Seattle Schools Board Meeting Sept 27, 2023

001foreign all right it's 423 good afternoon we will be calling the board meeting to order in a moment and SPS TV will begin broadcasting for those joining by phone please remain muted until we reach the testimony portion and your name is called this is President Hersey I am now calling the September 27 2023 regular board meeting to order at 4 23 p.m this meeting is being recorded we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Peterson Coast Salish people Miss Wilson Jones the roll call please director hampson here director Harris present vice president Rankin here director Rivera Smith I don't oh director sarju present director song present and president Hersey present thank you very much I will now uh turn it over to our student director for

002student member comments take it away thank you president Hersey um this is my first board meeting so I thought I'd introduce myself my name is ayush mizaswami I'm a senior at Lincoln High School and I'm one of your three student board members this year and I wanted to start off by talking about my priorities this year as a student in this role which to me other core come down to one goal and that's to increase student leadership in decision-making spaces and I'm sharing this role one to let you know about the areas and initiatives I hope to focus on but two to hold myself accountable to it and this year I hope to keep you all updated about the initiatives we as student board members are working on focusing and regarding that goal but also

003in general increasing the transparency and also the general understanding of this role and it's because it's so new something we as student board members have just started working on is bringing student voice into the SPs legislative agenda I had a great conversation with Doc director Rankin yesterday and in partnership with her we're hoping to meet with student leaders across the district and work together to craft legislative agenda that reflects their short and long-term needs to my personal priorities and legislative agenda are incorporating more curriculum related to harm reduction into the health education learning standards and also expanding funding for free School meals for all students because in no world is it acceptable to have hungry students in our schools I just want to close my comment today by saying that love for each other is

004the only way forward that hate is has a no place place in this district and that we will not accept as a school board and as a school district anything less than a welcoming and safe environment for every single student in this District can somebody like move my president title over to this young man right here next we will have our superintendent comments Dr Jones thank you president Hersey thank you I use for attending the board meeting you are welcome here thank you for everyone who's attending tonight um indigenous people's day as we acknowledge the the at the opening of our meeting here at Seattle public schools that we work and live on unseated ancestral lands or the Coast Salish people in honor of the indigenous people day on October 9th we recommit to centering

005the sovereignty and voices of indigenous communities in our work with gratitude and respect we offer a proclamation I'm going to ask that director hampson read that Proclamation foreign Proclamation on indigenous people's day a proclamation of Seattle School District number one King County Seattle Washington reaffirming the district's commitment to promote the well-being and growth of every District student a special of Seattle's American Indian Alaska native and Indigenous students whereas the Seattle Public Schools recognizes that the indigenous people of the lands would later become known as that would later become known as the Americas have occupied these lands since time immemorial and whereas the Seattle Public Schools recognizes the fact that Seattle is built upon the homelands and Villages of the Coast Salish peoples of this region without whom the building of the city would not have

006been possible and whereas the Seattle Public Schools values the many contributions made to our community Through indigenous people's knowledge labor technology science philosophy arts and the Deep cultural contribution that has substantially shaped the charter of the city of Seattle and whereas the Seattle public schools has a responsibility to oppose the systemic racism towards indigenous people in the United States which perpetuates high rates of poverty income inequality exacerbating disproportionate health education and social crises and whereas the Seattle Public Schools seeks to combat Prejudice and eliminate discrimination stemming from colonization and to promote awareness understanding and good relations among indigenous peoples and all other segments of our district and whereas the Seattle Public Schools promotes educational Excellence for indigenous people through policies and practices that reflect the experience of indigenous peoples ensure greater access and opportunity and

007honor our nation's indigenous Roots history and contributions and whereas SB 5433 as in Senate bills 5433 requires the teaching of the history government and contemporary issues of the 29 federally recognized tribes of Washington state and whereas the school board of directors has mandated through policy 2336 required observances to observe the second Monday of October as indigenous people's day therefore all schools are encouraged to support the well-being and growth of American Indian Alaska native and Indigenous students and recognize the contributions of native peoples on October 9th indigenous people's day October 9 2023 is hereby proclaimed as indigenous people's day and celebrated across Seattle Public Schools thank you director hampson I'd also like to recognize latinx heritage month which runs every year from September 15th through October 15th and our school buildings our teachers and our staff

008are taking care to highlight the history and diverse cultures of our latinx students this month this year's Heritage must theme month theme is Latinos driving Prosperity power and progress in America generations of latinx people have shaped American history since this country was born and on this day to continue to have enormous and on this day we continue to have enormous influence on our culture and Society our district and larger Seattle Community are deeply enriched by the presence of our latinx students families and neighbors and it's a joy to uplift them this month on the legislative front we have the opportunity to talk with our Seattle legislative delegation this week about our current situation primarily about budget we're trying to capitalize on the good work that we did in the last session but more importantly we

009want to build a shared understanding of our vision for SPS and what it'll take to realize that vision and so we are thankful that we have our legislative delegation solidly with us and we're going to continue to progress to provide the adequate and solid resources for Seattle Public Schools I also want to mention that we've had our our sixth round of well-resourced school update with the community we want to make sure that our community has come forward and being able to articulate the community's vision and values for how we use our building spaces for the type of programs we offer for the type of services that we offer and I want to thank those of you who've joined us for our final well-resourced School community meeting yesterday evening while we may have had some technical

010technical difficulties we're grateful for the large turnout that we had yesterday with almost 300 community members on the virtual meeting all of whom had enormous valuable feedback to offer us over the next few weeks staff and I will put together a summary of our findings from our meetings and the survey to present to our school board I'm thankful to the public affairs staff for putting together this robust series of Engagement opportunities and I'm looking forward to reviewing the feedback receipt now uh I'm really proud to announce that Thurgood Marshall Elementary School received a prestigious 2023 National Blue Ribbon School of designation award by the U.S Department of Education Thurgood Marshall was one of only two schools in Washington state to receive the distinction and um it was it was beautiful to be there in that

011space with staff and student The Pride that they had with the accomplishment that they achieved was uncomfortable and so this award is for recipients who are recognized for overall academic performance or progress in closing the achievement gaps among student groups on their assessments and if you like to take a look at what Thurgood Marshall did it's very impressive so I'm proud of the team at Thurgood Marshall for their dedication and providing a top-tier education for their students now in closing I need to be emphatic that as part of our safe and welcoming schools we want to reaffirm our commitment to creating inclusive identity safe environments for every students the rights yes the rights and safety of our lgbtq plus youth are a priority for this District let there be no doubt this District stands for

012inclusion and belonging in policy and in practice and representation matters and with that I'll hand it back to you president Hersey thank you superintendent Jones that's a means to celebrate don't hold that back you can definitely clap for that [Music] thank you we have now come to the bore comments section of the agenda we have an extended public testimony list today because many have turned out to support our students and to speak about building gender inclusive schools we've committed to students that we will excuse me that they will be welcomed into safe and supportive environments through our policies including three two one one gender inclusive schools transgender and gender expansive student rights and supports thank you to all of those here today who are joining us in fulfilling that commitment to our students we greatly

013appreciate your partnership following testimony we have a brief business agenda item and will then be moving into a work session to support the ad hoc policy manual review committee's completion of a policy evaluation tool the ad hoc Community engagement committee had to cancel our meeting this week but we anticipate coming together again shortly we'll now move into our other ports for tonight our ad hoc policy manual Review Committee will be presenting later in the meeting do we have a report from our legislative liaison we do as the superintendent noted we met yesterday with the legislative delegation representing Seattle in preparation for the 2024 legislative session in the process now of developing our um our our legislative priorities that will come to the board for adoption and as uh you stated um we are I'm working

014with students and getting some feedback from other other groups that work with our students about shared priorities and so that'll be coming forward and I just want to thank our delegation for their partnership and commitment to our students and I look forward to another productive legislative session I attended the 2023 wasda General Assembly was does the Washington State School director Association in Spokane over the weekend as our legislative liaison and wasda representative and as we discussed last meeting in that short work session general assembly is the annual convening of voting delegates from all 295 Washington public school districts board to discuss and vote as a body on permanent and legislative positions I'm really happy and proud to share that wasda membership approved both items that were submitted on our behalf that I brought to the

015board last spring on isolation restraint the amendment to the permanent position on comprehensive school safety that states that part of providing a safe environment is one that is free from unnecessary restraint and isolation and other harmful practices that was approved and then there's also a new legislative position that um that we brought forward specifically around physical Crisis Intervention that was also approved by the body it was a very eye-opening and exhausting 48 hours and I ended up submitting a few amendments from the floor that passed on other positions and also spoke Pro on quite a few positions most notably and especially relevant giving today's public testimony list were positions about civil rights and local control and I'm very happy to share that we now have a member adopted position at wazda that states wazda believes

016that the education system should support the civil rights of all students at the state and local levels arguments that I used to support that position I also used later in the meeting to successfully vote down a position presented on local control and I want to share some of that with you now which is that local control cannot ever be used to opt out of following state and federal law public schools using public funds and overseen by publicly elected school boards are authorized by the state which is also governed by publicly elected officials when we take office as board directors we pledge to uphold and follow State and National Constitution and laws we have the authority and responsibility of adopting curriculum for our district but it must meet state standards for learning if your locally elected

017board has adopted curriculum that meets State Standards but is not aligned with your personal values state law allows you to opt your child out of that instruction if it is so contrary to your values what is being presented in public schools in alignment with the will of the voting public you don't have to participate you can withdraw altogether public school is a right that is afforded to everyone who lives in our communities but no one is forcing you to participate student civil rights are non-negotiable in our public schools by state and federal law in Seattle we also have board adopted policy that clearly states the values of our community in support of all of our students and their rights to public education and to being fully included members of our community discrimination on the basis

018of race sexual orientation gender identity ethnicity disability religion is not acceptable and is prohibited by federal law all students are entitled to a public education that includes identity affirming Curriculum by state and federal law and by board policies including 0010 instructional philosophy and 3211 gender inclusive schools which was adopted by this board under the leadership of a queer native board President we support the civil rights of our students their rights to exist be included be safe and to learn and thrive to our trans 9 by non-binary and lgbtqia plus students you will hear comments during this meeting from people who don't know you and are nonetheless directing hate towards you I want to State clearly that we up here whether or not we know you love you and support your rights in Seattle public schools

019and we'll continue to fight for them [Applause] any additional liaison reports this evening go ahead director Summers update from the city of Seattle um this week the Seattle City council approved a resolution in support of its commitment to our partnership with Memorial Stadium so I'd like to thank mayor Harrell Deputy Mayor Burgess their team Seattle Center president horiz and the members of Seattle Council for the progress that we've made to date and what's to come ahead this week mayor Harold also released his buy at Mid biennial budget adjustment and as it pertains to the Department of Education there's not much of note it reflects the continued investments in Seattle's young people including the mental health supports in our high school thank you so uh this school boards role one of its primary roles is to

020govern by policy occasionally we make statements of general direction by resolution when we feel it's important enough to make such statements and provide it's not so much Direction but give a state our Collective position in a particular area one of the resolutions that was passed in 2019 as director Rankin stated under um director Pullen at the time director DeWolf now director Pullen is our resolution of the Seattle of the board of directors of Seattle School District on inclusion of our lgbtqia plus two spirit student staff and community and it gets more traction than I think about any other resolution that we have um passed and I'd like to go ahead and take take time to read it to affirm the contents and remind everyone of um where we were in 2019 and um help folks

021understand anything that you hear that you're like oh that needs to be tweaked maybe that's something for us to work on right and then but also there's a lot that has been accomplished there's so much more now in policy in in the day-to-day workings of our schools that is supportive and we still have more work to do a resolution of the board of directors of Seattle School District number one King County Seattle Washington on inclusion for lgbtqia plus two spirit students staff and community whereas Seattle Public Schools is a district of more than 53 000 students and more than 12 000 full-time and part-time staff where we value and celebrate diversity and inclusion and whereas a 2019-20 focus goal of the Seattle public school strategic plan is to provide schools where students feel safe and

022are welcome and that goal is rooted in the belief that students should be celebrated for being there are authentic selves recognizing that when students are provided healthy safe engaging supportive and academically rigorous School environments they are able to learn to their full potential and whereas the recent Community debate focused on the exclusion of lgbtqia plus teaching staff and a school in our region has invited the board to reflect on our long-held beliefs and commitment to inclusion knowing that educational environments where students recognize the diversity that makes them special and adult Role Models at school helps to create an atmosphere where students feel empowered as Scholars to succeed and whereas systemic transphobia biphobia and homophobia can push lgbtqia plus two-spirit youth out of school and cause long-lasting negative educational and mental health outcomes and whereas we

023know lgbtqia plus two spirit youth particularly lgbtqia plus two-spirit youth of color still face significant discrimination and barriers to inclusion as compared to their peers including disproportionate rates of school disciplinary action and are two to four times more likely than their peers to be physically assaulted or threatened at school leading them to be less likely to attend school affirming diverse sexual whereas affirming diverse sexual orientations and gender identities and expressions is one of the most effective mental health interventions for supporting lgbtqia plus two-spirit Youth and whereas inclusion curriculum has been shown to improve educational health and personal safety as shown in the 2017 glsen National Climate survey as well as to increase the level of peer acceptance of lgbtqia plus two-spirit students and Foster School communities where lgbtqia plus two-spirit youth were less likely to

024hear homophobic and transphobic remarks we're less likely to feel unsafe experience lower levels of victimization and performed better academically and whereas board policy 3210 non-discrimination acts of hostility and defamation expresses our commitment to fostering cultivating and preserving a culture of diversity respect and inclusiveness and the policy is implemented and forced through a robust system of procedures overseen by a non-discrimination compliance officer and whereas the district has long supported and affirmed the rights of our transgender and gender expansive students by establishing and continually enhancing a comprehensive superintendent procedure that details a student's right to be referred to by the name and pronouns that affirms their identity and to use restrooms and locker rooms that correspond to gender identity and non-sexassigned and not sex assigned at Birth in addition the district has created and provided gender identity

025book kits for instruction in grades K through 5 and hosts an annual lgbtqia plus two spirit family dinner to bring our families together and whereas the district is continually in a process of improvement and refinement in relation to creating identity safe spaces for all including work targeted toward greater inclusion for lgbtqia plus staff and students including but not limited to coordinating our electronic student systems so students are able to be recognized by the name that affirms their identity and continuously promoting the expansion of expansion of General neutral spaces in all of our schools and whereas we acknowledge that creating lgbtqia plus two spirit and gender expansive inclusivity and the district is not complete with any one action and it does not happen holistically with the change of a policy or the passage of a resolution

026but depends on a systematic shift in paradigms and by increasing the understanding of sexual and gender diversity recognizing that this creation requires appropriate communication professional development and collaboration with our labor partners and commitment from the Board District staff and students and whereas the students of Seattle Public Schools should have the opportunity to learn about significant lgbtqia plus events and groups such as the society for human rights the lavender scare Daughters of belitus the Supreme Court case one Inc versus Oleson don't ask don't tell Doma 1987 AIDS March on Washington the rides at Stonewall Inn the Compton cafeteria riots etc etc etc and so many more and now therefore be it resolved that the superintendent will direct a district facilities assessment to be completed and a report provided to the board detailing schools with a single

027with a student single staller multi-stall gender neutral restroom without a gender-neutral restroom including the feasibility and estimated costs to convert existing restrooms and be it further resolved that the board requested the superintendent direct applicable staff to explore the development of an lgbtqia2 plus two-spirit history and culture course to be added to the catalog of secondary school subjects if staff determines that the new course is needed or desired and provide a report to the curriculum instruction committee on their determination and be it was further resolved that the district will commit to including at least one accessible multi-stall gender-neutral restroom and all new facilities construction and take the necessary steps to ensure these restrooms will be present and all future educational specification floor plans floor plans and capital planning and be it further resolved that the district

028supports all students and staff by affirming their right to be their authentic selves including the right to be open about their sexual orientation or gender identity and to speak about their personal and family lives in the same manner as their non-lgbtqia plus two spirit peers r recognizing it is never appropriate to discipline or shame a person who in good faith comes out to another member of the Seattle Public Schools community and be it further resolve that the district encourages its schools to display on their flagpoles and the volition and the volition of its employees to display in classrooms offices or Halls a rainbow pride flag transgender pride flag or other sign of support for lgbtqia plus two-spirit students or staff because these symbols are consistent with the district's commitment to the creation of identity safe

029and welcoming schools and illustrate our sincere belief that we must serve all without judgment discrimination or alienation and be it further resolved that the district will continue to honor and respect a student's self-reported gender identity and gender expression at school regardless of outside adult acknowledgment or acceptance the district will work to educate and support adults to a adult's important to a student on greater acceptance and acknowledgment however the district will not wait for such adult acceptance or require parent Guardian consent before honoring the students self-reported gender identity and gender expression be it further resolved that the Board District and appropriate stakeholders commit to both the urgency and the need for long-term sustainable and well-informed action around lgbtqia plus two-spirit inclusivity and be it further resolved that the district and our schools be proactive in decreasing

030anti-lgbtqi plus two spirit language feelings behaviors and bullying by one promoting positive images of lgbtqia plus two spirit individuals and two making available age-appropriate lgbtqa plus two-spirit inclusive instructional materials and books for elementary and secondary schools and three requiring that newly adopted United States history social studies and English and arts instructional materials and reasonably include in all other instructional materials significant events societal contributions and or represented representations of lgbtqia plus two spirit individuals and offering lgbtqia Plus two-spirit sensitivity training for staff and volunteers and finally reminding staff of their duty to ensure that all students are safe and affirmed in our school communities and to create a school culture that both prevents and proactively intervenes with acts of name calling such as racist sexist transphobic and homophobic remarks bias harassment or bullying that they see

031including but not limited to lgbtqia plus two-spirit bias language and bullying and be it further resolved that the superintendent shall consider this resolution a proposal of the board to change the name of an existing School building to a distinguished individual to be specifically identified through an engagement process including staff students staff parents alumni and Community residents who has served the local Community State nation in the promotion of lgbtqia plus rights and be it further resolved that the superintendent will distribute or inform principals teachers and families of this resolution and translate it into the top five languages within Seattle public schools and be it further resolved that the superintendent show report back to the board on the status of and plan for implementation of each point in the above resolution at some point later I'm really

032curious to hear back from folks about how many of those things have happened so many of those things have happened including the renaming of the of the building so super exciting and so much gratitude to superintendent and staff for upholding all of those it's also a really important time for me to update you on where we are with Title IX uh the fight to retain critical rights particularly for transgender students is now and uh some of you may be aware we spent a good amount of time uh many years actually rewriting our policy on sexual title related to Title IX and sexual harassment and assault and the last revision happened under the Trump Administration during which time many of the stronger protections were removed by that Administration and new rules were to come out in

033May from the Biden Administration to again affirm under Title IX the production of transgender students in both the educational and the athletic environment and the so far the um those were to come out in May they were delayed and in June they did Issue preliminary rules that are in support of transgender students because it is as director Rankin said federal law these protections and that these students exist and need every support to thrive in our school environments and we are hoping that the additional changes that include the Athletics environments will be coming soon and at the same time I encourage at any one and everyone who supports our students and to know that these there are tough battles happening throughout the country that and you know they've come here to our doors at Seattle public

034schools that we still have much to do to support the safety and well-being of our transgender students so um I am not running for re-election and I had served in this role in connection to Title IX and I hope one of my fellow directors will um take up that liaison role and encourage you all to continue to pay attention to when the administration provides these rules and make sure that the district is supported in making the amendments to our policies and enacting additional protections as soon as we are legally able to do so because they will be really important to providing additional protections and um I want to say thank you to our staff who highlighted our trans and other lgbtqia plus and two-spirit students and staff out out there and I want to see

035if I know we have is it okay if I call for Lisa love to do a quick curriculum update on the K-5 um Lisa are you in the in the room [Applause] which was a huge part of that resolution and this one woman um show over here is just been working hard okay um thank you I'm Lisa love manager of health education I happen to be a parent of two graduates from Seattle schools through Cleveland High School and I currently oversee health education which a part of is our lgbtq efforts and just a quick update for you we are adding to the gender book kit that's a K5 kit right now it has books and lessons per grade level K5 so we are adding a few extra titles thanks to some really hard work of

036some folks who are in the room who are adding some lessons to that we have gotten Flags through grant funding out to all of our schools to hang for pride month we also of course participate in the pride parade every year with a about I don't know 250-ish folks right there's a photo of it that was in an article recently so we have lots of activities and events that happen throughout the school year that families and students can participate in and we do have a course that was developed partly because of that board res solution so the course is offered at some of our schools and that was one of the things that came up as a high request from students as well was there another specific update you'd like okay thanks [Music] [Applause] and

037if you haven't been to the the annual Gathering I strongly encourage it it's a great Community Building event and I just want to I'm not gonna be able to say it without getting teary um but thanks for the tissues Ellie I just want to express my immense gratitude for all the people that showed up to support as the parent of a trans child the last thing I want to do is to call them before I head off to a board meeting to do important work to ask them for their feedback on on the things that I am planning to say and do in response to people that would um insist that that he not exists and that who he is is in fact not who he is um when this is a child that just

038wants to go through school being who he is without anybody questioning um their gender identity or anything about their sexual orientation they just want to be who they are [Applause] again again thank you so much for coming out here to support kids because it's not about me it's about my kids and all of the kids and when they hear that that um anything to the contrary it it does cause pain it hurts it really really hurts and it is our job not to necessarily protect them from knowing that but to make sure that we wrap arms around when those things do happen and I want to say pinagigi and just note that um two Spirits in in my tribal culture we have a word for uh two-spirit people that has been around since time immemorial

039this is not a New Concept okay that concludes liaison reports do we have any additional board engagements that we have to discuss in may go ahead director Harris we do um my last community meeting had to be canceled because of some scheduling issues however Saturday October 21 from 2 to 5 the West Seattle library we'll have a community engagement session they're thoughtful they're a little rowdy come bring your issues so that we can have conversations about constructive ideas and solutions to lots of the things that we are all engaged in you are most welcome and the West Seattle Bridge is open no excuses my colleagues are invited as well thank you all right we have now reached the public testimony portion of the agenda but it is actually that is not the right portion we

040will be taking public testimony by phone and in person as stated on the agenda board procedure 1430 BP provides the rules for testimony and I ask that speakers are respectful of these rules I will summarize some important parts of this procedure first testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from the public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included on today's agenda posting on the school board's website only those who are call by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podium and only one person should speak at a time speakers from the list May Seed their time to another person when the listed speaker's name is called the total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for the combined number of speakers time will not

041be restarted after the new speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are on the testimony list or waiting list those who do not wish to have time seated to them may Decline and retain their place on the testimony or waitlist the majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about 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 and have before interrupt any speaker who fails to observe the standard of Civility required by board procedure 1430 BP a speaker who refuses or fails to comply with these guidelines or who otherwise substantially disrupts the orderly operation of this

042meeting may be asked to leave the meeting before we begin I would like to ask [Music] um excuse me general counsel narvler to approach the podium to give us a little bit of a rundown on this procedure in a little you know additional information okay how about there uh thank you president Hersey first of all uh it is great to see such a full house here tonight of people who are here to lend their voice to the board board policy 1430 recognizes the critical role of public comment to help the board to support the board in its oversight and decision making and policy making roles so to everyone here who is here to help the board with those comments welcome um I do want to stress that what is said at this Podium is protected

043to the full extent by the First Amendment uh there's a lot you can say and you may hear things tonight with which you disagree strongly disagree that may be precise decision making and policy making roles so to everyone here whoever that was he was making some great points uh uh and you may hear things that call into disagreement the board's own policies or board approved curriculum you may hear things that are even offensive generally all of that is protected by the First Amendment and so our request is that you let people have their two minutes to say their piece listen respectfully knowing that if you are signed up you will get your chance to come up to this Podium and express your Viewpoint as vigorously and enthusiastically as you wish not everything is protected by

044the First Amendment our board procedure 1430 BP lists some of the few exceptions to that rule you cannot Advocate violence you cannot engage in fighting words and try and elicit a violent response board president Hersey mentioned that he has had to on one occasion terminate a speaker's comments fortunately that's only happened once during my four plus years here I hope it doesn't happen again so for the most part we're here to listen respectfully and then you get your chance to say what you want to say However if those lines are crossed the president with the support of the board office and legal will be prepared to terminate comments if that is necessary board procedure 1430 provides those guidelines with that though welcome to everyone who's here to speak and we look forward to the kind

045of vigorous debate that the first amendment is all about thank you [Applause] Miss coo will now read off the testimony speakers I see a quick logistical note speakers joining us via phone please remain muted until your name is called to provide testimony when your name is called please be sure you have unmuted on the device you are calling from and also press star 6 to unmute yourself on the conference call line each speaker will have a two-minute speaking time you will hear a beep when your time is exhausted and the next speaker will be called the first speaker on the list is Chris jackins my name is Chris jackins Fox 84063 Seattle 98124 nice to have a full house tonight thank you all for being here on the minutes of the September 13th board meeting

046Four Points number one a long chunk of the meeting was spent waiting through metaphysical swamps with your paid consultant AJ crabill number two following the consultant's advice the board has confined itself to hiring and evaluating the superintendent number three voters rightly expect the board to more directly exercise its Authority in running the district number four rcw28a 400306 requires the superintendent to quote carry out all orders of the board of directors unquote please drop your consultant on Guiding principles for the building excellent six Levy 11 points number one the principles fail to address problems number two knocking down a six million dollar Wing Luke building who was only 13 years old number three a 10 million dollar cost overrun at Rainier Beach number four wrongly trading away Memorial Stadium number five tearing out the Garfield Auditorium

047where Martin Luther King Jr spoke number six selling Queen Anne High School number seven lack of on-site Ada parking at Alki and montlake number eight lack of emergency notifications for the deaf and hard of hearing program at tops number nine shrinking playgrounds number 10 artificial turf containing forever chemicals number 11 wrongly using Mega schools to consolidate and close schools please do not close schools there was no mention of the duami's tribe in today's board comments that is an unfortunate Omission given that a prior board resolution supports Federal recognition and benefits for the duami's tribe thank you very much the next speaker on the list is Carol dancerow my name is Carol dancerow and I'm here to deliver a demand for Action to stop the promotion of gender identity ideology in Seattle schools those fighting the

048imposition of that ideology on children include those presenting including those presenting this demand come from across the political Spectrum there are plenty of left-wingers like me it is not okay to present children with blatantly false information about biology there's nothing acceptable about telling them that some people are born in the wrong body sex has nothing to do with anatomy And Men give birth it is not okay to promote sexist stereotypes undercut safeguarding and encourage children to dissociate from their bodies we're outraged that Seattle schools Force children to embrace gender identities mystical mantras and absurd new meanings for keywords we're outraged that it forces them to disregard the evidence of their own eyes engage in compelled speech and forfeit their rights to sex-based privacy and female-only sports we are appalled that via misguided affirmation only policies

049teachers are locking vulnerable children into dissociation from their bodies leading skyrocketing numbers to medicalization multiple systematic reviews have firmly established that pediatric sex change is not evidence-based there is no there there regarding supposed mental health benefits but the harm to children is well established and massive Seattle schools are complicit in one of the most horrific medical scandals of all time I have prepared packets for you that contain the demand for action and appendix of what is being taught and that provides documentation for everything we have said the promotion of gender ideology in Seattle schools the imposition of this belief system in all Seattle's children is hurting enrollment and creates major liability the School Board needs to act immediately because of these realities but more importantly because children deserve better gender ideology is an anti-science child

050harming civil rights destroying homophobia elevating deception it is more than time to stop promoting it in our schools the next speaker is Bruce lesnick foreign [Music] EK I'm one of the signers of the demand for Action to get gender identity ideology out of our schools schools should be teaching science not religion The Sciences of biology and evolution are as relevant today as they were at the time of the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial when schools were trying to introduce creationism and so-called intelligent design into the curriculum there are only two Sexes because there are only two types of gametes and two different body types that produce them the curriculum today lies to Children telling them that sex is not binary that whether you are male or female is based on feelings rather than biology that a

051boy who likes stereotypical girl things must actually be a girl that hating your healthy body and attempting to alter it with harmful drugs and surgery is a way of being your true self as the governments and medical establishments of Finland Denmark Norway Sweden the UK and others have attested there's no science and there's no good studies supporting the precepts of gender ideology and let's be clear Dogma without data is religion no one is born in the wrong body the board should immediately eliminate gender religion from the curriculum stop socially transitioning confused children drop the pronoun Madness and reaffirm your commitment to science material reality and the teaching of biology and evolution I want to also point out that I was a witness to and a participant in the million March for children up in Canada

052where thousands and thousands of people across Canada were marching for these same ideas that I just outlined and that gives you a sense of where our continent really stands I think [Applause] the next speaker is Teresa shrimp good afternoon ladies and gentlemen my name is Teresa shrimp I'm a retired attorney in Seattle have three grandchildren in a Seattle Elementary School I am also one of the signers of the demand for Action which I really urge you to read carefully there's a lot more information in there than I can cover in in two minutes I am begging you to stop the propagation of transgender ideology in the Seattle public schools at a very minimum the materials taught are a waste of precious classroom time and resources in school which are already underperforming academically more importantly transgender

053indoctrination promotes unscientific and damaging information to Young People by introducing them to the notion that something is wrong with them that can really only be cured by gender reassignment gender reassignment is not a cure for anything on the contrary invasive General janitor change procedures renders an individual infertile and risks lifelong sexual dysfunction it results in a mutilated body that is neither truly male nor truly female and it is irreversible there is no objective diagnosis for transgenderism a diagnosis of transgenderism necessarily relies on self-identification which is notoriously unreliable among Children and adolescents it can be confused and often is with underlying mental illness issues we have a long legal tradition in this country of protecting children from activities which can result in trying harm we do not allow children to engage in sexual activity with adults

054we do not allow them to consume alcohol or cannabis or to marry why because children simply do not have the good judgment to engage in such life changing decisions sadly transgenderism is promoted by some in the medical profession all for the wrong reasons Dr Shane Taylor of Vanderbilt University Medical Center explained that thank you the next speaker is Elizabeth duransion my name is Beth Rons young I've served four years on PTA and PTO boards at Ingram high school and Nathan Hale High School Chloe Cole Layla Jane and Luca Hein were all teenage girls struggling with serious mental health issues and were convinced by professionals that transitioning would solve their mental health problems they were given puberty blockers testosterone and double mastectomies but then realized that they had been LED down a path that they deeply

055regret they are left with lifelong harms and medical complications and are now suing the doctors and other professionals who deceived them with false promises socially affirming children is a significant psychological intervention with the potential for lifelong results that many adults will regret bitterly teachers and school administrators are not equipped to make consequential mental health diagnoses but many are doing so through curriculum and practices promoted by the Seattle school district one school district recently Speckles spreckles Union School District recently settled with a mother after transitioning her daughter while keeping it secret they had to pay her for that harm that they'd done to the daughter don't put the school district at more liability by continuing these damaging processes no child is born in the wrong body no child can consent to puberty blockers please protect kids

056for more information check out parents with Inconvenient Truth About transgenspec.org that's g-e-n-s-p-e-c-t dot org and Abigail schreier's book irreversible damage the transgender craze seducing our daughters and as final note the suicide statistics that are often represented are come from a deeply flawed study that has no basis in truth there's no evidence to show that suicide decreases after transition actually the opposite is true in Sweden a very liberal country they found that people who transition are 19 times more likely to commit suicide foreign [Applause] the next speaker is Jennifer crone hello go ahead hello my name is sorry my name is Jennifer I'm speaking today on behalf of parents who oppose gender belief systems being taught in schools I'm in multiple support groups to thousands of parents who are concerned about schools indoctrinated children with the

057confusing belief that they are born with an intangible internal Essence called a quote gender identity and quote parents are witnessing children who are once stable and secure becoming confused and insecure when school Personnel introduce the idea into their child's Minds that they are quote born in the wrong body unquote many parents in the Seattle public school system are afraid to speak at the school board meeting publicly against this for fear of being alienated from their children why because schools are teaching children that anyone who questions opposite sex declarations are automatically hateful also because school Personnel may call CPS and accuse them of abuse in fact these things have happened to many parents merely because they reject the dissociative belief that their child has a gendered soul the quote gender identity narrative is a belief system

058that with no scientific proof belief systems should not be taught as fast in public schools all other belief systems such as Christianity or astrology are left out of the public school system from the Washington office of superintendent Public Instruction I quote teaching about religion must be clearly distinguished from teaching religion which amounts to religious indoctrination and practice and is clearly prohibited in public schools a program intended to teach religion disguise the teaching about religion will be found unconstitutional end quote school-wide policies are in place that allow teachers and other Personnel to hide from parents what's happening with their own child at school the highs of the school is performing a powerful psychosocial treatment on their child without their consent or knowledge when schools secretly baptize children with a new identity and pronouns and present themselves

059to the child as the child's quote true Ally end quote in opposition to their own parents this directly functions to drive a wedge between parent and child further it puts their child in a harmful and irreversible medical path in which the parents had no knowledge or input I know now know many parents who have removed their confuse children from school districts who affirm the delusion that their child was born in the wrong body and these children these cysts become comfortable and rooted in their healthy bodies this alone should be a clue that Seattle Public Schools should not be teaching a potentially harmful beliefs thank you the next speaker is Laura Marie Rivera wow just wow um my name is Laura Marie Rivera and I had originally intended to just testify about the continued discrimination against

060students with disabilities but I can see that we have another very pressing issue to discuss and it is so wonderful to see all of the people that have turned up and turned out today and uh thank you thank you and I know that some of the people were not even able to get on the list to testify today and um I just thank you um I believe that all of our all of our schools need to be a safe and welcoming environment for all of our students Seattle public schools has made a commitment to equity and to serve those students furthest from educational Justice I would like to emphasize this commitment and say thank you to Seattle Public Schools to the superintendent to the school board past present and future to the vast and beautiful

061and diverse staff and every teacher that welcomes our students every day and thank you to the parents and families and students and allies who showed up today and a really special thank you to everyone that is showing up for the very first time to a school board meeting our trans and non-nine excuse me are trans and non-binary children are some of our most marginalized students and they need our support I'd like to give a shout out to Crosscut for highlighting this exact issue earlier this week and our friends at South Seattle emeralds who couldn't be here tonight but are watching the situation closely in the Seattle Times for their continuing uh education coverage discrimination should have no place in our schools I emphasized on addressing discrimination against students with disabilities but I am proud to

062speak against the discrimination against our lgbtqia plus students uh I'd like I'm gonna skip that part and I'll just tell you thank you again to to the district and everybody that showed up tonight uh it truly takes a village and our students deserve the best thanks [Applause] speaker is Debbie Carlson good evening my name is Debbie Carlson and I have a first grader in Seattle Public Schools my family is mixed race trans non-binary and queer and I am also the only out lgbtq plus Seattle board member candidate currently running in 2023. I am here to support all trans non-binary and lgbtqia students families Educators and staff I support inclusive curricula that represent the diversity of students lives and prepare a future Workforce to be knowledgeable and adapt in understanding the diversity of our of their

063peers I support trans and lgbtqia plus inclusive policies that protect students from bullying and promote a sense of belonging in their educational Journey during this National lgbtq lgbtq backlash Seattle Public Schools should be a sanctuary a Beacon of Hope and an example of how trans non-binary and lgbtq students families and staff to be treated in the classroom and at schools according to SBS 2021 youth risk behavior survey 65 percent of trans youth reported engaging in self-harm in the last 12 months 65 percent reported depressive feelings and 20 percent one out of five of trans youth attempted suicide these numbers represent Seattle trans youth they also show that our trans students do not feel safe in Seattle and that Seattle Public Schools must do more to provide a safe and welcoming learning environment for them currently

064within the district strategic plan as well as the goals and guardrails there isn't a single mention of lgbtqia students or their families let that sink in lgbtqia plus students aren't centered anywhere in the district's five-year strategic plan or in the new governance structure called student outcome Focus governance this needs to change we as lgbtqia family students and staff deserve safety protection and educational excellence and I urge the district and board to be a shining example of what intersectional Equity looks like through your policies curricula professional development student programs family and educator support thank you [Applause] the next speaker is Amy Nelson Amy if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute hi I just it my phone was a little slow I apologize my name is Amy Nelson I'm the parent of two

065students at SCS I'm here to um show my support for the two Spirit lgbtqia Plus students at all the schools around our district the target of harassment violence and Erasure of trans youth that is occurring nationally cannot further infiltrate our schools our job as a parent and the community is to provide children with a safe environment that is conducive to learning children cannot learn when their safety is threatened we know that this rhetoric is harming trans kids every day a supportive Community is a life-saving one and we need to focus on the research that is clear on this it'd be utterly unethical to systemically reinforce transphobia anything less than our ongoing efforts to support and uplift our marginalized students is a moral failure thank you [Applause] the next speaker is Amy Freeman hi everybody I'm

066Amy I've got two students in SPS and I am proud to be part of this school district that supports gender diverse youth I want to thank all of you and I'm glad for the way this school celebrates and supports the intersectionality and all forms of diversity for students and I want the record to show that I picked up this free black Trans lives matter poster out front and I'm keeping it and I want to thank whoever this I didn't find it necessary to mention this earlier but since someone else did I too am a lawyer I'm a practicing lawyer I'm a public interest attorney and I went on recently I had occasion to find out what the school policy is for name change in schools before kids have legally changed their names because my kid

067doesn't want me to file that motion in superior court yet because they haven't figured out what their middle name is going to be but they know what their first name is so I looked up the policy and let me tell you I was thrilled this policy is awesome it is it covers everything it's nuanced it tells it tells parents what happens when legal names have to be used in very certain situations and it tells staff that you should do something when you do have to use the legal name to keep it undercover and not call the kid out this is a nuanced policy and I'm thankful for whoever wrote it I also want to say um I want to support the district's goal of establishing all gender multi-stall bathrooms in all public schools I also

068want to say nobody no teacher has ever told my kid they were born in the wrong body or that they needed surgery or what their pronouns were or what their name was my kid told me theirselves who they were long before they set foot in Seattle Public Schools okay and I also want to say that the SPs policy aligns with the American Academy of Pediatrics of which my wife is a proud member and I'm so thankful for all that you have done thank you so much [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the next speaker is Ian Fogg um superintendent Jones and members of the school board my name is Ian Fogg and I'm a student in Seattle Public Schools my mom showed me the list of testifiers today and she asked me if I wanted to speak up

069I do I have friends who identify in different ways and they all need to be in school I feel my education is better when the other students who are with me in class feel safe and welcome the world outside of school is beyond our control and they're deeply problematic things happening inside of schools on our school property during our school activities students should be safe to be who they truly are so that they can learn students should be able to go to the bathroom participate in sports be in class with their peers Seattle public schools has a strong history of supporting our lgbtqia plus students in policy as you continue with your policy review and continue in the work that you do as a board I ask that you continue to explicitly and strongly support

070our lgbtqia plus students and in particular are trans students I'm in appreciation of zero zero one zero your 2019 resolution and also of 3211 gender inclusive schools takes time for us to see policy on classrooms but I ask that you continued to embed the rights of our trans students in policy and procedure and in our classrooms thank you [Music] [Applause] the next speaker is Samantha vogg Ed I am Samantha Fogg immediate past president of Seattle Council PTSA here to voice the support of Seattle Council PTSA for our trans students our trans staff our transparent our trans caregivers and our trans community members and to recognize the SPs board and staff of the work they have done and continue to do to support our trans students um my children will be speaking more and so I

071will be seating the remainder of my time to Lisa love thank you thanks Samantha um I'm Lisa love as you heard before manager of health education I have had the Good Fortune of working with so many families who are sitting behind me and their children as well as staff I really just want to start with saying um students who are here we love you you are perfect exactly as you are [Applause] I also just want to mention that there are staff in this room who have done tremendous things to move all of the policy language forward who have contributed to community meetings who have suggested language and I appreciate their input I've worked in the district for 27 years I know I'm about 106. and I have seen School boards that have said Gee I'm

072not sure a library should have a book that shows two moms all the way to having policy language that's incredibly supportive that's really leading the nation in this work so I applaud you all and I appreciate what you're doing and thank you for the consistent support and ongoing support of our trans kids [Music] [Applause] next speaker is Wendy Reynolds okay a few years ago when my youngest child started Middle School there was a big change in their personality my usually happy and hilarious kid was suddenly very depressed and even suicidal I was getting calls three to four times a week to come to get them from the nurse's office I kept asking them how can I help and they finally told me that they didn't want to be a boy I was taken completely off

073guard and I said oh do you want to be a girl totally lost and not knowing what to do I did what most parents in this room would do if their kid told them something like this I Googled I learned that Seattle Children's had a gender Clinic I called right away to get an appointment but the wait was 10 months I didn't know much at that time but I knew enough to know that if my kid was actually female I did not want them to go through male puberty we couldn't wait 10 months I started crying on and the person on the phone said she would transfer me to somebody who could help me I thought she was going to transfer me to the office manager or somebody who could get me a quicker appointment

074but the voice on the other side and said hello this is the crisis line are you having a crisis no I sobbed I'm just trying to get my kid an appointment the person on the phone was amazing calm calming and told me about a group called trans families he stayed on the phone while I went through the process of signing up and getting confirmed for an upcoming coming meeting we attended the meeting and learned of some other providers in the area and set up an appointment quickly I am happy to say that my kid got a puberty blocker and that saved their lives I have no doubt about it as for Trans indoctrination there isn't any there is however a lot of misinformation and fear I believe if people would take some time and listen

075to stories things can get a lot better for all the transparents and trans kids in the room I don't look like much but I've got you [Applause] the next speaker is Emma Fogg and members of superintendent Jones and members of the school board my name is Emma Fogg I you see her pronouns and I'm a freshman at Nathan Hill High School inclusion matters and every student in Seattle Public Schools should get to show up as their whole self and get to learn and be part of their school community I know what it is like to be excluded for something unchangeable about yourself I am disabled this year I have been excluded from one of my classes three times and this is the only this is only the 16th day it is painful and unfair makes

076you wonder if you're worth less and it's p than your classmates I don't want anyone to be excluded based on who they are today people are debating the rights of students to be themselves trans students are students they should be included in every way in their classes in sports and be able to use the bathroom at school our community and our learning is more meaningful when we can all show up as we are our full selves without having to pretend to be somebody else we all deserve to be safe in school I deserve to be safe and every student deserves to be safe thank you [Applause] the next speaker is Levi Fuller Levi if you're on the line please press star six to unmute the next week on the list is Sarah Kent hello my

077name is Sarah Kent and my pronouns are she her I'm a parent of two children in Seattle Public Schools this is our family's 10th year with students in SPS on our ninth year helping our oldest child to navigate their schools first as a gender expansive child in kindergarten and later as an openly transgender non-binary adolescent in ninth grade this journey has not always been easy for our family but it feels important to thank key allies here at the John Stanford center and at our child's schools who guided us through this process and steadfastly assured us that our students had the same right to exist authentically at school as all other SBS students do we're grateful to the Washington State Legislature ospi SPS and the board directors here for codifying these civil rights into law enshrining

078fairness into District policies and for including information about gender expression and gender identity in K-12 curricula while there is still much room for improvement at SPF we know that the situation is so much worse for children in other areas of the country and my family is grateful every day to be raising our children here for those of you who may still be struggling to understand the concept of gender diversity or who may feel uncomfortable with the idea of your students learning about gender expression and gender identity at school I'd like to share these words from genderspectrum.org that informed my own Journey back when I was still struggling to understand these issues school is a place where children are taught to respect one another and to learn to work together regardless of their differences learning about

079gender diversity is part of that work creating a more tolerant inclusive and accepting School environment teaches all children to recognize and resist stereotypes we teach children to stand up for others to resist bullying and to work together children whose gender is seen as different than in what is expected of them can face very difficult circumstances too often teasing bullying and violence are common experiences for a gender expansive child gender expansive children and all children deserve a safe supportive learning environment in which they can Thrive and Empower themselves thank you [Applause] Nick the next speaker is Michelle Campbell Michelle if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute the next speaker on the list is Jacob Fogg hello we can hear you go the members of the school board my name is Jacob frog

080and I am a student in Seattle public school I've been learning about policy and what you do eventually a thumb bed might somebody might show up to me and to my friends in all classrooms I asked if I could not lose all your policies and they'll owe too many this is the ridiculous amount very fun way to convert them or get rid of what you don't need this is too hard but my mom told me some reviews says environment for all students will seen heard and welcomed in all schools and spaces including in general and education classroom go to surprise gender exorcisting disabilities socioeconomic status religious affiliation lgbtqia prospectual orientation and gender identity primary language and as you also identify those who are available student is supposed to remember of their community and all the

081kids should be okay at school now we know that not all the kids or even all of my still siblings or credit yet and we know some people are mean to kids because of who those kids oh and that is not okay it makes it hard to learn when people are mean thank you [Applause] next speaker is Sarah Kent I exceed my time to Karen emmerman Messner good evening thanks for having us here uh since we're credentialing ourselves I'll just say that I'm the mother to a queer SPS student and a professor of ethics and moral philosophy like Chidi on the good place thank you so I do feel like I have some expertise in this area um the idea the ideology that's dangerous is patriarchy the idea that children don't know who they are

082is insulting and disrespectful of young people like Amy Freeman my kiddo knew who they were long before starting school listening to and respecting young people is their Birthright showing up for them and supporting them is their birth rate as the brave young people who have showed up today and you are very brave each and every one of you can a test the pervasiveness of cisgender heteronormativity as a norm is not a right it's an outdated set of beliefs that erase the existence of so many marginalized people the other day my kid looked kind of depressed and I said what's going on kiddo and he said I just can't stop thinking about how many people want to kill me and wish I didn't exist and I have to go to college next year and I don't

083know if I'm going to be safe outside of Seattle and I wanted to die me his mother right there and then I'm proud to say that fingers crossed my kid is about to make it out of high school in June and go on to a place where I hope people don't want to erase his existence it has been a long and sometimes terrifying and heartbreaking Journey as he has made his way through the public school system as the person he is the beautiful wonderful talented exceptional person he has he 100 percent would not have made it without the extent to which SPS has shown up for kids who are gender diverse he 100 would not have made it without Lisa love thank you [Applause] the next speaker is McKenna Gideon hello um I have nothing

084profound to say but that I love you to my trans Community I love you to the teachers that are in the lgbtqia2 spirit Community I love you to our parents I love you to our students and hate has no place here and you are loved and there are so many more people that couldn't be here today that wanted to be here that found out at seven o'clock in the morning or eight o'clock in the morning and so this is just a fraction of the love and support that our community has for our lgbtq two-spirit individuals in Seattle I am a teacher I'm an artist and I have no other credentials but but I think that it's important to be here and to show up and to stand up and to say that you are important

085and you deserve a safe space and you deserve curriculum that teaches other students not to be to you I hope that doesn't break our civility but I have seen students come in being misogynistic and being full of the patriarchy and because of our curriculum because of the stories that we tell because of the love that is in our school they leave a better person and they leave a better person to other people so it is not just about our lgbtqia students having a safe place it's about making our other students see that they are important and they are valued so they are out there making decisions that matter anyways I'm rambling because I only found out a couple hours ago and I immediately jumped and said I've got to teach but I'm going to be

086here and I love you guys and thank you for being here [Music] [Applause] the next speaker is Zach Lewis yes though just a mic check before I start yeah we can hear you go okay thanks members of the board thanks for allowing me to speak on behalf of so many families with elementary students that have just started a new year at SPS my name is Zach Lewis I'm the father of a third grader at West Woodland Elementary and I'm pleased to say that the start of the school year is going great for our community it's now in our third week and the students faculty and parents are just starting to get into the swing of things but I along with many others in our community were just told yesterday of an additional budget constraint that's

087going to be imposed starting next week after almost three full weeks of school Westwood Elementary along with I understand a handful of other elementary schools in the district are going to be required to change previously approved class sizes to align with State funding requirements and the result in our school is going to be the dissolution of an entire first grade class and the shifting of a large percentage of children and their current classrooms to completely different classes these changes are plans to go into effect starting Monday and negative changes like this after the school year has started are frankly untenable it's a huge disruption for our community at large and goes against the well-resourced school of philosophy that SPS is trying to encourage for our students their educational experience is going to be degraded teachers

088are already into the curriculum at this point in the school year and there's going to be a loss in continuity of instruction which is crucial for their academic progress in addition for our fourth and fifth grade students who are by almost every National study published shown to be behind due to the pandemic they're going to be the most negatively impacted by this change I'm not sure why we would do that for these kids they've already endured so much and they need the most support for our teachers who have already worked very hard at the beginning of the school year they're setting up their classrooms and preparing their curriculums and now we're asking them to essentially start over with no additional time to prepare that seems almost impossible and finally for the parents of SPS students

089as you're aware decreasing enrollment is a major issue in public schools should be trying to prove that they can provide a stable and reliable learning environment for children this change will do exactly the opposite of that and it will encourage further Exodus from the Seattle public school system so I implore the board to do everything it can to prevent these negative changes from being pushed through at the last minute for our elementary schools a change like this will likely end up costing SPS more in the long run and it will potentially save then it will potentially save in the short term thanks for your time the next speaker is June no Ivers hi hi go ahead hello my name is Juno Ivers I use she her pronouns and I am the Seattle Council PTSA board

090member and I'd seed my time to Astrid Dylan my name is Astrid Gillen I attended Seattle Public Schools myself and I now have two children in Seattle school one of them is transgender um I shared some stuff to say but after hearing testimony from others I'm gonna speak from the heart um even in spite of the beautifully inclusive policies that we have in this District on paper my trans child still struggles to access the full range of academic and extracurricular activities at schools because of bigotry among students as well as adults in their schools it is essential that if your students shares a classroom or a hallway or an auditorium with mine that they understand how to respect their pronouns and treat them as a human being I beg you all to continue moving forward

091to the inclusive future that we would like to see and not move backwards due to bigotry and scientifically unfounded fear and hate thank you [Applause] the next speaker is Melissa Westbrook good evening I see on the agenda the board resolution that any new board members elected in early November be allowed to attend the state school Directors Association conference later that month I think this is a great idea as there will be at least two new members to the board and it states that the theme of the conference is focus and it will be an opportunity to focus on what is important in being a board member that's a great question because I think most voters parents are not would say transparency and Communications are two of the most important things and that has not been

092the Hallmark of the current board the board speaks of quote Community Vision and values and yet there's never been a public forum to talk about that they vaguely say they've had meetings with ngos but don't say who or when that's not public engagement that the district could not pull off the virtual meeting about well-resourced schools last night to tell you something the board is now pushing a word solid with a fiscal policy that would greatly Impact ptas labor partners and others if the district wants to see enrollment continue to decline trying to smack down PTA fundraising and spending will surely do that that the board has not made this draft policy public and that it's such cryptic reading they owe the public more I feel quite certain of saying that two things that the old

093board wants to do before the new board comes in one is to announce which school will be closed in order to head off any attempts to not close schools the other is to pass this fiscal policy so as to tie the hands of the new board members and further strengthen the hand of Any Given superintendent I have never seen such a board who wants to give up their oversight power I want to add my voice to those who support gender inclusive School communities folks these students are our school communities and we must support them today and every single day thank you the next speaker is Joanna Foss Joanna if you're on the line please press star six to unmute hello can you hear me yes we can hear you go ahead thank you I seed

094my time to Adrian Martin a student in SPS [Applause] [Music] oh my name is Adrian I'm a senior at Lincoln my pronouns are he him and I'm transgender I've been out I've been out as Trans in SBS since eighth grade I've been out at Queer as queer and SBS since fifth grade being trans is not without its difficulties there's a possibility for violence and every weird look I get I guess I get misgendered every day there's bigotry in the student body and the staff it does take its toll I'm the one most privileged of my trans peers and I know that being trans is hard here's the thing that you don't know about your trans kids they are stronger braver and more stubborn than you think they are confidentiality has been a trans rights topic

095recently I want to speak to those parents opposed exploration is normal when you demand that students be outed to families when they try out names and pronouns at school you are giving them an All or Nothing option many kids will choose nothing and go through something hard alone and go through something hard alone kids deserve the chance to try out things among their peers if uh if uh if they do get that support they are more likely to share themselves with you as a choice one of the things about one of the best things about a safe space is to thank you it makes you strong for the rest of the world I am forever grateful for the spaces I have been afforded my parents are great and I wouldn't have come out to them

096without coming out to the to school first preventing experimentation doesn't prevent experimentation it just prevents expression you think you're protecting your kids but you're not you're making a hard life harder your kids are brave don't stay under their way [Applause] [Music] the next speaker is Spencer visic Spencer if you're on the line please press star six to unmute hi my name is Spencer Visa I am the parent my parents I'm a parent of a student at Denny middle school I am just uh calling in today to support to encourage SBS to continue to support lgbtqia plus families and students and staff affirming humanity and dignity of trans people saves their lives we uh like we still have a lot of bigotry and hate in our community as seen by the bigots who spoke priest in

097this meeting but we need to continue to support our kids and their families so sps's own youth risk survey shows that we have a lot more work to do and I thank you for your support so far and I hope we uh I hope that this meeting uh just affirms that the right thing to do is to continue to support our trans kids and their families thank you [Applause] before we conclude today's testimony I want to go back and check on those who may have missed their turn um the first is Levi Fuller Levi if you're online Levi if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute um next on the list is Michelle Campbell Michelle if you're on the line please press star six to unmute um moving on to the wait

098list hello oh Michelle hello yeah can you hear me yes we can hear you go ahead okay thank you um good afternoon School Board directors and superintendent Jones my name is Michelle Campbell and I'm a mom to a second and a fifth grader and a PTA leader I'm here today to think um to speak about the board and superintendent evaluation process I'm really excited um about the potential within the student outcomes focused governance model and I want to take a moment to thank you all for bringing this incredibly powerful liberating and healing framework to Seattle Public Schools I also want to uplift the way you all have embraced in my opinion one of the most important aspects of this governance model something many adults in our community including myself do not do very well you

099are fostering and modeling the behavior we all want to see in the classroom here in the boardroom I'm grateful that our students can witness your diverse and representative team learning in public together a team that shows up to collaborate with love vulnerability and curiosity a team not afraid to tackle hard problems ask hard questions and challenge the status quo a team that is accountable and adaptive and bold and Unapologetic in protecting and affirming all students you know and understand that when we say love thy neighbor but we show up with hate and exclude and deny civil rights that our kids all our kids are learning is hate exclusion and that only some civil rights matter thank you for eign thank you for being dedicated and Laser focused on our important student outcome goals and equally

100important thank you for demanding identity safe practices and welcoming School environments in the process it's so vital for our students to see the adults in their lives living their values and recognizing everyone's Humanity thank you [Applause] moving on to the wait list the first on the list is Sarah Beth simel Sarah Beth if you're on the line please press star six to unmute next on the list is Diana Charbonneau Diana if you're on the line please press star 6 to unmute uh the next is Eli zavatsky Eli if you're on the line please press star six to unmute uh yeah hi can you hear me yeah yep my name is Eli zabratsky and I'm a high school teacher in Seattle Public Schools um and I have a trans colleague who anonymously wrote a letter that

101they wanted me to read um and let me pull that up now I'm a transgender SPS educator writing anonymously due to fear of anti-trans retaliation and targeting transgender students are a fact in our schools they exist they are telling us who they are they are here and they are hurting in Seattle public schools in 2021 according to the youth risk behavior survey one in five of our transgender students attempted suicide I'll read that again in Seattle public schools in 2021 one in five of our transgender students attempted suicide these rates correlate with higher levels of teasing victimization and bullying today the bullies are adults not children when I was growing up as a student in public schools I was not taught a single thing about transgender people when it came to the existence of trans

102identity I was educated in an atmosphere of silence and denial this invisibility and hostility led me to suppress my identity for many years at an enormous mental and emotional cost big surprise even without learning a single thing about trans people in schools or at home I still turned out trans I was as a child and am and I am as an adult any educated person knows that exposure to ideas reflecting a diverse Society does not make a person gay or trans but visibility and affirming curriculum saves lives our goal is not for cisgender children to become transgender children but for transgender children to become adults our trans staff are also terrified for our personal safety we did not ask for our identities to turn into a hot button issue that gets manipulated for conservative political

103clout please SPS be Unapologetic in your support of us we are literally dying out here and again this is a letter written anonymously by a trans staff member at SDS thank you [Applause] before we conclude today's testimony student member Chrome Brown would like to add her comments hi can you hear me yep we can hear you Luna thank you um hi my name is Luna chromebrone I am a Seattle School Board of Directors student member I am also openly trans and proud and the first openly trans person to ever serve on the Seattle Public Schools board of directors and that is a fact that I am proud of and grateful for I I first of all want to say thank you to the incredible amount of support pouring in since this morning the incredible community

104that has showed up here um our incredible School Board uh who who affirms trans students every day and will continue um and I know that this is a commitment and I will continue to push for this commitment to continue to affirm uplift support and most of all celebrate trans and lgbtq students in our district um from now until forever uh one thing I want to say to those in the room if they are still in the room who who do not believe in my existence who do not who who try to villainize my body and the bodies of trans people who try to villainize us as children and the adults who support us and Save Our Lives I want to say I wish you love I Wish You More love in your life I wish

105you a more loving way of viewing the world because the incredible thing about being a young trans person and trans and the trans community that amazes me every day and inspires me every day is that no matter how hated we are no matter how much hatred we Face how much discrimination how much violence we remain such a loving Community who are who our identities are built on Love Open love for ourselves and our truths and our community and I feel love and I and I can hear and feel the love um in the room today so I wish you who who want to deny us our existence want to deny us our fundamental rights I Wish You More love um I also want to thank Lisa love um who has supported me defended me fought

106for me every step of the way as a trans kid through Seattle public schools because it has been a hard process it has been difficult and I wish and I hope and I will make the commitment that I will continue fighting for all the trans who come after me in Seattle Public Schools um to make their experience less hard than mine and I want to to send the message to every trans kid hearing this right now every student in the room that teacher who left that incredible message um uh anonymously that I love you and I'm here with you and I'm in pain with you um and I hope we can all find a more loving way forward together no matter how complicated that may be and I hope that those who wish to deny

107us our existence will most of all find that love in their lives and in the ways they lead themselves in the world thank you [Applause] this concludes today's testimony thank you if y'all will humor me for just a second I just had a thought that popped into my head and I would be remissed if I did not share it a lot of y'all know that I was a teacher for a number of years um and one of my favorite months surprise surprise is Black History Month and during Black History Month we read this book about Ruby Bridges y'all know who Ruby Bridges is of course you do and I just remember this conversation it was my first or second year teaching this little girl we're reading the book and in this picture there's that iconic

108photo of Ruby Bridges being escorted into school mobs of people who didn't want people that look like me and are superintendent to go to school now look at us hey [Music] but one of the things she said really stuck with me she said man they came all that way just to hate on that little girl yeah they did do you think Israel and then she asked me is Ruby Bridges still alive yeah she is like wow are those people still alive I was like I don't know I was like I wonder if they feel any different now and that's the cool thing about cameras right when we look back at this and this is an HD Technicolor Forever on YouTube I really wonder what are people going to think right and then it came to

109me I don't have to wonder because our community has showed all of us exactly what we think that people regardless of how you show up in this world deserve love and that goes for each and every person and I just want to say on behalf of this board and on behalf of everybody in this room that e even as a Mississippian living here in Seattle y'all have shown me time and time again why this community is so beautiful and so wonderful and there are so many children who are going to be watching this video back 50 20 years from now on their apple Vision pros and they're like dang I wonder if those people feel any differently so with that I'm going to give us a 10 minute recess because I'm tired right and hopefully

110we'll have some time to regroup come back and get back to business thank you everybody for being here tonight [Applause] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] directors I gave y'all a couple extra minutes but it's 6 20. we need one more for quorum I'm gonna go ahead and get started all right we have now reached the consent portion of today's agenda may I have a motion for the consent agenda I move approval of the consent agenda approval my second lit thank you director Searcher approval of the consent agenda has been moved by vice president Rankin and seconded by director do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consensual agenda this evening all right seeing none we will

111now move on to a vote of the consent agenda all those in favor of the consent agenda please signify by saying aye aye aye aye all those opposed any abstentions sent it into passes unanimously thank you all very much all right we have now come to the one introduction item on today's agenda approval of the board resolution number 23 24-4 resolving that those persons newly elected uh to the November set or excuse me newly elected on November 7 2023 to the Seattle School District Board of Directors be designated to attend the annual conference of the Washington State School Directors Association to be held November 16th through the 18th 2023 as representatives of the district as a sponsor I will present this item the Washington State School directors association's annual conference will be held next month

112and the conference will include sessions tailored for newly elected board directors this year's conference however will take place before directors newly elected on November 7th take the oath of office and begin serving on November 29th wasta has advised District sending directors elect to past resolution providing that directors elect are designated as representatives of the district for attendance at the conference passage of this revolution excuse me resolution would be consistent yeah Revolution there we go turn up passage of this resolution would be consistent with the approach taken by the board in past election years the board office will confirm with directors elect their intent to attend the conference and ensure that they are registered do directors have any questions on this item lit okay okay you have a yep all right cool making sure thank you

113very much yep okay so board wow we moved to that quick board self-evaluation uh we'll now move into our time use evaluation thank you vice president Rankin for evaluating the last meeting and providing the detailed evaluation with today's materials uh director Rivera Smith is next in the rotation and will complete the evaluation for tonight's meeting thank you in advance Lisa you're great are there any takeaways from either meeting that you would like to discuss vice president Rankin take it away I I would I um was looking at you know just as we've gone throughout this process been thinking more and more about like what we do in this room and what our role is outside of this room and that um this meeting you know a regular board meeting has there's specific prescribed legal things

114that we have to do and approve and because we're a governance board we need to do those things in public but it's really I mean today aside because that was kind of amazing but but generally it should be kind of procedural boring we're approving things we've we've fully vetted talked about um and and we do spend you know like our work sessions of course increase a lot of time that's not specifically tied to um goals guardrails and such but I had um as I ramble on and on if thought which was uh the um liaison updates if it wouldn't do two things which is make uh updates from board liaison's more accessible and shorten our non-student-focused time to provide board updates written and have those be attached to the agenda um that was just a

115a wonder that I had then um you know members of the public could have access to our updates uh without having to watch the meeting yeah um so I don't know that was not necessarily a takeaway just a wonder if that was a way to um use time a little more efficiently I love that uh yeah I think that's a great idea I'll talk with staff to see whether that's something that we need to talk about or if I as the president can just do um but we will have that discussion thank you for that feedback and thank you for completing the evaluation oh the other question I had was I didn't I did the I did the regular board meeting and I did a work session and I didn't do any I didn't add

116any committee meetings that there may have been tisk tisk because I know that's part of full board use time but I wasn't sure where we were in our process if we wanted to do that or not so okay okay thank you for the work any questions on time use all right thank you very much okay we will now have a work session and I am told that it is brief today on policy evaluation tools oh my gosh uh on the policy evaluation tool that will be used for our policy manual review process it will pass I will pass it to vice president Rankin as we move to the tables Out There Our chair of the ad hoc policy manual Review Committee now to begin the work session all right well my uh fellow committee members

117are not present in the room but I see your faces on the screen no that's fine okay um uh while we're getting the PowerPoint up on the screen there I will just give us a little intro so this work session is about the draft policy evaluation tool being developed by the ad hoc policy manual Review Committee we'll start with just a quick overview of the charter of this committee which is our reason for being a committee and where we are in our work and then we'll look at a review of the draft tool and some samples of how we have used the tool to evaluate some policies and then we will do um have the full board try it out on two policies and gather feedback so we can refine the tool and move into

118the next stages of work so uh we're building on earlier work and and work sessions of that or sorry I'm sorry we're building on earlier work of the ad hoc governance committee that made the recommendations to um do this policy work and that committee recommended a policy manual review to align with our our governance model and charted out some recommended implementation steps president Hersey then um uh Assa or chartered the ad hoc policy manual Review Committee last spring and that committee is chaired by myself and also includes director Rivera Smith and director Sergio so we're chartered to develop recommendations for a a policy manual that is informed with by Best Practices that conforms with legal requirements and [Music] um well I will say maybe most importantly in my mind anyway enables us to regularly review

119and evaluate our policies in a way that is predictable and consistent and improves our uh accountability to the public of of what we all are expecting for for our students so um the oh and now let's see Ellie is going to take the next slide um the committee uh put together a work plan to support their work under the charter and it consists of four main deliverables tonight's going to focus on that first one which is developing a Seattle Public Schools policy evaluation tool you'll become pretty familiar with that throughout the course of this work session the remaining deliverables the committee hasn't yet moved toward but the tool it will sort of unlock the ability to get going with that work so the second deliverable is evaluating policy series zero zero zero zero and one

120thousands using that tool and then based on those findings leading a Board review of the Thousand series policy looking at potential recommendations for any changes that policy series and then recommending a policy adoption and review process so how the board would go about policy work in the future oh and then apologies um vice president Rankin and I also had a conversation following our last committee meeting about what we've heard from directors so far about some of the outcomes that you're seeking from this work and some of those are Clarity for the board the superintendent and the staff and the public on many fronts including roles policies and shared and individual obligations so a lot of clarity around those needed more definition and different differentiation as to why the board has various policies and finally a

121policy model that supports board governance through the policies you adopt and most frequently review and then also board focus on student outcomes to the goals you set and monitor this slide documents some of the Committees work to date I'm not going to go through it in great detail but this shows the general flow of committee work to review some Source materials guidance documents how policy work is sort of supported through was in Washington state the work of the ad hoc governance committee prior reviews by Moss Adams so a lot of kind of inputs into this work to look through and then the committee's um progress towards developing this policy evaluation tool is also documented there so starting with development of a work plan coming up with an initial draft of that tool then developing a

122final draft that the committee used to evaluate numerous policies kind of refining their understandings as they went and then finally here today you have this work session to support the committee in finalizing the tool at their next meeting the next slide is the tool itself which is it's a it's a pretty simple document in terms of what it is seeking to cover the magic is and how it is utilized by the the tool Builds on some of the recommended practices for how one would engage in a policy mailing review and that would be looking at goals guard rails governing and delegation as your four main categories the committee also had conversation about including information about whether the policy has an analogous wazda or Washington State School Directors Association policy so whether the state agency that

123supports school boards has developed a policy that is similar and then also how that state agency wazda has classified their recommended policies whether they deem it to be essential which means that in waza's eyes having that policies legally necessary whether it's discretionary or incur stretched and then finally there there is also a compliance column that's where we just would chart whether or not we have to have that policy by virtue of state or federal law generally did you want me to go into the specifics of each area or do that in relation to the policies um if uh maybe pause and see if if everyone's good where we are to this point if we don't have questions I'll I'd say let's continue but I want to give folks a minute to respond or ask questions

124if they need to looks like none okay oh sure moving into the next slide I'll go into a little bit more detail but I will just flag those right two columns are kind of grayed out on there because the thought is that that analysis would be conducted with some staff support with some legal support and so those ones kind of get backed out of this document as we move forward but I don't want the board or anyone watching this to think that we aren't reviewing for whether something is legally necessary and we're not tapping into those resources that are available through the state this next slide then provides sample analysis from the committee on four policies the committee conducted these reviews over the course of several meetings and came back to some of their earlier

125reviews it was iterative as their Baseline shifted for what these categories mean to the committee and how they would scale them you can see up here that the scores range between 0 and 10. so that is the scale that is you being utilized by the committee in this tool and I was going to sort of toggle between the policies and come back here unless you want to take these pieces on um well I just want to add uh that kind of the reminder or the context that none of this makes decisions about what to do with any policies a policy that gets a zero doesn't self combust or anything like that what we're using this tool for is just to identify what do we have in our policy manual what is this policy for who's

126responsible for the work in the policy all all policies are board approved but some policies are more about implementation and management and some policies are about governance and then within that there's these different buckets so just to what we're looking at right now is just a way to identify what our policies are not make any determinations about what happens to them that will come later and that basically our scale of one to ten is or 0 to 10 is 0 would be not at all aligned 10 would be completely aligned with the the bucket there and then there's you know some in between if directors will indulge me I'm going to take these a little out of order because I think uh vice president Rankin did a great segue to some of the concepts that

127are evidenced with policy 2025 so I'm going to skip forward to a slide about that policy and then we'll come back to that scoring so uh 2025 is your policy that's about copyrights there's just a summary or there's a snippet of the policy there it's too big to fit on the slide but I promise you it carries on in a relatively similar character so this policy speaks about restrictions on the use of copyrighted material and ownership of copyrighted Works developed in the district you've got the printed ones in front of you so I'm going to go back to the committee's analysis on this one um it's pretty small but I'll let you know that it just says zeros across the board so for the committee this illustrates really what a zero looks like in evaluating

128on goals and this is the board's direction to the superintendent for student outcomes based on the vision of the community and then in the tool it has the goals that have been adopted by the board so that's really specific to those goals it scored a zero under guard rails also scored a zero so this is board's Direction the superintendent based on the community's vision and then it lists a summary of your guard rails and then on governing and delegation governing talks about the board's relationship and processes of the community directors and the full board this is these are typically policies about the board's role board member roles officer roles committee roles self-evaluation board meeting processes and Community engagement processes so again in that area the committee scored it at zero and then finally under delegation

129this is about how the board the board's relationship with your direct reports which um there's there's two of them your internal auditor and then of course your superintendent and again the committee found that this policy scores a zero so to the point that vice president Rankin was meeting this are making this doesn't necessarily mean that this kind of operational policy shouldn't exist it doesn't mean um that it's just all of a sudden disappears it may be that this policy is required by a state or a federal law if not then the required immense of this policy may be um um still might be worth retaining for another reason for instance you uh May sorry the cat got me the cat got me sorry um so it might be required by a standard federal law um

130in which case you would need to retain it as a board policy or perhaps it's important content but maybe it's none of the character of a board policy and maybe it is retained as a superintendent procedure so that the tool doesn't tell you exactly what your next step is but it helps you to understand a little bit more about the character of this policy and help to categorize them any um Committee Member feedback or discussion on this one or other this is this is just an example of zeros basically all right so that's the example of a zero so now we can do an example of a 10 which is the board policy one zero zero five which says right in the title the responsibilities and authority of the board and the purpose is to

131define the authority duties and powers of the board and carrying out its Mission so if we go back to the tool we found that to be completely aligned with governing because it is 100 about the role of the board it is um both directed by the board as the board and the work contained within it is about what the board does so this is about our why we exist so that is 100 aligned to governing so it got a 10. um the next one uh 1620 is the board superintendent relationship which has a 10 in delegation and a five in governance because it does include um things that the board must do but its primary function for existing and the content that's in it is about the board superintendent relationship which we have defined delegation

132as being policies that describe the board superintendent relationship so again that's in the it's in the title um and uh yeah so we have you know we have we had some that were a 10 in one area and then a five or three in other areas obviously the 10 would be the most defining um score there and according to our tool we would say that this is a delegation policy um do you want to do 16 or 62 15. I would love to oh I see director of our Smith oh um your sound is I don't know if you've got a cat on your mic [Laughter] I can't hear you hear me no no no better I don't know what to do can you hear me now yes okay hold my laptop it's floating um

133I just wanted to explain um as we looked at these policies that um we weren't looking and this might have already been covered a little bit that we weren't looking at like if we agreed with it 100 if we that was perfectly written if we didn't even if there were things not that we would have changed we weren't doing that we were purely looking at it from these bucket standpoints so so people to know like that we weren't trying to doctor if the policies or change them um or anything like that um any kind of work like that will come later after the evaluation has been complete so that's all thank you that's a super good reminder yeah because we did especially at the beginning we were like oh well if it said this instead

134of this then that would be that um but we tried really hard to be disciplined about we're just trying to identify what's here so thanks Lisa the next policy is 6215 um I'm going to put that on the screen sorry this one I believe fits in its entirety on the screen so um this is your policy about warrants the uh the committee reviewed this policy recently and had some considerable shifts between individual directors initial evaluation of this policy and where the committee ended up so um going back to the analysis of this one you have the policy in your printouts the committee scored this as a 10 for governance and that's because this policy outlines the board's responsibilities for approving warrants the committee also had additional conversation relating to delegation with committee members scoring somewhere

135in the zero to two range in their final kind of conclusions because the category because it authorized the superintendent to draw and sign warrants so this one again it shows another example of the zero for goals the zero for guard rails 10 was uh given to it for governing because it is a policy about board responsibilities and then it's got a little bit of a handoff to the superintendent so some committee members gave it some delegation points like it right yeah and this one was is it's interesting so again we're trying to just identify what we have not make judgments about it but in our other language and work around governance the the other some other governance policies really have kind of our our position on something or our Direction on something and this one

136is something that has to happen so that's where in the later steps like is this a legal requirement and that's why it exists um but we can talk about that later to make sure it ends up in the right place because I think you know it this is quite different from us being clear about a relational or directional on behalf of community kind of policy um so yeah it's a good example oh I just had a quick question what's the criteria for a policy to score three opposed to five or six in a certain bucket or does that remain just subjective to the committee so we somehow came to some kind of consistency this is a really good question and why we wanted to to bring this to the full board is that we we

137found and and committee members correct me if I misspeak that we came to some pretty good alignment and in the final version of the tool should pinpoint what a 3 actually means like we we did find that there was some kind of a shared definition where we were all sort of like yeah that's a three um but we need to get more specific and we'll do that with your feedback about what that means and you also had discussion about maybe compressing to a one to five skill as well right so to make it easier to provide the we did which we can also talk about after maybe after we go through this other uh go through two with you all is that we the other thing we discovered that most of the things we didn't

138have a lot of like Eights or fours we kind of had one three five seven ten so would it be clearer to have a zero through five instead of a zero through ten or does it help to understand like the difference between a seven and ten that's something we can talk about too Lisa I just wanted to offer I think that two was me if I recall correctly because it had that line in there um that says the superintendent shall be authorized to draw and sign warrants we kind of had a discussion how all policies are a directive to superintendent or they say it should be um in when we form Oregon to ourselves um so do we give all policies some ranking for that one well I think we could read that that was

139a no but this one in my opinion had a very specific directive that was different than general policies which was to authorize and draw and sign warrants or he's authorized to draw online warrants here today um so that was why I think I stayed on it too for that I think um I just want to explain I felt like I needed some sort of allotment of points um one other uh kind of observation the committee's work it the baselines really shifted over time you had to evaluate more policies to get a sense of where you wanted to kind of allot your scores um the committee had conversations and sort of the later stages about is essentially is the policy a prerequisite for the thing existing if we erase the policy but a state law already

140tells us to do the thing um does that make it score lower on governance and I think there was a still a little bit inconsistency on that you can see that because the warrants report is a 10 for governance but some of that is kind of tied to State requirements um but there's ultimately I think the committee stabilized a little bit on that point of it doesn't necessarily have to be elective for it to constitute governance or delegation in some way the committee also started the process kind of searching scouring our long policies for any kind of hint of something right so if something had a cross-reference to policy zero zero three zero it was in the beginning it was getting um scored as being aligned with your guard rails or if the policy mentioned

141the creation of a superintendent procedure either you know permissive or mandatory it was getting scored as potentially a delegation the committee as it um its work evolved it started biasing instead of biasing toward really long detailed policies it actually started to look at what percentage of the policy is about the thing and allotting points that way um and so just a few few notes about how the work shifted over time to any directors have any questions or comments at this point before we move to our next item or our next part of this anyway all right cool so we wanted to we picked two um two I think two policies to just sort of test out the process get a feel for it for those of you who are not on the committee and so

142um we chose 1810 annual goals and objectives each year the board will formulate goals and objectives the goals and objectives may include but are not limited to the board functions of vision structure accountability and advocacy at the conclusion of the school year the board shall reflect on the degree to which the goals and objectives have been accomplished by conducting a board self-evaluation and engaging in board development activities where needed so this is a policy that currently exists in our board policy manual as it exists to my knowledge this board has not made amendments to this Sawyer this is a standing existing policy and uh how do we want to proceed so I guess where would we score this based on what's in it not what we think should be in it I assume you're looking

143for non-committee members to answer this I think we should let them try yeah to start to start good idea yes when you say Goals uh uh in the first column those are overarch goals right so I would think that annual goals and objectives does not necessarily align with our overarching goals so would that mean that we would rate it lower so if if to score high in goals it has to be aligned to the board's direction to the superintendent for student outcomes yeah so if it's for us it should not score highly I'll take my Blue Ribbon now and we can both have blue ribbons and under governing it says the board's relationship slash processes with community members directors and full board so I actually under governing would give that a 10 and under delegation

144I'd give it a zero I think we can both be right here yeah blue ribbons for everybody good job a plus I got an A2 yeah zero zero ten zero so that would be zero goals zero guard rails ten governing zero delegation it's earlier slide back on the screen because this I it's probably too small to read but um this has the full text of your goals and guard rails um so just to signal that it really is about those goals and guardrails that the committee is referring to I have a question so just from the scoring um did y'all make this from scratch I can't remember if you said that or not or is there another District that y'all based this off of um we you we started with what's in the uh Council

145of great City Schools policy evaluation yeah okay that makes sense to me I'm wondering even if like as opposed to numbers do you think there there might be words that we could use that would actually like communicate what we're trying to do because I'm because what I'm seeing here is like low medium high in terms of priority or maybe something like that I'm just trying to think about like how to make it accessible and in terms of like you know is there that much of a difference between like a one and a two right as you're thinking about consolidating down I might even advocate for a one to three scale um if you know not knowing the body of work that has gone into this so just trying to think about if we were to

146present this in some fashion how are we providing access so I would say I think Lumi low medium high is definitely worth considering and maybe we should try the next policy and see what comes up and also that yes it should be understandable and presentable but also that this is the primary function of this is for is for us to be able to use to use it effectively so yeah like hope hopefully it's understandable to people um yeah yeah words make sense we kind of we thought too like should we do like a a b c d e f Yeah so basically what we used was a one through was it zero through ten yep identified that there could be other ways to do that scale and that we just need to hone down on

147what you know yeah that makes total difference to me 100 thank you for answering my question and my question and it's funny I think he was reading my notes um is there another District that has implemented sofg that we can see their process on their policy manual for understanding purposes so one was it successful yeah one really good example is Kansas City Public Schools that very specifically implemented student outcomes focused governance framework there's a lot of other districts in Washington that have used a policy governance model that student outcomes Focus governance is is basically taking a lot of elements of a policy governance model and making it into a framework that's specific to schools school boards policy governance is a general board there's also like coherent governance and there's some other models um but I

148know definitely um uh Kansas City schools and then even if you look uh um I don't know how they did it in like Federal Way but they use policy governance and they have the Cataract the categories of governance policies and um administrative or operational policies in the similar way that we're thinking about these buckets though they didn't necessarily get to it by this exact process they must have but I so I don't know maybe do you know by some process they would have had to do a similar evaluation and and identify what they had yeah it's I believe this is written up in the implementation um guide the uh the I interviewed University Place most extensively about it and uh I I definitely encourage anybody to go look at their policies and um their their

149policy manual because of how they represent the monitoring component of it right there like in line with the the policy itself and in these same categories um so they've been doing it for 20 years it's a long time Brandon and I also interviewed Federal Way the the person who um helped move them along so there is this sort of process of um figuring out what you're keeping for the policy manual and then everything else is left to staff to kind of go through the same kind of rubric to get to to figure out if there's anything that needs to be filtered up for some reason but yeah I'll have to go back and reread that and see what the because I know Rick sent me some really detailed notes about exactly when they did their

150how they did their their process and he could come speak to us if we if we want to um so does that mean pardon me if I'm not getting it I apologize in advance does that mean then that the policies that they didn't find quote unquote useful under sofg were brought to the board to nullify or ditchum no no no the um they just aren't the so their sofg is is just the student Focus framework right and the policy um governance is a general concept that can be for non-school district boards as well um is about the notion of the the ends that you seek which are our goals um and then the limitations on achieving those goals which we call guard rails right and then there's all the the other really important pieces called

151governing and delegation um and those same categories exist in these other and models that are not that don't have the layer of the student outcomes piece right um and the all the other no policies go away right unless the superintendent comes and says hey these policies are inconsistent with what you have in goals guard rails governance and delegation and we need to make some amendments they still stay here and they still require board approval they're just not part of the package of regularly monitored as an annual to every two years policies that the board that is the board work the responsibility of keeping abreast of policy is staff thank you for that explanation I I had the impression we were trying to do a policy diet and in fact I've heard that phrase from you

152and I purposely called this policy review because I felt like policy diet wasn't really accurate okay um and I guess I guess something to think about and I'll spend some time thinking about that where does that and and I think Council narver will help us on that where does that put us in terms of legal liability down the road if we're not ditching the policies that we're not connected with here through this process but they're still sitting out there from a planner's perspective that's kind of a dream from oh I mean they they still and so this is really about to me anyway and I and I don't want to get us too far ahead of The Next Step while we're trying to really nail down what the tool is that just establishes but the

153um governance policies everything else that happens should be aligned with what we've dictated in the governance policies and right now the structure that we have any policy anywhere from the zeros to the sixes is sort of evaluated or brought to us of equal importance and we don't spend as much time being really clear about our directives and so this would be basically allow us to say these are our governance policies under which everything else should align and then the other more administrative policies a lot of them are so very important to have and to be brought before the board but don't need to be with the frequency with which we should be holding everyone accountable to our um more direct uh direct you know our direction to the superintendent word diet is gone then yeah

154okay can I add on to the legal um part of it I I believe that if we do this successfully and what I understand from other policy governance districts is not only one of the things I know they're they're way more successful than we are at is community engagement because of the use of their shift in the use of of time but the other piece is that they're actually more on top of their policies because they have a much smaller set of policies at the board through the process what this is doing we're prioritizing we're prioritizing the policies that matter to our governance process which includes the setting of goals so let's say for example one thing that I really like that University Place has that I think is very brave and very interesting is

155they actually have a physical health goal for their kids and that I think that's really interesting um I would I want to talk to them more about that how did you come to this conclusion what does that look like but it starts to wrap in a whole bunch of other if we made that commitment let's say in the next round of the next strategic plan then it would bring in a whole set of policies that the superintendent would be responsible for um revising and getting up to speed based on a really clear uh smart goal associated with physical health and so then it would sort of bring that set of those other policies into greater Focus for the superintendent so we are setting you know it's sort of like the the we're in the middle

156of the pie and and we're saying here's our our core literally in the core um policies and then everything that radiates out of that needs to be consistent and we're not always going to be focused on everything because we can't so we have to say Okay and right now what we're focused on is this goal um and again I find that one exciting and it would really provide us the opportunity to as a district to really clean up our practices around how we support that how we approach that whole child aspect of of Education that's not what we're doing right now but it doesn't mean that it's not a worthy focal point down the line does that help so I think it actually limits our legal liability a great deal and I like you using

157your um example thank you very much and just to add to that I I assume that we will find many policies that are zeros across the board that still are critical to retain I I imagine we will find some that were like okay it's not a governance policy and it's not really helpful for implementation and we discover oh that state law change or whatever then then we would decide together like yeah let's get rid of it but I think most of what we will discover will say okay this isn't this isn't a governing policy but it's really important that we retain it and that and that it still come before the board um in a in a you know regular consistent basis but we won't be spending as much board time on it as we

158are on on these other ones cool um one thing that the committee has discussed um is that the policy evaluation tool it doesn't dictate or generate any automatic result like you were describing it doesn't you know flip a switch on a diet that happens and the policy book is transformed um it's a tool that's used to catalog the board's existing policies figure out why you have them what they cover and then to generate data that would support the board in making those decisions that like what was just described here and so the committee's um deliverables again are basically developing this tool using the tool on the initial policy series and then making recommendations based on those findings I think so that the committee has talked about how um once you have that data on a

159section of policies you'll start to see some patterns some gaps and be really well poised to make a really SBS specific decision about what you do with this information as the committee makes recommendations back on any policy shifts in that energy series as well as how you want to go about policy making and policy reviews in the future go ahead director's on um I'm wondering if you came across any policies that would have scored higher than a five for goals and go up rules I think I'm fuzzy on what would follow those well I will say that some other districts that I've looked at actually we create we approved a policy about um uh policy 1010 on progress monitors thank you which is a governance policy but also could potentially be a goal scorer could

160be a goals guard girls policy some districts actually have a new policy that they approve where like so we approved we adopted our goals in a public meeting they're online but they actually don't they're not they're not in in policy so we other some other districts I've seen have a policy I would consider a 10 in that because it specifically says our three goals attached to this strategic plan are these specific measures that would then of course change as the board adopts different goals but it's actually um set as a board policy so that that would be a 10. and another way to answer that is that if we hadn't started this work in the middle of a strategic plan then we would have you know we heard some comments about it tonight but we

161had actually gone out to the community already in the process of establishing that strategic plan there was a massive amount of work and there was that would have been horrible to throw that out and folks don't realize that that we started Midway through with this existing strategic plan and but for the next strategic plan the Top Line goals that the board adopts would immediately become policies in the policy governance manual and they would be what other districts call the ends or you know some of them call them the the goals it doesn't really matter but this is our expectations of what we expect you to focus on and Achieve not to the exclusion of everything else but this is our Top Line measures and where we want you to you know that Focus I was

162talking about for right now like let's say that we added a health or I mean a physical wellness piece then that would kind of change the Dynamics because as you work on things things get better right and you can kind of move on to other things but um it would be a more natural segue if we at the start of the next strategic plan for the this next board if they answers partially my second question I'm just wondering is there a Target mix of policies that we're trying to work towards similarly to how like we're working towards a Target mix of how many minutes we're spending talking about X in our meeting uh you mean a mix of governance versus administrative or a mix of goals guardrails of governance delegation is no not necessarily the

163the policy governance model um very strongly prescribes or recommends that you do not have more than five goals ideally three and that your guard rails are no more than five oh but even that would like we would there wouldn't be a policy for each separate goal there would just be the goals policy they're well there actually is another districts they have separate policies yeah anyway the it doesn't yeah but then there's there's not like a how many policies should be goals how many policies should be guardrails we're probably going to end up mostly with governance policies then maybe second delegation than the other two but there's not necessarily A the main thing that we want to do is just so I identify what what do we have and I think we're going to find probably

164we don't have very many goals and guardrails policies which is a little bit of a you know alert because that's what we've asked everyone to prioritize but yeah in terms of like proportions I don't think there's anything and I think they set it up that way because then they they directly go flow to the monitoring of that particular group and there's management interpretation of that goal listed here's the what the goal set here's what the superintendent it's a it's really Mike you know like putting the microscope on the relationship by saying here's what the board said here was the superintendent's response to that and here's the actual monitoring and that is all in line with the the policy itself that would also put in terms of goals and guardrails put much more control with the

165board if for example we yeah we decide that like oh maybe this like if the superintendent decides like maybe we should adjust that a little bit like not the not that you would do that but that you know that would require actually coming before the board and saying hey we've we've encountered we've learned something we think this should change it would come to the board to approve that and then also in setting the next goals it's a hundred percent within the hands of the board in a very um to find and and public way too just try and recap that to make sure we're bundling that into the future committee work so um so there's not kind of a a perfect mix of policies that the board is seeking for it's more about cataloging your

166policies to know why you have them and then making decisions about them um there are there is guidance that's specific to how many goals and how many guardrails the board should have but when we get to governance for something for instance it's really just a matter matter of preference for the board and whether you want to have a really long policy that describes a lot of different aspects of governance or whether you want to break that up into discrete one sentence policies or like how you want to structure that work is going to drive the mix that you have and then on the other question you had about does anything score on goals and guard rails um so I wouldn't say that these are the committee's final analysis because the committee's baselines really shifted with

167each iteration because they were focusing on building out the tool not on finalizing their assessments of the policy disease but there were quite a few policies that's not quite a few there's there's a sprinkling of policies in the mix that they did that scored kind of in the five three maybe here's an eight range under goals and guard rails and this um they were earlier scoring much more generously in that area and then ultimately were like oh it's not that um we need to find every policy as being aligned in goals and guardrails we just have to have goals and guardrails and the the board does have those I the real answer to your question director song is actually that it has to be within the scope of what the board can review on an

168annual to semi-annual basis that that's the whole notion of a policy manual is that it's something that we can actually because we haven't reviewed our in the series that the bulk of the series that make up the policy manual haven't been touched for like a decade so that's what we're trying to get away from is like we can't have policies we're not in compliance with the vast majority of our policies yeah and so this is to try to get us to being in compliance with the vast majority of our policies by us focusing on what we can manage so that's the mix is what we can make what can we manage to hold the superintendent accountable to what can we manage to hold ourselves accountable to and then what can we hold ourselves well if

169that's it it's us it's just us what are we accountable to for our community but I I really want people to hear that we have not ever done that we have not ever reviewed our policies in this way on an annual basis or a semi-annual basis and said okay let's take a look how we doing on this and that's led to a lot of policies that have vision and values kind of imbued in them in ways that get kind of Muddy and confused about like who's responsible for this work whereas if we can be very clear about yes these these things in these policies must happen and it's our top our governance policies that give the direction about how we expect that to happen we don't have to we don't have to word Smith as

170a body of seven every policy so that reflects our values because we're going to be very clear about that in the governance policies I hope all right so the other policy that we brought forth to try out is about Contracting it is policy 6220 procurement and um probably you don't want to have me read the whole thing but this is about um the policy of the Seattle School Board to attain materials equipment Goods supplies Services construction blah blah everything that we would procure um and it says that you know it's our policy that that be done with all applicable laws which is already the law and that District staff will use sound you know business and financial practices and that the following and then it designates the following contracts changes and amendments must be approved

171by the board and lists out what kind of Contracting and and monetary limits have to come to the board for approval and some more things about if there's a if there's a change in an exp in a you know from budget to expenditure and also some direction that the district about who the district to contact with to prioritize minority businesses Women's Business women's business enterprises small businesses um etc etc and then it ends with the board delegates to the superintendent all other authority and responsibility for procurement within the budgets is approved by the board the superintendent May delegate such authority to procurement staff or other designees as the superintendent deems appropriate the superintendent is authorized to develop procedures to implement this policy so how how would we score this one and this one's tricky so

172don't skip ahead the committee surprised staff what the hell they wanted to go that's tricky no cheating under governing the oversight and trust issues with our public and our care holders is really critical and we've got some fairly nasty scandals in our past so on the one hand um do I want to spend my life reading this stuff no on the other hand I think that a large majority of the public think that this board is in fact watching watching the hen house um so I I don't know where I would put it in terms of governing but I do think it's part and parcel of our job the oversight accountability piece does anybody else want to go sure Vivian ayush I mean there is delegation in there so I would at least give it

173a five of Delegation if not more but also there is a role of the direct role of the board to approve contracts up to a cert so I don't know I think I would have done five and five five governing five delegation I might even give it a few points in guard rails just because of the operations bullet point um this policy regards its District Operations in the superintendent's operations um Guided by that policy um yeah maybe not 10 but maybe a few points there thank you before Ellie are you going to give us a hint or something I'm not going to give you a hint I'm just going to let you know I'm switching back to the slide that has the full goals and guard rails in case that's helpful because this is a

174tricky one not to say that that's a clue it's not a clue so I think there's a I gave it a five in guardrails because there are some guard rail components to it which I put in the perspective Financial policy which is part of you know the guardrail that we don't have that we should have um and then I gave it a 10 in delegation because the vast we're saying besides these dollar amounts it comes to us otherwise you're delegated to approve the rest it doesn't change whether we would still see them regardless of how it scored with the with the policy the way that it is it doesn't change that but it does have I think it has a guard rail I don't think there's anything related to governance in there I think it's

175just guardrails and delegation so Ellie do you want to talk about talk about the kind of Journey that we went on it yeah so this is one of a couple policies in which the committee um generated some relatively animated feedback from me um in their scoring I think you started with zeros across the boards or some something similar on this one or kind of a companion policy that you looked at and um the the committee ultimately ended up in a place where for their goals and guard rails scoring they were really asking whether it is a um it is tied to those specific goals and guardrails rather than sort of a drafting style of setting a goal statement for students or the district or crafting it as a directive that was framed as a guardrail

176so that was that was how the committee utilized that so there's a hint that the committee gave each of one of those a zero um on governing and delegation the committee got to a place where there were um well initially in the conversations we were just trying to find some points to get something to like why is it here um for some of the other policies the committee was looking for like if there's any touch point with the board it's obviously got something to do with governance so if it's an annual report that comes to the board that must be governing by the end of their Journey they scored this one as a zero they didn't view it as being about the board even though the entire policy is about the board's approval of contracts

177and I don't mean that in a snide way it's because what the committee viewed this as is a delegation to the superintendent so what this this policy is about for the committee is that this policy prescribes The Limited Universe in which the superintendent doesn't have full authority to just administer and operate the district if it reaches this level then in the relationship with the superintendent the board has a touch right I don't know if I summarize that well enough I think I think so I see Michelle nodding but no it was kind this is what you know I think this is in our second cycle so we had learned or was in our maybe our first I don't know but it was like well it's the policy of the Seattle School Board well but we

178don't procure well but we have to approve so that's us and I mean we it we went all over the place and then actually kind of came to the conclusion that um where we're trying not to go which is perhaps this policy could be more clear and specific about its purpose and that perhaps there's a need for some of the language to to go into a different uh policy or place um but yeah I think that's we yes I think that's how we ended up do you all discuss a list of FAQs or questions that you would use in your analysis bullet points if you will would that be helpful for figuring this out to determine the score yes we we did we did some and Ellie actually did a really good job of capturing

179our our questions into some consistent points of you know the questions that we were asking are ourselves and each other as we kind of came to cool to do and we did you know started off being like you gave that a zero I gave that a ten you know and then and then kind of understanding why um that happened um but I think that's that's what we want to you know hone in on today is um seeing if there's alignment between the full board about what where we've arrived and I think Ellie can read back some of that too and just a quick point on that so that the committee's Baseline just shifted really dramatically as the committee gained more experience and revised how their approach the tools so um there wasn't necessarily totally stabilized

180findings and takeaways but as the committee finalizes the tool and then goes and like does a big chunk of the policy book with it I think we can really document those with more clarity and a little bit more stability um I was just hearing I think what ayush was asking for at the beginning in terms of what really kind of dictates these different levels is very connected to IT director Harris is saying in terms of the FAQs that's helpful because yeah I just saw the mistake that I made because I only went through this a couple times with you guys and and then I was like oh yeah I'm thinking about what I want the policy to be not what it is right now so what the thing that I want to be is yes

181would be in a guard rail but this one is over here and and the other thing I want to point out about procurement having looked at about a hundred different procurement policies throughout the country before we made changes um to this last round was that if you have a really strong consent agenda uh practice where you bring things forward on consent agenda like a lot of contracts but don't necess but don't pull them and spend a lot of time reviewing every one of them because the it's just the practice of like the board of approves above this amount so it's there for transparency for anybody who wants to look at it but the then you can lower the dollar amount but where you have to where you have to spend lots of time looking at

182every single one then you need a higher dollar amount that was consistent across districts and I will also say that the the that particular policy was uniformly difficult to find in every District meaning it wasn't a top-line policy um it wasn't part of connected to their goals or their you know or however they run their their whatever their model is of governance it was usually pretty well buried because it was such an administrative piece of work that's okay but thank you so we've touched on this a little bit already and I know that we haven't given you like a a baseline uh framework written down but uh now is the time where we would really like to hear from you all about things we should you know consider uh for I mean they heard some

183of that maybe maybe low medium high might be more accessible and and functional for us um and then also what would uh well yeah because we almost I mean pretty much everything was either a zero five or ten wasn't it I guess not quite in your some of your goals and guardrails ones there's a little bit more gradation and I I by the end we were just trying to figure out what what your definitions of governance or delegation were so you kind of did end up getting some more tens in there because we were just trying to force some examples there oh uh director Sergio if I'm remembering correctly um one of the conversations that we had was uh for example what what is the difference between six and seven if I gave it a

184six and Lisa gave it a seven um and quite honestly we couldn't we could not articulate something objective and when we talk about policy we've got to be real clear about you know what what is objectively what are we trying to do um so for me the one to the 10 was very difficult um because I don't know in practice what what it would look like uh if we needed to make some decisions if we've got a six and a seven and one of us speaks pretty strongly about it um so when Brandon said I think Brandon president Hersey was that you that said I don't know you said something I'm running off four days of no sleep so uh what did you say about potentially looking at it as a three tier system like

185high medium low priority oh that's what you said high medium low or something like that something to that effect just something to make it more accessible if there's not as much variation um yeah yeah it's not as much variation yeah I do think I do think a numbering system is it can be useful but we we have to be clear yeah about what makes something a five or in this case we had to be really clear about what makes something a ten and we can do that if we had a scale of one to five like what what makes something a five and what makes something a one and then what what makes something a three right because you you want to have a scale I think of odd numbers um but I think it's

186going to be really hard for us if we keep it's just my own personal experiential opinion that if we keep the one to ten that's going to make it difficult to get through this exercise yeah and can I just tag on it then move on really quickly the only reason that I suggested the word as opposed to number is that like when you have a scale and we do this in education a little bit too when you have a scale in like numbers people then have to go look for the scale versus if you can find some range of words that just cuts down on the like okay what does this mean again so it it could be or it could not be consequential just that's where that came from that makes sense and I

187think that either either way if it's words or if it's numbers that I feel like we will be able to Define zero through five much more clearly than we can Define zero through ten are you using zero now I but I was gonna say the only reason I think we should I want the math I want the numbers I want to stick with numbers um and but also because low isn't zero and you need to have a zero yeah we should have zero yeah or you need to have a one that is defined as not applying at all can I make an attention can I make an attempt at unifying these and you can tell me if this shouldn't be brought back to the community I'm just going to try to do that oh but

188cool I was gonna say in in uh Educators use typically four domains and I'm thinking we can use four three two one zero with highly effective effective developing and ineffective and then those are descriptive and those numbers make they they didn't make sense and so I'm thinking maybe that might be a solution so however you want to talk about the alignment is it effectively aligned highly effective ineffective developing no I I think we can definitely find a way to use a scale that is familiar exceeding or not yeah yeah we we will we will bring it back to you I was going to say the same thing you can see you can check my work I've got zero one two three four zero low medium high because I I don't know if a zero is

189bad so I didn't we'll have to figure out how to how to use common terminology that is familiar to our system but a zero isn't necessarily A deficit this could just be not applicable yeah all right so I'm hearing uh some adjustments in the scoring range development of the sort of FAQ common understandings document making sure to build that out almost like it works through addition yes no flow chart like does this policy do this if the answer is no it goes here if the answer you know until you get to yeah yeah so we will take all of this to talk about during our next um committee meeting and use it as uh the foundation for our um deliverables I feel like we have a good Mutual understanding um if if it is reflected

190by everyone else that you feel comfortable with where we're headed and it makes sense um go ahead I apologize I'm still fuzzy so after you've evaluated these on whatever scale you land on then then would we do that anything that is a zero we just cut or no I'm wondering about the scale or not monitoring monitor no we are but it's not it's not part of our well we're not even doing that part right now right now we're just trying to use the tool to evaluate what do we have you're describing the um deliverable number four so uh deliverable number four could Encompass all of those approaches that were described they could Encompass an entirely different approach too so the committee is developing the tool they're going to run a bunch of policies through it

191kind of check what their findings are and make some recommendations back to the board about you know policies could be structured in this way and you would review these policies with this frequency these ones with this frequency or maybe some of these policies become more operational documents for the districts whereas these are sort of core governance policies so those pieces the committee just hasn't gone to yet so if it's zeros basically that means it's not part of our like if you think about it as like a forward of the policy manual like here is the board policies and here's all the other rest of um the policies that we approve and so if if they're zeros they go in they go in the rest and then um some of those we might say why do

192we have this most of them are going to just stay there oh you have more go for it please I was just gonna say this is all about creating Focus yes that's that's what this is doing it's just where is our Focus What policies do we need to retain as part of our focus and friend that is as a board not the district yeah that's right as a board yeah the the yeah yeah just uh it's just us there's the front section and then there's all the rest sorry that was actually a clearing of my throat I wasn't trying to sorry no seriously uh good job everybody on the committee this is awesome very excited y'all have done some really amazing work so and thank you to uh vice president Rankin for cheering all right

193our monthly budget status report is posted to tonight's agenda as a written update there being no further business going once going twice to come before the board this evening the regular board meeting stands adjourned at 7 39 pm thank you thank you I'm now going to go to baby duties bye-bye I'm so excited for you enjoy