Seattle School Board Meeting, November 15,2023 - Part 1

I misread the length of the Board meeting. Silly me, it wasn't 3 hours, it was 6 hours. This will wrap up the first two hours.

It was the last meeting for Director Leslie Harris and Director Chandra Hampson so there were thank-yous and farewells plus director and Superintendent comments.

The comment I was most taken with was from one of the new student board members, Aayush Muthuswamy. He said he had had limited contact with Hampson and Harris but that they had been wonderful to him. On the fiscal stabilization plan, he said he knows it has been months of work by staff but he wanted to remind the Board and the district that they should seek "direct student feedback." He said for difficult decisions, staff and the Board should involve students.

Highlights (key thoughts in bold - I do this because I want people to remember who said what.) All the board members had something nice to say. This is hour 1.

Hersey had praise for both. He met Harris first and she tried to recruit him to teach in SPS. He said that, at times, they were ideologically apart but at no time did he question her commitment. He said both had served as Board president. He ended this way -  "We are on a path to greatness because that is what our students deserve."

Jones had kind words as well, saying they hired him as superintendent. 

Rankin turned her praise into a campaign speech. Why? I don't know. She said, "Our job is to be accountable to the public for whether or not the district is serving our students and whether or not students are learning. Our one job is to be able to answer the question how are our students doing and how do we know it."

Harris

People ask how I am and I don't have a good answer. On the one hand, I am thrilled, proud, filled with graditude but, on the other hand, I am gutted that we haven't been able to make the kind of progress that I looked forward to nine years ago when I ran for this job I wasn't looking for.

She went on to name specific staff jobs, both at schools and at the JSCEE. She continued, "Who are not recognized and cherished as much as they should be and Happy Educational Support Professional Day (which is today)." She happily acknowledged labor partners and their attendance at Board events. She said, "In my fantasy world you'd be sitting at the table with voice, not vote." She thanked the City and County. She thanked students especially for their input. She thanked past Board members she has served with including former Board directors Sue Peters, Betty Patu, Scott Pinkham, Rick Burke and others.

(One interesting mention - she including former board director Zachary DeWolf who apparently is now going by Pullin as his last name. Look for that should he try to run for office again.)

She said, "We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and wish courage, candidness and clarity to future board members and to quote Superintendent Jones, 'Clarity is kindness.'"

She thanked many senior SPS former employees for helping her with "this wild system we call SPS." She noted that her daughter, Monica, had a great education in SPS, especially at Pathfinder K-8.

For the future, she said "We need more transparency, more 'learning up' for our community and Legislature and OSPI and the City and County. We need more civility and pay for school board members to increase our representation and diversity and not limit our prospective elected members to those with means or are retired or just a little bit nuts. We need more arts and participatory athletics, club and unified sports, too. Those are curricula that keep students in schools and contribute to the 'whole child' and encourage lifelong learning. We need more SEL supports and more understanding of differing viewpoints."

 Harris revealed that she was now the VP for the Seattle Schools Scholarship Committee so she will still be around at JSCEE. She noted that this committee had given a half-million dollars in scholarships. 

"It sounds corny but this is emphatically not a 'thankless job' - it is not. It has in fact been an honor and a privilege. Hinder, Yonder, I'll be here with open arms and an open phone. Thank you.

Hampson

"So that means it's my turn which is sad because of the fact that we have work to get done and I just want to get the work done. That's what we are really supposed to be doing up here and I sat through a lot of these in prior years when folks were leaving the Board and had the same perspective on the other side of the table, "Why can't they just get to the work?" 

She said it was important to mark transitions particularly when those transitions are marked by tremendous upheaval and overall change. "The environment that we are operating in as a team is about as intense as it has ever been historically and I don't think it's going to get less so."

She said it was a transformative experience and that she loves change and transformation.  She said she had to "dig very deep to show up in the most productive way for children and how to push away the cameras and the naysayers, etc and whomever might want to, for whatever reason, not see us succeed." She claimed that they (the Board) have felt "acutely how many people would prefer that we don't succeed." She claimed people wanted to see the Board fight among themselves and with the Superintendent. 

To which I say, huh? Not sure if she is including people like me in that group but I have NEVER wanted the district or the Board to not succeed. And to challenge the process or the actions is not want to see failure. But that's Hampson - always the victim.

She said that Rivera Smith said that Hampson "means what she says and says what she means" and yet it's actually not true - "There's a lot I don't say so much; I am always holding back."

She said her request is, "As we leave, and we are two of the most vocal and loudest and the hardest asses, that you all dig into that bravery and stay brave on behalf of kids. Because my God, they need us. I think we have never been in a time where adults have been more confused about what we need to do to support children."

"My dream in the future of SPS that we get to a place where the one thing we know is impactful in that building that is telling them that is giving them that message every day that I believe in you."

She said she wanted to get back to "Indian country" but she still has three kids in SPS and is "not going anywhere."

Look, I want to praise the hard work of two departing directors as much as the next person. But the Board and the Superintendent are sometimes fairly tone-deaf to the rest of the people in the room.There were people there after their jobs ended, with kids at home and they had to sit there for an hour patiently waiting for their two minutes to speak. If the Superintendent and the directors wanted all this to be on public record, they could placed this at the end OR had a reception for all of it. 

Public Testimony - This is hour 2.

Surprisingly, the Speaker List was not full. Several speakers were SPS parents who are passionate about their small school (one being Dectaur Elementary).  Apparently promises were previously made to parents at that school that their children would be able to complete 5th grade there. There were some SCPTSA people pushing the fiscal policy that was on the agenda. Another parent differed in that opinion saying that there was no authentic engagement on the policy and they should hit the pause button and go out into the community to get feedback

One item of note - there was a parent who said she was part of the group called, All Together for Seattle Schools. She said the talk of closures and consolidation should be a two-way street and that more community voice needs to be solicited. 

Chris Jackins said he hoped that parents would go to court over school closures. There certainly were threats of that last time they closed and consolidated schools. He said he had 10 pages of suggestions to save money on the budget including asking the city for a new levy and using interest on capital funds to pay for classroom supplies.

One parent said that in his parent circle that many parents are fed up and ready to jump ship elsewhere. 

One speaker, who said she was a teacher and a parent, approves of closing schools and said that "kids are resilient and absorb their parents' attitudes towards situations." That can be true but asking kids to absorb a pandemic and then school closures is a big ask.

One parent made a very good point that at Roosevelt High, for example, there are not visual cues for deaf students if the school is going into lockdown. She said this was made clear by the recent mass shooting in Maine where several deaf people were killed. She also said that SOFG should have had more direct community engagement.

Head of SEA, Jennifer Matter, said that she supported Director Song's amendment and it "captured our feedback."