Seattle Public Schools Board Candidate Forum - March 15, 2021

001[Music] is now taking us live let me confirm that we have board directors with us director dewolfe director dewolfe can you press star six and let me know you're there present thank you director harris i'm present direct director hanson gotcha director harris didn't see her director hersey hello i'm sorry vice president hersey director rankin here hi good evening director vera smith present it is now 5 31 pm and this meeting is called to order welcome to this board special meeting for the school candidate district 4 forum i'm sorry the school board district 4 candidate forum please note that today's forum is being recorded we would like to acknowledge that we are on the ancestral lands and traditional territories of the puget sound coast salish people tonight's forum is being held in collaboration with the naacp

002youth council youth council members planned tonight's forum selected the questions and will be moderating i will turn it over to moderator anissa roy dodd in a moment to introduce the youth council team director harris is here thank you and can everyone else please please mute i first want to share my sincere appreciation on behalf of the board with anissa edon and mia for their work and thank you also to youth council coordinator john greenberg for supporting the planning and as always for rita greene and sabrina burr and also to uh seattle council ptsa and best arts for kids for supporting this organic the naacp youth council in its uh formation tonight we'll hear from the four candidates for the district 4 director position they are aaron dory mark perry laura marie rivera and eric souza

003thank you to the candidates for spending your evening with us and for your interest and participation throughout this district 4 appointment process we are excited to see such strong candidates expressed interest in serving on the board the forum is being held remotely consistent with the governor's proclamation on open public meetings the public is being provided remote access today by phone and through sps tv by broadcast and streaming on youtube the directors of the sales school board are here tonight and on march 24th the board will vote on the appointment to the district 4 seat during the regular board meeting which begins at 3 30 pm again on march 24th and in addition to tonight's forum the board has had an opportunity to hear from the candidates through video statements which are posted to the school

004board website along with the candidate's written application materials you can provide the school board with input on tonight's forum by completing a feedback form on the director appointment page of the school board website the link is included on tonight's agenda and online feedback can be provided until thursday march 18th at 12 pm feedback received through the form will be provided to the board to inform our decision making finally thank you to students and families from district 4 and across the district who are joining us i'll turn things over now to moderator anissa roidad thank you president hampson i want to once again welcome everyone to tonight's forum my name is anissa roydod and i will be one of your moderators for this event i graduated in 2020 from ballard high school here in district 4

005where i was involved in educational justice work in the ballard community and i continued to be involved in that work through the naacp youth council i'm joined tonight by two current seattle public school students and nyc members mia daphne and edon gortzak mia adan and i are so honored to have co-created this forum and we were very intentional about how we collected and created the questions for tonight we made sure to prioritize the voices of students families and communities of color as well as residents of district 4. before explaining the structure of tonight's forum i want to address the online setting that we're in we're all adapting to this new system and as such there may be technical difficulties tonight on top of that microsoft has been having worldwide outages and tech issues today um

006so that increases the likelihood on top of what is normal um of the chances of technical difficulties tonight i want to acknowledge that and just ask that we all offer ourselves abundant grace through it candidates please keep your cameras turned on during the whole forum not including our break of course and since your cameras will be turned on the entire time please be aware and respectful of your facial expressions this is something i myself forget in an online setting additionally i want to remind everyone to mute their microphones when they're not speaking so that there's no feedback from your speakers if you forget to mute staff might be meeting you so please make sure to unmute when it's your turn to answer question tonight's forum will begin with each candidate providing a two-minute opening statement

007we will then move into questions with each candidate receiving a turn to respond candidates have been seated in a random order based on a random drawing and the order in which candidates speak will rotate each time a question is asked responses are limited to 90 seconds for each question and the list of questions tonight will cover the following topics educational justice student voice community voice working on the board and with your colleagues curriculum and learning and covid19 mia and adon will alternate between asking questions and i will be calling on the candidates once we conclude with the questions each candidate will be given one minute to provide a closing statement the order of which was also selected via a random drawing time will be signaled via a countdown timer on the screen along with the

008question that's being asked the timer return will turn red when your time is up please conclude your response promptly when your time is exhausted for fairness and to ensure that we get through as many questions as possible like i said earlier your responses are limited to 90 seconds per question but you do not need to use all your time if you prefer to answer more briefly thank you so much to community members in district 4 and across the district who are attending this forum and to the candidates for participating we wish you all the best of luck before i turn it over to the candidates to give their opening statements let's have the students who will be asking the questions today introduce themselves um hello everyone my name is edon gorsack and i use helium

009pronouns i'm a sophomore at lincoln high school in seattle and which is a part of district 2 and i'm really excited to be here hello my name is mia dabney i use she her pronouns and i'm a junior at cleveland high school which is in district seven and i'm really excited for this event too and i hope you all the best of luck thank you mia and adon beginning now with opening statements candidates you have two minutes candidate perry okay thank you thank you uh yeah mark perry i use he and him pronouns i applied for this position because i want to make a difference i want to be able to dream big imagining a school district without anti-black racism without homophobia and transphobia without gender discrimination without misogyny and sexual violence where every student

010can be safe and every student can thrive the school board is the governing body of the seattle public schools it has the authority and power to create policy and policy matters and it makes a difference i want us to govern with boldness and heart and create immediate and long-term systems of accountability to bring about authentic structural change i bring over 50 years of experience to this position my journey started when i was 19 years old and i joined in the social and racial justice movements and the counter culture of the 1960s uh it's there that i learned to become an organizer and where i experienced the power of collective action and building cooperative communities and alternative institutions this beginning shaped my values and my purpose in life it also led to my incarceration and my

011passion for teaching and learning for the past 35 years i've devoted my work to anti-racist and liberatory education lastly representation also matters one out of every 12 children currently has a parent who's incarcerated and one-third of adults have a close family member who is either currently or formally incarcerated this represents a significant number of the students and families in seattle public schools one thing i think that would be a positive message of both support or of support visibility and hope is to have a formally incarcerated school board member uh with that i thank you for putting all this together and i look forward to our discussion tonight candidate durie um hello can i'm assuming you can hear me my name is aaron durry and i just wanted to say thank you to the naacp youth

012council for putting together the forum and the community seeking community input as you have as you did i use she her pronouns i have a youth in fourth grade here in district four and uh dairy would you mind pausing just for one second while we figure out technical difficulties with your timer we just want you to make sure that you have the correct amount of time okay yeah don't worry you may continue with your opening statement okay um so yeah i have a kid out here in fourth grade he's been in seattle public schools since kindergarten and my background has been in non-profits mostly and also specifically around youth and i am interested in this position or applying for this position because i am excited about the commitment that i have seen from the leadership

013of the board to dismantle and reconstruct the educational system here in seattle public schools i think covet 19 has given us a spotlight on some of the major issues we see in education here in our district and i think that centering equity and ensuring that everybody's voice is brought to the forefront in the process of achieving that equity as we rebuild and reconstruct moving forward out of this coven 19 and making our school system stronger and better my focus is really and background is really on collaboration and process making sure that the table you built is the right table that you want to have and that the people that are sitting around the table are the people that's voices need to be heard and i am very excited to continue the conversation with everyone tonight

014and hear what everyone a little questions from the community and the focus from the community as well thank you candidate rivera hi i'm laura marie she her and i tend to wear many hats and for tonight's purposes we can focus on the parent educator lifelong learner and resident of district 4. i'd like to open with an offer of grace and gratitude gratitude for the district and the school board for hosting this event a special thank you to the youth council for moderating i think that is such a wonderful opportunity for both sides of this equation and i think i wish i would have had that as a kid too i'd like to offer gratitude to my family for offering me the space to do this my husband is out entertaining uh twin kindergarteners a freshman

015and a sophomore trying to keep them all quiet for the next three hours so we wish him well uh i'd like to most of all offer my gratitude to the people that have helped me along on this journey journey to the school board director position i have a lifetime of less than traditional experience and i've enjoyed reaching out to my old friends in new york city arkansas san francisco and all of my new acquaintances here in seattle i've spoken with teachers board presidents union leaders scientists so many parents and so many students i i appreciate in addition to appreciating their time and expertise i've really enjoyed discovering just how many people are out there really looking out for our kids and fighting for their education the humanity of it all has really touched me and

016the grace is an offer and an ask uh the things that we've seen in the news and in the chat rooms are not always representative of the whole picture and through my discussions i have seen all of this in a whole new light and i'd like to ask for grace from all of you for myself for the other candidates for the district family staff hosts and anyone else that we may be needing it and thank you all again for being here tonight and to all of the friends family acquaintances strangers everyone that has wished us luck let's go candidate souza thank you anisa uh hi everybody i'm eric souza i use he him pronouns thank you for having me and thank you for arranging this form uh this is the first time i've gotten to

017meet all of you both from the naacp youth council and the candidates i look forward to going through the questions and learning what you want from a district 4 board director i see the work nyc is doing and i've familiarized myself with the demands that you have posted on your website all eight of them are very clear and should be doable without any agonizing and i'm hoping that we get to go through your points tonight to discuss uh one of your demands is to increase the voice of youth specifically youth of color the board listened and now you are moderating this discussion also in large part because of you the board just passed policy 1250 and i love that that's huge you said you wanted to be heard and the board is handing you the

018mic in the meantime there are a lot of issues that are facing the district in-person learning is being reopened there's data to show this can be done safely under the right circumstances there is also abundant data to show to show that our families of color in washington have concerns that if protocols aren't followed perfectly it's going to compromise their safety disproportionately for a number of reasons we need to be truly inclusive in our application of these protocols so that all of our families are protected also led to a potential 40 million dollar decrease from transportation and enrollment all of the district's issues the labor negotiations its ongoing racial equity efforts transportation and reopening planning are being kneecapped by the state's non-functional funding formula this board director position is a huge responsibility i i know that

019it's a ton of work i've been watching the marathon meetings and that's just the public facing part it's intimidating to think of how much work it's going to take no amount of time is enough but i do want to promise you that i'm ready to put in the work and i'm looking forward to hearing from everybody tonight and thank you for hosting us thank you so much to all the candidates for your opening statements we will now be moving on to the questions remember you have 90 seconds to answer each of the questions the first section of questions will be about educational justice question one what does educational justice mean to you and what actions do you plan to take and how do you plan to implement it candidate durie thank you um i think

020this is a great question educational justice to me means that we recognize that education is a foundational right in our country for all students all people to experience and and to have at a level that ensures their success when they move on from our district in this case um what actions do i plan to take how do i plan to implement it i think that this is a central role of the um leadership in the board and the and the superintendent the district and it will take the entire community to achieve educational justice for all of our youth and community to me that means centering equity and the discussion of equity in every decision that we make whether that be from budget transportation reopening curriculum all of it every time we center equity in the

021conversation we will be ensuring that those furthest from educational justice have an opportunity to fully achieve that success planning to implement it would be working with my colleagues the community listening to student voices listening to community voices to understand what impacts and solutions we need to make to really address the educational justice gap we're seeing in our city and district at the moment candidate rivera um educational justice in my mind and in my life is very much about fairness and i am fully aware that the world is not fair but what gets to me is when things are not right and it's just not right that some kids have access and the benefits of a wonderful education and some kids don't of course it has nothing to do with those children and how they got

022there it has all to do with our system and it's not fair and it's not right and um i see the amazing things that can come from a public education and the doors that it can open and the track that you can start on in life and i want all of the kids to have access to that i want every one of our kids to have access to their best possible chances and the most that they can learn and be thank you candidate souza well educational justice is a very important deal right now we know that we're not on the level playing field uh just looking at our district in particular seattle very segregated city look at rainier beach high school and it wasn't renovated at all i'm glad that there's a work being done

023on it but these things should not be happening in this way where you have a system that supports uh the haves and does not necessarily support black and brown students the families are not contacted they're not communicated with and they're not listened to as much and even when the board does make efforts toward equity like you know zero zero three zero is terrific but what teeth does it have when you're looking to support families so there needs to be accountability and make sure that the efforts that are being taken are being backed up by action it's great to have the words but when the words don't change systems that are in place that don't promote equity when you have an hcc that you realize needs to be overhauled and redeveloped and these things aren't happening

024it's not promoting equity it's not not leading toward the educational justice that we need uh it would take a lot of listening and a lot of learning and working with the team to make it work thank you candidate perry thank you i think that educational justice starts with racial justice um and i think in this district one of the big challenges is that we know that the the disparities in achievement and additional disparities have basically been the same for about six decades now um one of the things that i would do is well i think well let's say one of the i think we we tend to just move the deck chairs around in sale public schools we talk a lot of good language but it has to be followed up by action so one

025of the things that i think would help with this is to set up a process that begins to that identifies the root causes identifies action plans that includes not just people who are in seattle public school not just people who work here students families and also be from the community and part of this would be an independent process where on a regular basis let's say every month people have to report back and say okay what do we identify what changes have we put in place otherwise i don't think we're going to get the systemic and structural changes that we need to do so that's the place i would start i know i have 12 more seconds but that's okay thank you so much candidates we'll now be moving on to question two question two how

026will you address the over policing and disproportionate discipline of black and brown students especially in a culture that over sexualizes black girls in district 4 and the district as a whole candidate rivera wow you guys are not messing around uh i don't have the right answer to this um i recognize and appreciate as the wrong word but have an understanding that this is a true problem and an issue and what it does is it ends up breaking my heart it's it's not it's not fair i don't want to harp on fairness all night but it's not right and so many students go to school it's just not a level playing field and when you look at the statistics on how discipline is meted out and you see uh who is getting what punishments for what's

027in fractions it's infuriating and i know that these are numbers that we've had for a long time and things don't seem to be rolling in the right direction i will be happy to take the lead from others on this one because i truly don't have the answer right now thank you candidate souza this is something that weighs on me as i look at my kids going through school my son is a latino um very very loud and looking at the discipline practices that impact black and brown kids it's not balanced it's not fair and instead of continuing to perpetuate this that's happened for decades and funneling students into the school-to-prison pipeline we need to really focus on a disciplinary view a district needs to support instead of discipline and we need to make sure there

028are enough counselors we need to make sure they're enough mentors make sure that their support for students instead of discipline the discipline does not encourage anything it does not help change problems and looking at it as being a culture that over sexualizes black girls one of the other things that i really appreciate about what seattle has done is not have a dress code uh not have things that are specifically pointing out uh pointing out women's issues when the issue should really be addressing men in their responses to the women um it's not appropriate to blame what women are wearing as far as that goes so again i do want to emphasize that discipline practices need to change and we need to encourage more counseling and support candidate perry uh thank you to me the place

029to start is why is this happening we we have to figure out what the root causes are uh is completely unacceptable uh as eric said this is you know this is the start of the school the prison pipeline and i think in terms of a way to move forward there's a couple things i think that in the schools themselves like one of the things they did at the last school i was at which was nova is students wanted to have a consent day where we talk about all these issues in various different kinds of groups um consent all different kinds of consent and so the students are at the center of the process and from there establish the norms establish the processes we also brought in a community organizer to first teach the staff and

030then teach all the students who wanted to be involved how to run restorative justice circles how to be redemptive with each other how to be discerning in situations so that um when something happens we create an environment where students can say something to somebody else and there's not a knee-jerk reaction where we can actually have a process let's work this out we're a community together together if we don't want this to happen here then we're the ones who have to stop it candidate durie um i think that this really gets at the need to get back to community and think about um as mark said to really think about what the root causes are i think that we need to look at the systemic issue this the system as a whole and really move towards

031a more transformative justice cycle where we are addressing not only the community needs and the the student needs but also the apps the systemic needs that are creating a culture where this school-to-prison pipeline is happening where disproportionate discipline of black and brown students is happening that includes our curriculum and bringing ethnic studies forefront into the work that we're doing in the schools it includes removing police officers from schools and moving to a counseling supportive model it would include funding and differently moving funding around to support the needs of the students and particularly centering black and brown students and ensuring that their safety is paramount in the conversations that we're having about how to address the issues that we're seeing around discipline around um the sexualization of students around how we fund all of it um

032we just really need to make sure we're centering the folks the folks that need to be the top of the conversation and look at solutions thank you so much candidates we will now be moving to question three question three is how will you work to retain educators of color and create safe environments for them in sps as a whole and especially in district 4 which is a major majority white district candidate souza thank you this is a really important question i think that the way that jobs are presented in the way that jobs are presented to the community to try to solicit people of color to come and join the messaging has to be specifically for them it needs to be inviting we need to be inclusive we need to set up systems in place

033to welcome people of color to want to join the staff and then once they're once they're working for the school district working with the school district offer resources maybe it's not their responsibility to train their white staff members it's their responsibility to work with the students and to support each other and i want to make sure that when we are looking to fill positions we are actively phrasing and making sure that we communicate that we are looking for representation of people who are historically marginalized who can then work with our student body who can then work with the rest of our staff to make sure that there is that representation i think that any equity work that we have to do to try to provide this to the students needs to come from black and

034brown professionals but how do we get them in a district that's predominantly white it starts with the messaging it starts with the outreach and trying to make sure that we are communicating to them that this is important for the district to have their voices candidate perry thank you um so uh i was on the the district committee last year that um i forget the name of it was focused on um hiring more teachers of color in the district and you know it's a start and i think that really the place that we have to look at is at the school level um there's been scholarly studies that say that a school can't really um have an anti-racist focus unless there is a minimum of 25 teachers of color and at least 40 percent that's the

035sort of baseline to be able to move a school and i think in terms of retaining students of color not only they need to be supported but they need to have their own they need to have ability to meet with each other i think they need extra support from the district if they want it and you know it's teachers who um as white teachers and you know people who want to see this happen you we have to be in a place where we can educate ourselves and defend people depend the process uh this isn't an issue we can play around with every student needs to be able to see themselves every student of color needs to be able to see themselves and i think the district needs to escalate this process or accelerate this process

036uh and then we got to put in the safeguards and the supports in the in schools themselves candidate durie i think that it really is about retention and to me that is uh the difference when the asking how do we retain educators recover color shows the difference between how do we get or the diversity question of check boxes and numbers and i think that's an important distinction here and i appreciate that call out to me especially in a majority white district it is really talking about absolutely dismantling the white supremacy culture that we have at our schools and that means that white people need to do some work to dismantle that um and there would be there is a need for white folks to look at the white supremacy culture in our that is current

037in our schools especially in this district and then when we get back to the reconstruction you know we talk about dismantling and reconstruction when we get to the reconstruction piece really centering black and brown staff and educators to talk about to to define what that needs to look like and how we're going to reconstruct um and to and have that be the lead to make sure that the leadership is black and brown and that reconstruction of what we need for our schools in our community candidate rivera thanks i think we all want to be in a safe environment and i think it's a it's actually a special time right now in that people white people are starting to wake up and starting to listen and recognize uh the word microaggression has been used enough that

038it is entered the lexicon and people are starting to recognize and embrace when it happens and starting to see when it's happening to someone that's not just themselves and uh it's about being welcoming and recognizing that different people have different challenges in the workplace and having your staff having your back from the school to the principal to the district to all of it but what i really see in our district and just the school district as a whole and district 4 uh is you know we we have a pipeline problem we don't we don't the underserved population is not coming through the pipeline and i would love to see a grant a grant that could help uh encourage the traditionally underserved and help for their education help show some examples help move things forward and

039welcome more people into those positions and keep them moving and learning and advancing for the benefit of all of us thank you candidates we'll now be moving into the last question in our educational justice section question four okay question four how do you support schools across the district especially considering the huge disparity between north and south end schools in terms of wealth privilege and pta funding candidate perry thank you again uh great question and i think that this uh i'm gonna follow up on what aaron said about white supremacy culture you know is centering whiteness we live in a segregated district segregated by race segregated by socio-economics and people have to step up people who are in the schools um that you know um get the privilege of that who have the resources there has

040to be a sharing of this and i think one of the things it comes down to is the question of needs versus wants there are needs in our district uh if we're if we're one district then we figure out how to fund those needs first and if that means that some schools aren't going to get some of the you know the the i don't know the fancy theater places or whatever it is then that's got to happen and you know we have to suck it up and do it we're not going to be able to defeat this uh unless we come together and [Music] i don't know recognize that racism racism is endemic in the seattle public schools you know we're in an era of racial reckoning these these areas don't always happen that often

041there's often lulls there's been you know previous ones historically now's the moment to go bold you know we we have to name it for what it is and make some tough decisions uh and go for the need before the wants candidate durie should i wait um okay um uh so i think that when you're asking how do we support schools across the district and and i noticed the funding here i think that that is actually absolutely paramount and the pta funding is clearly disproportionate across the district i am really encouraged by the seattle council ptsa having their title one funding line i think that that is a great start to pooling pta funding and taking that funding and putting it in places where it's needed more than just you know this one school funded raised

042that much money and they always do and so they get to use it for whatever um and it's also about really um collaboration and working with the call with my colleagues on the school board and in the different ptas across the city i've really enjoyed my time on the seattle council ptsa and learning more about the different districts through that collaboration and continuing to have conversations and um finding what the systemic need change changes are and how we can move forward with that and putting the funding behind that and i think it's really important in the north end to understand that a lot of the funding that we fundraise outside of what we're given by the state and the feds is does happen up here and that if we want to really change the tide

043of the school district as a whole we need to be real about that and spread that funding across the district candidate rivera hit the wrong button um thank you so i think the real answer is that we need more money and i recognize that as not an easy answer at all and some may say it's not even realistic but the truth is we do need more money and the schools are not funded well enough and the fact that there are nine nurses for the entire district is insane and uh so many things along that i think that the district's strategic plan is addressing that and talking uh working toward the targeted universalism but the truth is we need more money from and it's the relationships i would expect that the school board could help build

044between the city state and national levels to start working that way but yeah we need more money everyone everyone knows it and of course it's not fair when one school raises a quarter of a million dollars and one school does not have that money and then you're left with what happens when the schools are not making that money to fund the differences i think we all need to work outside of ourselves and start not start continue uh advocating for the kids and more appropriate funding thanks candidate souza i would reiterate what uh mark perry said as far as uh funding the needs first and looking at where the money has to go we have a system that has been built on white supremacy and has been segregated and and the haves continue to have and

045and schools have less resources in a place like the pta now pta how do we solve that that's not necessarily under the district's purview i love the idea of working with the seattle council ptsa and trying to have more pooling of funds and get more distribution and have it be more equitable because this is really not about equality it is about equity trying to to fix a problem when schools were built inequitably trying to fix that disparity and and try to allocate funds where they're needed i i love all the memes that show the differences between equality and equity and then eventually down to justice where where it's all built but you know how do you get to that point well working with a group like the seattle council ptsa and maybe finding ways to

046distribute funds as well as meeting with the people in these communities trying to build more robust ptsas trying to build more robust systems in order to get community funding but as far as what the district is responsible for that's where we really need to target the the distribution of funds and sometimes that needs to go to prioritize schools that have been destroyed summarize your remarks thank you thank you candidates we will now be moving on to our second section on student voice question five what is the importance of student advocacy in schools how will you make sure that students are learning to advocate for themselves especially making sure that students with 504s and individualized education plans or who have a disability are given the tools and space to ask for help candidate durie i think

047centering student voices is absolutely essential when we are talking about student education um i do not think that we can try to build something without the voices of those who are most affected by it and i think advocacy is an excellent avenue to ensure that the student voice is heard advocacy can mean a lot of different things you can be talking about your self-advocacy when it comes to talking to being in your school to your teacher to your principal all the way up to organizing and showing up in at the capitol to advocate for major system policy changes um and i think it is definitely something that is should be taught and learned um across the board uh centering student sorry i'm re-reading the question in front of me as i'm making sure to answer

048all of it um making sure that students with 504s or ieps or who have disabilities are given tools and space to ask for help it would to me be a collaboration between the one-on-one instructors that they are working with or their their teachers as well as the leadership in the individual schools to make sure that their voices are being projected all the way up the ladder to the capitol to the board to the superintendent and making sure that our policies are in alignment with their with the needs of those students candidate rivera uh so this is kind of really two huge questions in one and i have to say as far as advocacy in schools i don't make i don't want to make myself sound like a dinosaur but that is not something that we

049did when i was in school and i'm so impressed and proud of what is going on with kids students and even my own student has spoken at a board meeting and helped organized a walkout for gun violence two years ago and across the country it is i mean we have great examples right here but it is just amazing to see what the youth is doing across the country and i'm so hopeful that they can make a real difference because that is what we need and the grown-ups are not getting it right a lot of the time and i hope that those fresh voices will be loud enough and strong enough to keep going and as for the 504s and ieps that really is a whole different question and it represents such a wide range of

050abilities and i know that there are kids that actually have that in their iep that they need to advocate for themselves and ask for space uh one of my own students uh is supposed to ask for help when he needs it and teaching that is has been an uphill battle and i'm proud that we have been working on that with him and that he has a team of professionals that is also trying to help thanks candidate souza well just this past week the board passing 1250 is a great step toward encouraging student advocacy and informing the student board to be advisors for the the school board i think that's a terrific solution um i think that it's important to have actual concrete meaningful uh feedback from student advocates maybe for for hiring or for performance

051reviews and and giving students an actual say instead of having any performative measures like saying okay we'll listen to you but not actually having it go anywhere or do anything it's important also because the more of a chance we give the students to use their voices the more confident they're going to be using them and it's important to create space for those uh with more marginalized voices among their peers uh in teaching the more privileged peers to to do the same and this can be done by a curriculum and by teaching teachers to create space for the students as well because if students in in a math class this is have an important thing going on to have the teacher give them the space to be able to have those important discussions uh that's that's

052important so again make sure that it's not performative give their you know give them some skin in the game have let's say in hirings have i say in in actual uh reviews candidate perry i agree it has to be real and there has to be action behind it that um students should be part of the hiring part process they should be part of the review process at the last two schools i was at half the students on hiring committee half the students on budget or half the people on hiring committee half people in budget committee are students and students have an equal voice and equal vote with everybody else we have to make it real otherwise it is performative like eric said and and i also think i agree that it has to be taught

053it has to happen in every single classroom um where students know that when they say something it's listened to we have to you know we have to take those critiques and we have to apply them back into the curriculum back into the norms of the school back into the culture of the school um so students know that when something's happening it came from them that they what their needs are are put at the forefront in terms of students with ieps students with disabilities absolutely there should be no difference uh and when extra supports are needed they should be in place but there shouldn't be any difference in access or opportunity in any school for students with fibo forests and students with disabilities thank you candidates we'll now be moving to our next question question six

054how are you going to listen and take into account what youth specifically black indigenous and people of color youth have to say about their district and how do you plan to go beyond listening to engage with your youth constituents in district 4 and across the district candidate rivera thanks uh you well there's the oh that is about the squeaky wheels and then we're left who have we been hearing from and who have we been acting for when i used to teach at a museum one of the things that uh i was charged with was listening to the students and hearing uh their their feedback and what they notice and i created my own internal checklist and at least once during the teaching experience i would ask each kid to tell me something and uh you

055know if they would tell you what they see or what they're thinking and you can follow up with the wise and you got i got so much out of those conversations and the kids got to share their thoughts i got to hear them and we put them all together into a really wonderful discussion and that is something i learned by doing and i'm not quite sure how you would make a checklist for the entire district but it definitely it it's a part of accountability and you have to hear it all and take it in and i would be excited to hear what our kids have to say and how we can see about making those things work within the framework that we have and changing the framework to be able to make all of those

056things work candidate souza well like i said in in the last answer creating space for students to have these conversations is extremely important uh to bring their entire experience into every conversation and interaction tonight we have the naacp youth council moderating this and i think that's a great way to touch base with with bypoc youth and to listen to like i'm learning from these questions that you guys came up with and it's it's terrific so making sure that not only are we listening but we are trying to take action and apply what we're learning and and engage in further that communication so making sure that we are proactively going and visiting schools that that aren't necessarily in our areas listening to families the um the student advisors i was thinking it might be nice for

057the student uh the new student board members to be able to interview their family members their school members and and be able to share that with everybody so we can try to reach as many voices as we possibly can and again not just to hear it but to act on it is important candidate perry so i'm gonna um i don't particularly like to use examples for my own school but i'm going to use one for here because nova has historically been a school that's about 65 white um 35 student of color and we've always had different racial justice initiatives so about i think it was four or five years ago um we have a community we have a community system that runs the school but there was a students of color people of color students

058of color committee there's both staff and students and so we brought in a community person to work with them to do focus groups with the students in the people of color committee and they listed a number of things and this then the facilitator brought it back to the staff um two years later we went through the same process again and it was really clear that there are some areas that we listened and we made changes and there are other areas that we didn't the most serious one was no mental health support for students of color um the people we weren't we were brought in we're not serving them well and we weren't dealing with um generational trauma we had very little understanding of it and they wanted us to focus on that more the one

059of the areas that we made a lot of growth was around black studies and ethnic studies and one of the biggest differences is the idea of not just teaching a standalone class but teaching through black studies teaching through ethnic studies candidate derry i think it's really important to seek out opinions and and voices i think that the way our systems are currently set up is to center um particularly white voices and so in order to dismantle and change that it is a process of actually going forth and seeking um buy pock voices and ensuring that that that we are hearing from our bipart community especially in a district as white as district 4 is we can easily write off and say that this district is majority white but that doesn't mean there aren't bipoc folks

060and youth that we need to be listening to here specifically and i think that's about a collaboration with community programs where bipac youth know their voice is heard and have that trust already built in and creating relationship in community forums like that and ensuring that any anything as has been mentioned numerous times this evening by multiple candidates anything we're hearing we move to action the fastest way to feel unheard is to have stated your opinion and see nothing happen and so i think the real position of power that board members have is to take what we're hearing and move it to action um and so to find make sure that we are centering the bipoc youth and communities of color in our district and across the district and in seeking out those that voice and

061moving that to action thank you candidates we'll now be moving to our next question how will you work with student groups like the washington naacp youth council svs african-american male advisory board district 4 black student unions and other meaningful partners in decision making candidate souza well communication and making myself available and not only available but seeking out these answers uh working with these groups and looking at what their asks are and trying to amplify those voices and trying to learn as much as i can about what they're asking for i mean if we're talking about really trying to have equity in our district it's about understanding what and listening to what is being asked of us and if we are going to be making decisions that are going to be for everybody we need to

062to make sure that we know what those demands are especially for um especially for these organizations that are historically underrepresented and not being given the amplification that is needed if we have a bullhorn then let's give it to let's give it to other people let's give it to them and make sure that it's understood what these what these asks are so i will make myself available i will find out who the leaders are of these organizations find out what they're looking for and do what i can to support them it's a matter of understanding the asks and then trying to figure out how to best support uh going through and making that happen candidate perry thank you it's an interesting question because i think part of the answer lies with the necessity to restructure the

063central um leadership administration of seattle public schools where there isn't much access for input it's a top-down system and being able to get in the door is really really hard so for example the african-american male advisory board met i think for two years and they presented a whole list of recommendations that are now sitting in the file cabinet um they haven't been moved on and i would also ask organizations that are listed here and other organizations from the community what kind of input do you want to have and then let's make it happen um i would go back to the idea that we need some independent accountability here we need the the district itself has not been able to figure out how to hold itself accountable and i think that is actually one of the

064one of the structural problems prob the problem sorry for being able to attack the the structural anti-black racism that exists in the district candidate durie um i think starting with the work that's already been done by a lot of these organizations and groups um and bringing it to the district instead of asking folks to recreate work that fits our model for example the youth year of purpose is already well underway this year what are we doing in our schools and our communities to center that how are we working with that how are we centering that in the schools and in our in our curriculum and and so forth um so i think starting with the work that's already done and also to what marcus just said to really look at our system of how do

065we cure how do we make ourselves available as a district as a as an entity to engage with the organizations that are doing the work we say we want how do we really bring that to the forefront and and utilize and and work and and put forth that work um that's already been there and already been done this isn't new uh and so we can't treat it as as a new thing right um so engaging in that way and then also creating new avenues and new systems for more collaboration more partnership more work to be done going forward to really look at the systems and the solutions that we want to think about what impact are we trying to make and work backwards from that rather than what's the problem and trying to fix a

066minor thing please please thank you can it oh sorry kendit rivera uh i think it all starts with the act of intentional listening and uh when you open your mind and open your heart and listen from that open place you can hear things that you may not have imagined and perhaps i shouldn't even say it but when i was a kid i was under the impression that segregation was a thing of the past that slavery was so long ago and that everything was fair and everything was equal and i you know you don't know what you don't know and as i've grown uh first when i went to ucla and i started to see all of the students of the student union and um started to appreciate some of the other groups and then when

067i moved to new york city and i found that uh it really is the ultimate melting pot and what you hear black and brown which and but there's really so many so many groups and it's just raising your awareness and listening from an open place and i i do think that there are so many people uh in the district including district 4 that are listening and learning and back at the district office but it sometimes seems that everything is so compartmentalized that things aren't getting through there are a lot of communication issues in the district and when one area is making progress it doesn't really feel like everyone else is aware of it and may be able to use that same momentum thank you candidates we will now be moving into our last question in

068the student voice section question eight how do you avoid tokenizing students and families of color candidate perry i didn't realize i was first i just said to myself don't do it um whoa wait a minute i just lost everybody sorry um hey you know if you if you create i think if schools create an environment you know um somebody mentioned it earlier about relationships you know the thing in school well the thing we're missing with online learning is the relational piece but relationships relationships relationships knowing each other um having experiences with each other have curriculum that's meaningful and worthwhile to students where students feel like they can speak up then students aren't going to feel like they're tokenized and then the adults have to be called to task i think that was my toughest job

069as a principal which i've done it twice is you know i was the one who had to step up sometime and say no you can't do that you can't you know respond to that way you can't do harm to a child that way um the system doesn't support you when you do that i will say that in seattle public schools um but yeah we just we can't let it happen so and it goes back to student voice in some ways there are many more students in a school than there are adults they outnumber us they should be able to organize and mobilize and have the strongest voice in the building candidate durie um this really goes back to your question about retaining staff black and brown people of color staff at schools to me and

070it's the difference to me between real culture system change and check boxes and numbers uh you know we can't just say well i talked to we or we have you know three students of color on the board it's about the culture of the entire district about the culture of the school about the culture of the board it's looking at our power systems and how we value power invoices and what voices we give time to and who who were asking questions of and what what questions we're asking to me it gets to the absolute need for a culture shift that as mark mentioned is based on relationship but also is based on what action are we taking are we actually um taking the opportunity to change the systems to dismantle to reconstruct in a creative way

071that doesn't uphold the same systems that we are built in or are we just um re-center are we just moving chairs moving the deck chairs what we want to do is create a completely different vision and go from there candidate rivera thanks uh it's about individuality individuality i want to be seen as laura marie and just because i am a woman i'm a resident of district four i'm a former educator i'm a former tap dancer any of those things uh they certainly color my experiences and my opinions but none of them make me who i am and i think it's the same thing that goes with any other uh student or family and uh stereotypes and generalizations end up hurting everyone so uh as far as avoiding tokenizing it's it's really about seeing the individual

072each student uh each student is their own little person and we want to see the education that is the best for them and to the best of their abilities and when someone has a comment or a concern or a problem and it comes to you you have to know the whys behind it and sometimes when we take it just on the surface level we make a lot of assumptions and we all know what happens when you assume and it's just much better to recognize that people are individuals and that their experiences are personal thanks candidate souza well we we know that black and brown families are not a monolith individuals are individuals and we want to have real representation of voices of color and more importantly we want to have actual inclusion so we want

073to give students the chance to use their voices in in the best way it's the best way to avoid tokenization it's important to keep in touch with groups of students of color groups like the naacp youth council and and others and listen and maintain a constant flow of ideas i think it's also important to avoid the trap of of having a single student represent all students like if you're going to have coverage of black history month you want to make sure to have representation from uh different black students instead of just picking one student saying okay well you're black tell me what you think about this um or you know the proverbial selfie with um self with someone to prove that you're not racist uh i think that having communication and making sure that there's

074actual listening to and having a flow of um and priority on on listening to this flow of communication is really important thank you candidates we will now be moving into our next section on community voice question 9 what do you understand to be the highest priorities of your district 4 constituents and what will you do if they don't align with educational justice candidate durie currently i think the main focus is on return to school return to in building schooling um is a big focus in the in this district four in particular um and what that looks like to different families is very different and what that means especially when we were talking about a safe return to school i think that a large majority of the voices i'm hearing currently a safe return to school

075is strictly about can we keep six feet between people and wear a mask a safe return to school to black and brown students and families means am i going to is my safety as a human is my education as a person going to be paramount when i return to a building or am i actually safer at home and more able to focus on my studies because i know i'm safer at home and so i think bridging i think that everybody wants to return safely to school i think being very clear on what that word safety means and how do we actually address that um is the the crux of how are we going to align with educational justice in this moment i do i also think that we're not going to solve all of the

076problems that covid has signed a spotlight on in our community by the time we do return to buildings but we need to make sure that there's a priority happening to continue the work that that has started or has been brought to light once we do return and going forward candidate rivera uh as for returning to school i can tell you that my children were overjoyed at the thought of returning to school with inslee's decree and i thought it was a very bizarre declaration and it is amazing to see how things have been up and down and all around these past just in these past few weeks i think that the highest priority for my district 4 constituents at least the ones that um i've been talking to it's really just about the kids education and

077some are struggling online and some are doing quite well and uh some have taken their kids out all together but it's it's it's about the kids education as a whole and their child's education specifically and i don't see them as not aligning with educational justice they want to see the kids back in school they want to see them taken care of and they want to see them with the fair and appropriate public education and i also want to see the kids with special needs from great and small getting the attention that they need that it's impossible to do online and i appreciate my children's teachers and i think all of the teachers for everything that they've been doing but we all know that there's a difference between a face-to-face meeting and an online forum thanks

078candidate souza this definitely does come down to for me a matter of representation it's always about inclusion and equity always at all levels students of color special education those who are targeted by resource disparities with with the return to in-person learning these things weigh more than ever on students of color uh especially when the return to school is going to um we have to remember that students of color at baseline already weren't necessarily feeling safe in their schools pre-coded uh my son my kids go to ballard high school there was a recent school-wide survey that said only 13.6 percent of students and staff of color thought the school was doing a good job of intervening in incidents of racial aggression and that was pre-coveted so we're adding layers of worry with covet on top of

079that and returning to school i think that in district 4 these things are always going to have to have an eye on equity and have an eye on educational justice candidate perry thank you sometimes i think i should just jump in but you know i don't want to over override you uh is the interesting question it's easier for me to answer the second part than the first part uh even though i've lived in district 4 for 25 years now since we came here from chicago uh and both our daughters graduated went to seattle schools and graduated from seattle public schools but i worked for 20 years in school it was an all-city draw which was interesting because we we literally had kids from the entire city there uh and i think that in this in

080this district for me i would say the the highest priority is still anti-racism we're we're in era of racial reckoning we have to deal with that we have to talk to each other we have to figure out what we can do to be true accomplices because we are a vastly majority white uh school district or school we're not a district what district 4. um and then educational justice has to be at the center of that in terms of returning to school yeah it's a complicated question i think every you know district in the country has had hard times dealing with it i don't feel like sale public school has done it well uh from a central leadership standpoint and i do my personal feeling is you know governor inslee's going to quickly he said mental

081health was one of the main reasons but where are the mental health counselors why aren't they in our buildings that would be a high priority for me if i was just a constituent in district 4 with kids in the schools thank you candidates we'll now move into our next question question 10 how will you go beyond engaging families who are already involved in their schools such as through the pta to informing and engaging families of color and families who are marginalized in other ways such as language kenditt rivera hi uh well my favorite lesson on engagement uh came from a book called the invitation to the party and it really is from my work in non-profits and engaging uh all areas of the community but what it really spoke to me as a person and

082it is literally about an invitation to the party how do you get people to feel that they are invited um i have joined uh the pta pto at every school that my kids have been a part of and i i often don't feel even invited and welcome and i think a lot of that has to do with me and some of it may be more the situation but it's just getting a person to come in and feel welcome feel wanted feel comfortable and to join in that discussion and i feel a lot from the district i know that we have a lot of communications coming home i get emails all the time and sometimes it's hard to wade through all of that and really hear what's happening i was impressed when i intended uh listened

083in called in to one of the board meetings a few weeks ago and it talked about the communications from the district and it listed all of the things that they are doing and all of the languages that they are doing i know there was a question about asl for tonight's meeting but i was overall really impressed with what the district is doing and there's just a disconnect from what they are doing and what is being received on the other end candidate souza well one thing that i saw worked really well was the seattle council ptsa it had translators and asl on a recent meeting i thought that was a great way to be open to people who have language barriers i also think that schools that have diversity equity committees like ballard high school has

084one that's run by an anti-racist group of teachers and the purpose is to create space for families of color um the point is to have a place where the administration isn't going to overshadow the groups and silence voices but allow them to speak uh it's important to hear these voices and to have encouragement for them in in the different languages in which they speak and to show them that look there are people who you can talk to who speak your language who can communicate your message because it's hard enough for me in my position and i i feel like i am well involved with the school but if i have an issue it's it's hard enough for me to find progress how hard is it for somebody who doesn't have that same language skill or

085or have other barriers so how do we go beyond engaging families who are already involved well i think the seattle council ptsa has done very well i think that we need to communicate on social media i think that we need to communicate in emails and make sure that we're hitting as many different represented groups as we possibly can candidate harry thank you um i think i'm going to use some examples from nova because it's in seattle public schools we had that issue where we had this issue still but we took some really concrete steps and i'd say i think innovation is really critical in seattle public schools and unfortunately our district is sort of anathema to being innovative the first thing we have advisory groups where every student has an advisor it's about 20 to

086one it's multi-graded and every year there's at least one family meeting and we set up a time where family can come in uh we started doing something a few years ago that elementary school is doing during those days before thanksgiving we have family meetings with all the families and the students and we do them on saturday and we do them on monday and tuesday evenings afternoon and evenings uh and the advisors you know check with the families and the students to make sure that uh you know that everybody has enough that the time works good for them we our student of color group people color group is what it's called we set up a post high school well they initiated it um i guess presentation and workshops they were just for students and families of

087color we started a couple years ago and we started saturday school which is not the typical saturday school it's not disciplinary where members of the community our community know the community students and families who come in and teach courses teach classes lead book groups do art projects uh with other people all voluntary um and it was just starting to get off the ground last year and coveted i know i'm done sorry no it's all good that's just my job i know i know and candidate dairy um i i think it's about having multiple access points and multiple engagement opportunities um i you know i think that there are some good things that potentially can come out of our time in covid um and having these virtual meetings is a it allows folks that you know

088maybe couldn't leave their home because they don't have child care it allows for interpretation opportunities it allows for engagement opportunities in different ways so we can do it both and to our models you know we can have our in-person opportunities for folks that that works for we can have a virtual component to things hopefully going forward now um and it's also to me it's really about trying to meet people where they are like quite quite literally not not in the philosophical sense of that um but to to go to established um forums and groups and and places of gathering uh to to engage with folks instead of asking oh continuously asking people to come meet me where i am meet us where we are um and and really trying to think about the different um

089ways that people go through the world you know i think it's great that we have evening hours for meetings for folks that have nine to five jobs but what about people who don't have nine to five jobs or people like i'm a single parent my son is currently with a babysitter because i you know this would be my time with him but i can't do that tonight which is fine but to really think about those multiple engagement opportunities thank you candidates so much for your answers to the community voice questions and to the educational justice and student voice sections like candidate rivera mentioned earlier we don't mess around as the youth council and we really appreciate like i said your very thoughtful answers to these important questions we'll now be taking a 15 minute break

090so to candidates and audience members we will resume with the next sets of questions promptly after the break so please return in 15 minutes at oh jeez this test in my mouth at 7 12 pm [Music] are you back with us [Music] candidate susan perry are you back from break i am thank you yes absolutely okay great we are now back from our break and we'll be resuming with the questions on to questions onto section 4 working on the board with your working on the board and working with your colleagues question 11 this question comes from a student at the center school how do you see yourself in sync with the current board members and where do you anticipate conflict candidate souza well i'm happy that i can say i don't anticipate conflict i do

091anticipate a lot of discussions and i'm sure that we're not always going to agree on everything but i i don't want to go into something assuming conflict i do see myself as being a somebody who has a lot to learn i'm going to step in and and need to follow a lot of what has already been established and learn how i fit in i think that i have a lot of complimentary pieces that can work with the board especially as far as communication goes and and i also see the board as having a large social equity focus uh i am eager to see what the board continues to do with uh policy zero zero four zero um coming up this summer i think that there is a lot of like-mindedness which is also a potential

092danger i don't think that um that it's safe to have everybody you know feeling like well we're all on the same page because that does potentially alienate other voices i think that if there is um disagreements and there are bound to be disagreements i i always listen and i always you know i'm always respectful about it um and as far as anticipating conflict these are things that that hopefully will always happen behind the scenes instead of spilling over into public arena candidate perry thank you um one of my questions would be um what is what's the governing philosophy of the board and individual board members which i don't know uh and i also think there's a difference between conflict and disagreement disagreements can be healthy we have to ask lots of questions and i would

093definitely ask a lot of questions i don't know if that all be appreciated but um what i bring with me is it's sort of like you know was that song in hamilton i was in the room where it happened i've been in the district for 20 years i know how it operates and i think i can bring that experience in i do feel like that policy really matters this is the governing board of the seattle public schools we have serious issues we have to address and i really do want us to be bold i mean we saw in the last federal national administration um policy makes a difference policy you know put kids in cages policy can take kids out of cages um we have to be able to identify what i think is the

094number one issue which is the structural anti-black racism uh nci in seattle public schools uh and we have to be bold about it and uh and there has to be accountability and it's not just accountability i say i've met a lot of really good people in seattle public schools who work in administration but the system doesn't always allow good people to do good work candidate durie um i see myself in sync with um actually one of the things that inspired me to uh put my name in the hat for this position was the letter that was written by president vice president of the board in which they stated that we needed to deconstruct and reconstruct our school district and to center anti-racism and to really tackle the racist systems that we do have in our

095district um that was a large part of the reason i am here tonight was to be part of that um particularly the the reconstruction you know we can dismantle and deconstruct in any way we want but it's about how we how we reconstruct um and i think that any potential um as is pointed out maybe not conflict but disagreement or strife that may be happening um maybe in um and as we tackle giant big issues like this everybody is going to be having different opinions on how to reconstruct and how to how to engage in the conversations and to do that um but to me it is about relationship building it's about mutual respect it's about listening and it's about um making sure that we are consistently centering our commitment to anti-racism and equity as

096we do that rebuilding candidate rivera well i just knocked my notes on the floor but uh i will say that i'm coming into it uh with no preconceived notions and uh before last week i had only ever met one of the board members and um i i'm gonna pick up those notes i don't see a necessarily need for conflict but i can certainly stand up for my beliefs when i need them but at the end of the day whatever it comes down to i can agree to disagree and move forward uh when sonia sotomayer was in town and she spoke at university of washington a few years ago i took my students and one of the things that really stood out to me uh from her whole talk was when she talked about working with

097the other members of the court and that she and they have an understanding that you don't talk about the other members of the court it it serves no one and nothing to be talking poorly about some of them and it has just stuck with me and i really appreciate that and throughout this whole learning process of coming to this forum and uh applying for the directorship in general i've really just come with an appreciation of the work that the board members are doing and uh if we are going to go with hamilton i'll just say i'm not throwing away my shot thanks thank you candidates unfortunately i have not watched hamilton yet but anyway moving on to question 12. um question 12 if you're appointed to this position how will you prioritize your well-being while

098also serving your constituency and finishing your appointed term candidate perry thank you i want to write some notes i didn't have time i realized first uh my own well-being that's really a critical question because i actually a few years ago i set up a life worth balance um well wellness workshop for principals and assistant principals in seattle public schools and it really focused on five areas i can remember that one was sleep nutrition stress management purpose and i don't remember the other one right now oh exercise exercise and the idea was that it's not it's not a self-help it's an inquiry where we look at each one of these areas and we figure you know it's like on a chart how are you doing how or not you're doing one to ten something like that

099and then you find one thing to start with so you begin to get more and more balanced because working in seattle public schools is a really stressful job uh and we can't take it home one of the things that we did at nova a couple times is we did secondary trauma workshops because we cannot carry it home uh we cannot walk into our families or whatever it is and bring that you know what we're feeling and experiencing every day there in terms of servicing serving our consistency um or what whatever that word is there uh yes i mean i i if i'm in this position i'm gonna bring myself and you know people know that you know i'm gonna bring integrity and honesty and we're going to roll from there thank you candidate dairy um

100i think this is critical um because if we can't take care of ourselves we can't be expected to take care of others um i have a long background in nonprofit leadership and i learned through fire how to prioritize my well-being and it was part of the deep conversation i had with my people in my community around me as to whether or not i could even begin the process of applying for this position because i as i mentioned i'm a single mom i'm growing a business at the moment and there's a lot to juggle and so i called on my community to make sure folks could help me as i went through this process and took on this time commitment and i was very real about whether or not that was something i could fully give

101to while continuing to show up as a mother as a friend i'm also a runner i do appreciate my sleep making sure that there was time for all of that so to me it's really about knowing when to ask for help and leaning into my community and also knowing when to say no to things if there are too many meetings too many if something has to give to just be real about that conversation with my colleagues and the folks that i am working with candidate rivera well first of all thank you guys for asking that question because it it is a very important question and very valid for all of us and not just the new directors but for the directors that have been in place uh it is a very large role and i

102have heard from so many people that have done the job here in seattle done the job other places and you can certainly get it from some of the vibe in the community it is a very thankless job and it's a big job an important job and a thankless job if i had a nickel for every person that has called me brave in the last few weeks i would have a lot of nickels um as as a former actor i have always uh we we carry out around a lot as actors and you have doors closed in your face on a regular basis and when you go to an audition and you put everything out there and you're not the one for whatever reason you really have to learn not to take these things personally and

103uh i i have learned not to take those things personally and i will continue continue that as we go through and i hope that i can also help to promote what is going on on the board and what a big job it is i know that you all know but i don't feel that the district or not the district but the people of the district can our constituency i don't believe that they know okay candidate souza when i think about what's best for me as an individual i i have to look at what's best for my family and my family is incredibly active in the community and in schools and in anti-racism work and my wife is an immigrant and a doctor and we are always talking with the kids about what is best and

104making changes and doing what is right for our community and we have all agreed that if i'm given this opportunity then i would be given the time to to do what is needed for this board and the work that i would be putting in would be what's best for my family would be what's best for the families of the district hopefully i i want to continue to fight and the best way to do that is to actually have a voice and a seat at the table so my well-being is going to be best served by actually being active and doing something instead of hand-wringing and and wondering what can i do wanting to do something no i and i want to set an example for my kids who actually are setting the example for me

105with all the work that they're doing it's really inspired me to want to do the same thing and if if you do end up selecting me just before warren you're getting the whole the whole family and uh these are the the biggest reasons i i really do want to get in and do the strongest job possible thank you candidates we really appreciate um your very thoughtful and honest answers we'll now be moving to section 5 on curriculum and learning question 13. this comes from a parent of a dis of a student in district 4. how will you protect the integrity and vision of of an authentic ethnic studies program candidate durie to me this is about not having just a class on ethnic studies even if it's in every grade level um it is about

106the continuum of what does ethnic studies mean what does race mean what does whiteness mean in america how were we built on this and making sure it's a through line between all of the classes and all of the curriculum that we have for students from when they enter sps to when they graduate or leave the sps system so i think for me it would just be a matter of continuously making sure that we have accountability to that greater vision of incorporating anti-racism and equity into all of the work that we're doing from system building to curriculum candidate rivera well i have to admit when you first asked the question i i heard it differently and um i was i was thinking of it differently and what i feel all of the studies should be more

107multicultural and far less eurocentric and the question is how how do we protect the integrity and vision of an authentic ethnic studies program uh it's a very interesting question and the obvious answers are you know who who gets to tell the story who are the people at the table who's being represented in these um lessons and it is very interesting in california things have taken an odd turn and they are developing a whole new curriculum but that one has also not been based with all of the voice all the correct voices at the table and it has awakened and upset many other constituencies that are also in addition to not being represented now feel that they're being represented um not correctly and not very beneficially and so i think it's going to be a bit

108of a trial and error process i doubt anybody's going to get it right on the first try and i think we need to be willing to look and listen and keep changing until we do get to that more perfect curriculum thanks candidate souza ethnic studies is not about the exclusion of white people it's about the inclusion of black and brown people it's not just about creating one class it's about the entire curriculum and again it's important to create space for black and brown people at every moment not just in an ethnic studies program it's it's about the curriculum that is based on learning the full scope of what can be learned not just the limited scope of whiteness and a narrative that conveniences it it's not just that we're talking about a specific history class

109for example you can have these conversations in every class math biology every class um my kids they they go to school and they they say you know we were learning you know white history and it's white literature you know there's nothing wrong with having white literature in white history but we have to make sure that we're we're seeing a full representation uh there is an anti-racist class that that my son contributed to building the curriculum for and they're going to be launching it at his high school i'm very proud of him for that he also does students and teachers against racism he's one of the leaders of that group in the naacp youth council the point is to make this approach everywhere and uh and to protect that candidate perry thank you i think we're

110moving along the same path here i think it's non-negotiable i said earlier um we need to teach through ethnic studies through black studies i think one of the challenges in seattle public schools is again a structural problem that has put that has been a barrier for ethnic studies it's it exists as a standalone class now and say well you know we have these these classes we have to do we have to do work these world history classes those u.s history classes so it's an elective it shouldn't be an elective and if you if the approach is teaching through then it doesn't become an elective i think the driving curriculum question for um for school is and for students in particular is what is worthwhile to know and experience if it doesn't have worth and if

111it doesn't have meaning for students why are we doing it i mean students have been pretty clear a lot of students have been really clear they want ethnic studies they want black studies they want gay studies they want uh women's studies you know it's we need to do that and we need to work like eric's son working on that there's no reason the students shouldn't be a part of this uh and i think the last piece of a historical perspective that we bring in community members but we find um you know we really look back at like the the idea that this is a particular age of racial reckoning we should be looking at reconstruction and see what happened there and in terms of the insurrection white rage always follows black progress you know and

112let's talk about it let's have those discussions about it so so what we're learning doesn't exist in a vacuum thank you so much candidates we'll be moving to our next question in curriculum and learning question 14 are you in favor of ending the highly capable cohort program why or why not candidate rivera i just have to say i don't love going first but here we go um this hcc topic and it has goes by many names and even the district has changed it many times uh it is it is very hot topic and it is incredibly heated in our district um i have to say one every time people start talking about the highly capable cohort not too long after uh there's accusations of racism and all kinds of other ugly things i think that

113is pretty unnecessary and i wonder since we've had the uh we've had the data for a long time to know that the highly capable cohort and gifted programs in other areas do not necessarily match or look like the district the city the state whatever and um especially in seattle where the application process is rather difficult and convoluted i'm wondering why we haven't adopted a more universal testing system and make it an opt out instead of an opt-in and i'm wondering how would it look if we were able to remove those barriers there are a lot of barriers between the public just to finding out about it uh the paperwork the testing all of those things to get into one of those programs and what what would it look like if we actually made it accessible

114to all of the students in the district and that's one of the things i'm talking about when i say that i want all of the kids to have the opportunity to have the best education that they are capable of candidate souza well i think it's important to identify this as what it is it's segregation this is something that benefits white families and keeps black and brown families down i think that this needs to end in its current structure i think that we need to rebuild something new that's going to be more equitable for everybody i think this is a very clear place that's been identified by the district as a problem area i think the the letter that denise juno wrote uh what last last year was very powerful and it talked about how change

115is necessary and we just have that have to have the will to do it and so far we haven't and we need to the the hcc is something that continues to to divide and perpetuate this system that gives people who have more an upper hand i think that they're going to be highly capable students that need the opportunity and it needs to completely be revamped and we just have to have the will to do it candidate perry uh am i in favor no um i think one of the challenges here is that the seattle highly capable program and highly capable is different from gifted highly capable program is based on accelerated learning as far as i know there's absolutely no research that says accelerated learning actually makes is this not it it's it's not healthy

116it's not deep learning you just move faster and and it goes and you know if you remember who said it but questioning the whole system that it's right now especially once one gets a high school it's a race to get credits and a race to get out of high school and where's the deep learning um and in an accelerated program you're just moving faster you don't have time to literally you know the whole thing about you know stop and smell the roses take a project go deep in it uh you know form an inquiry project problem-based learning um all the research these days says that's the direction to go the report that just came out from the state about online learning that's what they say too get rid of the seat time requirement for credit

117go deep in the learning um so yeah i think you said it eric we have to revamp this if it's going to exist we have to revamp it i think aaron said the same thing um i would just say oh i my time is up i'm sorry this 90 seconds is really hard and candidate durie um again this goes back to the the fact that we need to look at the whole system and we need to look at everything holistically we are not speaking about silos i think the issue that we're finding is that we are not serving students on a multiple different levels of educational needs so i think that it what is most important is to be very critical about the questions we're asking in terms of what are the goals of education

118for the youth in this district what what does successfully completing your time with seattle public schools look like what does that mean we have to start asking critical questions that get to the root of what it is we're trying to actually achieve and work backwards from that um and really be critical as well as who what why are we asking the questions that we have been asking historically where did these programs come out of or did they come out of systemic racism probably yes almost always um if not always so we need to be very critical about that and understand how we got to the position we got to and where more importantly what it is that we'd really like to see a ch achievement look like and work from there to to re reconstruct

119the system again thank you candidates we'll now be moving into section six on covid question 15. what does seattle public schools need to do in order to comply with governor inslee's direct directive of returning all students to in to some in-person learning by april 19th what are the barriers to achieving this and how will you address them candidate souza well there is data to show that this can be done safely under the right circumstances however we have heard a lot of concern from families of color black and brown families in our community and across the country are reflecting uh a lot of concern that while there are safe ways to reopen schools if these protocols aren't followed perfectly it's going to compromise their safety and the safety of their families more than their white peers

120even if there's only a little possibility under good safety precautions a student will catch covid the potential consequences for a white family statistically speaking will be very different than that from a family of color we need to be inclusive in our application of these protocols so all of our families are equally protected families of color statistically tend to have more multi-generational households now again you know this is just looking at numbers kids are trying to protect their grandparents and their parents white people's parents and grandparents are more likely statistically to have access to the vaccine sooner um as of march 8 the cdc reported two-thirds of people who received vaccines are white uh basic health disparities due to systemic racism that have been well studied and well-described white people if they do have covet are

121more likely to have good access to health care even within the same hospital system and more likely to have time off to go get the vaccine time off to go to the hospital and family fashion again these are all systemic racial disparities so there are a lot of things that we have to look at as far as achieving reopening candidate perry uh essential question impossible to answer in 90 seconds um i said before when when inslee said this he's a non-educator telling people they got to be back in the buildings and he said it was for the mental health reasons but he's not providing any funding he's not providing mental health counselors and he's expecting teachers to be the mental health counselors i think part one of the barriers is the teachers that have made

122the scapegoat from the very beginning of this it's not right it's not fair um people most people go into teaching they go in for the love of learning they want to serve all the teachers i know are working their butts off they work from morning into evening more work than they did when they were even in the school i i you know i'm i think in school is would be preferable absolutely um that's where you can engage with each other that's where the relationships get built which is very hard to do in online learning the supports that some students need i'll do them in the schools but at this point you know number one safety safety safety and then let's ease it in if it was up to me just i would i would leave

123high school until september i know not everybody agrees with that focus on k5 and then you know maybe six eight but we're moving i believe we're moving too quickly right now uh and because people feel like hey we got to do this it's a political decision it's not a decision based on good education candidate durie um yeah i agree that this was has been made into a completely political decision and and i think that in order to make it anywhere close to okay if not successful is to really involve the teachers staff and students those impacted by being in the building every day or however long folks are in the building and off frequency um i think that involving folks from the very beginning um and and clearly now expediting that involvement and uh to

124to figure out how we can best return to in-person learning by that deadline that has been handed to us and then also i think there is a huge need for transparency and communication the more people can trust the process and the system or sorry the process and and the procedures to get back to building into into the buildings the more that they will feel comfortable returning as well um instead of working behind the scenes and rolling out uh directives we need to be very clear about process we need to be very clear about what we think will be successful and what won't be frankly um and just to be very honest about the entire situation um as we move forward we also need to be prepared for the families who are going to choose not

125to go back to building and have us have communication to them as to how we will support them and their families and i will stop there candidate rivera thanks i feel that in order for seattle public school schools to comply with governor inslee's directives they need to move mountains um figuratively and almost literally uh it feels like uh the the public opinion is so distrustful right now and even even getting people to understand that the buildings are ready and that the safety is in place and it's happening uh parents either either they haven't heard it or they haven't really understood that yet and so there's a lot of uh disconnect happening there and you know inslee there this has just been such a volatile time with things back and forth and who's going to school

126and who's not and who's essential and how we're going to serve our most vulnerable students and even last week inslee made these grand declarations about the opening day of the mariners and we will have the public there and into restaurants and all these other things uh opening the economy and the public and everything else back up and then on friday he adds oh yeah and you guys are all going back to school in three weeks and it it seemed out of left field i'm sure that there was a lot going on behind the scenes and i'm assuming that a lot of thought also went into this decision but it seemed rather hasteful and it really throws a wrench into the progress that the district has been making with sea and moving the trust forward in

127among families and we have to be understanding for the people that don't want to go back to school thank you candidates we'll now be moving to our next question question 16 what will you do to center students and families furthest from educational justice in the ongoing response to the covet 19 pandemic and maintain community safety candidate perry all right i feel like i'm going to just be repeating myself here um there was an article a while ago i think it was a somali community center where they had set up their own pods the communities in seattle have to have a voice about coming back to school or not going back to school and we have to offer multiple um alternatives again i think we're moving too quick on this um and it's you know we

128haven't done well as a district to begin with um and safety has to come first so you know i don't have much more to say about this one except uh let's do it right and not you know bulldog not to be the bull in the china shop and bulldog bulldoze our way through it i guess i will say one other thing like just in the paper today duke university went into full quarantine 14 000 students italy shut down again it's it's just because we're getting the vaccines and i think about maybe at most 20 of the whole country has gotten vaccines that doesn't mean we're safe yet and if we rush to judgment if we rush in it's not going to work and i think as eric said we know which communities are going to

129get hit hardest if we do this wrong so those voices have to be front and center at the table and teachers need to be respected and they need to feel safe when they go in and they can't be asked to do double duty teach in school and then teach you know the other half the kids outside of school so they're really teaching twice in the same day i just wanted to remind candidates quickly um that you feel free to use your 90 seconds but if you feel like you have already covered some of what the question asks um again you do not have to use the full 90 seconds you're allotted candidate dairy um yeah i think we covered a lot of this in the prior question or i feel like i did as well

130but i think it's about transparency and process and being open to the fact that there are going to be many families who do not want to come back to in person in building learning and to have very clear [Music] have a very clear understanding of what that means for families and to be able to show that that is not choosing to keep your your child or your youth from education that we have a process and we have an idea of what that plan is to make sure that children at home are still being educated if you need to keep your your child and family safe by staying home candidate rivera so i think what it comes down to for the most part is family choice part of it is about the public opinion but it's

131really about the families and do they feel safe and do they want their students back in school are they comfortable with that arrangement i know my kids are really quite thrilled at the thought and i'm definitely enjoying the idea of some peace and quiet it has been a very long year and i think it has been a very long year and weighed heavily on everyone new york city has been open more or less off and on for the entire year uh students our families were given a choice at the beginning of the year did they want to go uh completely remote or did they want to go hybrid and the families were able to make the choice that was right for them and what they could uh best facilitate and i think a lot of

132people here in seattle are very excited about the idea of returning to school but i think it still hasn't gotten through that that is not returning to school monday to friday for a regular school day and the reality is going to be a lot harder when people realize and so it's about it's about those options and how do we do it and yes how do you expect teachers to be online and in the classroom at the same time it's really we ask a lot of educators in general but it's it's really too much and uh it's like uh principal perry said it's it's too quick but it's not fast enough and uh people are anxious but perhaps not even realizing what they're anxious for candidate souza we need to have a good understanding of what

133the concerns are because they're not necessarily going to be the same concerns that white families have again we need to to know what these concerns are it's of the utmost importance um sabrina burr a former sailor council ptsa president she gave a great interview on npr a couple weeks ago listing concerns that black and brown families had had related in a survey in her district just tonight my kids helped the naacp youth council put on an event where bipark doctors talked with families of color in our community to communicate them with in an accessible way about covet 19 in the pandemic in an anti-racist way it's not about talking down to them from far away but people that they can actually have good communication with and trust these these forums in this open communication will

134be key there's also issues of vaccine availability and information for families in multiple languages and having clear expectations um again it's understanding what these concerns are listening and trying to identify and answer them because these are concerns that aren't necessarily going to be the same that that the white families have thank you candidates we'll now be moving to our last question in the coveted section what is the biggest challenge question mia are you there to ask the question yes i apologize what is the biggest challenge to reopening schools and how will you address it what is your stance on reopening schools in the fall again feel free to answer more briefly if you feel like you've already touched on these points candidate durie i think the biggest challenge is to define what safety means to

135different folks as we talk about returning to school what does that safety mean and i think how to address it i am reiterating myself again but is about transparency about communication on multiple different levels and multiple different avenues in multiple different ways and also to remember that communication is a two-way street we need to be asking for information just as much if not more than we are pushing it out um and so i think that we really need to be mindful in ensuring that we are listening and communicating even the smallest detail that we think you know having been in the weeds on it is obvious it's not obvious to folks that are not in the weeds on something um my stance to reopening the schools in fall i mean uh at this point i

136think that um we are going to be told what to do apparently but a little bit but also um i think that come fall we need to be real about the fact that it might not probably won't be a hundred percent in and we need to really focus i would say our energy on ensuring that we can make that the best return to inbuilding as possible where we have taken the time to address the multiple issues that have come up and to show through the action of through action and plans that are clear with deadlines that we have listened and have heard and are moving forward in a way that is centering voices from the community candidate rivera so i would love to see the kids back in school full-time in the fall and for

137daisies and springtime and summer and whatever um unfortunately that's more of a wish than a plan i always like to hope for the best but in reality we have to plan for whatever comes our way and i think it's the same thing families need to have a choice uh will they feel comfortable will they want their kids back in school and how how do we make them feel safe and how do we give the educators their the tools that they need to be able to teach the kids in whichever capacity is thrown at them and hopefully we can uh do those things the thought of the kids not being able to go back to school in the fall really it weighs heavy on me and i'm hoping for some semblance of normalcy whatever that means

138uh by then and it's a question of working working with our educators hoping for the best with the vaccines which is obviously completely out of our control and uh looking for normal while allowing people to make the choices that are right for them and their student thanks candidate souza we vaccinated 4 million people over this past weekend and by the fall i think we should have a much better idea of what the vaccine in levels of immunization are it's hard to make any decisions right now and make bold predictions about what's going to happen in the fall it's going to be open in in some way we need to make sure to prioritize the concerns of the more vulnerable families as i mentioned in the last question we need to listen and find out what

139do they need but yeah i do believe we're going to be looking at a very different situation medically speaking uh in the fall and there's going to have to be there's no there's no game plan for this there hasn't been through this entire time and the school system is something that thrives on having a system that goes year after year after year it isn't always perfect it isn't always great but right now we don't have a game plan but the more information that we find out from health care professionals from the systems the more we're going to be able to use that information to make more educated decisions and plans going forward and again communicating and listening with families and trying to make sure to give as many options as we can and candidate perry

140i think if the response to covet goes how it's been going we should be able to reopen schools in the fall most students should have the opportunity to go back into schools in the fall i think there's two really big challenges first the district needs to plan for this now not wait till june not wait till july or august plan for it now and involve all the stakeholders in that process i also think we're at a moment in time where we can reimagine education uh we haven't had very many moments like this we have a top-down one-size-all you know teaching and learning system i think we have to ask the questions about what we teach how we teach and how we assess it needs to to be done differently differently if all students are going

141to be able to be successful in the system the disparities have been there for years i mean on the assessment piece we've we focus on high tech high stake tests um we need new ways to assess and understand intellect and achievement i think the way to go about doing this it's we can do i think it's the way that we can attack um racism in the district um the quickest and we set up um some kind of process with students with teachers uh with some other people it can't be led by the central administration it won't work um that way where we talk about inquiry and competency-based learning where students learn they show and then they produce and they they show their own meaning and that way we can tackle the assessment issue thank you

142so much candidates so we have some extra time beyond um the sections that we addressed and we'll be moving into some final questions um that are from like disparate from all the sections question 18 how will you work with district employees the superintendent the union and fellow school board members while also holding them accountable candidate rivera so that is really what i see as a big issue for this board and i imagine the people on the inside may say it differently but it looks like people need to be working together and it's not only the district employees the superintendent the union and the school board members but also like i mentioned the city the state the national levels as well uh throughout this process the people that i've been talking to um all of those

143people and getting their opinions and talking about what's going on with the union and how are we bargaining in good faith and uh uh dr jones just said something in the editorial or in the times this morning and you talked about uh we need to know what's happening before we get to the bargaining table we need to know what those issues are and how we're going to solve for them and i i think that all goes back to that big piece of communication i know that they've outlined so many things that have been that they are doing and that have been done but somehow things still still aren't getting through and the connections aren't being made uh through the conversations that i've had it's really been about connecting with people and the humanity and i

144have no problem also holding someone accountable uh direct and honesty are really the ways that i am and you just have to remember to temper that with listening and going for the understanding so that hopefully you guys can work together all of us to make a better outcome for our students candidate souza i absolutely agree with laura murray that communication is essential with this and that's something that i've found throughout my career and throughout my life i've done really well with being able to talk to people ask questions i started as a journalist uh i would try to find out as much as i could i would try to ask leading questions and listen and learn and then be able to share what i have learned and to be able to further progress the people

145here the decision makers here we are all going to be coming into a position fresh and having to learn a lot and ask a lot of questions and then be able to make decisions that are impacting the district so in my career as a journalist i would write about what i learned i would hold the people accountable but now we are the ones who are going to be accountable for this but the principles are the same it's i've already been talking to these people i've already been trying to identify what these issues are i've already been writing pieces to the seattle times i've already been writing to our legislators i've already been trying to hold people accountable even though i'm not in on the board i am actively trying to learn how to get the

146get the ball past the goal line on all these different areas and it's going to happen with communication and listening and being able to identify the priorities and try to make sure that everybody's on the same page candidate perry yeah i mean looking at the list of these four different um sort of sectors and speaking of someone who's been working in the system the last 20 years we have little interaction with the superintendent and we have little interaction with school board members uh and most of it in the the entire well there's more than one union but let's just say the teachers union so that's district employees we're all district employees uh you include 609 too you know working with the people who are cleaning the building people who provide the food every day that

147it's all about trust and it's about building relationships among amongst us and putting students first in terms of accountability that's really hard we do not have systems in seattle public school that um work to hold people accountable with consequences and one of the things that's lacking in sale public schools is all evaluations are done down they're never done up so i don't evaluate the people who evaluate me i don't evaluate the people who evaluate them it's always a downward cycle of evaluation and that doesn't breed trust and it doesn't breed accountability so i could say more about i can say a lot about this question but that's where i'll wait for right now candidate durie um to me it's about involvement um i think that many folks especially with kovid and in the last year

148that we've had have felt particularly excluded particularly the unions and district employees and i think that we need to rectify that and start involving people from the very get-go or as soon as possible now and really coming to every conversation and every interaction with curiosity and um and a commitment to to taking and holding multiple truths at the same time and then in terms of accountability to me accountability is about being very clear on expectations and having cycles of auditing or review that are done regularly that people know are going to happen regularly and then are communicated out to the community as well as well that is also transparent to the community and the constituents involved thank you candidates i think we have time for one more question so this will be our final question

149before moving into closing statements question 19 how do you plan to engage community voice in district 4 and in seattle public schools which community organizations in district 4 and in seattle public schools do you plan to work with and why candidate souza there's going to be constant communication going on with different organizations i mean first of all the naacp youth council that's putting this on tonight uh following their twitter feed following their um their demands and just staying on top of what they're doing by hearing about it through my own family uh it's it's been really exciting to see that and i know that there are lots of other community organizations within the district and throughout sps that have social presences that i can follow and that i can help amplify and at least learn

150it's it's so easy just to be able to once you've identified who they are to follow their social postings and find out what they want and what they're looking for and then try to integrate that into what's happening and bring them into the fold and make a solution like naacp youth council for example bringing your concerns wanting more of a voice wanting to uplift student voices and calling for that being able to receive that with what's happening tonight i'm going to continue to work with groups that are going to be promoting social equity making sure that that all the voices are heard that can be candidate perry i think in terms of district 4 i would make myself available uh let's talk about the issues let's put it all on the table you know let's

151um have a reconciliation process and see how we can contribute to the rest of the city one group we haven't talked about tonight is lgbtq community in seattle and then also in seattle public schools this community which crosses race and across social economics faces lots of barriers in many students who identify as lgbtq particularly trans students and non-binary students are not safe in our schools and and i think we need to have a really aggressive initiative of education and making sure that they're safe each school is safe for every student um there's a reason why nova now has 75 of its students who identify as lgbtq and i mean there's many reasons number one is it's safe and you know all our bathrooms are non-gender and all gender no other school has that uh as

152a high school level and it's imperative that we make those kind of changes and i would take these issues out to people like i said before i you know i i try to speak my truth as i understand it the best and listen and listen and then we have to act on what other people say uh one of my mantras is we have to grow as a program the longer we've been around the more we have to grow we may have experience but we have to continue to keep growing candidate durie well to engage a community voice from this district it's about holding a regular conversation time um where i would be available to to listen and converse with constituents in this district but moving beyond that as well acknowledging that a set time doesn't

153work for everybody to really actually move and seek out time time to speak with individuals and groups in the community um on at a time and place that is convenient for them as well and making myself available in that way um in addition and also always following up with who else should i talk to asking the people i'm talking to who else they think i should be talking to or the people coming forward um in terms of uh community organizations um in this district and across the public school system um i think working with student council unions um as the at you all as the naacp youth council and other organizations that are youth led and focused teachers staff and also really working with the seattle council ptsa who already hold district meetings in the

154different districts around the city and participating in those to listen and hear from across the district how to best serve the the district as a whole instead of just our district 4 area candidate rivera uh thanks i i would be happy to engage and make myself accessible to our community and i think that it is not the right or appropriate answer to say all organizations but i do want to say that i would be open to all organizations uh the more obvious uh the seattle council ptsa and the individual ptas just because they do have that network in place and they are often able to mobilize and can help can help communicate in a lot of instances uh i think the other important thing is communicating with the principals and staffs of schools uh a

155lot of times the educators have been talking about that a lot i've been hearing a lot of that chatter and from the people that i've spoken to but more than that i'm particularly interested in engaging with the cultural institutions of the area uh the nonprofit world uh has really been doing the work and getting things right for quite some time and uh when i worked at a museum we had a groundbreaking study it was called the educational value of the field trip and it was shown in one hour a one-hour visit to the museum and a hearty discussion with the arts and an educator and we had major jumps in empathy and critical thinking and i think that is what all all people but definitely all students could use uh in going forward and making

156making making everything a bit better thanks that concludes our time for questions this evening i'll let us flip through all our extra slides all right um it is now time for closing statements candidates you will each have one minute candidate rivera hi again um i will repeat yes you guys do not mess around and i really appreciate uh your planning and professionalism this evening and uh the opportunity to warm up a bit as the evening has gone on uh gratitude is definitely my theme and even more so because this is definitely not as easy as it looks but it has been a really special experience and i have learned so much throughout this process and really the greatest lesson is uh learning to appreciate the advocates and the watchdogs and the people that are out

157there doing the work every day and getting to see some of that more more detailed work in this process i'm very thankful for this opportunity and all of the time and insight and wisdom that i've been given and really for all that i've learned so thank you to all of you candidate perry sorry i keep losing track of where i am on the line here i apologize um oh see there's a cost of not holding systems and people accountable and i agree with what aaron said earlier that you know one of the major tasks is we're going to have to deacon deconstruct dismantle and then reconstruct the system i think we have a great opportunity to reimagine education reimagine teaching and learning um you know i've witnessed this over the last 35 years when you

158change the environment and students know and believe that they can drive their own education that it has worth that it has meaning um it's an absolutely beautiful experience and their students are well prepared by the time they finish k-12 to be able to ask the kind of questions advocate for themselves and advocate for their community because we face a giant social justice issue right now that has to be addressed and it's youth who are leading that process youth lead revolution so let's go for it candidate souza well thank you again for hosting this event uh anissa adan mia you guys did a great job and i'm thrilled with the progress that you made with the board with 1250 and pushing us to be better for you this is all everything that we do is for

159the students and we really appreciate you taking an active role in this now i've learned a lot tonight and taking a lot of notes and the questions have been fantastic it reminded me that i have a lot of learning to do and there are a lot of issues facing the district that i need to learn more about and that's going to come with the experience i i know that this is a vital job it's a critical time this is a huge responsibility and i am floored to think about how much needs to be done and the impact that it has on so many people but i'm ready to do that work and i'm ready to to help support all of the families in the district i want to try to help please summarize your works

160and be better thank you candidate dairy well first i want to say thank you to the naacp youth council for hosting us tonight this is a perfect example of why we need to center youth voices these questions were essential and and gave us a lot of food for thought and shows what needs to happen across the district there's clearly a lot to be done and it's really exciting time i think to be part of all of this i'm looking forward to the change and the dismantling and reconstruction that will center action and community that we have going forward and i would be honored to serve in the role as a district 4 director and look forward to doing the work with the community colleagues of the board and the district as a whole and that

161concludes our responses from the candidates i want to thank the candidates um thank you all for participating so thoughtfully in this forum um for spending your evening with us and with community we really really appreciate that thank you also to the school board for collaborating with mia don and i and the youth council on this very important event i will now turn things back over to board president hampson for concluding remarks thank you anissa mia and edon for your questions and for planning and moderating tonight's forum and thank you so much to our candidates we appreciate you all for participating or watching tonight and invite you to provide your input to the school board on what you heard by going online to the school board director appointment page the link is provided on tonight's agenda

162online feedback is due by 12 pm on thursday march march 18th on march 24th the school board will vote on an appointment to the district 4 position during the regular school board meeting which begins at 3 30 p.m and before i join us tonight i just wanted to take a moment and honor a former colleague of ours former school board director marty mclaren who passed this week and most of us are just learning of that i reached out specifically to our new interim principal dr brent jones and he who i knew had worked with her closely um as as many on this board and on staff have she became an active and pivotal member of the african-american advisory committee and was instrumental in helping to center african-american males in the strategic plan and other key

163initiatives such as promoting policy zero zero three zero ensuring educational equity and i just felt it was important to um my own personal experience with her was that she was someone who was on a never-ending trajectory of growth of personal growth of community growth relational growth um and she's someone that i truly believe that we should all keep in our hearts and our minds um as we uh continue to move forward with this work and um i'm i'm truly sad to um to know that she's passed so rest in peace mary i mean marty and um uh with that um this board special meeting is now adjourned at 8 22 pm thanks very much everyone thank you you