Episode 41 - May 22, 2024 School Board Meeting

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[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to Seattle Hall Pass, a podcast with news and conversations about Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson reporting solo today, as Jane is busy with PTSA responsibilities. And today I'm going to break down for you what transpired at the testimony-heavy, board-light May 22nd school board meeting. 

The meeting was short, with the bulk of the time in public testimony. No discussion of the guardrails, which I'll talk about. No discussion of the consent agenda, which I'll talk about. And no board comments.

[00:00:46] Guardrails

[00:00:46] Christie Robertson: And I want to start this with guardrails. A quick background here - under Student Outcomes Focused Governance, the district has three main goals and five guardrails. The idea is that the goals are what the district is working toward, and they represent the vision of the community. And the guardrails represent the values of community, which are not supposed to be broken on the way to achieving the goals. 

In this session, on the agenda were Guardrail 4 - Discipline and Guardrail 5 - Safe and Welcoming Schools. Surprisingly, the board did not monitor these guardrails. And they were only on the agenda as informational items. These are some pretty important guardrails though. So we'll go over them here. 

Guardrail 4 was about discipline, and that guardrail states. 

“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.”

To measure whether this guardrail is being met, the district looked at the student climate surveys, discipline incidents, and professional development for staff. For all of these, the district showed little to no progress for African-American males. 

The same is true for guardrail five. Which states 

“The superintendent will not allow any district department, school building or classrooms to provide unwelcoming environments.”

The district seems to be maintaining or regressing on the measures that they've chosen to monitor. Most shocking were the falling rates of attendance. The number of African-American males attending school 90% of the time has dropped From 60% to 47%.

These are really abysmal outcomes, but keep in mind that the idea behind student outcomes focused governance is that we look at what's happening honestly. And so the district did their job by bringing this report to the board. 

Director Topp was the only one who asked about the guardrails. Here's the interchange between Director Topp and President Rankin. 

[00:03:09] Liza Rankin, President: In our next cycle, according to our governance model, guardrail monitoring can be on the consent agenda. We should be voting to approve. 

[00:03:20] Evan Briggs, Director: Okay. 

[00:03:20] Liza Rankin, President: Or accept the monitoring reports, which we haven't yet implemented. And so in the future...

[00:03:26] Gina Topp, Director: Is it ever common for us to get... actually hear them talk about the guardrails reports and ask some questions?

[00:03:36] Evan Briggs, Director: Like the way we do with the other progress monitoring.

[00:03:37] Gina Topp, Director: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:03:38] Liza Rankin, President: That's not the practice. If I don't know if... Dr. Jones isn't here right now, so I can make, and maybe... But it looks like Dr. Starosky is maybe acting as though he might stand up. I don't know. Are there questions about that, that you wanted to ask, that you didn't have a chance to ask ahead of time? 

[00:04:01] Gina Topp, Director: I'm good for now. 

[00:04:02] Christie Robertson: Given that the board didn't do monitoring or board comments or any other kind of discussion. it was striking the kinds of board interactions that we did see. In this segment, the board directors are talking about the lineup for their community engagement meetings. And you'll hear board directors Evan Briggs, Liza Rankin, Michelle Sarju, and Sarah Clark. 

[00:04:28] Evan Briggs, Director: So did you send out, you said you sent out a spreadsheet that has all of the like assignments, like the dates or. Is that right? 

[00:04:38] Liza Rankin, President: I'm tracking in a Google doc. 

[00:04:40] Evan Briggs, Director: Google doc. Okay. But we're not getting like calendar invites, 

[00:04:45] Liza Rankin, President: So you will get a calendar invite from staff for... Instead of everybody getting all of them, you'll get the one that you've said you're going to go to. 

[00:04:54] Christie Robertson: I'm sparing you some of this. Here's some more though. 

[00:04:58] Michelle Sarju, Director: would it be possible to have someone send out a list of the currently scheduled ones? 

[00:05:05] Liza Rankin, President: I sent one to you yesterday. 

[00:05:08] Michelle Sarju, Director: Oh yesterday. Okay. Well, I haven't checked my school board email today. 

[00:05:11] Liza Rankin, President: It was late. It was late at night. It was late at night, but I did send one and it's in a word doc. It has a long... 

[00:05:17] Michelle Sarju, Director: Great. Thank you. 

[00:05:18] Liza Rankin, President: Yup. 

[00:05:19] Michelle Sarju, Director: Thank you. 

[00:05:20] Liza Rankin, President: And then I see director Clark. Your hand is up. 

[00:05:27] Sarah Clark, Director: Oh, I was actually going to ask the same question. So I will check my email. 

[00:05:32] Christie Robertson: This conversation about technicalities was the most that most of the directors spoke. 

Besides President Rankin, who spoke for 13 minutes all put together, the rest of the directors spoke for between 21 seconds and 45 seconds each, with one director absent.  

[00:05:56] Testimony

[00:05:56] Christie Robertson: The biggest single chunk of the meeting was definitely public testimony, The house was packed with standing room only, including many testifiers and their supporters. There were 25 people on the speaking list as usual. And then, let's see, 31 people on the waitlist. So more people couldn't testify then could testify. Which is particularly disappointing given the lack of substance in the rest of the meeting, and the early end time. Clearly they could have heard from all the speakers, as one of the testifiers requested that they do. 

The open public testimony period broke down as follows: 

• There were 12 testifiers total on Pathfinder K-8 issues. We'll talk about that a little. 
• Six testifiers were talking about school closures and consolidations and well-researched schools in general. 
• There were four testifiers about Laurelhurst elementary school specifically, and the value of their small school. 
• And then three testifiers about native American education. 
  
  

We'll start with native American education, because I really value the testimony of Sarah Sense Wilson.  She always spells out the needs of the native community from the district explicitly and clearly, and as far as I can tell, never gets any response.  So I just feel the need to play them here. Here's what Sarah Sense Wilson said. 

Sarah Sense Wilson: Good evening, Superintendent Dr. Brent Jones and elected school board officials. Urban Native Education Alliance is a native-led, grassroots, volunteer-based, student-centered, nonprofit organization. We are the largest and longest-running native-education-focused nonprofit, serving the Seattle area for over 17 years. We have a broad range of concerns, issues, and recommendations for Seattle Public School native education. 

1) We need full transparency with Native Ed program, including data on native student graduation rates, dropout performance measurements, and disciplinary action. Historically, Indian Ed provided biannual reports to the school board in regular public meetings. This lack of transparency suggests problems, lack of accountability, and fosters distrust with parents, students, and community.  

2) Consultation and engagement with our community regarding the future of Licton Springs K-8 native-focus school. We suspect Licton Springs is on the school closure list. 

3) A schedule of regular community engagement listening sessions with our native community. Historically, we have had community engagement listening sessions with Seattle leadership and past superintendents. To date, we've not had a meeting yet with Dr. Brent Jones. 

4) Comply with the public records requests on the nine grievances filed against the Indian Ed manager. We submitted this request back in early December, 2023. 

5) Restore the data dashboard, please. 

6) Co-develop a restorative-justice process to address the extensive contentious history of conflicts and discord with the Native community.  

7) Eliminate the obstructive gatekeeping practices in place, which interfere with our direct communication with Indian Ed. Deliberate orders from Indian Ed leadership to block communication is harmful to students and to families. 

8) What is the role of Seattle Public School appointed native liaison? Who is it? What qualifies this person? What are their responsibilities and duties and how are they engaging with community? 

Honor our voices by committing to investigating the concerns raised, and act on the suggestions outlined for improving Indian Ed. The first step would be committing to Native American community engagement listening sessions. Thank you.  

Christie Robertson: On that last item, the previous. Board native liaison was Chandra Hampson, who just finished her term. And it was expected that the next liaison was going to be Lisa Rivera, who resigned.  And so, it doesn't appear that a new native liaison has been appointed, or is speaking to the native community.

I know that Sarah Sense Wilson has been asking for those listening sessions the whole year, and I really hope that next year brings a better relationship with the Native community in Seattle Public Schools.

Okay. Let's talk about Pathfinder K-8. Many people with signs were in the audience and got up with different speakers. There was speaker after speaker describing an environment of lax discipline, safety issues, lack of supports for students with disabilities. And many of these speakers called for the outright removal of the principal and the assistant principal. 

Here's an excerpt from the final speaker, Posey Gruner.

Posey Gruner: You've heard stories tonight from students, parents, and faculty. They've told stories of civil rights violations, of toxic work culture, of a failure by this administration to provide a safe place for us to drop off our kids. These are just a few of the stories, and we have many more. They all highlight how this administration has failed to meet the criteria you have set for them, which they must meet in order to satisfactorily do their job. 

Christie Robertson: There was one speaker, Tamisha Watson who spoke for the principal. Here's what she said. 

Tamisha Watson: One month into Dr. Holmes’s appointment, following the retirement of their beloved principal of 22 years, a noose was found hanging on the school grounds. After this incident, Dr. Holmes has been the subject of anti-black targeting, harassment, hostile work environment, at the hands of a coalition of disgruntled Pathfinder staff, family, and local media, making it nearly impossible for her to do her job as an administrator. 

Christie Robertson: Watson described other incidents at Pathfinder, including the N word written on bathroom walls and black staff being called lazy and incompetent. She said, 

Tamisha Watson: There is an anti-black racism problem at Pathfinder. Superintendent Jones and board - Your strategic plan lists as its priority to recruit a diverse representation of our entire community and prioritize those furthest from educational justice. In doing so, Black staff are experiencing great harm and distress, making it difficult for us to do our jobs with fidelity. Nearly all black staff in this building have left due to race-based bullying and harassment from white and white-aligned Pathfinder staff and families. 

Christie Robertson: Clearly, there is an environment of great difficulty and racial tension underlying the situation at Pathfinder. 

 Of course, testimony does not get any response in the current system, which is abbreviated in order to. theoretically spend more focus on student outcomes. 

[13:13:00] Consent agenda

Christie Robertson: The last part of the board meeting that I'll talk about was the consent agenda. The consent agenda included several contracts with outside providers. There was a million dollar agreement with the Children's Institute for Learning Differences, which is one of the private schools that we often talk about where kids with disabilities are sent to when Seattle schools deems that they can't provide special education for a particular kid.

Another item on the consent agenda was a $862,000 construction change order for elevator modernization at nine schools, which was required for ADA compliance. I guess initially the district was going to take care of some of the work, and now they feel like they're understaffed and they can't. And so they're having to pay more to the external partner. 

The board approved of the consent agenda as usual without discussing. 

And they adjourned the meeting two hours earlier than planned. And again, 31 people on the testimony waitlist. Guardrails unmonitored. 

And that concludes this episode. 

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