Seattle Public Schools Board Meeting - January 17, 2024

001[Music] this board meeting will be called to order in a [Music] moment [Music] Miss Wilson Jones just let me know when I can go ahead again okay great um good afternoon again this is President Ranken I am now calling the January 17th 2024 regular board meeting to order at 4:22 p.m. this meeting is being recorded we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the pet sound Coast Salish people Miss Wilson Jones the roll call please director BRS present director hery here director Rivera present vice president sarju present director song Here director top here student member um Vander and president Ranken here thank you Rivera we good okay that wasn't that wasn't me I don't know where that came from no it was a very delayed Echo um

002well good afternoon everybody Welcome to the first um meeting of the board of 2024 um I am now going to turn it over to our superintendent thank you president Rankin um and thank you all for being here today uh again thank you for being here for the first meeting of the year um before we dive into our agenda let us take a moment to recognize and honor Dr Martin Luther King Jr day uh we had that on the 15th on his birthday this this year uh there were a lot of events that happened across the city and we really want to make sure we embody the Beloved Community that he spoke so eloquently about uh our deliberations and our uh thinking and our uh actions should be consistent with what he talked about out and

003so I I'm imploring all of us to really embody the spirit and the technical things that Dr Martin Luther King talked about as we grow and uh evolve together uh and this it's a day to reflect on the contributions of of a leader who dedicated his life to the pursuit of Justice equality and civil rights and I believe some people in the audience to want want to talk about Justice and civil rights today so uh let's make sure that we make space for that and we go forward uh we also have opportunity for Progress monitoring tonight and that's where we take the opportunity to explore data that highlights the progress made toward reaching our College and Career Readiness goal uh the latest update will allow us to evaluate our accomplishments pinpoint areas for improvement and

004growth and propos strategic adjustments and so we don't want to stay still we always want to be in a continuous Improvement State also today we will have a budget work session uh later in the evening my team will provide an update on where we currently stand in our budget development process we are on track to present a final plan in May to actualize a vision of a system of well-resourced schools this update will provide a glimpse at the considerations being made as we develop that plan and and it includes a review of the 20324 annual fiscal report uh that will also have updates from the governor's budget the status of our advocacy in the in the 24 legislative session and the results of our staff engagement survey so I just want to thank you all

005for being here today I'm ready to roll up my sleeves in 2024 I believe we're off to a good start and I just want to have a special thank you for all the the snow team did you know there was a snow team that's out at 2:00 in the morning uh making sure our roads are safe for travel to and fro uh our schools in the district so uh want y'all give them a hand real quick the snow team with that I'll hand it over to you president Rankin thank you so much thank you superintendent I will now turn the floor over to director Vander for student member comments if you have any I have no comments okay thank you um uh I'm going to switch up the agenda just a tiny bit with your

006all's permission um we're going to have we have a lot of folks signed up for Testimony we have two um pretty uh conversation head heavy work sessions um coming up that I want to make sure that we have time for so what I would like to do is give a brief legislative update right now and then we'll hold other board comments until a little bit later in the meeting we'll go to public testimony and then um uh Circle back to the business items of the consent agenda and other board comments uh after uh between the progress monitoring and budget work session good okay so um very quick legislatively AIS on update uh it's we're in the second week of the 2024 Washington State legislative session um it uh there is a record number of bills

007this session so things are moving pretty fast and furious and as we are watching the sort of first round of hearings we're getting a better sense of what's really going to move and and what's not going to move um uh the um uh you can find our legislative priorities as adopted by the board for SPS on the SPs website and um directors I'll have them too to share with community members as they would like um there are although it's not a budget session we have significant interests in uh bills that have the potential to impact our budget hopefully positively so we're watching a number of different Bills signing in in support um uh actually um director hery was signed in to support a African-American curriculum bill that unfortunately he didn't uh they ran out of

008time before he was able to testify but we were signed in on that um uh from us in being in support of um it was very much aligned with our strategic or excuse me our legislative priorities um and so yeah we will just continue watching talking with our partners um wasda also o Advocates on our behalf as members of wda the Washington School director Association um based on our adopted um priorities as a body that consists of every single board director in Washington state um and we have a lot our our priorities in SPS have very many very many things that are aligned so lots of conversation with different districts about you know how one funding bill versus another funding bill may impact Seattle may impact other districts how we can work together in alignment

009to support our students and help um all districts across the state navigate the budget crisis that we're almost all finding ourselves in and um it is going to continue to move pretty fast and furious and I will provide updates uh as I can so um it I'm going to Let's see we have it's it's 4:29 so public testimony M can begin at 4:30 so I'm going to go ahead and transition us to that um we will now go to public testimony board procedure 1430 BP provides rules for testimony and I ask speakers to be respectful of these rules in summary some of from some of this uh important parts of this procedure are that testimony will be taken today from individuals called from our list and if if applicable the waiting list which are included

010on today's agenda posting on the Schoolboard website only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podium and only one person should speak at a time listed speakers May Seed their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called the total amount of time allowed will not exceed 2 minutes for the combined number of speakers time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are already on the testimony list or waiting list those who do not wish to have time seated to them seated to them may Decline and retain their place on the testimony and wait list if they are already on it um the majority of the speaker's time should be spent

011on the topic you have indicated when signing up and um the board expects the same standard of Civility for those participating in public comment as the board expects of itself as board president I have the right to and will interrupt any speaker who fails to observe uh standards required by board procedure 1430 BP uh speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this meeting may be asked to leave the meeting um we do have a full testimony list and we really want to be able to take the time to hear from everyone we also have significant other items to get to so my request to all speakers is that in the interest of time and allowing us to move quickly to please honor as

012much as you can that twom minute Mark I don't want to cut you off but I will so that we can give everybody um their time at the at the microphone thank you and um we look forward to hearing from you staff please go ahead the first Speaker tonight will be Isabelle Ender our invited student um speaker for tonight Isabelle will be followed by Ana sua p p and then Janice White um all right um hi my name is Isabelle Anders U my pronoun are she her um I'm a senior at nethan hail and I attend the manufacturing um class at the wood Technology Center um After High School I hope to study um something in the realm of plant Sciences maybe agriculture or horiculture I'm not sure where yet um the manufacturing class has

013been an amazing class for me um um school for me in the past hasn't been the most engaging um and more of a big source of stress so having this opportunity to go um to the class has been a huge relief mentally as well as just uh communally um I'm learning so much um in this non-traditional um learning environment um I get to learn practical and engaging skills that I'll be able to after I graduate in the real world um it's really a great Outlet to explore my interests and learn more about opportunities in tra trade uh the class itself um like the people and environment is really cool I'd say it's like another group of friends um that I have um we're all really close enough um to encourage each other to learn and

014experiment um because we all share a common interest in uh the class um I uh an important thing I thought of um that the class isn't for everyone I think that the skill center does a really good job of um uh creating you know the different opportunities the different classes um for different interests um that kids might have that don't necessarily like want or just want a different opportunity outside of uh College um yeah that's all thank you so much Isabelle and thank you for taking the time to come down and share with us and as a proud hail parent Gaters um uh typically I won't respond I know I have I got the mic go Raiders um we typically don't respond to comment um but since uh Isabelle was our invited guest speaker I

015just wanted to take a moment to say thank you so much for coming down um staff please continue with the list the next speaker tonight is Ana Susa Pon Ana Susa Pon will be followed by Janice White and for all those on the phone when your name is called please press star six to unmute and as you start your testimony please um feel encouraged to reintroduce yourselves uh if I have mispronounced your name Anya Susa Pon I'm going to move to the next speaker which is Janice White Janice if you're on the line pre please press star six to unmute and move to the next speaker Chris jackins following Chris will be James Parker and then Elizabeth Moore Simpson my name is Chris jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 happy New Year on the Personnel report

016under separations the report lists longtime director of accounting and procurement Amy Fleming I wish to thank Miss Fleming for her service to the district on the alai and Mont Lake School construction projects 5. number one the district previously claimed that it was impossible to provide any on-site Ada parking or any parking at all at alai or mon Lake number two but the city has ruled against the district alai plans number three now the district magically says that it can provide on-site Ada and some other parking number four the project is still way too big for the site number five the board also needs to fix Mont Lake shrink the project provide on-site ad8 a parking and provide a larger playground on the district policy on cell phones in school does the district have a policy

017on forever chemicals and artificial turf two points number one the children's Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai recommends against the installation of artificial turf due to the uncertainties surrounding the safety of these products and the potential for Dangerous chemical exposures number two at Maple and John M the district is using artificial turf that contains harmful forever chemicals known as bfas The Board needs to quickly stop this on school closures please drop school closures as a topic for the May 8th plan thank you very much next is James [Applause] Parker hi my name is James Parker but everyone calls me Whitney uh I'm a proud Jewish par educator at Franklin High School and I got doxed and harassed last week by right-wing extremists from my participation in a peaceful protest advocating for a ceasefire to the

018ongoing genocide in Gaza when teachers are getting doxed the students and staff see how the school district responds and I'm so privileged to have a union and a contract that Prof that protects My First Amendment rights but this isn't about me we have had so far three incidents at Franklin between students that almost broke out into physical fights it's just a matter of time when when we don't provide constructive avenues for conversation we make unproductive avenues for conflict inevitable as strongly as I feel about stopping this genocide which is fueled by our tax money I'm not here asking you to pick aide I'm asking you to empower Educators and students to create spaces learning and discussion we cannot bury our heads in the sand and hope that this blows over we need to lift the

019silence and bring all points of views together we don't have to be experts but we can create Brave spaces for us to learn together I'm probably going to be targeted more for speaking out today but I accept that because not speaking out endangers our students educators are worried that if they try to navigate these spaces they will face reprisals we need your affirmative support I'm asking I'm pleading today for you to take action on three things one to let Educators know that you have our backs and there will be no reprisals if we engage in these Brave conversations and classes around the conflict in Gaza two to work on creating curriculum and resources to help us navigate and teach the history and three to pass a resolution reaffirming our commitment to Black lives matter at

020school's week thank you the next speaker is El Elizabeth Moore Simpson Elizabeth Moore Simpson Elizabeth will be followed by Claire Abe or ab and then Josh Simpson um hi my name is Elizabeth and I'm a Jewish parent um as a Jewish person I want the history of my people organizing and resisting oppression honored alongside the movement of black lives and civil rights history alongside the history of the Arab Spring the land back movement and that of Migrant Farm worker organizing the Jewish people have a rich history of joining hands in support of our comrades from Ferguson to the civil rights movement and reducing the history of Jewish people to the monolithic voice of a state the state of Israel is reductionist and harmful I hope that the district understands and efforts towards a curriculum that

021does not equate Judaism with the state of Israel which is a government worthy of critique like any other my concern about Rising anti-Semitism run parallel to that of my concern of Islam rising islamophobia and anti-black racism there is enough freedom and safety for us all we must interrogate the claim that speaking in support of or even of Palestinian freedom and safety is an attack on the freedom and safety of Jews those rights freedom and safety are not finite the illusion of Jewish safety is predicated on notion that Jews are only safe because of the ongoing colonization in Palestine our safety should not be at the expense of Palestinians lives access to their homes or to Freedom as a district committed to anti-racism we must question how can one person's Freedom explicitly rely on the Erasure

022and Silence of another while I reject the undeserved value or rather audience my Jewish voice has over that of my Palestinian peers I honor my family's lineage of solidarity for the civil rights movement and that of Jewish organizing in solidarity of ending South African apartheid I will not allow my name to be used to silence a long history of black and Jewish solidarity I want my children to learn both at home and in school that all of our humanity is interconnected the next speaker is Claire Abe Claire Abe or ab and Claire will be followed by by Josh Simpson and then Rachel Edelman hi my name is Claire ab and I'm a school counselor at Cleveland High School I'm here to uplift the amazing advocacy work by SPS students in the Seattle Student Union so

023that it's not overlooked these students successfully advocated the Seattle City council to increase a tax on large businesses like Amazon and $20 million was approved to go towards mental health support and SPS schools our students and their advoc advocacy specifically ask for the funding to pay for school counselors to have a 1 to 250 student ratio at least one full-time social worker and one full-time mental health therapist in every school building as a parent of two children in an Kimbell Elementary School in South Seattle I want to reiterate the urgent need for more social emotional mental heal support for our students post-pandemic my children are lucky to have Mr Blandon as their school counselor as he does an amazing job in providing a comprehensive School counseling program and goes above and beyond in creating strong

024relationships and supporting our most marginalized students furthest from educational Justice however with 436 students Mr Blandon is the only school counselor and um there is more need than support available students have experienced a lot of trauma and distress during the pandemic which comes out in the form of Behavioral concerns in the classroom school counselors like Mr Blandon have are having to spend more time addressing extreme behavioral needs and mental health crisises and are being stretched too thin more most Elementary K8 schools are only funded at a 0.5 ft to have either counselor or social worker when really we need both positions full-time in order to work full-time many counselors must work at two different schools serving as many as a thousand students this is an unreasonable workload and as a parent and educator I'm seriously

025concerned about how my children and other students are not being sufficiently supported with their social emotional needs and that it took a group of SPS students who recognize this critical andm need to go to Seattle City council and Advocate on their own behalf for more mental health support the funding is now there thanks to our SPS students so please listen to their demands and allocated towards supporting our students mental health and ensure that the budget includes school counselors at a 1 to 250 student ratio and at least one full-time social worker and one full-time mental health therapist in every building thank you next next is Josh Simpson after Josh will be Rachel and then Jen Greenstein Greenstein hello uh my name is Josh I'm a history teacher and a parent of two Jewish children um

026as Educators we have ethical responsibility to teach the truth and support students in thinking critically about the world around them removing curriculum or even flagging it because it includes resources about Palestinian existence and its ongoing struggle for Liberation contributes to the Erasure of Palestinian narrative from the curriculum as someone who teaches about colonialism and resistance to military occupation throughout history it would make little sense to exclude modern examples of Palestinian resistance SPS has historically aligned itself with black lives matter without apology the black lives matter National Organization has always supported the Palestinian people as part of it platform civil rights Legend Angela Davis has said that Palestine is the moral litness test for our time and I hope the SPs does not fail that test we trust that SPS will be making the right decision

027in reing Black lives matter at school moving forward however given the current climate and silencing of educational institutions that uplift marginalized histories and identities we feel that it's necessary that we draw attention and raise their voices about this silence this is the moment for SPS to embrace the power of Education and its potential to combat anti-Semitism islamophobia anti-blackness all of which are interconnected this is not a moment to shy away from difficult conversation nor is it the time to withdraw support from movements that fight for racial equity and Justice the very outcomes that SPS reportedly strives for if we stop doing racial Justice work because it's hard what kind of message are we sending to our students and what does that say about the mission of SPS thank you for your time NE next is

028Rachel Edelman Rachel Edelman hi go ahead we can hear you uh my name is Rachel and I am a Jewish teacher in SPS and I'm here on the phone to ask that SPS issu the proclamation in support of black lives matter at school week with all possible speed uh in my language arts classes students engage in deep analysis sees of narratives of Oppression seeking the threads of resistance that will leave a more just world we study stories of Vietnamese refugees forced from their homes due to war stories of black families driven into housing and security by racism stories of disabled children denied the Education and Care they deserve and we study how these stories resist systems of domination and teach us how to do the same in our reading speaking and writing my students and

029I work in pursuit of Liberation for all people and because my students are perceptive and insightful they are connecting the systems of Oppression we study to the genocide happening in Palestine right now and they crave their Educators guidance in learning about Israel's ongoing apartheid and occupation they want to know how Palestinian resistance dovetailed with the movement for black lives it is our job as Educators not to shy away from difficult conversations but to support our students as they learn to harness their own power they know as we do that education has the power to combat anti-Semitism islamophobia and anti-blackness all of which are intimately interconnected it is essential that we celebrate the lineages of black Palestinian and Jewish resistance together as part of a wider tapestry that will lead us closer to Justice thank you

030the next speaker is Jen Greenstein good evening and thank you for your time and service Seattle Public Schools board admin and Educators have put a lot of time resources and focus on issues of race and Equity with the Strategic plan racial Equity policy 0030 and Unapologetic teaching of the BLM in school's curriculum all students do their best learning when Educators teach the truth recognize Injustice and respect students enough to be real I speak today as a Jewish school social worker who has worked in this district for 23 years I am one of a number of Jews and allies requesting tonight that the district issue the official proclamation in support of black lives matter at school week senior leadership should engage with Educators students and the department of liberatory Ed about why this curriculum has been

031flagged and delayed the black lives matter movement asserts that racism colonialism and occupation oppress Palestinian lives in similar ways to that of black lives and that this needs to be recognized and affirmed as a Jew I know that criticism of the Israeli government is not anti-Semitism my ancestors were brutalized and murdered due to anti-Semitism how dare anyone weaponize that trauma and grief to try to justify doing similar to other members of my human family as a school social worker I teach children to resolve conflict conflict through communication with honesty trust safety and empathy we need to engage and work through things not avoid them BLM organizers are focused on solidarity with PL solidarity with Palestine for a reason we need to accept direction from black leaders not insult them and trash years of work in

032SPS by allowing pervasive colonialist ideologies to silence them thank you the next speaker is Le Leanne hust followed by Dana Barnett and then cat barand hello my name is lean host and I am a school counselor at Ingram high school I just want to first off uh first say thank you to all the school board members and Seattle School leaders and especially my union leaders and school counselors before me and school counselers present for working on these issues um all are very valid and important um two years ago a student was murdered an African-American student was murdered at Ingram High School this is very important work for all of our students to have mental health supports in every single building I am asking the school district and the city of Seattle to use that 20

033million in funds from the city of Seattle towards funding school counselers at at least 1 to 250 ratio at at least one social worker in every building building and at least one mental health therapist in every building as well and this is specifically requested by the Seattle student unions work our students our Seattle public school students thank you and I see the rest of my time the next speaker is Dana Barnett Dana Barnett good evening I'm very concerned as many of us are about the attacks on Dei and anti-racist programs and education throughout the country as an SPS parent I've been proud of our school's commitment to Black lives matter at school week and for bravely encouraging discussions about the past and hard looks at ongoing forms of impacts and impacts of racism however as

034a Jewish parent I'm particularly concerned about the rise in opportunistic groups using false definitions and claims of anti-Semitism to discredit these programs and to smear groups like black lives matter movement who we should continue to look to as leaders in dismantling all forms of Oppression claims that supporting Palestinian rights or criticizing the actions of the country of Israel is somehow anti-semitic towards Jewish people are false and dangerous for all of us including Jews I hope that Seattle Public Schools will be vigilant and stand strong in its commitment to Black lives matter movement and will end that commitment to anti-racism and inclusion to Palestinian students and families as well as educate and combat actual anti-Semitism where it arises since is actually solidarity and accountability that creates true inclusion and Collective Liberation not censorship and conflict avoidance

035thank you the next speaker is cat barand hi my name is Pat I'm a Jewish SPS educator and a parent of an SPS student tonight I'm urging the school board to take a Firm Stance on supporting black lives matter at school week as it's done for the past three years I bring this to your attention today because Seattle public school Educators have recently learned that the release of the black lives matter at school curriculum has been flagged and delayed by SPS senior leadership this year to BLM National Organization support for the people of Palestine personally this really concerns me as an educator I'm counting on the district to provide me with curricular materials that help students learn to navigate navigate difficult topics with care curiosity and respect for one another as opposed to limiting these

036conversations or silencing entire groups of students black lives matter at school week provides these critical supports in the form of toolkits videos art articles activities and lesson plans as Educators we really need the district to stand behind us as we teach black lives matter and Palestine in ways that promote dialogue and help students think critically about our world but most necessary in this moment is to build multiethnic solidarity as colleagues we pledge to using a racial Equity tool and we've agreed to supporting one another in recognizing when decisions impede our Collective anti-racist goal depriving all students especially black students of the chance to learn about the movement for black lives will not build School communities where all students feel welcome and Thrive I believe our district should continue to proudly celebrate the teaching and learning

037of black history culture and Brilliance and embrace curriculum that moves racial and social justice work in our schools forward so I leave you tonight with the ask to issue the official Proclamation for BLM at school week as well as to provide Educators with curriculum that teaches Palestine our students deserve it thank you next is Sam fredman Sam fredman after Sam will be Daniel Lee and then Emma kleene we are here at an important time in history it's really difficult to engage with what's with the genocide in Gaza but we must we must engage with this event with our whole hearts and minds and as Educators this means creating a space for our students to understand why this is happening we are always repeating the phrase that students must see themselves in their schools and in

038their classrooms this includes our Palestinian students just as we teach about other important Justice movements like black lives matter the movement for Palestinian Freedom deserves its place in our classrooms if we want to give students the skills and knowledge they really need to make this world a better place I'm Jewish we have a phrase a sort of moral tenant to kunam which means fixing the world our world holds so many oppressions that we all try to struggle against and I understand that there is pressure to construe support for Palestine as an attack on the security of Jews around the world especially in Israel and I'm here to say that I know our oppressions as Jews Palestinians and so many others are inextricably tied together we can only be liberated together or not at all I

039like the school board to vocally support Educators who speak out about the inherent interconnectedness of anti-Semitism islamophobia and antiblackness and the necessity of a multi-ethnic struggle in this uh solidarity in the struggle for tukun thank you next is Daniel Lee following um Daniel will be Emma clein and then Janet Miller hello my name is Daniel Lee and um I just want to first off thank uh the school board for you know the important work that you do I really appreciate it and uh especially I want to thank um Liza Rankin for um joining our uh counseling meetings that we had uh for listening and for just being present and uh really appreciate that um I um am here to advocate for um as other counselors have mentioned um the $20 million in funding that the

040city approved um to support student mental health it's been a really um uh interesting process to see the students voices really being lifted up and uh the courage of students to um stand up and advocate for uh for their own mental health and I I think it's pretty clear um that we have a a pretty um incredible opportunity um to support our students I'm also a proud uh SPS parent for um two students that attend Hawthorne Elementary School um and I um you know one thing I want to highlight is that there is a halftime counselor for over 400 students and um as we know Early Education is so critical um to the development of our students um and it's and it's a time where we can really impact um you know the future path

041of of our Young Learners and so I really want to advocate for at least one full-time school counselor uh in every Elementary School U I think that's something that is well within our reach um I'm also a school counselor at Garfield High School um and um if you know anything about Garfield High School um it's it's it's a legacy school it's a school that uh has so much history um and I'm proud to be there but we also have about 400 students for every counselor uh which is not enough and so if we can get that down to anywhere close to 250 to1 I think that would be a tremendous support for our students um lastly um I um I I I want to invite any of the board members um who would like to

042learn more about what counselors do um please join one of our uh counseling meetings um come out to Garfield um and I'd be happy to um discuss and further uh conversations around this important topic thank you next is Emma [Applause] Klein hello my name is Emma Klein and I'm a Jewish SPS educator and the parent of a Jewish student at Hawthorne as well I'm deeply concerned that SPS is potentially abandoning black lives matter at school messaging due to the BLM National organization's long-standing support of Palestinians and all marginalized people as a parent I want my child's Jewish Heritage and culture to be taught and honored alongside the movement for black lives as well as that of Arab Palestinian indigenous latinx and other marginalized groups this is the kind of pluralistic inclusive educational environment that I

043believe supports my child's academic social and emotional development and one that prepares them to be engaged with the complex and dynamic realities of our world by continuing our long-standing support as a district of the black lives matter National Organization which has always been grounded in Collective Liberation framework SPS has the opportunity to make good on our strategic plan focusing on black students by supporting the broader SPS community and understanding how an equity approach improves the health wellbeing and belonging of all SPS students as Educators we have an ethical responsibility to teach the truth and engage students to think critically about the world around them removing curriculum or even flagging it because it includes resources about Palestinian existence and its ongoing struggle for Liberation contributes to the Eraser of a Palestinian n narrative from curriculum please

044do not delay any longer Proclaim support for BLM at school week 2024 support Educators who teach about the interconnectedness of the liberation of all people including Palestinians and their struggle for freedom from Israeli occupation and a part tide I like many Jews do not share the perspective of the state of Israel and that does not make me any less Jewish it is not anti-semetic to affirm the values of Palestinian life in fact it is one of the key tenants of jewishness to hold all life is equally precious and worthy of freedom and Liberation from oppression and hate next is Janet Miller Janet Miller Janet will be followed by Oliver Misa and then Steven and that does not make me any L hello can you hear me multiple people uh unmuted um I am an we

045can hear you now Janet hello I am an oh thank you thank you I couldn't tell uh my name is Janet and I am a Jewish SPS parent and teacher for SPS and tonight I'm asking the school board to unapologetically promote black lives matter at school week which includes solidarity with Palestinians as part of its platform FPS can use education to combat anti-blackness anti-semitism ISM and islamophobia which are all interconnected this morning I asked students what they wanted to tell Seattle Public Schools about black lives matter at school week and why it is important to them they had a lot to say student one shared as a person of color I've seen many white students try to show that they're not racist through weird comments without actually acknowledging their privilege they don't know how to

046do that it's because they're learning to be performative we need more ethnic studies class classes more black lives matter curriculum and more quality anti-racism education student too said please talk about Gaza Seattle public school Silence about genocide is teaching kids that it's okay to just shut off in the face of genocide student 3 said silence is compliance don't be afraid to speak out about injustices that are happening right now including in Palestine student four said speak out again against Israel's action black lives matter at schools should be a time to learn from the struggles for Liberation by people of color all around the world including Palestinians student five shared we need Holocaust Education it's critical for recognizing and preventing modern genocide including the current genocide in Gaza that's happening right now finally student six said

047we need more meaningful black lives matter curriculum we don't want shallow curriculum we want to learn about real current racial Justice struggles in honor of these students and so many more I ask Seattle Public Schools to be bold in its anti-racism by fully promoting black lives matter at school week which includes solidarity with the Palestinian people I just want to add that as a Jewish teacher and parent I also hope the district knows that it's not anti-semitic to affirm the value of Palestinian life or to criticize the actions of the state of Israel our Jewish value our Jewish values hold that every life is precious thank you the next speaker is Oliver Misa Oliver Misa um hello my name is Oliver MSA um thank you for hearing me today hi um I'm not as well

048prepared as other folks but I am a board member of uh the Washington ethnic studies now a local uh nonprofit do a lot of work to train teachers in ethnic studies do a lot of legislative work uh at the capital I'm also a substitute teacher in SPS and uh lifelong seattleite so Oliver I'm sorry can you lean a little bit I want to make sure that we catch catch every word I'll use my a little closer boy voice today um um I'm here speaking about a couple of issues um and and most of that is around so many of others have said this already so I don't need to repeat the points that they've made and they'll make it they made it better than I would anyway way um but I was but the the

049question of teaching the truth is in front of us right now um and there's a lot of institutional work that's already being done and made and yall have supported black lives matter for the past three years and and we'd love to keep you all supporting that uh moving forward but at the state level I was just testifying yesterday for example about what does it mean to teach the truth and we have a genocide and Holocaust Bill a Senate bill 5851 and as an ethnic studies teacher and educator when we think about focusing on genocide and the Holocaust we don't think that's focusing on the whole person that that's in front of us just like we hear a lot of white liberals in Seattle talk about BLM shouldn't focus on oppression we're here thinking about we

050want to include and think about Jewish studies as a holistic person as well and so when when we talk about teaching the truth um it's important that we think about that and and when we do and we do curriculum and we work on curriculum in Black lives matter this NE upcoming weeks we'd love to see the support um from the district which looks like they've been pulling out uh of the support of that week so that's been really dis difficult to see it's been really difficult to see my friends experience threats to their lives and most of these people been pushed out mostly black fem uh and and women of color that that that aren't even here today so I'm here for them and and and I I just hope we can protect our teachers

051and our Educators thank you the next speaker is Steven Cecil Steven Cecil following Stephen will be Jen lovy good evening um I'm a uh resident of Belltown an architect and a landscape architect and for several years I've been working with our neighborhood to accomplish a long-held Community Vision to convert the Belltown battery parcel into a park providing much needed open space in what's a down really dense downtown district now that parcel was originally planned to be a public park after the removal of Alaskan way it would be the last segment in the continuous sequence of parks starting at that site and continuing all the way to Pioneer Square that's the new Central Waterfront Park that's almost completed uh but I was and it made a lot of sense then and it makes a lot of

052sense now as a park but several years ago I was amazed when news surfaced about a possible trade for this parcel with the city this trade would seed control uh or sell the school's Memorial Stadium parking which is a revenu producing parking lot in exchange for the battery portal site for a school now that's a school that for which there's no current or any projected need including a verified lack of students living in the core of our city it would be prohibit itively expensive to build on what is a substantially constrained site it's extremely Steep and the remnants of the lasen Way Concrete infrastructure remain below the surface so neither side of this trade made any sense from the school department perspective and it would have been an indefensibly Bad Business decision but in the

053original trade proposal the school district had a year to consider swapping properties giving up what it needed part the parking lot revenues for the portal site which did not well wisely the district let this lapse in 2021 years ago now but it left a cloud of confusion about this parcel uh and so we'd like you to direct uh uh superintendent Jones and the staff to not pursue any more deals on that site thank you and I have a version of this in writing if that would be helpful thank you yes if you want to hand that to um Miss Wilson Jon she can distribute to that that to us the next speaker is Jen lovy hi can we can hear you Jen can you hear me on the phone yes we can okay thank you

054hi I'm Jen Lali I'm calling as a volunteer with um with altogether for Seattle schools um wanted to discuss some of the things that we're working on we wanted to try to request that SPS should provide accessible opportunities for Meaningful input from students parents and school communities in the light of the current budget shortfalls that we're looking at partnering with parents and school communities by providing opportunities for input will help ensure a path forward through the budget crisis we would like the school board and the district to provide more transparent And Timely community communication to the community on the budget and the work that's going on providing this information to the public builds trust among uncertain times we do not believe that we can close our way to well-resourced schools all schools need more funding

055we know that um there's some hard decisions up ahead but we believe that a well resource school is one that can comprehensively and equitably support all students um that in the past school closures in other districts have not led to better outcomes for students we would like the board and the district to review this openly and discuss with parents community members students and teachers um we would like SPS to advocate for more State funding um we know that the current legislative session is probably not going going to be the largest win but we want to use the power that the district has that The Advocates um for the district have to look for more funding options not only this session but in future future sessions as well um taking these to avoid major budget cuts

056and help the shortfalls in the future is valuable um at this point I would like to go ahead and give back the rest of my time thank you so much there were two speakers we didn't hear from earlier I'm not seeing them on the line but I'll give a quick check for Anya Susa P Pon Anya if you're on the line please press star six to unmute going to move on to our next um speaker who we also missed was Janice White Janice if you're on the line please press star six to unmute not seeing either of them on the line so moving to our um wait list we have Lauren Holloway hello my name is Lauren Holloway and I am a proud ancestrally Jewish educator at Franklin High School like my colleague Whitney who

057spoke earlier I too was doxed by the same cyber bullies for participating in a recent Pro Palestinian protest resulting in viral slander false accusations of being anti-semitic hate mails calls to have me unjustly fired and Anonymous threats to my personal safety to my knowledge there are at least five other Educators in our district including myself who've been docks and targeted since October 7th for our personal political stances on the ongoing genocide in Gaza I'm here to piggyback on the sentiments my colleague Whitney articulated by sharing a story with you about an interaction between two students I observed during a class in December one student is Mother Muslim the other Jewish um both students sit the same table every class one student made a comment about a sticker in a notebook um resting on the table

058that says free Palestine the Muslim student made a comment about the sticker echoing the sentiments for free Palestine which offended the Jewish student who interpreted the statement as anti-semitic both students got into an argument both reducing the ongoing genocide in Gaza to a religious war that neither could agree on and from that day forward one of the students CH to put a backpack on the table to act as a wall between them so they wouldn't have to look at each other or speak to each other our kids are hurting over what is currently happening between Israelis and Palestinians between each other the walls of decision on a the walls of division on a macro level are manifesting on a micro level in our classrooms and these walls of division and misunderstanding are hurting our students

059as SE Public Schools continues to remain silent over this conflict offering no support for our students to help navigate confusion myths misinformation biased news sources biased fuel bullying and how to have Brave conversations around the ongoing violence happening in Gaza our students continue to suffer in that silence and it's time for the silence to be broken and that's what I have to say to stand before you today the next speaker is Lena Jones Lena [Applause] Jones hello and thanks to everyone for your time today my name is Lena Jones I am a black Jewish teacher of language arts and ethnic studies at Seattle Public Schools uh in 2016 we were one of the first districts in the country to support black lives matter at school every year since we've proudly stood in solidarity unapologetically aligning

060ourselves with the principles of the black lives matter movement resolutions of past years have shown that Seattle is not merely talking the talk but is getting better taking practical steps to learning more embodying the dedication growth mindset rigorous critical thinking and empathy that we ask of the young people in our classrooms every single day this year the board silence on BLM at school has spoken volumes Dr Reverend Martin Luther King Jr's words get bandied around a lot this month and he says that in the end we will not remember the words of our enemies but the Silence of our friends I urge the board to not be a silent friend I ask that a resolution be passed immediately to renew our commitment to BLM at school and its values the black lives matter movement Echoes

061a broad history of global intersectional Liberation movements that rest on the foundational idea of collective Liberation our silence creates more space for the spread of false binaries and attempts to pit marginalized communities against each other that these attempts are rooted in white supremacy and hearken back to the same southern strategy our nation's civil rights Advocates have worked so hard to overcome our district silence in support of black lives matter matter at school week due to BLM National solidarity with palestin Palestinian Liberation undermines the long history in Seattle and in the US more broadly of solidarity across lines of ethnic and religious difference in an era of escalating Global conflicts deepening ideological divides and in increasingly siloed online e Echo Chambers our schools must remain dedicated we must continue to show with our actions our dollars

062as well as our words that we abide by students right to express their opinions without personal Prejudice or discrimination thank you for your time and that was our final speaker the 20th speaker for tonight president uh [Applause] rinken what you said um that concludes today tonight's testimony thank you thank you everybody so much for taking the time to come here to speak and um uh for um staying within time I'm very impressed um and uh I also feel compelled to probably going to give legal counsel a a well just don't worry about it Greg um so I'm a Jewish board director and I'm also the author of the first black lives matter at school resolution in Seattle um and so it I do not have have a problem unequivocally saying that we do believe black

063lives matter at school that's not a that's a actually imperative thing for me to say not a frightening thing to say um I'm the granddaughter of um two individuals who um fled Nazi Germany and uh have a lot of complicated personal feelings tied up in in in what is going on and what you are probably facing in classrooms and so I I'm going to uh you know keep it to that um but thank you for bringing these concerns forward we really you know I I have Jewish children in Seattle public schools and um I want them protected and safe and I want to know that you all as Educators have the tools and support that you need to ensure that you're supporting um healthy safe conversations in our classroom so um I did not know

064about this issue uh and so um yeah I we will more to come we will be looking into it and see uh um yeah what we can do about that uh so thank you um so that concludes our public testimony and thank you again so much um directors we're going to move now into progress monitoring do does anybody need a quick break before we transition or do you want to just go right into it yeah yeah let's take um let see it's 519 at 5:25 let us resume uh the meeting with a progress monitor drink session down at the tables thank [Music] you [Music] oh [Music] okay [Music] okay [Music] absolutely welcome and encourage you to stay and um listen in on our progress monitoring session uh but if you are having conversations I'd ask

065you to please take those out into the lobby so that we can proceed through our agenda thank you so much so we have a progress monitoring session today on the board's goal three which is College and Career Readiness this is our first our First Progress monitoring session today on uh uh sorry our First Progress monitoring session of the year with our new board members and this is also a um training opportunity with our our coach um AJ cral with the Council of great City Schools I just talked to him in the Break um in the interest of time and because we do have new directors who haven't participated in this I've asked him to be a passive Observer and to take notes and he and I will touch base afterwards rather than um I I

066have a feeling we're going to need our dedicated time to actually do the progress monitoring and uh talk about our um uh how we do uh at at another time because we've got um you know two pretty pretty meaty topics here so um I I will now hand it over to superintendent Jones to begin the session and thank you AJ for being on the line thank you president uh president Ranken uh as part of our regular meeting today I want to have us pivot to progress monitoring conversation as we take another step in implementing student outcome Focus governance um we're grateful for for the time that we have to discuss this important work that we're doing to promote College and Career Readiness this is our fourth formal opportunity to review the progress we're making in

067this area of student outcome Focus governance uh this evening we'll be focusing on what we can learn from our Topline measure our graduation data and advanced coursework completion data for the class of 2023 and how this relates to our larger goals for College and Career Readiness I want to remind us that College and Career Readiness connects to our other two goals around reading and math and and that's an important Nexus between what is the progression for what we're trying to get accomplished so uh I'm joined by four key leaders of this work or two today and uh it's it's going to be uh Dr Mike stoski assistant superintendent academics and Dr Caleb Perkins executive director for College and Career Readiness uh before we engage in our conversation on strategic questions uh they're going to help

068us provide uh and those will help us provide a clear response for key questions and those key questions are what is the current state what is the desired State and what are we doing to get there and as always we're grateful to have AJ crille with us to give us feedback on our progress and in fact uh hopefully AJ will maybe start by giving us some framing or pass on okay pass on that so we'll spend the first few minutes reorienting ourselves to this important memo on College and Career Readiness and make sure we're all coming into this discussion with the same information so so uh as a reminder we also sent out some appendices related to the memo that's in front of you um and so the so the board had additional questions on

069this work and hopefully we answered those in advance so if there not any questions let's take uh just a few brief moments to review the memo just to get reoriented and then we'll move on and director Briggs and tops top please ask questions along the way uh the rest of the directors can't ask questions along the way but you all can we going to take just two minutes for you all to reorient look at this okay okay uh now that you've had time to conclude reviewing the memo I want to take a few minutes to orient you to our conversation on the data so as as you saw on the top of the first page um I want to share that recent data on the class of 2023 indicate that we are meeting the targets

070for we have set for African-American male students graduating on time having completed at least one Advanced course so these efforts to expand access to EV excuse me advanced coursework have had a positive effect on these results but we still have work to do to ensure these opportunities are accessible to all students and we are ready for helping all students graduate on time without the need for waivers so based on this latest data we've identified several next steps in five five strategic areas including uh continuing to examine what's working well for our ninth grade African-American students and students of color further from educational Justice and therefore we must remain focused and committed to these strategic areas Beyond 2024 uh Dr stoski will take it from here and we'll provide an overview on our strategy to improve

071our CCR outcomes thank you Dr Jones um before we get started also I want to thank uh board members for prioritizing this in the agenda and having it uh so uh early in the evening uh is much appreciated and signals uh the importance of of this work um as stated in the memo um for all of our students to graduate um and succeed in a variety of Pathways um we're really focused um on our African-American young men and our boys and students furest from educational uh justice on postsecondary Pathways and careers uh to that end um our African-American boys and our teens uh we want them to have access to very specific things and those specific things are uh core courses Advanced courses graduation Pathways high school and Beyond planning work-based learning College and Career

072Access Financial Aid and postsecondary degree completion by removing systemic barriers and leveraging Seattle public schools in Seattle's many assets so specifically our CCR work our College and Career Readiness work is focusing on five specific areas one and the most important one is excellent teaching first and foremost second is strong relationships and service of that strong teaching and leading and learning three is Equitable measures four is opportunity Pathways and finally expanded learning now this is all been happening over the last three years and more importantly we have focused on the following six specific levers to improve CCR related student outcomes and as I say these tonight we're trying to be precise in our language and that when we're talking about a specific strategy or we're talking about something specific specific we're saying so that afterwards so

073that we can be specific about what that what we're trying to serve here and so the first one is aligned use of data so that staff can help students stay on track to graduate and be ready for postsecondary opportunities second our cips or our continuous School Improvement plans are aligned to school strategies so that school leaders our principles and assistant principles use data tools to focus on the most important student CCR related outcomes three grading for Equity so that students and families can get clear feedback on how well they are making progress towards meeting this standard four postsecondary pathway exploration so that students have regular opportunities to explore career and college options so that they know what post-secondary opportunities they they want to pursue five inclusionary practices so that students can succeed in advanced courses

074and be prepared for a variety of post-secondary opportunities and finally high school and Beyond planning so that students have hope and goals for their future and regular opportunities to develop plans to reach these goals so that's a brief summary of the strategies and where we're headed and and have been using in the levers to achieve those strategies and with that I'll turn it over to Dr Perkins who will update us on the current state thank you Dr shoski uh going to the next slide just as an orientation to the targets we set back in 2019 uh where again we chose this Topline measure of graduating on time having completed in one Advanced course given the research that shows having completed uh Advanced courses is directly correlated with more success and post-secondary opportunities so if we

075can go to the next slide uh we will see that we are excited to share that we have uh significant progress since uh since 2019 including from last year where we have for the African-American male students the class of 2023 graduating in four years successfully completing Advanced coursework increased by four points and is now uh 14 points over the Target that we had set initially and while while there's a lot of work to be done I think we should take a moment to to thank and show appreciation for all of our our school-based staff and the counselors who talked tonight in particular who I know did heroic work to try to help all the students and uh both get access to advance courses as well as graduate given the many many things and the challenges

076of the last number of years so I just want to give a shout out to that so including the the positive news on on African-American male students which is captured by the Blue Line the Orange Line represents our students of color furthest from educational Justice which is also trending up and is also above the Target that we set back in 2019 uh given again the hard work of our school staff if we can move to the next slide that we also want to share that on for graduation overall we continue to the graduation rate has gone up quite tremendously over the last 10 15 years in Seattle public schools and pleased to share that we're continuing to maintain that um there's still more work to be done there's a lot of really important conversations in

077Olympia that I bet some of you are a part of in terms of some of those options but I do want to take a moment again to say thank you for all the hard work that has gone in in addition as we look forward we know that there are a number of things that some of you asked about in your questions about how are we going to transition away from uh additional waivers and other pieces connected to support for students during the pandemic and and we'd love to get into that conversation because it is an important one students need to graduate and also need to graduate ready so if we can move on to the next slide I do want to build off of just the things that Dr sheroski shared so these are much

078better and much easier to see in the memo itself but we want to highlight especially given recent conversations with the board that we'd like to be more specific about how we're going to try to continue to make progress because while we are really excited about the the expansion at the School level of access to Advanced course work in ela up to 71% for African-American male students in math up to 67% we know we have more work to do and so one I think Common Thread that comes back to the question that Dr J Jones started with a questions where are we trying to go and how are we going to get there so just to further elaborate on what Dr stoski outlined we're looking at the role of cips and really trying to think about

079how can our high school leaders use the grading data that we have to inform their support for students and Grading for Equity the next step we need to take is to think about our retake policy that we have and how that's supporting not only students getting more opportunities but to truly meet standard which of course is the ultimate goal in post-secondary Pathways we have amazing tools for our our Educators and our staff about how to track whether students are getting access to things like work-based learning and we want to takeen more steps in that area in inclusionary uh practices thanks to the work of Dr Torres as been leading the district uh we have the exciting discussions about udl and how it's supporting Advanced cours workk access across our schools we need to keep going

080with that work and something that this board actually highlighted we need to better take advantage of our high school and Beyond plan process um there are some middle schools who are doing amazing jobs of giving students really clear orientation to their future uh but we have a lot more work to do in any case I appreciate the opportunity to give that orientation but now we turn to the the best part which is your questions if we can go to the next slide uh your questions are captured on this slide and the following slide I we'll just leave this one up but you've asked about a number of areas uh to go deeper on uh things related to uh access to Advanced coursework to the idea of what role is the waivers play to the connection

081to how in fact have we had the success we've had on Dual credits I'd love to get into all of that but let me pause here and turn it to president Ranken to lead the discussion thank you so much um and just to ground us all a little bit what we're really looking for our role as a board now is that um we've we have goals that we have set and approved for the superintendent and this is our opportunity to find out is reality matching what we've directed is there progress being made and how do you know um so uh with that if uh I will open it up to any directors that have questions or if we want a touch on on the questions that were submitted in advance we can do that too

082anybody anybody I can pick my favorite jump right in my hand up I don't know if you can see it oh sorry thank you director AA I did it's very tiny on the screen so I I missed it um I'll uh I'll go to director Briggs and then come to you okay okay um so I submitted the first question on here and I actually am I I would love to just really quickly get a more of an understanding around what the waivers are like I'm just not even familiar with that what what that mean what they are and what they mean and basically how you know that fits into the larger question that I asked thanks for the question so there are effectively two broad categories of waivers local waivers which are graduation requirements specific

083to Seattle Public Schools things like Service Learning and then there's the thing that's getting most attention and the one that I think we should highlight in this conversation are the state waivers that the State Board of Education implemented in response to the pandemic two in particular they allowed students to wave two of their core credits um as well as What's called the graduation pathway which connects to things like whether access they have access to Advanced coursework or CTE or in some cases the ASVAB exam so those are significant um pieces they're relative ly new requirements but just to give you an example 20% of our African-American male students uh accessed the waiver to the pathway requirement last year and while most of our uh Educators and staff are very well versed on this and are

084getting the class of 2024 ready um that's an enormous number and so we're going to have to really uh be careful and and uh consider it in terms of ensuring that we're continuing to make progress since we drafted these talking points in these slides the State Board of Education is actually proposed to extending that waiver to this class and that will be voted on in April um and again I think many of you are connected to those conversations even more than I am so I hope that helps director Rivera thank you um as we think about um college career Readiness I I want to go back to a um public speaker we had last at the last meeting regarding um preparation for math college math classes and how um there are many students who are

085going into college and having to basically retake classes they took in high school and passed in high school um because of alignment issues with with well I'm guessing know between what we're teaching and what the colleges are expecting is that fall into any of these strategies as far as you know is there something we're doing that is going to address that um or is that something separate all together but I guess and apparently are we going to be is there something we're going to do for that it's a really important question and so just to to before I get into some of the details of of what you're asking about we know that the data show and I think one of the folks who spoke at public testimony at our previous board meeting talked about

086if we have students going into remedial classes not credit earning courses they're much more likely to drop out and not complete um the program and with the enormous opportunity we have with Seattle promise we have a huge percentage of our graduating students taking advantage of that we don't want to miss out on their um getting a degree and moving on so what are we doing in in response to that uh director Rivera in particular one of the things is accessing Advanced coursework the fact that we've gone from about uh 40% of African-American male students taking and completing an advanced course in math to 67% is increasing their ability to go straight into credit bearing math classes so those are the things in terms of getting them ready on the flip side there are aspects of

087the system that need to be improved and I Want To Praise Seattle colleges for being open to reflecting on their own processes some of them are just about adult frankly bureaucratic rules that need to be changed to ensure students get every opportunity to go right into credit bearing classes Highline has provided a really powerful example that Seattle colleges is learning from where they actually uh automatically place kids into sorry students into math into credit bearing math classes and they had more success even though they quote you know effectively lowered the bar if you want to say it that way um and so we're learning from that so I think there's things that the adults can do and we're going to continue to do to coordinate with Seattle colleges great that's great to hear thank you

088so much and Dr Perkins you ran by a really important point I you made it but the advanced course taking just taking the course in and of itself can you speak a little deep more deeply about why that's important for college level course taking and and maybe just what the what what are we seeing with the correlation between the two yeah so thank you sometimes talk more than get ahead of my skis anyway so the uh the two things that I'd highlight one is that there's a number of studies one that was done by wasem recently quoted in the Seattle Times that there's a high correlation between dual credit completion no matter what else happens in your and succeeding after you graduate completing degrees and so forth so that's one thing I think there's a

089robust conversation that you all should be part of which is where do we go from here now that we've exceeded this target but this is an important first step and we should we should celebrate that the second piece is that in going to Seattle colleges just as an example if you have an advanced course on your transcript you are much more likely and in fact we're creating articulation agreements where you'll be placed directly into the credit bearing class rather than running into a barrier rather than being required to take an additional test all these things that have gotten in the way of students going straight to credit bearing classes so um my question is it's it's exciting to see progress it's exciting to see us exceed expectations what I don't see that I would like

090to see is which of the strategies that have been employed so far do you attribute the success to and I don't see so I want to know why you think that that has is higher than expected and um to and I would like to see the strategy next steps I would like to understand what this looks like from a data standpoint inclusionary practices early adopter training what schools are participating where are schools at in their training and how do we connect that to improved outcomes for students how do we know that I mean that's a strategy I support but I want to I want to I want to see the work I want you to show your work a little bit more and see that we know that this is having a positive impact and

091we can show you how or of these strategies this one didn't have the impact we anticipated and we can show you how and therefore you will see us sort of abandon that um and then connected with to uh the budget work session of the strategies that you identify as being um influential in this great success um what can we expect to see in terms of budget and investment that reflects alignment with supporting the practices that we have found to be effective you know three words or less so uh there was a statement in uh what are the you like to see the strategy the next steps on the strategy U but I think they're presenting question was around what is the highest leverage strategy uh and then will we see uh these strategies reflected in

092in the budget so uh Dr Perkin or Dr stovi will you will you speak to uh what is the highest leverage uh item in here I believe it's Advanced course course course workor but if you could elaborate on that that'd be great yeah so um one of the reasons why we went into the these levers that Dr shoski outlined was be in response to I think you're pushing us to be more specific more concrete more and so where I do want to give credit and I'm not just just pandering to the current audience is that the CIP align school-based strategies the work that our three IB schools are doing related to access to IB and I can get into the details on that the work that lots of other schools including hail and Nova are

093doing a providing access to college in the high school and then the consistent work that a number of other high schools around AP those three prong strategies of getting dual credit uh they have taken advantage of a number of pieces so one that's happening this year that we haven't even seen in the data is that the legislature has voted to fund all college and the high school classes that's one piece um the consistent leadership around IB in those three schools that they have unwavered and they've all moved towards inre increasing the percentage of students who get access to those classes so I'd like to I I know that's not necessarily the most satisfying in the sense that it's it's been um a lot of our high school Leaders with obviously many high school Educators and

094counselors working together on that piece if I had to pick one it would be that CIP align specific work that the the plans that they have implemented at the school level um there's a lot more I could say but I'll I'll I'll pause there a specific strategy I think is worth noting too over a number of years has been the Equitable grading practices the focus on that with our school leader years of trying to learn from one one another um during the pandemic it was um something that school leaders had been thinking about and trying to push on individually during the pan pandemic putting a real focus on it and then post pandemic still seeing the need and the uh the the focus on their learning and support of trying to better understand what the

095standards are how to help students get there just beyond timeline just beyond inconsistencies that are adult driven and being a system uh at our individual schools but a a large school system that's supporting the learning on time as much as we possibly can but also supporting our students and getting there no matter what and so that's again what Dr per Perkins is uh speaking to is the Educators being flexible many of the people here in this room um having that um that FOC focus on Beyond just having access to Advanced course workor but being successful in those classes once they get there is equally important and then the systems and the strategies and the pedagogy that goes along with it to help students be successful our Educators need support uh in that it can't be

096an individual effort and so I think that's an equally strong strategy that's working on that's been happening over a number of years now and that we feel very compelled to keep uh focusing on and and building off that in in addition this has been uh evolving for years and so in 2012 Seattle Public Schools was the first was the second district in the country to come up with a educational racial Equity policy one of the pieces in there that compels Us is around educational Pathways and being intentional about that and so this is uh the manifestation of an articulation of a pathway to being College and Career ready and so this this has been building for years but now that we're in the mix and now we're we're we're seeing uh how this is playing

097out from a strategic uh operational infrastructure perspective that policy was catalytic in trying to make sure that we're focused on outcomes and so it was a it's specifically articulated 0030 educational pathway so uh I think this is part of that at the at the end of the day if you had a budget question oh well I so it's not that I don't believe you what you're saying like I I mean I know a lot of this to be true um but I do I think for our part um I just I want to I want to see it a little bit more I think what may be helpful is there's data on somebody asked one of you asked about the use of reports and that we have impressive of data especially from our our Educators

098and our counselors using some of the grad tracking data tools that we've used and so just the ability to know where students are where that how far off track they are that's that's a data point that I think could get more concrete um there's also a number of things around just take one basic Idea World Language competency credits where we're helping our multilingual students take advantage of the fact that they have an amazing ability to speak multiple languages and um how do we help them earn credits for that there's there's five or six of those spefic specific initiatives that sometimes get M uh lost because they're just one of many but they're all helping and pushing that direction towards graduating on time um the so the budget question was uh as you know we're in

099budget development can we expect to see or what can we expect to see in the budget that shows an alignment with resource allocation to what you are finding to be effective in making progress on our goals so noting I give a bit of a high level answer I I think the the six levers that we're sharing here that frankly Dr Jones has pushed us to be that specific is what we are putting our stakes in and saying this is what we should continue to so let me focus on one inclusionary practices we to Dr torres's credit we have a lot of common conversations around udl now I was just at West Seattle High School talking about udl and the focus areas went to reneer be Beach High School a month ago about udl and the

100focus areas and there both of them are are having conversations around what does that look like in advanced coursework classes um so to Dr stow's point we're trying to make excellent teaching the one of the main focuses and you'll hear about that with third grade literacy and and seventh grade math as well so that's one thing I hope we prioritize um so I know the budget session we have now is already prepared and everything but I I would um ask for as we're going through the budget process where you can help us on understand where you are making budget decisions around investment around for these would be really helpful for us and I mean there's going to be a lot of very challenging decisions to be made the more that we as the board can

101understand that choices are being made around what you all believe is improving outcomes for students the the um the better will'll be able to support it so thanks so I'd like for Dr stoski to talk a little bit give a little bit of under the hood in sight around uh your deliberations as the head of academics around you all are having to do an exercise of Dr Jones is saying I we have to reduce our budgets we have to make adjustments and all that how are you holding these as the priority if you can kind of speak to that and if you are and you could even give some color commentary around uh the the struggle the push and pull that's happening within the within the within the department please are you sure about that

102okay well we want we want to hear it all because ultimately we're giving the direction so if you need another push we'll push yeah so my my initial uh thinking uh director Rank and when you were uh asking about the the priorities within this goal I was immediately going to what we're going to be doing on February 7th with a third grade um reading and uh 7th grade math just thinking we need to have this consistent alignment so the the thing that I'm encouraged about is that as we get more precise and consistent with the strategies that are in service of College and Career Readiness because College and Career Readiness is the ultimate goal third grade reading seventh grade math is in service of College and Career Readiness we we have to be explicit about

103that so when we're talking um in third grade rating seventh grade math and College and Career Readiness specifically about inclusion iary practices as being uh a focus area that goes across all three of those major goals that is in service of all three of those major goals that does uh give the opportunity for when we're having to make decisions around budget it's always the quality of the teaching it's always the quality of the teaching and so we need to figure out and be consistent with how we can support our Educators at the building level at the classroom level to be supported in the things that we are prioritizing if it's College and Career Readiness being able to know which you got a pathway and you know what that pathway is going to be but in

104order to get there we're saying we're going to put our our people our will our skill and our money on third grade reading then that needs to be we need to be really specific about what are the strategies we're going to continue to do no matter in Good Time Financial Times bad f Financial Times it's always about the quality of the teaching the the Fidelity of the curriculum the consistency of the curriculum that educators are uh fully trained and supported and given uh proper feedback so it's if we want high quality Equity driven instruction the teaching that it takes to do that and the leading that it takes to do that when we're doing our budget that's where we need to be prioritizing putting uh uh teaching at the center and so I see a

105number of commonalities within all three of those uh Focus areas of third grade reading seventh grade math and College and Career Readiness so as we're starting to prioritize as I'm starting to think about not starting have been thinking about uh what are the things that we can be consistent about clear about precise about and there's going to be have to be some really difficult decisions that are happening at central office we want our Educators to know the things that they can depend on central office to be able to support them and be re really clear about what we can and then what we unfortunately won't be able to do and so if we are really clear about that it will still be difficult but at least everyone will know what we're what it is that

106we're prioritizing so as Dr Jones is talking about the the self-critique as we're looking at these goals uh president Rankin also mentioned about something uh essentially strategic abandon within some of these goals we're going to have to um prioritize some strategies even if they're promising because we might not have the funds to be able to do it we might not be be able to have the people to do it even though we think they're worthy but if they get in the way of us being able to accomplish those goals of third grade reading seventh grade math in our College and Career Readiness and our Pathways then um we've got uh bigger issues to to focus on on but for us and uh academics and with all the other departments that's where we're we're we're headed

107the headline is what are the things the people that allow us to have highquality Equity centered teaching and the leading that it takes to support that teaching and we can get behind uh some really precise strategies and I think we have some really promising ones that are proving to be important and good and worth supporting financially director song I thank you so much for your response to my lengthy questions um I try to submit as many of the Tactical ones in advance um I do have one more tactical question and I have two other questions um the Tactical question is are we tracking um the are the students taking AP and IB tests and are we tracking how well they are doing on those tests the short answer is yes it's not yet baked into

108these memos but it's something that that we could add I think one thing to note and I know this because Eric Jackson our director of assessment uh gives me updates all the time the the number of students taking AP tests just as an example is at growing exponentially um it's not quite keeping up with the course taking the course completion so we've met that first Mark but I think it's a it's a worthwhile question of should we go to that next Mark of actually ensuring uh that all students are getting the college credits so the great example is that College in the high school which doesn't require passing exam and still gives a CH students a chance is now being funded by the state so that's helping School leaders make Str strategic choices about which

109ones to access but long story short we are tracking it is going up it's not quite matching the same results as course completion um my second question is the one on the screen and I know you provided an answer but I thought it would be a good topic of conversation which is absenteeism has been cited as a challenge for goal one and goal two and I was curious why this isn't as much of an issue since we are on target for goal three or do you perceive it to be a risk um at a later date well I yeah I I do not want to minimize the importance of having students be at school for a variety reasons the access to the excellent instruction so it hasn't been flagged and then we can we can

110get into some of the details in terms of I on a very positive front I do think our Educators over the last few years have uh been making heroic efforts to give students multiple opportunities to catch up to to show their meeting standards that's not it's different than lowering the bar they're really trying to give students a number of retakes I saw my my uh child's world history teacher earlier tonight I know she has given him a number of retakes opportunities and so but beyond the anecdote it does seem to be something that has taken hold I just want to give props to the board the board pushed us for uh to stay consistent on this throughout the pandemic and and so that's one thing that I'd point to is um helping mitigate the real

111issues I did check in with Pat sander today absenteeism is an issue at the high school level there are definitely promising practices that school leaders are implementing but there's a lot more work to be done last question is um you alluded to the fact that perhaps we should have begun a conversation about updating this goal and I'm curious to know what your initial thoughts on what that could be thanks for the opportunity I think it'd be worthwhile to get into the idea of different subject areas and thinking and looking at metrics across subject areas I think the access to math is often a gatekeeper for students and and while we've made a lot of progress there to really track that I think your point about either IB tests or IB diplomas or AP uh test

112completion I think is a worthwhile piece I mean there's so many Rich CCR metrics and I don't what I don't want to get lost is there's some other softer ones like work-based learning experiences um and postsecondary completion like Seattle promise but anyway that the lots of ideas thank you director hery thank you so I had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of Educators before the break talking specifically about the need to update this goal one of the things that they brought to my attention and I've been doing a lot of study on um is the graduation profile that's been produced by OPI um and let me tell you why that's interesting to me just because when we adopted student outcom Smoker's governance that was at the same time that a lot of us were

113having really tough conversations about standardized testing in general and we struggle because there's no really good metric to outside standardized testing at least that has been like Tried by us to identify ways to uh measure growth and Readiness for whatever comes after Seattle Public Schools so after looking at osi's graduation profile I have become incredibly interested in developing something similar for Seattle um and it might be a good opportunity to do some partnership between Educators families to just say like instead of only limiting it to what h knows like what do we want a functioning member of our city to look like and I think that um thanks appreciate it I'll take all the claps I can get um and I think that's just super critical especially as we are in a you know a

114time of disinformation a time when like uh ad advocacy and voter like rates are super low like I think that there's just a bigger picture than what a standardized test can provide um and I know that there's likely going to be a lot of energy around it and I think we would also create a lot more Buy in to student outcomes spoker governance in general if we can find a way to create a profile that's more holistic so my two cents well Educator's two cents but also my two cents um in term and we do have the current current strategic plan is sunsetting and we do need to look at updating the goals and ultim ultimately what our Ro goal as the board is is to serve as representatives of the community in and pushing

115the district for um based on the value vision and values of the community what is it that we want students to know and be able to do what do we expect what does what does you know SE what does Seattle ready mean to us and what are the different ways that students can can access that but I'm going to go back to whatever measure we decide I still really want to see how do you know which one of these are the most effective and how do you know um and and where are there gaps even within our own structure so like the the this is um this is very data light so and we're trying to ask information about what we see reflected in data so we see really positive progress but I also don't

116see um you know what what does this look like for English language Learners what does this look like for students with IEPs who are um both both of which groups overlap and intersect with um African-American males and students of color for from educational Justice and who are consistently in the very bottom so um what does that look like are there things between schools where we know oh this school has implemented inclusive inclusive class this school participated in udl training and we can see that that had a big impact and we can show you that that had a big impact and now here's our plan for how we're going to bring that to more schools that's I mean this is positive and great and I I want to see I want I want to kind of

117Pop the you know open up the hood a little bit more if I'm could shime in Dr Jones you first I'm I'm trying to I want I want to kind of push a little bit to reframe that as maybe a strategic question around what you're seeing and uh and then I mean you can chime in but I'm not sure what question you're going you're going to respond to so it it was a it was an emphatic statement but if there's a strategic question in there can you worked at well the Strategic question really is how do you know which ones are working and I know I already asked that already so you don't but that that I'm not going to stop asking that so the next time we look at the College and Career Readiness

118goal I want to be able to see when I look at the memo that you can that you are showing this is the strategy that we have been working it's going really well look or this strategy that we thought was going to work didn't go as well as we thought and here's why or this you know so that's like just like one one level down because as and I'm I'm I know I kind of already said this but we are going to face really really challenging conversations right so and how do we how do we navigate that and how do we know what to prioritize and what not to prioritize we have to be able to see what's having the impact so if you could give some insight into some of the strategies we've adopted

119some that we've abandoned some that we've doubled down on maybe that could you know further emphasize you know which which is the highest leverage strategy I know we talked about uh Advanced course taking as as one but click into that maybe twice and then uh talk about that particular thing perhaps and what we're doing within that so uh when we bring our new data sets out to be able to speak to the highest leverage uh item we can maybe highlight that as we uh produce the next the next memo absolutely and what this Echoes um assume you weren't in the room it seems like you might have been but in December Dr Jones assistant superintendent Howard and a number of other folks we had a conversation around how each of these need uh what is

120the current state what is the desired State and how are we going to get there in a leading indicator kind of way and a lagging indicator kind of way so the sorry that's that's what I want to see I want to see the leading indicators and the lagging indicators so that we can reflect on the lagging indicators and you can preview for us the leading indicators and yes and that's something that uh Dr Jones's pushing us on and you're reinforcing for us publicly with Dr Jones um can I just say I know that historically SPS has come from a place of fear fear of vulnerability that it is scary to show our work because it is because this is a public meeting and it's so easy to criticize and slam people so I know how

121firmly this board is committed and believes in this work and I promise you that if you bring us something if you show us this didn't work how we thought it would we are not going to grind you into the ground for it we're going to say well what do what do you think we need to do better what support do you need from us to do better so um I'm just it totally I just want to affirm like I this is my fifth year now this is the start of my fifth year and it was through covid and I very like my skin has you know the Grinch's heart grew five times or whatever mine has like iced over and my skin has thickened and it's so I know that it's scary and and I'm

122just saying we're here in support of our Educators our students our whole Community to support the success of Seattle Public Schools so any way I can keep reemphasizing it like please um uh I'm hoping that we as a board can help shift us out of a Culture of Fear to one of support and collaboration so um um do the scary thing and we will not grind you into the ground in public no much much appreciated um the uh public um sharing of this is one that we're learning from to you know we're learning to do this publicly but also internally uh about some of the the the struggles about what to put in what to leave out um and why and and so this uh Clarity is encouraging and I think we're very much aligned

123and whatever it is share what it is and then we can figure it out but uh TR try to make it something that it's not or to minimize or smoke screen we're not about that uh at all either and so um appreciate the encouragement and we will uh we will follow through thank you director top oh there we go make sure it's on uh no I appreciate uh Dr Perkins you're opening up the question of where do we go from here and director hery as well you talking about you know what what could this goal look like now that we you know it's not perfect but we are hitting our Target goals um I have two very hopefully simple clarifying questions the first one is on number five in The Next Step strategies it says

124we are centralizing high school course registration to ensure students and families blah blah blah blah um can you maybe touch on what that means exactly and then question two is you know the list of strategies here you know in order of already underway followed by those that are just getting started can you maybe go through those that are underway and and those that are just getting started absolutely great great question so one thing that we is both the strength and a and a challenge of Seattle Public Schools is that we have 18 high schools and over the years they have learned lots of different ways to be Innovative and connect to their communities but in so doing sometimes it's hard for a family to navigate all the different options in all the different ways so

125what we're trying to do is take a step not fully centralize every single aspect of course registration but at least provide some common information translated in all of our major languages to all students and families about what do you have access to in your high school and over time we would like to make that more consistent it's already happening um so I want to give a again kudos to the school-based staff but that's what that's about so one step we're taking this year we have a document that explains how high school course registration works for all SPS families of rising 9th graders to 12th graders um and as we go forward my my vision is that we will eventually have a common set of classes that that you know that you can access whether you're

126at Roosevelt or in another place that will still allow for local diversity but it would provide some consistency and give the power where we want it to be in the hands of students and families advocating for what they want so that's that that piece in terms of the order I think it's actually something that again Dr Jones pushed for is can you be more in intentional about how you're talking about this so in terms of the use of data is it is one of the examples and I again I'm um happy that the number of counselors were here tonight because they're the ones that have been pushing us to make better data tools so it's not all in the back of a you know piece of paper and all the different things that Excel spreadsheets

127um so that's one where we've made a significant amount of progress and helped uh schools really figure out whether students are on track or off track where we've been transparent with this board uh before speaking of being vulnerable is our high school and Beyond plan data is not where we want it to be it is right now more of a compliance exercise than something meaningful where students are really doing reflecting um so our next steps is to re-engage with our high school leaders we've done a whole revamping including thinking about our students with IEPs and how they connect um but we have a lot of work to do I don't want to read the whole memo but that just gives you kind of a a sense of the spectrum of um things that are on

128track and things that we're just starting hope that helps um so I'm just doing a time check this session was scheduled for an hour so got about you know 9 minutes we don't have to use it all if if directors feel that their questions have been addressed but um and director uh Rivera I have not forgotten you're there if you have any other questions want to give you a give you the opportunity no no it's it's all right um well weird okay this is um Dr Jones anything you want to add before we wrap up and transition to the next the next topic um yeah I just wanted to say we're we're sound like we're building Synergy around your expectations and what we're presenting we can go deeper in terms of uh our data sets

129and bring out uh nuances to to help illuminate what we're trying to do uh one of the things that we've really been we've really been intentional on is trying to be clear around the current state and the desired State and that gap between what are we doing about it uh I think in probably previous uh progress monitoring memos you probably had to sift through to find that now we're trying to make sure that that's sequenced appropriately uh something else that you'll probably see us do uh coming forward is really talking about what Dr stoski said third grade reading builds upon seventh grade math builds upon College and Career Readiness I also believe that there's a it's going to be tricky to do it but the guard rails have have impact on these as well and

130so the the conditions and the climate that we create is really important and then the Third piece on that is really around when we come before you and asking uh there's a section on here that we'll talk about board support I think there's also policy support that we can articulate to to advance things whether we're talking about with the legislature or current policy that needs to be revised or changed or added uh but that's what you'll that's what you'll see uh and then the last piece is are really around I want to bring some clarity around what strategies we've abandoned what strategies we've adopt it and really show The Evolution going forward so uh Advanced coursework inclusion work-based learning and the overall sofg process is really hopefully what you saw here today and we're we're

131going to continue to uh have a continuous Improvement uh mindset on this I saw director sarju got excited when we started talking about leading leading indicators and lagging indicators we're really trying to be extraordinarily intentional with all these steps and so I also want to give kudos to our Educators and our and our school leaders they've really kind of have uh guided Us in in the next steps that we're doing we're not just making it up downtown this is actually ethnographic data around uh how we're how we're making our changes so thank you to my colleagues and thank you to the board for allowing us to talk about progress monitoring thank you very much um since we do have just a couple of extra minutes AJ I know I said that you would just be

132an observer and you and I would catch up later but if you had just a if you have any thoughts you want to share just a couple minutes guidance Reflections um we would take it otherwise I will transition us to the next item no ma'am you all did a wonderful job this evening and I will check in with you uh individually uh but keep up the great work keep up the continuous Improvement happy New Year thank you so much all right um we're going to transition now back to the dice if everyone could take your microphone with you you can leave the rest you know note stuff if you want because we're going to come back here for the budget work session are yeah um does anybody need a quick break are we ready to

133go right to the next thing hang on what are we e uh at the request of directors we are going to take a brief five minute bio break and the board meeting will resume at [Music] 6:30 [Music] e [Music] okay [Music] superintendent [Music] Jones we're going to move on um starting with the consent agenda we have now reach the consent portion of today's agenda may I have a motion for the consent agenda you ready I'll make a motion no you you don't get to but you do have to second you're number LGE confused I knew I had to do something I don't have my talking points president Ranken can I pull the review hang on we have to we have to have a motion on the floor first which we don't have helping me okay

134thank you thank you so many papers I move approve approval of the consent agenda you got a second a second thank you approval of the consent agenda has been moved by vice president seru and seconded by director Briggs do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda uh president Ranken I'd like to remove the review and approval of the 2023 24 Career Technical education and stem annual plan from the consent agenda are there any no you don't have to say are there any other items okay so um we'll we'll return to that item now I need a revised motion to approve the consent agenda as amended if there are no other um items to be pulled I sorry I move for approval of the consent agenda as amended I second

135approval of the consent agenda as amended has been moved by vice president sarju and seconded by director Briggs all those in favor of approval of the consent agenda as amended please signify by saying I I I I I I think that was everybody any opposed any extensions oh I'm sorry director AA I'm not sure if I clocked I said it yeah I okay thank you um this the consent to agenda has passed unanimously thank you um we will now go to the item that was removed Dr top sure um I just had a quick remark on this item so I wanted to pull it from the consent agenda I think we had a missed opportunity last week to not really have a conversation uh a full conversation as a board about this item and I

136just really want to thank uh uh Brian day our CT and stem director and Dr Perkins for this really amazing work um you know we just finished talking about College and Career Readiness um and this I think is part of that and I I want to thank all the uh Educators who do this work every day who share their passions and their skills uh with our students um my dad graduated from rer Beach High School and it was you know shop and woodworking that kept him in school and he was a carpenter for the rest of his life and so which supported my family so I think this is really critical work and just wanted to give a a moment and a shout out to all the folks who do this so that's that is

137why I pulled it um other than that I'd love to see it move forward great thank you and apologies when it was pulled I did not ask for a motion so so now I will ask for that motion so that we can vote on it do I need to say you do it um you'll need to make a motion to approve the item that was pulled which should be in talking points there you good it's okay for the audience I'm learning my role this is my first go at it this is our our vulnerability and learning in public and if I had it my way this is not how we would be doing it totally fine nevertheless I move that the board approve the 2024 career inal Ed education plan as attached to this board

138action report it is in the best interest do we is that the additional thing or no okay second the motion thank you uh Miss Wilson Jones the roll call please director Rivera hi vice president sarju Hi I director song Yes director top I um I don't think it came through on the mic so director s did vote Yes um director Briggs I director hery I and president Rankin I this motion is passed unanimously thank you um we have now come to the board sorry give me one second board comments um we haven't had any committee meeting since our last boarding board meeting to report on um I gave a brief legislative update um the only thing I will mention right now is a a very brief acknowledgement of something that has been in the news

139which is uh the question of residency of one of our directors um state law and board policy have requirements around um eligibility to hold positions and it's individual candidates affirm upon filing for election that are eligibility and we are responsible for complying with state law and commitments made when we take oath of office in terms of uh consideration or authority to make any kind of determination on membership of the board the board does not have the authority or obligation um resignation is at the discretion of the individual authority to determine eligibility of elected officials to hold office Falls to King County elections I wanted to state that just to clarify that I know it's something that is public and that what our role um as a board is which is um it's it's not in

140our uh purview to to um to address as a board and um do we have any other uh liaison reports I'm assuming probably not because we it we were on break but if anybody else has a leon report or any other board business sure real quickly I have a community meeting coming up on January 28th that I wanted to invite the board and the public to it's going to be on January 28th at 1:30 p.m. at higho library so please come and join that's that's it thank you Madame President if you're bringing it I have my hand up oh sorry I'm sorry director director Rivera all right sorry thank you no um yeah I just wanted to give a a very a quick um report uh from Head Start I I'm the his start on

141and I meet with them monthly I just to get updates on their enrollment and um professional development of teachers and um all the great stuff they do so I just want to let you know that um things are still going uh very well with them they are actually part of one of the news items is that um they've out of discussions with deal um they've got they're getting uh funding for expanding two SP classes into S Plus which means it will be inclusive classrooms at two locations um in our district so um that has been a goal that they're working towards um to make their classrooms more inclusive and open spaces for the um the actually you know a growing number of preschool students who are being that you know being um evaluated uh for

142iips and special services so um it's great that we're making room and available spaces for those students and making them inclusive classrooms uh again um they do fantastic work in Head Start in our pres school program so just my shout out to them um also um separately for my own engagement I've been invited to attend um the North Beach uh PTA uh membership meeting uh next month and I would invite two other directors if they want to join me there um they would love hearing from us and I just want you know they want to hear about things that a lot of of school families are concerned with right now um what um school is going to look like you know how they can have an impact or input on that process and obviously the

143budget um that that we're looking at so uh message me separately and if you want to join me that would be great thank you thanks Lisa and thanks for the reminder actually um I think it's great we let each other know when we're going to do that Outreach um So Lisa is going north beach I was um asked uh as legislatively aison to join with um jenesy Hill PTA and talk to them about funding and such and so of course asked director top to join me as that's in her area so that'll be that's I think February 5th um so that's great directors out and about and to be I want to be fair um I was also invited to um Adam's Elementary too but I unfortunately can't make that date but I just I

144didn't want them think I forgot about them I I can't make it anyways but um but it's great when we get invited to school for those meetings and I encourage you know all schools to invite us whenever they can because we love out there please and we look forward to um uh getting uh being shared back to as a board what what you learn and I know um director top and I will do the same um from jenesy Hill uh so that we can connect all those points so thank you for that reminder and for bringing that up Lisa I uh director Briggs um so I am meant to report back about my experience at the boot camp for wasda um oh yes as part of those of you may or may not remember when

145we um uh when when wasda General uh or annual session meets we as a board approve authorize those who are elected but have not yet taken office to participate in training and part of the um resolution that's required is that those directors um provide uh an update on the experience a book report um I'll keep I'll keep it really short um I was really grateful to have the opportunity to go um it was great to connect with other board directors and superintendents across the state um just so you know I was at a table with like U the Eatonville school district superintendent and new board directors and they have 2,000 kids in their school district and I was like wow that's so different um but it was great it was really great to talk to

146all those folks um we also a lot of the day was centered around this Washington Schoolboard standards a re research-based framework for Effective Schoolboard governance which um really aligns with student outcomes Focus governance and so it was it was um it was just really reassuring to know that this is sort of evidence-based what school districts across the state are doing um this is this is a not a crazy thing that we're doing it's very much in line with all the other school districts in our state um and this book kind of I think also um Gan and I were talking director top and I were talking earlier about how there's just so much information coming at you all at once and having a framework is so important for figuring out where do I even put

147this information and what is my actual role here um and I found this um this document to just be really helpful in explaining that and it is available as a pdf online at wasda um website if anybody really would like to delve into it so that um that basically sums it up for me it was it was a great experience um and then lastly I will be attending the Sandpoint Elementary School PTA meeting on February 13th and would love any company if anybody would like to join me because it's a great little school and one of my my kids goes there so thank you thank you any other comments I will um if there are no other I'm gonna make a comment um so my comment is focused on um president ranking the the thing

148that you just read um and so what I I'm going to I'm going to read this which is not how I usually do but I want to keep it short my comments today will focus on two things doing what is right and a rupture in trust right now I'd rather be about the business of ensuring we are providing the best possible education to the students of SPS instead we have a different issue before us this situation is not about what is legal or not while this the situation may compel legal questions that is not the real issue the issue is that a board director is occupying a seat they are no longer eligible to hold this is different from something being illegal and it's important that we understand this difference I'm not going into specifics

149on this issue I believe what is important is that the focus should be on doing what is right for my student director board member here today this situation represents what we should do when we find ourselves in a situation where our past decisions have created a scenario of unintended consequences As Leaders we must focus on what is right for the good of the whole not as what is best for me or you as an individual the other concern here is the reality of broken trust again I'm not going to talk about specifics and nevertheless the math is not adding up we have a lot of work to do and having broken trust hinders our ability to proceed with our best work in service to students I don't want to spend time getting to the bottom

150of this I want to spend the time focusing on the biggest challenges that we face that will impact the students of this District I pivot back to a previous statement having the distraction of this unresolved issue will tax our attention and it is not for the good of the whole most of the whole being our need to focus on our students I encourage all leaders including myself to make decisions that are good for the whole that is the best good that can come out of a difficult situation thank you see no further comments we can um move from our our business portion back to a work session and uh gear up for 90 fun minutes of budget talks minutes 90 90 fun minutes it's scheduled for 90 minutes on the agenda um if we get

151through it faster than that we get through it faster than that but it is one of our um 11 discussions about the very serious issue of next year's budget so let us grab our microphones and head on over to the tables for the work session thank you um I think we are able to confirm the there is um sound and teams that's coming through in the transcript so I will work with director AA to troubleshoot okay thank you all righty let's see okay budget work session oh I'm gonna pause this just for a real quick Tech issue I'm gonna make it sound terrible in here for a second by unmuting my computer to make sure um so if you could speak or thank you for the war do you want me to talk do you

152want to hear thank you for your patience we are addressing a technical issue and I am speaking so that we can determine whether or not the sound issue is being corrected Ellie Wilson Jones will let us know thank you I think we're good to go it it seems to be a device issue for director rera okay all right thank you uh superintendent Jones please uh take it away yeah thank you um this is uh budget work session number five of 11 that we're hosting um the the ideal scenario is that we are providing enough information for both the board and the public to have some insight into what we are contemplating and what we are thinking about uh in terms of our process today's session will focus on where where we are current state in

153terms of the next steps that we have in front of us as we prepare for the May 8th ultimate uh date of providing a budget a budget plan to you next slide so we'll be focusing uh on eight items in this agenda is to look at the timeline for the 2425 budget we will discuss the budget development goals goals and principles uh and this is a an additional item that we're going to talk about today but a review of the annual financial report we'll have a uh light touch on the governor's budget update uh then the legislative update uh update on the overall budget development process and 2526 uh a view into that and then uh an update on community engagement next slide please this is in your packet you see this is a reminder

154of the timeline um we we refer to this as the Shoots and Ladders the the snake um but anyway this is the these are the requisite steps to get to the 11 sessions uh last board meeting we had uh approval of a resolution for the fiscal stabilization plan which had some specific items in there that uh the board authorized the superintendent and team to start to pursue and analyze today uh the 17th which is starred is the the date that we're going to talk about again just keeping you informed around the budget development process next slide please uh you've also seen this slide before uh it's it's worthy to be restated that uh this goal one of the goals is to stabilize our financial future to fund to be able to fund our highest priorities

155as we talked about in the progress monitoring uh what are we going to do to make sure sure those uh highest priorities are are funded and we we work to uh stabilize that we can have the the resources to allocate appropriately we want to also resolve long-term Decades of structural deficit spending uh as as we can recall we don't have the levers and the resources that we once had to uh consistently move forward without a reconcile budget now we have to um we're at the end of the ability to Kick the Can if you will and our goal is to display fiscal stewardship and responsibility and as why while we do that we want to ensure that we prioritize quality instruction and and in learning uh you heard us talk about that in progress monitoring

156uh we also uh ascribe to having uh the presupposition that we have good faith efforts and that we share in the same values uh some of our challenges on how we get there but I think our values are congruent in Anonymous um the teamwork is really important the board and superintendent uh aka the staff we're one team aspiring for the same goals and then we must be clear on the challenges and opportunities in front of us and that's that's our effort to be transparent uh next slide please and we'll have uh Dr Bulman our assistant superintendent for finance speak to us about the 2223 annual Financial report thank you Dr Jones um want to thank director song for prompting some questions in the the board questions uh I don't think typically this annual financial report

157has been presented to the board at a work session um I think it's a practice that we should start doing going forward um so today we're going to have a truncated version of the annual financial report to highlight some of the issues that um happened in the 22 23 year to help inform decisions for the 245 budget process this slide is just a a snippet from the website where we've reorganized some of the financial information so Community is always asking where to find the information so we put the highlevel audited financial statements the f195 the budget document and the f196 which is this annual financial report all on one page for accessibility and transparency of information and then we'll be populating the monthly reports that the board reviews there as well so when people are

158looking for financial information it's all available in one place we can go to the next slide this is a um highlevel overview of the revenues that the school district receives couple things to point out here that are of importance um kind of Midway or halfway down the federal grants you'll see a significant decrease from 127 million to 77 million between those two periods of time um that's mostly the lapsing of the Esser funding the covid funding from the federal government and you'll see that it has had an impact on the the ability of the district to generate revenue and provide some of those um resources that were available through that funding the rest of that um couple of highlights there the other categories primarily the cities um FF Levy funding that comes to the sale

159public schools and then the slight increases in the other categories are typically cost of living adjustments um inflationary increases and some other smaller things that happen with the levy um how that infl atates over time with the CPI we can go to the next slide this is just a snapshot of how those pieces all fit together on a graph um and you'll see that the the portion M section of that the state contribution directly for general education is only about 52% of the whole and so significant um supplemental revenues coming into the sale Public Schools like many school districts across the state of Washington on top of that uh portion and amount we can go to the next slide here's a piece of the report that's expenditures by the program so highlighting um the large

160majority of the funding um expenditures are in the instructional category in one way or another um with Support Services being another one that includes things like busing special education other types of um support services for students and then there's that $1 billion dollar again so we talk about that from time to time that the school district has a significant amount of resources to do our work um it's just a matter of making the right decisions on how to prioritize those the next slide please and this is just for um board members community members who want to sort of know a little more detail about what each of those program expenditure categories mean wanted to include that in this presentation um so that folks had a better understanding being new to K12 funding I've sort of

161learned that some of the acronyms and things that are assumed that we all know are not as understandable as we might think and so trying to be more transparent about some of that information for folks that um don't live and breathe this every day next slide please here's a different way of looking at that expenditure that $1.1 billion and expenditures and you'll see and this gets talked about um quite a bit the large majority as is appropriate of expenditures for Public School District are in um salaries and wages and benefits and so approximately 82% last year was what ended up being spent on Personnel expenditures um you'll see a slight increase there in the purchase Services a lot of that is around special um contracts for special education um and then you'll see some of

162the reductions that the district has been making um exemplified there in supplies of materials going down and some of the other categories the capital outlay increase was a function of a gby pronouncement and how we account for some of the longer term software purchases and so um that's why that looks bigger it isn't a significant change in the software that is being purchased just a way of accounting for it is a little bit different now we can go to the next slide yes here's a way of looking at that um graphically again 82% is in salaries wages and benefits um you'll see um some of the other categories and how small they are by comparison something that's important for the school district and the school board to understand is the fund balance um and here's

163some details around that so you'll see um the big takeaway from this slide is that the sale Public Schools fund balance decreased by $41 million um for the school year 2223 as compared to 2122 um so this is the structural deficit that we talk about and there's exemplified here in this fund balance um slide and we'll get into a little bit more detail on that assigned fund balance um so the assigned fund balance they're seeing on there that $115 million is another way of saying committed fund balance and so um we're not going to spend the inventory that's on the slide we're not going to spend the restricted Grant monies on just general obser General expenditures and assign fund balance is what we Ed to balance the budget the last few years and we have

164some other things attached to it and we go to the next slide on that can I quickly add to that that um uh just to put a little bit of a finer point on it that the the fund balance is often what I think is this is true in Seattle public schools by know districts across the state it is what starts starts your next school year before um Revenue comes from the state for that current school year so that's what the assigned means is it's not just oh sweet we have $10 million left over from this year that we can spend that's actually already committed either to backfill for expenditures that have happened and not been um reconciled or to start the school year with money and be able to pay out salaries contracts whatever

165that's starting before the next year's Revenue comes in from the state um I just sometimes fund ending fund balance looks like leftover money for whatever but it's it's already committed for um usually the following year uh no that we're going to have other deficits to make up so just in case that was I just wanted to clarify that thank you um to piggyback on that the third fourth and fifth lines of this slide are a good illustration of that you'll see the the dedication of the economic stabilization account that happened last year to balance the 2324 budget um so that was essentially taking from savings and assigning it to balance and to to start the next year's budget um similarly that $21 million $21.93 million um was used to balance last year's budget at the

166end of the 223e the one that we're currently reviewing the financial statement on right now there was $ 32.3 million of um money that was left over that was under the budget or under the revenue that came in and the this slide is assigning that as the board potentially to assign to the next budget balancing exercise for 245 as was done in 2324 and so that $32 million um is a starting point for consideration and balancing that $104 million deficit that we face for the 245 budget period that was a lot on one side does that make sense to folks and we'll get a little more in detail about how that $32 million came about on the next slide then this is that slide sort of blown up into sort of diving down to the

167next next level um by category here so the revenue that we achieved um for 2223 exceeded what was in the budget for 2223 if you total those top six lines by about $24 million and so the budget for 2223 anticipated a number of students the number of students that showed up was 597 more than that for the 22 23 that doesn't mean enrollment went up it just means that the number that was assigned in the budget was smaller than what actually happened um so there was a $6 million Revenue increase that year because of that um the way that was projected at that time and then you can kind of run down the other items there the levy there was H it was a high inflation year and so the levy went up accordingly and

168that was another $3.6 million that was achieved for the the budget um and then the next one there the transportation funding model the next largest number um was part of the emerging from Co and how Transportation was going to play out and you'll see an offset down below where our costs exceeded what we thought was going to be in the budget and so trying to figure out what exactly is going to happen with the revenue coming in for transportation from the state versus what we're actually going to spend as we transitioned out of covid with two providers for the first time in the school district's history and so there's some sort of uncertainty that was happening there and those two numbers exemplify that uncertainty with Transportation um the largest number here that was to the

169good in terms of that um adding up to that $32 million at the end of the year was vacant position savings and so school district of about $800 million in salary costs is going to have some vacancies um s public schools has put in place some internal processes to review all those vacancies to make sure it is a position that is important to continue while um and take advantage of any vacancy savings and so this number is higher than typical in part because it was kind of slowed down in each position is being analyzed differently in terms of whether it's something that does continue for could be combined with a different department or how we can approach the work differently um you'll see the next largest number there to the negative oh can you go

170back to that slide the labor cost in inrease so we've talked a couple times since I've been here about the fact when um there's an ipd increase for faculty or for back to my colle for teachers and staff um it isn't always offset completely by the monies that we get from the state so we have people on the levy we have more te teachers or administrators than the prototypical model um would assume and so there is a cost for each increase we have on ipd to the district there was also a couple labor can you define ipd implicit price deflator or it's Cola is how others would refer to it um it's just the number that's used by the state to increase salaries recently um I just wanted to make sure yeah no per no

171keep keep checking me on that um as I learn more about them I'm going to be worse at being more clear about them so continue to check me on that um you'll see the large negative there is the labor cost and so there were a few significant contracts that were negotiated that year sea um this also includes the Sub sub reimbursement practice um some sick leave that accured and was paid out in that year sub substitutes on contract costs and so again it's a large number also it's $800 million of the billion dollars and so you wouldd expect that to be a large number um as the district a tries to pay its staff and its teachers um um what they need to be paid to do this work and to live here in Seattle

172um add all that subtract the ones that were sort of um negatives and that's 32.3 million that was the the leftover for lack of a better way of saying it from the 2223 um budget that was a lot of information folks have further questions about that and uh Fred and Dr Jones and I can have talked about continu to be continuous Improvement on this and have more of this type of information um provided to the board on a regular basis and so again thank the director song for raising this as a question um and so that it just wasn't the annual financial report at the back of the the agenda that people might or might not look at and just give it a little bit more visibility because I think that context is super important

173right now oh go ahead thank you so much for the work you put into putting slide 14 together which I think very interesting um can you help us just sort of understand as we're preparing the 24 25 budget of these fences which are sort of one time and which ones are Trends so we can kind of plan ahead that is a great question I first want to give credit to Linda Sebring who's behind me who put this slide together um with her staff um and you may not be able to answer that question now but I think that's an important question we should try to address um and my second question then is um so 20 b if I'm understanding this right 22 23's budget came out with $32 million um expenditures less than Revenue

174that was coming in yes and and the plan is that this will be uh assigned to the 2425 budget and so so when we're thinking about the 100 million uh Gap that we're trying to close this 32 will go directly to the 100 million as a solution I don't want to speak for the superintendent's recommendation but that will be my recommendation okay um to use this as the starting point I do want to remind us all that those are um red Lego that we would be using so it's onetime funding that we wouldn't be able to rely on going forward but it is something that is is available and could be a good uh start to solving that $14 million situation okay and um right now we're starting with a zero economic stabilization fund right

175okay I just want to make sure I got and we'll get into some of the details on that later in the presentation thank you uh I just thank you so far this presentation is um I just kind of nudged superintendent Jones and says this is what I'm talking about show show your work let us see what you know what these numbers mean how they are I also really appreciate um some of the the breakdowns on previous pages are moving us towards um using some of the same language that other districts are using so at the at the state level there's a Code there's a state code for school budget and finance that's that gets super specific there's like a series of numbers and the first one is and it gets it gets like there'll be

176a number for Staffing and then for instruction and then for you know ni what whatever that that gets more and more specific and um uh it sometimes has been as the legislative leas on it has sometimes been challenging to work with other districts when we're using kind of this is how Seattle is presenting this information and it's actually it's really hard to look Apples to Apples with other even though we're much larger our percentages I mean our amounts are going to be larger but you know a lot of times um you know we need to look at like last year's legislative session special education funding we could see that the percentage of deficit that District were facing was very much very similar um and we were able to see that because we're using similar numbers

177but it honestly took me a little while to get that information out of SPS to be able to even talk to other um uh districts about Collective advocacy around that um and and so just thank you for laying this out more and thank you also I I don't know I was on a email chain with um director top also asking and that was maybe I don't know two days ago about the finance and then here we have it reflected so I just really appreciate us being able to look at this together and better understand really where does all the money go it's um it's yeah extremely um extremely helpful and uh maybe you're going to talk about this more but the um oh yeah you know I'll wait because you're going to talk about the

178governor's budget never mind yeah thank you I I guess I have a few questions on if we can get into the details and if you don't have answers please just let me know we can follow up later the on slide six the in the other category the additional sort of 15 million you mentioned City Levy can you that that that that additional is from the city Levy can you expand on that a little bit so the school district and I Look to Dr Jarvis and Jones to fill in some of the um instructional or academic parts of this the school districts the beneficiary of the families education preschool and promise Levy um I was the promise person on that in my previous life so I think I used to put promise first but now it's

179preschool first um I think that's the official name um that the school district gets to supplement um the instruction and the supports at a certain number of schools and some preschool funding to provide preschool for some of our families and I'll look to Dr Jones or Jarvis to fill in some of the details around that if you want to I'll defer to Dr Jarvis if there's some specifics you want to talk about in terms of our instructional model but it's it's just very much simple supplemental and going back to the one-time funds um while these have been ongoing we still don't want to balance the budget with onetime funds so I wanted to go back to the previous couple slides back that's going to be critical for us and we we have to be clear

180eyed about when we're balancing if it's if it's onetime funds if it's a sale of a property or something like that we need to be we need to be explicit about that and and not think that that debts not going to come back later on and so uh well we're grateful for the levy funds we're not assuming that they they'll always be they'll always be there and the the city doesn't just cut us a check the it's a grant-based program so schools have to apply for the grants to to fund a certain need um and that uh the requirements of the grants and the um uh priorities of the city have over the life of the levy sometimes changed so when it when it way first started it was to fund family support workers and

181wraparound Services for Families and it has over the years really strayed from that and become a lot about academic coaching and things that um that are you know our students have pretty serious needs that um that's not necessarily what we would ask for the money for but that's what it was assigned to be for some time so that I feel like that is is coming back to I hope and I and I and I feel that the switch back to uh the city recognizing that that's not just supplemental for our instructional program we actually need that money to provide support to students that we can't already provide through basic education and um this just the the mental health counseling money too that the student Seattle Student Union fought so hard for that is also similarly

182not coming as one check to Seattle Public Schools to spend how we want that will be granted out from the city to schools so that's one example of how we can't necessarily rely on that as part of our operating budget because it's it's it's all grant-based it's not um it's not up to us fully how that gets um budgeted and that Levy is up for renewal in 25 I believe so I guess if I can continue on uh director song asked a little bit about the school carry forward so thir on slide 13 uh and you mentioned I think like 4.9 is the accumulated sub reimbursement fund uh required to remain of the schools from the CBA can you explain a little bit about what that is or maybe give back to me um and

183then I guess second part of that question is has in budgeting processes in the past for a school has that school carry forward ever been called back the first question I can give the highlevel answer to I would hesitate get into a lot of detail but um in the CBA there's language around when you have a substitute someone's going to cover that class and if you're not paying a sub directly that money acrs to the school to be used for kind of whatever the school determines is the best use of that paying that teacher who had the extra work to do or something else for that school is that in line with your understanding Dr Jones and Fred okay your second question was oh I will say sub reimbursement for Subs is something that's being

184discussed at the legislature this session that's an issue that not this specific issue but just the the difference in allocation from the state and the actual cost to districts of funding Subs is there's a there's a gulf there um and so that is something that's substitute um compensation is specifically being addressed this year thank you for that there is a also called Subs reimbursement from the state where that amount we get from the state has hasn't been increased for some by something like 30 years and so it's a significant budget impact and not I'm forgetting your second question I'm sorry call yeah calling back sort of the school carry forward know not not in recent memory and so just even bringing that up as a topic is uh going to make a few folks Twitchy

185but we're we're in kind of scarce times right now so we we may have to do some of that uh going forward but uh I don't remember any time in the last decade or so uh Linda probably can help us with that with that historical record but it's it's rare still on slide 13 so the I understand that the legal settlements outside council is not part of the legal department budget but how is this um estimated in budgets going forward yeah I think I would defer to uh Greg to talk about that and I would assume since it's legal settlements that might be an executive session topic that would be useful all right can we go to the next slide yeah if you guys can see it can you hear me director Rivera please thank

186you um oh I don't see the slide now um let me see on SL 14 and maybe this was uh discussed I'm sorry I had to I had to get a little guy into the bathtub so I might not have heard it but um under expenditures I see vacant position savings um a how is that an expenditure and B um are those you know positions that we you want to fill cuz I'm worried that we're calling it a savings but at the same time you know we we desperately need some of these positions to be filled especially I know like um all of our special classrooms so um can you expand upon that the way it's displayed on the slide is that it's a a source of Revenue not Revenue but it's a source of

187income that we didn't anticipate because we had vacancies U to the tune of about $25 million in the discussion we had a little bit earlier was the superintendent and his team are looking closely at all the vacancies to make sure that we're not just replacing positions because they've always been there but really looking at them to see if there's some Synergy or efficiencies that we can gain by um combining things or looking at things a little bit differently and so it's a savings and not a an expenditure so yes the the display of that probably could be a little bit clearer thank you thank you any more questions about the last eight slides or so that was uh around our annual financial report uh any commentary around how that's represented we want to make sure

188again we're it's it's uh clear and uh coherent yeah I I don't know and this maybe is what director song mentioned um if if I think this is a great practice to to look at the actuals from the year before um is this something we can expect to continue and be able to compare year-over-year for to the trend question that was asked yes and is that valuable for you as well as absolutely Lindon and I are very excited about this great great thank you all right so the the governor uh released his Budget on December 13th and U the highlights are focusing on special education and support to School District staff uh however uh this is a proposal and the house and the Senate will offer their own prop their own proposals uh so this

189could be moderately different or radically different so uh we won't know what the final supplemental operating budget is until March 7th the last day of the legislative session hopefully and so um director Rankin do you have any any additional statements around the governor's budget I know you've been keeping a closeable watch on it you may know more about it than any of us I I do thank you so it's good to remember that the governor's budget is a proposal the governor basically presents to the legislature here's what I think we should finalize for the rest of the year um and then yes the Senate and the house will each make budget proposals and then they'll they'll just like any other Bill bring it together and try to hash out some kind of agreement so um

190so this says per the document that the governor put out with his budget the governor's proposed 2024 supplemental budget prioritizes Washington special education students and provides much needed support to District staff these investments will continue to support the growing needs of Washington students and School Employees kind of so the governor's proposed budget does have in it um uh raising the cap on special education the cap is um when we evaluate kids for uh disabilities and the need for special education uh if you qualify you qualify K children are evaluated by um a psychologist specialists in child development and teach Educators and sta it it's not easy to get an IEP you have to meet uh a child has to meet um uh requirements that are determined at the federal level in 13 different categories of

191disability you also can have a disability and not qualify for an IP um so the uh in the general population people with disabilities are about one in five is an estimate our state provides additional funds to districts on a per pupil basis based on the number of students who are qualified for an IEP so every student has a general education allocation then if you qualify for an IEP they also say okay here's this much more allocation it doesn't go right to that student it goes to the district's General special education fund um until our state has a limit on how many kids they think should be disabled basically um which is a real civil rights issue as you can imagine so it used to be capped at um 13.5% the cap was raised last year

192to 15% we by the end of school year hover I think somewhere closer to 177% there are some districts across the state that don't identify that many students there are some that identify more the worry is that oh if we remove the cap districts will just pass out IEPs like confetti and our budget will go through the roof that's not true you have to it's an evaluation for a disability right if this is a civil rights and access issue for students and there's not a limit to how many children are allowed to be disabled and access education but there is in Washington state so in terms of of the supplemental budget it does prioritize by proposing lifting that again to 17.5% .25% there's a bill uh in the Senate that also is proposing that we

193have supported it as it's an increase however the elimination of the cap to meet the needs of our students and uh acknowledge their civil rights to access education according to federal law would requ require that it be eliminated 17.25 is better than 15 there still will be districts that identify more students so the governor's proposed budget does make that investment eliminating it would be better um so but here's the very kind of tricky thing is that um there's a capital gains tax that was voters approved it with the understanding that that would supplement already existing Ed educational Investments the governor's budget sweeps that into ongoing operating costs and diverts other funds away from K12 so it's not actually a net increase and it's also not what voters approved when they approved the capital gains tax

194and the problem with that is that the capital gains tax this year has yielded significant L more dollars than anticipated but it won't necessarily do that every year so the supplantation of funds is is a problem so um there are positives there are negatives there are things that we are watching and um uh again yeah the governor's budget is a proposal and proposals come from from the other from the legislative bodies as well um yes yes since oh sorry director hery I just had a quick uh question on the capital gains tax it's my understanding that the vast majority of the capital gains tax we wouldn't have seen anything really in K12 correct if I'm not mistaken most of it goes to Early Learning uh Early Learning and then School construction School construction so Capital

195so the Early Learning uh portion of it is is committed yeah it's the above that that was more Loosely committed but still committed to funding um K12 expenditures across the the state um that money is at risk of supplantation okay so would with that would even with supp supplantation is this supplementation supplementation whatever the word is even with the moving of funds would there be less restrictions on the funds that actually came in to where we could use them outside of school construction and and that doesn't need to be answered right now if I'm super interested in so if you could find it later that' be the basically um Capital funds are we don't want to replace operating funds with capital funds that may or may not be there in the next year so that

196would be the danger in in that case couldn't we then just use the money that was coming in if it was allocated for Capital funds then we would we could release money in our budget that we had set aside for Capital funds nope oh okay because we we our Capital funding comes from local levies and it is legally restricted to that purpose you can't you can't swap Capital funding over to operating costs so our operating costs generally borrow from that right no yes oh okay okay um and it's very very limited the time frame that it would H if we were to borrow from that we would be it's usually done with a cash flow issue that's going to be reimbursed very quickly it has to be approved by the legislature it's very tightly um

197controlled we cannot ask our voters to approve a capital Levy for Capital funds and then say Oh actually we're gonna do this other thing with it and that's not only you know uh violating the trust and the will of the voters but it is highly rest Red by the state as an equity issue which it is but also they should Bond Capital so so let's go to the next slide and and look at the budget impact right here locally at SPS and Dr will you take it away yeah so there are a few areas the governor's budget contemplates um that first one we talked a little bit about um so 3.8% col of for staff um his budget has $17.2 million to cover that but our cost would actually be about $25.8 million so um

198about an $8.6 million reduction would result from that um the thing we were just talking about sort of Midway down the page there the special ed cap change from 15% to 17 and a quarter um we're currently estimating Seattle to have 15.78% of students with IEP IEPs which would result in about $4.7 million in additional funding sorry just to add to that our students that are ident ified that are over the cap it doesn't mean that we don't provide services I want to be really clear we do we are ethically legally morally required to provide those Services they are it's it's again a a civil rights issue to allow to provide access to education for students with disabilities so even though the state doesn't doesn't fund beyond that cap we still provide services and support

199um and it ends up being supplemented by our local levies which are supposed to be for enrichment but so it's basically which do we want to um do we want to not fulfill Our obligation to students and Ida and federal law and not fund above 15% or do we want to use what's supposed to be enrichment to actually fund basic education that is the choice that we have because it is chronically underfunded at the state level and at the federal level actually the other thing on this slide is the bottom number there you'll see the planning assumption prior to the governor's budget was about a $6.8 million reduction um so his budget uh $3.7 million more than we anticipated if that were to become the the budget law and it won't but this is just

200a rejection on what the the governor's impact would have been for us just for a sense of scale I think the next slide is about the legislature so just very briefly uh you all can see the key dates here in in the last slide we talked or the governor's update slide we talked about March 7th being the last day for the regular session so uh this is really what it looks like we've already started in Earnest and now uh uh you'll see the the the corresponding dates here and so uh director raikit any legislative update comments around where we need to be perhaps and uh from our legislative agenda um no you know I sent uh well oh No I gave a very vague brief update but basically there we there is potential to make

201progress monetarily even though it's not a budget year but there's you know there's a number of things that tend to swing around um as trade-offs are made and bills F Fall by the wayside um but we'll continue to you know check on those um uh staff will analyz as the impact of different bills as they evolve y um and I sent out an email to directors today of just a reminder of what we do during legislative session if you want information um contact Bev and Bev will get that from the appropriate staff and then distribute it to everybody um we are just things move very quickly and we're constant conversation with our lobbyist with other partners advocating for the for similar things and um you know I talk to board directors from other districts a

202lot um I forgot to say in my comments uh I uh as a wasda board member but I would be going anyway as our legislative Leon I will be in Olympia uh not this weekend but next weekend for like four three three days um and where wasda has legislative conference and any director is welcome to attend you can come down for the day you can come down for an afternoon um but I will be there as a wasda board member but also representing us and we will be meeting with uh we have some some sessions that are just that it's in collaboration with some other state organizations around education and then on um the Monday I think or we have meetings with different committees and so um I am excited to tell you all about

203that and actually not to put you on the spot Dr Jones but if you want to join me for any of that let's coordinate schedules we'll make it happen absolutely so uh this next section and uh this will be the last section we'll talk about the update on the budget development process for 2425 uh Dr bman will kind of walk walk us through uh where we are right now and then what what we're referencing as the levers that we're going to pull to really get us into uh balance so Dr bman please can we go yes and this is Loosely based on the resolution that you all passed in December s the presentation um this slide is back to our Lego metaphor from previously um State superintendent re doll has a set of Legos in

204his office that he uses to show the different sources of funding and how some of them are more sustainable than others and so we've I've sort of adopted that on some level and those those red the red on the slide um are one-time things that have been used to to plug the deficit in previous years and so the next two years you see on the slide are the the Year we're talking about in terms of developing budget and then the the following year and the the projected deficits at this time and how we fill those in using one-time funds like that $32 million we talked about earlier ongoing funds like reductions or Revenue increases or legislation like we or legislative funds like we've been talking talking about right now so just setting the context there

205a little bit next slide please one of the the tools I think to take Dr Jarvis's uh words uh that was in the resolution is reductions and adjustments in central office staffing and expenses so an update on where that stands in the 2034 budget construction there was an assumption of an $18 million further reduction at the John Stanford center and the associated services that come from here um on top of the $32 million that was reduced out of last year's budget so that's where we started in October we sent that information out to leadership said can you get to this $18 million um and now we're sort of digesting that information trying to start to make decisions around how we canot Impact Services here or at the schools and continue to do the work that

206needs to be done in the school district and so you'll see there the process of meeting with budget managers has begun um this week where the budget team meets with the managers tries to better help everybody better understand the budget and where reductions or resour or synergies or efficiencies could be gained uh going into the 245 so one of the areas of recommendation that the superintendent will have will how to approach any reductions here at the central office and what impacts they may or may not have at the schools or otherwise Fred you were here last year when this was going on do you have anything you want to add yeah I so our Target um for fiscal year uh 23 24 had been 36 million which was a much higher you know as a

207proportion and as an absolute number um much larger uh reduction and adjustment than the central office had ever experienced before and so um it we aimed high and 32 was actually um an enormous uh accomplishment on the part of central office leaders um we are trying to get into kind of multi year framework of how we think about this um this is not particularly sophisticated but the 18 million that we modeled for this year was just 50% of our Target for last year that's how we came up with that number um not to spoil any punchlines for Dr butelman staff have identified um a number in excess of this and um Dr bulman's team is working um diligently with departments to see so what do those you know work harder on risks and the impacts

208of that um we're not going to recommend uh I I doubt we're going to recommend anywhere near that size of number but a significant piece of it half let's say as a you know seems like that's within the realm of possibility so I guess I just want to point out that um uh central office departments have really dug deep and worked hard um um to find this and um again this is a totally new territory um for this dist District in terms of uh the amount of collaboration the amount of creativity and um now we really have to weigh each one so which of these are theoretically possible and which of these are um something that we would recommend to Dr Jones does the 18 million or I guess it will be an excess of

20918 million does that include the 5 million from bus transportation no no that's over and above that's over and above and again people did a good job of finding that number in excess of 18 million um many of those things we've already identified oh the risks of this are too high but I I um people have come to play that that um you know we're asking them to do the impossible and they're giving us options which is will be important to the superintendent and the board and then there's impacts and how people do work currently that will have to be different in the future if we have two people from different departments approaching the same task um separately now one department needs to take that on because the other department has less resources things like

210that are what uh are being wrestled with now in terms of how to approach this just a little bit more detail on the direction that you gave um to the Departments and what their process was um we asked them to identify risk we asked them to make the connection um that uh has been alluded to earlier in this uh meeting tonight about so how does this relate to our strategic goals how would it impact our strategic goals are there embedded Equity issues and Service delivery issues for students um you know where can we maintain students where um can we focus on sustainable um changes that are are really uh related to kind of back office business functions and not direct service to students and not having an impact on um educational outcomes what's included in

211Risk to who risk to those um are risk to all risk in our uh Enterprise risk management profile that we are trying to mature our risk to the district's goals um which um okay are established by this group thank you we go to and and I'll add you know central office exists to support schools and so we look at it through that lens what's what's going to uh lessen our support to schools is there is there a way around that um by default we are uh it's this they've represented as as elegant and Innovative and it is it is all that but there are real challenges with uh customer service at the end of the day how do we provide the the most robust support to schools with less staff while I like to say

212we can do business process redesign and we can find efficiencies and we can get leaner in terms of you know again our process there are still impacts uh and and we haven't realized all of them but I but I just want to give the team Kudos they've been really focused on you know our core mission to provide support to schools and so to the extent that we can prevent that that that's been the prevailing um metric or measure that they've used to say what's eligible to be reduced or um diminished can go to the next slide and category another one of the items in the resolution that's being looked at is school allocations and the funding that goes to schools and here's timeline around that um in March there's lots of activity around this where

213schools are finally anzing their budget they're Staffing um HR team is very involved in that trying to get schools all staffed up for the Fall start um and so are there some levers or some changes that could be made to that way we allocate funding which is the weighted Staffing standards model um WSS um there's a little bit of uh explanation on that on the next slide so consideration if there are changes that we can make to school allocations is another thing that um is being invested instigated uh as part of this budget development process can we go to the next slide so this is just uh three bullet points on a very complex process for how um Staffing is allocated to the schools um this has been in place for more than a decade

214I believe with Seattle public schools and um I think there's folks who have lots of opinions about this but this is the current way that Staffing is uh allocated out to the schools uh there's a committee that primarily principles some sea Representatives uh budget and HR and uh instructional staff who meet talk about this make recommendations around how to to do the Staffing for the the schools going forward with what's changing in terms of enrollment and other factors so just wanted to highlight that one transportation is another one um I believe last year and sort of confirmed this year um if there was consideration and move towards a three bell schedule um that could save about a $5 million um I know transportation is exploring other options to see if there's other savings that could

215be gained um with Transportation efficiencies or changes to how transportation is delivered to students and transportation is also something that is coming it came up last session there was actually a really um solid Bill to fully fund out to districts the cost of providing special people transp Transportation which includes um students with disabilities who need Transportation as connected to their to their IEP um uh uh homeless um Foster there's some there's some federal categories um that we are required to provide transportation it's not fully funded so that bill got by the end of last session got really hacked away at um kind of uh the special education bills kind of picked up in terms of their energy and investment and the transportation bill got cut down more and more um so there is a little

216bit more conversation still happening around transportation in the session this year however last session when we looked at special education funding and and worked with Partners across the state and saw that we had um some some commonalities in our percentage of deficit um uh in doing that same exercise for transportation we are not aligned we are very much an outlier so I'm just I know I don't want everybody to have I don't want to repeat the like nobody wants to disrupt schedules we don't want to do this the fact of the matter is a three bell schedule is something that and I'm I'm not endorsing a three bell schedule just saying the reality is that a three bell schedule is something that almost all other districts use it is very very unusual that we are

217the largest District in the state and we do to squim is moving from one tier to two and they are delivering students to I think two locations because of congestion so this is just in terms of scale up down um it's it's nobody wants anybody to suffer but I'm just saying our uh what we are allocated by the state to spend on Transportation um we spend again that amount through Levy dollars in SPS so going to two vendors has improved service and has added about $6 million to cost now all these things are trade-offs right maybe that Improvement to service is is the best and most most worthy area for those $6 million to go to but we can't pretend that it does that these choices don't have an impact and so having a two

218Bell two two-tiered bell schedule again and this is an issue that I've been heavily involved in with for like a decade um going to two tiers allowed for the scientifically and research-backed support for later start times for secondary students and allowed us not to have super early and super late bell times for elementary students and it comes at a cost so I'm just 30 we we are allocated about $30 million I think from the state for transportation and we spend $30 million more from other sources meaning local levies to supplement that again maybe that is the best most worthy use of that $30 million but this is again a a choice um so and also when we look at it in the state and we're advocating with other districts and we're so far an outlier

219it's it's um we actually uh make it a little bit easier for legislators to say well it doesn't matter how much money we give you you guys are all overspending so and I'm not that's not an indictment of of anybody that's not a endorsement of any one choice or another I'm just saying that like that's what this that's why we're having these budget conversations because choices that we make and priorities that we fund have an impact in a system where we don't have unlimited access to money for whatever we want I I would like to note that we made some changes this year those savings were realized by balancing the number of buses across two tiers which did create um schedule changes for 12 schools but in in the context of the previous questions about

220risk you know what was we were able to maintain service to everyone and reduce um the number of buses we put on the road by about 15% you know single yellow bus that serves 180 days of schools cost us approaching $150,000 a year so reducing 40 buses is significant savings um if you use each the math is not that complicated if we the remaining 300 buses we use if we use each one three times a day for that same $150,000 a year instead of just twice a day in the morning and twice in the afternoon um you can do the math um do also have environmental impacts and we have this board has made commitment to um uh resource conservation and speaking of which I see director R's hand up thank you um yeah I

221know we're not going to have this full conversation right now because it is a big one but since apparently we will be eventually talking about um transportation options I I want to just make a point to think back to when we did last look at moving to three tiers it wasn't the idea of going to three tears that caused um the concerns it was that it was the insistence that each tier had to be an hour apart from each other so we were spreading out morning times over a three-hour period which was putting kids on the you know street corner for their bus at near 6:00 in the morning so uh moving to three TI itself is not a horrible idea it was the I think with the the the sh that broke that one

222was that again they had to be an hour apart and so I don't know if that is still the case if we can shorten that I think a lot of people would have been open to it but we were looking at really scary early bus times for for some kids um so anyhow I just want to remind us all what what was really what was one of the major issues back then when we looked at it so um but yeah I'm looking forward to talking about it again thank you Dr hery thanks for that reminder director Rivera Smith two things first thank you I appreciate it I've been saying it for two years director Rivera please forgive me um so that actually is a question that I have is when we were going through it

223the first time where the calculations in terms of timing and traffic given that we've had such a heavy return to work I think we've all noticed that the traffic has been ridiculous would it even be possible or did we model what it would look like to do anything less than an hour between those tiers I think the final proposal was a bit less it was more on the order of 50 minutes okay um I think but we're not saying like 30 is possible I I don't um you know we we do have an hour between our tear right now and so um I think we would certainly um uh put pressure on the system as much to see and and this is where perhaps having two carriers can also help us on you know what

224are the um size of the routes what is kind of the uh Topography of the district and who we offer transportation services to in general yeah um how um how close we can have our assignment plan to Neighborhood schools there there's a lot of factors we would certainly want to Short and that as well again the risk that we're really um with transportation is we uh can't have our transportation system because of poor service lead to absenteeism among students right so it has to be workable money aside if we're not actually getting students to the buildings in time for instruction um we've just done so much damage yeah that will definitely impact progress on our goals real quick one other thing just wanted to say for us and me too um we are answering questions

225that nobody is asking so in terms of making sure that like the folks who are actually listening can track our conversations as well as like making sure that we're moving through this in a timely fashion just a reminder about uh our governance model and how questions are supposed to be delivered and received and all that good stuff so thanks director hery I was I was just going to say let's not get too far into only talking about transportation for the rest of the meeting so we've got a few more slides to go I I think I can bet yeah yeah no I I and um for all sorts of operational agreement uh reasons I I think staff would concur director song um my request and part of our deliberation on this potential solution is that

226we take the time to analyze what were the impacts from changing the start times with the 12 schools particularly around absenteeism so if you can show us evidence what what happened um that would be helpful in making a determination on this solution thank you all right moving on we can go to the next challenging tool um fees so this just a little bit of historical background uh for the board and others that the Cal Public Schools used to charge fees for the period of time time from 20 2007 to 2015 and then a generous donation came in which uh negated the need for that fee um that donation is now been spent and so there's a little data there on students and participation in athletic programs um in both middle and high school and what

227percentage of those students are considered lwi income that participate in um athletic programs part of the board's questions are around what the student impact on things would be and so starting to look in and unpeel some of of that information on things like fees the other fee that's been talked about a couple times is charging some sort of convenience fee for families who use school pay to pay for things that they need at the school um have done a little bit of polling of other districts in the the area and there's at least a half dozen who do charge some sort of convenience or Merchant fee at this time to to families who choose to use a credit card online um my comment about fees is one that I've made before which is that we

228by state law right now there are certain identified students that should have fees waved and are not I know personally of students in the Foster system who are still being charged when they show up to you know support their friends at a basketball game and they should not be charged so I don't know where that is in the whole structure but it's um we need to add address that um before we talk about potentially increasing costs to those students who shouldn't be paying anything who may be asked to pay more for things they're supposed to already have waved thank you we can go to the next slide I think Chief podesta address this one we've uh this was called out in the resolution this is really a long-term strategy the district for the last few

229decades has really um maintain kind of a real real property management strategy of land banking and that every that we don't look at some of our assets as potential financial instruments and so um you know given what so there will be three kind of layers of analysis that we will uh do more longrange program planning to satisfy ourselves that we don't really have an educational purpose or a district purpose for a piece of property and and um we're going to get some help uh to get uh to kind of a long range portfolio management for those assets uh um an example um would be the district owns a parking lot next to Memorial Stadium at Seattle Center um we get revenue from that parking lot we we don't have a definite program use for it

230as use as District it's currently um delivering about a 3.3% yield as an asset which is not a great return um and so that's a different way we want to think about all these properties do they create Financial opportunities for us um and then also we want to think about um uh work with the community on some of the highest and best uses for some of these property that's another example is um surface parking in downtown Seattle the best thing for our community also and what the market is telling us it's probably not if this is what you're making on this um um very uh valuable asset so there's only I would say there's a handful of properties where this analysis actually makes sense and it is um this is not a 2425 strategy it's

231probably not a 2526 strategy but it it's some there um somewhere in the future we and particularly as we're talking about loans and financing mechanisms and replenishing our economic stabilization account it may make sense for the district to swap a real property asset um for the cash that we would like to have in our reserves might might make more sense because they're both making about the same amount of Revenue on an annual basis so um this will be something we'll be talking about um again not not in this uh the current fiscal year or the the next one but one or two after that Fred just touched on this and we talked a little bit about it earlier the $104 million deficit projection assumes beginning repayment of the 42 million economic stabilization fund the savings

232the rainy day fund um one thing the board could decide to do is delay repayment of that that first $6.6 million payment for the 2425 um budget balancing exercise um so this is just some language around that pulled from the policies and the the resolutions that um um were in play as last year's budget process and just highlighting that that's a tool that's something that um we've explored and this is the option that the board could have um for the 245 budget approval next one so the district has continued to sort of Whittle its contingency uh balances over the last few years as the budget's gotten more and more tight um there's approximately $10 million that sort of remains to round out the edges of things um that come up in a billion dollar budget

233over the course of a year um The District's also gotten a little more precise in how it's estimating things and how it's doing business and so there's potential to reduce some of that contingency a bit further um limit some of that flexibility and be more precise in operations and how business is conducted um it's one of the tools that we're kind of diving deeply into to see what the risk trade-offs there in terms of reducing that contingency balance um could be um if there's significant shifts in things in the district around Transportation or schools or options or whatever the things may be there may be more risk involved in some of those things and so want to factor those go into the whole picture of the long-term view of how the the budget May balanced

234over the next um 5 to 10 years so just another tool that's in the toolkit that um there's some significant savings that could result from that if the if the risk is deemed um tolerable to do that the next one I think we talked a little bit about already um so potentially using some of the the onetime self-help funds or the school carry forwards as a one time measure to balance the budget um this is just a snippet from our our budget instruction book that the school leadership gets every year on how the budget comes together and how um the the different options available to them um so just we talked about this one already so I don't want to be labor unless there's questions about that we T touched a bit um director Briggs

235asked a couple questions about the capital fund and how it might participate in this budget um balancing this is a cut and paste from the RCW related to this notion of potentially borrowing from our Capital fund to balance the budget um so just wanted that language in the presentation um we're working with the OSI on how this might work if this is something Seattle decides to pursue um or other districts could pursue this as well was not unique to Seattle um so the the notion of borrowing tempor rarily from our Capital fund to do some budget balancing that's not for cash flow reasons but for balancing the budget and how that would work through the different systems and the different regulations that um govern um K12 education in the state of Washington so working on

236that trying to figure out what the the reality of how that would play out will look like with the superintendent of public instructions office and if I could add that this is something we considered for the current year and got support from the legislature to amend that language to extend the length of um in fund loans which typically before really were only for cash flow problems and had to be paid back um within a fiscal year we have a longer period of time now so this would be a potential solution to get us to balance again in in perhap by 25 26 um to use this temporary Authority from the legislature but we I mean that would would essentially be uh creating a deficit for the future year I mean I mean a it that's

237money that we have to find twice it allows you to look at solutions that you need more than one fiscal year to put in place whether it's restructuring our buildings um bigger changes um the world we were living before is if well if you can't realize the Savings in a single f fiscal year right you can't really do it so this is a bridge loan it is not advisable if we don't actually have a strategy for we're going to take on this initiative and it'll lead to savings we just need two years to get there that that other than if if we're not doing that this doesn't make sense um you you have to you have to it's financing you have to Future Fred's problem yeah that um people have said that in the past

238and that's why we are where we are yeah and we're being being careful to model at least five years on some of these so in this one in particular it be paid back within a couple years there'd be an interest component to that so we'd have to estimate what the interest on that would be to repay the capital fund and so trying to take that longer term look at some of these onetime Solutions and how we would resolve those um over that period of time question I'm not sure this isn't a fully formed question but um I think my question is related to maybe contingency balances um what are strategies that we can pursue so that we're leaving ourselves enough give in our budget so that we are not putting ourselves in a similar position

239to what happened in October where we had to rebalance some of our classrooms and I'm also wondering about the timing of Us closing our books and when we had information we know actually we ended the previous year and of a larger balance than we expected because we had more vacancies and that perhaps we may be able to apply some of that money to soften some of the inevitable rebalancing that we would have to do in October so I I don't know that's like a fully formed question but just um something that I think is important to understand as we're thinking about the bugs as the district continues to evolve and in part out of necessity because of the challenges that are happening with the budget with the structural issue both of those things are being

240um hopefully addressed more proactively going forward there isn't sort of time to wait until the end of the year now to see how we ended the year and so trying to be more intentional throughout the year and how we're um paying the bills on in the way that we're paying them and by the right fund and so that everything is lining up earlier than the very end of the year um hasn't always been necessary at an institution um of public education because there were more resources available and so trying to be more precise in some of those um operational details around Staffing around how we use the grants fully and things like that so yes is yes an appropriate answer to the unformed question okay the other way we're thinking that we could potentially leverage

241the capital fund and other districts do this already is using some of the interest that's generate generated by the capital fund um to pay for instructional supplies equipment or capital outlay and so Seattle Public Schools hasn't been doing this previously U but there's some potential um utilization of some of the capital fund interest making sure not to impact the capital program in a negative way of course um but exploring if that is something that makes sense um around how to further leverage the capital fund to help the the budget for the short term and potentially for the long term Fred do you want to say anything more about that or no you covered it well thank you so those kind of a summary of the the things we're looking at um or that's a summary

242of the things we presented today that we're looking at as part of those nine tools um the next slide I think is just a reminder of the 256 kind of keep that at least two-year look going and I don't know if Dr Jones you want to speak to this or just yeah just mean this is just a maybe a reminder maybe first time realization but 2025 26 we did put uh an element in the resolution to speak to potential for 2526 and uh the first bullet round school consolidation to be implemented in 25 26 school year and Beyond uh grade level reorganization and program adjustments and restructuring these are all uh very much in consideration they're they're in play now in terms of looking at doing the analysis and so uh when we get ready

243to do do these it's going to start sooner than later it won't be uh we'll start this in Earnest a year from now we need to start really looking at these as potential and real possibilities now so didn't want to uh I wanted to emphasize that this is right around the corner where some decisions are going to be made going forward here uh Dr Jarvis can you just speak to real quickly what a grade level reorganization might look like and you use a really really great ninth grade analogy so uh I was the first ninth grade class of Franklin High School so that that's a great level reorganization but can you put a finer point on that well some of you may guess I around a while uh so I've watched grade level reorganizations be

244used in both facility issues and and uh and using the facilities so the example of the ninth grade if the high school is getting overcrowded the ninth grade gets moved out to their own building or nobody wants them uh but uh in this case as you'd be looking at the really the small elementary schools you could say which child do you love most uh do you move the sixth grade back to the elementaries and increase the size of the elementaries and do something really hard on your middle schools uh but but you could do that in a sense of if you were trying to avoid some of the uh well you're really trying to buttress the enrollment at a downtime of the elementary um so it it can be used both for the how do

245we buttress the small schools and avoid the drain on the budget of those but you do have to say that student can only be counted in one place so that means you have to do some you'd have to do some significant work to your middle schools and say what does the seventh and eighth grade program look like uh the high schools right now both in terms of size and enrollment and enrollment projections are a number of years away from being impacted like the elementaries are right now so for all practical purposes they are capable of taking the adjustments uh in stride without major hits to their the programs unlike the elementaries the elementaries get to the point if you if you only have kindergarteners uh it's really hard to have one class of 20 and

246figure out what to do with the others uh so that puts us into more and more split classrooms that it's it's simply there you're seeing one of the school districts I think it's Olympia that is electing to close a middle school and move six sixth grade back to Elementary uh because that was their their value choice so if I had to close a school would I rather close an elementary neighborhood Elementary or middle school some people would argue that middle schools are loved less than elementary schools and of course we definitely uh address and analyze the pedagogical impact so some some would say 6 through 8th organization is better than uh seven through nine I don't know but we'll we would definitely consider that uh director ranker you have a question uh well I just

247for this part this part cannot come soon enough for me we this is you know I appreciate what we see here but also we're we're looking at one more year and we we already know this but we're looking at one more year of doing things the same as they've been done and just trying to make it cost less and we have to actually make changes the outcomes of our regardless of the budget situation we know that if we continue as we always are or as we always have the students that have always benefit and benefited and the students that have always been harmed are going to continue to be the same we're going to have the same outcomes and we're not going to see progress towards our goals so if the way things have been

248being done is producing the outcome that we have had we're not going to get a different outcome by continuing to do things the same so I'm understand that what we see here is is this these are these are areas we're looking at decreasing expenditures that are possible to achieve a balanced budget for next year what I actually that's very [Music] um deficit based and doesn't have anything to do with kids what I want to see for 2025 26 is a budget centered on meeting the needs of our students and that will look very very different for a number of reasons but it has to look different it can't just be about the number of schools that we have so in terms of um uh grade level like is there is there research out there that

249Standalone Early Learning Centers that have preschool through second grade improve literacy like let's do that is there I mean some research the um that I've seen recently says the the one of the greatest impacts on a student's academic success is being able to have a consistent teacher have the same teacher have do looping for more than when year I mean there's there's all these different things that I think instead of looking at it from what do we have to lose and this is where my designer brain is going to come in what is our objective what's the thing we're trying to get to it's not just a balanced budget a balanced budget has to be part of that but what we're actually trying to get to is moving the needle and supporting students and meeting

250our goals for student outcomes and we don't have to be locked into what we already have in fact we must not maintain what we already have because it has not been yielding the outcomes that the that we expect and it certainly not going to yield more outcomes when we're spreading everything so thinly and having counselors have to go to three different schools so if we have a limit on counselors like say I don't know what it is but say it's 500 students to one they could be going to two schools that each have 498 students to make up a full-time job that's that's that's not we that's not sustainable and is not supporting our kids so I would much rather have you know one counselor being able to serve students at one school in one

251reasonable number instead of getting as close as we can to the most unreasonable number and then doubling it and having them spend half the that that's just like Bonkers that's just why would we keep doing that we can't keep doing that so I really I understand that we're up you know we only have a few months to resolve next year's budget and I understand that that was a decision that was made not to make any drastic changes but like we have to make drastic changes we have to align what we do with what we are trying to achieve those cannot be disconnected so the um 2526 looking at I just really really urge us all to not um lie to ourselves that we're screwed and we can't do better for our kids because it's just

252not true we have such a wealth of resources in terms of people in terms of knowledge in terms of love for our children in you know all these things we cannot pretend that any change is bad because actually for some kids this change is really necessary um so uh I just can't we cannot get to this soon enough even though next year we're sort of doing some some Bridge Solutions which I which I understand but oh dor Riva sorry thank you I can't tell if if there's a line um no thank you I really appreciate what you just said because I think we all get afraid and we hear from families and people that of the disruption things C these things caused and disruption sounds like a really bad thing but disruptions actually can be

253a very good thing um you know if done you know thoughtfully and and um out of necessity because we do need to disrupt some things and I really appreciate that we shouldn't be afraid of that um and I know in in the vein of other long-term thinking um that might that will be drastically different but might actually be a really good thing is like I would and I heard someone say at a recent meeting I went to when Dr Jones had the staff meeting um you know somebody brought it up there about a modified calendar um it's a big change but you know research shows the benefit to students um and outcomes and so anyways that's just something I think we should look at over the next couple years um modifi calendar if people don't

254know what that means it basically means year round school um and there are models of districts that are doing it in the state and definitely would love to have a conversation about that um is a again long-term thing because it can't happen overnight at all but I I want to throw it out there while I can thank you you Lisa uh director hery uh could not agree with both statements that just got made more um the only thing that I will say is that like disruption is good when it's been socialized and that's really where like let's not pretend that folks in Seattle don't like change we are one of the most rapidly growing cities in this country uh there are robots that will give you parking tickets and like deliver you food at certain

255restaurants like we're obsessed with change the problem though is is that and I've learned this from you know visiting a few schools in the South and especially when those types of changes happen in the middle of a school year when a child has already made a strong relationship with their educator it makes it way more difficult for folks to trust us in terms of like actually having kids in mind instead of just like getting to the bottom dollar right and we all know that that's not the case but the people who are living with those changes daytoday don't so I I think that it's just and that's not necessarily even for staff as much as it is for the board in terms of being more on top of figuring out like how can we be

256the wayfinders the good Messengers and like really push to have information so that we can do a better job of socializing uh things that are happening or that are coming down the pipe and I really like the fact that we are doing this longitudinal planning because it's going to have to like put us into a position to where we need to expedite the decisions that we're going going to be made right and so when superintendent Jones brings us a budget like we need to be sure and clear that it is then on us to go out and let folks know about like how is this going to impact your students at the same time we also need to be in a position to where we have clear information from staff because what we know is

257that like when we make these decisions and they trickle down to uh buildings it's not going to be the same thing that we voted on it's just not and that's going to be the case with any large system that we're trying to sh here but I did just want to really drive home the fact that like based on the conversations that I've had with folks Change Is Not a Bad Thing and folks are not afraid of change it's change that they haven't had a time to prepare their like five-year-olds to that can be really disruptive to their educational experience or or that feels like change with no context like just just it was like this now it's like this for no reason about context TR thank you we are I'm gon to there's there's a

258couple more um slides I don't know if there's anything that you particularly want to point out about them I'm inclined for us to I think that last dialogue was a good segue to um the survey and the survey has uh illuminated uh at least a slice in time how folks are seeing the world around uh how we would approach uh budget balancing and so uh we can see uh we could we had uh December 15th we had uh staff respond to survey and we asked five questions uh those were rank order uh we all can read those what the five questions are but let's go to the next the next slide um and so this is this is data um 1 through nine uh what we just kind of were alluding to was the number

259nine which is the the least favorite choice and so when we talk about change we have to be honest with uh how much change we are ready for uh we know that there's a a whole science of change management and getting people ready for Change and 20% of the people have 80% of the impact because there's that much energy behind uh what they're thinking about and so part of any of our planning has to be bringing people along has to be providing awareness and we can't discount the amount of change uh management that we need we can't discount them we we typically references that as engagement but there's multi there's multiple facets to to managing change and so if we were to go against the grain around what people's uh desire desires are because there's

260a a logical reason to do so we have to double down on the amount of change that we're looking at and so we need to be very cleare eyed about uh changes that we're making uh and just because it makes sense sometimes it doesn't make sense and and we have to be very realist uh realistic about uh our capacity to our community's capacity internal and external communities capacity to absorb change and I I don't want us to unbe underestimating what that may look like but nonetheless here here are survey results from staff and um uh it's it's it's very it's not just interesting data it's data that can uh that we need to just respect and pay attention to uh Bev I don't know if you want to comment on that I know you're you

261kind of have the the unenviable task of sometimes making uh what's not pretty pretty and uh trying to uh Express things that are uh complex so if if you have any editorial comments about this please do uh in terms of um Community engagement this is just another way a continued way to stay in front of our community through our staff uh we started out or we ended the last portion of the year in December we actually held a staff meeting in this building to talk about what budget looks like and present and following that we release the survey a few more days that it remains open the I I suppose if I'm putting bow or additional words to what Dr Jones has added that we can't underestimate what we've learned from the well resourced schools

262part one tour that when we say our schools are our hubs there's Financial there's social there's economic impact that goes with whatever decision that we make so it's not just a hub or a place to gather schools are infrastructure so whatever we're making decisions on the double down on how we communicate that why we came to that decision and then going back out to have well resourced schools part two with the levers that we're planning to employ is very very important so that is the portion I would add thank you and I I don't have an elegant close to this but we we're ready to close if you are but I I think I saw another question comment wisdom question um is was this um this list just literally what they were ranking or was

263there more description about what they were they were ranking that list from the resolution yes yes okay and we've been trying to part of the exercise here is providing more and more information for staff who are dedicated to the schools and their kids and so this is first one of the first steps in trying to provide education in context as Dr Jones and be were're talking about yeah thank you uh so related to what director hery was saying about socialization I thank you for sending the survey and for sharing the results for us and feels like a little bit of a setup honestly because now well we said the thing we wanted the least was reductions and adjustments and suppose what you all determine is that the biggest impact on both student outcomes and budget

264is reductions and adjustments in schools so now does this mean well staff said they don't want that so when we're socializing and asking questions also this to me indicates um something that we should all be super aware of that also relates to what director hery said is is fear it's fear of what are you talking about changes what does that mean don't do that don't come mess with our school and that's an understandable place to be especially given historical patterns and relationships between schools and central office that's also something that we really have to work hard to undo and repair because I if I was working in one of our buildings I would rate that as last too because I'd be like are you freaking kidding me after all of this year and that year

265and everything now you're just going to make some changes so that's what the combination of the socialization the bringing everybody together and also the it's it's actually we just have to be really careful that we're not just saying what do adults prefer and I mean staff and parents what do you prefer but in the reality of the constraints that we have and in our Collective obligation to our students what changes can we make to best meet the needs of our students and support the entire system and being sustainable in being a great place to work in being a place people want to send their kids so I this makes me nervous because it's it honestly it feels like a little bit of a setup well staff asked us and the board doesn't care what we

266think cuz they did XYZ anyway and we said we said we didn't we said that was our last choice so how can we socialize move this together and also we just always have to be talking about like people are going to have preferences and those should be listened to but our mission our very reason for existing is to improve outcomes for students so those so choices shouldn't be made agnostic of that so that I'm just that just makes me a little nervous and I also but want to recognize that I understand why there would be a fear response and I'm not saying oh those people are just afraid of change they're afraid of they have Trauma from very real consequences from decisions that have been made to them or at them so I understand the

267the response of like no no no just just leave us alone um and that's for us to reflect on can I ask question yeah director Briggs I'm just um I'm confused by the takeaways where it says reduce budget and then consolidate small schools and reduce central office staff when it looks to me like the top two options were lease um non-school properties and uh reduce central office staff so that last slide is a qualitative look at the open-ended comments that were received okay um so it's not of these nine this is just sort of the so yeah cuz high level view of what the most common because yeah these are cut off um or this La a couple of these are cut off so it's not like reductions and adjustments in School dot dot dot

268so it was unclear what what the actual question was and I assumed that that school consolidations was rolled into that option but is that is that separate so so I guess what you're saying is that people ranked that as their La last choice but then in in their written responses they were open to that I I'm I'm confused yeah so I believe the the nine levers if you will rank order those nine levers that were in the resolution yeah then we also gave them opportunity to ask to ask them uh what additional ideas do you have right um and what are your top concerns and and the roll up and the aggregation of those is what you're see what you see here so in terms of just the levers that was their rank order but

269in terms of their submittals for their ideas uh and their their thoughts around how we can have the most impact that's that was a this was the outcome yeah that's sophisticated folks are sophisticated they can say what they don't like and then they say well this is the reality I I don't so we we we can dig more into this and and so uh president Ranken I I think this is a data point and this gives us uh just some understanding of where folks are right now gives us uh some understanding of how much awareness and opportunity we need to give folks to uh maybe talk about Impact versus uh intent and I I just think it's a one of many times that we'll be in front and working with folks for for Solutions uh

270I want to give Dr Jarvis credit he's been Invitational to principles to come in and talk to us around what are some of your what are some of your thoughts and it's taken some of our some of our school leaders by surprise because we we don't we're not that intentional about asking their opinion and so uh and he's also pushed them to say well what is that what is the strategy not whether you like or dislike it was like what what can we do we have a challenge in front of us uh and I think he's been Invitational to uh other folks as well but this is this is relatively new for us uh asking the hard question even if we get answers like dang it that's not what we wanted to hear but this

271is this is going to be an ongoing cyclical process so while it could feel like that's not healthy because we're going to do something counter I think if we can keep keep folks engaged in a dialogue and uh you know provide more information and if the P if the thing they indicated has has the least amount of impact on the on the budget then we need to educate folks and say this is you all pick this one but this that means we're going to have to move this other level fur further over so I think there's a some more back and forth opportunities uh the my interpretation too of the difference between what director Briggs was just pointing out the difference between this is our last option but then also here's a suggestion we have

272those being the same thing I think where the Gap is is in the trust is what's the last option if you're just going to make decisions and tell us what's happening but it's actually a more favorable option if we are included and we're part of the conversation so I just want to say thank you um uh that was number five of 11 and we're going to continue to come in front of you in front of you all to uh get your feedback your Insight uh and just provide awareness uh we're thinking about ways on how we can like I just mentioned incorporate others in in bringing Solutions forward uh but we're narrowing it down and thank thank you for the resolution now we have nine really legitimate ways that we can get at this balancing

273Pro this balancing process so I want to thank the team for for your hard work and everybody else that has been supporting us as well it's it's been a lot already but we're still uh still we're not even halfway yet but we'll get there thank you so much well and I'll make the same commitment that we made to um the academic team that we need to be brave and talk about the real issues so thank you for bringing this information and if we are aligned in support of our students and can trust each other and support each other we will not publicly grind you into the ground right we don't want to do that we want to we want to do really really well for our students um so the one last thing on the

274agenda is uh time use evaluation I'm just noting that I uh uh I submitted the for the for the record our time there was only one meeting for December um so that's in there uh we don't have an assignment going forward I know some folks are very new to time use evaluation um we don't have to talk about it now but I would love to ask for someone who knows how to do it to volunteer to do the January's time use evaluation to submit in February we you can email me um president her or or I mean I mean director hery or director Rivera may be looking at you as as folks have have done it before um but that would be great to have somebody who can do it so we can just continue

275on we can also talk at the um Retreat about H if we how we want to make adjustments to that process to make it easier and more consistent for us all to to maintain that practice so that there being no further business to come before the board the regular board meeting is now adjourned at 8:30 6 p.m. thank you very very much everyone