm good either way. >> All right. I'm hearing a five minute break. So, we'll come uh back together at 5:45. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music]
065Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. N. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] Heat. [Music] All right. [Music] I think folks are back. Um, and we are moving into part two of our three-part uh day today. This is the civics's uh civic engagement update. Um, and this is again, as I said, a request that has come from director Ranken. I appreciate the request. I look forward to what we're going to learn. Remind colleagues um any directors can bring forward topics for future study sessions. But with that, I think I'm passing it over to Dr. Well, no, I saw Fred. Fred wants uh acting superintendent Podesta. Sorry. >> I just uh want to thank uh the board
066for this time. I want to thank Director Rankin for the interest and the community interest in this issue and just note that I'm joined by Dr. Strawski, the assistant superintendent uh for academics, and Kathleen Vasquez, who is a program manager for literacy and social studies, um uh has forgotten more on this subject than I'll ever know, but um we're excited to bring this to you. We think this is a unique point in time where we should remind ourselves that public education is a civic asset that is important to everyone. not we understandably focus on parents and students but the whole community invests in this because uh we need a public education system to make democracy work and so reminding ourselves of that we also um appreciate that talking to you as players in um civic
067processes and elected officials I we really like to hear your perspective which is something that you know most of us at staff don't have that ex experience for and with And uh we'd also like to circle back. We're trying to be disciplined about um the goals that we've recently established and make sure we're on the same wavelength of how this fits in potentially to a life ready goal. Um not sure that the language that and the metrics that we've been talking about exactly map to this, but that's something we'd like to think about as we progress. So I uh will turn it over to Dr. Stroski. [Music] >> Uh good evening. Welcome back. uh from summer wherever you've been. Um we are excited to be able to share um and for some it's uh in
068the in the space for our public is a reminder and for some it's new information about what we what we do in Seattle public schools around civics's education and we're really proud of uh the people that came before us in this room uh past board directors principles but uh teachers but most importantly our students uh who continually remind us of the power uh of being involved uh politically and for us as adults to be responsive to encourage the opportunities for our students to be actively engaged uh as a public school system as uh uh Mr. Podesta uh spoke to is it's our moral imp imperative. And so we want to share some of the things that uh we do in Seattle public schools. And so we we'd like to share um I think first and
069foremost just an overview of what we do and what the supports look like for our educators in our system. And note that this critical role is a K12 endeavor. Uh oftentimes when people are thinking about civics's education, we're thinking it's just a secondary experience, something that happens in high school. And we'll uh be demonstrating and showing you some of the things that happen with our our students um that happen in in a K5 setting, uh middle school setting, and then for our high schoolers as well. And so if you think of the the the major areas that we're focusing on is that uh in Seattle public schools we have direction uh from the state from OSPI the office of superintendent of public instruction uh that provides us direction K12 and we have our interpretation of
070what that looks like in our system but it's uh mainly focused and required in these three areas civic virtues democratic principles rights and responsibility ities of our citizens and then the preparation of a for an active citizenship in a diverse society which means a lot of things and we'd like to share some of of that what that looks like for um Seattle public schools and our professional educators in service of our students. So, I'm going to start. >> Okay, there I am. All right, I'm going to start. And what I'd like to do is give you an overview of some of our resources and not dive in too deeply. And certainly I can answer questions about them, but my goal is to give you a baseline understanding of what we do around civics's education. And
071the first one we're starting with is one that I found very interesting around right before the 2016 presidential election. We were also getting a lot of concern around uh civic engagement of our youth and we partnered with King County Elections to bring K12 educators to their space and create civics lessons. And the whole goal was how do we get kids from kindergarten through to 12th grade interested in elections? and we spent a day together, all standards aligned, and at the end we heard from kindergarten to 12 how we would do that. And all of those lessons are housed inside our learning management system available for our teachers and we remind them every time an election's coming up about those lessons. We also make our teachers known uh aware every year um our school leaders as
072well about the statewide mock elections. So every year the office of the secretary of state in concert with OSPI releases a toolkit of resources, lessons, um, ideas to support a mock election statewide. And we encourage all of our teachers to take part in this process. And I'll give you just a little um taste of it. So you can see that that the statewide election provides a mimicked voter pamphlet that is written for in kid-friendly language. You'll see a ballot on one side and on the other side of the slide are three lessons that are designed again for the same purpose is to teach into election um uh information. one at the elementary, one at the middle, and one at the high. This voter pamphlet has a lot of resources. It has um nonpartisan bios. It
073has information on measures. It has information on how to vote, who's who's eligible to vote, all kinds of resources. and we do get many of our teachers participating in this opportunity. Uh over the past few elections, as you all know, elections have changed in our nation and as a result, some teachers have expressed concerns. How do I teach about elections now when things are so polarized? And so every year we've been putting out resources to support our teachers and um hopefully so that they can have um healthy respectful dialogue about election about candidates about measures about diverse opinions and this has become very popular and requested year after year because of the sensitive nature of elections. Now, we also have every year temperance day resources also supported by the office of the secretary of state
074and OSPI. And these are um put out again to our teachers every January um right before Temperance and Good Citizenship Day. And again, these res the resources are pretty healthy. They have lesson plans for teachers, but it's geared more at um getting students information about voting, why why they should vote, how to vote, uh eligibility, and the like. And um one of the uh the slide on the left is kind of what happens to a ballot. It's just educating kids. What happens to a ballot? And it travels all around until it's counted. and and documented. Um, and then the right side is just what's in the toolkit. Teachers get all kinds of resources. They get stickers, they get posters, um, and all kinds of resources to make that learning experience really interesting and viable. And
075the other thing I'm I think another thing we're most proud of is our K5 civics units, K5. And during the pandemic when all of a sudden our teachers had no resources, you know, they left one day and they couldn't come back to school, we also had some outdated social studies materials. So we, my team created um civics units and we have them K5 and they are um designed on the developmental spectrum from kindergarten to five leaning into civics topics starting with are all rules fairly in the kindergarten level making rules really important to them in their classroom their community and then branch branching out into um into uh cultural diversity and perspectives by the third grade. In the fourth grade, they're already leaning into different kinds of governance, tribal law, um state law, local law.
076By the time they get to fifth grade, they are looking at the Declaration of Independence and and um documents such as that. So, we've created these units. They're inquirybased and they are um they are four to six weeks in length. So they're pretty healthy in terms of um size. And then we also have classroombased civics assessments and this is a state mandate. So from 4th grade onto 12th grade, students at various grade levels are required to take a classroombased civics assessment. They happen in either fourth or fifth. So our our our teachers can decide seventh or eighth, 11th or 12th. and they spend a good length of time studying a topic and then they write to the topic all civics um uh centered and here you can see some data and I'm going to explain
077why we don't see 2425. So, you're seeing the last two uh uh two years of classroombased civics assessment data compiled um by our office and reported to OSPI in and and remember in 2122 fourth or fifth grade took the civics. So at one school they might have done that civics assessment in fourth grade. At another they might have done it at fifth grade. So when you look at those numbers they're actually very healthy numbers um because you take it in either grade. And so um in 21223 uh we were asked to report those numbers. This year, OSPI changed our reporting structure and asked us only to indicate yes or no as to whether um we are our our students participated in the assessment. So you see no data for 2425 questions. >> Yes. >> What
078are these numbers? I I I actually just don't know what the numbers mean. I mean are they not let me >> go back. >> So let's just take in uh 2021 2022 in fourth grade 3,230 students took the classroombased assessment in civics. >> Okay. So it's number of students who took the assessment. >> My apologies. I wasn't clear about that. So, one of the things that um building off of some of the themes that Kathleen's already described is uh what it looks like uh in Seattle public schools for our special uh populations, our communities. And since time in memoriam is something that is required K12, it fits in nicely with what we're doing for um civics's education. And so for our our students, it shows up in K5 um in the curriculum and it's just
079not uh because it's a mandate. It's something that we're um uh not only compelled to do, but it's aligned with our values. And where it shows up in middle school is specifically um uh some folks were saying, well, do we need to create these classes for civics? They're embedded in classes uh that already exist in Seattle public schools and that are required. And so for middle school students that would look like in sixth grade world history, seventh grade uh Washington State history and eighth grade would be US history. And also uh for us uh being able to think about well uh if Washington State history is a requirement uh upon graduation, it's a really important uh space for our students to be able to get those valued perspectives and for our high school students that
080it's going from learning um from world history, US history, Washington state history, now seeing it showing up in 9th and 10th grade in world history, 11th grade US history and 12th grade we have a number of classes where it shows up into including US government. And so one of the common narratives that is um out there is that uh civics has to be a standalone class and that it uh only happens uh traditionally in secondary um and usually people are envisioning high school. uh it's K12 and it's in classes and subjects that are are already existing. Um and uh again a common theme is for us it the tribal sovereignty uh as being a a focus area uh doesn't go away when our students are in uh secondary as well. It just doesn't happen and
081end at seventh grade. it's continuing on in those other classes that I've mentioned for 9 through 12. >> And lastly, um I think we we'd all say that when we talk about civics in a classroom, we do center on realworld experiences. It's often not let's look at the past. We are trying to make um the learning rich um relevant talking about students present lives, their communities, their cultures. Um we'd like them interacting acting on um on on the principles that um we hope to embed and instill inside of them. Um, we also believe in a lot of dialogue and fostering rich discussions about topics and differences and uh opinions that might not be like their own in order to make our world um a richer, more robust place to be and a safe place. Um,
082our all of our resources are often inside our learning management system called Schooly where teachers come to come look at a at a particular grade level and we'll find a host of resources, some created by teachers and some created by curriculum makers. Um, and that's about it I think for us. What you have >> Yeah. So, you know, in closing, what we want to make sure is that um as we're moving in forward into our next strategic plan and we're being very explicit about um uh what we're supporting, what we're focusing on, what we're reporting back to um for our public and back into this space is when we're talking about our life ready goal. I think um uh civics's education fits into that space uh in in a great way um for preparing our
083students for college, career and life. Um and I think one of the things that we would like to you know uh ask all of you the the folks who have a unique position as being um uh elected board members knowing your experience and your positions and your perspectives. um this first question uh just to start us in a dialogue and we're happy to answer any questions that you might have. But what do you believe is most important for Seattle public schools, our district, and our city to consider in regards to civics's education given our our current state, but also ideal what you would like to see. >> Response to the question and our questions in general. I have >> director brakes. >> Yeah, this it's not really a a direct response to the question, but
084um so I have heard I I understand that since time immemorial was mandated since 2015, but I have heard repeatedly from members of the native community that it has not been implemented across the district. Um, so while I have no doubt that it is happening in some schools, it's definitely not happening in a lot of schools. Um, so I'm wondering what what the plan is for making sure that that is actually widely implemented. >> Well, I think we would have a disagreement on that's that that's not happening. Um just in the last two years um we had uh 693 teachers in 2324 trained and STI. Uh last year we had 799 uh teachers in in instructional assistants. Um but what we will be doing is we are meeting with our our native uh education uh
085manager who was newly hired. Uh we are meeting with community to see what we can do better. Um that's uh Dr. uh uh Bandoni who is uh new to the position. Um and uh also we have a a report that we're working up to share with uh folks uh this week showing what we've been doing internally uh for our training, the amount of trainings we've had, who's who's been impacted um and then also a plan moving forward. So, with our new native education manager, uh we're very um excited and hopeful that we're going to be able to work together to make sure that we actualize what's uh been put out before us. So, we haven't been ignoring it. Um and we can do it definitely do a better job. Um and we're going to do
086that through engagement. >> Director Hersy. All right. Um, so I guess one question that I have in relation to this is what is our philosophy around positioning our students to share their education with others, right? Um, we have a lot of students who choose to go to UDub, but we have a large number of students who choose to go elsewhere throughout the United States. And being from Mississippi, um the ideology and the discussions that we have here in Seattle are wildly different. Um and so the reason that I ask about our philosophy around like how are we preparing our students to share their education with others is there is education in one sense to where we are preparing students to make decisions for themselves but then there is another one or then there's education in
087the sense to where I think about my own personal debate background right uh it it had a profound impact on my ability to not only have empathy for others points and really try to um see things from their point of view, but it also gave me a great skill in being able to talk across differences and in some cases, you know, help change folks minds for things that I find great conviction in. Um, the reason that I bring that up is, uh, a couple of times through the engagement that we, uh, did concerning their strategic plan, it came up that our students don't always necessarily have the language necessary even when we're, you know, talking exclusively about identity work, right? like to be able to stand up for themselves when they are experiencing a situation
088that, you know, could be racist or that could at the, you know, minimum be felt as discriminatory or or othering of some kind. Um, and I'm wondering, is there space in this curriculum to also have a conversation about what does it look like to have uh courageous conversations, you know, crucial conversations? Um, I was reading an article very recently um that basically said that in order to change a person's mind, the only real way to do that is through what's called deep canvasing, which boils down to spending no less than, you know, 12 hard hours with a person. Um, reason that I also bring that up is because, you know, as I work with children, whether it be through scouts or, you know, whatever other methods, what I see is that folks, or rather kids
089at this point in time, just like in order to avoid conflict, don't even engage with the conversation. And I think a big part of civics is engaging with the conversation with the people around you. Um, and given, you know, the politics of of the place that we all call home, um, we don't necessarily share the same ideologies with places that are outside of Washington. Um, and so what I'm wondering is how are we preparing our students not only to understand the civic responsibilities for themselves, but also engage in conversations with others that might have differences and opinions from them? Um, I'll I'll start and then then turn it over. I think that um for the past several years, we've been engaged in uh ourselves as a district in culturally responsive practices and many of those
090practices are lean are are require us to lean in to those very conversations that you are bringing up. Um I think about Goldie Muhammad's work often and she talks about um educating students um and she calls it criticality which is really looking at the social construct of things and and leaning into it not shying away from it. So our civics units that um that I talked about in K5 those are all um designed with Dr. Muhammad's work inside of them. So, they all have um a crit critical component and they're all based on open-ended questions. I love open-ended questions because kids can come with their authentic selves in response to open-ended questions with no um a answer in mind. And because of this kids do come and share who they are um how they are
091processing the same information that others are processing because they come from different cultures and backgrounds. So I actually think we are trying to do what you're saying but it comes with teacher knowhow. How do teachers approach difficult conversations? We also created a um a a series of actually it was um uh activities and lessons called how to engage in racially and uh socially sensitive history and it did what you are saying to do which is have difficult conversations but do them in a way that's respectful. It also says teachers have to begin with themselves. They have to confront their own um stereotypes, their own concerns, their own differences um and lean into those two. So, it's twofold. It's um supporting teachers to do it and then teachers training students. And I I I think we've
092tapped into some of that. Well, and I can think of a a very specific example that we see here on a monthly basis is when our students come in and um give public testimony. Uh oftentimes they'll be a a staff member who is shephering them through it um like how to do it um and giving them feedback, coaching them through it. Um, and so we've see that, but also I I've seen powerful examples of students teaching each other how to do it too in this space. Um but the the big I I think a topic that uh director hers you you spoke to is uh cynicism uh is uh can be very contagious and and how that trickles down into students being or I'd say adults as well being uh uh politically active um is
093why we need to double down um on our efforts with our students so that they can um you know navigate the current system and create the system that they want to see happen um and we have a moral obligation to do that. So I think there's uh ultimately at the classroom level what's happening what's happening in the school level how it trickles up uh in many different spaces but also you know we see our students when there's something that's uh uh on fire uh for them they they they lead the charge on how to uh mobilize and activate their social networks and their social networks are maybe not the the the same ways that we might look at a voter pamphlet uh but they'll get on Insta, they'll look at other uh places uh to
094get their information about what they think is important and we need to be evolving and changing alongside with them and learning from them um as well. So, anytime we can open up the spaces, but I just think uh director Hersy as you were talking uh it just makes me think about all what we see here in action at in this space uh on a monthly basis. Our students are doing that. want to make a connection there just to so to remind folks that tomorrow at 3:30 we do have the swearing in of our new student board directors um and they are actually the ones uh working and leading the our the revision on their policy 1250 as well that hopefully we will all get to uh vote on here shortly. Uh Director Ranken, >> well
095I was you don't have your card up. Sorry. Uh I director Sarju. >> Um thanks. Uh so yeah, thanks for allowing us this this time um to bring this up and I had a couple reasons for the request. Uh one was we had a lot of community interest um in just what the scope is, what's what we are or aren't doing or ideas about what could be done. um this moment in time where uh democracy and social agreements that we may have all assumed are a thing that will always happen um are are it's not necessarily true. we actually have to participate in our democracy to keep it alive and um connected to um it's a societal agreement and it turns out if you don't want to follow the rules that everyone's established like it
096can um have a pretty big impact. So helping, you know, wanting students and families to understand more about um kind of the the social contracts that exist and why and how they got there. Um and then also because, you know, part of our responsibility as a board is to make sure that the district is complying with state requirements and civics because it's not a standalone class, it's much harder to tell. you know, like we know that high schools are providing geometry because there's a geometry class. Civics, it's like what does it what does it look like for, you know, to to be able to assure ourselves and the community that yes, we are we are meeting this requirement. So, um I don't know that this is necessarily the best way for us to go about
097that. And it would be good to talk about kind of our oversight role and what kind of report or information available to the board or the public might be more appropriate on a regular basis. Um, but this seemed like a good time since it came up in the national climate to to kind of just pe take a peek. Um, so thank you for that. Um the uh I think what's important to note about the goals is that they're not intended to be prescriptive. They're evaluative. And so just because civics might not specifically be mentioned doesn't mean that we don't care about it or we don't do it. But when it happens, is it happening in a way that is honoring our guardrails and making some progress toward the goals? That being said, I think there
098are actually a lot of opportunities to tie civics into um safe and welcoming environments. What does it mean to make commitments to each other as a classroom community that honor everybody in it? And what does it mean to participate? What does it look like to participate in creating that? A lot of schools do that through Ruler. They have the classroom charters. I think that's sort of a built-in civics lesson about um you know what kind of communities do we want and how do I as an individual participate in in um building that um critical thinking understanding uh you know recognizing misinformation from fact recognizing opinion from uh I don't know statute or what whatever the case may be um upholding civil rights which is pretty important especially right now. Um and what does it mean
099that it's like no actually that's not up for discussion. We've we've all agreed that it is important to protect people's identity and you may have your own system of values at home but at school this is what this is what we're we're doing and and um in creating so it goes ac it goes to the safe and welcoming environment. I could see civics being part of that. Um, reading and literacy goals too. Uh, understanding how to recognize and interact with his historical documents and policy and what that means. Um, but the other thing that we heard a lot during our vision and values engagement was it was some uh, this go back goes back to what Brandon was saying. We heard across a lot of groups that some of how they would define a successful
100graduate of Seattle public schools is somebody who understood how to be a full participant in their community and that came up a lot of times. I don't think we have a specific measure in it. So that might be something we want to revisit. But also just that that sentiment was very much there. That part of being a part of being life ready is knowing how to be part of a community, having the tools to participate, >> knowing where you're how to make your voice heard, knowing how to have difficult conversations. Um, that's something that I thought uh was really important to our full community and um that civics goes goes right into. But I think too about student rights and responsibilities just that's really how can we make that an opportunity for civic engagement of
101students of these are these are the basic rules that we have as an expectation of students in Seattle public schools. What does that mean for you as an individual? you know what what would it look like to have high schools especially craft their own sort of community code of conduct based on the students rights and responsibilities that meets the legal requirements but also has their own values and priorities and commitments to each other in it. So, I am really excited about this and I know that there's a ton of good work that happens um and I see a lot of ways it could be part of um our overall uh vision. The one last thing I want to ask is the state requirements I guess and this maybe goes back to what I was saying
102earlier is what kind of mechanism or what kind of reporting could we maybe work together to look at to report out where things are happening going well what pl what schools might need more support. Um, and there's the difference too between something being available >> from the district versus being required at the building level. >> So that's kind of a >> that's more of the oversight question, I guess, is what's the appropriate level of of insight for us as a board to have on that. And really, I expect the superintendent to make sure that it's it's consistent. That's also a a value that was expressed by our community in the guard rails is that your access to basic education isn't that where you're assigned to school isn't the variable in having access to >> guard
103rail one >> all this education. Yeah. So anyway, >> yeah. Um I think that's um something that we're looking forward to co-constructing what that what might look like. Um there's we have bits and pieces of it but I think also when we're thinking about even the connections you were making director Reagan to um beyond the life ready goal to the culture and climate you know it gives gives us opportunity for alignment but also some specificity and saying hey here's some u mile markers we can say um and we're doing a lot for second to third fifth to sixth uh eth to ninth for transitions we can think about well how does that fit in for transitions do what our students should be uh beyond just saying it's available doesn't mean that it's necessarily happening. But
104we have to hit that expectation so that when they are 12th graders and 18 and uh have the opportunity to uh um uh the opportunity to vote but also be uh engaged in community being able to have uh discourse and the skills to do that that they've been uh doing that all along the way. So we can be explicit about that but we look forward to doing that. um along with community to to decide that >> and I agree with you director. What we heard a lot in the vision and values is how h how do we as a school district prepare students to be full participants in their community and I think this goes directly towards that. Director Serju. >> Um, I want to revisit the question that Director Briggs asked because I I'm
105not sure I understood your answer or I'm not sure I I heard you correctly. Um, what I thought I heard you say in the answer, you describe the training that teachers do, like how many people you had trained over the last, I don't know, was it a couple years? >> Two years. >> Okay. Um what I so what I thought I heard uh director Briggs ask was something like and I'm going to paraphrase because I actually don't remember exactly what you said but my question is okay so training is step one but what we know about training is if it's never implemented then it's just training. So what I what I thought I was understanding in director Brigg's question is more about how are how is the district and I guess uh super assistant superintendent
106Daskki this would be in your wheelhouse. How are you actually ensuring that it's happening? Because I know for a fact, I've heard from students and parents that they're not that they haven't gotten this in their high school classrooms um or that they hadn't gotten it at all. And so I know that they're not just making that up. It's actually not happening fully across the board. And if if that's what is supposed to be happening, then as a district assistant acting superintendent Podesta, I'm sick and tired of these silly labels. Superintendent Podesta, how are you ensuring right now that it's happening or how will you ensure that it's happening? Because it actually isn't. And I think that's important for people online, particularly if people who are online have actually told, you know, I don't know if
107we've been told by the same people, but it's not it's not happening across the board. And I don't think that's something to disagree about. I think it's something to actually investigate, interrogate, and ensure where it's not happening. How can we make it happen? >> Yes. Uh and I think that the answer is exactly where uh you uh put that at the end uh director Sarju is that um we need to investigate and and find it out because we were out without a manager last year for the entire year. Uh we're doing an on boarding. uh we have u a curriculum specialist uh involved, but she's uh can't do it by herself and she needs uh the support of our district, my department entirely. But what we're going to try to do, uh, not try to
108do, but we are committed to doing, uh, starting this Friday, is being able to find out what's the current state, how many beyond just how many teachers have been trained, but what have they been doing, where does it uh, land in the curriculum specifically, and then what we can uh, commit to doing is coming back and saying, you know, this is what we found out. Um, but we I'm not disagreeing with that at all that uh we can't be doing a a better job and shouldn't be doing a better job of that. >> So, just a quick follow. Thank you for that. Um, and I I don't think this needs to be that difficult like there needs to be a logical implementable um mechanism that actually measures for this. We do it for lots of
109other things and I don't think it's different. Why are you looking at me like that? >> Oh, >> I was looking at the chief of staff red. Sorry. We were communicating because I I she and I uh went to a a training together and I think that we all board directors at our last meeting were shared with the pamphlet of fidelity for what this looked like in Seattle public schools and I think we were like at 33% um after 10 10 years or whatever. Um and she's shaking her head. Yes. So I'll hand it over here to acting superintendent Podesta. So that I just I want to go back because I I just I as a board director whose last day is the first Tuesday in December and then I get to be at the
110podium which is actually a very dangerous position to be in having served on the board. I I'm not asking for something difficult. I think we owe it to students and parents that we actually can u measure if these things are happening or not. And so I just want to be real clear uh Mr. Stroski that I'm not I'm not act actually asking for something complicated. I'm actually asking for a simple way to measure if we're doing what we say we're doing and if we're doing what we're supposed to be doing. And right now we're not doing what we're supposed to be doing. >> Yeah. And and um I don't disagree and I think we can have that actually um that information and data uh fairly quickly. I read something this afternoon um on just what
111we've been doing the last two years specifically. But I think we can get that for you and happy to do so. I guess I I would add and um this was strategic to have Kathleen between Mike and I since he has long legs so it's harder for him to kick me under the table but um I um I as we're doing the strategic plan and we're talking about other goals. It does seem to me that we have some challenges around um quantification and accountability towards u delivering adopted curriculum in our system whether it's this or other things. So that's kind of a general um problem to solve. I think it's just what what's our strategy? Um, you know, we've had a history of a lot of of certain amount of sightbased decision-m and autonomy and
112we we just have to decide where we're going to land. And that's a little bit broader topic. It would certainly apply here, but it would apply elsewhere. And as we think of our strategies for um some of the specific academic goals we've um established, then we're going to have to think, so how are we sure this is actually going to happen? how this is going to actually land in school buildings is is one of the things I I think we're working with. And um you know uh I will give Dr. Scroski's two-minute rebuttal if I if I didn't say that correctly, but I I I think we have some general work to do as a system and um I am far enough outside my lane to be um a little dangerous on this topic, but
113um that's that's the fun of being the acting superintendent. Well, let's look can we if we can wrap up because we are at ending time but we have what part three here that we're going to move into. So, thank you so much. Appreciate that. And uh I think maybe the next step is some of these unanswered questions. We can have come back to the board here and have another update in the study session. >> Thank you. >> All right. Next is uh an update on enrollment. So, at our retreat, we talked a little bit about the enrollment process. Um, and we said that we would have another update in the fall. Well, it's pretty much fall. So, here we are. Um, and we will, um, uh, let staff get seated here and then I will
114pass it over to Dr. Campbell. And really, board directors, it's a different time tomorrow. tomorrow for 3:30, not 4:30 because of the oath of office at 3:30. Just a reminder. >> And Dr. Campbell, I just say, >> yeah, thank you. I was going to turn it over to you. >> One observation I have in this topic, we've talked about, hey, is this an operations issue? Is it a policy issue? I think as we're looking at our strategic plan and some of the challenges we face, there are things embedded in this that we are going to leak into the um both enrollment declining enrollment or you know whatever we're expecting for enrollment coming forward. Um school choice and how we not so much how we do school choice. We'll have a little bit of discussion about
115how we do it, but why we do it and what you know what is it we're trying to achieve and what's our kind of our future vision. So, a little grounding even though these are operational topics in the mechanics will probably be a good entree into some of those policy disc decisions that I think we're going to get to um or at least certainly we'll be talking to the community about. um you've been very clear that major decisions you know require um more discourse with the community and so uh we'll be talking to a lot of people about this. So I think um this is time well spent even if it's some of it is just grounding and hey what happened in the last 6 months just to remind ourselves how this works and it
116leaves me with a lot of questions in terms of so what are we trying to accomplish um and that that I think will be a governance discussion so with that I'll turn it over to the team. Thank you very much. >> Thank you and I appreciate that introduction and I will turn turn the time over to FA. But um I'm always very mindful of the work that FA and the team in admissions and enrollment planning do and what they don't do. So this time of year and we'll share some data with you about August um enrollment or sorry assignment versus enrollment numbers and that's very important. So for example, right now school leaders, teachers are seeing bigger numbers and that's and we'll talk about why that is the case. Our enrollment team often gets calls
117saying, "Can you give me an extra teacher?" And and so there's, you know, even though enrollment is tied to things like staffing, that's not our enrollment department. and FA will talk a little bit about some of the ways in which we intersect. But as Fred said, uh we are both engaged in a team that we're calling the geographic equity team where we really are looking at the broader picture because so much of this has to do with um choices we make. If you look at the history of enrollment in Seattle, it has so much to do with political climate, with commitments, with vision and values. We have a Supreme Court decision that impacted enrollment. We have other other things that have gone on. And so, you know, enrollment is is complex and we sit at
118the heart of a lot of things and FA is the right leader for the time and grateful for for FA, director Manu. Um, and I will turn the time over for her and and bear in mind then that we tried to keep this at a pretty clean clear update of where we're at right now relative some to some key issues. >> Thank you so much. Good evening, directors. Nice to see you again. I think the last time we chatted it was back in May and um we learned a lot and I just want to share with you our journey um as a district. I know some of you have been here the last 5 years but it has been tumultuous at times and with co and so I just wanted to provide some context around
119our enrollment and our journey um where we were and what's happening today and how we are entering into the new school year. Next slide. There's a clicker actually dragged ourselves in. >> Oh, sorry. >> We are all about that. Self-sufficient. Okay. >> Okay. So, we will be discussing um our enrollment milestones. Um providing you some enrollment projections and also um again like I said where we were and where we are today. Uh we're also going to um update you on our school choice and a decision to expand and those outcomes. And then finally the support for children of deaf adults and kota our kota enrollment uh that we've been uh working on. And so I wanted to provide a progress report on that. Next slide. So year-over-year this is just a snapshot of the last
120four years really entering into our 2526 school year. As you can see, we started out in 2020 at 52,300 students. And since 2024, we've lost over 3,200 students, about 6% decline. So, this is not unique to SPS. As you can see, our surrounding districts, our neighboring districts are going through this same um challenge as well. Um most of that decline is showing up in our kindergarten enrollment. Just low births means low entry into next 5 years into kindergarten. We are anticipating a projection of 49,080 students. We're highly confident um given the trends that we're seeing and we may even come a little bit higher than this uh projection. >> And if I may just add, if we were to look at the past 20 25 years of enrollment in Seattle, this is actually higher than
121where we were about 25 years ago. Uh so this is we've not we we sometimes express that there's been a precipitous or calamitous drop. This certainly is not the direction we want to see. We want Seattle to feel like the place where you would love your children to go to school. But bear in mind that this is uh actually not um a a hugely dramatic drop from the past 20 25 years or so. >> In the last three years you can kind of see we are stabilizing and we're flattening out. So that's a good leading indicator that um at least our 6th to 12th graders are staying. The migration out has lessened. So it's helped and so the new um enrollment for our higher grades is making up that gap in our enrollment in our
122K enrollment. So the enrollment projections, this is just kind of context of how we um project. We're always um looking at the expected numbers of students for the following school year. And so we have a myriad of data that we look at that um helps us determine from historical and even current trends. And so this is looking at our grade progression rates, our show rates, the incoming kindergarten dates and our birth rates. And then also we are talking with our city planning projects to look at housing information. And then looking at also major employees who are actually um leaving the state or um coming in to um make this a residency for for us to see if there's any schoolage children that um will be coming with that those moves. Um really the goal here
123is to ensure that with these projections that we are informing and helping um our district plan for not just um this following school year but also in the next 6 to five or 10 years. And so we wanted just to make sure that we have the resources and um the staffing that each of our schools needs before the start of every school. And we added a link to the explainer video for folks at home, you know, that are that are engaging with this. Um, FA is featured in that video and does a really great job of breaking down kind of some of the technical pieces of enrollment projections. So, just people watching at home, it's a really great resource. >> Yeah, I was going to tell you just to click on the link, but thank
124you, Dr. Campbell. >> You want me to click on the link? >> No, no, no, no, no, no. I was just letting people know, instructing them. Okay, >> next slide. So this is just um to give you an idea of our enrollment cycle year-over-year. Um we start uh projections initially in February. Obviously after October 1st we start doing the back work to get prepped for the following February so that we can provide our timely projections to our budget office. And so the initial projection starts in February. um in June um we start to review all of the um activities that happened between February and June and we start revising those projections based on um kindergarten enrollment projections either falling lower or higher for example some in-n-out migration that we see were higher than what we
125projected and also transfers in August is when we start looking at the summer attrition as you know when schools are out for the summer, the admissions office is still open and um processing those registrations. So, there's an inflated number that uh schools when they come back um in August, they will see those inflated enrollment numbers because those records have not yet been reconciled. And so, um, once those records have been reconciled, then September, we go into September with, um, all of that activity that has already been baked into our projections and that we will start seeing um, drops that we'll um, that were already projected to make a final projections um, at the end of September. And then October is when we do the final count and submit that to OSPI. So this is a
126graph just to show you um assignment versus enrollment. So this is a a distinction here that um people don't understand. So we just wanted to provide what we meant through the summer attrition. As you can see, the enrollment um will peak right um at June July and then there's a huge what we call internally a cliff and it just drops off through the month of September and that's when the records are being reconciled and so you will see up to a thousand drops on average year-over-year which is also considered into the projections. >> That's sorry that's kids that don't show up. Yes, that kids that don't show up or who enrolled and decided to go somewhere else to private school. So, those are all reconciled. Students that withdraw um those records are all done at
127the school level >> and that's pretty oh sorry that's that's a pretty consistent pattern that people might assign you know do the paperwork get assigned and then make a different decision move. Yeah. So that between August and you we actually formally enroll them once school starts and the school staff have to have to actually enroll them in the school. >> I mean it's pretty natural if you think about it. There's there is an incentive to enroll and tell us you're coming. There's less of an incentive to say oh but never mind. And and so there's a drop there. >> Yeah. >> So this is a summary of our school choice application. Again, this I think I shared this back in May um pending some more data, but since the decision, as you can see, we
128had um an increase of uh extended um weight list options 64% um in comparison to our average 50% year-over-year the last 10 years. Uh this year we um received a total of 4,055 applications and we assigned almost 2600 uh students to their first choice assignments and that's a percentage of 14% above that of 64%. Um this is a significant improvement from last year and then obviously from year-over-year. And our whole goal is to see if we can increase that um year-over-year to offer more choice uh and expand that uh for families in those high demand schools. As we look forward, we are planning um for open enrollment to begin in January 26 for the 2627 school year. um the families will um have their assignments finalized by um or earlier and will be notified earlier
129of their assignments and our projections will be provided earlier for budget and staffing. Um, we will also be looking at, like I said, increasing our first choice assignment to expand that weight list as we continue to look at space. But that is a goal for for next year that we would like to um really start implementing right now with um right sizing our systems to be able to do that. >> Could you just tell me how that compares to how what we did this previous year? So each year enrollment begins in February and so we're moving it up a month early. And then finally um our children of deaf adults update. Um, we're happy to report that as of September 1st, the systems are ready to accept uh new registration and also current requests for
130any kota identified students to be transferred to the DHH program. Uh, K through 8 is at TOPS K8 and 9 through 12 Roosevelt. And so this is an assignment that's guaranteed and we will be processing um this at the time of enrollment at their request. The system has been updated so if the the family has identified themselves through the registration process that they will be coded and then prioritized for assignment. We will collaborate with the special education team and also our ML team because this is considered um the process is going to go through the home language survey with the ML team overseas and so that screening is going to be done collaboratively with the special education team as well. Um kudos to you uh director Rankin for raising this and also Dr. Torres Morales
131for his team and really steering this um work so that uh the systems were ready and we were able to uh preer prepare a communication for our DHA families and Kota families. Um what you see right now is in draft but this is just a snapshot of our um policy that we are going to be um getting it's getting routed right now for superintendent approval. And I would add that families will have the option they may want to stay in their their attendance area, their assigned school. So alongside uh this at work, we still need to make sure that children who are children of deaf adults um still need to have access to the supports that they and their families need. So that's also parallel work that we're doing to make sure that families can
132fully engage in the learning process without having to ask their children to be their interpreters, without having to ask ask to miss out on opportunities. So that will continue to be worked but we did want to uh make the pathway uh if students and families so wish to attend a school where there is um that language being used um to teach and to learn. >> Okay. All right. Any questions? >> Questions. Director Ranken, >> thank you so much >> for the um children of deaf adults that I mean it's you know this is what my sixth year on the board and I don't know why it took that many years for that to really be elevated but when it was it was like this is seems so obvious that that's the right thing to do
133for those students and that it is a language and cultural need and not um uh you know not a preference in in in the way that you know something else might be. So I really um grateful and excited that that's something that um we'll be able to to tell those families and then the next step would be to make TOPS a dual language immersion school. But that's a whole other that would be that would be pretty cool. and and I you know having visited TOPS many times um hearing kids are so excited to learn ASL and they want to communicate with their um DHH classmates and see that as uh you know a real benefit to to being there and they they want to be one community. They don't want to be separated by who
134can communicate to who. So that's just anyway I'm I'm just thrilled and thank you for doing that. Um and to the families too because all I did was elevate elevate it um and provide a possible pathway but it was families that didn't give up um >> shouldn't have had to work quite so hard probably but you know um didn't give up. So I going back to the enrollment stuff I don't want to get too much into weight lists. Um, that for me is an example of something that is completely a customer service issue in terms of how the mechanics of that work. Our job is to make sure that it's being carried out in a way that aligns with the values of the system and isn't going to um uh impact resources in a way
135that that cause harm to other students. That's my interest. I mean, I want people to have their kids go to school where they want to go to school, but I also don't think that's that's something that can be figured out, right? We don't have to divert so much time on at the board level to to do that. Um, I also just uh that this is there's lots of kind of talk that choice is being limited and families don't have access and we've got now the highest number of students in the last 10 years that do have a place at their number one choice school. So, um, my wonder about that is how many of those are new students to the district that would have gone somewhere else had they not gotten their first choice and
136how many are students that were moving from one school to another within the system. That's just a curiosity. Don't need to know that now. Um, but that's also I I think an easy trying to say this without being students are not revenue. They are our purpose. And so when families choose to go elsewhere, that is totally up to them. And the idea that we would craft our system around giving people what they want even if it hurts other children is not something that I'm going to support. So I I just want more clarity around the idea of who participates in choice and that um I know that there are schools that lost staff because they were diverted to these choice assignments. That is essentially a public voucher system is where we're headed. And so, and
137I can I can hear the pearls clutch already because good Democrats don't do that. But I mean, if you're if you're diverting public dollars from disadvantaged children to serve your own and you're doing it, but you're staying in the public system, the impact's no different to the disadvantaged children. And so I >> can I just >> I want people to have access to the programs that work for them, but I'm not about to give up on the idea. Like we we do not we cannot allow a small group to essentially hold hostage the rest of the system if they don't get what they want. And that's on us. We allowed it. We allowed it. We let most of this year go by talking about something that's uh solvable and I think would have been solvable
138without board intervention. Maybe it wouldn't have been solved in the way that it was. I don't know. But our expectation should be that that is done in a manner that doesn't harm other students, that is transparent, that is fair, that aligns with our policies. And other than that, we really shouldn't be spending a lot of board time talking about who's going to those schools. We have them. There are options. We want that to be fair and transparent and for people to um have their kid go to school in a place that they're the most comfortable. And it can't be because we were throwing some other kids under the bus. Um, so that being said, the larger picture of that is because I'm working on policy stuff for the ad hoc policy committee, something I'm noticing,
139and that goes back to what what you said, Fred, about what is our intent because I think that's that's the thing that's missing the most is when we're not clear about our kind of larger picture expectation, staff does their their best to meet the demands of families, to accommodate what the board's saying, but if they're conflicting or if we even are conflicting with something we've said before, it gets really, really hard to do any of that in a way that feels good to people, even the people that do get what they want. And so something I noticed is that we have various policies that address enrollment, but in the WASDA model policy book, enrollment as a standalone policy is designated as critical and we don't have a standalone just this is our policy about enrollment.
140Not that there's no policy, there's plenty. But I'm wondering if that is a good if that's an opportunity for us to kind of what is our intent, what is, you know, the bigger picture of what we want this to do and make sure that that is in policy so that later somebody can't come say, "Well, I don't see choice schools anywhere in policy, so I'm going to get rid of them." And have everybody go, "No, no, no, no, no, no. We all agreed this was going to happen." um starting with that big picture of like this is what we want to do. I think um could be a place for some clarification and just making a little bit simpler and more accessible. The other thing I noticed is um the policy on alternative learning experiences.
141The procedure hasn't been updated in over 10 years. So related them respond if they're excited to respond before you keep getting this bill going. >> Sorry, sorry. I did too many things at once, >> I guess. >> But I was trying to get to a board place. No, I I um I appreciate the question and as your acting policy adviser, um I I think the board has been clear on um the outcomes that you want for students and that there's equity across the system. What we haven't been clear on is well, how does choice and emphasis or not on neighborhood schools, how does that move the needle on the goals you set? So I guess before I would say oh what we need is enrollment policy I think you need to hear more from us
142as part of the strategic plan is >> because I don't know why we do some of the choices they're historical artifacts and >> I um haven't perceived well what is the strategy behind this what um what is the purpose of K8's and elementary and middle schools and how does what we're delivering at Kades, for example, um help us meet our middle school goals that we have when we know the middle school experience in a CAD is different than in a middle school and how many flavors of this can we actually support. So, I think we'd like to get in a little bit deeper on so how are we going to move the needle along the things you've asked us to do and is this helping us or is this getting in the way? >> And
143also, how do we resource? So if we identify a K8 is really important for the type of student who XYZ I don't know we need to then make sure that that K8 is not struggling for survival every year. If we agree this is a need that we have this is something that families want. We're going to support this school. What we have right now is just people fighting for survival every year and small schools just getting smaller and it's it's not sustainable. Um, and we have students assigned to schools that don't provide everything that we want kids to survive and and for staff too. Staff's very stretched thin, but also if if we're committed to saying this is important that we provide this alternative experience for students who need it, how do we make sure
144that that will still be there in in a year or two? um and that it's in our staffing, it's in the WSS, it's in our budgeting because right now there's not really different factors for that. They just don't get as many staff and that's not aligned with not only our goals, but even just making sure that there's access to basic education everywhere >> and what is that need? And so that's where the enrollment planning team is so important is well, have we scaled this appropriately? Um do we have the right assignment plan? Do we have the right boundaries? And what is it we're trying to do? We, you know, we've kind of made these incremental changes over the years and, you know, one layer of paint over the last coat of paint, but we need
145to step back. I think as part of this next um draft strategic plan, I think we would recommend it's important to the incoming administration and superintendent is we have some catching up to do and we need to align our student assignment plan with our strategies um both to achieve the goals we're trying to achieve and to um uh embrace and deliver on the uh equity guardrail that um uh Dr. Kim will refer to geographic equity and there are many other dimensions that as well but you know we we need to there will require a bit of a system reset um and some of that >> it's change and >> to individual students some of that change will feel as significant as even our discussion about closing schools because I mean in the heart of that
146it was well maybe this is going to be >> I mean to a student to a student who's changing schools it doesn't matter to them if money are changing or only theirs is changing cuz for them they're the one moving. >> So um so this is a very big topic and that's why I think it's good to ground ourselves and hey how's this working because we're going to come back someone's going to come back to you with some pretty heavy questions. >> I think something really important that you said that I want to kind of echo is what is it we actually want? Because if we can't figure out and I don't mean all the technical answers and everything but if we want which I think from the leadership profile from our vision and values
147we've heard very clearly that our community wants a school district with strong neighborhood schools and access to alternative and option programs and we need to do it within our budget and under the reality of the current enrollment. So that's not impossible. So, but we have to say here's here's kind of the cataloges, not the portfolio of schools and some of these details are going to fluctuate as buildings live past their lifetime as whatever. But if we can paint like yes, we all agree or not maybe all agree, but that what we want is a robust neighborhood system that doesn't rely on individuals or it's not a luck of the draw. you get access to something good plus some alternatives. We can work towards that towards making that a reality as opposed to everybody freaking out
148and clinging to fighting over scraps basically. >> Yeah. Thank you. So, however, and I know that's a longer term thing. So, we need to talk about what we can do with you now and how how we support the transition to for an incoming superintendent. >> And go ahead, did you >> I just want to make sure >> Yeah, >> I heard we have 60 days. >> Yeah. >> Shouldn't be a problem. So, I'm just going to ground us um just from what families have shared with me and you know, we've been out to the communities and we've heard a lot of noise um from emails and so I think we have to understand the position that we're in. We're talking about all students who they get to thrive and so we need to create and
149build that community and families are saying that you're freezing these weight lists and you're forcing me to stay at a school that's severely underenrolled and so the investment piece of this as we look into um these conversations I feel it goes back to not to disagree with you Dr. ranking, but it is a governance question because enrollment can't shoulder all of this because um decisions that weren't made that should have been made, critical decisions. And so we're having to now and not being burdened, but we were very carefully prior to 25 26 we were actually protecting those um underenrolled schools. We were doing that. And so that's why it it's important that we understand if we are going to ensure that children can can thrive and anywhere and we have ample space at an option
150school but we're freezing the weight list because we're saying we're going to impact severely this other school. So that's the balance and imbalance and challenge that enrollment faces every day. Not just through weight lists. We have transfer appeals. Um, we see them, we hear them, they're at the counter. So, I just want to make sure that I bring voice to those families. Whether it's privilege or entitlement, they have a right to share that. I'm not going to debate the children academic needs. That's not up for debate. If they feel that that is something they need and we have space, that is the conundrum. And so I would love for this board to provide some governance around that. And so how do we how do we do that in reality and on the ground because what
151we say doesn't land. And so it's a difficult challenge. So, I just wanted to be very honest in in that and understanding where with families and how that sounds like when they're in front of you and saying, you know, and we did shift a lot of these weight lists, but keep in mind those that were 33, 43 are now 10 on the weight list and they're saying, "What about me?" So, just kind of put it in perspective. >> Appreciate that. And I think I think we are in agreement that this lands in our strategic plan and how do we get to where we we want to go and and trying to answer that question there. Is that director Sarju? >> No, that was that's it. I was ready to adjurnn, but I thought that was
152so go for it. I I'll take >> I also want to extend um praise for this work particularly the work for the for the children of deaf adults. Um, I think uh it the solution represents what was always possible and it should serve as a lesson that it shouldn't take what it took to get to that point when we're talking about marginalized students and families. Um, this is huge for that community. Um, and we'll likely we won't see just how impactful and huge it is. We will likely hear from families. Um, but we won't see it every day. And so sometimes when we can't see something every day, we just don't even recognize that it's there. Um, and so I just I want to give praise because a lot of times that's not what's happening
153here. And I know that uh the families are are grateful. I know that they're grateful and they're likely to come and testify. Um that they're thankful that they were finally seen and heard. Um and then my last little shameless plug is for sign language is a language. We need to stop talking about it as if it's just something that only deaf people uh care about, right? It is a second language and we should treat it as such. And so my plug is in addition to Liza's, but I will share a very quick personal story. Very quick personal story. My kids went to TOPS. I watched the kids navigate together on the playground with their um with their uh little student colleagues who were not hearing. Um, and it was a beautiful thing because kids work
154it out. Like go there. Go to TOPS if you want to see what I'm talking about. Go observe for yourself because kids work it out. It's the adults who are not working it out. And so it is beneficial to support something like this. And my son, who's now 35, my kids went to TOPS, um he took a gap semester uh his sophomore year, and he ended up during that gap semester working for the Technology Access Foundation classroom down south, except he was in a classroom where the teacher was deaf. He came home after the first day of being in that classroom and signed up for sign language classes at Seattle Central Community College so he could communicate with the teacher that he had been assigned to work with. That's the power of creating an environment
155for our children. I don't believe he gets there without having that had that experience at Topps and having kids um come to our house to play and trying to figure it out like they'd have to come with their their hearing parent so that there could be sign language interpretation because nobody in our house spoke sign language. And so let's let's not stifle this momentum. We have this resource. The resource is our deaf and heart of hearing community. They're an asset and they're a resource. It's up to us whether we choose to engage with that asset and and and a resource. And I think for our for the betterment of society, it's well worth our investment to consider it. >> Thank you. Well, thank you everyone for the three-part work session, the leadership profile report for
156the superintendent, and we're off and running, ending the engagement session and moving forward there. The civic education lesson and then the enrollment update. Um, uh, school's right around the corner. Staff is busy at work. Staff and families preparing to welcome nearly 49,000 students back, uh, to school. Um and for many of you, we will see you tomorrow night for our regular board session. Uh but there uh being no further business on the agenda, this meeting stands adjourned at 7:09 p.m. >> 80 students. >> Yeah, we're going to have >> 49,27.