The Board's Special Meeting and Retreat
Several weeks back, the Seattle School Board had a meeting which encompassed two items - a policy update and the Board's retreat. The entire thing was to be televised on the district's YouTube channel.
The policy issue was for the Board to vote on the revisions to the formerly named Student Rights and Responsibilities (now Basic Rules of Seattle Public Schools ). The Board had put a vote on this policy on hold several weeks before this meeting. They needed to get a vote in. The Board and Legal cut it down from 60 pages to 48, calling it "scrubbed" of wording that they didn't think had to be put in.
However, the recording - audio and video - of the policy discussion/vote didn't work. Somehow, SPS AV staff managed to get the audio and video started up just in time for the entire retreat. So the entire policy discussion and vote was missed but the entire retreat was recorded.
Board office staff said said that they would have a link to the discussion about the policy. I was sent a 181-page transcript of both the discussion and the retreat.
From the retreat, I would guess that there were nearly 20 people in the room (among directors and staff).
The transcript records every single person as "Board Agenda." There are a few places where people are called on so I can figure out for those statements who said what. Plus, one Board staffer is named.
Now from years of listening to these people I could likely figure out who is speaking. But if I want to be accurate in my reporting, that might be a dumb thing to do. Meaning, just do a write-up and say that I know who said what. Anyone could just say, "I never said that" and they might be right.
Do I believe that there is an internal transcript? I do. And because I didn't get a clear version, I now have made a public disclosure request for it. If they tell me that what I have is the ONLY version, I say now someone is lying. No way that there would not be a clear version if any staff needed to look up that discussion.
Another issue is gaps in the transcript. At one point someone references "one of the most poignant comments I heard from" and then the transcript records someone saying, "Ted." Was someone named in this "poignant comment" who shouldn't have been? That could have been redacted but instead, it's skipped. There was nothing in the email to me about this issue.
Overall, this is not transparency. It's box-checking ("yes, we have a transcript").
Honestly, I think things are much less transparent now than they were 4 years ago.Reading the discussion for content, it appears they voted on the policy but that it is really a work in progress with community engagement to come, aligning it with discipline policy, etc.
The discussion also reflects wanting to align with SOFG and going through every policy to see if they even need that many policies. Someone said, "I don't wanna get into that rabbit hole in the Policy Committee where we're really trying to do the overall work."
There was also mention of actual "assemblies or training" for middle and high school students to understand what the rules are in this policy. "We can't just expect them to know."
Also, oddly, while the transcript says it was passed unanimously, everyone's vote is not in the transcript. Their names are but not what their votes were.
This portion of the meeting ends after the vote is taken and the directors leave to eat dinner in their office. There is an odd number of statements on the transcript after they leave from Board staff, Ellie Wilson-Jones.
"Works now" "Testing before you okay this. Whatever." "Why it's during the school years." "That would why did we get caught?" "24 meters school year. You better." "You better heavy experience instead of having that." "It's pretty big, man." "I don't think people drink at yeah." "So no, we have to staff it." "Yeah, I think they can have cupcakes."
Clearly, she was interacting with someone else but I am surprised this is in the transcript. The transcript seems like it was AI translated because there are many such oddities that I don't think a human would make.
Later on in the retreat, someone calls Ms. Wilson-Jones, the "8th director." The Board seems very excited about work she has done for them - it's their work plan for the next school year.
There is also a worried tone about wanting to get "missing things" done before the Board make-up changes in December. It sounds like the Memorial Stadium contract is one item. Someone also says,
"The anti-racist policy is that something that we should be talking about in the work session or should we put that on the next board to start quote unquote fresh?"
Someone else replies, "And I appreciate that comes with a whole lot of baggage, but it does need to be brought up, put out here so that we make an affirmative decision.
Baggage? You mean like two board directors being found to have harassed, bullied and intimidated senior staff over the creation of this policy?
Another notable comment,
"I'm asking for a work session on a review of our science curriculum that that is well overdue and that at least I'm getting a scars and bruises from."
I'm confused because they did review the science curriculum several years back.
There's also a discussion around how much work they can get done before December and there's this interesting interchange:
Board Agenda
So it's not the best example, but I think sexual harassment and assault is is one of those that is not in the core policies.
3:31:34.290 --> 3:31:37.930
Board Agenda
Umm, so you're that's the responsibility of the administration?
3:31:37.940 --> 3:31:56.900
Board Agenda
Yeah, to make sure that that gets updated and is compliance because mostly legal requirements, there are some when we were not talking about anything that pretty clear and obvious vision and values Trump administration aside like, right, so it's it's not our.
3:31:59.260 --> 3:32:2.880
Board Agenda
We shouldn't be needing going out and doing large scale community engagement on it.
3:32:2.890 --> 3:32:6.600
Board Agenda
Unclear to me if they are talking about students or staff for this policy. I would hope it's staff.
Lastly, not one word about school closures.
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