Seattle School Board Meeting, January 22, 2025
Update 3:
The Board - without explanation - started the meeting 45 minutes late. They had been in an executive session prior to the meeting so I surmise they ran late there.
New president Gina Topp noted that former director Jan Kumasaka died. She was native to the Puget Sound region until 1942 when she was four and her family was removed and sent to an internment camp in California. The family did return to Seattle where Kumasaka graduated from Franklin High School.
She was the first Asian American woman on the Seattle School Board and served from 1997-2005. She was an advocate for bilingual education. I recall her as tough but fair.
Superintendent Brent Jones comments included that he and some Board members had attended a Washington State School Directors Association conference last week as well as the upcoming Black Lives Matter at School Week. The student directors read a proclamation on behalf of the latter.
I was unable to find this proclamation at the district website and it was not attached to the agenda. I would ask the Board office but they tend to ignore my queries. (I also note that Chris Jackins, a frequent speaker on public testimony noted that “fundamental documents” to the BEX items were not attached to the item and that he was told he could always file a public disclosure request. Which is a completely bullshit thing for an SPS staffer to say.)
As President Topp later noted, it appeared that about 30% of the public testimony came from students and felt that was great. She did thank them for coming out on a school night. Most of that testimony was heartfelt pleas to save full-time librarians in high schools. There really are many reasons students go to the library and one is that it feels safe to them. That’s not a small thing in today’s high school world.
The other major topic was dual language with many parents asking for both clarity for the future of DL and wondering what was up with the lack of movement on waitlists at these schools.
There were a few HC parents who ALSO want to see clarity around the program. One speaker asked for the neighborhood switch be paused until there is a plan presented to parents. Many parents feel uneasy about what will happen. As well, as Cascadia is no longer taking just HC students and yet the district is also not filling those seats in that very nice building, what is happening there?
I’ll just say that there is way too much of this leaving parents hanging. No one should believe this “well-resourced school” talk until there are fully-realized plans.
I note that former director Vivian Song was in attendance for much of the meeting.
I stepped away and only listened to a bit of Goal Monitoring for College and Career Readiness. It appears that the waiver process is changing at the state level so how that plays out at the district level is unknown. The COVID waivers are done. Executive Director Caleb Perkins said, “Regardless of whether these are available, we should not rely on these going forward even if they are, given our collective concern about readiness.” (FYI, Perkins is a gem and I hope SPS knows that.)
Glad I tuned in because at one point, Director Liza Rankin was looking at a slide on graduation rates by percentage and asked if that reflected from 9th grade or 12th grade. Superintendent Jones said they would answer that but he wants to ask (internally), “Why are we holding that as so valuable being on-time?” For high school, I think on-time is VERY important because of the consequences of too much lag time.
He asked Dr. Perkins about that rate and he read a definition that “was actually developed during the Obama Administration to be standardized because of all the, frankly, game playing beforehand around how do we calculate so here it is:”
Graduation rate is based on a cohort of students. The cohort is made up of all students who start 9th grade together. Students who transfer into or out of a school are added or removed from the cohort. If students top attending school, they’re counted as dropouts. If students have met graduation …
And he didn’t read it all but that’s answering Rankin’s question.
Goals and Guardrails Discussion - this section is at about the 2 hour mark.
Two proposed goals and five guardrails says President Topp.
From the December meeting, “from there we conducted an additional engagement. This engagement included, um, it was very fast and it wasn’t as perfect as I think we all would have preferred. We tried to reach back out to the organizations that we previously reached out to and we had a few misfires there but tried to make up for some of that.” Online survey for 10 days as well as two public engagements sessions and one online one.
She said the public responses have been collated and are the “BAR” but I’m not sure where she is pointing us to. Again, I’ll try the Board office.
This includes a “vision and values” process last year.
Then they launched into a discussion about the goals not being ambitious enough. This starts at about 2:10:00. It turned into a lengthy and frank discussion about those goals. It’s one of the better discussions I’ve heard in years and I recommend listening in.
At one point, however, Rankin makes it sound like if they had closed schools, there would be more reading instruction. I’m not buying that. It wasn’t “closing schools is going to give us more money for teaching and learning.” It was closing schools to fill a deficit.
Staff was asked to wordsmith the goal around graduation and college/work readiness.
The upshot was that they postponed the vote until a special meeting next week for the BAR on Goals and Guardrails on January 29th. I see no details on that meeting posted yet.
Budget Discussion
I didn’t listen to much of this; it starts around 3:29:00.
end of update
Update 2:
I forgot the Board had an executive session at 3:30 pm; clearly, it ran long.
The SPS channel has its music that I call “school board meeting music” on so I expect they will start soon.
end of update
Update:
I am tuned into the SPS tv page on YouTube but they are showing an awards program.
end of update
I'm going to try to slog through this one as there are several items on the agenda that I have read up on and have many questions.
This will be the first meeting to be presided over by new Board President Gina Topp. Here's the agenda.
The speakers list is at the full 25 with testimony coming on the budget, dual language and goals/guardrails. There are 22 people on the Waitlist with most wanting to speak on possible cuts to librarians.
There is to be a presentation before public testimony on College and Career Readiness. Looking at the presentation, it would appear there is good news on the district's focus on African-American males and outcomes. I find the numbers to appear either pumped up or unrealistic or both.
Then there is this BEX item on the Consent Agenda which really should be an Action Item.
This is yet another amount of spending - this nearly $750K - for another change order for the Rainier Beach High School remodel. That cost does not include state sales tax.
The largest costs within Change Order No. 19 includes the following three items:
- unforeseen costs for unsuitable soils,
- the cost of the interior Graphics Package for the school which was not complete at the time the project bid, and
- Revisions to the interior openings and partitions to meet requirements for acoustical separation at the Skills Center, Production Studio, and music rooms
Want to know something? The district has known for DECADES about the unstable and unsuitable soils at most, if not all, the comprehensive high schools. There should have been money in the original budget for just this problem.
Next, well if someone didn't get their job done in time, maybe you have to find the money WITHIN the budget for the “graphics package."
Lastly, I would assume that anyone building, say, a production studio or music rooms would be aware of the need for "acoustical separation.” Why wasn’t that in the budget?
Then there is a "Study Session" with the Superintendent on the next budget and a financial review. I never saw any notice if this is an additional term or substituting for "Work Session."
This is where I find the most disturbing information and got a smile. This work is being presented by the Finance Department but no one there - out of all the people who work with numbers - could be bothered to number the pages for easy reference.
Good news! After this presentation the Superintendent is only two steps away the end. In the beginning of June, the budget will be introduced and the public hearing for the budget will presented. The final act will be on July 1, “Action on the 2025-2026 Recommended Budget and 4-Year forecast.” It strikes me as confidence that between June 1 and July 1, the Superintendent and staff believe there will be no changes needed at all.
Review of Annual Financial Report for 2023-2024
There’s a “General Fund Resources” page that shows from 2021-2022 and 2023-2024, “local non-tax” resources went up 94% but they are only about 2% of the budget. I am not sure why this is. “State grants” went up 32% while “federal grants” went down 40% (which isn’t surprising - those were ESSER dollars.)
Overall, total General Fund resources went up in that time range 8%.
For General Fund Expenditures by Program:
“Regular” Instruction only went up 1.8% while Special Education went up over 23%. What happened in three years to shoot up like that? Special Education is now nearly half the spending of Regular Education.
As well, “Other Instructional Program” has gone up 24%. I’m not even sure what that is.
I also see “principal and interest” go up from under $750K to over $3M. So is that the district paying off debts?
On the page labelled “General Fund Expenditures by Object,” we see the teachers’ raises from the last contract come heavily into play.
Also, the district has spent less on “supplies/materials” year over year, down 32%.
Interestingly, the next category “purchased services” has gone up the exact same amount - 32%.
The district is spending more on travel by 42%.
And I would love someone to explain page 16 - General Fund Balance - to me. There are a lot of categories, like “legal reserve” and “budget balancing” that I have never heard of before.
In this report, it appears that the district has put $7M into the Rainy Day Fund in 2023-2024 but in the Budget review, it’s says they “used our ‘Rainy Day’ fund to help balance the budget".
Key Takeaways from 2023-24 Annual Report
Teaching and teaching support increased as a percentage of total spending, from 70.8% in 2021-22 to 71.4% in 2023-24.
State underfunding remains a significant issue.
Fund balance continues to decrease.
Student and family needs have increased.
Inflation continues to be a challenge.
Central Administration spending has decreased the last three years.
I would like the “student and family needs have increased” to be explained because at some level - if only for fiscal responsibility - the district cannot be a social services institution.
As for Central Administration spending going down, I’m not sure I’m buying that.
Update on Budget Development (this section IS numbered)
Bottom line:
- The structural deficit still exists. This means our anticipated expenditures exceed our anticipated revenues.
- Seattle Public Schools’ general fund financial situation remains unsustainable unless further reductions are made and/or additional revenue is provided by the State or our local levy.
I would say on the latter that the State will either put forth more money OR lift the levy cap but won’t do both. Anyone?
What reductions have already occurred at the school level?
• Reductions in custodial services
• Reductions in schools’ discretionary funding
• Increase in secondary class sizes
• Transportation reductions
• Implementation of convenience fees and voluntary athletic fees
• Utilized Capital Fund interest for school supplies
I would think the reductions in Transportation will go down even more. Probably more deductions in each school’s discretionary funding. Changing athletic fees from “voluntary” to required may happen with perhaps the Alliance for Education having a scholarship fund for low-income students.
Oddly in the middle of this entire presentation is a page labelled “Enrollment Study Update” but no accompanying documentation.
Preliminary Budget Proposals for 2025-26
The Board approved an “educational program resolution” in late December to:
Educational Program Resolution per Board Policy No. 0060 (bold mine)
1. “The Superintendent is directed to prioritize on-going solutions that support improving student outcomes in the development of the preliminary budget proposals for 2025-26 fiscal year;2. These proposals shall align with making progress on the Board’s Goals and honoring the Board’s
Guardrails and prioritize the critical functions of the District in pursuit of improving outcomes for
students,
3. The preliminary balanced budget proposals shall be presented to the Board on or around January 22,
2025;
4. The preliminary balanced budget proposals shall include a scenario in which the District receives no
additional funding from the Legislature in the state’s adopted 2025-2027 biennial operating budget, and should contemplate the potential impacts on enrollment;
Comments
Thanks for the write up. There is something seriously wrong when half of teaching and learning expenses go towards special education.
- Cooking the Books??
I wonder how many of the Central Administration staff are involved in the strategic goals. Are they increasing the salary of those staff or increasing the number of staff while making cuts to teaching staff and other areas?
-Board Historian