Seattle School Board Meeting 10/9/2024

It appears to have been a very disjointed meeting. 

We open to President Liza Rankin with a mask on. She sounds like she has a bad cold. Good of her to think of others. 

All the members of the Board were in attendance with all three student members as well.

To note, there was a sign language interpreter present as well.

Agenda

Superintendent Comments

Proclamation for Indigenous People's Day - He had the student members read it aloud. 

Then on the closure and well-resourced schools initiative - "I am listening and we are listening and trying to be responsive." He then read several comments that presumably were sent in by SPS parents. Emphasized that the pullback was valid but the problems with the budget are still real. 

"Moving at the speed of trust." 

That "Moving at the speed of trust?" That's the new SPS line and you'll hear it a lot.

He talked about:

1) The need for flexibility from the state to get financing. That would bring about $30M in. 

2) He said they need an additional $40M from the state to fund areas like Special Education, transportation and school materials. 

3) He said they needed to find $30M of "internal efficiencies" and would have to make hard choices. One would be returning to a 3-tier bell time to reduce transportation costs. 

This will save the budget for next year but he said they still have long-term challenges. 

Then he brought up the levy. He said it would take all the resources they had to balance the budget and that includes levies. He talked about the different areas that the levies help fund. 

October is National Principals Appreciation month.  He expressed gratitude for SPS principals' leadership. 

He said that for last school year there was a 16% increase in AP exam participation. Over 6800 students took an AP exam and 80% had of scores 3, 4, or 5. 

He noted the Nobel prize for Chemistry was won by three men. One of them, David Baker, a professor at UW, is a Garfield High School alum from the class of '80.

Interestingly, he stated that he would be glad to listen to the public comments and that the district ombudsman was also there. 

Board Comments

President Rankin said there was no one thing that would solve the district's budget problems. 

She then changed the agenda and recessed into Executive Session to "review the performance of a public employee." She said they would hear public testimony when they came back and then do progress monitoring (for SOFG). She said they would return in 30 minutes. They left at 4:35 pm.

What is the urgent need to do this? It sure didn't sound like the Superintendent was going anywhere so why do this? 

They were gone 32 minutes. 

Return to Meeting

Vice President Michelle Sarju restarted the meeting. For some reason, neither President Rankin nor Director Gina Topp came back from the meeting with the other directors. They came in during Public Testimony about 12 minutes later. I note that they are the co-authors of the BAR that is a multi-topic resolution around closing schools.

Public Testimony

It was noted there was a Spanish interpreter but that person wasn't on the phone line yet. Some confusion over that. 

I didn't have time to listen to all the testimony but at least three parents got emotional over the possible closure of their child's school and how much that school means to their child. The issue of a possible loss of a Native American program was also brought up. 

They also allowed a signed-up speaker at home to cede their time to someone in the room. Didn't know that was possible but now we know.

I did want you to see what one brave parent said and I think she is right on point for many, many parents.

Michelle Dunlop is the parent of two students in SPS. She said:

Since the '80s my last 50 years I've heard nothing but problems on public schools. It's very sad to see that we say we're not solving the same problems with this same ineffective answers. A lot of parents you lost their attention through normalizing this dysfunction but you have our attention now. 

We're digging in to these proposals. We have the data and we've created Excel spreadsheets and sharing Excel spreadsheets. We see what is going on. 

I could here and talk about lack of accountability and lack of innovation. But as I was listening to everybody talk, the one thing I don't think that we need to do, I don't think we need to vilify each other. Right? We're not going to vilify the Board, we're not going to vilify the district. You are not going to vilify us. 

We are not overreactive emotional parents. We are emotional parents and we are reacting and we're angry but we don't want to think of you guys as disconnected from what's really going on, disconnected from our kids. What we want to do is we want to work together. You have our attention, you have us, you need to ask us.

 You need to come to us to help us come with solutions. The bureaucracy that you have to go through to make this work. What's going on in our state level, you have our voice. Ask us, tell us how to help you advocate to get the funds. 

Don't make the same mistakes. Don't close these schools. Don't vote for until we actually have real solutions. Let us help you. Let us stand with you. 

Don't force us to stand against you.

I wish I could have been there to watch the reaction from the Superintendent and the Board. I don't know what her last sentence meant but if parents turn on the district on the levies, that could really hurt. 

 It's interesting because the issue of advocacy at the legislature came up later. Sadly, no one said anything about enlisting parents. 

The long-time district watcher, Chris Jackins, didn't speak for the first time in decades.  Not allowing him to speak when he was clearly right about the order of speakers depending on topic being Board policy but he was ignored. This would not be the first time at this meeting where Board policy was violated. 

They took a 5-minute break after public testimony ended. Safiya Ilya, a student board member said she was a Running Start student at Franklin. She said they need to feel safe and said she knew a student who was "fully Running Start" because of his fear of gun violence. 

Four hours in, they got to the body of their agenda.

Consent Agenda

Director Sarah Clark wanted item 7 off the list. That was the Alliance for Education grant for the district to figure out a strategic plan. 

Sarju starts off the motion for the amendment by saying about the meeting that "it's late" and then read it but said of the amount, "it's a whopping" $528K. I note this because a couple of directors make these casual off-hand remarks during what is their single legislative meeting each month. 

Clark stated she removed it because it lacks clarity on what money will be spent on. 

Jones mentioned three parts, all of which are in the BAR .

Clark asked about seeing a budget breakdown? Jones says yes.

They voted and all said yes but Clark.

Action Items

Resolution

I found this BAR just all wrong. 

I check the Board meeting agenda every day when it first gets released, around 5 pm to see if it changes (as it often does). This resolution was not there at 4:00 pm on Tuesday when I checked. And, when I first saw it on the agenda the next day, the documentation was not there. I'm sure the Board Office can show some timestamp that it was 4:10 pm when it was put up but you won't get me believing it.

Board Policy 1400 says:

An agenda of business to be transacted shall be posted on the district website not less than 24 hours in advance of the published start time of the meeting. 

And this resolution was "transacted." 

I'm going to have to remember to screenshot every single agenda from here on out. 

As well, over and over, this Board is allowing BARs to be for "intro/action." That should ONLY happen in emergencies. But this goes part and parcel with SOFG. No need to discuss, no need to tell the public. 

Plus, this was a resolution about several items. Two of them, the preliminary recommendations with analysis and the Taskforce for transition for closing schools makes sense. Why they stuck the part about a multi-year plan for fiscal stability is unclear to me. 

From the BAR:

Adoption of Resolution No. 2024/25-11, directing the Superintendent to present preliminary
recommendations and supporting analysis in October 2024 for up to five school closures for the 2025-26 school year; to develop a multi-year plan no later than June 2025 to achieve fiscal stability in support of student outcomes; and to form a taskforce to advise the Superintendent on implementation of 2025-26 school closures, if approved by the Board, and development of the multi-year recommendations.

So the two owners of this BAR - Rankin and Topp - are just going to shrug at Board policy? Or only follow it when it's useful? 

And curiously, it was Rankin and Topp who did NOT return to the meeting from the Executive Session with the rest of the directors. 

Director Brandon Hersey said that something he heard during both Public Testimony and in emails was that "folks want clarity around the fact that we are no longer considering closing 20 schools" and he said he would be happy to offer an amendment to that effect for this resolution.

Of course, one thing this Board knows little about is what the process is - Robert's Rules of Order - to even offer an amendment during a meeting. He was the president of the Board but doesn't know how to offer an amendment during a meeting? Okay. 

Why do I bring up the casual way some Board members speak during meetings or about how uninformed some directors seem to be on basics to run a meeting? Because it makes them look less-than-able. Because it makes them look - and I know I'll get dinged for using this word - unprofessional. And because it makes them look and sound like they don't really know what they are doing. 

Here's the amendment because clearly no one was going to put it up on the screen. Ms. Wilson-Jones read:

Be it resolved that the Seattle School Board of Directors directs the Superintendent to present preliminary recommendations for up to five school closures but not more than five school closures to be implemented for the 2025-2026 school year. 

They adopted the amendment unanimously and moved to adopting the entire resolution as amended. 

The vote on the entire resolution was 6-1 with Clark voting against. I'd love to know why she did that. 

Someone in the audience may have booed just then because Hersey said, "Don't boo, vote," That statement might come back to haunt him in February when the two levies come up. 

Introduction Items

They moved to the Intro items, starting with their approval of their "progress monitoring calendar." Then, it was introduction of the Instructional Materials Membership 2024-2028. It was stated they have had many applications and that includes community members. The names will be selected before the next Board meeting.

The Board then introduced their 2025 State Legislative Agenda. Rankin said the Board couldn't directly lobby. Director Hersey asked about having meetings with local organizations to provide them info so they could lobby. "That would be chill, right?" It is unclear to me if he was asking permission or asking it that would be legal. That's the problem with being casual at Board meetings. 

He also asked if the Board could just show up one day at the Legislature. Legal jumped in and said that the Board would have to notify the public that they would be somewhere together, possibly in a quorum. 

Director Topp asked about having more discussion and apparently there's a Work Session coming up on this - I assume Rankin means legislative advocacy. 

The next items were the introduction of the two upcoming levies, one for Operations and one for Capital programs. There was a presentation to be given but Rankin waved it off, saying the Board members could read the presentation and submit questions.

On that point, here is where the public loses out again. When the Board is not openly discussing items, or asking questions of staff, then the public has no idea of any of it. This is not right. 

Rankin spoke about Schools First, the organization that supports SPS levies. 

COO Fred Podesta asked to speak about a couple of slides. He said that the capping of the levy collection is an issue for many districts. 

The Superintendent gave a "well-resourced schools" update. The timeline seems to be:

- By October 21st, the five schools will be named. There has to be a 30-day period for this information to be examined. 

- Staff will then have discussions with those schools about what it would look like in November. 

- Then, the legally required hearings for each school would occur, probably mid-December. 

- He said his final recommendations would come in late December. 

- He said the final Board vote would come in early January 2025 and that creating the Taskforce on transitions would start.  He said that staff is focused on getting this smaller group of closures right. 

I'm glad to see that staff gave up on trying to get all this done before the end of 2024. But it will be a sad Thanksgiving and winter holiday season for some. 

There was a question of being able to move all the students who want to stay together to the consolidation school. Jones said yes. As well, so would staff who want to and any programs housed at the closing schools. 

Rankin brought up boundary changes which is a complicated subject so I was surprised it being brought up so late in the evening. She was trying to say that families should be given a choice of where to go if they didn't want to go to the consolidation school. Jones agreed.

She also said that, "Displaced staff should probably get first choice the teacher pool." I have no idea how the union works for that to happen. 

They appear to have skipped most of the rest of the agenda.