Seattle School Board Meeting, February 12, 2025

Superintendent Brent Jones had a call-out to the Cleveland Girls Volleyball team for being the 2024 Academic state champions. There were there in person and received applause.

He also thanked voters for passing the school levies. 

He also said this word salad about the Highly Capable update that was to come later in the meeting. He said that it would be "an honest rendering of what's ahead and give visibility to challenges and opportunities." 

He also noted there is likely to federal changes coming because of the current U.S. administration and that "we are committed to values of SPS and its policies." 

 

Public Testimony

This portion of the meeting was largely divided between Highly Capable issues and the need to keep libraries open. 

HC parents stated that services are NOT being implemented. They also noted the lack of resources for teachers and school administrators to do this work. A couple of parents asked if promised differentiation wasn't supposed to be already happening in schools. 

Janis White, former president of the Seattle Special Education PTSA noted that the HC presentation had no mentioned of 2E students. Good catch.

Superintendent Contract Extension

The consent agenda was approved and then we went onto the Superintendent's contract. There was never ANY documentation provided which I see as a big red flag.

I thought this was a weird action and I wasn't alone; President Gina Topp also found this weird. That's because they just signed off on a two-year contract in October 2024.

Director Liza Rankin tried to explain but, per usual, she muddied the waters. And she said she would be voting no. 

Director Joe Mizrahi also thought it odd. He stated that the question was, to him, "what gives us the greatest chance to meet goals and give Jones the runway." 

Topp echoed Mizrahi and said they had "ambitious goals and difficult things ahead of us" and she worried out loud what might come from the feds. 

No one else spoke and the vote was taken. There were four ayes (Hersey, Mizrahi, Clark, and Topp), two voted no (Briggs and Rankin) and one person abstaining (Sarju). 

Folks, that's not a big vote of confidence on something that should have been explained and open to the public for discussion. I also think Director Evan Briggs should have explained her vote. Director Michelle Sarju always abstains on votes that make her uncomfortable. 

 

Enrollment Study Results Discussion

This was somewhat tedious as they went through the slides. You would have thought Strategies 360 would have numbered the slides but they didn't and directors had to describe the slides visually to ask a question.

There really seemed to be an atmosphere of the Board taking it all in but they do seem troubled on the issues of quality of education and curriculum which were the key takeaways.

 

 Highly Capable Discussion

Again at this meeting, it got weird. Maybe it was because of the late hour but the directors were quite open in their thoughts on the presentation. 

As I mentioned previously, the presentation was given by Associate Superintendent Rocky Torres-Morales who has returned from a long leave of absence from SPS. Basically, the presentation was a lot of rehashing of what had been done in the past.

In the KUOW story on this issue, some of the past was rehashed as truth like "so a family doesn't need to pay for outside testing" which is not something done to get in when first enrolling. The district did allow outside testing on appeal and again, any low-income family could ask for it and the district paid for it. 

 District data shared Wednesday show efforts to make the program more equitable are starting to work — the number of Black, Hispanic, Asian, and multiracial students identified as highly capable increased in 2024.

That is definitely good data to see.   

Then we got to Board questions. 

First up was Director Michelle Sarju who said, "I heard words but I'm not sure I understand it. Please restate it." Torres-Morales started to but someone called out, off mic, and she looked over and told them they were "a distraction." Wonder what that was about.

She said she wanted to know how many families are interested in the cohort model. She said the stats look like 62% like it so "the vast majority are not interested in being in a neighborhood school." She talked about how the parents coming forth to speak at Board meetings need answers.

Torres-Morales said something about the dollars for the program being used for administration and screening. He also said it was important to get a new director for the program.

Add that to the list of reasons that the district should hit the pause button on cohort models; the program doesn't even have a leader. 

I'll add another one - the AL Taskforce said NOT to change anything UNTIL they had a fully-realized program to offer with a clear explanation of how it would work. 

Director Briggs said that what was being stated by district staff is "not what is happening in neighborhood schools." She said they are 14 years on for MTSS (Multi-Tiered System of Supports) which includes this work. She said it was "a chronic issue of ideas and words on paper and a failure to implement."

Wow. Here you have not one but two directors being very clear on what they see right in front of them.

Torres-Morales said staff knows that there are some places where the neighborhood school model does work. Did he name them? Or even explain how those schools do it? Nope, but stay tuned until April. They will tell you in April.

Briggs countered, "The only thing that will help is action." 

Then we got to Director Rankin who basically went off and, once again, shows how she is not temperamentally a good fit for board director. Just like former director Chandra Hampson, EVERYTHING is personal to her.  She said she might be speaking "awhile" and "I'll try not to cry." She said she read chapter books at 4 when she was in SPS. She said her own children, like her, are 2E and school doesn't feel "relevant" to them and her son said, it "doesn't feel like a good use of my time." At 12 years old. She said she felt like "crawling out of her skin." She said they have talked about this for 10 years and rehash "what we know to be true and nothing is changing." She said serving HC students is "in state law" but she felt like she was being gaslit. She then went off on a rant about her being there year after year and speakers at the podium coming and going.  She said it was not worth her "sacrifice to be so disregarded."  It was clear she was highly agitated and breathing very heavily. It was troubling to watch. She said the OSPI form they submit is the plan and yet it's not.  Jones tried to smooth the waters by saying they are aware there are many issues to address. Meanwhile Torres-Morales looked very pissed. Jones also said April 1st would be their next full presentation but they could "preview" that at the March School Board meeting.
 Student director Colin Bragg stated, "You (staff) talk a lot about the current model and the future policy model but then we've heard a lot from the testimony that the current model is unclear" and what is happening school to school. "I cannot imagine the transition to the future model without the current model even working. From the student perspective, switching to new plans and new models when you are in school is going to be painful, no matter what, there is no easy thing to do." He also said that it seems that they need to know what model works and have "a more concrete of that future plan." 
He said staff cannot ask the Board to approve this without knowing what that concrete future plan is and how rolls out in ALL schools. 
Sarju again said it was frustrating and she does not want another presentation without specifics and she would get up and leave if that's what was before her.
"Parents want to know how their children are going to receive services."
Director Brandon Hersey had rather a lot to say as well, speaking as a teacher with "half a decade of teaching experience." He basically said change is hard because it's unknown and that some might not experience " the same level of services." 
He referenced the "quality of services under MTSS model" and "what resources need to be reallocated?"
I feel like that "reallocated" term is something of a dog whistle because the district and the Board have consistently used it in terms of reallocating resources to where they are most needed and, under the Strategic Plan, that has been Black boys. 
I find it confusing.
Torres-Morales says they can bring a new model to scale, "absolutely." 
Hersey continued that they need a realistic and honest timeline for every school and if it takes "a decade,"  then that's what happens. "We need to have hard conversations what we are willing to do and all of this is interconnected." He mentioned "not holding up our end of the bargain to be brave, not do X for Y and be unapologetic about it. Vision and values, "we can’t afford to do everything."

To which I would say, if you are doing something district-wide, you can't do it in a slow rollout. Want to lose even MORE students? Try that.
He also said that "doing two years of acceleration is not equal to getting highly capable services" and that parents are "doing your child a disservice." 
He asked what a school could say if a parent of an identified HC student says, "My child is not receiving highly capable services in the plan, what is my recourse?"
And that landed in dead silence. 
Torres-Morales finally offered that parents should contact teachers and their principal and that there are advanced learning specialists in the district. He spoke of "an escalation process."
He also spoke of "a chunk of money for PD for an inclusion initiative to move this forward." 
Hersey asked how school leaders and teachers would be held accountable for the implementation of MTSS. He mentioned "MTSS strategies being implemented with fidelity." He hammered on about expectations for every building and "opportunities to deliver in their own way responsive to their community." 
Rankin then chimed in about school closures saying some neighborhood schools have fewer students while Option Schools have waitlists and that if the district filled an Option School, it would take a teacher away from a neighborhood school. 
Isn't that voting with your feet? 
She also said the district hasn't done boundary changes and what will happen with that nice new Cascadia building. That's a good question but I would suppose the district wants to close some schools first. 
She also said that reopening Decatur with Thornton Creek was "a mistake." She further said, without evidence, they lost students because of the pandemic. I'm not saying it isn't true but I don't get the linkage with those two schools.
She also said that acceleration is not gifted education. "What people found and are afraid of losing is a place for their weird kids." 
Of course, JUST acceleration is not gifted programming. It's just one tool in the toolbox. 
Briggs said that she felt that waiting until April 1st for the data from schools where a neighborhood HC model is working is hard on parents because of the enrollment schedule. 

I do want to point out what was stated from an October 2024 Seattle Times article:

Parents like McAllister don’t think the new model will work because teachers in neighborhood schools won’t know how to teach to gifted kids and might overlook them, causing them to turn disruptive or slowing their academic progress.

And some teachers say the new model won’t work because they don’t have the time and resources to create individualized learning plans for every student in a classroom of 20 to 30 students.

But Rocky Torres, the district’s associate superintendent of school and student support, said the new model doesn’t require additional funding or staffing.

He pointed to View Ridge Elementary as a school "that serves all levels of students in the same classrooms."

On a recent day in a first grade classroom, seven advanced learners sat on the floor reading silently on their iPads. Several others wrote independently at their desks. A special education student wrote with a paraprofessional aide at their side. The rest of the class sat in a front corner of the classroom while the teacher read a book out loud.

If you read the comments, SO many call out this idea of learning by reading on an iPad and wonder if those kids get less teacher attention. 

Also, View Ridge's principal:

There’s a stronger sense of community because all of the students are from the same geographical area and there’s an array of diversity in the types of learners in class, said Rina Geoghagan, the school’s principal, who used to be the principal at Decatur and Cascadia elementaries — both highly capable cohort schools. 

Well gee, I hope VR Elementary would do better with a principal who has worked with highly capable students before. She says the biggest challenge will be in differentiating math.

Plucker, the Johns Hopkins professor, agrees that it unfairly burdens teachers. “That is almost asking the impossible of people, that is just so hard,” Plucker said. Plucker said a lot of districts are moving toward this model, but he says no district has succeeded yet, and he thinks it could hold many students back.