Seattle Hall Pass Podcast
News and conversation about Seattle Public Schools.
Contact us hello@seattlehallpass.org
Leave us a voicemail https://www.speakpipe.com/seattlehallpass
Seattle Hall Pass Podcast
E26 - February 7 meeting - Two empty chairs, and a lot on the table
Please see our Show Notes.
Please send errata or other feedback to hello@seattlehallpass.org
Christie and Jane discuss the February 7, 2024 Seattle School Board meeting, focusing on the process to fill vacancies following the resignations of two board directors, district efforts related to Continuous School Improvement Plans, and an update on the legislative session.
Music by Sarah, the Illstrumentalist, logo by Carmen Lau-Woo.
Please see our Show Notes.
Please send errata or other feedback to hello@seattlehallpass.org
E26 - February 7 meeting - Two empty chairs, and a lot on the table
[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversations about Seattle Public Schools. My name is Christie Robertson.
[00:00:13] Jane Tunks Demel: And I'm Jane Tunks Demel
Before we get started with our show, we want to acknowledge the death of ninth-grade Seattle Public School student Mubarak Adam.
[00:00:23] Christie Robertson: Mubarak was shot and killed near his West Seattle school on January 23.
[00:00:29] Jane Tunks Demel: Gun violence is now the leading cause of death of young people. Something that doesn't seem like we've fully grasped as a community yet.
[00:00:37] Christie Robertson: I thought Seattle Education Association President Jennifer Matter had a good theory why. Here's part of her testimony at the February 7 School Board Meeting.
[00:00:47] Jennifer Matter: As we heard, gun violence tragically killed another Seattle student just two weeks ago. In 2020, guns became the number one cause of death for children and teens in the United States. And according to a recent KUOW report is the number one leading cause of death for juveniles in King County. Of course, in 2020, COVID also happened, and it became the primary focus of our attention. And so the grim milestone of gun violence becoming the number one cause of death for our youth did not get the attention it deserves. It's time we start treating gun violence like the public health and public safety emergency that it is for our students, families, and educators.
[00:01:28] Christie Robertson: We saw Mubarak's older sister, Laiyla Adam, come to this board meeting to testify to her heartbreaking loss.
[00:01:37] Jane Tunks Demel: She's been extremely active since her brother died, organizing and speaking to bring attention to the safety of kids in schools.
[00:01:45] Christie Robertson: We will link to her testimony in our notes, and we want to thank Laiyla and way too many other survivors for continuing to remind us that it is our job as adults to assure the health, safety, and mental health of youth at school.
All right Jane. Deep breath.
And now, before we start the show, we have some things that we want to say to our audience.
[00:02:14] Jane Tunks Demel: There is a lot of intensity in the Seattle Public Schools newa space right now, so we're going to tread lightly in certain areas.
[00:02:22] Christie Robertson: Secondly, we want to make it clear that each of our opinions — mine and Jane's — are our own.
[00:02:29] Jane Tunks Demel: And there's plenty of times we don't even agree with each other.
[00:02:33] Christie Robertson: That is true.
And the opinions of our guests are also their own.
[00:02:37] Jane Tunks Demel: We plan to continue bringing you diverse perspectives, ideas, and lived experiences. We encourage radical listening and respectful discourse — for us all.
[00:02:48] Christie Robertson: Thirdly, we fact-check every episode. We have show notes with references to where we got our information at seattlehallpass.org.
[00:02:57] Jane Tunks Demel: If you do think we've gotten a fact wrong, please email us at hello@seattlehallpass.org and we'll correct it on the next episode.
[00:03:06] Christie Robertson: And that's wanted to say to you.
[00:03:08] Jane Tunks Demel: And now onto the February 7th board meeting. This meeting was intense. The air was charged and it was crowded, packed to the gills with testifiers during public comment.
[00:03:19] Christie Robertson: Which makes it feel kind of ironic that one of the causes of all the electricity in the air was the two people who weren't there.
[00:03:27] Jane Tunks Demel: Lisa Rivera and Vivian Song, who both recently resigned because they were living outside their director districts. This was the first school board meeting since their resignations.
[00:03:37] Christie Robertson: We covered the resignations in episode 23, and we also interviewed Lisa Rivera about her departure in episode 25.
[00:03:45] Jane Tunks Demel: According to school board policy, the board must announce a resignation at the next regularly scheduled legislative meeting. So here's what president Liza Rankin said.
[00:03:55] Liza Rankin: Lisa Rivera and Vivian Song resigned from the board effective February 2nd, 2024. On behalf of my fellow directors and the district, I wish to thank them for their service to the district and its students.
[00:04:10] Christie Robertson: And then President Rankin is also proposing changes to the residency policy, right?
[00:04:16] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, given that the Board Policy 1113 has been the topic of so much speculation and confusion over the last couple of weeks, President Rankin wants to make the policy clearer. Here's what she's proposing.
[00:04:29] Christie Robertson (quoting the proposed policy): The Seattle School Board requires the directors communicate all changes in their residency/voter registration as they occur to the superintendent, board president, school board office, and general counsel. Regardless of whether the changes in residency/voter registration are known to impact the director's eligibility to serve.
Legal counsel for Seattle Public Schools Greg Narver noted that serving on the school board is actually governed by state law and that that trumps SPS policy.
[00:05:06] Jane Tunks Demel: And parts of the policy were just restating what's already in state law, so they just took that part out.
[00:05:12] Christie Robertson: That's right.
[00:05:13] Jane Tunks Demel: Because there's no need to duplicate. The law is a law.
[00:05:17] Christie Robertson: And it is actually confusing when it's duplicated, especially when the wording isn't exactly the same.
[00:05:23] Jane Tunks Demel: Right, and laws might change and so on and so forth, so it makes it actually clearer to just keep, okay, the state law is governing board vacancies and what to do when they happen.
[00:05:34] Christie Robertson: But he also addressed why updating the policy is important. Here's what he said.
[00:05:40] Greg Narver: This adds some flesh to the bones in a few ways. The first is to make sure that we do get information transmitted in a timely way. Sets a clear obligation by the board to all of you to promptly report any change in residence to particular officials at the district, including the general counsel and including the board office. And that's to ensure that there can be timely communication to King County Elections of board seats that are vacant or need to go on the ballot because of residence changes. We have to ensure that the offices that are responsible for that system can do their work so that the voters have the opportunity that state law wants to provide to them, to elect directors from the district that they are elected.
[00:06:31] Christie Robertson: And Jane, now can we never talk about this again?
[00:06:34] Jane Tunks Demel: Yes!
[00:06:35] Christie Robertson: Okay,
[00:06:36] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, so audience, Vivian Song and Lisa Rivera have already resigned. It's done. We need to move forward now.
[00:06:43] Christie Robertson: What we do have is two empty seats on the board that need to be filled.
And Jane, I've seen here and there people calling for a special election, and that's important to address. So that can't happen, right?
[00:06:56] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, District Counsel Greg Narvar explained why the district can't hold a special election.
Here's what he said:
I've seen a lot of chatter and speculation about why not call a special election. That's because under state law, while there are some offices that can be filled through a special election, that's not the case for school board vacancies.
[00:07:21] Greg Narver: I'm going to cite the statute because it think it's important: RCW 28A.343.370. That provides that any vacancy on a school board is filled by appointment. And then that appointee serves until the next regularly scheduled election. There is no provision in the law to fill school board vacancies through a special election.
[00:07:42] Christie Robertson: So we have empty seats, they are going to be filled with appointments, there will be elections when it's election time, and that's where we are. So right now, we should be thinking about people putting their hats in for the empty spots in Districts 2 and 4.
[Robot voice] This is a public service announcement. If you are interested in applying for a seat on the Seattle school board, go to seattleschools.org/news/directors-appointments.
District 2 includes Sunset Hill, Ballard, Loyal Heights, Whittier Heights, West Woodland, Phinney Ridge, South Greenwood, Greenlake, Magnolia, Interbay, and adjoining areas.
District 4 includes Fremont, Queen Anne, Westlake, South Lake Union, Belltown, Denny Triangle, Pike Market, Central Business District, and adjoining areas. You can find maps of these districts on the website, which is again, seattleschools.org/news/directors-appointments. The deadline for application is February 25th.
That concludes this public service announcement.
[End robot voice]
[00:08:26] Jane Tunks Demel: The application will include a letter of interest, a résumé, answers to several questions, and a short video statement.
[00:08:34] Christie Robertson: Depending on how many applicants they get, they might or might not have a narrowing-down process.
[00:08:40] Jane Tunks Demel: Their hope is to select finalists by mid-March and then host a forum or public interview at the John Stanford Center.
[00:08:47] Christie Robertson: And then, according to Ellie Wilson Jones, who works in the board office, she hopes to get appointees in as soon as April 3rd. The legal deadline is May 2nd, which is 90 days from the effective date of the resignations.
[00:09:02] Jane Tunks Demel: President Rankin says she wants to err on the side of finishing soon, because there are so many big votes coming up. She didn't get specific about which vote she was talking about, but we imagine the $105 million budget shortfall is one of them.
[00:09:16] Christie Robertson: Yeah, if any of you have been following the snaking progress of the 13 budget meetings they will be going through to get to a budget for 2024-25 and 2025-26, some of the more serious of those meetings are coming up starting in April. So I think that's why they want to have people seated.
[00:09:38] Jane Tunks Demel: And then they went over the questionnaire. That's included with the application to get alignment on the questions. Liza Rankin read through them.
[00:09:46] Liza Rankin: I will just quickly read for public record what the questions are, which is:
First and last names that you would like us to use during the appointment process.
Pronouns.
Which of the districts are you registered to vote in? Which is how the law defines residency is where your voter registration is?
Your first name on your voter registration, because it goes to King County Elections.
Your last name, date of birth.
Voter registration, address, phone number, email address.
And then a statement of interest. So we ask: Please submit a letter of interest describing why you wish to serve and should be selected for the appointment.
And then a résumé.
Tell us about your experience, including any board or other leadership experience.
What is your understanding of the role and responsibilities of a school board director in the Seattle School Board?
How do you foresee working with your fellow directors, superintendent staff, and the public?
Describe the areas of strength you bring to collaboration and building positive working relationships with fellow board directors.
Please give an example of how you have addressed conflict and overcame it to build alignment as a member of a group decision-making body. And just want to clarify that doesn't mean everybody has to agree, but we have to align and be direct in our direction to the superintendent as a board.
And then Seattle School Board Policy No. 0030 Ensuring Educational and Racial Equity includes the following commitment. Well, sorry, just on the interest of time, it's a statement from the policy and it says: What does this statement mean to you?
And then please share your knowledge and your thoughts on an ongoing educational issue that is a high priority for you. And how do you see the board's role in this issue?
And I know that was fast and I apologize, but that was just to sort of preview and be transparent about it.
[00:11:23] Christie Robertson: Let's talk about Black Lives Matter at School Week. At the previous board meeting, there was quite a bit of testimony asking for the status on Black Lives Matter at School Week.
And we never managed to record a whole episode on the last board meeting, in the hubbub of everything that happened since then.
[00:11:45] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, we sure didn't. Sorry, folks.
[00:11:48] Christie Robertson: It looks like Black Lives Matter is a go for this year though.
[00:11:51] Jane Tunks Demel: And so Dr. Jones read the Black Lives Matter at School Week proclamation, which we will link to in the show notes.
[00:11:58] Christie Robertson: And President Rankin laid out history of this event, which was born right here in Seattle. Here's what she said.
[00:12:06] Liza Rankin: Black Lives Matter at School began in Seattle in the fall of 2016. When John Muir Elementary created T-shirts and planned a welcoming event at their school to stand together for Black students. After receiving hate mail at the school and Central office, including a bomb threat, instead of backing down, the Seattle Education Association (or SEA reps) voted to stand in solidarity with the John Muir community and students across the Seattle School District. And SPS staff also quickly mobilized to ensure the safety of the school and the event was able to go on as planned. On October 19th, 2016, thousands of teachers, parents, and students showed their support for Black Lives Matter across SPS.
[00:12:52] Jane Tunks Demel: The student board director Aayush Muthuswamy also spoke to the topic in his student comments.
[00:13:00] Christie Robertson: He always has really thoughtful things to say about what they're doing, and I think this is part of why it's so important to have the student board directors up there.
[00:13:09] Aayush Muthuswamy: February is Black History Month and we're currently in BLM at School Week. And I'm talking about this because of the amazing community show-out today ff all the people who came to talk about this critical issue.
And I want to give my 2 cents, as a kid, who's going through that curriculum in our school this week and has for the last four or five years that this has been a program. That and my opinion is that there progress is being made, but it's not being made fast enough. The curriculum that we get feels repetitive and insufficient and not covering crucial issues and pieces of the story.
And there's a hesitancy to cover topics deemed controversial. Even though talking about those topics brings the most opportunity to create real change. And I know we have a lot of people here coming to talk about BLM at School Week and Ethnic Studies Curriculum. And I'm really looking forward to hearing from all of you. And I applaud you for coming here today, especially the students, because I know there are a few of you here. I know how nerve wracking it can be to stand up here and talk on the dais or talk up there.
[00:14:05] Christie Robertson: Director Muthuswamy also had really thoughtful comments about the resignations and the new appointments.
[00:14:10] Aayush Muthuswamy: And today I wanted to take my time and give a student perspective on the fact that there are five board members at the dais today instead of seven. When events like these arise in the way that they do, I feel that they damage the already fraught relationship of this board and this community that we're mandated to represent. And they distract and take away from our goal of ensuring student success. We need our community to trust us in order to govern effectively. And when our community sees that board members struggle to trust one another, it's not surprising that they hesitate to trust us to educate and take care of their children. We're losing two directors who brought a wealth of knowledge through their experience and backgrounds.
And what I admired most about them is their unwavering support of our students and their families. And also their confidence to challenge decisions that the majority of this board was pushing. Our board is not a monolith in terms of race, socioeconomic status, what have you. And it's not a monolith in terms of the policy beliefs of the school district. And in the same way that this board ideally represents the diversity and race and socioeconomic status of our constituents and of our community, it should represent the diversity of ideology about the best practices in order to create an effective school district. A board that all thinks the same in a district that doesn't is a sign that something has gone wrong. The value of healthy conflicts and a difference of opinion and governing bodies cannot be understated.
And I don't question for a second, the commitment to student excellence of any member on this board today. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are different ways and beliefs about the best way to create that excellence and that we need all of those beliefs present in order to adequately serve our community.
So as we enter this process to appoint two new board directors, I ask the board this: 1) look for members who will, yes, fill the gap lost by two strong Asian, Latino, Native board members. And also look for board members who will challenge this board and bring new perspectives in the same way that Directors Song and Rivera did. And in the same way that the constituents of their district and the city as a whole elected their representatives do.
And then saying all this, I don't mean to downplay the unfortunate reality of residency conflicts. Simply that we should reflect on the way that events unfolded so that they don't occur again. And I know that parts of that are happening later this evening. But I think what we need to focus on is respecting our community by appointing board members who match the profiles of those who they put in office. There's a lot of work ahead of us. And I mean, when is there not? But it's especially pertinent that we get this right.
[00:14:03] Christie Robertson: There was a great deal of heartfelt testimony at this meeting, especially around Ethnic Studies and Native Education. We're following up on some of the questions that were raised by these testifiers.
[00:14:15] Jane Tunks Demel: And then came Progress Monitoring.
[00:14:17] Christie Robertson: Under Student Outcomes-Focused Governance, progress monitoring is supposed to be the main focus. Obviously, that's not what's happening right now.
[00:14:27] Jane Tunks Demel: Which is really a shame because there needs to be a lot of attention paid to it.
[00:14:32] Christie Robertson: Yes, progress is not progressing well and, we want to do an entire episode about Progress Monitoring and how it works and how it's going.
[00:14:44] Jane Tunks Demel: So that all of us community stakeholders can learn together.
[00:14:48] Christie Robertson: Okay, there's one more topic from this meeting related to Progress Monitoring and Student Outcomes-Focused Governance, and that's the school CSIPs. Can you tell us what these are, Jane?
[00:14:58] Jane Tunks Demel: Sure, CSIP stands for Continuous School Improvement Plan, and these plans are supposed to lay out on a three-year cycle the mission, vision, goals, and strategies that each school is striving for. Every school's building leadership team, often called BLT, works on this document every year.
[00:15:17] Christie Robertson: And every BLT can include parents or guardians. Oftentimes, the parent positions don't get filled, so check with your school to make sure they have parent reps.
[00:15:27] Jane Tunks Demel: You might even want to volunteer yourself.
[00:15:29] Christie Robertson: You might. You very well might.
[00:15:31] Jane Tunks Demel: At the February 7th board meeting, project manager Tasha James shared with the board that each of Seattle's more than 100 schools had their own CSIP. And the state requires that they're approved annually by the school district's board of directors.
And particularly interesting right now is that this is a new three-year CSIP cycle. And each school site was required to align their academic goals directly to the goals of Student Outcomes-Focused Governance.
For example, at my student's elementary school, they're working to align with Guardrail 4.
[00:16:04] Christie Robertson: Guardrail 4: The Superintendent will not allow the use of disciplinary actions as a substitute for culturally responsive behavioral and social-emotional supports for students with and without disabilities.
[00:16:18] Jane Tunks Demel: Another example from the same school is the focus on the districtwide third-grade reading goal.
[00:16:26] Christie Robertson: The percentage of Black boys who achieve English Language Arts proficiency or higher on the third-grade Smarter Balanced Assessment will increase from 28 percent in June 2019 to 70 percent in June 2024.
[00:16:41] Jane Tunks Demel: The Smarter Balanced Assessment is a standardized test. So, for geeks like me and Christy, we think it's supercool to see how Student Outcomes-Focused Governance and Progress Monitoring is actually being implemented at the school site level.
[00:16:55] Christie Robertson: Yeah, it makes it feel like they're actually really serious about it.
Jane, I remember a day when these were very ad hoc. Many of these CSIPs had boilerplate language and sometimes they even would forget to, like, remove the placeholders or change the years in the updates. They'd come before the board every year and just get the sign-off . So I am excited that SPS is making use of this tool to help all of its 100-plus schools align to a single set of goals.
[00:17:25] Jane Tunks Demel: For those of you who like to go spelunking for data, like me, the last page of every CSIP has a section called Budget Allocations to Support Continuous Improvement.
And there you can find information on funding sources that are usually extremely hard to find. Some of the funding sources listed there include Title I dollars, Learning Assistance Program funds, city levy dollars, which are usually reserved for higher-needs schools, and equity and per-pupil dollars, which are both SPS funds. And some of the schools even report …
[00:17:58] Christie Robertson: bum bum bum
[00:18:00] Jane Tunks Demel .. that third rail for education advocates: PTA funding!
[00:18:04] Christie Robertson: Yeah, something that we think they should all be reporting. We can't tackle funding inequities if we don't know what they are.
[00:18:12] Jane Tunks Demel: And there's actually no consistency into how the different school sites are filling this part of the CSIP out, but it's still really interesting to see what's there.
[00:18:22] Christie Robertson: My thought is that maybe as they bring the CSIPs more into alignment with the new financial policy that maybe they'll become more consistent.
[00:18:31] Jane Tunks Demel: If you want to look up the CSIP for your student's school, Seattle Public Schools has created a centralized location where you can find them and read them.
[00:18:38] Christie Robertson: We'll include a link in our show notes.
[00:18:40] Jane Tunks Demel: Christie, also at this meeting, I noticed a big change in the way Superintendent Jones is talking about our expectations from our legislators. He sounded a lot more forceful. Perhaps it's because districts all over the state are having difficulties and now they're banding together and getting strength from each other.
[00:18:57] Christie Robertson: Yeah, they're like, “Hey, it's not just us.”
[00:19:00] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, exactly. Because in his superintendent comments, he addressed the looming budget deficit, and he shared how he had gone to Olympia the previous weekend to testify.
[00:19:11] Christie Robertson: Yeah, that was fun, we both caught that testimony by Superintendent Jones on TVW.org and watched him, along with superintendents from Bellevue and Highline, testify in a Senate Ways and Means hearing to support Senate Bill 5956.
[00:19:28] Jane Tunks Demel: And this bill would have allowed Seattle Public Schools to keep more levy money at no cost to the state.
[00:19:34] Christie Robertson: Yeah, the operations levy, sometimes called the enrichment levy.
For a zero-dollar-cost to the state budget — or any additional work for anybody — Seattle Public Schools could have had access to an additional $16 million for the 24-25 budget and $27 million for the year after that. Unfortunately, that bill didn't make it out of committee, so it's dead.
[00:19:56] Jane Tunks Demel: And with it some of the hope that we'll get a significant boost from the legislative session to save us from drastic cuts next year. We are halfway through the legislative session and bills are in policy committees in the opposite houses right now.
We will leave you with Superintendent Jones calls to ride down to Olympia. Here's what he said.
[00:20:15] Superintendent Brent Jones : It is important that we focus our collective efforts to ensure that we are asking our state to fully fund education. This superintendent, this team, is tired of fighting a fight with limited resources. To spend time being creative and innovative about trying to find ways to reduce a budget that is already stretched too thin. It seems like a waste of time, but it's something that we're forced to do. I'm asking all of us who are listening to enroll and try to find ways for us to get resources. If that means we need to load up buses to go to Olympia, to talk to our people around fully funding education. So be it, but it's time for us to continue to fight for the resources that we need.
[00:20:59] Christie Robertson: As we've done in some of our previous episodes, we'll put links to the many organizations that have really excellent education bill trackers so that you know which bills you can add your voice to in support.
[00:21:14] Jane Tunks Demel: Here's to fully funding K-12 education. I hope that Washington State legislators are listening.
[00:21:20] Christie Robertson: Jane, Director Michelle Sarju made a very impassioned speech at the end of the meeting. It sounds like she's received a lot of blowback as a result of last month's board meeting and the subsequent resignations and the media coverage.
[00:21:35] Jane Tunks Demel: Yeah, and we don't want to take her words out of context, so we won't play any excerpts here. We'll put a link to the speech in our show notes if you want to watch for yourself on YouTube.
[00:24:22] Christie Robertson: After Director Sarju's comments, President Rankin also weighed in, and here's what she said.
[00:24:28] Liza Rankin: To add to that briefly. We have a lot of very, very difficult decisions coming our way. And we have to stop pretending that they're not going to be difficult. And we have to stop pretending that expecting people to honor their word, follow the law, and uphold policy is bullying. It's not — it's accountability. And it's literally the job that we were elected to do and took an oath to do. Uphold the law, state and federally, and provide direction to the superintendent through policy, as adopted by the majority of the board. In service of improving outcomes for students.
[00:21:44] Christie Robertson: So the last piece of this long, long meeting was President Rankin's legislative update. We weren't in the room and the camera didn't show how many people were left at this point, but I'll again say that anybody interested in legislative stuff as it relates to SPS should go listen in on the YouTube video to Rankin's updates.
[00:22:06] Jane Tunks Demel: And when this board meeting happened on February 7th, we were about halfway through the legislative session. The session ends on March 7th.
[00:22:17] Christie Robertson: Here's some of the bills that she highlighted that are still in play.
[00:22:21] Jane Tunks Demel: Did MSOC get killed?
[00:22:23] Christie Robertson: Yeah, 24 94. That last minute bill to provide more money for materials supplies and operating costs. Yeah.
[00:22:33] Jane Tunks Demel: Bummer.
[00:22:34] Christie Robertson: Yep. Some of the ones that are still alive are the Restraint and Isolation Bill 1479, which is on its fourth substitute and will probably keep getting tweaked and changed at every step of the way and Is facing its biggest obstacle now in the Senate.
[00:22:51] Jane Tunks Demel: There's also House Bill 2180, which raises the special education cap to 17. 25%.
[00:22:58] Christie Robertson: There's bipartisan support for this, so there's a good chance that that will get through.
There's also 1956 about education about the dangers of opioids. And 2037, which would ensure that everybody gets education at some point in K-12 on the Holocaust and other genocides.
[00:23:19] Jane Tunks Demel: Senate Bill 5873 also helps a bit with some more transportation money. That's one of the areas that Seattle Public Schools overspends. So that would be great.
[00:23:30] Christie Robertson: And then one of the big ones that still left is 5882, which would increase staffing for paraeducators and other non-certificated staff. Or would increase funding for them. We wouldn't get any extra staff because we already have more than they pay for, but at least they would pay for more of our staff.
[00:23:50] Jane Tunks Demel: President Rankin summed up the legislative session like this.
[00:23:54] Liza Rankin: So yeah, that's that. It's kind of looking bleak in terms of funding for K-12. There were two possible levy-increasing local levy authorization, which again, if we had more time, I would go into, but that were somewhat hopeful that would have really helped us with our deficit for next year. Those bills are both dead. So it doesn't mean there's no more money, but like that was kind of the big-ticket item. So, you know, there's still positive things happening. But nothing is saving us from difficult financial choices ahead. As expected, honestly.
[00:24:33] Christie Robertson: And I think that's the perfect note to end on. And Jane, that concludes this episode.
[00:24:40] Jane Tunks Demel: To subscribe and contact us, go to seattlehallpass.org.
[00:24:44] Christie Robertson: Please rate and review us and read our show notes and send any errata and constructive feedback to hello@seattlehallpass.org.
[00:24:53] Jane Tunks Demel: Thanks for listening to Seattle Hall Pass.