Bomb Cyclone - Nov 19 School Board Meeting

Intro

[00:00:00] Christie Robertson: Welcome to the Rainy Day Recess podcast, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:08] Jasmine Pulido: I'm Jasmine Pulido. Today we are going to discuss the school board meeting last Tuesday on November 19th.

[00:00:15] Christie Robertson: The meeting has its own story arc, starting from reams of community testimony that was incredibly compelling in both the aspects of being informative and convincing as well as personal and emotional.

 After that comes a long emotional response by Board President Liza Rankin. a discussion between board members and their legal counsel, and then the superintendent lets the news drop that he's considering rescinding the four school closure plan entirely. 

We want to play a long chunk of the testimony, and we're going to put it at the end of this episode for those who want to listen. For this discussion, let's start by hearing President Rankin's response immediately after the testimony.

President Rankin's Response

[00:00:59] Liza Rankin: Thank you. I  was good until someone talked about their kid being six and changing schools three times already because we don't have a system that welcomes all kids at every school. We don't right now. 

A year ago, we went into this process knowing that it was going to be really hard, knowing that we were facing another year of deficit. What we said as a board at the time is that if we focus... Sorry, woah. If we focus on the needs of the kids, the solutions will make themselves apparent. If we center on what our children need to succeed, even if we come up against decisions that are hard, even if we come up against solutions that include considering consolidation, but if the community can understand the challenges and see that at the center are kids, they can be brought along. And they can actually help us come up with stronger solutions. 

And I'm so angry to be right here in a completely preventable place. And I'm so sorry that you all had to take your time to come down here when, for a year, we have, on behalf of you and your children and the entire Seattle community have acknowledged that we understand that there are issues and demanded that we get a plan that centers students. Not that focused on a number of schools, that centered students. And we unanimously voted and agreed in May that we understood that such a plan could include many consolidations. 

Your questions haven't been answered. Our questions haven't been answered. 

Gina and I had the great experience of touring Sacajawea the day after I attended the community meeting there. And that building is at the end of its life. But the building is not the school. And the school, the community, and the program, they're not the same. And I know that I've said this. These are not one new words out of my mouth, and I'm crying also just out of frustration.

And full disclosure, as a neurodiverse person, it takes a ton of masking to be here and try to be professional when I don't really know what that means. And I can't take... Five years of it has been too much for me. To continue to believe in a system that keeps letting so many of us and our kids down. 

I still have hope that we can change the trajectory and that people up here and around the corners of the room want what's best. I can't see how the plan that we have right now is in alignment with any of the things that we've asked for. 

We had an opportunity... Sacajawea, because of historical segregation in special education and the placement of students with disabilities in programs, in pathways that don't allow every kid to attend their school. Literally, you can live two blocks from your school, and they can tell you, "I'm sorry, we don't have that service here." A neighborhood school! 

And so Sacajawea has a higher percentage of students with disabilities. They have a 40% ish students with disability population. Not because there happened to be a lot of kids with disabilities in that area, but because a lot of those kids weren't allowed to go to their assignment school. And so SPS created a school with a twice higher percentage of students with disabilities. 

But because of that, they have one of the most inclusive, intentional school communities in our whole system. And they are employing the practices that we want to see more people employ. 

The heartbreaking thing is that they're doing the practices that we're trying to say we'll be more able to do in a school with more teachers. Which I do believe to be true. But I think there was a real missed opportunity. If we had started the conversation where we did start it, what does it mean to have a school that's well-resourced? What does it mean to have a school that can serve every kid? It would have been recognized that Sacajawea had something that needs to be replicated. And we could have even built and I think still can, and it's not up to me to have ideas, but you know what? I'm... I got nothing to lose at this point. 

We missed. We haven't missed the opportunity. We have an opportunity. Why not make Sacajawea... what if we learned from them? Intentionally kept a school that, like the experimental education unit preschool and kindergarten at the University of Washington Haring Center, has a higher proportion of students with disabilities... What if we kept that model that they have, that's so incredible, and what if we used it as an asset to train more educators in inclusionary practices? What if we built that school? What if we rebuilt that school at 300 or 350, so that educators could go there for two years and then take those best practices out into other buildings? 

When we visited Sanislo and their outdoor space. That's an asset. That's not a deficit. That's something that people in wealthier areas of the city wish they had access to. What if that was an environmental learning center that could be accessed by more students? What if it became, if not in elementary school again, an after-school program that focused on environmental learning? I don't know. I'm... 

I don't have a lot of authority as president actually, except for to dominate the microphone. But one thing I am allowed to do is postpone meetings. I'm open to hearing from what other directors think, but I am highly inclined at this point to suspend, delay, whatever, the four hearings that we have at buildings, as I just can't imagine we're going to hear anything at those buildings or between now and January that would allow us to vote yes on this proposal. 

So it's not an official vote. It's a temperature check. Because I have the authority to say that we are going to delay the meetings. Unless the update later this evening has new information. 

And I'm not saying we don't need to consider consolidation still. I'm just saying, I can't imagine that we get to the place where everybody feels good about voting yes in January with what we have now. 

[00:08:54] Christie Robertson: After the speech. President Rankin, a couple of other board directors, and the legal counsel had some back and forth about what to do next, which got very confusing. Could they cancel the meetings? Make a motion to cancel the resolution? 

Board Directors Discuss

[00:09:12] Michelle Sarju: So I appreciate Liza losing it, because what you're witnessing... 

[00:09:18] Liza Rankin: It was going to happen at some point. 

[00:09:19] Michelle Sarju: ...is that there are seven humans on this dais who made a decision to be a public servant. And we are doing the hard work. This is not easy work. And so I'm saying to parents, what you need to understand is this board is not trying to just close your kid's school. We're not trying to break up communities. What we're trying to do is save a system for all of your kids. We want high quality public school education for every kid in this district. 

So we're not in a place. I wanted to see a plan. There isn't a plan. We can't do this closing of schools unless we can assure parents that we're not going to damage their children. We need to speak to the community. Because we haven't been speaking to the community. They feel like we're hiding behind the dais. 

We need to refocus and we need to buckle down. Do we need to close schools? The answer to that is yes. I see you shaking your head. We do. But we need to do it in a way that is going to benefit all of our kids, not just some of them. And so that's our work. That's our work. 

But right now, we can't even have that conversation. Because it's so political. It's so weaponized. So I'm telling you all, we're going to take an up or down vote. Period. I don't know how we're going to do that, but we're going to do it. 

[00:11:07] Liza Rankin: I can make a motion. Uh, Legal check. Do I need to move to amend the agenda? I would like to recommend a motion to reject the current plan that has been proposed by the superintendent. 

[00:11:24] Greg Narver: So we have a policy, 6883, that lays out the process that is supposed to happen triggered by presentation of preliminary recommendations, which requires things like the site-based hearings that have been scheduled. As you noted as board president with the power to schedule special board meetings, as you did for these... 

[00:11:47] Liza Rankin: So powerful. I can schedule a meeting. 

[00:11:49] Greg Narver: I do not believe it would be appropriate for the board to come to a final vote tonight... 

[00:11:53] Michelle Sarju: Yeah. 

[00:11:54] Greg Narver: ...when that process has not played out. What you can do, right now or at any time, postpone those hearings, although the sooner, the better, because notice of them has already gone out and is in the Seattle Times. 

[00:12:05] Liza Rankin: As board president, you also have the power, the incredible power, to declare a recess. Drunk with power. 

Um, okay. I am going to propose that officially in this moment, we are delaying...

 Okay, let's recess! 

[00:12:22] Christie Robertson: And so they recessed. We'll discuss this more, but first we want to play for you what happened after the recess. Here's Superintendent Jones.

Superintendent Jones Rethinks

[00:12:30] Christie Robertson: I will be brief. This won't be the planned update. When we talk about a system of well-resourced schools the school board gave me direction to develop a preliminary recommendation. It is now clear that that direction is shifting. And I am considering withdrawing my preliminary recommendation. So that's the digest version of the school board meeting discussion around school closures. Let's talk about what happened. Wow, Jasmine.

Christie & Jas Discussion

[00:13:02] Christie Robertson: Yeah! I feel like I watched a thriller or something. The ups and downs of that meeting are pretty incredible.

[00:13:11] Jasmine Pulido: Mmhmm. When I originally watched it, I jumped into the part right after Liza's speech, and I was like, what happened? I just, I need to rewind this. These school board meetings, they feel like an entire saga every meeting.

[00:13:26] Christie Robertson: Yeah. I went to the protest before the school board meeting. 

[00:13:31] Crowd: Save our schools! Save our schools! Save our schools!

[00:13:37] Christie Robertson: And I doubt anybody there had any inkling about what was going to happen just a couple hours later.

[00:13:44] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. And maybe metaphorically relevant, but the bomb cycle and was also brewing at the time of the meeting. It just felt like, you just can't make this stuff up.

[00:13:55] Christie Robertson: Yeah, they were trying to get out of there quickly before the bomb cyclone hit. Yeah, it was.

[00:14:00] Jasmine Pulido: It was madness.

[00:14:01] Christie Robertson: That was something else. 

[00:14:01] Jasmine Pulido: Mmhmm. Yeah. 

Discussion on Governance and SOFG

[00:14:03] Christie Robertson: So, there's so much to think about in this turnaround that happened after the public testimony. One of the most striking things is the way that the board is interacting with the district. The last few years have been this whole transition to this Student Outcomes Focused Governance model, which is very hands-off, very much like “we set the goals and guardrails and you, superintendent, do anything that you need to do to accomplish that, and we don't meddle.” But this was the ultimate meddling in a way, where it was like, "you've had your staff working on these closure plans for a year and a half or something and just cancel them." 

[00:14:51] Jasmine Pulido: What did you think about the way that SOFG is being reinterpreted in this meeting?

[00:15:00] Christie Robertson: I don't think it's being reinterpreted. I think it was just dropped for this meeting.

[00:15:04] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, okay.

[00:15:05] Christie Robertson: And the funny part is that it both speaks to why you want to keep school board directors from meddling to some degree, to not have such a game-changing occurrence in one meeting, where all the staff's work is undone. But also, on the contrary, it speaks to the problems with SOFG, because clearly this needed to happen. The plan had to be canceled, as you could hear from the community testimony. It wasn't a good plan. It wasn't going to hardly save any money. It was going to impact so many people.

[00:15:41] Jasmine Pulido: It wasn't a plan. I mean everyone was saying “tell us the plan.” Yeah. 

[00:15:45] Christie Robertson: So it had to be canceled. And in order to do that kind of meddling, they had to cancel SOFG for a minute. And so that kind of speaks to the problems with SOFG. So, yeah.

Impact of the Recall on the Meeting

[00:15:57] Jasmine Pulido: I always feel like it's really interesting to consider the entire context of this. So, for instance, a recall was issued by a group of five parents. And I feel like that recall did impact how Liza showed up at this meeting. She's the only one that was included in this recall. It's not the entire board. And I feel like that can't be ignored as a potential factor in how this meeting played out. 

[00:16:21] Christie Robertson: Yeah, the recall, one of the big complaints was the lack of responsiveness to community. And this turnaround was all about responding to what was heard in the testimony, something that President Rankin hasn't really done in forever. She's always said it's one-way communication. But clearly, she was on the other end of that communication in this meeting. 

[00:16:57] Jasmine Pulido: What do you think about Liza's response to listening to community at this point? Testimonials are now reduced to just one meeting. We know that she hasn't really visited any schools, but she did finally visit a few schools on the closure list before this meeting. Like, how do you think that opening up to community engagement has affected her position?

[00:17:21] Christie Robertson: Yeah, so I guess that's one of my questions is, was it the recall that was the main influence or was it the fact that she actually started listening to what community were saying and she actually visited schools? You heard that long description that she gave of visiting Sacajawea. It clearly had a huge impact on her. And before that, none of the school board members had ever visited Sacajawea before. So it's a testament to the importance of actually visiting the schools and that visiting schools and just regularly interacting with folks on the ground is so important.

[00:18:04] Jasmine Pulido: And why do we think that she wasn't doing any of these things before?

[00:18:07] Christie Robertson: The rationale behind it is that if you do things like those community meetings, you're going to get the people with the most privilege to come to them. And you're only going to be hearing from part of the community. And I think the difficulty was that President Rankin's response to that problem of hearing more from privileged parents was to stop listening to community at all.

That may have even been pre SOFG. There's a long history in Seattle Public Schools of bending to the will of the loudest people that know to and know how to come and give testimony, and the people who know to go to theboard members' meetings, or who can get a text number for one of the school board directors and are texting them during the meeting. And that kind of access was a real problem, and I think it was something that was very right for them to be thinking about. I think it's just, clearly the response to that went way too far.

[00:19:05] Jasmine Pulido: It's like overcompensation in the other direction. 

[00:19:15] Christie Robertson: Yeah, 

[00:19:16] Jasmine Pulido: Yep. that makes sense. 

I also was thinking... I have heard that Liza was a very community oriented person. Like didn't Liza start Soup for Teachers before running office, for instance? What's really interesting to think about is the way our environment influences how we show up and how we think about things. And I'm saying that as someone who has a behavioral background. I see Liza as someone who came from this really community-oriented space, comes into this role as essentially a bureaucrat. Now five plus years into office having isolated themselves from community engagement, now we have a different person who's making these decisions. And so especially with SOFG structurally supporting the isolation, I just feel like it's really unfortunate to watch this trajectory. 

And I say that as someone who has been reading a lot of the criticism and support for Liza. And I guess to me, it's just, they could be both, where she was both a community advocate and now this person isolated from community engagement who's making decisions essentially without enough information from the public. Until this meeting or these last few meetings where she's really listened to impactful testimony.

[00:20:35] Christie Robertson: And Jasmine, which Liza do you think will show up at the next meeting? Do you think this was an awakening or a blip? 

[00:20:44] Jasmine Pulido: I mean, I could tell you what I hope to see. I would hope that it's a foot in the door of people who have not felt very heard for a long time. 

I think one side of what I've heard about the recall is "These people are really privileged and are trying to predict the trajectory to their own causes or aims." And then the other side of the recall is "These people have real concerns, and they're only doing this because they have no other choice. "

And I feel like I've listened to enough community feedback to know that just a lot of the community doesn't feel heard. And what else do you do if you don't feel heard? Like, I went to the North Beach community meeting, and you went to Stevens, right? What I heard there was a lot of people who just didn't feel heard. They were so frustrated that they weren't listened to that they had to start yelling things out, because if you've gone to any of these hearings, they're very controlled. They try to really control the conversation and... 

[00:21:45] Christie Robertson: Yeah, a lot of nonanswers and gaslighting. 

[00:21:48] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, exactly. I guess my opinion is that certainly there can be a situation in which a couple of privileged folks decide to take things into their hands and bend things to their will. But there's another situation that can happen, which is that there are some people who have enough privilege to be able to do this recall as a representation of the community. Because the rest of the community feels this way, too, and they just don't have enough privilege to be able to push it as far as a couple of people could. And I think conflating those two things is a really dangerous thing.

[00:22:24] Christie Robertson: Totally. 

President Rankin's Speech Analysis

[00:22:25] Jasmine Pulido: What did we think about Liza's speech? 

[00:22:28] Christie Robertson: Let's turn it around this time. Jazz, what did you think about President Rankin's speech?

[00:22:33] Jasmine Pulido: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I just felt like it was in bad form, the way that this whole thing played out. I understand that she felt really emotional listening to the testimonies, and I think that totally makes sense. These testimonies were amazing, and to your point of people who know how to work the system, a lot of these testimonies were first-time speakers. And just the amount of personal narrative and factual information and their hard hitting points in just two minutes was amazing to see from the community.

I guess when I heard her respond to that, it was hard for me not to think about it as far as the recall. I just felt like she was taking a lot of opportunities to absolve her own responsibility in how this all played out. I appreciate that she apologized for everyone coming out and having to do these testimonies, but This is not a new situation of people coming out. There's been rallies for more than one meeting. 

And I guess what I'm struggling with is that people are both ands, right? They can be completely walking contradictions, and I can totally understand what she said about masking and how hard it is to be on the board for five-plus years. And I think one of the things I thought about to her credit is, this is a school board director who navigated us through the pandemic, which was a terrible time for everyone. And to be someone who would go on the board during that time and try to work out this monumentally complex problem that is just emotionally draining to just experience, I give so much kudos for that. 

[00:24:09] Christie Robertson: And then to sign up for it again. 

[00:24:12] Jasmine Pulido: And then signed up for it again, knowing that there is a budget deficit that is looming and continuing to loom. I do think that takes a lot of courage. And I think that takes someone who's very passionate about the school system and education. And speaking to her point about what hope that she has for fixing the system, right? And at the same time, it is hard for me to hear someone say that on one end of the speech, and then on the other end of the speech say I have no power. I have no power to do anything. I have no power in this happening. I only have a power to call recess. That's not much power. I only have the power to like, completely pull these recommendations. I don't have any power. If you know that you're in the system because you want to fix it, that already says that you feel that you have power to change things in that position. 

So then to turn around and say, "I have no power at all," that's where I felt like the recall came in. "If I can say I have no power, then I don't have responsibility, and none of this is my fault. And in fact, maybe this is all the district's fault because they didn't come up with a plan when I asked them to, and I'm the one who's frustrated. I'm frustrated." 

And I felt like that part was really hard for me to digest. Like, how can you not also admit that you're a part of this? And just take some time to honestly reflect on that. I felt that it seemed more that she was frustrated and she was being impacted by the system and the process instead of acknowledging her part and her role in this.

 Anyway, what did you think?

[00:25:41] Christie Robertson: And, yeah, as a matter of fact, there was a cohort of board directors that specifically thought that closing schools could benefit the school district or could help distribute resources more evenly between the schools, maybe. Or that option schools were not equitable. These whole kind of ideas came from her and a couple other board directors. And so the whole plan, in a way, the original plans A and B were set in motion by them. 

[00:26:10] Jasmine Pulido: Right! Yup. 

[00:26:10] Christie Robertson: Which is extremely powerful. And then cutting back down to four, she also had a big hand in that. And then now she's basically single handedly canceling the plans. And so that's a huge amount of power. 

[00:26:26] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. Can we even just go back for a second? Gina Topp tried to make a motion not that many meetings ago and could not do it. She couldn't get anything done. Because Liza batted her down and said, you can't do that. Now Liza wants to make a motion in the meeting, and she was definitely looking in her toolbox to see what she could do. Could she amend the agenda? Could she delay the hearings? Could she call a recess? Could she schedule a meeting so that they could make the motion? And maybe she didn't call the motion during the meeting, but she was able to call recess. And by the end of the meeting, the superintendent is considering rescinding recommendations. That's not something that Gina Topp was able to do. And it's clear that between even the board directors that Liza's position is different from the rest of the board.

[00:27:15] Christie Robertson: Yeah. The president position has gotten way more powerful in the last year, I'd say. As we discussed with both Joe Mizrahi and Gina Topp, each board director used to make board comments. They each used to have their own constituent meetings. They each would sometimes respond to testimonies. They could each make motions. Yeah, a lot of power has now been consolidated in the president.

[00:27:42] Jasmine Pulido: That's such a good point.

OPMA

[00:27:43] Christie Robertson: I wanted to just bring up briefly how the Open Public Meetings Act interacted with this meeting, because for us watching the meeting on YouTube, it looked like President Rankin just unilaterally started the process towards canceling the resolution. But I heard from somebody who was actually in the room that she looked around to the other board directors and was like, "Are you feeling this? Are you feeling this?" 

[00:28:12] Jasmine Pulido: Some sort of consensus.

[00:28:13] Christie Robertson: I'd be interested to know how that fits into Open Public Meetings. Because that discussion isn't happening in public if you're just, like, looking across the room and getting a nod from somebody. 

And then similarly, when they took that recess... They're allowed to call an executive meeting for specific purposes, but they're not allowed to just have a recess and discuss things. That's not discussing in public either.

[00:28:38] Jasmine Pulido: Right. 

[00:28:40] Christie Robertson: I mean, it really looked like they took a recess and discussed things and came back.

[00:28:43] Jasmine Pulido: Because the superintendent's speech at the end completely changed. He was like, this is not what I was going to say, but I'm going to pull recommendations. And how could that conclusion have come without a conversation in recess?

[00:28:55] Christie Robertson: Yeah. Again, more things that are happening because this governance model or this board or whatever combination doesn't want to just have that discussion out in public. 

Time, Effort and Money on Scrapped Plans

[00:29:06] Christie Robertson: And then I wanted to talk about what this means about the last year and a half.

[00:29:13] Jasmine Pulido: Ugh. 

[00:29:13] Christie Robertson: How many people's full-time jobs do you suppose it was... 

[00:29:17] Jasmine Pulido: hmm. Mm 

[00:29:18] Christie Robertson: ...to make these closure plans? There was quite a bit of analysis and data. It wasn't enough to satisfy people to really feel comfortable with a closure. It wasn't enough, but it was a lot. 

There was a lot of budget work. There was a lot of program work. There were tables and graphs and calculations and interactions and meetings at schools. And how much of the superintendent's time over the last year and a half has been taken up by this? I wonder if we put in a public records request if it would be possible to get a calculation of how much money they spent on all this planning.

[00:29:58] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. It'd be worth knowing. On top of the legal counsel for recall charges as well, it is a lot of time and money and energy and resources towards something that basically ended with nothing. 

[00:30:11] Christie Robertson: And the community's time and energy. And teachers, and principals...

[00:30:15] Jasmine Pulido: Oh my gosh, yeah, and like how much harm was done by just going through this entire process?

What I think about is... I kind of wonder if they were just set up for failure from the very beginning. Because even when they originally announced, "Okay, come back to us a proposal to close up to 20 schools," even back then, the superintendent said, I'm paraphrasing, something to the extent of, "Okay, we are talking to other places that have done this, other consultants, and this process takes years to do." But at the time also said, "Okay, but if that's what you want, we're going to do it." And they put this whole thing in motion. But like, how do you get years' worth of work done in months? 

And then, rejecting that plan and being like, "Okay, we're only going to do four," and then coming up with an entirely new plan. And then not doing that as well. It's hard for me to believe that they're not set up to fail from the very beginning. 

[00:31:13] Christie Robertson: And if all of that energy had been put toward how to do budget cuts without closing schools... 

[00:31:19] Jasmine Pulido: mm hmm. 

[00:31:21] Christie Robertson: ...where would we be now? Instead, we have to start from scratch.

[00:31:24] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, if there's anything secretive going on, I hope it's that someone was in the corner secretly trying to figure that out while everyone else was working on school closures. That would be the true hero of this situation. I wish.

Superintendent's Role and Future

[00:31:38] Christie Robertson: I guess the last thing I wanted to talk about is what does this mean for Superintendent Jones? I know that we have heard through the grapevine that some of the board wants him out. And I also know that this meeting could not have been very fun for him.

[00:31:57] Jasmine Pulido: No.

[00:31:57] Christie Robertson: I wonder if he went home feeling furious or defeated? I wonder if he's on the path to getting fired or if he wants to resign. He's got a great poker face and he's always genteel. So I don't feel like I know, but I just feel like after the last year and a half, it's very likely that something's going to happen. I don't know how he can just come back with a fourth or fifth plan. 

[00:32:25] Jasmine Pulido: If they were to fire the superintendent, doesn’t it have to be on the terms of student outcomes because of SOFG? Or can they oust him for other reasons?

[00:32:39] Christie Robertson: No... Do you remember when they redid his contract recently? And people were upset because he got a raise. And President Rankin, in an article in the newspaper, said, "But what this does is it lets us fire him for any reason at any time."

[00:32:56] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, any reason. It really allows? Any reason? 

[00:33:00] Christie Robertson: Let me just read this from the Seattle Times article. "School Board President Liza Rankin, who negotiated the new agreement, said the compensation increase was in line with the cost of living adjustment that other district employees received and that the board was able to get favorable terms in the deal, including a consistent way to evaluate and monitor the superintendent's progress on the board's goals. 'It's not a bonus,' Rankin said. 'It's not related to performance. This is a better contract than we had before, and it still allows termination without cause.'"

[00:33:33] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah.

[00:33:35] Christie Robertson: Without cause means for any reason.

[00:33:37] Jasmine Pulido: Wow. I guess what I wonder is, who's really responsible for this? As we've talked about previously, Christie, how power gets consolidated between the superintendent and the president because of SOFG, what I find to be happening over and over again in this relationship is the president says, " Hey, we direct you to do this." And then the superintendent says, "Okay, I'm going to deliver what I can." And then the board or the president says again, "We need more details" or whatever. 

But, like, when we listened to Dr. Ray Hart from Council of Great City Schools, the same place as where AJ Crabill is from, he said, "Okay, board, you're asking the district to do this thing, but you didn't actually give them the specifics to do this thing. So actually, that's something that YOU have to do," right? And the board was like, "What?" And then they're like, "Okay, I guess." And then they still didn't do it. Like, they still didn't make it more specific. 

And so, like, that's what I feel like I hear happening between the president and the school board is this misunderstanding of who actually needs to be accountable in this situation. Does that make sense? 

[00:34:44] Christie Robertson: 100%. Yep. I think that's a bigger discussion that's also happening in the community of who's to blame for the things that are going wrong? Is it the board for not giving proper instruction and not following through on monitoring or redirecting? Or is it the superintendent and his staff for not executing well?

[00:35:04] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. 

[00:35:05] Christie Robertson: That's a hard question. 

[00:35:06] Jasmine Pulido: Do we think that there are enough people on the board that would vote for him to leave?

[00:35:11] Christie Robertson: I wonder if that's changed after this meeting. Is he going to be the fall guy for all these school closure plans going awry?

[00:35:18] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. I don't know, by the time the next board meeting happens, you might know. Because this all is happening very fast.

[00:35:25] Christie Robertson: That's right. So there's a special board meeting on Tuesday to specifically rescind the resolution. That's the only thing on the agenda. It's going to be a very quick meeting. And then the next board meeting is not scheduled until December 18th. Although I wonder if they'll have something in between. Because also, there was stuff that they didn't get to in that crazy bomb cyclone meeting. 

[00:35:40] Jasmine Pulido: And then why aren't they, scheduling two meetings a month? I don't understand. 

[00:35:50] Christie Robertson: It is not for us to understand, Jasmine.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:35:53] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, but wow, I'm very frustrated by watching this meeting. And at the same time relieved. And also " What happens now?" The uncertainty is certainly hard. 

[00:36:00] Christie Robertson: This episode is definitely called “Bomb Cyclone.”

[00:36:07] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. 

[00:36:09] Christie Robertson: Those are our thoughts, and we would love to hear yours. Please tell us what we missed by emailing us at hello@rainydayrecess.org.

And here's the awesome community testimony mashup. Thank you so much to everybody for coming out and speaking up for the school district's children.

We edited these clips for length and clarity. We'll list everybody's names at the end of the testimonies.

Public Testimony

[00:36:34] Stephen Smith:  Small community-based schools are the best way to build equitable and diverse communities that give all of our kids the best chance for success. And because you are a part of a small community, when you know all of the kids, when they play sports together, when they go to each other's birthday parties, you build strong and diverse and inclusive communities. 

Now, I recently had the chance to talk with President Rankin about the school closures. And she told me that one reason that we need to close schools is that we've overbuilt. That we've built these huge five or 600 person mega schools. And now the collateral damage of this mistake is that we need to close our small schools. And we need to disrupt our kids' educations and disrupt these communities that we built. And all for a cost savings of less than 5% of our budget deficit. 

It just doesn't make sense. These mega schools actually have fewer staff per student, and special ed and low-income students may lose existing support and resources. 

 Replace our aging, small schools with new, small schools and keep our communities intact. Seattle can afford i,t and our children deserve it. 

[00:37:41] Najib Hashim: I have two kids, and my third one is on the way. I'm the only one working for my family, and my wife don't drive. Sanislo School school is a block away from me. My wife takes my daughter to school by walking, putting that two-year-old baby on her back while she's pregnant because nobody's at home. 

This is the only school which is close to my apartment. If this school is closed, it is going to be harmful to my family. And it will be harmful to my child. My wife can't walk more with small baby on her back while she's pregnant. 

My daughter is doing good in school. She likes the teachers and the staff there and her friends. How will I tell my daughter that she'll be separated from Sanislo community that was supporting her? How do I explain to my wife that she can no longer safely walk our child to school? How do I forgive myself for trusting that school board district would provide stability for my family? 

Please don't close Sanislo, because it is connected to my life. Who knows, maybe in the future one of the Sanislo students might be the president of the United States of America. 

[00:39:04] Peggi Fu: SPS did not proactively plan to fill buildings from BEX V, and now our children and our communities bear the cost of their poor planning. If there had been transparency during the last BEX levy about merging North Beach and Viewlands, we wouldn't be in this position. The district could have worked with both of our communities, selected a walkable location for the new building to minimize transportation costs, and redrawn boundaries to ensure that the new school wouldn't be overcrowded from day one. I firmly believe that if the district had engaged with the North Beach community five years ago with a thoughtful and transparent plan, we wouldn't have just tolerated it. We would have embraced it. Instead, we are now dealing with the fallout from these painful decisions that prioritize real estate over the well-being of our children. 

For now, BEX lev funds should just focus on upgrading middle and high schools and essential maintenance at our neighborhood schools. Parents will support well-planned long-term decisions that prioritize children. 

[00:39:57] Rochelle Carillo:  I have two children at Sanislo. I have a second grader and a kindergartener, and my second grader would like to say something to you guys. 

[00:40:07] 2nd Grader:  I am so sad that... I'm so sad you are... want to close my school. When I heard my school might close, I was frozen in shock. I was like, "why, why they closing my school?" I was scared. Sanislo is a beautiful school, and I don't want to see everybody... everyone leave. 

[00:40:21] Anders Hammersberg: We've lost track of the original intent behind building larger schools, which wasn't to have them be completely full on the first day they're opened. Instead, they were built larger because the cost was roughly equivalent to building smaller schools, and it would build extra capacity into a strained system, providing flexibility to move programs between schools and lessen the impacts of temporary closures of other schools while going through the rebuilding process. There shouldn't be any perceived pressure to fill large schools as soon as they're open. Instead, there should be a phased approach with a combination of rezoning, beginning with incoming kindergarten cohorts intended to minimize disruptions to students, prioritize stability as one of the planning factors, continue to maximize caregiver choice requests as part of a larger strategic multi-year plan that includes a 20 year forward-looking school rebuild plan. There are way too many PhDs walking around this building to not expect this level of basic leadership to manage $1 billion organization like SPS. 

[00:41:49] Rachel Kubiak: As an epidemiologist, I analyze data every day. So, I looked at the OSPI data and found that proposed school closures disproportionally impact children experiencing homelessness, English language learners, low-income families, and children with disabilities. This matters. Research clearly shows that closures have outsized long-lasting negative impacts on vulnerable children like children in low-income families, like children with disabilities. And this is true for children both at the closing and receiving schools. So why? Why are we so focused on consolidating schools that serve the children most at risk of being harmed? There is so little to be gained- negligible budget savings, no new school resources. And so much to be lost. 

I'm not always against school closures, but I am strongly against these. Sacajawea is a great school, serving children who frequently fall through the cracks at SPS. And they are falling now. There is no clear plan for children with disabilities. Like my son. Do you know the struggle to adjust, to change, for a child with a disability? To make friends? Avoid being bullied? Their plan is to send kids like mine to John Rogers or quote-unquote "nearby schools".  We're told the whole community will be kept together, but apparently, SPS doesn't include children with special education needs in that community. This is blatent ableism. End this plan now. Seattle must do better. 

[00:43:38] Annie Becker: I have been an SPS parent since 2009. At that time, I was a kinship caregiver to a justice involved youth. A youth with immense unmet special education needs. A youth who was unable to get into Interagency due to waitlist constraints. At that time, the district was far more well-resourced. We found a school for him, but he was only able to attend for six months. The school he was eventually able to get into closed as part of the 2009 closure round. School closures are part and parcel to the school-to-prison pipeline. The youth that I was raising at that time fell into and stayed in that pipeline. 

I currently have four children in Seattle Public Schools. I've watched committees dissolved and public engagement cut in my time at SPS. An ideology has taken over the governance structure of the school board that creates a top-down system that prevents true engagement and understanding with what the community needs. Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. Prior to this closure plan school, communities tried to meet with President Rankin and the rest of the board to make our voices heard and ask for real engagement. It has been made clear to us that no one is interested in co-designing a future with our communities. 

I do not take the recall effort lightly. And I really wish that we didn't have to do this. But I am part of the recall plan for President Rankin. 

[00:45:29] Alex Rouse: I implore you as a board to insist the district pursue publicly other options to close the budget. Why are there 89 directors or supervisors in the central office? What does $150 million in purchased services and consultant contracts buy? I know some of that bought enrollment projections that were wrong by 800 kids. 

This closure plan could cost us money, families, will harm kids, are not justified, and will hurt our city. Why tear apart the fragile social bonds we're starting to forge in a post-pandemic world? What family would choose a neighborhood where the closest school has been boarded up and fenced off. 

These mega schools will be less resourced. The four consolidated dated schools will serve more students with eight less FTE. Two schools may lose their Title I status and funds. Two schools may not have room for all their special ed kids. And enrollment projections and assumptions are wrong. We are growing. Families live here. The kids are here. 

You should be concerned that SPS cannot execute this without causing harm, even if you like the plan. They threatened school leaders if they spoke with families about the school closure plans. They only shared information about school closures in writing on a website. Black and brown and immigrant families at Dunlap at my school told me they were never invited to any of the affinity group meetings.

There's a tidal wave of caregivers and educators across the state, including us, going to Olympia. Don't make this risky decision before we know what money we get from the state. Please hold the district accountable to ensure school closures are the last resort. 

[00:46:44] Anne Perry: There is a current running below the proposed consolidation of Sanislo and Highland Park elementary schools, and the land and spirits remember. No one can deny we're in a difficult moment, and yet this moment does not stand separate from all the moments before or after now. 

Over the past 12 years, three of Seattle's most culturally and linguistically diverse schools have been consolidated, displaced, or closed. In a pattern that echoes settler colonialism, children from families with the least institutional power have been separated from schools rich in land, history, and community. These schools span the Delridge corridor, which falls within the Longfellow Creek watershed. Longfellow Creek begins at Roxhill Park near the original Roxhill School, passes by Sanislo Elementary and then Pathfinder K-8, which was previously Cooper School, before emptying into the West Waterway and out to the Duwamish River and Elliot Bay. 

Unsurprisingly, the lands and waterways of the Longfellow Creek watershed have also suffered the effects of institutional neglect and harm. In the powerful work of restoration that is happening through community partnerships with the Duwamish people, neighbors, nonprofits, businesses, and government, hope for healing is alive. 

We must shift our focus. Instead of asking "How do we ease the bitter pill of school closures," I call on Seattle Public Schools administration and board to step into this moment with values and actions aligned. In restorative justice circles, let us turn to each other and boldly say, "How do we meet this moment together? What does justice look like now?" 

[00:48:22] Allison Augustyn: So school is the people, right? And the people are the school. You cannot have a well-resourced school without community. It doesn't matter if you have 150 kids or 500 kids. If you don't have community backing and trust, it's not going to be a well-resourced school. You don't have that trust right now because we're missing some pretty critical things, which is transparency, clear communication, and accountability. 

[00:48:44] Olinda De LaFuente: I just want to say this: nice buildings don't make good education. Good education depends good teachers, good moral, principles, and human values. All these schools have beautiful buildings, technology, and material things. But they are full of oppression and discriminations, racism to childrens of immigrants, bullying, under valuing, and lack of humans value. 

I finally found a beautiful school with a passion for education, which is what a school is for- Sanislo. Where they instill from good citizens with principles and confidence in themself. They don't feel judged for how they dress, where they are from, what they eat, how they speak their English. You can talk the hallway and feel the respect and love for our kids. 

[00:49:43] Jamie Harper: I understand the difficult place the district is in with the current budget deficit, but I want to make sure the needs of the students are the top priority during these discussions. My special needs son currently holds an IEP. He was at Lowell Elementary for two years then moved to Stevens, as they can better meet his needs. This was a traumatic move. But Stevens offers what he needed. He's found a home at Stevens. 

With this current plan, he is looking at his third elementary school by the age of six, not to mention another traumatic change. This will greatly affect the progress he is making and set him back again. My biggest worry is moving him to a larger school with less resources will result in him being lost in the system. 

As you know, all kids need stability and structure. Kids with disabilities hold an even higher need. Changing schools at such an early age affects them the most. When reviewing the top schools in Seattle that support kids with disabilities, Stevens falls number three on the list of public schools, and number four if you include private. 

 Obviously I'm worried about my son. Like other schools on this list, there's no plan for kids with disabilities at Stevens. This is detrimental to these kids, and I urge you to reject the proposal and put all kids first. 

[00:50:59] Quanshay Maxwell:  First, I'm going to start with "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." I say that because I'm not only a single mother of four children that are in the Seattle Public Schools, but low income. 

You guys haven't given us no reason to trust you. I'm asking that you guys don't close the school. 

I've been with Stevens Elementary for 11 years. I have a fourth grader that is at Stevens that has a learning disability. Without Stevens, I would've just thought that my son didn't like to read. But with being at Stevens and the teachers and the staff, they helped me find out that my son was just dyslexic. But now, they've worked with my son. I come home... I come home, and I get to see my son sitting and reading a book without any problems. And he's happy to read them. And he's happy to sit with me and say, "Hey Mom. Listen to me read," and not have no stumbles. 

I also am a parent that needs transportation. That needs childcare. And those are not the things that they talked about. You want to talk about equity, but we're not talking about childcare? 

 My boys already have to live their life dealing with day-to-day things on just simply being young black boys. But now I have my nine-year-old fourth grader asking me, "Mom, are they going to close my school?" It takes him a lot to form relationships. Trust. 

We started as a family at Tent City. I don't know if a lot of you even know what that is. But let me just enlighten you just real quickly. Tent City is for families that are homeless, that don't have a place to stay. They give you and your family a tent to live in. We started there, and then we moved into transitional housing, and then we got permanent housing. And all doing so, we were at Stevens. 

I cannot speak for no one else but myself. But what I CAN say is, Stevens is not just a school to me and my kids. Stevens is a family. And breaking us up? I can't say that this school is not better than this school, but what I can speak for is my own school. Stevens has helped me and my children come out of a lot of dark, hard places. 

So I please, sincerely from the bottom of my heart, please, think about that decision, before you make a decision. Because it's not just us that are going to be affected by it. It's our babies. And our babies are our future. 

[00:54:39] Josh Dougherty: I'm here to ask you as a board to pause and take a beat. This new plan was originally presented as a well-resourced plan. It is not. Staffing will be reduced to these new schools. 

This plan was presented as a budget savings exercise. It's not that either. Because, at most, with your numbers, it'll save 6% of the deficit. At the numbers that I trust more from other people who have put them together, it might save 1.3% of the deficit. 

This plan was presented as a solution to decreasing enrollment. It's not that either. Two of the schools on the list have increasing populations of kindergarten students who will likely stick with the district. 

Plus, all the history, all the research, which I know you guys have seen, shows that closures lead to decreasing enrollment because more families leave, which leads to less funding. 

The current data presented does not make a convincing argument for closing schools. Not only that, conversations about student outcomes have been conspicuously absent in every engagement. 

 Please exhaust all efforts to keep our schools open, our communities together, and make the transition plan as smooth as possible for our kids. 

[00:56:00] Kenneth Beedle: I don't know about y'all, but I'm mad. I'm upset. I'm going to keep it civil, but I'm upset. Okay, there's a lot of people that are going to be affected by this. We're not talking about a school closure. We're not talking about money. We're talking about destroying communities. That's what's happening. 

And I promise you, there are children who are not just at risk, they're in danger. There are kids I work with that are in genuine danger from this school closure. I promise you, okay? So I need you to think about it when you vote. I need you to look real hard and think about those kids who might not make this transition successfully. Not just in the school district, but in life. 

I was driving along Aurora. Some of those people I see on the side of the road, they're children. They're somebody's kid. They ended up on Aurora, looking the way they do, doing what they do, and you know what I'm talking about, because somebody failed them. Please do not fail our children. 

[00:57:10] Christie Robertson: You heard from Stephen Smith, Peggi Fu, Rochelle Carillo and her child, Anders Hammersberg, Najib Hashim, Rachel Kubiak...

[00:57:21] Jasmine Pulido: You also heard from Anne Perry, Alex Rouse, Annie Becker, Alison Augustyn, Olinda De La Fuente, Jamie Harper, Quanshay Maxwell, Josh Dougherty, and Kenneth Beedle. 

 And that's a wrap on our first official episode. 

[00:57:30] Christie Robertson: You can find our show notes at our website rainydayrecess.org, where you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. 

[00:57:41] Jasmine Pulido: If you like our work, please consider subscribing or donating to us at our website. The price of a cup of coffee once a month is so helpful to us. Special thanks to Lester Mayo and Manzana Movement for our music.

I'm Jasmine Pulido. 

[00:58:00] Christie Robertson: I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:58:02] Jasmine Pulido: Thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess. We'll see you soon.