Seattle School Board Meeting, January 28, 2025

 This meeting had two parts.

One was an update on SPS' efforts around protecting schools from any federal intervention. Meaning, likely ICE coming in and asking about staff/students. 

Julia Warth, Board office administrator, talked about the district receiving grants from different federal sources. I assume this was perhaps noting that the feds could put the screws on school districts that don't cooperate.

Superintendent Fred Podesta moved onto what schools are being told. The first issue of concern is "the need for better facts." It seems that a lot of rumor gets going and it is difficult to know what is truly happening on the ground. 

Associate Superintendent Rocky Torres-Morales said that they need to know factually what is happening and so "if you hear something, see something, say something." 

There is to be a large meeting of principals on Friday to go over guidelines for action. Each principal, should they encounter this situation, is to gather facts and call district legal for guidance. What I take that to be is that no one will be allowed in the building until the principal knows the district's stance. 

I saw that recently, ICE tried to go into a consulate for Equador in Minneapolis and was refused. The ICE thugs tried to say they could come in but, if you know your civics, every consulate is foreign property and therefore, it's like ICE trying to go in to Mexico and order people around. I can see how a principal might feel intimidated by ICE trying to muscle in.

Director Liza Rankin asked about any understanding with SPD. The answer was SPD will tell the district is they see ICE action happening at/near schools. 

Podesta said there was a shelter in place at several schools on Tuesday because of robo calls threatening violence. He did not name the schools but said they wanted to use an abundance of caution. 

One issue is that the district would like to protect the transportation services and student who use them but they do have some private vendors and are not sure yet how that would work.

Director Jen LaVallee asked about notifications, "how do people get loop closed?" as people worry about not receiving notifications from their child's school in a timely manner. Again, the district is working on that issue. 

Director Katie Smith asked about plans to make use of external resources like community organizations and the answer was that's part of the plan still in progress.

Director Joe Mizrahi asked about getting out information systemwide and what supports schools may need. 

Director Evan Briggs asked about public transportation which some older students use and the answer was the district is reaching out to those entities as well.

LaVallee asked about "consistent messaging" that principals want. The answer is that is exactly what the Friday meeting is about. 

Budget Work Session

Boy, this was a long one. As usual, I felt like staff could have trimmed this down. There were at least six staff speaking at any given time about their area of work. There were a few questions but it went on so long that it used the entire time and Board President Gina Topp suggested that directors write down their questions and get answers at the Feb. 7th Work Session. They all agreed to that.

Podesta was sure in a lighthearted mood as he hurried back to the table after the first session ended. He joked that maybe they need a "new superintendent." He explained all the staff, saying,  “We decided to outnumber the Board…on everything.”

Points made

- Podesta mentioned it was not just about how much to spend but how much to NOT spend. He stressed doing the "least harm."

- Podesta said they are working towards "each school having what it needs to be successful." He also said as a public system they need the community to trust them.

- Torres-Morales said the thinking was about "what are we investing in."

- Director Vivian Song said she sees a lot of city levy money in this presentation, not just for Pre-K, but also early literacy and interventionists. Staff acknowledged they need to talk in depth with the City's DEEL department team.

- Associate Superintendent Ted Howard talked about looking "building by building."

- Assistant Superintendent of Academics Mike Starosky talked about "external partners" being aligned with the district's goals and guardrails.

- Starosky also about the "life goals" program for high schoolers. Director Smith said, "Looking at the investment pictures in combination with strategic planning, it feels a little vague. Districtwide foundational investments, it looks like, for the life ready ones, a good part of it is determined by the different unions and that doesn't tell me a lot about investments. On the one hand we don't want to be looking at how it's been and is this different from what it was before? And, going forward, maybe refine how these are presented?" She acknowledged all the hard work that went into the presentation.

Torres-Morales said she was "spot on" and if you go back to the presentation, there's "goals and guardrails and strategies and initiatives. We do want to get to the what/how/and why."

- Director Rankin said she was delighted in the shift in approach. I agree. This was a lot more frank talk than I've heard before and it's smart to lay out all the issues in a detailed way. One takeaway is that they clearly stated that closing schools is off the table and ditto enlarging class sizes. But they are very clear on the transportation and special education costs being unsustainable as they are currently run. Look for changes to come there. 

- I was astonished to hear Financial head Kurt Buttleman talk about perhaps "executive compensation" may be on the table. I am SO glad that someone looked around and asked why the district is paying so many people at JSCEE so much money.

- They are pointing out that the district may need to ask athletes for pay to play.

- Podesta pointed out that the bell schedule makes it necessary to have more buses AND that they are using two different companies for buses.

What was also mentioned in the discussion was a company called HopSkipDrive which is a rideshare service. From the educational website, Chalkbeat, a story on the expanding use of rideshare in public schools (and how it may be driving "school choice."

When Melissa Zivicki’s local public school district offered a personalized ride service to transport her son to a private school for an individualized education program, she was initially skeptical.

“I thought it was really weird sending my kid with a stranger,” Zivicki said. 

But if Zivicki drove her son to school, she said she would be late to work every day and have to leave her job early as well. It felt untenable. So she accepted the offer, and before long began regularly sending her son to school through HopSkipDrive, a student-focused rideshare service.

Zivicki got more comfortable when she learned about the company’s background checks, and she liked that she could follow her son using in-app mobile tracking. Plus, each morning, she’d get a text with a picture of her driver and the time that they would arrive. 

Started in California in 2014, HopSkipDrive began as a service to help busy parents get their children to soccer practice. The company now pitches itself as the solution for some of the biggest transportation problems in modern education. 

The largest share of its business stems from students who have a federal right to school transportation, but whose needs don’t easily fit with the traditional yellow school bus transporting a lot of kids on a fixed route and schedule. These children include foster youth, homeless students, and students who have disabilities.