um good afternoon board meeting will be called to order in a moment and spsv will begin broadcasting for those joining by phone please remain muted until we reach the testimony period and your name is called are we are we ready is spsv ready okay um this is President Rankin I am now calling the March 6 2024 regular board meeting to order at 4:18 p.m. this meeting is being recorded we would like to acknowledge that we are on ancestral lands and traditional territories of the Puget Sound co- Salis
h people for those joining public for public testimony today we first have an entrance conference with the state's auditor's office today and we'll begin testimony following that uh at or after 5:00 pm Miss Wilson Jones the roll call please director Briggs present um vice president sarju present director top here and then I understand that director hery is not with us at this point director hery has a work obligation he will be joining us remotely later in the meeting and president Ranken here o
h and um director Vander here all right I will now turn it over to superintendent Jones for his comments thank you president Rankin board members uh good evening everyone uh before we delve into the agenda for today please join me in celebrating the Garfield girls and rer beach boys basketball teams for their outstanding achievements this season four times you know as as normal both teams displayed exceptional sportsmanship on and off the court representing Seattle public schools with pride this
year Rainer beach boys basketball team made their 10th appearance in the state championships and were Runners up for the title Garfield girls team made state Washington State History by becoming the first team to win four state championships in a row these Achievements not only showcase the talents of individual players but also the strength of basketball programs as a whole these results are the fruit of their hard work perseverance teamwork and commitment to Excellence the coaches and players
of both these teams deserve praise for the remarkable skill and teamwork throughout the year so if you all can give it up one time for the Garfield and rer Beach basketball teams I'd also like to take a moment to pay tribute to the late Billy Frank Jr as many of you know March 9th marks the Billy Frank Jr salmon day and this celebration honors his remarkable Legacy Billy Frank Jr's commitment and courage during the fish Wars of the 60s and 70s paved the way for a land Landmark decision that aff
irmed tribal fishing rights his memory is a reminder of the interconnectedness we share with our environment and with one another as a community it underscores the vital importance of stewarding our land and safeguarding the well-being of all who inhabit it let's honor him by continuing to advocate for environmental justice and ensure Equity to ensure that future Generations inherit a world rich in both natural beauty and cultural heritage so I encourage everyone to check out the resources on SP
S website to learn more about how we can celebrate Billy Frank Jr now please join me in watching a video as we reflect on Billy Frank Jr's life and work a lot of words come to mind when when I think of Uncle yeah I can think of a word that describes Billy inspirational Heritage of cult culture tradition of continuity one of the words that come to my mind is accountability a word to describe this man Billy that's how you describe him he was an activist he was a treaty rights advocate for a young
person like myself a young indigenous man it was inspiring Billy led the way everybody who works on environmental issues today knows about Billy Frank Jr he was an environmental hero I was very fortunate to have um such a good role model in both my mother and father who talked about leadership who talked about um coming together and working together and also uh you know spoke about protecting this environment protecting this beautiful river that we have protecting everything that Mother Nature h
as given us so growing up on the Nala reservation and growing up in this community of the squal up people people of the river that meaning alone has a lot of of of energy and and just tradition behind it habitat restoration conservation those are those are words coming from from our people and what we've done over the thousands of years here every time I come out here to the Billy fank uh Refuge I always think back to my first job uh buck and hay for one of the local farmers back then the landsc
ape here was a lot different it was a field of hay since that time the tribe has done a lot to uh remove dyes and bring this land back to its natural state growing up that was always a life lesson my father tried to get instilled into me was you protect this environment at all costs whatever you do you make sure that you protect this water behind us you protect our salmon so we're still able to exercise our treaty rights and we're still able to celebrate our culture and our our way of life the s
almon need clean fresh water and and that really is a a way to tell how we're doing in life right now and and how the the environment and the ecosystems working when the rivers are clean when the salmon are coming home we know that we are healthier as human beings his real intent was about trying to get Indian people to the table to help decide precise policy that supported indigenous communities that supported greater Washington that protected salmon salmon restoration I was on the phone right
before we came down here speaking with Fran will Susan one of our staffers at nwifc and she mentioned how my dad used to go over to ecology he'd go over there and talk to him about co-management and talk about the importance of protecting the water the importance of protecting the environment he was known to be a great partner to the Department of ecology to other state agencies and when you think about it it really demonstrates such a strength of character we have to to be honest government did
not treat Billy Frank Jr's people well yet Billy Frank Jr was still willing to come to the table with government and Forge Solutions and those Partnerships and what he taught us about Partnerships continue to this day and that's really you know when it comes down to it the tribes the state departments they're not going to be able to do it on their own it has to be all of us here in the state of Washington coming together for the resource he was really the activist that helped bring us together
which is why I think we celebrate Billy Frank Jr today Billy Frank Jr day um I want to also share out uh artificial intelligence I went to a conference on Monday and Tuesday of last week and let me give you a couple takeaways one thing about AI right now it's the worst it's going to be right now it's we need to think about it uh in in the sense of what are we currently not doing how can it be supplemental to our work AI is surprisingly empathetic AI is very good at giving feedback and we're pret
ty confident that it can decrease teachers workloads we need to be thinking about how we Implement AI from a comprehensive framework policy teaching operation and technology and I just want to signal that AI is here uh and we need to harness it and embrace it as we go forward so start to be prepared to embrace the whole concept of artificial intelligence you've heard about it from our large language models generative AI interactive AI all those things are really meaning what what's a new tool th
at we have available to us to help us extend our reach and have more effective uh educational opportunities tonight we also have uh the state auditor office doing an entrance conference and we're joined by staff from the state auditor's office who will be explaining the annual audit process every year the state conducts an external audit of SPS and my staff will be working with the Auditors to provide the information on their audit the outcomes of this audit will be provided to the board by the
Sao in our annual exit Conference in June lastly uh we have new director appointment work session tonight and the board will hold this work session to plan the appointment process for new board directors in districts 2 and four all candidate materials are now available on Seattle Public Schools website for the general public to view my team and I look forward to supporting the board's process in bringing forward two new candidates for uh to fill these seats so without further Ado I'll pass it ba
ck to you president Rankin thank you um do we have any uh student member comments if you're eligible to vote and you haven't yet registered make sure you do for the upcoming election because your voice matters thank you director Vander n um all right we will now be moving to the tables here for the entrance conference with the state auditors office directors please bring your microphones with you all right well as superintendent Jones mentioned the district is annually audited in multiple areas
including how we use and Safeguard public resources and our adherent to state laws the team from the state auditor office conducting our annual audit will preview the areas that they will focus on this year for us now and then later this spring we'll have the opportunity to meet again in the mentioned exit conference to review their results together as a board uh thank you to the state auditor's office representatives for joining us today today's presentation will be roughly 10 to 20 minutes lea
ving us about 10 minutes for director questions and I will now turn it over to our representatives from the auditor's office thank you oh can you hear me now thank you uh thank you for this opportunity to present our entrance conference for our up coming audit definitely appreciate you taking the time today to hear about our audit process my name is Joe Simmons I'm the audit manager for our audit team here in Seattle I'm here with Eileen du who is assistant audit manager and is the audit supervi
sor on the audit and Carmen Law is the auditor in charge of the audit so again thank you for your time today and on the next slide just talks about our audits in general that we conduct a variety of audits and close to 2 200 audits in any given Year and that includes accountability audits where we audit for compliance with state law and the local government's own policies and procedures and then we also conduct financial statement audits where we audit those financial statements to determine whe
ther they're fairly stated and offer an opinion on those statements and then we have Federal audits where we audit the federal grants that local governments receive and determine whether their grants are in compliance with requirements and that there's controls over those grants that are in accordance with the federal regulations and those are the three types of audits that we will be conducting for the district this year and I'll go ahead and hand it over to Carmen to talk more about the detail
s of each one of those audits um so we're going to start with the accountability audit we are looking at the 2022 2023 school year for all three of our audits um for accountability we do take a risk-based approach um for each of our sections so our first section is professional learning uh districts receive state revenues restricted for staff training purposes aimed at improving student outcomes so we will be getting understanding of controls and testing expenditures to all the appal state laws
um our next section is the local Revenue sub fund districts are required to use local Revenue sub fund to account for all local revenues and enrichment expenditures um so we will be reviewing the district's planned um that they're required to have and oh yeah um and we'll be uh testing uh charges that have been charged to the sub fund um our third area is compliance with supplemental contracts uh for enrichment activities um supplemental contracts provide um compensation to District employees in
addition to and outside of their regular work assignments we will be gaining a standing of controls and reviewing um selected supplemental contracts uh we'll also be looking at the financial condition and reviewing for any indications of financial distress and if we identify any we will be following up with uh staff and management on plans on how they plan to mitigate these um distresses um we'll also be looking at open public meetings and meeting minute compliance um compliance with meeting mi
nutes and executive session requirements um to the state [Music] laws and oh next slide uh we also have a student enrollment reporting uh for basic enrollment um a large source of apportionment Revenue for school district is through basic enrollment so we will be conducting recalculation of basic enrollment for a selected grade in School um self-insurance we will be looking at the unemployment and worker compensations um self-insurance programs and then fuel cards and District Vehicles we'll be
ging understanding of the fleet commander system and testing um some expenditures from that to the uh District policies uh procurement of Cooperative purchases um we'll be looking at any contracts that went uh were procured through some piggybacking of other government contracts and testing those to the appical state laws um we'll also be looking at the pyram of Public Work contracts and testing those to the appal state laws um and our last section is procurement cards um also known as a peak ca
rds so we'll be gaining an understanding of the district's controls over their procurement cards and testing um expenditures to make sure they are in accordance to school's um policies and procedures uh next slide uh we will so for our financial statement audit um our opinion will be issued in accordance with the accounting manual for public school districts in the state of Washington and we will be conducting the audit to the government auditing standards we will be reviewing internal controls
and compliance over financial reporting to assess adequacy of accounting and financial statement preparation process and preventing material misstatements and identifying whether there were any instances of material non-compliance and next slide um and then our final area is uh the Federal grant compliance audit our opinion will be issued in accordance to the government auditing standards and the uniform guidance we will also be looking at the internal controls and compliance over the selected m
ajor programs um we'll be assessing adequacy of Federal grant processes in preventing non-compliance and identifying whether there are any instances of material non-compliances uh next slide um so the four programs we will be looking at this year is the Child Nutrition cluster um assistance listing numbers 10553 10555 and 10559 um the co9 emergency connectivity fund program assistance listing number 32.9 the special education cluster um assistance listing number 84.0 27 and 84.17 three and then
the covid-19 ex education stabilization fund assistance listing number number 84.4 to5 um so these four programs are about 66% of the total federal expenditures um for the school district in 2023 um next slide oh staying connected um so these are some ways that our office likes to stay connected with the school district um two areas we would like to point out is the weekly status meeting um we have that scheduled every week with our audit leads and um Michael Stone and as you mentioned earlier u
m we will be once we wrap up the audit we will be back for the exit Conference next slide um so these are our three levels of reporting uh starting at the top these are our findings um findings are formally addressed issues in the audit report they are significant results of the audit and they will be published in our audit um reports management letters are right below findings um these will communicate control deices non-compliance um misappropriations and these will be referenced but not inclu
ded in our audit reports and then our lowest level is exit items um these are minor issues where we will informally communicate them to management and I'm going to pass it to Eileen for the rest of the slides all right thank you Carmen I like to take this opportunity today to talk about a few reminders with you so our office is committed to protecting your confidential data so please let us know if the information you provide to us contains sensitive information so we'll make sure that this data
is adequately safeguarded throughout the audit process second we'll provide an estimate of audit cost in your entrance packet this estimate is on track with previous estimate that was provided to you and has also been approved through the engagement letter third should there be any concerns during the audit process please note that we do have an established process for you to voice those concerns we do encourage you to please start with our audit manager Joe Simmons but please note that contact
information for additional representatives are included in your entrance document all the way up to our state auditor should they be needed lastly we always like to remind our government about loss reporting so if you become aware of any known or suspected loss of public funds state law required that you immediately report to our office so this process is pretty straightforward and you can file this notification through our SEO website so the next slide talks about cyber security state state an
d local governments may also be required to report cyber security issues including security breaches and cyber fraud so reporting to the Attorney General's office is required for single security incidents affecting more than 500 Washington residents reporting to us the state auditor's office may also be required for cyber security incidents involving Financial records or finances regard regardless of the number of affected parties so of course we hope you have none of these but if you do find yo
urself in this spot we do have some information for you on our website regarding cyber security issues next slide please so some people may ask who audit the state auditor well just like how you receive periodic audits we do as well by the national state auditor Association once every three years so you can find the most recent peer review here we have a link provided for you and the last rating we receive was a pass which was the highest level of assurance that this review can provide next than
k you all right so beyond the regular scheduled audits we do have support services available to you at no additional cost all year round the first one is the local government support team and this team assists with annual financial reporting so they provide one-on-one technical assistance as well as client help desk in addition the team offers several trainings around the state throughout the year to keep you updated um on the latest accounting and Reporting topic the center for government Innov
ation is another great resource that strive to help government be better so they provide expert advice in areas of lean and they also have what's called a fit tool the financial intelligence tool which help governments Monitor and compare their Finance finances to other local governments like yours so the next slide talks a little bit more about what the center offers but what I do want to highlight for you is the first um bullet point here which is the Cyber checkup so the center also creates w
hat's called a b cyber smart program that they offer free cyber checkup trainings and a lot of great resources that help government in improve their overall cyber health so we do encourage you to check out how the center might be able to assist with your District next slide please so our special investigation team has created this wonderful guide for elected officials and appointed board members on implementing internal control and best practices to prevent employee fraud so this guide is organi
zed into three sections preventing fraud detecting fraud and responding to fraud so if you're interested this guide is available for download on our website and I believe that concludes our presentation again we really appreciate the opportunity to be here to talk about our audit and we look forward to come back again um at our exit with that said I'd like to open up the floor for questions thank you do directors have any questions about what we have just learned director Briggs um thank you I'm
just wondering so how are we defining financial distress in this context like what is that what are we looking for well we have that basically we do use that fit tool internally that we talked about so basically we look at some indicators as far as number of days of operating cash debt load and basically look at that and look for yellow flags or red flags and also look to see what the local government has as far as plans to address that if we do know any Flags but our first step is to review th
at and then discuss with management if we do note any indicators and then look to see what the plan would be to address those yeah it unfortunately doesn't mean distress caused by chronic underfunding of public education by the state it's about the internal the the the use of our the use of the dollars that we do have if there's discrepancies or um are areas of concern regarding the use okay we're calling that distress though uh that's what we call it to try to have it as a way that's hopefully
fairly straightforward as to understand that basically for our financial statement audits we also look at what we call going concerned and determine under auditing standards that the local or the entity is able to continue for a period of time after audit for financial condition under accountability audit we look a little bit closer and try to look ahead to see if there's any indications and we use the term financial distress as to whether there's any indications that we would want to First Aler
t management to and see if there's a plan and then possibly alert the public if it's a larger issue and I would say and again understand where you we're talking about different types of terminology but I'd say where it happens for example example for like some small Hospital districts where maybe they experience issues where their patient building has gone down and they still have the same number of staff that they need to be able to pay and they might be having some issues where they had taken
on more debt load so or small water district that that's the type of things where we've noted that in the past so I don't know if that helps a little bit all right any other questions from directors director top so this might be for Dr bottlan and you might not have an answer but is H so the estimated cost for the audit is $418,000 is that roughly what we've seen in the past or what what how does that compare and then I guess for maybe the audit staff what does that Encompass in your estimate I
believe it's up a little bit for this year but not significantly it's in line with what we've typically paid yes and that would cover cover those three audit areas that we talked about that includes the accountability audit the federal single audit and the financial statement audit and I'd say the federal single audit that just kind of overall Statewide due to the large amount of covid related funding that has come through local governments in the past few years that overall we have spent a litt
le bit more time under the single audit that we have in the past but it has as the Director said has been within what we've had as far as the number of hours in the past uh I have a question about the Federal grant compliance audit is the uh the major programs selected for audit are those of federal grants those are the areas that we're looking at or are those in addition to regular fun fund uh federal grants from like title six Title Nine title one uh those would be the specific grants that we'
ll be looking at this year the federal government has requirements as to the frequency of how often we audit grants and it's based on the dollars the amount of each Grant and then basically require to audit grants every three years if they're over certain threshold so for title one for example we do audit that at least once every three years it just as it happens isn't one that Rose to that I couldn't tell if it was these ones in addition to the regular ones or if or if these were the ones yeah
so that that explains it and then the um the covid-19 emergency connectivity fund program Dr bunan maybe knows what I'm about about to ask not to open a can of worms but I know there was a Statewide issue with the reporting of some covid funds that that it well the issue was with the reporting not that every school district in Washington state didn't there was a a mismatch there so is that the same project and will this hopefully provide Assurance to the federal government that those funds were
actually used appropriately or is what's the trying to close the loop on that thing knowing that it's an it's kind of an outstanding issue for several districts um and wondering what uh if this will address that at all uh I would say there's a couple things to that so I definitely can answer that uh as you noted there was that finding on that funding last year and there was findings that basically almost every District in the state that we audited and that had to do with as you said that the gui
dance that came from the federal government was at the best I would say was not as clear as it could have been but we do have to audit to those requirements and that's what we're required to do as as Auditors and we do understand that the districts around the state that that there's a requirement for the funding agency to go in and do their management review and then make a determination my understanding at Seattle School District they have not yet come back with the determination on those quest
ion costs that we had from the last audit so that is definitely a key thing that we would be looking to is when the FCC does come back to the district can make that decision that management letter decision on that but that would be up to them as far as what they decide again we'll be auditing in accordance with the compliance requirements so we will be following up on that prior year finding but it also as it happens that it did rise to the level based on those requirements that we have for sele
cting grants that we did need to audit the 2023 funding this year also so we'll be looking at that funding that was in effect for 2023 got it and is this is this the case for other districts in Washington state as well will we have a Statewide picture of of this again I would say that we definitely will complying the results from all the audits but that might take some time since the audits are kind of staggered out that the aim is to get them all done by the federal deadline which is May of thi
s year so okay thanks certainly any other questions superintendent Jones uh generally what can we do to prepare for your arrival are there some things that we can start to look at start to mature uh before you all get back over here oh I can definitely speak to that too and I want to say that we one of the things that we had mentioned in the PowerPoint and we tried to summarize as much as we could but we do have a kickoff meeting even before the entrance meeting where we meet to talk about the a
udit and that we have uh what we call provided by client lists that we we send out before the audit basically it's a listing of the things that we will be requesting during the audit and we provide those that in advance of when we start the audit to give the district time to start Gathering the information and also reminders of the type of information that we need and we have been we have started in on the audit and we've been working closely with staff as to making requests and really appreciat
e how staff has been really timely with providing the information as we requested it but to answer your question we do our best to provide that information somewhat in advance to give a heads up of the information that we'll be asking for okay thank you very much and we will see you again in a few months all right thank you again for your time this afternoon so directors we are going to head back to the Das and we'll come back back here again later later this evening um please take your mics wit
h you again so it's uh 454 um director Briggs are you prepared to offer an audit committee report now or do you want to hold that trying to look for something that's going to take us about five minutes I mean not I'm not no not really prepared I'd love to be able to fill in those five minutes for you but um yeah no I don't have anything at this time I think that would be productive to add okay um I will let's see so we're going to discuss the appointment process in a work session in a little bit
so we're not going to talk about that now um as a very very brief uh legislatively as on report I'll do that um legislative session is ending tomorrow um and uh waiting for um some Seattle specific numbers on some different bills that have gone through um but we uh uh you know despite a well I'm not going to editorialize too much we bills that have passed that will impact Seattle public schools and other public schools in our state include a bill addressing MSO MSO is materials supplies and ope
rating costs there's an allocation formula that the state uses that's per pupil like everything else um that's a certain amount of dollars per student that's allocated um again it's an allocation it's not a requirement of an expenditure um but uh that has Statewide an increase of about $43 million I think about 1 million of that last I looked I haven't seen the final but last I looked about 1 million of that will be an increase to Seattle so you know we're not going to say no to it it's it's gre
at to have but um uh it's certainly not going to solve our deficit too much um and the the bill that was brought forward was brought for forward with the the noticing that materials Services many many things have increased in costs inflation has increase cost to districts and the um Moc per pupil amount had not been adjusted or increased in many many years so good recognition of the fact that that needs to keep a pace and it it doesn't keep a pace um so uh the a bill on um par Educators has been
uccessful which is really great that's about $ 71.5 million Statewide again I'm not sure the Seattle impact yet but we are very grateful for that um and also the uh I think the final special education package that passed um so last session the first session of the current bium we successfully advocated for an increase of the the cap from 15% no sorry from 13 .5% to 15% um which was great progress and also putting any kind of a cap on how many students with disabilities will be funded by the sta
te is a civil rights issue and um if you qualify for services according to requirements set by the federal government you qualify and the state should provide the funding for those services so uh I think now the increase is up to I believe 16% was the last was the bill that passed just now so again it's good that there's a recognition that that needs to go up and also it needs to go away there should not be a cap on how many students are allowed to have disabilities according to the state and we
're one of only a handful of states that has a cap on funding in that way um so continued opportunity to push for the removal of that however that bill will yield about $25.6 million for this the state again a little fraction of the amount of uh the the deficit in special education funding across the state but um for a non-budget year not the worst um and then uh thank you so much to our Capital team and our legislators for successfully advocating for $5.6 million for a distressed I think it's a
stress School grant for Whittier Elementary to get a much needed roof replacement that um the formula that is used to support districts in offsetting some of the costs of local construction projects um we basically spend more in sales tax in Seattle and in King County for any construction project than we receive in assistance from the state so often there will be a little bit of a recognition of that from the leg legislator in um uh allowing um some unique some some specific projects like the W
hittier roof for Seattle um as sort of a I don't know if it's an apology but a recognition of the fact that that we are um putting much more in than is coming to us in support from the state for local construction projects um and yeah so I will at the hopefully by the March 20th board meeting provide a more comprehensive written update of just a review of session and um and then what's what's what's going to happen next session um and uh what we can do in between so uh yeah that's what I have fo
r that um oh and I also can't remember the dates I'm actually going to um DC for a federal legislative conference with Council of great City Schools um in what day is today not this weekend but next weekend so I'll provide a report on that as well and I look forward to advocating at the national level with other uh board directors from large urban districts across the country so it is 5:00 now we will hold other space for other board comments and leaz and reports if we have them for uh the end o
f the meeting so we will go to public testimony board procedure 1430 BP provides the rules for testimony and I ask us all to be respectful of these rules um summarizing some important parts of this procedure is that testimony will be taken today from those individuals called from the public testimony list and if applicable the waiting list those are included on today's agenda posting on the Schoolboard website only those who are called by name should unmute their phones or step forward to the po
dium and only one person should speak at a time listed speakers May Seed their time to another person when their name is called the total amount of time allowed will not exceed 2 minutes for the combined number of speakers in one slot the time will not be restarted after the new speaker begins and the new speaker will not be called again later if a time is seated to them and they are later on the testimony list or waiting list um if you do not if you offered time seated to you and do not wish to
use it you can decline it uh the majority of speakers time should be spent on the topic that was indicated when signing up and the board expects the same standard of Civility for those participating as we expect of ourselves uh as board presid president I have the responsibility to uh interrupt any speaker who fails to observe a standard of Civility required by this procedure and uh I hate cutting people off I don't want to do it and we do have a full list so I would just ask that folks please
be very mindful of that two-minute limit so that we can get through everybody and um staff will read off the testimony speakers list thank you for those who are joining remotely to provide testimony today when you hear your name please press star six to unmute on the conference line and also um make sure that you're unmuted on your device for all speakers today um I'm going to do the best I can with your names but please do reintroduce yourself um as you begin your testimony to make sure we know
how to accurately pronounce your name the first Speaker today is Jasmine Lannon Jasmine's going to be followed by Chris jackins and and then after that Miller Sherling good evening I'm Jasmine lanet I'm a third grader and highly capable cohort at dear Elementary I am addressing you because SPS decided to end aater which dramatically influences students parents and staff there we understand closing the building due the budget cuts however I'll hold it for you however ending the HC cohort will on
ly harm the students enrolled at that school and will badly influence our social and emotional learning forcing us to give up friends teachers and Community my younger sister is just in first grade along with many others shutting down our school will make many students have to give up their friends I came to educator for first grade and I have many friends there one thing I hear a lot from my friends who are new to the program is that at their neighborhood School for Math they did a lot of works
heets or did math on a computer program because the math lessons were too easy for them and the teacher was too busy trying to help the kids that didn't understand the lesson being at theater is the first time that many of them felt they had an interactive and challenging math experience when SPS enrolls a student in the HC cohort they commit for us to our entire kindergarten through 12th grade education it benefits us for our whole academic career including College by forcing families to decide
between a nearby school that lacks Advanced curriculum or a more distant option school it will have broken our social contract and put these families in an awkward position we must decide between convenience or academics by shutting down day cater asking parents to sacrifice more time out of their day and more money out of their bank account to settle for something less some may decide that private school or homeschooling is a better option this is a heartbreaking decision I strongly urge the S
Ps board members to consider our situation including the teachers the students have grown up with we are a unique special and our [Applause] [Music] community than want to find going up here thank you next speaker today is Chris jackins [Music] my name is Chris jackins Box 84063 Seattle 98124 on the minutes of the February 7th regular board meeting eight points number one the minutes give little detail on the progress monitoring session number two District efforts on seventh grade math for Afric
an-American malale students resulted in test results going down by 4.2% from 2002 to 2 2022 to 2023 number three District staff presenters have included Mike stoski kelle toner Caleb Perkins and Ted Howard III I have admired the work of these talented staff members number four it would be better to make use of their talents by having them directly teach students number five then utilize other teachers as teaching assistants much as large University classes are taught by professors with followup
in smaller groups by teaching assistants number six when I was a graduate student at the University of Washington I was a teaching assistant in the U math department number seven also get rid of the enVision Math curriculum and get a better direct instruction non-mechanized book based curriculum number eight present the information straight out with honest direct instruction versus students trying to guess hundreds of years of mathematics on allocating resources for an American Sign Language ASL
teacher at Topps K8 The District budget needs to include an ASL teacher as a separate basic line item for the deaf and heart of hearing program thank you very much the next speaker is Miller Sherling Miller will be followed by by Stacy Fernandez and then Claire a hello my name is Miller Sherling I'm an SPS employee and parent I have a fourth grader and an 11th grader in SPS I'm here to talk about the impact of these budget cuts and what they're going to do to students I work with and hear about
through my nursing colleagues there are students I see multiple times per week in my role as a school nurse um that aren't the students I'm writing health plans for the health plans for asthma and seizures and diabetes and anop itic allergies I'm talking about students who come to my office with headaches or stomach AES or they can't breathe or they today for example a student who felt like they were going to faint and this is from anxiety students are not doing well they are struggling emotion
ally and when I have the time to listen to them and hear what's going on for them I can get to the bottom of what's going on develop a trusting relationship connect them with resources to help support them and get them back into class and so they can function and Thrive um and I've been just able to do that this year with three days a week at my school and just under 500 students next year I have just under 500 students and two days a week I'm GNA have to cut corners and the corners I'm going to
cut are going to be the things that aren't legal mandates like listening to students when they need to tell me what's going on for them and this breaks my heart um so sorry I'm a little lost in my notes um I understand that our funding isn't infinite but the worker bees on the ground and I'm a worker be and the parents at home and I'm a parent at home or family members at home we need to be part of a collaborative process to develop these budgets under constrained situations with limits we need
to help make the decisions in these situations of limited funding and we didn't get to help we were handed a budget from on high and I have colleagues all across the district who are going to have to find other jobs while feeling sick to their stomachs about the children they know well that that they aren't going to be able to help next year thank you next is Stacy [Applause] Fernandez after Stacy will be Claire and then Britney Ryder my name is Stacy Fernandez she Hera pronouns I am a I am the
care coordinator at West Seattle High School I am a first generation educator and Scholar I stand before you today to advocate for care coordination because is because it is such an important support that is offered to students at West Seattle and at other schools um we serve students for this from educational Justice when I started the program at West Seattle High School I started the program from the ground up I got to know the community I am serving I figured out where the needs were what ou
r goals were and I created a program that meets those needs and has now flourished into something wonderful we now have a care center at our school and I serve hundreds of students at West Seattle High School I am able to create a strong I was able to create a strong program because of the supports from Britney Samson she believed in me and it is painful to know that one of those individuals that helped helped start care coordination is being let go why it is unbelievable to me that a person who
is an integral part of care coordination has been told that she will not have a job this fall Britney Samson is the person that has helped me navigate care coordination how is it possible that we are cutting her how can this District not prioritize the group of Educators that focus on serving African-American males and students for this from educational Justice I asked that you fully and adequately fund care coordination now and that you keep Britney Samson as she is the leader for us care coor
dinators and if you do not I hope you remember my face and the words that I am sharing with you tonight remember the hundreds of students at West Seattle high school that obtained social emotional support advocacy access to food clothing and other basic needs because of the work that I do one final thing superintendent Jones last month we had a group of Native leaders here asking to meet with you my hopes are that you have met with them and if you H if you have not I hope that you will soon beca
use we must remember that we stand we work and we live on Stolen land thank you next the next speaker is Claire AB Claire a after Claire Britney and then then Kelly perletti I seed my time to Dr fiser hello my name is Dr Tammy fiser Houston and I've been an educator for over 39 years currently working at Blain K8 and teach graduate students at spu I'm here tonight to push back at The District's seemingly random decision to fire existing school counselors in elementary schools and mandate they re
replaced with school social workers I have no issues with my fellow social workers we are similarly trained and prepared but this decision appears to be arbitrary and deeply distressing to communities especially at a time when both are needed many SPS counselors with existing relationships that are endorsed by their principles are going to be replaced because of an inaccurate list of School counseling skills created by SPS as a professor teaching graduate students in School counseling the SPs l
ist of capabilities left off of from current School counselor's preparation is a a blatant misrepresentation of my highly trained students many working at SPS and my own Rich skills in addition to what was listed our counselors are trained in Crisis Intervention Suicide Prevention mental health supports Veterans of Community Health Partnerships creating behavioral interventions and are high needs highly capable and special education students and more they are evaluated rigorously on this and pas
s exams com demonstrating deep understanding and skills most principles have no idea why the district would go this route at all mine thought it was because social workers were paid less no we are all Esa certified and and are compensated accordingly I walked along picket line for more mental health supports we'd like one to 250 actually not either or or even my social worker cohorts are confused this is not what other larger school districts are doing such as Lake Washington Belleview Highline
Shoreline Federal Way and such counselors are valued there in their elementaries what an unnecessary trauma for every school's Community for the students the families and especially with well-trained well-connected and well-loved counselors who know every kid in their building and every teacher depends on them for their support where is the evidence-based data to support this decision and with a district push on seal how does this decision support support the well-being something heavily in the
news and media and schools of students and families who have established relationships it does not the next speaker is Britney Ryder my name is Britney Ryder and I'm the school counselor at loyal Heights Elementary I've been at loyal Heights since 2018 and spent the year before that working at both queenanne Elementary and saak Joya Elementary during my master's program for K12 school counseling I completed my practicum at Queen an elementary and my internship at Franklin High School I am here t
oday due to the elimination of elementary school counselors from the 2024 2025 budget that Dr Fisher rec um reference as well and the subsequent requirement for buildings to submit a waiver to maintain a school counselor school counselors and social workers are each critical pieces to our success as a district to pit them against each other for funding is a disservice to students staff and families school counselors provide social emotional academic and behavioral supports to all students and as
the need in these areas has only increased students deserve more not less this position provides short-term individual counseling small groups social emotional lessons and more for the American School counsel Association program recommendations and the state's SSB 5030 requirement our youngest students deserve to have a school counselors as they start their Journey at SPS to improve student outcomes we need to engage with those closest to the work students families and Educators many of these e
lementary school counselor positions have been in place for years and communities across Seattle depend on and benefit from these Services top- down decision- making will not achieve the results we all need and deserve I look forward to contining to work with both the board and the district to move forward in a way that is student and Community focused without funding dedicated for elementary school counselors I feel I fear services will not be provided to the extent needed by students today tha
nk you the next speaker is Kelly petti Kelly will be followed by Rob brigh and the Jennifer Hall hi my name is Kelly perletti sh CTE media arts teacher at West Seattle high school I'm here to fight for full support of care coordination and support roles because these roles are pivital to supporting our students furthest from educational Justice if the district decides to to no longer fund these roles we are cutting positions that are primarily bipox staff as well as taking away the main Lifeline
for many of our students further our district would be going against what it claims to care about social justice for those furthest from educational Justice I urge you all to reconsider and make these permanent valued positions in each school and consider paying a living wage when I think of the heart of our school I think of our care coordinator Stacy Fernandez in care coordination she wears many hats for many students she runs food and clothing drives it's constantly in meetings and communica
tion to track down funding Housing Solutions for students advocating packing up resources for students over break mentoring etc etc Beyond her overwhelming case load Stacy is available for all students um in a pinch and plans community events at impact our entire school let me be clear Stacy will not be able to accomplish nearly anything that she does right now without the support of her lead care coordinator uh Britney cutting any of these roles goes against our supposed values as a district in
my classroom I've worked with countless students who rely on Stacy and care coordination some of my most passionate and successful students have won awards and made great academic achievements in our school and are the very students that receive clothing food rental support Etc from our care coordinator these students are primarily bipo have dreams of changing the world they want to be lawyers they want to be surgeons they want to um do all sorts of things and are facing homelessness and other
things uh these students will lose that ability to dream and pursue their goals the moment you cut back on these positions our school will lose its very heart it's greatest resource for students who are truly the furthest from educational Justice cutting funding and care coordination is condemning many students to drop out unimaginable struggle and loss of support I urge you to remember that when thinking of budget and make these positions permanent and better resourced thank you next is Rob bri
gh followed by Jennifer hall and then Kayla seamster good evening my name is Rob brigh and I've been a school counselor specifically a middle school counselor for 10 years at SPS and currently I'm at Sim Bay K8 in Ballard and previously before that I was at Washington Middle School and I'm here to ask you guys you all in the district for more transparency around the decision to replace elementary school counselors with school social workers as a middle school counselor I see the work of Elementa
ry counselors vital to help support our students to be successful all the way through and so to have better alignment K12 we need K5 counselors and a reminder about from Senate Bill 5030 passed and asked all districts to come up with a School counseling comprehensive program school counselors play a critical role in maximizing K12 student outcomes including those related to attendance academic achievement High School graduation postsecondary Readiness and social emotional development and those r
elationships are built by our K5 counselors also to quote the Su superintendent procedure and School Board policy number 2140 which under uh section 1A says school counselors serve a vital role in the conference of School counseling program the school counselor plans develops organizes and leads delivery of a comprehensive School counseling program that focuses on the academic career and personal Social Development for all students based on the ASA the American St school counselor Association an
d state standards so I'm here to ask that we get full funding for a counselor in each elementary school thank you NE next is Jennifer [Applause] Hall hello my name is Jennifer Hall I'm a special education teacher I've been one for about 20 years at West Seattle high school I'm also a proud member of the Seattle Education Association and I have been a Seattle Public Schools parent I'm also here in support of our students and families whose lives and educational programs have been supported and en
hanced by our care coordinator Stacy Fernandez and I want to say thank you to all of the other care coordinators and to all of the dedicated hardworking family support workers who I have come to know and appreciate during my years with the Seattle School District thank you thank you thank you thank you for always doing your level best to make sure that our students have what they need to learn and to live thank you for really seeing our students and our families and supporting them through hard
times because you know that it is their right to be supported you know and embody the phrase public schools are the heart of our community because Stacy you are the living breathing heart of West Seattle high school and all of you collectively are the heart of the Seattle School District as a veteran teacher who sees you and all that you do I thank all of you and I know that you are doing what you do on a wing and a prayer that you're not paid a wage high enough to live in Seattle that you're pr
imarily people of color who need and deserve higher pay and a living wage and I want to speak for teachers like myself and nurses and other Educational Employees in our buildings our work environments are made so much better because you are working shoulder-to-shoulder with us care coordinators and family support workers what would we do without you I know from experience what happens when my brothers and sisters whose work is critical to functioning School communities get riffed or have their p
ositions eliminated those of us who remain are told that we must lift together to take over the work of our extra exited team members and we try to comply but as hard as we can we cannot sufficiently assume the work because we're already overburdened please do not tell us we don't have the capacity ask all of us and yourselves how do we build capacity to pay for the programs and the people that we need in order to have our functioning schools and communities thank you the next speaker is Kayla s
eamster Kayla seamster Kayla will be followed by hard Ding and then mean M McAn my name is Kayla seamster I come to you today with a profound sense of fear retaliation for what I'm about to tell you but the Quest for justice for my students is more important than my fear I'm an educator new to Rainer View Elementary this school year pleading for your help and intervention the high turnover rate due to a toxic and unsafe working environment has had a detal impact on the school Community students
feel insecure at school and have become untrusting of Educators the constant changing of Staff has disrupted the sense of stability and continuity that students need to thrive academically and emotionally this unsafe environment has fostered a culture of fear and anxiety making it difficult for students to focus on their education students regularly talk about how they hate coming to school because of the strict rules and lack of report additionally there has been illegal treatment of students w
ith disabilities and staff members which cannot be ignored the frequent departure of Educators midyear prompted by unsafe conditions leads to constant staff reassignments depriving many students of going all year without vital multilingual and intervention services this failure failure exasperates educational Injustice and is not new this year our students are not allowed to wear jackets in the classroom or even when moving to Portables due to a strict uniform policy this may seem like a minor i
ssue but it symbolizes the lack of care and compassion for our students wellbeing despite repeated pleas SPS leadership has rebuffed us our one meeting yielded no action or followup this decade long pattern of will for ignoring of concerns raised about reer elementary cannot continue we stand on the precipice of a staffing crisis demanding urgent intervention the school board must launch an investigation into rain View Elementary and enact necessary reforms to ensure our students receive the edu
cation they deserve our students are counting on us to do the right thing we will not let the concern once again be swept under the rug only to have another new staff group come in next year to the same climate and students in crisis it's time for actions and change thank you for listening the next speaker is hardip hello my name is hardip and I'm a parent of two children at R viw Elementary I'm here today in hopes that the board will finally take the necessary steps to support their teachers an
d the children of reer view multitude of concerns from teachers and parents have gone unanswered for years our teachers are not supported to the capacity that they should be many children reluctantly come to school every day this is not exaggerated by any means this current environment at Rainer view is not conducive to to teaching and learning teachers deserve better support and so to our children the turnover and retention rate is astounding and Beyond concerning all of my children's teachers
have left the school except for one as of this school year my oldest is on his fourth assigned teacher with having a long-term sub in place who knows how long it will take to find someone to come work at this school he very well may end up with five different teachers before this year is over tell me how a child is expected to succeed in a classroom with so much turnover there's no no continuity no consistency and just constant change as parents we are our child's biggest and loudest Advocate th
ese last two months have been eye- openening for us we've experienced firsthand targeted behavior from our own principal raising legitimate concerns for training to the long-term substitute and issues in the classroom has led to our principal now targeting our child since we raised our concerns in January the principal has started to specifically make comments about our child's Behavior alleging its ongoing Behavior but yet we've never heard this from this this sub or previous teachers in fact t
he sub has only expressed positive comments about our child the targeting is clear as day the targeting by the principal has caused unnecessary Stress and Anxiety on my child this environment has impacted my child's physical mental and emotional health I've never had my child not want to go to school no child should feel that they are not safe and supported at school we are asking the board to make it right for the kids the teachers and the parents your website States safety and wellness is a to
p priority for Seattle Public Schools students are more likely to be successful when they feel safe and welcome at school it's time to make this statement of true reality at rain View Elementary the next speaker is Megan McMahon hello my name is Megan McMahon and I am the part-time librarian at rineer View Elementary I have come here today as a last resort and in a lot of fear of retaliation during my year in SPS I have witnessed a schooling crisis as the light librar and I have been able to wor
k with every student at rineer View and see the direct impact the state of the building has on them I'm committed to my role in providing me meaningful literacy opportunities for students especially those furthest away from educational Justice because of frequent reassignment I have not been able to provide deeper programming or even regular Library classes I've had to substitute for educators at least 12 times so far this school year other staff have been haven't been able to provide multilingu
al or special education services consistently for the same reasons three out of 10 classroom teachers have gone on unpaid medical leave midye due to the working conditions I have witnessed working mothers being denied their pump breaks and students who have become numb to teachers leaving midyear and that has been their regular experience being a student at reer viiew year after year students assume this is how school is supposed to be and it is heartbreaking to see the sadness and hopelessness
they are feeling I don't blame any of these teachers for leaving in order to protect themselves I blame a district that has allowed one school to have a 99 .5% staff turnover in the last 5 years for a district dedicated to data this information has been ignored year after year stability is Staffing is critical to Student Success and implementing SPS initiatives successfully we have shared our concerns with our admin our regional director and we have also been working diligently with our Union to
find Justice for our students all of our attempts have led to dead ends and stonewalling which has brought me here today for a public record our students are not receiving the academic intervention social emotional literacy and multilingual Services they need our students academic performance is falling behind educators are not able to implement best practices and our expertise is not valued the school needs immediate intervention to address these climate concerns I ask you to hear us and serve
the community you were elected to protect it is time for district intervention every student deserves quality education they deserve a school not in constant crisis thank you next speaker is Kristen holiday Kristen holiday after Kristen will be Ying Yu and then Tim ERS I'm going to see my time to holla manow good evening my name is Hala manow I'm a parent and president of the PTSA at reiew Elementary uh we have a rview community whose members parents and families are uninformed or misinformed r
egarding its academic goals and Pathways to achieving success as well as a school culture that lacks collaborative invitation from its Administration with the PTSA as a current president of the PTSA and having been part of the board for the last two plus years I'm saddened by the lack of attention our school and its communities receiving from District officials to improve the conditions and the relationships that currently exist in our school just a sort of a laundry list of things just an examp
le of what we experien as a PTSA so there's no Community Partnership regarding preventive safety uh regarding a sexual assault from a couple years ago there's a culture of bullying we are concerned about behaviors and incidents that are happening in the school playgrounds are not being recorded or documented there's a confused process with the BLT and the parents involved there's no sharing of key information for making decisions lack of communication with the PTSA she is an active barrier to th
e PTSA um for an example last year during the movon which is one of our big fundraisers in the school uh we were not able to obtain a permit for our our activities so instead we brought generators so we can provide food and music for our kids um and just before I I want to say this our school community of reer view needs real help as enrollment continues to decline and families are pulling their children away from SPS we need a solution that allows others a seat at the table to speak about who w
e're accountable to we should be accountable to those furthest away as you heard this before from academic and educational Justice which are our students and families we should protect our children as much as we protect salaries or past reputations of individuals that are no longer meeting District standards our community deserves that our educated ERS and students deserve that and you as a board deserve to know what you're aware of and aware of what you're protecting and what not to question th
ank you next is ying [Applause] Yu um Ying if you're on the conference call line please press star six to unmute trying one more time Yu I believe you are pring remote testimony please press star six to oh sorry you're here yeah I'm here should I press the green button no okay so my name is Inu I'm the Chinese teacher at yatt high school I'm here to show my support for KR coordination because I have seen how important this Ro is at our school our care coordinator Stacy Fernandez supports student
furest from educational Justice she is a tireless advocator uh that works closely with our school social workers counseling team and across other department this collaboration ensures that all student needs are being met to ensure that they are ready for school and learning there is a student and her family left a domestic violence situation since the mother did not have any resources to celebrate the children birthday Stacy gathered resources from our community to make sure she had a celebrati
on with her mom and siblings like cake Furniture food and presents our care coordinator ensures that at y Seattle high school we keep our student of color at the center of decisions that are being made I ask that you prioritize a program during this difficult budget time like care coordination that are necessary and save lives thank thank you for your consideration uh I think I still have some time so I can give you some uh examples in my program uh I have some student they really trusted me and
they uh they even called their doctor in my room and in front of me that's what I heard and she she told her doctor that uh so I I live in a multi uh multi- generation apartment with my grandma and my mom and my mom's uh and my step my mom's boyfriend and they have a two-year-old brother and uh I have to I have to sleep with my grandma in the living room and just like a uh just the Only Furniture we have is just a like a desk we we got from Good Will and this is another there's another another
example like I have a student that told me that their M their mom is crying because they don't know how to pay their rent for the next months so this is helping these kids in my school please consider uh our request thank you so much thank you next is Tim allers Tim allers and Then followed by Jennifer modder and then Mee Vio is Tim in the [Music] room or online please press star six if so oh I believe you are online we should be able to hear you if you start talking timers and I'm a parent of a
n eighth grader and a school volunteer at tops um Tim can you um pause for a moment we're having trouble hearing you I want to turn up the sound to make sure we're able to hear you we'll make sure to restart your thank you okay go ahead all right hi my name is Tim ERS and I'm a parent of an eighth grader and a school volunteer at Topps K8 and I'm here tonight to make sure you're aware of the math agency program Seattle Public Schools state stated goal is that 45% of black boys will achieve profi
ciency or higher on the seventh grade smarter balanced assessment by June 2024 and I'm quoting interim metrics indicate results are unlikely to be delivered without significant changes so in today's budgetary environment SPS should be looking for programs that are effective that is provably work and cost efficient according to both the district's map scores and state SBA data the math agency has has proven very successful in closing education gaps over the last two years their partner schools ha
ve had some of the highest math SBA growth rates in the state the program has done this with black boys and all other students who are behind in math and they do it in a very cost-effective way for families that have the means programs like this could be expanded and potentially keep those families in Seattle Public Schools instead of looking at other school options I've been a volunteer coach which is what they call a tutor with the math agency with third and fourth graders at tops SK and I've
seen firsthand how successful the program is we're only a little over halfway through the school year and a number of students in our program have already learned more than a great level of math since joining the students in the program at tops K represent many different backgrounds black boys and girls bilingual students students from our de and heart of hearing program Etc I've had families with kids in the program tell me that this has been lifechanging ing for their students we're seeing suc
h strong success at tops that I'd encourage SPS to consider supporting this in more schools across the district thank you the next speaker is Jennifer and then Meese and then we'll go to Sarah fingado I'm Jennifer mder I'm seeding my time to Khloe kimay good evening my name is Khloe kimay and I'm a counselor at Cleveland High School I'm also a adun professor at Seattle 's count School counseling program and given my multiple identities I'm well versed in the ASA model and the roles and responsib
ilities of a school counselor I'm here today to discuss a few items first I would like to discuss funding that was advocated for by the Seattle Student Union to city council for more mental health supports in schools specifically students ask for more school counselors social workers and mental health therapists secondly it's important to note that what students and other stakeholders have advocated for is directly aligned to the a national model and state legislation SB 530 in which a comprehen
sive School counseling program is mandated for each district ASA National model states that school counselors should be funded at 1 to 250 ratio and that they support students in three main areas personal social encompassing social emotional learning and mental health College and Career Readiness for grades K through 12 and academics we are experiencing significant Global distress trauma and a mental health crisis in my past four years in SPS I have seen mental health concerns arise since winter
break counselors in my building have made at least 40 mental health referrals for students wanting therapy mental health concerns show up in so many ways in the buildings across all levels it shows up in behaviors in classrooms lack of attendance direct conversations with students and families if we want to have successful schools that improve academic and life outcomes for students of color we need to change the systems that continue to oppress we need to make changes in our schools that incre
ase mental health support and culturally responsive practices and we need to do be doing the work that early on the elementary schools before issues grow we know early intervention is important however despite that counselors at elementary schools are being cut across the district we cannot cut counselors and say that we're supporting students and working towards a comprehensive School counseling plan we cannot sever the relationships and Trust students and families have formed with their school
counselors I'm here today to stand with students asking for their voices to be heard fighting for what they need in schools they're asking for change they're asking for more school counselors at a ratio of 1 to 250 one school School social worker in every building and a mental health therapist in every school next is M followed by Sarah and then Emma [Applause] rice hi meio seing my time to Matt bertes good evening uh my name is Matthew Burnes and I'm a second uh and this year after the October
reshuffle also a third grade teacher uh at Dunlap Elementary School this is my 17th year in the classroom and since moving to Seattle in 2011 I have only taught in Dunlap Elementary School in October due to budget and Staffing mistakes that you did not Rectify until we were over a month into school you chose to displace two teachers at my school because we were under enrolled against our own better judgment our staff readjusted our classrooms and went from zero splits to a split classroom at ev
ery single grade level this is an event that still affects our students and staff daily the stress is not only felt by teachers but the disruption can be seen in student behaviors most noticeably during our daily recesses rather than two grade levels at a time we now have as many as four grade levels outside at recess at one time this has led to a massive increase in fighting and bullying with students being assaulted on a weekly basis now as next year's budgets are being unveiled two entire sta
ff positions in our multilingual Department have been cut as well as cutting our art teacher position in half not to mention the Hoops you make us jump through to convert the blanket social worker position you're giving everyone back into the our already staff counselor position who we've had for years our newcomer our newcomer and bilingual orientation Center Program which supports students who are new to the country has been essentially ghosted by District staff with the news that you've offic
ially decided to cut the program finally coming from our principal not the department head our school's continuous School Improvement plan cannot be implemented with these cuts the progress that are multilingual students have made over the years will be halted by these disastrous decisions when we don't have staff to support these students the responsibility falls to the already overloaded classroom teachers we like to use the word inclusion a lot to describe a scenario in which each student can
get all of the services and support they need while also staying in the general education classroom given these allocations inclusion is a literal impossibility a hypothetical ideal I'm almost done there are members of the board and District staff who describe things such as the capital gains task tax and other Revenue Source Solutions as Band-Aids we are in crisis as another legislative session Rolls by with Public Schools getting zero support from our elected officials in trying to fix this b
udget crisis you need to find the money so that you can continue to support students as you say fur this from educational Justice thank you the next speaker is Sarah Fado Sarah Fado Sarah will be followed by Emma rice and then our final speaker will will be Heather Barker I'd like to seed my time to miss Shay La Hall good day to all I'm here to give testimony regarding how students staff and family are being treated by principal Jones at r view and our concerns with the district's response famil
ies feel the need to run to the state for support after expressing their concerns to the principal and the district I work I worked in the front office and my children attended school at r view during the 2022 2023 school year I speak today as a parent and as a previous staff member some of our children were being bullied and harassed by their peers the principal's response and responses to parent concerns were not appropriate not only were our children faced with the difficulties with their pee
rs but principal Jones provided an unwelcoming environment to those families most impacted especially to those parents who stood up for their children Jones made it very difficult for staff and staff parents of students who attend the same school the principal was mentally abusive to staff during our workday and has set up several one-on-one staff meetings with us to intentionally speak ill about us and our children Jones crossed boundaries between business and staff parenting we were focused to
We Were forced to wear two hats in these meetings Jones treated staff poorly with the malicious intent elicit eliciting an angry or irrit irritated reaction out of us Jones has threatened our jobs several times if we did not do things her way Jones undervalued the accommodation request for those of us with disabilities and undermined the doctor's orders her personal ties with the District staff have made all her misconduct invisible which led to injustices within the workplace staff are fearful
of their jobs and feel defeated in any attempt to defend their morals their jobs their students and their families Jones abuse of power has caused staff to seek outside mental health counseling R your View Elementary under Jones leadership creates a toxic work environment for staff and even worse educational setting for our children those moments when our children need support the principal made it very difficult for the for the teachers to provide that support support and in some cases not at
all our children's IEPs are being violated without the necessary services and support our children were labeled only by the principal as incompetent and or disruptive when normally they are not seen as such families are fed up with the ill intented ways and were forced to remove our kids out of principal out of the district and into other schools the mistreatment of staff students and families need to stop principal Jones needs to be replaced for the sake of staff students families and the overa
ll climate of the school we stand before you to demand the district to finally step in and to correct this Injustice and select new leadership next is Emma rice Emma rice I seed my time to Elizabeth Ward Robinson dear superintendent Jones and school board members my name is Elizabeth Ward Roberts I am the sea director of center of race and social justice and your prior admin secretary rer viiew as you have heard from Rainer viiew Elementary it is a it is in a crisis and has been for years throug
h concerns have been raised through the the appropriate channels Little has changed we need your help rer view isn't meeting obligations for staff parent parents and the community engagement The BLT racial Equity team and MTS teams meetings which were meant to facilitate and collaborate working environments are willingful and discontinued or canell by the principal further staff who raise concerns do not feel safe do so and have raised numerous concerns about retaliation educators are leaving at
record rates over a 100 Educators have taught at rer viw since 2000 since 2017 but only one staff person has remained and currently working there nearly 40% of this year's staff have resigned or taken leave in the first six months of the school year due to unresolved School climate concerns we now we know turnover impacts student learning there is a part there is a pattern of school lead leadership explicit and exp exploitation excuse me the staff exploting the staff and community at Rainer vie
w over the past decade and hiding behind asserts that this school needs higher standards and more vigorous to be successful Educators and parents report students have received dehumanizing punishments facing exclusive exclusion receiving undoc dou umentation undocumented isolation and restraints denied lunch recess as dis as disciplinary measures and denied access to water restrooms during classroom maintaining the Rainer View Way the district currently approached to Rainer view is failing our s
tudents our school community and we are asking our school board leaders to step up and in help this cannot continue we need intervention now we are ready to work with the district and meet the needs of the students and the families thank you the final speaker is Heather Barker Heather [Applause] Barker is Heather somewhere in the room making their way up Heather if you're in the room can you wave your arms so I know you're on the way up okay we're going to go to the uh wait list then um Jamie Pa
pu and then uh Jamie will be the final speaker on today's uh testimony hi good afternoon um my name is Jamie Papo I'm currently a certified teacher at BF day Elementary School I'm also a Seattle Public Schools parent I've been working in Seattle public schools for 13 years I'm here today to share a message on behalf of our staff and student parent community at bf day we believe in empowering students to become the best version of themselves every child is seen heard and valued within an inclusiv
e climate we educate all students to become responsible and courageous problem solvers who attain their highest levels of academic achievement and Civic engagement we do this work not just with a focus on academics but a true commitment to the social emotional development of every student who enters our school this work does not happen in solitary classrooms but in a full teaching Community dedicated to the work including administrators managers teachers instructional assistants engaged parents
and above all our dedicated school counselor the school counselor role is one that is multifaceted and unique responsibilities may include individual student counseling conducting small groups relating to Friendship anxiety emotional regulation or family separation collaborating with Community Resources to support families advocating for students and families and responding to the everpresent Daily concerns from students and staff our school counselor goes above and beyond providing guidance aro
und our classroom based social emotional curriculum as well as important student programming around career Readiness and Leadership realistically with overloaded classrooms and more and more being cut from our budgets and allocated Staffing we cannot possibly provide the type of education every Elementary student deserves without our school counselor further our school supports both a resource and two extended resource programs where a school counselor is essential in providing support to both s
tudents and teachers Al like additionally no one can argue schools continue to deal with the societal impact of covid while a social worker can provide a school Community with connections and support this role in no way can or should replace the important work of a school counselor we would like to say that we the community of bfda believe every child has the right to the support a school counselor provides it will not matter how many new curriculums we buy or tests we add if the social and emot
ional well-being of our students are not made first priority it is our belief every well-resourced school should have both a full-time counselor and a social worker if that is impossible at bare minimum we urge the school board to allow schools to retain their school counseler in a full-time role in accordance with the most pressing needs of the school Community thank you president Ranken that was the 20th speaker for tonight speaker and concludes testimony thank you um let's see it it who else
needs a breather for a moment before we continue okay yeah let's let see it's 555 five minutes or 10 minutes how about 10 okay we will um take a brief uh break and return at uh 6:05 [Music] [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] apologies I got caught out in the lobby it is 610 could we actually um could we flip and do the work session now and then come back to
the business items we we do have some staff waiting on these items if you I couldn't remember if we I could yeah thank you okay so we have reached welcome back everybody um we have reached the consent portion of today's agenda I would like a motion for us to entertain the consent agenda please you want to do my job you want to do this okay I move for approval of the consent agenda I second the motion all right if there are no yeah I know I I'm just making sure nobody has any changes excuse me ok
ay all in favor of approval of the consent agenda please signify by saying i i i i i this motion has passed unanimously wait now we are going back down oh okay um we're g to now move into our work session on our appointment process so we're going to move back to the tables and directors again please bring your mics with you for okay so we are now in a work session um for the appointment process to Schoolboard director districts 2 and four I'm G to kind of oh and director hery please note directo
r hery is with us hello hello happy to see you even happier to see you I am G to kind of review what has happened up to this point and then we'll talk about next steps so um we uh the board formally acknowledged as required by law the vacancies for the district 2 and four positions during our February 7th regular board meeting we then opened an online application the following week and closed that application period on February 25th we currently have 11 applicants for the District Two position a
nd four for district four the board will appoint one person for each of those two positions um the legal deadline is 90 days after the vacancy which would be May 2nd we're aiming for earlier partly because there's just a lot a lot to happen with you know board decisions after that and also because of how spring break timing is um so uh our Target is early April um directors and the public have access to the applications on the Schoolboard website uh including video statements which were posted t
oday um so directors need to review all those materials um and then based on those materials we will determine finalists um we had talked before about uh before we knew how many applicants we'd have about um you know looking for three to four depending on how many applicants there were three to four for each position before we go to a forum and so we currently have four in one of those uh in District Four so my suggest gestion would be that we aim for four for District Two um and uh could I Elli
e do you want to go over to you now for like some of the technical pieces that we have discussed about the numbers for each seat or do you want me to go ahead and do that these are my notes yeah yeah go ahead uh good evening Ellie Wilson Jones director of policy and board relations so as as president Rankin mentioned um the board had been talking about this number of three or four people in District 4 you've got four and so um the thought would be that you select four candidates as finalists for
district 2 if through attrition you end up at three for District 4 by the time you meet next Wednesday March 13th for your special meeting to select finalists then you would select three finalists for dist District too um but not wanting to get down to two finalists um purposefully so if we had more attrition you would retain more people in District 2 still is that the piece that you wanted me to cover or was it the next piece um yeah no that's great thank you so this uh based on what we had ta
lked about the last time we were together as a board um Miss Wilson Jones and I have worked out a few different things so does that sound does that reflect what you are all expectation was about numbers and does that seem like a reasonable path to pursue yeah director seru I have a clarifying question on um what director Ellie just said um what I thought I heard you say you said something about attrition and so I don't are you saying ultimately we don't want to have less than three candidates no
matter what for fi as finalists because I I was a little confused by we we already said the four and district and I get the numbers mixed up the four and the one District where there's only four and so we're likely to to choose four in the other just to have equality but then you said something about attrition I can correct that sorry okay um so in District 4 you currently have four candidates if somebody decides that they no longer wish to seek appointment between now and next week you might o
nly have three if two people decided they didn't want to seek appointment for District 4 then you would only have two so um what I was intending to to note was that if you end up for you know the candidates own choices through those um deter if they no longer wish to pursue District Four and you end up with only two in that um District that you would still not you wouldn't want to match to is what I'm hearing from directors you you might end up with a mismatch because people may say I don't want
to pursue this anymore um but in terms of the board's own uh scaling back the number of candidates you would be looking for three or four and roughly shooting for a match between the two districts there any other questions or feedback or does that seem I see you shake your head Brandon you don't have anything oh he's actually live okay Frozen Okay cool so we will aim to match going no going no less on our end than three for district four two sorry too many numbers um uh and uh yeah assume proba
bly about four and four okay um let's see so now we can talk about how we will narrow down the numbers for the district um two seat uh so well actually before we talk about our criteria to narrow down our numbers in District 2 I wanted to um talk about how we will actually vote on on those um what that process will be so because we will be evaluating independently for ourselves who are recommended candidates maybe when we come next week and then we'll have because we can't we can't discuss it am
ongst ourselves outside of this of the board space so next week when we come we will have done our own determination um based on the criteria that we're going to agree on in a few moments um but the the voting process um I was just going to describe what we could do for that which was um to arrive at our final finalists uh during the last appointment process in 2021 um attrition throughout the process naturally brought the number down to three finalists so uh I was going to say that board I was
on the board at the time we didn't have to do a process cuz number people people withdrew um in 2019 uh when director hery was appointed um the board at the time narrowed down to a field of three from a pool of nine applicants and so um the my suggestion after talking to Ellie would be that we use the method that the board used to to narrow down in um 2019 which is rounds of votes so we would bring our personal top numbers and um present them to each other and anybody who didn't receive a vote f
rom any director would be um disqualified so we could end say we could end up with um a toal of six people and then we would do another round to narrow until we get to a top four Ellie can probably describe that better than I just did it took me a few times to get it uh now that I get it it does make sense but I don't know if you could be better but I'm happy to tra an attempt at different um or also another attempt um so if we uh have you four five directors that are voting and so I'm going to
call the vote and at first caveat that there's nothing in your policies there's nothing in state law that says how you have to go about these kind of aspects of the process you all get to build it together and what we're walking you through is just the last process a board develops so in the first round I would say if you wanted we're going to say that you're looking for four candidates for district 2 um you would each have an opportunity to nominate four people you're going to see kind of a gri
d on the screen and it will kind of just uh not presently uh but it will track whether or not somebody has received a nomination if at the end of everybody nominating four people you have only four people with nominations then you're done you magically were aligned in the first vote and you have your four finalists if there's some separation you have six people across all of your votes or you have eight people across all of your votes then we take those eight people who received a nomination and
they become those who you're voting on in your second round and then we would decrease the number of nominations you had so in the first round you just got to pick four people in the second round you'd pick three people and we'd narrow it down this isn't a mathematical formula that will arrive at exactly four people and just work there may be needs for discussion amongst you you may have um you know when you get to three votes each you might only end up with three people and then you need to fi
gure out how to identify your fourth candidate so there'll be little bit of um space for deliberation on the board potentially um but basically casting a narrowing number of nominations I see faces does that is it time can we can we chime in yes please um so I had sent this in an email to Ellie earlier and I don't remember if you were on it Liza but um so I look when when this came up I I did some Research into other local districts that I've had to go through this and um Belleview school distri
ct is actually going through an appointment process right now they might they might be done now but at the time um that I looked into it they were in the middle of it and they I I believe in order to narrow the candidates down to um to finalists they did a executive session with the board and I'm just wondering if that's option cuz to me it just feels it feels like doing the rounds of voting feels really awkward it feels like being the last person to be picked on the like kickball team in elemen
tary school you will like the next thing I'm going to tell you okay which did an ex s the Belleview School Board oh yeah yeah the school board did an executive session so they could speak privately about the candidates so it wasn't this like public thing where I just feel like for for me personally if I were a candidate I would I just I think that would feel really awkward for me to be like oh no one picked me you know so I'm just trying to think of like what's the most dignified way to do that
so the voting legally has to take place publicly we have to take our votes in public but the open Public's meetings act which requires that we vote in public does say that executive sessions can be used to evaluate the qualifications of a candidate so we can move to Executive session to discuss qualifications we cannot vote so we would have the opportunity to say to each other here's you know if we get to a point where we're struggling to say to kind of state our piece about why we might think a
person is qualified or not qualified but we have to vote here okay but but so you're saying that's state law or is that Seattle specific no it's state law open public because I'm pretty sure that belie did not like what what so we're g to follow we're going to follow op as it is in state law not what somebody else may or may not have done I know I'm I'm just clarifying though that that determining finalists like that is it is that the yeah I don't think you have to vote on that is is is the poi
nt I'm trying to make like yes the the final vote on who we appointing to the board does have to be public 100% but does the does the do we have to publicly vote on who we are selecting as finalists that's what I'm trying to clarify I mean there's going to be a finalist list produced so people are going to know that they weren't picked right yeah eventually I'm I'm just talking about I'll let I'll let uh legal expert speak to that okay so um the exact wording of the statute by the way in terms o
f what's authorized in oh yes sorry the uh the U executive session is authorized to evaluate the qualifications of a candidate for appointment to elective office however any interview of the such candidate and final action appointing a candidate to elective office shall be in a meeting open to the public that leaves a bit of a Gap because the general rule on Executive sessions is you can't take actions or uh make decisions in executive session which is why the uh strong advice is that even the c
ulling down process including who's not advancing to the next round it's the way the city council has done it as well needs to be in an open public meeting because if you're in an executive session and agreeing okay candidates uh a B and C are not moving on you are making a decision in an executive session it is a bit like yeah not who didn't get picked for the team but these are people who have commendably ch chosen to put their hats in the ring and at the end of the day one person's going to b
e chosen for each seat and uh that's part of the part of the process is there is a public uh decision making to narrow the field and then eventually choose one person but you're allowed to have as vigorous a discussion As You Wish in executive session about here's why I like a and not B director sju so maybe the answer this is going to be quick um this demands that we have objective criteria okay I don't need to continue audience she already answered my question yes we that that will be what we'
ll talk about next director top so in your process here uh president Reon is it possible for us to have an executive session before the voting in order for us to discuss as yes aboard the qualifications and is that part of your process here yes okay and we could even if we do one round of voting and have some discussion and kind of think like oh my gosh we could go immediately to Executive session and then come back if we wanted but can we start with an executive session before vote in order to
talk about qualifications as part of the the agenda currently as president rank has designed it starts with an executive session and then at any point during your meeting you can um by properly calling the executive session recess back into executive session for however long it takes the boards in the past have been really successful in um talking about the candidates they're excited for in positive ways in this this space so I don't I don't think you would need to contemplate that you would hav
e to sort of um uh say all sorts of negative things about candidates um publicly basically my understanding is the part we can't do is say we're going into executive session and then come out and say we have our top four sorry that I mean that that addresses my concerns I just I didn't want to be in a situation where we had to like where we were like publicly discussing people that just feels really inappropriate and wrong so I'm good great okay um if we've feel ready to move to the next topic y
eah okay um so we need to talk about criteria and then we need to talk about the candidate Forum those are the next two pieces that we have coming so um uh I think what I would like to do is talk about The Forum first since it's kind of um procedural and just go over that and then um have room for the discussion about criteria if that's okay um so the Forum uh we plan to hold a candidate forum for both districts together on March 27th at Lincoln High School which happens to be the high school of
one of our student board members um but the reason it was picked is because it it it sits basically in a little um it's it's it's in District 2 but it's in District 4 so it's a nice uh there there will be uh that that High School represents a lot of families and Community from both districts so that seemed like a nice place to hold the Forum make it more accessible to the families um and community that um these districts will be representing although it is open to everyone because of course we
come from from certain districts but we all together represent the entire city and all of our kids um so uh uh director Vander and director hery can talk about this more but um I have invited um student members to collaborate on the planning for the Forum and um ask director hery as the student member liaison to um work with them so student members and director hery had an initial in initial conversation on Friday and talked about what they might want their participation to look like um and so w
ould either or both of you like to share anything about that or have anything that you want to provide or want us to [Music] know go for IT director Vander we had talked about potentially helping come up with interview questions to ask the candidates and then also have us like look over each of the candidates like applications and then write like a paragraph about what we thought about the candidates and our top picks and stuff but since we can't directly vote that it would just be our input lik
e for you to consider but not like as a final decision I believe also that director mua Swami um was interested in facilitating the uh questions or not necessarily the questions of for in some capacity uh whether that be in a team format between uh directors and director M the Swami or like School Board directors and director mwami or like however we want that to look I don't think that there was interest in correct me I if you're in the room I can't see um he's not okay uh I think he was the on
ly student that would 100% be available on that evening so we wouldn't want it to be a situation to where it was exclusively him so we would need to plan out a little bit further um for what that could look like whether it's like we're getting students from other organizations maybe like the NAACP youth Council or some others maybe the Student Union would be interested or if we would want uh like directors and uh student directors to do it exclusively um I'm open to whatever yall think is best b
ut that's kind of where we're at uh for our last meeting okay great so it sounds like our three student board members supporting and being included in the development of questions on the planning providing their feedback and input on their um evaluation of candidates and that then director muthas Swami needs a co-host is that basically a recap and I think that um not not to speak for um director Vander but director Vander was also interested in supporting the process and then um uh uh I am blank
ing on Luna's last name cron Veron thank you director cron Veron um has a potential conflict that they were going to try to address in order to be there and also um potentially collaborate with Ian asking questions okay that sounds really good um so in terms of question development um my thinking of a place to start would be to reach out to Community Partners and other you know go we're talking about the Seattle Community not just you know families not just District 2 not just District 4 this is
you know as we were elected by the broader Community um we want to get input from the broader Community to the extent possible so as a starting point for questions um I was thinking we could reach out to different Community Partners and ask for either topics that they want us to ask about or even provide a question that they want considered um and we have relationships with lots of different Community organizations that represent so many um different constituent groups and also serve a lot of o
ur students and families um so I think that would be a a valuable place to start with you know what ways to get communities input into the questions that we ask um uh and then so we would ask for input on the questions and then uh my suggestion would be that director hery and I and the student members look over the suggestions and come up with a finalized um list of questions for the Forum does that sound like a good approach to determine the questions okay um go ahead director top maybe I'll ge
t this to work how long is The Forum I should know this yeah if Miss Wilson Jones would provide the uh technical information about The Forum that would be great you currently have three hours I held for the Forum I believe I think we'd need to confirm the exact timing that would be available based on the availability of the facility um I could go through sort of the general Cadence or were we going to do the sort of technical aspects of the Forum is that helpful no if you want to go through the
the kind of format that would be great so the the format that the boards used most recently and that I don't I don't think proved itself to be particularly flawed in any way and for your last appointment process was that there was an opening of two minutes for each candidate um so they would each provide an opening statement and then moving into question questions with responses limited to about 90 seconds finally concluding with one minute closing statements and staff uh will support the timing
of that so we similar to the way we do for public testimony but perhaps adapted for a bigger space we'll signal to the candidates when their time is up or about to be up um our moderators uh will be supported with prompts to help them sort of gently nudge or firmly cut off um speakers as needed and we'll make sure that things are fair by rotating seats uh it it would basically be a math problem once we know how long the um forum's planned for and how long it's going to take how many candidates
you arrive at um and then we can figure out how many questions would be asked can you explain a little bit more sorry it's a math problem for me it's not a math problem and for me that's about that's about as mathy as I want to get so yeah are I'm forecasting for you my director candidates and they each have five apples okay um so I mean basically a lot of us have participated as candidates and as audience members in forums like this that just seemed like kind of a standard way to go two-minute
opening set time for questions everybody gets a chance to answer and then a closing statement um 3 hours seems really long I know there's eight candidates but still three hours seems very long especially for the the candidates I mean board meetings are longer but I no I agree I that feels really long I think three I I think what you were saying is that three hours is the time that has been blocked three hours is the time have take all it necessarily I think I would defer to president hery to spe
ak to what it looks like to be in multiple 3our forums it's not unprecedented um but I don't know that it yields different answers over the course of your three hours yeah no um I mean having lived through it I would definitely not recommend a three-hour Forum um uh what I would say is definitely also though you can just work backwards to kind of see how long you're giving each candidate to answer the question and that's really going to be your determining Factor right so if you give each candid
ate two minutes 90 seconds or 60 seconds or less to answer some of the questions and those can be different then that's going to tell you how many questions you can get in and whatnot so instead of like just you know looking at it from that lens think about how long you want the responses to be director sju so that said um I want to caution us um by some people are not great public speakers that doesn't mean they wouldn't be good board members some people need a little bit more time because of a
n unseen special feature they might have in the way their brains work they might need a little bit more time and so I'm not saying let's give everybody five minutes but this is an opportunity where we can actually um be mindful of people who have disabilities or have I call them special features because they're the things we can't see um and you know just looking at the person you're not going to know that they might have a slight speech impediment and so I I really want us to to have that um to
have that orientation when we're deciding time like let's not give people five minutes but also let's not just give them 60 Seconds I don't I don't think that's fair and it will take the time that it takes some people will use the whole two minutes some people won't but I I don't want to um Short Change Is that a a a thing Short change people's time to their detriment because we can't see something that's my opinion take it or leave it um something we maybe before I don't know um so we could as
we determine our finalists maybe ask the board office to reach out to the candidates and ask about any accommodations that we should provide sure I I don't know what it looks like I don't I don't have a feedback on that piece I think it would be for directors to determine I I could speak to how long a little bit with more Precision about how long your last three forums were they were each um three forums over the course of two appointment cycles each were scheduled for 3 hours and each um ended
up taking less than that they each were about 2 hours and 45 minutes but differing numbers of candidates and those were each for one district and um they did go on the answer the answers from um the same candidate overlapped if that makes sense so people ended up talking about the same subject more than once got it so maybe that speaks to we should be really smart with our question selection to um make good use of the time that we have to get to know folks um okay so does the up to now what we'
ve talked about in terms of the Forum [Music] seem good proceed and um okay great oh director top so to clarify we are all charged with Gathering questions from different uh Community folks and then you're if you want to or actually you could so I have a list of different organizations that we've reached out to for like legislative platform and some different things this also is a little bit of a preview of next week's work session on community engagement where we should have a living list for o
urselves as the board um uh so I'm happy to take uh I I'll send the email or I'll ask the board office to send the email soliciting questions if you have any organizations you specifically want to recommend we reach out to please send those to me that seems a little bit more streamlined than having us each separately ask that's why I clarified okay so if we have organizations that we want to make sure are on the list or or specific groups of folks and then the board office will send out an email
soliciting questions and then you and the student board members will work and Dy and director hery sorry uh will work on uh uh narrowing down that list to whatever the math problem says spits out as the correct number of questions yep sound sound good okay um and not to exclude the other board directors uh two of us is not a quorum so we can meet un flexibility of when the students can meet and um narrow that down um okay so now what time is it uh 6:45 okay so now the final discussion item toni
ght is about the criteria that we want to use to narrow down District 2 um and how we want to guide our review of the applicants so um I looked through the applications and spent some time considering what the ER areas were that we were kind of aiming to find out about through our questions um and uh and what like what we were getting at basically um what was important so uh based on that I kind of made some notes of overlapping buckets of things and I worked with Ellie Wilson Jones um on a char
t that has um the areas on one side and some blank boxes on the other side so what I would like for us to do now is to spend some time talking about what criteria we might be looking for in each of these areas or if there's other areas you want to add um that will support uh give us some common um a common tool to support our own individual so we're looking for a common tool that we're going to use independently to um come prepared next week with our individual recommendations for nomination to
the rest of the board does that make sense okay um so we can take notes on this that Ellie just passed out and um and then we'll be able to each have our own guide for ourselves that has come from a common conversation about criteria that will that then you take your own sheet home with your notes about criteria and do whatever process you want to do to go through it as you evaluate that your review of the um uh application submissions and the video statements does this make sense and seem like
a reasonable approach okay um okay so the first area that I looked at was um lived and professional experience we asked people about uh what their perspective was coming to the board why they wanted to do this position and what strengths and background they might have um I also know that representation is really important to us as a board and the city as a whole and so um what lived experience might there be that could add uh A diversity of perspective as well um and and how do we want to sort o
f categorize that so we could sort of think of like questions to ask oursel like does this candidate represent um a lived experience that is not already represented on the board does this candidate represent um professional background or experience that is not represented on the board if we agree that that's important if we're looking for uh diversity in terms of of that um but I'm open to what you all want to look at in terms of lived and professional experience we also just to throw out it cou
ld be you know do we specifically want a person with I'm just going to make something silly up um you know Excel spreadsheet experience if that is something that's going to be our top category in terms of lived and I mean it's it's not I'm just I was just picking something random um if that's something that as a group we think is important to look for as we evaluate the applications we would want to tell ourselves like Excel spreadsheet experience yes no so I would just open it up to um thoughts
for what our criteria would be for uh um look fors I guess in each of these areas so I guess I mean what where I'm what I'm feeling is that we have these five criteria here and I think these are great cuz I think they're um they map to the questions that we asked on the application yeah so and then I don't know like I guess it feels like it's kind of up to us each individually as we're like maybe this is what we talk about when we get together and discuss like the the like I guess I'm just I'm
not I I'm a little bit confused by the getting more specific than these five criteria well so for example the second one is connect connection to director District Community if we value a strong connection to their individual Community would we want a criteria to be demonstrated strong connection to community or yeah I mean I guess to me that's implicit in the criteria but how do we want to Define what that means that's well right and I think I to me that feels like a discussion it's sort of lik
e I felt that this this person demonstrated that because of this yeah right but we're not talking about individual people right now can I superintendent Jones yeah may I um so when we talk about lived professional experiences for example on this board currently we have public health labor teaching legal storytelling in terms of competencies so I a way to to get at this might be how might someone leverage their diversity of experiences into this into this board and so be seeking what what what's
your superpower that you're bringing what's your what's your learned experience that you can bring forward to complement what we already have as a board so I think that's when we when we talk about lived in professional experience and not just do you have them but how would you leverage them and utilize them okay nice for this uh so I I understand why we're interrogating this like it's not exactly clear um for example with the I can't really read that but I think it my classes are right there I
should put them on but I'm not connection something something what does the second one say con to director District right so the way I would see how so we would we would look at the application we look at the answer because these are are very similar if not directly quote quoted from the application we would say um let's say the connection is um has lived in the community for 37 years and has been active in whatever ways they list like to me that's an objective uh extrapolation of their connecti
on and so we're looking at the application and if they if if the question is describe your connection then we're looking at what what was the answer how did they say they were connected I don't think we need to list criteria of what that means I think we need that's exactly I'm saying I'm totally agreeing with you so I'm just saying different yeah I'm saying like we're yeah I don't know what more criteria we're going to come together as a board right now and be like the person must have lived in
the district for a minimum of five years or so you know what I mean like obviously we're not going to say that but but my point is just that I think th this is the criteria that we this is the lens that we're supposed to use to as we're reading the individual application well so here's what I'm looking for some shared criteria is for example demonstrates racial Equity analysis would that be would we each do we want to Define what that means for us as a group we might have different ideas indivi
dually about what we think demonstrating racial Equity analysis means so do we want to say yep you know candidate yeah or so if we think about it in terms of our some of our other evaluation tools we would have either does not demonstrate racial Equity analysis we would have approaching demonstrating racial Equity analysis right meeting demonstrating racial Equity analysis and mastering yeah demonstrating racial Equity analysis so we don't have to do four steps for each thing but kind of I think
it would be helpful for us to come up with some shared definitions of like what um appro what what meeting or mastering might look like to us for each of these does that help yeah and I guess maybe what I'm feeling yeah I I guess I I think maybe I was stumbling a on the lived and professional experiences because I just feel like that could take so many different forms so well that's what we should it's like is it important to us as a group that we you know lean more in favor of candidates who r
epresent different lived and professional experiences than already exist on the board maybe it's not if it is we should say that a criteria is that well profession experience is not already represent I mean I wonder if we should rank these criteria in order of importance because that like maybe that's a tiebreaker thing or something you know um like it's not the most important thing but if like all other things being equal this person has a brings a unique skill set that's not already represente
d on the board like that might be the Tipping Point you know so I don't know that we I'm not sure that all of these things are equally important to us like they're all important but I'm not sure that they're all equally important which is so like again cuz we're not going to we're not going to sit here in public and like we're not filling out a scoring sheet we're not giving everybody a number right and bringing that so you could yourself be like oh man these five candidates I think are the ones
I want to nominate I really value that this person brings a different experience that's helping me make my decision about my top four that I'm going to bring next week so we don't really have to rank them I think we're looking for just like a shared definition of what meeting the standard would what meeting the expectation or would would look like okay is that is that am I yeah I yeah I we we don't need to get too far in then so what does that look like so then what what would meeting in expect
ation and lived in professional experience look like that well so the question would be does it is it important to us that we consider or that we sort of give weight to lived and professional experiences that are different than those already represented or does it not um I mean that's what I mean I'm like it would be great I think it would be great you know but I'm not like that's what I mean like that that's not yeah yeah I I don't know I don't sorry I'm I don't need I not trying to like hog co
nversation can I interject yes please please yeah so really what we need to be doing is starting from our strategic plan and from the goals that we've set out for ourselves in really taking a look at those things because we need to be leading with a student need first and um like professional experience on the board yeah that's all find and good but what I want to understand is like what is the understanding of the goals that we have set for our students what is the understanding of their strate
gic plan I don't know if necessarily like these are the most um like telling questions that result in that but and we also just might need more time right like I don't see a whole lot representation of like what students would want to know about in terms of like um the potential Replacements here but I I really do just want to like bring students into the process here in terms of making sure that we are doing things that are directly related to them and the goals that we have set for ourselves u
m and then maybe that means that we need to take a moment and like think about what those questions and criteria can be and then come back together uh is there a time issue that we need to have this particular piece done here tonight I and can I just say one more thing so I I I think what I'm what I'm trying to say is is actually very adjacent to what director hery just said which is just that like I'm what what I will be thinking about is our goals and our and our mandate which is focusing on s
tudent outcomes so I'm thinking about which of these criteria are most related to that and to me it's the understanding of board role and demonstrating racial Equity those are the two that that are the priority for me um because they feel like the things that are the are the the strongest levers we have to advance student outcomes so so then when we talk about lived in professional experience that's I'm like well it' be nice but it really depends on where where the candidates land around those t
wo things that's what I'm trying to say director Tom I I think I I understand what you're saying there because it's not like is there someone who has different experience or different lived experience than us but will their experience enhance our ability to reach our goals to to meet student outcomes I think that is is more and and maybe it's not just defining board criteria but just expanding the area for review a little bit with with that context like we are looking for a connection to the dir
ector District Community from someone who who brings that experience that is going to help us then reach our goals for student outcomes um I I think that's sort of the the underpinning of each of these is that we want these buckets to the the most qualified person is going to help us re uh reach our goals and bring the skill sets and the lived experience in order to reach our goals yeah I could not agree with that more and what I would just say is like how can we um retool these questions to mee
t that right so lived in professional experiences can maybe one of the questions is or like the criteria are we are we looking at at utilizing these as questions per se or just scoring metrics for us no this is a way for us to evaluate the questions we have already asked and so what I'm looking for is a shared understanding of like so we have so understanding of board roll what would be what would be the criteria that we agree on shows us that there is an understanding of the board role absolute
ly and so the criteria then is like what we go back to see like what is the board role right like do have they shown us an understanding of like student outcomes Focus governance have they shown us an understanding of how are we moving through um some of the policy decisions that we are moving uh in the next few weeks here so that's how I would just like make sure that I would want to characterize these to make sure that they are explicitly linked to what we've been working on for the past coupl
e years yes so that is exactly what I think we're saying the same thing that's exactly what we want which is just and again we're not scoring these on our own but what I'm what I'm trying to avoid and I know what um Michelle went to earlier is I don't want us coming next week and we don't have time really to go back and think about and come back together because we have to pick the finalist next week um what I don't want to have happen is to have us go I don't know I just like these four people
that just you know what I mean like I'm trying to give um like for myself I want kind of a shared understanding of what we're looking for and also for just to put some objectivity it's not going to be objective obviously but to put some kind of um objectivity into it to both help our help ourselves as we're determining our own candidates that we want to nominate but also um give some give a foundation of you know actual evaluation on our part as opposed to just I just likeed these people yeah LO
L go ahead I'm wondering what criteria was used in previous years like how did you guys come up with that before there's some possibility that I'm forgetting some aspect of the process but I do not believe that this was a process element um in the last appointment Cycles I can attempt a prompt that might generate what you're hoping to populate here if that's helpful okay so I want you to to imagine the words board criteria are not in the second column and that it instead says notes and that you'
ve had this conversation today and you generally agree that the things in the left column are key Focus areas so you're taking this document and you're looking at your applicants and you're kind of taking notes for yourself about what they've said in these areas and you're thinking about the things that are resonating with you now if you were to come back together and discuss those things in those are that were resonating with you and that were individual priorities for you what might some of th
ose things be shared across director so we're kind of doing this like in the opposite direction but if you have things that you think might be sort of shared um aspects of people's applications that you are like your your priority in that this area um in that area you could talk about them today and that way your colleagues will also have the benefit benefit of your ideas about what you're individually really looking for so that they can scrutinize applications based on um sort of that lens so I
heard uh you know lived in professional experiences we heard from director top that um the thing she's going to be really looking at in applications is will their experience um sort of catalyze the ability of the board to reach goal and for the district to reach goals right so that's one thing that you'll be looking for and that if you were to take notes it would probably be you be showing evidence of that aspect of it so um I my chicken and egg thing might be horribly unhelpful here but that's
how I kind of think about that column what's that I'll ask my question oh okay so for like understanding of board roll like my criteria would be that in their applications they actually describe and demonstrate an understanding of governance as opposed to management me too that would be a way that I would look at an application and say okay this person already totally understands what this role is yeah as opposed to this person has no idea what the Schoolboard does yeah do you want me to catch
threads like this visually I use this an example great thank and so that's what I'm looking like we're because we're not scoring it's just like so we all say yeah understanding the bord r is important demonstrating racial Equity um competency or analysis is important but what are some things that that would actually look like that would help us know if that's present or not in an application are you asking question for any of them for any of them and president Ranken can I cut in there were some
other things mentioned but I'll let you reention them before I add them there so I make sure I capture it in your wording I have taken a note in the First Column um I said diverse experience that will actually help enhance the board's ability to reach our goals and help students because that was mentioned in the conversation and this obviously may be like common sense and just a baseline standard but for collaborative skill set I had wrote ability to communicate clearly and rationally because i
t's unhelpful when people are quick to get defensive and like kind of speak in a hostile manner people need to be able to communicate with people that disagree with them without getting upset director Vander you've been promoted this is her meeting now um but yeah so I don't know I apologize if I was getting too like Ki Oh no no no no I know I'm apologizing to the rest of the group for like this is kind of what we're looking for just a few just like a shared understanding of how we would Define
what we're looking for in these areas because again it is it so I can yeah I was hoping not to black girl that speaks to racial Equity but since nobody else is jumping up I will I mean I am the black girl so I'm not hoping not to be but I was hoping not to have to speak to this in case you didn't know I'm a black girl um so for that one for me um what I'm what I'm looking for is um a demon rated articulation of targeted universalism if they don't understand that then they don't understand what w
e're doing and so that is critically important um and it doesn't have to be fancy words and you know there just needs to be a demonstrated understanding of what targeted universalism is and and why that's important specifically to student outcomes I would add to that one too um like that their application materials or interview demonstrates an understanding of the importance of the focus of our strategic plan which is specifically and purposefully on black boys and young men not because they're
the only ones but because that I mean that yeah understanding of demonstrates an understanding of why that is what is leading our work yeah I was going to say that one too I'm glad thank you [Music] Michelle Gina do you have I can turnic really struggling with that tonight I mean isn't the connection to the director thank you connection to the director District Community like a demonstrated like like isn't it just a strong connection what exactly are we looking for here what I mean so so again w
e could also say connection we could also say we don't care they're registered voter in the district they're eligible for the seat that doesn't matter that was just I was I looked at the questions we asked yeah no I think that and important I can't figure out like what what does strong connection mean demonstrates a strong personal connection and experience working with community members from District 2 or Seattle Public Schools or like cuz here a question to is like would we would we want to de
scribe a strong connection specifically to any school Community or just generally demonstrated um work in and with Community where they live that's for us that's We could decide that the I see the problem here is when we insert the word strong that is not objective because what's strong like dis tell me how strong is objective what would be an example of an objective strong I mean I'm not asking for the answer but I think is that a yes no question for me it's um yes they've for me the answer I w
ould be okay they've lived in the district um and they have participated in something right like not just living in an apartment and having no engagement right like that's and I don't I mean I don't know that we've seen that in the applications I mean I haven't gone through every single one yet but what do we I think if we're going to put the word strong on there then we have to Define that because otherwise we what may be strong to me is not strong to Gina what what if we just say demonstrated
like we did with understanding the board rle like demonstrated connection and that could look like involvement in school involvement in other community organizations but that there's some evidence that this person is actively engaged so I think I think everyone should start with demonstrates each one starts with demonstrates and each one finishes in a manner that advances student outcomes and whether they're strong or weak is your determinations as as you see yeah that's right you see that's rig
ht their demonstration y so they demonstrate an understanding of the a board role in a manner that advances student outcomes yeah demonstrated uh racial Equity analysis in a manner that advances student outcomes now whether that's strong or weak is your determination as you look at the as as the candidates Express them themselves so the the last time I thank you for that Dr Jones um the last time I participated in a process like this was actually for a task force selection as a board director an
d but it was more of a group meeting with scoring um but this is essentially it was like yeah do they demonstrate or have have evidence of this thing um and then we we did score and then there were some that were like they didn't like like connection to director District Community um I can't remember but if there are any applications that you know just say I live I live in this district and that's where it ends that's kind of like hm that doesn't really demonstrate experience and connection that
would um yeah yeah ell um can I go back a moment and capture what you had Dr Jones for the beginning and end of the sort of prompts we wanted to include here I didn't get your exact wording and I wanted to capture that don't don't uh you can I don't have uh pride of ownership of these words so we can change them uh demonstrates uh their lived their connection their understanding their uh racial Equity analysis and then the last part is in a manner that advances student outcomes or in a fashion
or in a with the strategy that or what about the supports our goals for student outcomes or the supports making progress on our okay we we know what we mean we know what we mean but yeah and then president Rank and you talked about the approaching all the way to Mastery and that's how I'm interpreting what director saru said around uh strong or weak so would you all feel comfortable with putting some criteria around how well the demonstration is m from it was nice I think that's fine but I'm goi
ng to look at legal council here this will be publicly disclosable right yeah so like I don't I like having this IDE this these criteria and ready for discussion but I don't think I'm I'm not going to be filling in the the squares with that that information because I think I think that that yeah yes yeah and that's the intent really and why like with like with the task force we all sat with the sheet in front of us in 1 two 3 4 and then had a result and this is you know not the same process so t
his is really more of just like a shared General evaluation tool for us to use so that so that I'm not going well I'm oh let me take a look at these candidates I really want someone who you know does these four things and then Gina's saying oh I'm going to rank my candidates now based on you know these totally other things that's we're basically just trying to get to you know we're going to all have different opinions and different ways of preferences I think we're totally on board with that we'
re we're on the same page yeah so we we we could get more specific but I don't know if we need to if if this is um if this feels like we're headed in a similar enough Direction and if this gives each of us enough um of a framework enough yeah enough of a framework to go and make our own recommendations that we're going to bring back to the board yeah and if this does that and we don't have anything else we want to add to it we're done and I I would say too we can also um so so this is just for u
s to use to bring our top recommendations to the full board next week for narrowing down for um uh the area where we have a lot of candidates um and then uh we could continue to build on it if we wanted to use it after the Forum we might after the Forum have you know no need for for anymore we might want to add other things to it for ourselves um because when we I guess we haven't talked about that have we the process for actual selection we haven't gotten there yet you have not I can preview wi
th the board s in the past if that's helpful but we can also hold you in suspense if that's more exciting you can give a little preview if you want but I'm I'm I guess I'm saying if if we feel like this is helpful instead of grounding our own personal directions but it's it's so funny because we are individual people with individual perspectives and yet our responsibility is to be like we we really don't have any um we're not individual agents so um looking for basically the um yeah common yeah
making sure we're going towards common goals even though we may have different um different uh different things personally that you know I don't expect us all to have the same for people for example um I would imagine that these mean different things to which is great which is what we want I think um but your criteria points us all in the direction we're always supposed to be focusing on and and that's sort of achieving our goals and how we're going to do that and how we make sure that the folks
that do join us help us in in reaching those goals yes thank you exactly yeah now you all see what I was like as a set designer everything at the wall and then I start pulling things down and narrow down anyway um uh did you want to add about the final can I um before I'm going to hold you a little bit in suspense can I just confirm um what you want me to do with what's on the screen right now and if your answer is provide it to us then can I check the wording here to make sure that it's not go
ing to yeah okay so first one area for review lived in professional experience uh I took off the s that made more sense to me but um demonstrates diverse experience that will help the board's ability to reach goals and support students this one already had sort of an overlap with the advanced student outcomes so do we want to refine the end of it to just um kind of just say demonstrates diverse experience in a manner that or in a manner that will help the board's ability to advance student outco
mes or this one was a little harder because it was already geared in that direction it's harder to fit into the form we can come back to it too if that's helpful I think that's good I think to just say um that will help the board's ability to advance student outcomes right okay so the next one then is connection to director District Community uh demonstrates connection to the director District community in a manner that advances student outcomes evidence of active engagement and then it says may
include involvement in schools Community organizations Etc so you can let me know if you want the evidence there as a prompt or if you want to go um can I just a tiny like technical thing so uh their Community involvement may not already Advanced student outcomes but we're looking for experience and connections that will support the board and therefore the district in improving outcomes for students conat Connection in in a in a way I don't I guess I don't I just just that the current connectio
n might not demonstrate that they are currently advancing student outcomes with their involvement but that do you does that make sense change the word connection I know I don't know what to say I don't know what you say yeah so like people are doing lots of different things with their lives right now that um are positive and connected to their community and not necessarily focused on advaning translate to that yeah helping advance student outcomes or that will support our work something I think
yeah it doesn't have to be perfect publishing this I mean oh I remember also in the conversation earlier we were talking about potentially that they would have to live in the district is that already a requirement or is that just a suggestion that is a legal requirement at the state level and has been confirmed for all candidates with King County elections not on that part but um there were enough verbs that my my brain fizzled on this one so um demonstrates connection to the director District c
ommunity that if appointed they could leverage to advance student outcomes is that sort of the point you're getting at I trying to figure out the meaning here you don't have to use my verbs but to pick the point we're trying to get out but what was awkward was like oh um I'm just gonna you're sitting across from me so candidate Lola um is highly involved with her um uh you know the retirement community in her neighborhood that doesn't necessarily look like supporting student outcomes right right
now yeah but that connection shows an authentic connection to the community and working with community that a commitment to doing that will yeah when brought to the board will help us improve student but it's more it's more about the mindset and not about the the actual like oh we hope that no I know it just the wording was weird it was just like demonstrate it it said like does this person demonstrate right now that they have connections that improve student outcomes right now right no exactly
I know that was weird because I I don't think that's what we're going for I think we're we're talking about the mindset and the orientation towards and even just like authentic demon ation of engag doing work with the with the community that they yeah yeah uh um can I defer to a director for the wording on this one all right demonstrates I'm gonna phone a friend thank you demonstrates the potential no it demonstrates the connection to the director District community community in a manner that h
as the potential to potential can we just take out I mean we we know that we're all connected to student outcomes but what we're looking for in this one is like an authentic connection to their Community can we just take that out I think we're trying so hard to make that work and it's not working yeah yeah um so demonstrates connection to director District Community the part that's unsaid is building from that connection they will be better empowered to do their work as a director to support stu
dent outcomes but we didn't say the long part okay there you go um next is understanding of board role demonstrates understanding of governance as opposed to management in a manner that advances student outcomes you could also add something about how um they demonstrate a clear understanding of what their role on the board would be and what the board currently does for the community would that be some of the evidence um that we'd be looking for this one since um understanding of the role would b
e sort of a yeah or is this or is this another criteria or another do I have the right yes I think you hope they right okay um so understanding of the role of a board director and then you had another part that was crucial there too what but um still slipped my brain okay and I'm I'm going to say that one into the mic understands what oops my gosh a board I think there's a lot of things that the people think the board has power to do but they actually don't and so I think to show an understandin
g that they know what the board actually has the power to change and control you know yeah thank you president v um the power and can I add to capture the other side of it the power and responsibility sure okay with great power comes great responsibility I'm so sorry I had to that just I'll see okay uh to control um next one is demonstrates racial Equity analysis demonstrates articulate sorry I not articulate demonstrates articulation of targeted universalism and why that is important to student
outcomes in a manner that advances student outcomes a period after first okay thank you um evidence application materials demonstrate understanding of the focus of a strategic plan there is a specific question about board policy 00 30 I don't know if but I mean that's in align with the Strategic plan I don't know if you want to um give yourself a prompt that uh that you're also looking at that question too if so you have to give me the words for it I think I think that's good okay yeah collabor
ative skill set demonstrates ability to communicate clearly and rationally in a manner that demon perfect I think we're good this was just to make sure you were paying intention St in a manner um in a manner that Advan the student outcomes is that the do we need that supports the advancement of student outcomes supports or that will support the advancement of student outcomes well supports the the functioning of the board to Advanced student outcomes supports the functioning of the board to adva
nce that will okay support the um I think that's good yeah oh yeah support well whatever can we go back to the one about role Ro what is RO can support and hold accountable a wild and crazy superintendent needs to needs to be in there somewhere knows how to support and hold a superintendent accountable they they need to be able to yeah that's true that is job that that is is understands and commits to supporting the success of the school district that's really what our job is yeah yeah um can I
heit that one more time um un understands and commits to supporting the success of the school district I don't know have to say understands that doesn't make any sense okay commits to supporting the success of Seattle Public Schools yeah or demonstrates a demonstrates a commitment to supporting the success of Seattle Public Schools well that would be connected to supporting the success of the superintendent you're um doing a good job of pulling some of the points out of the board policy and stat
e statute on the role of the board right now too so you're um you're identifying evidence here that is uh would be evidence of you know understanding the role of the board so um the one last thing with the collaborative skill set that I want to add that is also connected to understanding the board role is like demonstrates either ability or willingness to I don't know how to describe that like we're not like legislators we're not like City Council Members we don't individually go out and do what
ever we feel like we actually shared decision making is that what you're trying to get at um again it doesn't like it doesn't mean we can't disagree but like there there is a different kind of understanding that like you're part of a body that and work demonstrates the ability to um or demonstrates the understanding of the difference between board governance versus representative governance bless thank you yep um understands sorry it jumped off my end off the screen right when you said that so u
nderstands uh difference between board governance board governance and representative governance yeah or electoral District governance whatever the right word is we can we can fix it on the back end and or as part of collaborative skill set demonstrates willingness to participate as a member of a board governance as opposed to I don't think we can tell that by the applications okay yeah um didn't really ask that question no I'm trying I was trying to remember what we asked about being collaborat
ive just that collaborative well anyway maybe that okay can I one place where you might see evidence of that would be like the educational issue they bring up and whether you know as a board director I will independently champion this one thing and make it happen because I will be a board director and I will have been able to do that but they will be able to do that I'm running for class president because I'm going to bring the vending machines back to the cafeteria yes like that's we can't do t
hat something that might be interesting to add for the last one is um that they're good with adaptability because sometimes we can have lots of like really quick changes that need to be addressed and sometimes there will be lots of people that come and protest and you need to be willing to like solve that right now so flexibility yeah and like especially with like I don't know you can never really predict what's going to happen like with what happened with covid that kind of completely changed e
verything for a long time and if somebody's not good with adaptability that probably wouldn't be great to have them in this type of role because it impacts so many people that's great yeah um for this one demonstrates ability to and well this is redundant to the uh category but I added the word collaborate so demonstrates ability to adapt collaborate and communicate clearly and rationally in a manner that will support the functioning of the board to advance student outcomes some of the evidence
partial evidence would be their understanding of the difference between board governance and representative governance you might see that just coming out in various places in the um application there might be a sort of a misalignment that also goes to the understanding of the board role area yeah we have that we have you have that somewhere else differ between governance and management yeah so I like having it oh yeah ad okay yeah all right how do we feel about this I think we're good I think it
's great anybody have anything else any other burning thought or question about either this or just the process because the basically between now and next week we will be take Ellie will send send these to us oh sorry go ahead do you want to oh no go I I just need to CH in at the end because I failed to do one thing okay perfect um uh Ellie will send us these and we will each individually be responsible for on our own um using this shared criteria to evaluate the candidates and be prepared to br
ing our um recommend our individual recommendations to the board next week so quick question um because in District 4 we only have four candidates are we're not worried about that for this particular we're not looking we're only looking at District two candidates right now is that could I ask the board to consider um not defaulting into candidates that we may not that may not meet the criteria to be board members so in other words not just for for the sake of four but if they're four that are me
eting the criteria then go forward but not I see just default into only have four in one of the districts so you're saying we should be looking at all of that's what I'm asking a consider yes um we had this conversation about kind of the pros and cons we could say we're just looking to we're not looking at like qualifications we're just we're looking to narrow down District Two to be the same number as District Four or depending on what the board prefers we could say we're going to use this crit
eria to evaluate all candidates right and potentially well I think we are this criteria to evaluate all candidates right it's just a question of is that what we're doing right now next week okay okay can you say that into the I think we should look at all the candidates we we're pretty confident we're going to advance the four in whatever number District that is that only has four it's four but conveniently is it four oh four that's like a rubric or a pneumonic device four and four um and and th
en we're going I I think we need to look we need to act as if there aren't four maybe that's a different way we need to act as if there's a whole bunch in both and we're look we're we're we're we're evaluating them all mhm yeah that's the quable way to do it so that changes the conversation next week to determining finalists for both seats right but but I guess well so but I I thought we were defaulting to we're not choosing finalists for district four because there are only four of them so is t
hat different are we doing something different now no we have what I would say for this is that like when we get to that conversation I'm so sorry Liza I'm just trying to make sure that we are moving quickly through this what I would say is like unless you have a very strong opposition to someone proceeding then we should operate as though we are moving forward with those four right and then we can all then the director if they have a strong opposition will need to um raise their hand and say he
y I think we need to put this to a vote but I think that accomplishes both the aspect of what superintendent Jones is asking us and just for the Baseline in terms of if we were not to do it that way we would have evaluated District two candidates with a measure that we did not use for district four at the beginning so I think that's how we should do it unless you have a strong opposition we should operate as if we are going forward but if you do say something so am I of I want to make sure I hav
e the right understanding we will for ourselves individually use this criteria on all candidates but our end aim for next week is to have four and four that's what unless unless someone has really strong feelings about somebody in right yeah okay in which case we're not going to to to Dr Jones's point we're not going to advance just for the sake of advancing if we if we have like serious res ations we'll do that in in public right or right yeah we will or we we have to put it to a vote we have t
o put it to a vote yeah right ell um right Ellie can I can I ask a process question for how you expect this to look next week so you have a um we you take this it's sort of your guide to reviewing your applications you come to the meeting you have you begin an executive session when you're individually talking about candidates um and then you get into the uh the business portion of your agenda does that have two action items one is ENT uh selection of the finalist for district 2 and selection of
the finalist for District 4 and for District 4 um you will definitely take a vote and then you would just sort of pass everybody on I mean they would potentially move on or you would somebody would would suggest that you move only three on and then you would take a vote on moving three or is there a way that we could just put District Four on consent and if someone needs to pull it they can um so this will be a special meeting so we won't have a consent agenda it's just going to have sort of in
dividual action items um okay I think my my question is just whether you want want to go into next I didn't frame it right but do you want to go into next week's meeting with a an assumption that you will be taking an action on District 4 um or do you want to have a conversation next week and if you get to a place where you feel like oh we we should change the number of candidates in this or we should narrow the number of candidates in District this district and then you would actually be voting
on that District after the other District at a subsequent meeting which would um uh lead to the candidates kind of being in different plac so so I think I I took us off the path I'm just suggesting use the criteria for both dist both districts four and two if if you become if you have four at the end of your evaluation of four then same place but if you have uh if you evaluate it down to three two or one you're just using the same criteria for both I'm just saying use use the same rubric across
the board yeah I think I think oh sorry go ahead go ahead well I think I think that we're just we're stumbling because there's like we're saying we're going to we're whittling down one group but not the other and so it's just creating a lopsided process and and I think operating from the perspective of that we're not nobody in uh District 4 is is going to be scrutinized or evaluated is the better word um that we're just going with that I think is that's what's causing the problem here and I thi
nk to I know but I'm but but we've also but we're the the premise of this whole conversation is that we're not we're not um changing we're not we're not narrowing down the pool of District 4 like that that's the that's we went into this conversation saying we're not not narrowing that pool down we're only narrowing down the pool of District 2 and so I think that's why what we're struggling with right now is that so here's I think I may have unless we want to potentially end up with two candidate
s or three candidates in District Four and I'm just saying potentially have no you know no idea but we could say that for ourselves we are using this evaluative guidance to determine our top four in both and we only have to approve so basically what Ellie needs to know and what I need to understand too is if we are planning to eliminate any candidates from District 4 as well as from District Two at next week does it make sense does it make sense to just make this cleaner to say we we need three
candidates from each and so that that way we're we're going final a matter of wanting to use this tool on both in which case you can and then you have your own evaluation for district four candidates going forward even though we are not yeah sure yeah that too yes that yeah that part thank you because I I I'm like I don't it doesn't make sense to me to eliminate like one person yeah yeah okay no let's agree with that okay got so we will be using we will be using this ourselves for all candidates
but the part that will be that will come forward next week is by manner of us providing our top four uh or coming to our top four in District Two yes okay so we are we are only voting on advancing candidates or um narrowing candidates for District Two um so next week um your meeting will convene um potentially with an executive session you're evaluating your candidates that's an opportunity to talk about the specific qualifications of your candidates um from both districts because you will have
review the applications including the video statements posted today um prior to next week's meeting and then you will come into the public session the only action item on next week's agenda would be um a selection of finalists for district 2 um um and um yeah that's is that correct no one stopped me as I was talking then I realize I never circled back to the earlier question about the voting process way in the future uh in April or by the May legal deadline for how you would appoint to each sea
t so do you want me to answer that part now uh if anybody feels like they want to hear that right now sure if not we're we're we it's quick okay go ahead okay um so the pass process the board has uh done is um uh president calls for motions I make a motion I uh nominate director or candidate X and then we take a roll call vote on that if candidate X gets four votes they do need four votes um for this uh vote it's not three votes it's four votes so if they get four votes then you are done you hav
e uh appointed candidate X and if candidate X does not get four votes then somebody else can make a motion for candidate y uh you there may be other processes you could use but that's what was used in the past and that sounds like the same process that we used for president vice president member at large thank you it's um it it it's the same yes okay okay um I'm not going to make us go back up there to adour the me meting so um we I mean we can if you want uh so thank you for that we will get th
at document shared To Us by Ellie to be able to do our own evaluation and we'll come back next week um uh director hery uh did the time use evaluation for January and February and um it included in the meeting minutes uh that is partly for our own just tracking but director hery if there's anything that you noticed or wanted to point out about either of those uh no okay so we have those on record thank you for doing that um and there being no further business to come before the board the regular
board meeting is now adjourned at 7:48 p.m. thank you everybody thank you all it have a good night
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