Seattle Schools Board Meeting Sept 28, 2022

001[Music] Mike foreign director Harris has not joined just yet uh director Rankin here director Rivera Smith present director sarju president director song Moritz president Hersey here and I do not yet see director Harris online I will make sure to notify the public when she arrives I would like to welcome School Board student member Luna Chrome Baron to tonight's meeting during these meetings we will be addressing the student members as directors thank you for joining us director chrombero I will now turn it over to superintendent Jones for his comments including a proclamation for indigenous people's day and a summative data review superintendent Jones thank you president Hersey and board members as we acknowledge at the opening of our meetings here in Seattle Public Schools we work and live on the ants on the unseated ancestral lands

002of the Coast Salish people with gratitude and respect we recommit to centering the sovereignty and voices of indigenous communities in our work in honor of indigenous people day on October 10th we offer a proclamation director Chrome Barone will read the proclamation please 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 especially of Seattle's American Indian Alaskan native and Indigenous students whereas the Seattle Public Schools recognizes that the indigenous peoples of the land 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

003city would not have been possible and whereas the Seattle Public Schools values the many contributions made to our community Through indigenous peoples 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 and income inequality exacerbating disproportionate health education and social crises and whereas the Seattle Public Schools seeks to combat Prejudice and eliminate discrimination stemming from uh 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 peoples through policies and practices that reflect the experience of indigenous peoples

004ensure greater access and opportunity and honor our nation's indigenous Roots history and contributions and whereas SB 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 the school board of directors has mandated through policy number 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 Alaskan native and Indigenous students and recognize the contributions of native peoples on October 11th indigenous people's day on October 10 2022 is hereby proclaimed as indigenous people's day and celebrated across Seattle Public Schools oh [Applause] all right thank you so much uh we will transition to talking about academic progress uh the school board adopted a progress monitoring

005calendar this Summer that begins with looking at student outcomes from the 21-22 school year my team will present results from the smarter balanced assessment that students took in the spring they will give us some baseline data we can use to track our progress of third grade reading and seventh grade math goals it will show us how the whole system is functioning in terms of achieving our outcomes for students this summative data review allows us to become more familiar with the data before we begin our formal progress monitoring in December so without further Ado I'll turn it over to Dr Keisha Scarlett assistant superintendent of academics thank you good afternoon Dr Keisha Scarlet of assistant superintendent of academics thank you so much for this great opportunity to provide um an update to our board of directors

006with our smarter balanced data from Spring 2022. our hope is that it gives you information to support both your individual and public engagement and to help build Readiness for our regular progress monitoring work through student outcomes Focus governance process so this short presentation is intentionally shared at a high level and will be presented by me rather than superintendent Jones this time consider me as the appetizer and that he'll be the full meal in the upcoming progress monitoring session um within that and also see this as an opportunity to jot down some questions to give us sufficient time to really respond to the questions that you may have and we look forward to hearing from the ad hoc committee's recommendations on the calendar as far as progress monitoring as it comes up so um like to

007see I want to know that we recognize that the data we are about to review is only one measure of student outcomes and that Student Success encompasses multiple Pathways and opportunities as the district engages in a more thoughtful assessment system and Equity focused data analysis the SBA student achievement levers levels no longer live in isolation SPS is committed to working toward embracing the usage of leading indicators and actionable data to ensure adults in our system both Educators and staff can react in real time to provide our students the instruction and resources they need now earlier this month State and national leaders provided districts and schools with guidance about how to use the Spring State assessment data after a two-year Interruption due to global pandemic when you look at this slide here you know from superintendent

008right now I won't read it all the way out loud but um speaks about how broad scale test scores how they can influence investment in policy priorities so looking at the scores from the smarter balanced assessment are designed to really indicate whether students on track for college level learning there are other aspects like engagement attendance and grades and classroom-based assessments that we can use to really give the real-time information about what's happening for students as it unfolds so we'll move to the next slide so just to reorient you and remind you of work that we've done before as we've oriented you around this portfolio of measures and how we are invested in a portfolio measures so when you look at this portfolio measures you can see along the left side that um that we have

009different measures there with some examples the purpose for that and and then what they can be used for so that is just a rehashing of that if you move to the next slide we have the actual example of the third grade reading goal assessment portfolio where you can see the indicator of the literacy skills perception indicators and enrollment so it gives an opportunity to see how we're using Dr Scarlett I just want board members to know this is in the superintendent comments if you click on that on that agenda okay all right so let's let's go back one one slide and give them a chance to catch up okay great and then remind me to take off my glasses so I can read the screen okay so so let's just this this one minute one

010minute pause okay absolutely thank you superintendent superintendent Jones is modeling good teaching and learning practice right now making sure that everyone has the materials laughs uh Dr Scarlet I don't want to throw you off but if you would make the comment now about how this is one measure of multiple measures and then they can see it in context that is that I think that's really important absolutely so the SBA assessment data is one measure of um of student achievement and this portfolio measures gives an opportunity for us to think about how we're looking at a number of different measures so you see at the top of the chart it has standardized standardized summative assessments so you can see where the SBA lies in this portfolio measures but also combining that and triangulating we say with

011um standardized interim measurements have informative diagnostic benchmarks and assessments formative curriculum embedded Ambassador assessments also our perceptual measures like our climate data which we'll talk about a little bit today and then other data like course enrollment and passage rate as well that are aligned to our strategic plan goals thank you and so the next slide shows just the example of third grade and our portfolio measures that we have for our reading goal assessment portfolio that you can see we have indicator types that um both shares our literacy skills our perception indicators and also um enrollment that we're tracking through that thank you so let's go ahead and dig in and get started in this for looking at slide five and six so in this first view of student achievement we're looking at the percentage of

012students in grades three through eight and also grade 10 who received a level three and level four level three is considered proficient level four is above proficient English language arts our literacy student achievement is represented in the green color mathematics student achievement is represented by the color blue you'll notice that certain grade bands within the achievement levels highlighting African-American males outcomes have a red star above it this data is connected to strategic goals that red star denotes that so third grade um literacy seventh grade mathematics as a benchmark area and also at um 10th grade our for our student outcomes Focus governance progress monitoring memos we've shared a disaggregation of African-American male students based on multilingual students African-American male students with IEPs and other categories we plan to share this breakdown since you probably have

013questions about the insides I want to provide one illustrative example so for instance in terms of the in size we should note that for example at the third grade there are 4020 total third graders in Seattle Public Schools 1640 of those total grade third graders are students of color furthest from educational Justice and that's also denoted down at the bottom the asterisk at the bottom elaborates on what that means around students of color further furthest from educational Justice and of that 467 students are are third grade students are African-American male students so our students are multi-dimensional and will attempt to continue to share data and measures that are disaggregated so that we can really show the complexities and the multiple identities of our students please move on to slide seven thank you so in this

014second view of student achievement we're looking at the same data set as the first view but it's just a different layout this slide shows two distinct graphs disaggregated by English language arts and literacy and Mathematics each graph shows grades three through eight and tenth grade who are also at level three and level four all student achievement is represented by the color gray students of color furthest and educational Justice are represented by the color blue African-American males are represented by the color green if you move to the next slide you're able to see how we further shared that multilingual Learners are the color yellow and then special education or IEP services are denoted by the color red also noting that that star refers to strategic initiative areas or strategic plan goals we'll move to the next

015slide now we're very aware of the effect of covid-19 as this and this data really shows our results before the pandemic compared to now while there are differences in the assessments we therefore need to be cautious of drawing too many sweeping conclusions when we look at this data as Trend data we're going to look at student achievement data from 2019 on this slide in 2022. as you know two of our strategic goals are focused on English language arts and literacy at grade 3 and Mathematics at grade 7. for each of these respective content goals is African-American Male Achievement to be at 70 percent by 2024 for English language arts and 70 in 2026 for mathematics now if you notice each graph shows grades three through eight and grades 10 who are levels three and four

016students in grades 338 are represented by the solid lines students in grades 10 are represented by Broken lines the first row represents 2022 student outcomes and the number of students who had level three and level four achievement levels the second row represents 2019 student outcomes and the number of students who had level 3 and level four achievement levels lastly these tables showcase African-American male students that have been highlighted in great bands that are part of our strategic goals you can move to the next slide and that's where you can see the yellow color for multilingual students and also red for students served with IEPs next slide so before we move into the next segment of data I want to contextualize just the previous data now at the same time we know that state superintendent rikdale

017had an interesting perspective on this data as he began to review the fall 2021 SBA data and noted this on September 9th that these data are encouraging there is no question that covid-19 significantly impacted the learning environment disruptions of remote learning quarantine and isolation and transitioning back in person after periods of learning remotely are evident in the decrease in proficiency from Spring 2019 to Spring 2022 however the incredible work of our Educators and families to support students is evident in the recovery we are seeing across grade levels and subjects Seattle Public Schools is being studied for the outcomes that we have that have exceeded even the state outcomes as we move to the next slide and as I shared earlier now this is just a preview of an abundance of data for you all and

018it will take us time to really unpack this and to be able to provide um the level of detail so as you look at this data here if you're more curious about some more of the in sizes please note that this data shows the data from Spring 2022 for all students students of color furthest from educational Justice and also you can see African-American males and it's highlighted at those investment areas there were red stars before we highlighted a yellow Within These tables and then you're able to look at the comparison for spring 2019 across all students students of color further from educational Justice in African-American male students next slide again the data shared with multilingual consistent as yellow and then also students receiving IEP supports notice the same data that we have there thank you

019we'll move to student climate all right so student climate survey data as my staff and I were preparing for this presentation we felt it very important not just to Showcase SBA outcomes from Spring 2022 we also wanted to highlight our students and their thoughts about belonging school and impact of the covid-19 pandemic on their development as individuals we must also remember that behind every number is a student with goals and hopes and dreams and I believe the best way to Showcase their stories is to highlight outcomes from our climate survey at this point this survey is administered twice a year and is created and managed by our research and evaluation team so the last two slides give all of the slide all of the survey items so if you wanted to see what they all

020are but I'll just highlight a few ones that are Salient I think for illustrative purposes so in this next slide oh sorry excuse me I got off Off Script a little bit so um if you go to the previous slide my apologies you can see um in this slide that we have a 25 item survey that is translated in the district's top five home languages um Spanish Somali simplified chinese vietnamese and maharic and it really um leans toward our core commitments around targeted universalism I shared before that this administered two times um during the year the survey covers topics on sense of belonging safety and identity culturally responsive teaching relationships social emotional learning student voice and Leadership but as we move to the next slide and think about this and compare to our new academic

021goals we also added um survey topics across these four areas College and Career Readiness math literacy and then also the impacts of covet next slide so in this first um slide we asked the students a question or the query was I feel like people accept me for who I am as a person now the reason why we start with this data point is because of the central role of identity and the affirmation of identity is closely connected to our achievement there's a close connection between a person's personal identity and their academic identity as well so this is just one example of a question related to Identity to get a clear sense of how identity matters and how we need to really look at it across questions and different metrics we use in addition I should

022note that we've been refining the climate survey questions to align more closely with our strategic plan goals and I know that director Harris always asks if we're changing the survey every year then how do we compare it but there are refinements um that um that we're trying to move forward with within this as we get really connected to our strategic plan goals I read your mind director Harris okay so um in the next slide we asked the question my teacher has high expectations of me so you can see how that data is disaggregated across with the different color references around that again identity and culturally responsive teaching identity is co-created between a student their educator team their teachers and their family and so that identity and it being a form of identity development as part

023of culturally responsive teaching do my teachers have high expectations I mean you can see the data from that the next slide slide 20. in these next two slides we're going to look at student responses with correlations to our strategic goals for reading and Mathematics so the first slide um reads I expect to do fairly well in mat in the math class I take so what are those expectations around mathematics identity in particular in this one about my expectations for myself this connects to the critical point about high identity connects to math achievement and then in the next slide we have two questions that we highlight one is I enjoy reading and when I'm reading by myself I understand almost everything I read this is about the joy of reading as well as comprehension this data

024could be used to guide our system and our individual Educators on what support students need for example we start we've just started learning Improvement networks around third grade reading goal and we'll be looking at this data with Educators across schools so how do we look at practices in small ways but then think about how do we scale them across the entire system so the final survey slide data highlights the impact of the pandemic on student social emotional health and learning so the questions that are asked on this is over the past year how much of an impact did covet have on your social emotional well-being and then over the past year how much of an impact did covet have on your learning and so [Music] um we will continue to look at this data in

025a coordinated way as we improve our support systems for students and service of educator students and their families as well so as I shared the last two data slides or of the survey items if you just want to be refreshed on what those survey items look like before and so I'm in summary I know we reviewed a whole lot of data and it will take some time for us to really unpack the information that was presented tonight to return to an earlier point I hope that this presentation provides a thoughtful segue into our student outcomes Focus governance updates and the work ahead and we know that superintendent Jones will do a great job of sharing on that information as we move into progress monitoring so um we want you to give you this information so

026that you can share your questions ahead of time and we can really take full advantage of our next upcoming sessions so if there are any questions thank you okay fantastic thank you Dr Scarlett do you have something you'd like to share No I was going to uh see if we had five to ten minutes for for questions and then we'll set it up later for uh work session perhaps after you all digest this but this is this is really a snapshot of where we are please yes absolutely and I was just going to say as we open for director questions I would like to ask directors to focus on clarifying questions regarding the data uh like we just mentioned we'll have an opportunity to have a deeper conversation with Dr Jones on strategy in the

027progress monitoring sessions this winter today is obviously just a brief opportunity for directors to engage with student outcome data and get a sense of where we are and where we were rather at the end of the 21-22 school year um so with that in mind director Harris take it away thank you you mentioned uh students receiving special education services with an IEP our 504 plan students included students that have a 504 plan included under the orange area you know what I did not ask that question it's a really great question so I'll follow it with my staff my representation of this when I read it was with students with IEPs so we did we do need to follow up with 504s and I'll make sure I follow up with that thank you thank you so

028much director Rivera Smith question is what is the participation is it are we do we have participation by all students in these or are the people do we know what the opt-out rate is or how many we might be missing are you speaking about the survey yes um let's see I heard this um data yesterday um I believe that um our our previous participation rate because um you know before covet was around 70 um something percent 75 or so um the participation rate did drop down into the low 60s um maybe 61 participation so there were some different um barriers you know last year but we would expect it to move to pre-pandemic rates and even higher hopefully as people see more and more value in the data as well so yes there has been

029there has there was a drop during pandemic of participation do we know if the participation um with their drop by demographic you know I will follow it with my team on that to see if there's a demographic um breakdown that could be shared about that that's a great question thank you I'll make a note about that and last question is regarding I see that the climate survey was translated the top five languages but we have many more than that in our district so students who are not in those top five how are they able to take was is were they did they have accommodations to take the survey yeah I'm not absolutely sure about those accommodations I do know about those languages that I share there and about of course our English version of the

030um of the surveys as well thank you so that might be an impact on participation but we can follow up absolutely thank you so much director song Moritz thank you I have two observations and I'm hoping that we will have opportunity at a later point to do a deeper dive I'm looking at the um the student climate survey my teachers have high expectations of me and there's a real drop off between elementary school and middle school and I'm sure that's probably just because there are a lot more teachers I I would like to have a better understanding of um what is the sentiment behind our middle school and high school students behind that um and then the the next question in this uh climate survey I expect to do fairly well in any math class

031I take I think I was personally kind of surprised by the relative confidence of our students compared to looking at the performance on the standardized test scores and so I just have a general wondering about that thank you uh go ahead director hamson um first of all thank you for this excellent preview uh and I'm just super excited to be talking about student data uh because it's been a while and uh I think that you know coming on to the school board that's what I thought we were going to be doing and um it feels like it's been quite some time since we've had data uh covet it was a big part of that and so and and this is just a fantastic preview and in part because it does bring up so many excellent

032questions and uh not to say that that my question is going to be excellent but my fellow directors questions have been excellent uh I was noticing on the percent of students meeting standard uh in on the smarter balance smart Smarter Balance assessment let's see what's probably better I don't know what slide this is um the first the blue um graph percent of students meaning standard levels three and four percent of students meeting standard that was on uh no what is the difference between these two no they have to wear stars on it does it have the red stars no it's the actual graphs the line graphs from 2018. oh okay 19 to 2000. 22 oh I think one is slide nine I believe okay um so what I notice is that on the the next

033slide um so go to 10. yeah that there's not much there's less of a drop among uh multilingual special education uh Learners in particular that's true to some that's also true on math in the prior slide for African-American males and my question about this is and possibly to be answered at a later time is is the lack of additional drop just simply that the bar was already so low right we were already underperforming to such an extent that we it didn't get appreciably worse because we were doing so poorly and what in for what that tells us right that even during covid we didn't have as much of a drop um whereas we had you know a much more significant drop overall with all students thank you yeah yeah these are different tests and different

034students and so while it looks like a a drop this is almost uh hard to make this comparison because apples in the business we're apples and screwdrivers almost yeah okay well yeah so I mean the question is just what do we learn about how our students for this from educational Justice and African-American males performed during covid relative to other um to the to the broader group and uh If there really isn't anything then what what do we meant to glean from this particular set of data points yeah it's just an opportunity to look at even though the assessments you know we say are different assessments it's an opportunity to look at with soft eyes you know a trend of data but also like the recovery so um 2020 to their 2020 um two data becomes

035our like new Baseline by which we can compare you know over other years but we're not comparing of course the same students it's always a different group of students but to just think about okay what is it overall just like us using SBA as our Top Line measure we're looking at sort of the overall of what's happening for our students but understanding that any of this data is being looked at through that portfolio measures of other you know data that is more predictive that can help us that'll be part of the progress monitoring and then the other question I had thank you for that was the was about the um the extent to which we exceeded um other parts of the state in terms of and what were those kind of general areas where we

036outperformed or is that or I don't really have that you know like at that level of data but there you know were Explorations and I mean you know we can maybe take a little bit of soft eyes to the Seattle Times also right and their feature about what's happening with test scores but um I don't have like specific data about all the different areas at this point of that but I think it's important for us to keep exploring this data and looking at sort of the causal impacts within that but also looking at our Dynamic more predictive data you know um throughout the year that will be collected as far as our progress monitoring so this gives like a really high level like sort of snapshot of like what is our sort of trajectory look

037like um you know over time with new baselines for 2022. thank you so much thank you go ahead director Rankin thank you um for thank you by the way for all of this um for students who uh who more than wanted category applies to them so say an African-American male who receives special education services would that student be counted once in each category yeah so yeah exactly and so we do recognize the intersectionality of our students they could be a multilingual have IEP supports and also you know be African-American male you know and even multi-racial and so um to that um degree that that is how we're trying to like really think about how can we disaggregate the data of sort of the full dimensions of you know who our students represent and the families

038and communities that come from as well um so I think that's helpful and I think rather than going by student and and Counting them only once in one category it makes sense to count them in more but I wonder if at some point it would be useful or possible to look at the impact of intersectionality within the data um I don't know if that's something we're thinking about for going into more depth I was saying our inclusionary practices work I mean one of the things that we are all setting goal is to look at targeted universalism right and so looking at the achievement of African-American males who are served with IEPs and like what are the programs that they're um you know being supported in on what does the academic achievement look like within that

039so um you're a spot on about sort of that intersectional approach in um thinking about you know the work that we're doing ongoing so absolutely okay great yeah but I think it is helpful to know and helpful in this context to know that each student is counted for the percentages of every category in which they qualify um my well I have a noticing that I'm not going to go too much into but that students receiving special education services have the lowest um feeling of acceptance and high expectations by their teacher especially at that 10th grade level that's kind of a punch in the gut to be quite honest um the uh question around the covid impact can you help me understand what the percentages represent so over the past year how much of an impact

040did it have and then there's percentages so the percentages like do the percentages represent students who reported it had a big impact yeah or do they represent the sort of like reference of amount of impact if you look at the top I don't know if you can see it on there um I should um oh he responded often are always yeah always thank you I know that was a um I didn't read on the document so thank you that was I just went right past that thank you okay um and then I guess a clarifying um director Harris asked about students with 504s so I think it's critical that however we're looking at this data that we're being very consistent about which students we're talking about because students with disabilities students who qualify for IEP

041services and students who have a 504 may or may not be you know there are students with disabilities who don't don't have any any of those supports um and then I I think our number of students who have a 504 is actually really pretty small um not insignificant but that's a different so I guess I'm just saying for for me for my personal view on the um academic data I would support or or I guess I'm asking when we talk about students receiving special education services in this context are we talking about students who qualify for an IEP or does it Encompass any other of those categories my preference would be to stay specifically to students who qualify for IEP Services because that is a federal level of qualification and it also determines services that

042are provided at the district and classroom level in a more distinct way than other groups of students I think if we are you know depending on the context if we're talking about you know the overall sense of self or acceptance of a student's with disabilities that's a different question to me than looking at impact specifically for students who have an IEP and that also goes into when you graduate having a modified diploma or a standard diploma that would only apply to students who have an IEP so I just want to make sure that we're really super duper clear and I'm kind of looking to my colleagues also for consensus or understanding that really really clear about when we're talking about any student with any disability or a student who qualifies for services through the federal

043definition of the 13 categories of disability that entitle you to IEP services or if you qualify for an accommodation based on Section 504 so I think it's super important that we're just very consistent about which students we're talking about every time we talk about that um that's all thank you thank you director chrome barrel oh there we go they ma thank you for this presentation and I was just wondering um well firstly for um my fellow directors um and superintendent Jones I do think I would really appreciate and I believe that nasira and Jenna would also really appreciate if we could have a work session surrounding how we um structured these climate surveys I think specifically with this as a climate survey when we're surveying student climate students should be Central to creating these kind

044of a survey if we're asking students how they feel um I think students are going to know best how to ask other students how they're feeling um and then my question was uh just I was looking at on the last two slides the um all the questions that are asked by topic and for middle and for middle and high school students and then I scrolled past that and I see with the elementary school items we have the questions for College and Career Readiness we have the questions for math literacy covid but I was wondering do we have the same kind of um identity and culturally responsive teaching safety bias and anti-racism positive behavior and safety questions framed for um younger students are those existent and just not included here or are those something that aren't

045here at the moment yeah thank you for that's a great question um on the slide before it reads up at the top that the items were worded for middle and high school students and so I'm not absolutely sure if there's another set of items that are for elementary you know within this so based upon the information I have here I'd have to infer that um what you see as the difference um you know in the last slide for elementary um School items and Middle School items is listed there that are connected to the Strategic plan goal areas so I can check in with our team our research and evaluation team to find out exactly which ones were the elementary ones and we can add that information in as well yeah I would appreciate that just

046considering that um I mean elementary school students do deserve a chance to speak up about the safety and positiveness of their learning environment just as much as middle and high school students so thank you thank you so much fantastic great question um I have one question of my own um and is less of a question or more of a request as we are looking through uh some of this data especially at like a high level in the climate survey portion I think one of the most poignant ones is uh the question around the drop-off from I feel as on my teachers have high expectations of me when we are putting uh our narrative together and how we talk about this I just want to make sure that our educators are included in the process of

047determining what does that look like right and why that data is what it is I think it would be really easy for a Community member to look at this with very little context or even a district official to look at this with very little context around the perspective of the folks who are actually working with our students in classrooms on a day-to-day basis and so I just want to make sure that that voice is captured in some way as we approach the progress monitoring as well as how we determine what is our plan moving forward to address this and what that looks like so if we could find a way to ensure that as much educator voice is captured in the narrative piece of that that would be of a high priority to me thank

048you so much I made that note thank you I appreciate it thank you Dr Scarlett I think that concludes this portion of today's agenda we appreciate it thank you so much okay yay student outcomes um okay I would like to again welcome our student board member Luna chromberon to the meeting tonight director Chrome Barone began her junior year at uh the Center School a few weeks ago and we'll be serving on the board's audit and finance committee our student members have had the opportunity to provide comments as we begin each meeting and like other directors I also welcome our student board members to ask questions as uh they have so eloquently done already um in input as we move through the remainder of tonight's meeting agenda I will now turn it over to director Chrome

049Barone for her comments thank you president Hersey and I will keep this brief but hello my name is Luna chromebrone I use she her pronouns and I am a junior here in our school district I would like to recognize with my time tonight as a proud first generation U.S citizen of a Colombian father that we are here in this space during Hispanic Latina heritage month which is recognized heck yeah which is recognized from September 15 through October 15th each year I am proud to be representing my community it is at a district level as we speak and I am proud to be one of the roughly 13 percent of our students who are Hispanic identifying as we recognize the rich and beautiful history of Latina cultures and peoples it is important that we act to

050uproot the systemic Colonial violence that Latina young people are forced to grow up with each and every day specifically from an education standpoint we must make sure our curriculums are created with a decolonized perspective and informed heavily by indigenous folks especially specifically when we are talking about history I'm looking at you textbooks written by racist old white men to conclude [Applause] [Laughter] to conclude la Latina and me as una Brasa que Arte para siente muchis gracias I yield my time [Applause] okay before we move into uh public testimony today I want to take an opportunity for our board to recognize and hear from a Seattle public school's parent for her advocacy Ms Calista Coles serves on the Seattle Public Schools Indian parent committee and is a parent to four current SPS students after three long

051years of missed coal leading and advocating for Senate Bill 5498 known as evidence law was successfully enacted earlier this year under evidence law Seattle public schools and districts across the state are now able to issue diplomas for high school students whose lives have ended while still on track to graduate Miss Cole welcome thank you for being here today to address the school board and share your story I invite you to do so now the floor is yours [Applause] thank you it is an honor to be here and I wish I could say a privilege but it's not a privilege because I shouldn't have to speak on this um I'm aware that Seattle Public Schools does allow honorary diplomas for their students however across Washington our school districts pick and choose which students get an honorary

052diploma my son Everton was a Seattle public school student from kindergarten to ninth grade he attended a greater View Elementary Stevens Elementary Aki kurosi and Roosevelt High School he went on to go to treatment for mental health and substance abuse because he was a student with disabilities he was a student with an IEP he was a student with undiagnosed mental health issues he was also an indigenous student he went to go live with his father when he was 16 and he attended School in the Highline School District he didn't stay in contact because of his mental health issues he came home and he was about 18. and today September 28th four years ago was the last day I saw him alive it was the last time I heard his voice and his words were I

053will be back in that moment I didn't realize what an impact him coming back would make that he wasn't going to come back physically that he was going to come back spiritually and emotionally and helping me to be stronger than ever when he attended School in Highline he struggled to stay in school he was in and out of school and his last High School Credit was earned in August 2008. upon his death he thought he had over five high school credits to graduate when I went to Highline School District because I have heard of honorary diplomas being given to students they said he had to have reached full high school credits before receiving an honorary diploma and they gave me a certificate of something and I can't even remember because I've been so focused on

054getting what he deserved and they gave me his high school transcript upon receiving his high school transfer transcript I realized he had a high school missing which meant from the ninth grade he was missing high school credits he was only 2.38 high school credits away from graduating and they responded but that's a clerical error and we're sorry I know for a fact because I'm a mother of another High School senior she will graduate 2023. like if you ask any student who had high school credits missing from the ninth grade if that would be acceptable as a clerical error I guarantee you not one of them would say oh yeah that's fine that's great because of this clerical error I know that my son would have graduated but they said we have no way of knowing

055he would have graduated and I know that's a lie I know for a fact because he was in his sixth year of high school he struggled with mental health he was in and out of school but he wanted that graduation certificate he wanted that he wanted that because his mother me I got my GED and his father got his GED and he wanted a high school diploma he wanted to be better than his parents and that is my goal for my my children in life to be better than me because I come from so much trauma I come from struggling I come from intergenerational trauma and that is a part of the reason why I'm standing here telling parts of his story because it is all connected even I was a Seattle public school student

056and in the seventh grade I in the seventh grade I sat on the stairs early in the morning at South Shore Middle School looking into the door a foster child and I decided that was my last day attending school and I ran away from my foster home because I did not feel wanted or loved but there were a handful of teachers along the way that loved me and cared for me and I know that they tried really hard because they knew I was smart as a straight A student and I know in Seattle Public Schools there were a handful of teachers like Mia Williams who knew my son and Ms Gilligan Miller at Aki karosi who knew my son and Miss Carter who knew my son and they all loved him and they all knew

057his spirit when Highline School District said that they cannot give me an honorary diploma because it the law says that is for those who jumped out of school or left High School I won't say dropped out of school but they left High School to serve in the war that you know it doesn't pertain to our students now especially our students of color who died at a higher rate of of homicide and suicide unfortunately those are just the facts and that's how my son left was homicide and the truth behind that is he was shot by a 16 year old who I hope graduated high school who I hope has made a better life for himself but that's the thing is that he gets that chance and my son doesn't my son who had an IEP

058who hadn't right to a fair education who has failed by the state my son who had a right to walk with his graduating class in his graduating year who never did my son who was veiled by the state of Washington because they misreported his high school credits and called it a clerical error my daughter came home at the end of school year at Rainier Beach High School this summer and let me know that they honored a young woman who had been killed who attended their school I thought that was so beautiful and but because this law I'm still waiting for my son's diploma Highline school district has it and they asked if I wanted them to send it to me and I said no because they need to hand it to me I am a

059parent of four more children a high school senior in 266th graders and a third grader and uh this has an impact on them too and we need to realize and understand that every child matters in life and in death because we the parents the family we're still here in community we are they're bank tellers and we are the bus drivers and we are the teachers and we are the community and how our districts treat us and Hold Us in that has an impact on us because I could have given up and I could have created more trauma for my children which would have created more problems for the Seattle public school district because they'd be in school with those problems and that trauma instead like I said my son came back and helped me to

060be stronger than ever to recognize and end and identify that intergenerational trauma is real and we need to address it and on that note I want to say Sandra Hansen has heard me talk about these things because my daughter was in school and she was having a hard time and staff looks at our children like you know they're just starting fights but my daughter was processing that trauma that pain Mr Hersey I've reached out to you and I've spoken with you on the phone and I've had emails with you but I have not heard anything about how we're going to fix the trauma awareness in our schools and it took me having to be here it took me having to change a law to be recognized and heard that has an impact on me and

061so I changed one law and I'm not done this isn't it for me it's not over because we have children that are still here thank you [Applause] I just want to acknowledge the courage that that took to come here and share the stories that so many of our families experience but never get the opportunity to actually say it to somebody that has the power to do something about it so very moving let's just sit with that for a moment let's take 60 seconds and just let the gravity of what was just shared with us settle okay thank you Miss Cole for joining us tonight and for your advocacy and much more we will next go to public testimony we will be taking public testimony by phone and in person as stated on the agenda board

062procedure 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 our public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list which are included in today's agenda posting on the School Board website only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the podio and the only one person should speak at a time speakers somebody else have their mic on okay I'm just getting a little bit of feedback speakers from the list may see their time to another person ah okay then it's fine uh when listed to the speaker's name is called the total amount of time allowed will not exceed two minutes for

063the combined number of speakers time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if they are on the testimony waiting list those who do not wish to have their time seated to them may Decline and retain their place on the testimony or wait list the majority of the speaker's time should be spent on the topic they have indicated they wish to speak about finally the board expects the same standard of Civility for those participating in public comment as the board expects of itself Miss coo will read the testimony speakers thank you president Hersey 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

064are 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 najima abadir hi everyone good afternoon my name is sorry my name is dejuma abater and I'm a senior at Nathan Hale all right okay my name is dejuma butter and I'm a senior at Nathan Hale being a leadership student has made me appreciate how Hale is a student-led school at my school I feel heard and I feel valued and as students we can do all kinds of things like planning events holding student forums and we're able to speak to our school ottoman but I know that this isn't

065district-wide students should all be a part of the decision making in every school especially in places like our school newspapers hiring committees School Senate and anywhere students can make an impact in and out of the classroom I also want to bring up students mental health and well-being new students don't have the same relationship with teachers and staff that they need they need to feel protected and every student needs to have a staff member or an adult at their school that they can trust coming back from the pandemic the people who helped me feel comfortable were people who I already connected with online and during my time as a freshman that includes my friends and staff and teachers but as a leadership student who works with underclassmen I don't see these connections anymore and I know

066this causes students to feel less interested in school and I even see them disrespecting teachers and I know this isn't just a problem at my school I think we should be the ones reaching out to them and showing them how communities work we should make our district inviting and comfortable and give all of our students a chance to succeed I see teachers trying but I don't think they have enough support or resources to fully engage all of their students I think all of this District solutions to help students mental health are piled onto the work teachers are already doing to care for their students I want to end with some questions if you really want to hear your students you need to listen so do you actively reach out for to students for opinions that

067don't always agree with yours do your students feel respected and heard thank you [Applause] the next speaker on the list is Chris jackins my name is Chris jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on the sca contract the district has stated that it is uncertain about paying for years two and three of the contract was a one-year contract considered on the indigenous people's day Proclamation the proclamation does not mention the dwamish tribe School Board resolution 2016-17-1 supports treaty rights and benefits for the dwamish tribe on the construction projects at Alki John Rogers and montlake Four Points number one the budget transfers are 15 million dollars for montlake three million dollars for John Rogers and 8.7 million dollars per Alki number two the report states that two million dollars is being saved by moving Surplus soil from Mont

068Lake to John Rogers tying these two projects together complicates both projects number three at Mont Lake the playground will shrink to half its current size at John Rogers it will shrink by a third at Alki the project is way too large for the site number four the environmental review is not yet complete on these projects please vote no on the naming of the records and archive Center in honor of Eleanor Taves two points number one recognizing a talented person who looked after the history of the district is nice number two also please stop bulldozing important history at school site After School site on the Madison field project please do not replace natural grass with artificial turf and do not have tall light poles for night field use thank you very much the next speaker on

069the list is Alex Zimmerman Alex Zimmerman the next speaker on the list is Sherilyn Crowther Sherilyn Crowther hello I'm Cheryl Lynn Crowder president of the Seattle special education parent teacher student Association and there is nothing that I can say no testimony that I have in front of me that can better tell the story of students with disabilities and what that breathing and Powerful mother just shared I will just say when I have testified about the system is not broken the system is working as designed what she said about intergenerational trauma is part of the system I will save the rest of my time I would actually like 30 seconds at least to just again think about that incredibly powerful testing thank you the next speaker on the list is Catherine George Catherine if you're on

070the line please press star 6 to unmute the next speaker on the list is UT Hawkins hello thank you very much for having me it's nice to be here I have been my name is UT Hawkins I am Muskogee Creek and Kiowa Nations I'm a mother I'm an educator Seattle's Public School parent now um I'm also here representing and speaking as Seattle education association's vice president and Lead negotiator I know that you are here today going to look and speak to the contract that was recently brought forward to this board I wanted to speak to say that a contract is a commitment as a community so this contract is only as quality as the commitment brought forward by both parties to ensure its actions that begins with a lot of trust what I know from

071my experience in this negotiations is that 6 000 Educators stood behind every word within this contract in support of students staff and the communities they serve 55 000 families stayed out of school buildings insisting that we do the work not needed and necessary and that we insist within our contract the advocacy of their voices as well through this process and they saw that I wanted to speak to inclusionary practice because one thing that I've heard repeatedly is that Seattle public schools and US are 44th in the nation I want to be very clear as a state we are 44th in the nation but ospi when you look at Seattle Public Schools we meet with 70 percent of students with IEPs they are within our classrooms in general education practice 80 to 90 percent of their

072time currently our dedication as Educators to that work and within this contract is evident and I want you to know there is a dedication of that work already happening and moving forward when you look at this contract look to the fact that special education multilingual education all have task force and Community inclusion involvement and that inclusionary practice goes beyond that it goes to informed family decisions where staff and students and educators are all involved in that process and then there's also religious accommodations counselors family support workers and social workers you heard the community speak to all of these things as a necessary foreign classified staff as well are the integral parts of those supports and I want us to understand that the dedication and improvements in our system are about holistically meeting children's needs there's

073more to do to make this contract evident and to make Seattle Public Schools ready for the work of inclusion and that is what this contract brings forward as a commitment of my Educators to this work and the students and families who stood on those lines with them my daughter was thrilled to start school and every student that stood on those lines every family that looked into the contract every educator who looked into that contract saw that this is about dedication and Trust within us all to do this work because a contract is only as good as the people who actualize it in process and that's what we need to do moving forward that means a commitment to our classified Educators who have asked specifically for Investments not only in them as respect for their skills

074respect for them being included in the system and respect for them as professionals who would rather do this than go work somewhere else so please take that Readiness seriously know that we are prepared to respond we need to be prepared to respond when staff and students ask for help that students and staff are demanding involvement and we've heard it here multiple ways in different ways and times and that our process of collaboration is embedded in this contract so please look for that accountability it would be remissed of me not to take a moment right now to acknowledge that I'm a black and Indigenous woman I take very seriously that commitment within my work and I wanted to bring forward and mention a continued conversation with the school board that I will need to have and

075thank you for the extra time there's been a recent change outside of this contract that will need to be a continued conversation around the civility policy today I'm here as an indigenous person to speak to this and my community as a whole will speak to it as well with you ongoing civility policies have roots in cattle slavery they have roots in misogyny and staff have now had their right to the Hib process eliminated this needs to be a continued conversation because there will never be a conversation that I will be able to have as a black indigenous person about how civil I am supposed to be yet now there is no way for me to have that nuanced conversation and so we need to do more if we are committed to racial Equity not just

076for our students but for the staff and people within the school district who are committed to this contract committed to the ways we work together and committed to that collaboration because right now we've stepped back from that work with a civility policy that has not have the barriers and boundaries around it to provide the support needed because the work that we want to do is in that contract and I hope you see it because we are dedicated to that work and that work is complicated but we are here to do it and I hope that you see that dedication and the hours and months spent sitting in the room together to get school open thank you so much [Applause] the next speaker on the list is Thomas Heller Thomas Heller Thomas if you're on the

077line please press star 6 to unmute the next speaker on the list is Joanna Cullen Joanna Cullen before we end today's testimony I want to go back and check on those who may have missed their turn the first is Alex Zimmerman the next is Catherine George and the last is or the next is Thomas Heller and the last is Joanna Cullen this concludes today's testimony thank you Miss coo that concludes public testimony for the meeting thank you for comments before we move on I'll note that board directors I'm not going to say that part sorry uh we have now come to the board committee reports section of the agenda we'll hear briefly now from the chairs of the boards committees and our legislative liaison we will begin first with the audit and finance committee vice

078president hampson sorry can you come back to me no problem you are also next for the ad hoc governance committee will you need time for both happy to cycle back uh yes please do all right so uh next up is the executive committee which is your boy me uh we had a riveting discussion specifically around the adoption of the 2022 School Board director redistricting plan uh folks have been doing a great job of submitting various points of feedback very um via our online opportunities and so if you're at home and you're watching this and you're like what redistricting plan please check your email there should be something there and if not feel free to email your favorite board director and we will be more than happy to get you the information that you're looking for

079or even the board office staff or the office of public affairs there's so many people that you can reach out to to get that information um the the next thing that we discussed in committee was um the discussion of our October Retreat agenda so board directors again here's an opportunity if you have something that you would like to discuss at The Retreat please feel free to tell me about it so that I can make sure that we try our best to incorporate it into the agenda and if anybody out there doesn't have anything to do on one of you know our beautiful Saturdays coming up in October those meetings are public so you could come and hang out with us if you so choose um but other than that those were the big topics from

080the executive committee our next meetings are scheduled for October the 19th November the 16th and December the 7th um and there will likely be a little bit of a change in calendar considering that many of our board directors will be attending a conference on student office Focus governance in Orlando Florida the week of October the 19th so stay tuned if there are changes we will be sure to let you know all right moving on to our next committee the operations committee which is led by director Rivera Smith are you prepared at this time to give comments yeah all right so director Hanson looping back will you be beginning without a new Finance or at how governance so there's actually three there's Finance we also had an audit meeting and then ad hoc the finance uh

081meeting was on audit and finance committee meeting as it's called was on September 19th and uh not a whole lot to report uh quarterly listing of contracts and modifications exceeding 250 000 and ramping up towards the state auditor's office contract in case folks have forgotten we do get audited every year by the state and that information and prior audits is available this is the time when they come in and prep and we have an opportunity to talk about any concerns we have uh and our next meeting for audit and finances on October 17th and for audit we met on September 13th and went through an update on our implementation of the internal audit High function internal audit implementation plan which is uh well underway and as well as an Ethics update and then went through

082audit response and we'll have some notable audit response items coming to the um coming up when we meet again in December on the 5th these meetings are now at 4 pm instead of at 8 A.M as they once were and one of those will be we'll have an update on a previous I believe from 2019 transportation services plan uh there's um and then the other notable thing that is underway now is a internal and external Communications uh audit uh that I know both board and staff are excited about seeing that move through again next meeting is on December 5th the ad hoc committee met yesterday and meets again tomorrow morning we are quickly approaching our deadline to have all of our recommendations regarding the final uh implementation calendar and action items for bringing student outcomes

083focused governance fully online the committee's been very hard at work lots and lots of papers and if anybody has um really wanted to torture themselves by sitting through one of our meetings we appreciate you because uh as I reminded superintendent Jones today imagine if the only time you could work was in public meetings and that's what we do uh ugly as it may be we have spent the since June working together doing our best just to capture uh we're not allowed to talk with each other about these items when we're not in that public setting I don't think people realize that so all the work that we do is messily done in real time during that meeting and we're it's coming together I'm really grateful to my fellow ad hoc committee members and the superintendent

084and particularly the board office staff who's been doing some incredible work in research I know we terrify them every single time but I know that we are all really interested in getting to a place of much greater efficiency and much greater focus on student outcomes and also at the other piece of that and this is a component of that is the capacity to do be much more proactive in our community engagement and our community outreach as board members so hopefully good things to come including trainings that we'll be doing in public to your point director um Crown Baron we do will be needing to not only with our students school board members but doing public trainings on student outcome focused governance and what it means to have public conversations two-way conversations with our community about

085how our goals represent the vision of our community in terms of the outcomes that we want for students so we have a very busy 24 hours ahead of us and look forward to being able to have those greater discussions with the board thank you director Hersey president Hersey you can call me Brandon um okay director Rivera Smith are you prepared at this time take it away thank you we had our last operations committee meeting on September 19th many of the bars we saw there will be covered today on introduction so I will not go over those now but we also did have a transportation update from our new Transportation manager Joe Hibbert who comes to us from Community Transit in Everett we welcome him and he's already hard at work as as many of us

086have heard and if you haven't you would be happy to know that we are doing really good with our bus service this year as far as serving all routes so that is a testament to the work that's been happening in that department we also heard from our new interim interim executive director of operations Marnie Campbell as long as welcomed our new enrollment planning Enrollment Services interim director FAO Manu they are both with us to give us an update on the work they're doing there and it's really just ongoing work we don't expect to have any major boundary changes this year as far as a student assignment transition plan goes so everybody can kind of wrestle easy knowing that there won't be any um upcoming disruptions as far as those movements go in this next school

087year or in really it's kind of planning for the next year but um but that but it's still that's work that is ongoing so um as they get into their roles and the year progresses there will be more to come on conversations if there needs to be any regarding um needed changes there so lots of happened we don't actually have our current October meeting scheduled yet I think as president Hershey mentioned as we're going to be out of town a lot of us for the week that they would normally be held so um we'll just keep an eye out for when if and when our October is held and if not we will just meet again in November thank you you director Rankin thank you student services curriculum instruction committee met last week and we

088had um I think I flagged it for you all in email even though you know we all get all the materials but I kind of did a special special attention to my colleagues to check out the research and evaluation projects presentation there were some slides that provided some really helpful contexts about how they view their work that we all found very interesting and helpful um I also we had a special education update about some uh work coming through related to inclusion and cultural responsive practices and just general special education best practices that um I noted but I can't now remember what the outcome was that that it was extremely helpful update that should be coming to more people than just the committee um and uh so one thing I will note about that too is

089that in kind of in response to that and in preparation for future conversations I resent you all in email um one of the reports that we were given as part of the SPs sea task force on inclusionary practices last year there was a particularly comprehensive one um that came to all of us and I can't remember what month it was but I pulled pulled that memo out of the committee meeting packets which you would have gotten at the time but um and sent it to you all again um a few days ago so please look back at that if you're having questions or getting questions about what work is happening because um it has been happening and continues to happen and we have been provided with several meaningful updates throughout the course of last year

090that and those can be found in materials that you have we skipped work plan because moving into our recommendations from the ad hoc committee that's likely going to change some things so and then as director Hersey said we're all in a conference next month so uh future note of future announcements about sscni is is majorly TBD right now um on the legislative liaison side uh this Friday is the wasda the Washington State School Directors Association General Assembly where um school boards from uh all you know all 295 school school districts in Washington state have representative votes in the general assembly on priorities prayer prayering preparing for the 2023 legislative session and so I will be representing uh our board and voting it's just a simple up or down um and then I can't remember the

091deadline I gave you all but I have not received responses yet about um priorities so be sure to get those to me if you have any burning things you think that um you don't want me to miss although I I feel pretty solid going in about any of our previously stated priorities and I will vote in alignment with with what we have already said as important as a board um and then the next thing that happens after that will be uh once the votes have been compiled from General Assembly wazda will re-put out their legislative priorities as voted upon by a membership and then they will develop a top ten so we will have the opportunity as a board to submit our personal top 10 issues um to for a legislative advocacy through wasda and

092so the public will see you know how we weigh in on what those are we will be able to use that for in our advocacy efforts as board members and then we will also have opportunity to discuss together our own legislative priorities if they are different I imagine they will greatly overlap and then even more future is um I'm uh working to implement a timeline and process for the legislative position submitting process which Seattle Public Schools board has really participated more on an individual basis in the past and I would like us to get that embedded into our process as a board so that we can especially as the largest District in the state make sure that we're prepared to if we see holes in the legislative platform we can be a position submitter and

093get something in front of you know the rest of the boards of the state for that Collective advocacy since we know that is so important and influential in getting what um the resources and uh from the legislature and getting their priorities aligned with ours and what our schools and students and teachers need so that's on Friday I'll be sitting for eight hours or something just I think just clicking yes or no on things um so that'll be fun and anybody else who wants to can any board directors who are interested can pop you can pop in and out if you want um and listen and I will let you all know how it goes I just want to say thank you for doing that Liza oh thanks hands up for director Rankin um we have

094now reached the consent portion sorry you're good just want to make sure that your mic is off you're good 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 second approval of the consent agenda has been moved by vice president hampson and seconded by director Vera Smith do directors have any items they would like to remove from the consent agenda all right seeing none all those in favor of the agenda please signify by saying aye those opposed all right the consent agenda has passed unanimously okay we will now move to the action items for today's agenda uh okay let's take a look here we only have one major action item for today's I don't know if I'm

095not mistake happy to offer a motion yes vice president hampson the motion please I move that the school board approved the 2022 to 2025 collective bargaining agreement for the sca certificated non-supervisory employees the professional staff and the Seattle Association of educational office personnel and authorize the superintendent on behalf of the board of directors to execute the agreements in the form attached to the school board Action Report with any minor additions deletions and modifications deemed necessary by the superintendent and to take any necessary actions to implement the terms of these agreements immediate action is in the best interest of the district second okay this has been moved and properly seconded uh Dr Pritchett if you would join us at the podium directors if you have any questions before or actually uh Dr Pritchard is are there

096remarks that you'd like to share with us I did have remarks so please take it away all right forgive me thank you good evening Dr Sarah Pritchett interim assistant superintendent for human resources the board Action Report being presented tonight for introduction and action to would be to approve the collective bargaining agreements negotiated between representatives of Seattle Education Association and the Seattle School District the three separate Agreements are for a three-year commitment a three-year period commencing September 1st 2022 and ending August 31st 2025. we believe this agreement represents elements of our District's values and beliefs centered on providing the best possible working conditions for our staff by enhancing and modifying the working conditions of our Educators and support of our students staff and schools this agreement would provide all 5586 SCA represented Educators increases in wages

097to maintain competitive to maintain a competitive wage with a seven percent increase in salary inclusive of ipd in the first year followed by a guarantee of at least a four percent raise in in the year 2023-24 and a guarantee of at least three percent raise in 2024-25 additionally this agreement provides all 1700 say Ops and per and paraprofessionals classified staff with a one-time incentive of one thousand five hundred dollars in the 2223 school year um I'd like to continue with just a few comments and highlights for folks regarding the the highlights of this contract I'll begin with the cost of this agreement and as it's outlined in the bar um the total cost of this agreement over a three-year period is 231 million 529 million dollars over the three years and while we have done

098preliminary proactive budgeting and anticipation of this agreement the net cost increased to our general funds in the year one would be an additional 12 million 526 380 million dollars the net cost increase to our general funds in year two would be an additional 33 million five hundred twenty one thousand five hundred and thirty one million and finally the net cost increase to our general funds in year three would be an additional 48 million twenty one thousand eight hundred and thirty six million dollars this agreement includes additional supports for students and Educators for our buildings it includes mental health supports for secondary students by adding an additional 0.5 social worker at all k-8's a comprehensive middle and high schools for this school year and continuing on for the life of the contract it would add five

099certificated nurses in the 23-24 school year support workload relief and additional supports by lowering the counselor to student ratios at our highest needs secondary schools from one counselor for every 375 students to one counselor for every 320 350 students would support work workload Relief by lowering the staff to student ratios for speech and language Specialists to one specialist for every 46 students this school year and one specialist for every 44 students in the following two years this agreement also adds an additional race and Equity advancement specialist in the 23-24 school year to support school-based race and Equity teams additionally as a learning organization we value the attainment and encourage the pursuit of additional education into that in this agreement offers incentives for continued learning including the addition of one-time incentive for teachers earning or holding

100an English language or dual language endorsements within the life of the contract and increase the clock hour incentives for para Educators and we've added an additional day of District directed professional development this also provide this agreement also provides increased funding to buildings and support to buildings including extra time for office professionals to support the work that they do associated with Opera the operation of school buildings a fifty thousand dollar one-time Library fund to support our highest needs schools additional funding equivalent to nine dollars per student of dedicated Library funding at each school to purchase culturally responsive Library materials and collections it adds additional extra time for each building's family-based support worker to support students and their families throughout the year and throughout the life of the contract it continues our building safety team stipends of

101two thousand dollars per year for each school building there are systemic changes that are included within this agreement we have the addition of mediation services available to staff to resolve disputes we have for all substitute Educators mandatory pay for mandatory safety trainings as well as de-escalation trainings and finally I'd like to highlight that this agreement supports the initial steps into a more inclusive environment for our students receiving special education services and additional supports for our Educators making changes to their instructional practice including additional Staffing added to Resource Services starting in the 2022-23 school year in order to support the elimination of satellite and Continuum designations by the 24-25 school year access services for students with moderate to intensive needs will merge with social emotional learning services in the 2324 school year and the new services

102will be called extended resource I would like to note that this represents a huge move towards inclusive practices and a necessary step to desegregate our special education programs students receiving extended resource instruction including instruction to develop social emotional skills and social understanding will spend the majority of their time in a general education classroom with a full range of supports needed this agreement guarantees students receiving special education services have access to general education teachers curricular materials and instruction additionally this agreement provides for professional development for all five thousand plus Educators to support inclusive instruction instructional practices in serving students individual learning needs it allows for Flexible Staffing to allow School level teams to determine how to best use staff to service students needs and finally central office supports for scheduling to maximize inclusion and general education

103classrooms to the greatest extent possible for all students this agreement also has systemic improvements related to special education including a recommitment to a joint special education task force with members of the Seattle Education Association special education central office staff and family representatives to plan for transition to more inclusive practices throughout the system this task force will also work collaboratively to develop a workload calculator to support individual student needs while attending to the workload considerations for educators additionally IEP teams considering moving students to a different School must include Department Specialists or supervisors before that move can be made those are just brief highlights to this three-year agreement if there are any questions I'd be happy to answer those at this time noting that I will have some of my colleagues come if there are particular questions

104that need to be answered more specifically thank you okay thank you Dr Pritchett do we have any questions from directors go ahead director Rivera Smith hi thank you Dr Pritchett and and first I can't obviously start without saying thank you to all of our negotiators uh SPS nscas who work tremendously hard on this um on this agreement and I I don't think that can be um that can be overlooked at all because it was it's a lot of hours and a lot of rooms late nights I understand and and we appreciate you guys being there to do this for everybody um I have a couple of questions I'll start with maybe um an easier one our our Educators pay being retracted back to the September 1st start date of this contract that is correct Theory

105okay um and then um as far as making up the day's lost for the strike do we know how those we may will they be made up according to this CBA where it's um well there's a couple different ways it could be done so I'll ask you just so easy to call it I'll go ahead and elaborate on that um there is new language in the contract but that would be reflective of as school boards negotiate or approve a entire School contract so the addition of community input would mean would be reflective of the next year next school Year's contract because this contract has already been approved we've entered into negotiations with SCA and spoke with our other labor partners and we would be proposing to come forward with the board at the next board

106meeting to propose a new calendar with the adjustments to this to the makeup days for the board's approval that's great thank you um sorry in my uh last question I and um I there's a lot in this this is a really robust contract clearly there's so many places to touch on I I try to look at it through the lens of where are our students represented in this and I I know I mean we think we all know the students were not involved in the negotiations um they're only maybe tangentially involved in that we represent our communities which include students and we guide the district um but I think and I'll get it's kind of a longer segue here but article two the Partnerships for ensuring educational racial Equity under number four building leadership team

107program leadership teams under bullet e it states one of the shared beliefs is that those impacted by decisions must be given an opportunity to be involved in the decision making and it's talking about Paris and setups but it does later then state that the building leadership teams and building program committees will include parents Guardians students and Community Representatives as appropriate and I would question and encounter that it's always appropriate for students to be involved in their building decision making and I don't know that this may need to be in the CBA because I understand this is about this stuff and maybe on our side is where I'd like us to be more intentional about how our students are involved in these decision-making processes and outlining it so because I know in right now in policy

108we don't say they they must be or they shall be or will be it's they may be and so we don't see it a lot in some of our place in some of our schools some do some don't anyhow um I just really appreciate our student speaker earlier and director um speaking on that themselves but the importance of having student voice and all these things that we do and this is a really big one where we didn't really see it and I would love us to find ways to make that happen I guess even I would say in three years but obviously there are going to be maybe reopeners and other opportunities of negotiation going on in this contract over the next three years and hopefully we can get to a place where that is

109something that is the norm and not the exception so thank you any other questions from directors go ahead director Harris thank you so much we had a work session on this that had was recorded and talked a great deal about the costs of this and I'm hoping that uh Deputy superintendent Gannon can come up and talk about what our deficits are for years two and three and I want to preface this that I believe that we reached a good collective bargaining agreement but that it comes at a price with extraordinary deficits and I will say yet again for the record this District our labor partners other districts need to file McClary 2 because McCleary one is fake news and the legislature has not in any way shape or form done right by the school districts

110the school district staffs and most importantly the students in Washington state public schools K through 12. and um frankly I don't see that changing anytime soon unless we get together and leverage but these are very very dark days ahead and I think that we need to be very very clear on that and I want to be a member of a board that pays our classified staff more than you can make at Dick's Drive-In I I am distressed appalled not new news whatsoever and if our children are not that important then what the heck are we doing anyway I would I would like those numbers on the record if Deputy Gannon can put them there and and I invite people who subscribe to blogs and social media and who fill a vacuum that we do not

111put out good communication with all kinds of crazy and apparently crazy is the wrong word tin foil hat conspiracy theories incorrect information I invite them to take the time to get on YouTube and take a look at the work sessions where we're doing really good work and everybody here is busting their chops and here as well um and and frankly some of the negativity that's thrown back our way is is most not appreciated thank you good evening directors Deputy superintendent Rob Cannon director Harris trying to respond to your questions briefly uh in our work session two weeks ago I forecasted a net deficit in fiscal year 2324 of approximately 47.5 million dollars for fiscal year 2425 the subsequent year I forecasted a shortfall of about 139.4 million dollars I gave those figures to the board

112in the work session verbally and I just want to let you all know that we have a more detailed presentation on the out year implications for the budget broadly and some of the implications of the contract specifically prepared to come to the board in the next regular meeting where president Hersey has approved a work session within the context of the full board meeting so we'll be able to brief the board in full at their next meeting on the out year implications all right any other questions from directors director Rankin and then we will go to director Luna chromeberry okay not a question but I just wanted to put it on the record that all-encompassing statements made about the directors from other directors with negativity towards Seattle Education Association teacher unions student unions anything like that

113I do not endorse or condone as a student board member um I do not consider myself educated enough on all of these issues to have an identified opinion that I would State on public record but I just wanted to say that I know that my teachers my Educators my community cares about me as a student and loves our students and wants what's best for our students and I would like to recognize that and again I do not associate myself with any comments of negativity made towards teacher or student unions thank you okay director rank it thank you um I have a lot of comments questions for certain concerns Reflections that I'm going to save for another time because I'm I'm well aware that what we are being asked to consider right now is the acceptance

114of this exact contract but I do have the great desire for uh a postmortem of sorts reflection about processes going forward now is not the time which I totally understand um so specific to this uh the adjustments that were made to social emotional physical health um that corresponded with or for sorry Staffing Staffing increases in those in those areas that somewhat corresponded with state law increasing the past increasing those allocations but we are still Staffing above those allocations the can you tell me what the difference is if there was any of the Staffing numbers that were landed at in the contract as compared to what was approved and directed by the board as part of the budget process at the end of last year can you ask that in perhaps a different way I'm sorry

115yes I understand which question um in in in conversation on budget development over last year last um school year excuse me um in preparation for approval of the budget uh in July for this year there was priority placed on and I can't remember what month work session we talked about it but budget work session about increasing Staffing in the areas of physical social and emotional health um psychologists nurses social workers counselors so we had talked about that as a budget priority increasing allocations within SPS and then or I can't remember in tandem with that the state also passed legislation to increase allocations in the prototypical school model for nurses counselors counselors social workers um and the the legislation is still under what we as Seattle Public Schools staff but my question is the increase the

116projected increase over several years that we discussed in budget development how does that increase align with the increase in those resources in this contract did this contract see an increase in that Staffing as compared to what was approved by the board in the budget is it the same is it where where did we end up compared to what was prioritized and approved by the board and what we landed on I would say that the additional Staffing is an increase to what was approved so it goes above and beyond what the um what was approved and is that across all those areas is that specifically the 0.5 social workers the 0.5 social workers the five certificated nurses um and by defect when you lower the ratios of stat of so like if you look at speech

117and language folks and you lower the ratio over the life of the contract you will add more staff okay so speech and language I don't think was included in that but those are just the ones that are are actually the things that we've added but specifically um your social the 0.5 social workers and the nurses are an increase okay and so the kind of projected increase that we had done in our budget development are we basically implementing some of those things sooner or will we continue to increase those in our budget development and I know I'm asking questions from when you were in a different position than you're in now and that we don't have our budget and finance person who who led that conversation but I'm trying to figure out in our budget projections

118and Staffing projections we had authorized an increase or prioritized an increase in some of those positions and so will we continue to see over the next several years increase every year as we had already directed or where I have I'll have Linda I'm sure I'm asking this in a more complicated way than necessary but looking for the intersection between those those two things good evening Linda Sebring budget director so I understand the question you're asking is the state has increased the prototypical school model for social emotional positions and we had had some conversation back after the legislative session Ended as to what we our strategy might be recognizing that at the time we are about 100 FTE above what the state funds in that area so as Dr Pritchard most mentioned the contract while we're

119all recognizing like the legislature that we need more social emotional supports was not tied in any way to additional resources from the state and as you know the state prototypical model is based on enrollment so we're still you know it's going to depend on what our future outlook is for enrollment we have not made any decisions as Dr Pritchard mentioned this is kind of a additional early payment on those staff that we're hoping to get but part of our conversation with the state has been we have put these resources out there and we need you to help us pay for them and this is what's caused a lot of our structural deficit is we've been in front of the state even though we strongly recognize we need more supports so hopefully that answers your question

120again no no decisions yet on what might happen in the future our financial planning is including estimates for those revenues to come in but we have not made decisions to continue to expand above what we've already described okay and those Inc the increases are in are all in year one or are they over the life of the three years of the CBA uh the increases on the CBA as noted um vary so there's 0.5 social workers going in place into secondary comprehensive secondary schools this school year so if the board votes to approve this tonight we will be working very hard to get the FTE loaded so that human resources could start um at recruiting for those positions in this school year additional five certificated nurses would be in next school year thank you I'll

121have to look back and see what what we said compared to that um and um my other question is also super specific it has to do with the task forces um so what I have brought up in other meetings um I think I want some clarity on the commitment of the outcome of the task forces because we saw confusion in part of this bargain as to previously agreed upon task force work and then what that actually meant in context for implementation in terms of it being a a labor pre-agreement or in you know what I mean basically what I'm getting at is I don't want to see the rights of kids be up for public negotiation again and if all parties are agreed to something I would like to see us do it um and

122then and then the other thing is that I know that the task forces in the current currently in the 2019-2022 collective bargaining agreement had parent representation on it which is great except for that parents are not a partner in a labor negotiation so that was confusing for me and also um that in those task forces that the representatives from both sides of the table from SCA and SPS were doing that as part of their paid work which it makes sense it should be but that parents were asked to give their time for free and that just seems kind of setting up not the best mutually understood outcome for all parties so I just want to make sure that we are being really really clear in setting up a task force in a bargaining agreement that

123that's about Labor and that if we want Community input and discussion around outcomes for students that that needs to be in a setting where parents and students can participate in those in the same way that district and and SCA representatives are participating as opposed to being sort of unpaid add-ons if that makes sense um and I'm not trying to disparage the work that was done it just sort of to me set up a really kind of odd Dynamic that played out in ways that I really don't want to see happen again so I want to make sure that the commitment that we're making going forward on task forces is more clear can you address that at all I can have Dr perjosa or Dr Torres come up and talk about specifically what the task force

124was designed or what it's designed to do in this particular contract or what we've agreed to in this particular contract that would be really helpful thank you good evening and thank you for the question director Rankin so um I just want to put a little bit of clarity that when we did the special education task force between um SCA vice president UT Hawkins and myself we were really really really clear with the task force that we were bringing these forward as recommendations for both the SPs management side and the sca labor side but that the actual bargaining would happen between those two sides at the table and so while they were recommendations there was never a guarantee that everything that was in the recommendations would be making it into the agreement but that there was

125shared interest in these being the topics that would be in discussed or brought into the special education portion as far as the task force that's written in the tentative agreement moving forward there was a shared commitment and it is written in there that we will share out um a reporting by the last day of school at the end of the 22-23 school year did that help address your question kind of our parents being well so in a contract agreement between SPS and SCA making a parent commitment when parents are not part of that agreement I'm just wondering what that involvement is expected to be from parents as far as on the task force if that same expectation is there so as with the way the tentative agreement reads there is um it does read that

126we will involve parents in the task force the purpose of involving parents of course is because that is one of the important people at the table when you think about special education servicing however since it is a labor agreement between SPS and our labor Partners it would not dictate or delineate anything regarding compensation or any such things for parents as this is more dealing with Educators and the management side of the team okay thank you thank you okay any other questions from our directors before we move on to the vote okay seeing none thank you Dr perch and thank you all who were able to provide context uh in that discussion uh Miss Wilson Jones the roll call please director Rivera Smith aye was that an I sorry as it was I director sarju hi

127director song Moritz I vice president hampson aye director Harris aye director Rankin aye president Hersey uh this motion has passed you unanimously before we move on to the next item in today's agenda I just wanted to take a chair's privilege to thank everybody who participated in what was real quite literally a Herculean effort thanking to our Educators I see we have President Mater in the back appreciate you being here with us obviously vice president Hawkins spoke earlier but also to SPS staff who spent countless hours at the bargaining table with our Education Association trying to get a contract that really represents the needs of our students their families our community in an educational environment and what I will just say is many things can be true at the same time right do our Educators deserve

128to have a living wage and to be able to afford to live in the city where they teach hell yes do we currently know the best strategies to figure out how to accommodate that within our subsequent budgets we made it very clear that the answer to that question is no I think that what this does highlight is an opportunity for a collaborative approach to not only advocacy to the legislature but also in many ways how we fund schools not only in the city of Seattle but also across our district because I know for a fact that we are not the only ones in this situation I think that it speaks volumes to the fact that our state currently does spend over 50 percent of its Budget on K-12 education and that's clearly not enough coming

129from the great state of Mississippi which is oftentimes regarded in the bottom of 50 states as it pertains to Education Washington is not that far above but we are probably 10 times more wealthy in many respects I think that over the longevity of as you know however long we occupy these seats here uh there is a lot to be learned from how do we do these processes more effectively but even more so how do we convince our entire Community as a whole that education is not something that you only experience from the ages to 5 to 18 that everybody benefits from a strong healthy and thriving public school system and we have to be able to fund that system as things like demand for wages resources become more and more expensive and so what I

130just want folks to understand is that while we agree that there are lots of things that we could be funding we as a school board as An Education Association a senior staff do not hold the purse strings in this particular instance so in order for us to figure out how do we generate more funding a big part of that is going to be conversations with our legislative partners with our other governments and communities and things like that to really think holistically about where do we see ourselves reflected not only in the betterment of our schools but also how do we fund those schools appropriately so with that being said there's been a request that we take a short break before we move into the next section of today's agenda I'm going to give I am

131going to give us a six minute recess please be back promptly at 6 30. thank you so much we will see you very soon [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] we received a presentation on the process of redistricting an analysis of our existing director districts last week the executive committee then received a board action report for this Dratch redistricting plan with three potential redistricting scenarios developed by flow analytics for the committee's consideration the executive committee voted to move forward the the bar with a recommendation for approval of scenario 1 as our redistricting plan tonight you have that recommendation before you for introduction and the alternative scenarios considered are also provided for your reference flow analytics will be presenting the scenarios with supporting analysis tonight directors are

132invited to ask questions and share feedback for potential iteration on the draft redistricting plan which is scenario one if we have interest in potential revisions to the draft redistricting plan then I will schedule an additional session on the draft redistricting plan on October 12th and will ask directors to be prepared to offer any suggested changes at that time this will then allow us to prepare and republish revised draft redistricting plans if necessary in time for further public review and comment and action during our October 26 regular board meeting while we do plan to complete this work on October 26th our statutory deadline is November the 15th I will pass it to general counsel narber to begin the presentation thank you president Hersey uh Greg norver general counsel I'm going to just make a few brief

133comments and then turn the presentation over to our Consultants from flow analytics who will be doing a presentation uh virtually and then assistant superintendent Redmond will come up and talk about the public engagement process here one point I want to just illustrate a little bit that President Hersey made is that [Music] um our usual process as you were aware is that we introduce an item staff makes the introduction at one board meeting and then at a later board meeting the board takes final action on that matter and it's at that time usually that amendments to the board action are considered there's a bit of a wrinkle on this one though we can't wait until the 26th to take up amendments because as we've discussed both in the prior work session and also at the executive

134committee last week we have statutory criteria that we have to meet for the uh director districts one of which is to try and get the population within each district as equal as possible and so if amendments are being offered we need time to get the proposed revisions to flow analytics who can crunch the census data and produce maps that continue to comply with those statutory criteria we also need to leave time for a technical review by King County elections which looks at those boundaries to make sure that in laying our boundaries over existing boundaries for the state legislature for city council congressional districts were not inadvertently creating precincts that have no voters in them so King County elections does a quick technical review and maybe nudges the lines a block or two to make sure

135that we haven't done that so what we're going to do if they're and and uh as president Hershey said there's one scenario that was the preferred scenario by executive committee but there are two Alternatives we're now as assistant superintendent Redmond will tell you receiving a lot of public comment about them I believe we've already received over a hundred comments that's the way this is supposed to work we're going to have in-person public comment from people who wish to address it and so all of that's going to be taken into consideration but that if there are amendments that the board wants to put forward to move the lines around we really kind of need to get those resolved at the next board meeting and so in addition to it being an additional introduction uh opportunity it's

136really at the next board meeting that will have to have the board be prepared to act on any amendments it wants to bring for Action so that we do give time for that review to take place so that's that's the difference of this uh in this process we really can't do amendments on the 26th without pushing the deadline for Action back even further um with that I'm going to introduce uh Candon Gavin from flow you've met them before they were here on the meeting on the 31st uh they're going to walk through a PowerPoint that focuses mostly on scenario one that was approved by the executive committee but they'll also be prepared to answer questions about the other scenarios and answer any questions you have about the process and then assistant superintendent Redmond we'll talk

137about the public engagement and then we'll turn it over for public comment uh I'll answer any questions you have of me but other than that we'll turn it over to the Consultants thank you all right well uh good evening uh president Percy members of the board and superintendent Jones um yeah we're I appreciate the opportunity to present to you again uh well first off let's look at the timeline and Mr narber did a nice job of of explaining kind of the back end of this timeline um and so we did have a an initial workshop with that executive committee on the 13th to present some initial scenarios three in total one of those was brought forward tonight for your consideration as a draft map and we do have time in this process though for some

138revisions and so um as Mr narber stated we've received quite a bit of public comment what we need however is is some action determinations through the board via the the executive committee so that we can provide some possible amendments to this recommended scenario if indeed the board wants to continue moving in the Direction with this scenario so we have some time in there I didn't put the October 12th in there yet but we are prepared to bring some amendments forward on the 12th and or simply here some suggested amendments from the board as well after this public hearing tonight so um we're prepared for that and then we do have the October 26 meeting as one where we can show those adjustments to uh this the preferred scenario from the board so next slide just

139a reminder about the process we do need to follow these guidelines they are in Washington law as you can see uh need to to really work to make each Board District nearly as equal in total population not school population as possible East District needs to be compact uh contiguous and then should not be used for the purposes of favoring or disfavoring any racial group or uh political party now we do try to maintain communities of Interest a lot of the input that we're receiving now is around communities of interest and some suggestions from patrons as to how to preserve those in certain areas that scenario this scenario we're going to present tonight um perhaps might split in in some Manner and so those are some some points that we really need some Direction moving forward

140in order to make modifications to this scenario um the next slide shows once again just the existing conditions so from remember every 10 years this needs to occur with the release of the census data and so from 10 years past in 2010 census what has happened over time is there's been some uneven growth in the district and so if you look the ideal population once again it's just uh calculated by taking the total population within the district and in this case since there's seven School Board districts we take that total and divide it by seven and we get to that ideal population of 105 000 322. so as you can see there is some overall deviation from that it's a 29 currently so our work is to get that under five percent ideally in a

141large District we can often approach one percent or lower and so that's really what our task was the next slide just shows another factor that we take a look at based on redistricting guidelines and that's the census excuse me the citizen voting age population um survey and so that information from 2019 was the last time it was published and we take a look at that information with every scenario that we create as well so this shows the current breakdown from that cvap from 2019 and for each of our scenarios you'll see an updated version of this for each scenario so I'm going to pass it over to Gavin uh Gavin will review Once Again the preferred scenario from the executive committee which is scenario one and then he'll also just toggle over to an interactive

142map that he can kind of move in and out of and he'll show you the current boundaries in relation to scenario ones modified boundaries so I'm going to pass over to Gavin for the next few slides and for that interactive map demo okay so again this is scenario one the preferred draft map we were actually able to get that overall deviation to 0.2 percent um so that being none of the districts will deviate from that ideal population more than 0.1 percent um I'm going to the cvap or the citizen voting age population breakdown that's kind of how that this looks like right here we're gonna again Circle back to an interactive map of scenario one so we can get closer look at the changes do you want to put some eyes on scenario two and

143three scenario two's intent being to keep neighborhoods together as much as possible but in doing so that overall deviation increases to 0.5 percent and kind of see where that happens in this District Seven districts one District Two and District Four and the citizen voting age population breakdown it's relatively similar to scenario one um the most to their single digit changes moving on to scenario three uh this was drawn with emphasis on having boundaries aligned with voter precincts so the overall deviation is going to be higher than scenario one and two at three point five four percent uh it's notable in that District three is one point five percent um maybe it's 1.5 from that ideal whereas um edition five DBA is 1.9 percent um here's a citizen voting age population breakdown again if I could

144add one thing to this as as um Gavin brings up the interactive map to show you scenario one in a little more detail now one thing that we notice in our work and we work with districts that are very large districts are very small as well as municipalities for their say their city council we've worked with counties for their commissioner districts and the the higher the population in a certain area so in this case you know over 700 000 that population in Seattle public school district um really that that overall deviation we try to get lower and lower it's just more defensible when you're in a larger area with a much higher population if we're in a city that has or a county in fact that has maybe 10 000 residents it's really hard to

145get that overall deviation down to a number that's much lower than 10 percent and so when we're looking at these scenarios we see some scenarios we can create that are 0.1 and 0.2 percent versus one that's three point four percent generally in a large District as I said the lower number will be more defensible now with that said we also want to make sure that there's input from the community and from the board in terms of those communities of interest because if it looks like we may you know might be able to get by with a higher deviation I'd still like to keep it under three percent for a Seattle public schools because of the size but we could approach that more even approach you know one percent a little over one percent if we're

146maintaining some communities of interest and so this is something to think about as we move through this process all right so this is that interactive map that camp was referring to earlier right now we have scenario ones boundaries pulled up I'm gonna go ahead and turn on the existing director District boundaries so you can kind of get a visual um how what those changes look like I'm also going to Overlay School locations as well um and then yeah I'm just going to kind of get into the changes that we made and why we've made them so again we're focused on getting that total overall deviation as low as possible districts six and seven were pretty well under the ideal population so we had to reach up into District Five to get them closer to to

147it um and in order to maintain contiguity um District Six had to push East and then the portions of that District six and seven would pull from District Five um even though District Five is a little bit over that ideal um it would end up being under so as a result District Five will move up into District Four and then between District three and five there's going to be a little bit of a give and take um this is in order to meet that criteria of compactness um kind of having to Smooth Up and flatten this area right here and then between the remaining districts there's quite a bit of Shifting around um it's worth noting that districts 3 and districts 4 are both connected um they're connected via not to themselves but they're connected

148to different areas within their districts via Bridge and then um so the area is south of those bridges um the only changes will be the ones that I just noted between districts three the top boundary of districts five and then this other boundaries of three and four and then yeah coming up here a lot of focus what's given towards reducing District 4's population was which was considerably over the ideal and then increasing districts one districts ones which was pretty under the ideal um so to start off we had District Two Reach Out West into district four but in doing so this would put District 2 over so we had district one reached down south to put two closer back to that ideal um but at this point now one is over and four slightly under

149but what I also want to mention is that three with the changes made here is also under so as such we balanced out all the remaining districts by having three and four take from one and which also serves to make one more compact yeah so let's just pause for a minute could you can you pull up um district one make it kind of fill the screen as much as you can so this is a good example of the the term compactness that's used and so there's there's actually some calculations that can be run on compactness and there's different scales of that actually verify compactness for different geographies we like to also use the eye test so if you look at the current district one and that's uh the the district within the pink outline that's

150the current district one you can see that it looks like kind of a crescent moon shape kind of upside down moon shape it's kind of longer and thinner a little bit on the ends what this does in this scenario you can see it makes it more box-like so this scenario is everything in that light blue is now district one and it's a little more box-like and and the more boxy that you can get or I was say the more circulate you could get is really the best but but something that looks more uniform that's a measure of compactness and so the compactness scales would now say that district one is more compact than it was before and so that's just a visual representation of that idea of compactness I wanted to share tonight yeah so

151as we go back we can pause now for questions from the board or we can continue I think there there is another slide that we were going to ask Ms Redmond to relate back to the board in terms of the communications plan and what's been received so far and what the plans are moving forward so maybe let's go back to that and then we can pause for any questions from the board and actually before I turned it over to uh assistant superintendent Redmond I wanted to make one comment to the board all the public input we've been receiving is being provided to the board and to flow analytics some of it's kind of General some of it's very specific I urge the board to look carefully at those comments to see if they resonate with

152you about changes that may be ought to be made and then we can work to make sure that any ideas you have about suggestions you'd like to make go to flow so that they can run the census data and see if there's a a doable map that complies with that and then those can all be talked through when we have the meeting on the 12th so I think the the time right now is just to make sure that we receive all the public comment that the board has a chance to consider it to see if any of it suggests to you changes that you'd like to make then we can take those to flow to make sure that we can produce a map that's statutory compliant that will come back to the board and then

153at the meeting on the 12th the board can if directors feel that appropriate suggest amendments to the scenario that the executive committee uh proposed so that that's what I'm going to suggest on because I know you've already seen some of it and you're going to hear more tonight I want to make sure it all gets considered and then the board has a chance to publicly advocate for changes that they may feel are appropriate once it's had a chance to be vetted does that make sense all right yes some director songwrits confirmed that um any suggested amendments we want to make we should give on the 12th and not tonight yes right now we're still in the intake process and there's still more to hear uh and I'd like that that opportunity to take place so

154the board has a chance to review all of that public input and then see if there are amendments you wish to take place we've built in extra time nothing needs to be proposed and there's no action item tonight as I said on the 12th it's going to [Music] going to kind of be a hybrid reintroduction if there's a new uh scenario but also decisions to be made by the board about what's going to go forward to decision on the 26th since we can't introduce new things on the 26th so there will there will absolutely be time to for directors to propose amendments I think tonight's not the right night to talk those through what we should be doing is still listening to the public engagement that's going on there will absolutely be an opportunity to

155propose changes thank you good evening to the board hold on one second I think that there might be a couple of questions before we move on to the next section so if we could get those addressed that would be great thank you a couple of questions here one um given the fact that we have the same population for the school board director redistricting as the Seattle City council has are we going to see transparent Maps laid on top of each other and might we be um since they have to follow the same rules contiguous communities of Interest yada yada yada um are we Reinventing the wheel here is part of my question and at what cost both time money Etc my second question is um is flow going to be vetting the numbers with their

156interactive map because if if for instance making Chinatown International District One District as opposed to being split between three as the community has very eloquently stated their position recently um so that would necessarily change the other districts so are we going to have that kind of real-time technical assistance it's going to be like sausage making we might need to bring our pillows and sleeping bags I'll address both those first of all thank you we're not Reinventing the wheel the boundaries of Seattle public schools are very similar to the city of Seattle they are not identical there are portions of Seattle public schools that are not that lie outside the boundaries of the city of Seattle and vice versa there are portions of the city of Seattle that are in the Highline School District it's not

157identical it's very very close but it's not identical we are charged by Statute with running our own process receiving our own input from the public and the analysis of what constitutes a community of Interest may be different if you're talking about City representation as opposed to who you vote for for the school board so uh we are we are charged with running our own process we have to do it every 10 years and we have to run it separately from the city they are the same standards the maps may look similar but we we do we run our own analysis and we do our own vote uh as to number two yes that's that's the process I perhaps ineloquently described before any changes directors want to see as a result of public comment including perhaps

158the International District or other things that you're hearing those all need to go to flow so that they're the they're the masters of the numbers and they can run they can move a map and tell you based on the Census Data what effect did that have on the deviation from the ideal population and if it's too much you've got to find some territory somewhere else uh that's what they do they need time to do that and so if there is public input that is persuasive to you and you would like to develop an amendment to propose a change to scenario one they need time to run those numbers we need time to get it to King County they need about a day or two to do a double check that's why we've built in all

159this extra time so yes absolutely they can do it ideally we get that to them pretty soon so they have time to run those numbers and we're not laying out bed rolls and pillows here and keeping them up all night so does that information then go to you kind sir and or what about again the unintentioned consequences if if we've got a problem with one boundary then how do we know in our Amendment whether or not at that point before they do the calculations I would like to spare flow from getting 300 separate emails asking them to run numbers I think if you can communicate with me and with the board office we're in I'm sorry we're in touch with flow a lot we can help funnel that and so that we can focus their

160work on coming up with some Alternatives make sure that what comes back to you as something you might propose as an amendment has gone through the process and been vetted and that we can have confidence when the board votes on the 26th of what we're voting on is going to be compliant with the statute uh director questions one is a yes no and then the second one is a why at the onset of this when you drew the initial map did you overlay it with the redlining Maps that's for flow to answer they they created the maps yeah we do um but we we take the existing boundaries and then we shift them so we we have the overlay so that we can see what our changes are and then we um have a catalog

161each scenario so the scenarios that we brought forward the three scenarios that you've seen we have a catalog of those against against the existing boundaries the reason we don't always present the existing boundaries with the new boundary at the same time as they can get very cluttered within the map um and and so it's very difficult you know to see and so I believe in in this process they were kept separate when they were put on the the district website which is practice that we've seen but when we do the modeling that we most certainly not only know exactly where those boundaries differ from the current or from an existing scenario boundary we can we can run those statistical calculations so that we can see every single every single statistic for each of the modified

162districts and then and we get the same output that you've seen in terms of the ethnicity race and ethnicity tables as well I'm not sure you understood my question I specifically the redlining map did you overlay that can you explain what you mean by redlining map in the city of Seattle I live in a red line neighborhood for example and that was an intentional racist process to prohibit Africa specifically African Americans and Jews and I think they maybe had one other disparaging uh Asians the continent right because it's a continent so it was a map that was specifically drawn where we could not buy outside of that there were racial Covenants so it is important to understand the history of why we are where we are and so my question was specifically did you utilize

163the redlining Maps as you began to consider the work no I misunderstood your question entirely I was referring to that pink outline that we showed you on the interactive map of the current boundaries so we did not look at any maps that you're describing that would have any sort of traditional neighborhoods in that we looked at you know just really almost kind of common maps that you would find like on Google and that sort of thing that would just show a kind of a general area where a neighborhood is but we don't know where neighborhoods start and necessarily so I totally misunderstood your question we don't we haven't looked at what the type of map you're describing when we do our work and I I just would like to propose that that's important at least

164it's important for the black folks in who are left here um I'm trying to compose myself I'm just going to stop yeah I apologize for misunderstanding your question at the outset go ahead director hamson and then uh we will go to oh I don't know if it got sent along uh to you but one of the things that I found after getting some questions from constituents was the uh proposed map by the for the City by the Washington um redistricting Council which seemed to be a pretty reputable uh group of individuals trying to provide an in anticipation of redistricting some ideas around uh potential lines for City districts they in many ways look fine to me as does uh the in terms of the makeup and the neighborhoods that are represented in that District um

165if all things were equal the populations and the and the um uh demographics remain the same that we weren't disenfranchising or breaking up neighborhoods it seemed to be a good option and it would I don't know what the city is going to do but it is something that's been recommended to the city and I'm wondering if we've taken that that this community group did this work to put together some recommendations and whether or not that's something that we've considered did we look to any of those outside suggestions we've not looked at the city council Maps we have we have different boundaries in our own process no and I recognize that um and we don't have nobody's advocating specifically for you know School Board districts and I do want to say that I think um it

166and this is really to um uh um assistant superintendent superintendent Redmond is that the title uh that uh there's not a clear understanding that we're actually elected by the entire city so these director districts are kind of a false uh notion of uh representation in that the top two advance in the district and then the entire city decides who's on the school board and we are a body of seven who vote together not as individual people um I mean we take a vote but we the intent and best governance practice is that we are one team and and we all represent every single um constituent throughout the entire city not just in our districts um and then at the same time looking that there have been some ways to divide the city up into seven

167parts that seem potentially relevant whether or not there's anything we can learn from that relative to our districts I uh again would imagine creating massive change would be also difficult but if there are there are when I look at the district in which I was elected what's proposed looks like the neighborhood as it looks like the overall neighborhood as I know and use it right like the whole area and so I can see how that ended up being that that District I also want to acknowledge that the objective review is also really important because the city is changing really quickly and I think that's evidenced in some of the other data that we see in the the very the one two and three scenarios but um was just wanting to ask that we look at

168some of these scenarios that have been presented by outside entities who are trying to advocate for voters who have been historically disenfranchised I I'm glad you raised the point about I mean we we have tried to say it as many times as we can this really impacts one thing who who people vote for in the primary I had a long conversation with a member of the media the other day who kept asking me questions about how this would affect funding for schools and resources and attendance zones and I kept saying not at all not at all it affects one thing who's on the ballot for the primary election then in the general everybody votes the seven of you are all elected Citywide that's it but I think despite we've run out of words to say

169that's all this effect but somehow something's not connecting and um I'm going to let the communications expert take it from there as far as more closely modeling the city maps we can propose anything they just need time to make sure that we can make it District compliant and it's a tricky thing it's got to be contiguous got to be compact Etc understood yeah I I mean I think what the this board is very open at the same time the impact the outcome I think that's one thing that we are not necessarily hearing is what is the outcome that we seek from the changes that we make because uh there were District redistricting process is not necessarily one in which we're equal that equips us to make decisions that have an outcome that we might think

170that we seek if in fact we're all based on districts when in fact we're actually elected as the city but you know in terms of the city changing obviously the disparity in for example in District four shows how the population patterns are changing and the need to shift districts six and seven farther north to accommodate more people the law requires us to use the census numbers we're not allowed to forecast what we think the growth patterns will be over the next 10 years whoever is standing at this Podium 10 years from now is probably presenting a very different picture but what we have to use is is what the Census Data produced so can we have your commitment that you will send to I'm sorry I would he not saying then is do we have

171your commitment that you will send the historic redlining maps to the flow group so they can see what our historical issues have been to the extent that there are questions about where to cut those lines and they have any leeway if somebody can I don't know where to find that map uh it's everything so just it's not absolutely not part of what the statute asks us to consider ably it doesn't preclude people from looking at it um yeah somebody does it preclude flow from using it when there is scooch room and communities and contiguous areas and communities any map that complies with those five statutory criteria that the board wants to approve is fine I've got a follow-up question to that and I just want to ask my colleagues like so there there are two

172conversations that are happening here there's the acknowledgment that Seattle has built on a very racist and discriminatory structure that likely impacts everybody up on this diet in some way shape or form there's the other piece in like what what I'm struggling to understand acknowledging that to be true and what I'm asking for help and understanding and what I think um our our colleagues at flow in general counselor would appreciate as well is what do we hope what is the intended outcome of utilizing those Maps because there is things that we can acknowledge our problems and then there are also the Avenues that we have to address those problems I I don't see the connection between what we can do here and addressing those problems especially given that the school board has nothing to do with

173restructuring where people live so I'm really and this is me coming from a place of humble naivete please Somebody explain to me very clearly what that desired outcome is can either of my colleagues that are advocating for that do that for me I'd like to take a shot at it if I might please I think that it goes to sensitivity and respect and a whole lot of what we do in this city how we Zone how we sell real estate where we put single-family homes where we put multi-family homes where we put all kinds of services are historically based on the redlining maps and we're still stuck with them and to the extent that we have scooch room on the edges in terms of numbers and the overlay of that map that sensitivity and respect

174needs to be taken into account I I hear you I am still struggling to see like how that is directly related to what we are trying to accomplish here which is balancing the voting districts and I want to give it to director sardu and then I really want to hear from our student director so if we could expedite that process that would be good I deny that the reason why we're even having this conversation is because of History um and either by acts of commission or Omission or silence we we send a message to particularly the black folks that representation doesn't matter whether or not that's your intent I'm not talking about anybody's intent I'm talking about impact and this is not a criticism of flow but because these types of policies and situations are

175deliberately left out of our historical psyche we end up exacerbating I shouldn't even be talking about redlining at this point and when I saw the the first map I was like I had just done the redlining walk if you overlay it it's stunning and I reached out to a couple of my board members because I actually couldn't believe what I was seeing and I wanted to ensure that I wasn't misinterpreting what I was saying it was so stunning I I couldn't believe my eyes so at this point I'm pointing out that either by acts of Silence Omission or Commission we need to understand the long-term impact for particularly black folks and other other people of color it may not matter to most of you it matters to me and it matters to the people I

176represent I am neither hopeful nor am I optimistic that it will change anything but I will not be silent ever ever in situations where racism and marginalization is perpetuated in this District that doesn't mean I expect anybody to do anything about it but I'm not going to be silent that is my purpose I will state it again I'm neither hopeful nor optimistic that this important historical fact will actually change anything in this process student director Chrome Borough thank you and thank you director Sergio for that um so first of all uh to the question of where can we find these Maps uh because Mr narber I think you said something along the lines of like it was hard to find or you hadn't seen them and about like the 30 seconds when that conversation was

177going on I opened up my computer I went to this fantastic fabulous place called Google and I looked up Seattle redlining map and the first image result that you'll find is from uh the University of Washington and it shows a map of historical redlining and secondly to paint a little picture of when we talk about history when we talk about historical racism um you might remember earlier this evening we had a conversation and we listened to a story about intergenerational trauma um when we talk about intergenerational trauma we see how one event in generation a can still have massive effects on the health and well-being of a person in Generation Z right um when we talk about history and specifically when we talk about the history of the city the infrastructure of the city and

178how it is rooted in racism when you chop down a tree the roots don't go away those roots are still there this infrastructure generation a which is this redlining map is still there it just goes by a different name we chopped it off and I and I just think it's frankly ridiculous that and like offensive to to me and and I'm not a black person I'm not an African-American person in this space and even I can recognize that hey this is an important historical fact and an important historical uh event that still has really really great and really visible effects on our city today and to blatantly ignore it um is quite frankly ridiculous and offensive to me um furthermore I think to the question of like what correlation does this have um when it

179comes to respecting historical facts I think that to me redlining here in Seattle is not just a thing of History redlining here in Seattle going by a different name of like um you could even say not in this terms of redistricting because you know in this terms of redistricting we are just talking about that one thing as you said it's all about just like who you vote for in the primaries when we work on redistricting our city when our city when like the whole idea of districting our city was this redlining map it just doesn't make any sense to me how that wouldn't even be considered I mean I understand that the initial thought is well it has no effect effects can be tricky to root out and hide like if you see a tree

180that's been chopped down to the root and the roots are still in the ground you're gonna have to dig for it and that's important work to be done um so I just want to say thank you director sarju and um yeah you you frankly need to be digging out those roots and I don't really mind if I'm seen as ridiculous for this but um the roots of racism in our city are real and are showing up today in the way that a black woman who sits on our school board was kind of immediately shut down and silenced when she brought up an important historical fact and I just want everybody to sit with that for a moment thank you all right um I believe that there is more in this particular presentation am I correct

181or has this concluded Miss Redmond by all means good evening to the board and to our community want to just draw attention to the communications portion of this particular plan certainly the state and we've already gone over it has a prescriptive framework for how to publish how to go about Gathering public comment but I do want to add where public affairs has come alongside to help support and to know that we have lifted up a web Hub which is attached to our website and when you're on the school board members page you can go directly there we can also Harvest that direct link and then share it and the way that we have shared would be to go through very some traditional means and then some unconventional means one would be a as flat email

182that goes out through our school board area school messenger system that went to staff as well as to our families the other would be our school our school beat newsletter so that is also circulated among staff again and also our families we also have our website so traditional means there but we've also shared with our local media we have released press releases and I would say we've done so with some pretty good success we have had it picked up several times and I think one of the results that you can see is through our let's talk infrastructure that we have received over 120 comments thus far and I fully expect that there will be more just tonight I also want to give a shout out to not only mainstream media but our community-based media when

183we're talking about where people live how they get their news whether it be blog whether it be through the medium various other community Grassroots Community Systems we put that information out and they were so gracious to run it so we've heard it not only again not only on mainstream media but also in those Community spaces so we appreciate that partnership and lifting that up so those are the traditional needs and of course we are going to be hearing from some public comment tonight as well as at the end of October so those are the means in which we've been able to support and looking forward to hearing those comments reading those comments and making sure that Flo gets that information any questions hi Beverly thank you for all this and I'm I'm glad it's so

184good glad to see these websites up and let's talk I really look forward to receiving all the information that's brought in there um I'm and this is maybe an unnecessary critique I'm just I look at the registration web page and it's a lot of words and I know flow had like a little graphic of the timeline I think it you know something that maybe people can look at at first glance and kind of get that picture without reading a lot of reading here sure um because you know people don't always have time to do all the reading so um if we can incorporate any kind of something a little more um graphic and interactive that might just to reach people a little better and I'm assuming this page is is translated yes yes okay I

185will speak to your suggestion which is a good one necessarily going to Graphics but one of the pieces that the public affairs team is lifting up is a video on how to get to the information how to use that information just another way that we can reach the community and as you mentioned not everyone is reading or generation of scanners now and also at various reading levels so we want to make sure that we're reaching as many people as possible thank you and is the redistricting draft plan itself translated the draft plan I would have to check but I don't believe so but we can go back and look at it yeah we need to do that if it's not a you know because yeah I think I know you understand thank you okay yes

186um so one thing that I have heard from Community is actually about the um Quality and excuse me sorry it's trying to adjust this at the same time does somebody else have a microphone on okay all right so one of the things that I've consistently heard from Community is about the resolution of the maps um when you zoom in to try to like identify where the actual boundaries in the streets are it gets really blurry so I'm wondering if we could get a higher resolution version that is shared and then on top of that being able to annotate if this is uh possible the boundaries that are cut if we could get those annotated with like on those boundary lines what is that street name that would be super helpful for Community as well to

187be able to determine where exactly do those boundaries lie so higher resolution in an actual street name for the cut would be super helpful as folks are like pinching in most of the time on a cell phone to see exactly where those boundaries are thank you for that director Harris to assistant superintendent Redmond much appreciate the feedback will we get a printout of the the um the computer program that folks type into let's talk let's talk I think we've had it for five years I've asked many many times prior to your time for the printouts of that and I believe that all I've ever heard is crickets has anybody else on the board ever gotten a printout I want it on the email that shows me is it there okay and is is that then

188been sent to us and or has it been made clear that it's there because I try real hard to keep up I don't mean to feel stupid here no no that's okay we'll clarify anyway if you could highlight that ever so appreciative thank you president Hersey um Ellie Wilson Jones director of policy and board relations I can get to both those technical questions that you both just raised real quickly that'd be great thank you then if there's additional and follow-up if this isn't responsive just let me know but first on our redistricting page there is a link to the scenario viewer that Gavin was demonstrating today and in that tool you can drill down all the way to the street names it kind of requires that interactivity in order to get to that detail there

189is also an option kind of at the top left top right of the screen for you to search by address if you wanted to see where you would um where you would show up in the map and then you can filter for different levels of information on the map so that is probably the best resource we have have that on the redistricting web page it's the online scenario viewer and then to director Harris's question about let's talk we're using it we've developed a landing page each and you kind of have two choices right now when you get to that landing page through the redistricting website one is to send send in questions and we have been responding to those in the board office they're for process questions so um I'm having trouble with this link

190we respond with the link what's the supporting analysis for this map we refer to the right documents in the bar packet to make sure people have that the other one is to submit feedback and that's getting directly inputted into the form that was emailed to you today so you have all of the feedback content did that fully answer your question both of you for flow I'm in the various scenarios it has the cvap by race and ethnicity part District could you add a line that shows what the overall racial breakdown is for the entire city so we can do the relative comparisons and kind of gauge if there is any voter dilution happening yeah so just to clarify uh would you like that for each of the city districts or just the total breakdown for

191the city our current board packet has it by um the seven it has it broken down for each of the districts for each of the three scenarios and my request is just to add a overall total City what is that demographic background so we can compare it each district relative to the city overall okay we can we can look for that and and see what we can do there okay okay go ahead director Hampton uh okay bear with me and try to make some connections and it is Communications related Bev I swear uh so um I just want to address the we did actually talk about redlining specifically in committee uh one of my topics that's near and dear to my heart as a former Banker who specifically went into banking to combat the negative

192impacts of redlining so uh which is the industry that created redlining um and the the Home Mortgage industry throughout this country particularly in Chicago I could start a whole history lesson but I'm not going to do that except that it is a piece of Education that's really important and I think that's what I'm hearing from uh my fellow directors and so while we did bring it up and said you know we can't there's no opportunity for us within this process to combat the impacts of redlining in terms of how we redraw our boundaries I think maybe what we're missing is a level of acknowledgment at the impact of redlining and I say red redlining it was a very specific uh racist tactic used to make sure that particularly black Americans did not get access to

193Home Loans even when they had the money to to make that work um all kinds of horrible horrible tactics to even take advantage of them making them believe that they could get a loan when they couldn't so there's also a whole other series of layers so it's actually you can Google it but the maps are not it's Maps plural right because there are also Covenants that were and have remained part of the city since until very recently until if especially if it's a neighborhood association people have to get together and actually vote to take those things out so my question is um I don't see and I haven't heard anything that says is there something that we need to do to make sure that we are not uh yeah perpetuating this when in fact actually

194we're we're also in this process of trying to maintain communities uh and they came from you know it was really like a racist economic practices uh which are still very prevalent today and um so in terms of the outcome that we seek um my question is is it really is it about making sure that we talk about that that it's traumatic to look at this map and actually be able to visualize oh we're still have districts in terms of when we draw these populations or these maps and and that are connected to voter precincts as well that remind us of how segregated our city is and how uh how how much the historic practices have played into how we even vote today and we also had conversations in committee another reason why we should be

195having these conversations as a whole board and not in committee because we lose some really important pieces that we did talk about and and that um well I lost the thread there but so that's my question is it is a really good opportunity to remind our community that what the city is built on because by the way the first people that were outlawed from the city of Seattle were Native people who were um so uh yeah and and the school district was created in that same period so we're part of that history right and so that might that's kind of my question back to directors is maybe it's part of the communication that we link up to a reputable source that talks about the impacts and that was one of the reasons I brought up

196the the recommissioning I mean the redistricting Commission because it's an outside entity that's trying to take into consideration some of those things and I can't tell all that went into that but uh you know it feels like a more 360 review of the history of all those practices I don't know if that helps but that's that's my my attempt director sarju and so the reason why I brought it up um I'm gonna be real clear I wasn't seeking a change there is no possibility for change at this point if we are truly walking the Walk of anti-racism this is where you would have started period in the future now that you know better do better in this type of work it is important to understand the historical context of how things came to be in

197an effort to not perpetuate those racist practices and outcomes and experiences and just fill in the blank I have no delusion and I'm using the word delusion I'm not deluded that my comments or my bringing up this cop topic is going to change anything the train left the station a long time ago but if we're going to walk the talk of anti-racism and doing better particularly for black boys the conversation has to start at the beginning not an afterthought I hope that going forward that it's not an afterthought that I don't have to ask the question did you that it will be apparent so I don't I don't I'm I'm letting this go I there is no opportunity for change at this point I don't expect it but what I do expect in the future

198is that these types of considerations are the first and not because a board member has brought it up and then a student board member says in 30 seconds you can find it on Google um I've got one just last crystallization before we move on from this topic and I think that this highlights something that this board particularly and other boards throughout Seattle whether it be the school board city council x y and z so everything that everybody get set up here in some way shape or form is correct what I want to challenge us to do is to make the link between the uh frustration for not starting in this process to the structural decision that exists at the other end because there is a danger in my opinion when we have these types of

199conversations up here as a group and then we start to bring in language around like this board member was you know potentially silenced or like when we start thinking about how do we incorporate you know these Maps into or when I say these Maps redlining Maps into a situation or into a process that in quite frankly um is focused around voting districts and things like that the issue there is that unless we are adequate quickly prepare to have that conversation really clearly folks who are going to watch this tape back I can guarantee you are going to be very confused and I think that it diminishes our ability to be experts on anti-racist policy and how we incorporate that into the work that we do unless we get really really really really really good at

200having those conversations and so this is an opportunity because it's not just on Flow analytics right this is on us as a board too because when we have these conversations in a public forum for example that are going to live on in various means of media I want to be able to sleep at night knowing that the community is better for that conversation right and unless we do a really really good job of explaining what our points are which is why I asked back to director Harris and director sarjew help me understand what it is you are advocating for in this particular instance and we eventually got there but had we been I believe more prepared in how we want to have those conversations what our points are being made and like you know sometimes

201it's going to be an instance where something pops into our head and we want to share it and whatnot but as a black man looking and listening to this conversation I as an individual as president of this board am very confused about where folks stand and what the real issue is and very technically we have big problems Within These maps that Community have communicated to us that we can communicate back to flow right because at the end of the day we want to make sure that the structural issues are addressed I 100 concur with director Sergio that there are opportunities in this for not only education but to also Ensure that we are not perpetuating already very broken systems at the same time unless we are effective and credible Messengers to that those advocacy points

202will fall on deaf ears which makes us less effective elected officials in our jobs so what I am asking as an individual as president of the board when we position our health cells to have these conversations let's take a minute make sure that we're making the link between what we are sharing as a historical trauma that has really impeded upon native folks and black folks in this city and what the board actually has the power to do about it and where those opportunities for process might lie and be really honest that like it's probably not this particular instance right because we can have this conversation up here and go back and forth but like Michelle said at the end of the day it's it's effectively not going to change anything because these two instances are

203very Loosely linked when there could very well be an opportunity for us to have real advocacy to the districts and bodies that actually have power over what redlining looks like right so that's my only concern I want to make sure that everybody is super clear on what it is that they are advocating for so that we can be effective and credible Messengers to the folks that put us in these seats so with that being said I would like to move on to the next introduction item unless there is anything else that we have on this particular uh piece okay thank you robust discussion looking forward to continuing it thank you very much to our partners at flow general counsel narver and assistant superintendent Redmond and oh we do have public comment I'm sorry please by

204all means uh Miss Wilson Jones I'll turn it over to you today's public hearing this is going guarding the draft redistricting plan that the board has had introduced and that comments have been focusing so far today we had public testimony sign ups for those wishing to speak remotely online and we did not have any sign ups for that portion but we do have one sign up for in person if there's anybody additional in a room that wishes to add your name to the list come find me but with no further Ado we'll move into public testimony from Chris jackins and there's a two-minute speaking time for today's public hearing nice to see you again tonight my name is Chris jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on the draft School Board director District redistricting plans eight points

205number one each of three scenarios Narrows the population difference between director districts number two the board is recommending scenario number one is this because scenario number one has the smallest population gaps between director districts number three for each scenario the report does not provide a complete printed list of census blocks and precincts with population counts number four is any School attendance area split between director districts number five at my request a court reviewed the 2012 border districting the size gap between districts was 10.6 percent this means that for the last 10 years the voters the votes of director District number seven residents have counted 10 percent more than those of director District Number Four number six each new scenario splits some precincts it is more difficult for voters in Split precincts to know who their

206board director is number seven do the new scenarios include the district precincts which lie outside the city of Seattle number eight the entire District population for each new scenario is 737 763. however the Consultants report lists a different value of 737 255 for the current District director districts the numbers should match but they do not match see pages 4 and 6 which I have included in my written statement to you thank you very much geez that was the only testimony for tonight all good um okay we have received public testimony thank you Mr Jenkins we greatly appreciate it are we now prepared to move on to the rest of today's introduction items do you have everything you need from us at this point director nerve I mean General counselor my only role on introduction item

207number two will be to I'm delighted to turn the podium over to Melinda goodlief who is the director of records and archives to present this item thank you so much for the opportunity to talk about this proposal I am the manager of records and archives but I would love the promotion so um apparently it's in the works um I hope to make this quick uh the records in archive Center is a 7 000 foot square foot facility in the north end of the second floor if you have not visited I highly recommend visiting I love giving tours so um definitely stop by and we are proposing to rename the facility so right now it's just called the records and archive Center or the archives and Records Management Center and we would like to name it

208after Eleanor toes who is the first district archivist she worked for the district for over 30 years she retired in 2011. and she still Volunteers in the archives she's still on the scholarship committee for the scholarship fund we'll just leave it there and she's on the building for learning books so we are in the process of rewriting that book and she is on that committee so she's very involved in the district very involved in the archival community and I think it would be a great honor and we're just so happy to offer this to her to rename our facility after her it really would not exist without her so I hope you consider it you any questions from directors I would love a tour yeah no definitely stop by okay like can I just drop

209in or should I email you or um you can drop by Monday through Friday okay and then also if you haven't seen it the SPs archives has an awesome Instagram feed it's like one of my favorite Instagrams with pictures of historical buildings and students and it's very very cool so just plugging that thank you director Rankin director Harris um it's been my privilege for the last seven years to serve on the scholarship committee with Eleanor and she's just the best of the best and I think I've mentioned a few times recently about how it feels sometimes like we're losing our soul here Eleanor is the embodiment of soul and and recognizing that kind of excellence and dedication is absolutely and I did send the bar out to the scholarship committee as soon as it was

210printed and they are more than unanimous and really excited about this thank you that's great to hear thank you okay thank you we appreciate it okay all right we will now be moving to number three approval love revised board policy number 4218 speakers of diverse languages in renaming policy language access uh I see Dr Torres is approaching the um Podium so I will wait and then just for clarification we will be going to director Rankin first for questions English for everybody I just want to take a quick um assistant superintendent moment to say thank you to director Luna gronbaron for her comments earlier particularly around that that next heritage month and also for comments around native Heritage as someone of native Taino descent I am very proud and happy for her comments today as one

211of our students so I wanted to take that moment and privilege now to the work at hand good evening I'm here this evening to present the board action report for the revision of board policy number 4218 speakers of diverse languages additionally Michelle Oda director of multilingual and international programs is available virtually to assist with questions this action report concerns a policy that ensures the district provides interpretation and translation services according to our students and families civil rights in 2022 the Washington State Legislature passed House Bill 1153 which created new legal requirements relating to language access in public schools the new law requires school districts to adopt a language acquis language access policy and procedure that adheres to the principles of an effective language Access program and incorporates the model policy and procedures adopted by the

212Washington State School Directors Association also known as wssda House Bill 1153 was the outcome of Statewide language access work group created by the legislature in 2019 and reconvened in 2021 the office of the superintendent of Public Instruction and the Office of Education ombuds convened this work group for the purpose of advising ospi wssda and the legislature on specific strategies meant to improve meaningful Equitable access for public school students and their family members who have language access barriers this the specific proposed revisions to board policy number 4218 are as follows one title a change to the title of policy from speakers of diverse languages to language access to provide Clarity on the purpose of the policy four principles of an effective language access policy the amended policy includes the four principles of the effective access language

213program Board review the board will periodically review pertinent data collected according to the accompanying procedure and review spending on language access Services as part of the annual budget process the amended policy deletes sections on parent Guardian identification interpretation translation and staff guidance a move moves those sections to superintendent procedure number 4218 SP which will be amended this fall it should also be noted that the district collects parent family spoken correspondence languages provides in-house translation and interpretation in the district's top five languages other than English ASL which is American Sign Language interpretators interpreters upon request access to over the phone interpretation in over 350 languages and other tools accessible to staff and Families thank you for your time and I'm open for questions thank you as a as a reminder refresher for my fellow board members

214and committee members this was the board action report that would have come through committee last week but it wasn't quite done routing but we did have just as a reminder we did have it as a special attention item as a sort of preview in August so this is hopefully a surprise to No One um and uh as Dr Torres said um this is a policy that we already had but given the passage of the law at the state level were required by wasda to update to um uh align the language and um and I'll just say it's a thank you to Dr Torres and language access staff for the opportunity to um connect on uh separating policy from procedure and give some feedback on that I appreciated that and I I think it um it's

215much more clear about what the aim of this is um and my only question is about well maybe it'll be you know what I'm gonna wait because you said the procedures are being updated yeah okay all right so my question actually has to do with that so I'll just wait till we do that okay okay thank you thank you president Hersey uh three questions one uh two questions one comment thanks very much to uh director Oda as well recognizing her hard work over the years is is critical I think two when the fine folks in the legislature passed this house bill did they give us any additional money or is this yet another unfunded mandate to my understanding there it was no funding that accompanied the legislation but I can follow up for that if

216you would like confirmation I very much would like that and last my question is with respect to the superintendent procedures will those be done when we are supposed to vote on this in two weeks Devil's in the details um director Oda is available virtually if you can unmute in address the question if not what I would be able to do is um meet with directorota and then we can get that response to you all as a board via email thank you very much hi director Torres can you guys hear me yes thank you so uh thanks thank you for allowing me to attend virtually uh the question around the funding there was no funding um attached to this uh legislation and then the second question is we um are working hard and hopefully we'll get

217the procedures done to you on time um that has been our goal okay thank you thank you Dr Taurus really appreciate it thank you of course we will now be moving on to uh introduction item number four good evening Fred podesta assistant superintendent of operations um if the board will allow it I have three actions that are nearly identical um so I'm going to describe them in general terms and then they accomplish virtually the same thing for three different construction projects and I'll describe how they work and then we can talk about those projects specifically what they do is approve an alternative Public Works process which will allows us to use the general contractor construction management form of a public works project as opposed to the traditional design bid build this allows us to engage

218a general contractor and construction manager at the beginning of the project to help us manage the project while while it's still in design um to utilize this form of construction delivery we need approval from the state the state has approved that for all three projects and we need to have the board adopt a resolution affirming our use of this uh process these actions also award contracts to the prospective General Contractors and construction managers and they all each include a budget Edition and a transfer from reserves that we have in the Bex 5 funding all from underspend on previous projects the reason for the increase in budget and all these projects is escalating construction costs um we when the district plan the bex-5 levy that we had what's known as escalation built into those project estimates

219of four percent thank you all um seen over the last year that inflation is running much higher than four percent and these bids have come in higher than we originally planned for fortunately in the earlier part of the levy program there were savings that we can draw on to fund these budget increases for these three projects um the they also it's worth noting that these are the last large construction projects in the Bex 5 Levy so we're still expecting to land within our budgeted expenses between this and our program contingency we still have other projects to do but they're they're relatively small in nature so um I don't think this is a general concern and again the three projects in question um are the replacement of Alki Elementary and awarding a contract to Cornerstone the

220scope of that project is to demolish the main part of the existing building and build up with all new construction the second project is again similar it does all the same things that I just described it approves gccm project delivery and awards a contract to lightig for John Rogers Elementary School again demolishing most of the building and replacing with all new construction and then the third in this series is uh the same set of steps for Mont Lake Elementary modernization and addition that approves the alternate Public Works process and awards a contract to skanska and then again augments the budget with the budget transfer from savings on earlier projects so I hope that's okay that I bundle those together try to save a little time and I would be happy to take any questions about

221any of the three get this audio system figured out um any questions from directors on those three items director Rivera Smith take it away thank you and thank you for your summary of those three projects Sarah very similar we went through them in operations committee um and I I will draw just briefly attention to um Mr Jenkins gave us a summary of some questions regarding these projects I don't know if you had a chance to look at that um but if you could uh look I won't go through all of them right now because it's kind of a long list but um you just let us know perhaps when you bring this back um if or maybe we can talk off the verbal testimony if if the board has received a written document I don't

222have oh I can get that to you then yeah just so just to check and see if there's anything on there that we should be um more aware of or considering um you know some of the things like we're increasing the size and not increasing the parking and I know that's sort of the way the city is going though with you know hoping to be able to use more public transportation um and clearly you're trying to make use of a small space especially for Alki um so I don't know um if that's to me a deal breaker at all but I think that um some other questions regarding cultural resources that are at risk and um it's kind of long here but um just wanted to make sure you know that these things are Community

223concerns are I know there's a lot of planning out into this and we obviously had the estat and these things have been through the process um just wanted before we you know um I don't want to Discount anyone's um concern so if there's anything there to talk about let's do that maybe um offline otherwise um these are all moved forward for approval out of committee presented thank you any other questions from directors okay seeing none uh help me if I miscounted but we still need to do number eight yeah we still have two two more items I had to have five all together we got three done so we're at intro item seven um which is the approval of the site-specific educational specifications for the Mercer Middle School replacement project so educational specifications are a

224narrative document that describes space planning um for our school buildings and for each uh type of school uh elementary middle schools and high schools there's a baseline District at specification which is then tailored for each project it's required that the board there's State funding in this projects require that the board approve our site-specific specification for the Mercer replacement the changes from the Baseline are relatively modest there's reconfiguration of a couple learning spaces and then the rest is mostly about operational spaces X excellent I I I'm glad I put everyone to sleep um but uh and so this this action approves our uh refinement of the at spec for Mercer and um gives us approval to move forward which again is needed for State funding and I'm happy to take any questions you might have any

225questions but this also was moved forward for approval out of committee I'm trying to recall if we had any big questions about it our director of some words maybe can remind me otherwise um yeah we appreciate the work that's done to make these specific tour schools we have a blanket Middle School ad specs but you know we do it's it's great that we're able to the estat includes School staff and school Community we made so again some operational changes how break room works for the custodial team how some Community spaces were set up in the school because our our requirements is that they're within sight lines and some of these wouldn't have been so those spaces were reconfigured but again overall fairly modest changes to the Baseline thank you let's do it great and so

226uh the last one um is a transaction I brought many times to the board um again the project uh the projects that have state funding um uh again Mercer require us to do an analysis of enrollment at the school and how it might be affected by the um by the project itself the the instructions are very specific about how we do what the state terms racial imbalance gives us very specific parameters of to study enrollment historic enrollment at the school we've done the analysis and this action just adopts a resolution where the board asserts that we've done the analysis and this will not create or exacerbate racial imbalance per those definitions that are in state law and again this is required to secure the funding any questions thank you Mr protesta thank you we are

227all wide awake because of your reports thank you thank you I know it saved the best for last hey absolutely yeah give it up for Fred everybody he's here hopefully all year in many years to come um with that being said we have now come to the board comments section of tonight's agenda who got stuff to say anybody any takers go ahead okay um a couple of things one Sunday October 16. 2 to 4 30 Southwest Library community meeting District Six Southwest library is on 35th Avenue Southwest and Henderson Street it is the rebuilt Library where I grew up and the bridge is open and I owe Dina Morris 30 bucks because I gave her double odds and it wouldn't happen on time I'm gonna give it to her in ones um You probably have

228a good chance of lasagna and I would invite at least two of my fellow board directors to come and Senior staff and other folks I told you it was Sunday October 16 2 to 4 30. well we'll have to report back to you and show you pictures of the lasagna if we have it make you jealous I I hesitate to bring this up but I'm going to go for it anyway we received significant comments from Mr jackins who provides a important role to this District um that were dated August 29 we did not receive them until today because of the work stoppage our mail got corked with respect to Alki Elementary I know that place like the back of my hand I have roller skated there on Friday nights I have played on that parks

229field and that building is not worthy of our students and I I guess I'm having trouble sometimes Chris and and you know I care about you and care for you I want to know what you do support I really truly do want to know that from my heart to yours because all we hear is what you don't like and and we've come a long way on things like field lighting that is not as nasty and obnoxious as it used to be in the old days you talk tonight about the Madison um playground and Fields their mud pits half the year is that good for our students and thank the goodness that we don't have crumb rubber anymore on our Fields you got to give us that that was a good good save and our students

230can continue to play all year long and Athletics and outdoor recreation have to be important to us I I don't get it it's always negative and and I'm not quite sure I understand why a school rebuild and noise is somehow different than all the construction going on in this city and moreover the neighbors tax their assessments are going to go up with A really lovely building not one that is not suited for education and the fact that we share with the the Seattle Parks Department we just talked about that two weeks ago that's a good thing but I I want to get a letter like this sometime about what we're doing right truly I would appreciate it immensely thank you thanks director Harris director Sergio so first to my uh new board member director Luna

231I just want to declare that you don't just get one month every month is Black History Month every month is latinx history month we cannot buy into that nonsense I I if I had known we were going to talk about this tonight I would have wore my t-shirt because I have a t-shirt that says every month is Black History Month and I don't play so what you saw tonight director Hersey was I don't play in the early 2000s which you were likely in elementary school or middle school I had a conversation with director Mary Bass about a specific area and we will have an off the line conversation so tonight I just want to State and one of my contest constituents who is an ally texted me and said she fully understood my point and

232my point was not that I thought we were going to bring about change but we have to do better from the very beginning we need to model for our children that matters of racism marginalization whether it's of black and brown people or special ed kids is not a second thought it's the first thought so this process was already in motion I I don't I don't expect to change because we didn't do what we needed to do from the very beginning that was solely my point I was hopeful that they were going to tell me something different and that I would be wrong I wanted to be wrong so badly and I have at least two board directors who know that I really did want to be wrong on this so sometimes somebody has to be

233brave enough and step out of the common pretending that these things don't matter because they do and they will matter for generations to come not necessarily that my comments were going to bring about change but I can't be silent I cannot be silent and so if I confused people I will directly apologize on tape but this is going to be what you see me do for the next three years and three months is I will call out things that are not okay not necessarily expecting a change because if I don't do it silent is complete silence is complicity every single time when those students came up and spoke about sexual assault and harassment they were not silent and we should not be either the same goes for this so again I do apologize if I

234confused anybody but there was a purpose to my madness it was a righteous anger and I'm still angry I'm still angry nothing's going to change but I can still be angry I will get over it because I have to um but again I just want to commend my board director director Luna Baron okay I'd have a little tiny bit of accent people used to tell me it was good but I've lost it um I appreciate your comments tonight and I am really looking forward to working with you on your tenure on this board thank you director Serge you any other comments go ahead director Rankin it's the quickest of quick just Shana Tova happy New Year I'll believe it when I see it you're too um fellow Jews yeah and uh there's no meeting scheduled

235next week um on Wednesday or work session because it is Yom Kippur which is the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar so you may notice that you have students or Educators who are not not um in school that day and that is because it is the day of atonement where we consider uh things we may have done to wrong others in the past and commit to doing better in the future um and uh and then and then folks break their fast together after Sundown so that is why there's nothing on the calendar next week and thank you for that and that's all I am thoroughly impressed good job uh any yes consider me gotten um any other comments before we close out tonight all right thank you very much there being no business before

236the board this meeting stands adjourned at 8 11. appreciate it