Seattle School Board Meeting, November 15,2023 - Part 2

This third hour of the Seattle School Board meeting was the vote on the Consent Agenda which is where the fiscal policy had been moved. Once again, the Board is placing items on the Consent Agenda which have no business being there and this certainly was one of them. Any director for any reason can pull an item off the Consent Agenda and move it to the floor for discussion. Since an amendment (by Director Vivian Song Maritz) was attached, the item was pulled off the Consent Agenda for discussion.

Director Chandra Hampson spoke first as this policy was developed by her and Director Liza Rankin. Hampson said it was an already amended version with some changes (which you can see from the redlined version) as well as grammar updates. Apparently, she and Rankin had wanted to put in something else but Legal deemed that "the change was too big to be considered this late in the game." 

This should have been the first red flag that this policy was not ready for primetime. But wait, it gets worse. 

She also added that she and Rankin "met with numerous Labor partners and PASS and walked thru recommendations, most of which we were not amenable to."  I'd guess that will not make the next contract negotiations much easier. One might even call that "an unintended consequence." Remember that phrase as it's going to come up again.

She said it wasn't an administrative policy but is "left to the Superintendent to interpret." Red flag number two. How can the Board give the Superintendent vague wording to work with as he pleases? How is that oversight?

She also said this policy was only to be used through June of 2024. That's not a lot of time to act on it so why the rush? Red flag number three.

Oddly, she also said this:

 "As we heard today, we are a long way from either the district or the board doing effective community engagement. It's a guardrail priority in the next round of goals and guardrails." She knows this and yet, is pushing this policy without it. Red flag number four.

Rankin said the Board is moving into "a policy governance model" because the Board has had the habit of treating governance and administrative policies at the same level and "this is a shift and I totally understands the confusion. It doesn't mean we say what can happen at buildings." So she's okay with parents and others being confused about a Board policy. Red flag number five.

Then Director Song Maritz spoke, saying that she was glad for the updates. She said she had looked through existing policy and that there is duplicative information in this policy that is found elsewhere. 

President Brandon Hersey asked if Song Maritz would vote yes if the amendment was approved. She said that she felt the policy had reporting that is already part of state law and wasn't sure if it brought clarity. That said, if they passed her amendment, she would vote yes.   

Rankin said the item they had wanted to put in at the last minute was around community engagement but said it probably should be another policy. She said that many issues for the Superintendent are givens. Well, if you assume everyone is on the same page with any given "givens" are, buyer beware. 

Rivera Smith also said much of what was in the policy is already in state law. She also said that Hampson said it was available in April but that she (Rivera Smith) had only seen it in September and that it was not worked on by the whole Board. She said she wanted the amendment.

Hampson said that "Yes, things could be refined," and that there had been" lots of opportunity to give input." Kinda feels like Hampson was trying to gaslight Rivera Smith by saying that the policy had been available but Rivera Smith just didn't get around to reading it. She continued, saying it is "impossible for Superintendent Jones to know how to propose a budget for buildings that don't have a massive - uh, uh, - ASB fund. We have some accounting but no data on how that is used."

One thing I am pretty sure of with that last statement? I'm sure the Accounting department knows how every single employee's salary is funded. Because if it's not district dollars, then they have to account for where they got the dollars. I don't doubt that the district probably doesn't know how every single PTA dollar is spent in schools but I believe they know who is funded for their job by PTA.

Hampson said that it was "a vote for fiscal transparency at all levels in the district" and that it is not "meant to have any implementation."

Harris - who always acknowledges others' work and effort, said she had "mad respect for efforts"  however, "I have significant concerns. This is the last legislative meeting of this board's term and why are we not passing this onto the new Board?" That was a great question. 

And then we come to a very uncomfortable part of the meeting.

From the camera angle you can see that Harris is looking at her colleagues and was looking directly at President Hersey (who is not on camera). 

She looks at Hersey and asks him to please not roll his eyes at her, "it's disrespectful."  He almost gasps and says "No, I, whoa" - and someone else said "that's not what's happening" and he said, "Yo, yo" in the casual vernacular use and then you can hear someone - I think Hersey - breathing heavily into the mic. I believe the "happening" remark came from either Rankin or Hampson.

It felt very odd but Harris continued on. We'll circle back to this incident towards the end of the hour.

"We have things in here that say fiscal impact indeterminate. It hasn't been run through the Race and Equity tool, it hasn't been rule through the community engagement tool. We heard testimony tonight about community engagement and I appreciate that two of our directors have met with our labor partners but this is work session material and we need a specific work session to 'learn up on this' and what the unintended consequences could be. I have real concerns as to whether or not our staff has the bandwidth to seek and put forth this information. And one of the things I wondered was - point of inquiry, was this routed through the departments like all the rest of our policies are and what was the feedback from staff?  I appreciate that the buck stops at Superintendent Jones' desk" but that Dr. Jones will necessarily be delegating a great deal of this work" and "that's important to me. "

"And I really appreciate the passion from which some of our folks testified and I don't think it's a question of either/or; I think it's a question of 'and.'

I feel strongly that this deserves work sessions and 'learning up ' and coming in at the very last meeting when you've got a new board to be seated is an overreach in my humble opinion. 

Director Hampson and Director Rankin are absolutely correct that we've been struggling with some of these issues for years and years, if not decades. Specifically PTSA funding, PTO funding, booster clubs, etc. But it hasn't been until really recently that we had a grant inventory given to the Board.

I think one of the things we all agree on is that the weighted staffing standard formula isn't meeting our needs. And we've been carping on that issue for several years as well.

 This is too big a reach for me; I think it needs to be split up in several ways. I think it belongs to the next board and I think it is kitchen sinking to use Director Rankin's verbage. I will be voting no."

Glad she mostly speaks in sentences unlike many others on the Board; it's probably her legal background. I wish other directors would take her cue. 

Hersey quickly asked if there were any other questions "before we vote on the amendment."

And then, for whatever reason, Hampson comes in. She said, "It troubles me that y'all had some rough exchange there after you know previous kind words - I don't know Director Harris if you want to address that at all."

Harris said that she had been speaking from her heart "about my duty and it didn't negate any kind words expressed earlier."

Unbelievably Hampson persisted. "No, I just meant your interaction with Director Hersey, that's all I was referencing. So I think the given sort of some things that are kind of being attributed to this, I think it's best that we just call for the vote. I can't figure out why we have cameras here tonight, it must be us; they are going to miss us so much they decided to bring cameras out."

I'm going to stop here to point out that Director Hampson always makes things about herself. Her farewell remarks were about her and her work, not thanking people who she has worked with. Harris thanked practically everyone at JSCEE as well as family and friends and colleagues.  

It appeared from her last statement on this incident that she thought - somehow - that Harris should apologize to Hersey. Nothing of the sort. Harris is not the type to repeatedly call people out and did not in her eight years on the Board. 

What Hersey - on Harris' last night on the Board - should have done was apologize. He could have said, "Director Harris, I don't believe I did that but if I made a face that made you unhappy, I'm sorry for that. Please continue." But he didn't. Hampson made Harris look bad on both their last night on the Board. 

And Hampson thought the tv cameras were there for HER last night? Rankin said the cameras were probably "because we are not going to close the schools that we never actually said we were going to close." But closing school IS completely on the table but Rankin is trying to make it sounded like someone misheard Jones. No, we have all heard what Jones is saying and never once has he retracted the idea of closing schools.

Hampson said Rankin might be right about the cameras. She then said that she believes this is "the next board's policy, teeing up our new era of focusing on small set of policies so that people who work full-time will have the capacity to govern and manage their superintendent towards outcomes for kids."

Again a contrast between Hampson and Harris. Hampson wants fewer Board responsibilities so that more people can run while Harris wants directors to get paid so that more people can run for the Board 

She then said that this policy is akin to a school assignment where you "show your work" and the policy should be looked at "every year" and "bring on the unintended consequences; bring them on and let's change this district for the better."

So this new governance is not just changing things but flipping the table, no matter who gets hurt from it? That's quite an admission from a director and stunning that any elected official would not care about unintended consequences.

Right before the vote, the Superintendent said yes, the staff does have the bandwidth to do this work. I'd love to know who will be doing it if they are cutting staff left and right. 

The vote for the amendment was 5-2 with Rivera Smith and Song Maritz being the two no votes.

Then they voted for the policy itself and the vote was 4-3 with Harris, Rivera Smith ,and Song Maritz being on the losing side. 

There are always votes - not many - where the Board does not agree. Policy decisions generally are not one of them.

I have the last three hours to go through (although I may skip some parts). I'm eager to see if Hersey ever publicly apologized to Harris. 

There are people that I have been glad to see exit the Board but none so much as Hampson. She is myopic and self-absorbed which are not good traits for a board director.