E10 - Rainy Day Rundown - A Bias for Details
See our Show Notes.

[00:00:02] Christie Robertson: Welcome to the Rainy Day Recess podcast, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. I'm Christie Robertson.

[00:00:11] Jasmine Pulido: I'm Jasmine Pulido. 

Thanks for listening to our rainy day rundown for this week. Today we're going to cover the school board retreat from January 11th. We'll also talk a little bit about what's going on in the legislature. And then we'll go into listener feedback and community notes.

34th LD Representative Appointment

[00:00:28] Christie Robertson: We have one bit of late breaking news that I'm adding just before this episode drops. And that is the appointment of a new state representative to district 34 in West Seattle. School board president Gina Topp was a candidate. And here's part of her speech to the king county council who was in charge of this appointment. 

[00:00:50] Gina Topp: Public service runs deep in my family. My mom taught in public schools for 35 years, dedicating her life to shaping the next generation. I grew up watching her pour her all her energy, her time, her own resources into making a difference for her students. My mom inspires me every single day. and I see her legacy in today's teachers who are working tirelessly to meet the needs of our students in overcrowded and underfunded classrooms. These stories remind me of why I am seeking this appointment. To ensure every child has access to quality education and every family has the support they need to thrive. 

[00:01:36] Christie Robertson: The spot, however, went to Brianna Thomas. One thing I will say is that it's unfortunate for us that the King County Council is in charge of this appointment, when they have very little investment in our public schools, which operate almost exclusively at a state and district level, leaving cities and counties to deal with other concerns. Gina Topp mentioned schools eight times during your interview. And Brianna Thomas did not mention schools at all. So this particular chance to send a real education champion to Olympia seems to have passed us by. 

[00:02:32] Jasmine Pulido: So Christie, let's just start with the school board retreat. 

School Board Retreat 

You attended it and how did it go?

[00:02:39] Christie Robertson: Yeah. So I actually watched it online, I was very impressed. You could hear and see everything. Which has definitely not historically been the case. So maybe they've got some improved systems.

They started off with a team building exercise. And went through a very well laid out work plan for the year. And then discussed how they're going to begin community engagement. All this was led by their brand new school board president, Gina Topp.

 So let's talk about the team building exercise. I talked to you a little bit about this, Jas, because it was fascinating.The idea was to learn about each other's different approaches to governing. They, randomly called the different kinds of approaches, North, South, East and West, 

So North was urgent and action oriented, but could also be impatient and dismissive.

South was. caring and those folks focus on feelings and relationships and want to make sure that everybody is okay with what's happening, but they can sometimes be ineffective or fear based. 

East is big picture people. So very strategic planners, but who may also appear to be slow because they're thinking about all the things that could go wrong and trying to make things work for the longterm as opposed to just quick. And then West are the details people who feel like they want to know everything that goes into the current situation. They're organized and thorough, but they can also be rigid and slow to act because they want to think everything through very thoroughly first.

Which one are you Jas?

[00:04:21] Jasmine Pulido: I think that I am West, maybe Southwest. I think I could probably be a hybrid. 

[00:04:28] Christie Robertson: So West is details and South is caring.

[00:04:31] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I'm definitely always thinking about how people are feeling and how that's driving their actions. and I’m often frustrated on how detailed I need to be because it slows things down and sometimes things need to be faster. 

[00:04:45] Christie Robertson: We may have a little bit of a bias on this podcast because I think I'm Southwest too.

[00:04:51] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, really?

[00:04:52] Christie Robertson: Definitely, I guess it makes sense that we have a podcast when we like to go into the details. That's what we're hopefully providing for people is information that we spend the time to go into. Stuff like going to board retreats and informing everybody what happened at them is details oriented. 

Interestingly, the board was biased in a different way. Of all the people on the board and all of the staff. There was nobody that was in the South caring category, which I just had to laugh about. 

[00:05:22] Jasmine Pulido: I think it kind of explains a lot, 

[00:05:24] Christie Robertson: Truly explains a lot. 

[00:05:26] Jasmine Pulido: And so did we have a breakdown of what each director was? 

[00:05:30] Christie Robertson: If you're familiar with the board directors, you can make your own guesses. 

So the North people - Evan Briggs, and Joe Mizrahi put themselves there. They just want to go. 

East, Big picture, was Sarah Clark and then Brandon Hersey. And then Brent Jones, Bev Redman, Julia Worth, all the staff that were there. 

[00:05:54] Jasmine Pulido: Interesting, 

[00:05:54] Christie Robertson: Interesting, right? Brent Jones is definitely always looking at the big picture. 

[00:05:58] Jasmine Pulido: And I think as a superintendent... 

[00:06:00] Christie Robertson: That's a role for a big picture person. Yeah, totally. 

And then the details people of course, were Liza Rankin, who also described herself as Northwest. So details and acting. So she wants to think about all the details, but she also was like, let's go right now. And then also Gina Topp, the president and Ellie Wilson Jones, who's a staff person. 

[00:05:18] Jasmine Pulido: Were also West 

[00:05:19] Christie Robertson: Yes. 

 They had a little discussion about what to think about the fact that there aren't any South caring people and is that a hole they have, but they kind of decided “No, we don't really need those people.”

[00:06:34] Jasmine Pulido: Well, of course they would say that because none of them were South! So they don't care that they don't have any of those people. So...

[00:06:41] Christie Robertson: They also had to say which was the hardest kind of person for them to work with. A lot of them said South was the hardest. 

[00:06:46] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, interesting. 

[00:06:49] Christie Robertson: Yeah. 

[00:06:50] Jasmine Pulido: The reason for them to do the activity was to figure out how they collaborate together based on the styles that are present. And what kind of conclusions did they come to? 

[00:07:00] Christie Robertson: The idea is when you're feeling impatient about something that somebody else is doing... Okay, let me give you an example. Say I'm an action person and I want to go! And say I'm dealing with a details person. If I know that about them, I can kind of say in my head. "Oh, right. that's just how they do things. They need to know the details. They're not going to feel comfortable until they know the details." I might know to throw them a couple of details that might help them get ready to go. Does that make sense? 

[00:07:29] Jasmine Pulido: So as a way to empathize for their styles. 

[00:07:34] Christie Robertson: Empathize and like how to approach them 

[00:07:36] Jasmine Pulido: And how to collaborate with them better. 

[00:07:39] Christie Robertson: Right.

[00:07:40] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. And then they also talked about a work plan. 

[00:07:42] Christie Robertson: Yeah. So this was very exciting to probably the detail-oriented amongst us. Gina Topp and the staff had worked out a work plan for the entire year. In all kinds of different categories. For every single month, they had different categories like board engagement, progress monitoring, goals and guardrails and strategic plan, superintendent evaluation, policy committees, school visits and tours. 

I think that staff might have had this work plan in their heads, but, for the whole board to see it will help them stay on the same page. 

[00:08:20] Jasmine Pulido: I see. So, I heard them mention... At the goals and guardrails meeting last week for the north end, Liza Rankin mentioned that once a month they'll pick a region to go to and they will have a rotating panel of directors which will be a new form of community engagement that we didn't have before. And that's part of the monthly structure. Is that right?

[00:08:42] Christie Robertson: That's right. So every month they are going to have a general meeting. They may or may not have a work session. They will have one engagement, like Jas is talking about, with a subset of directors. And the idea is to have one of those for each region once a year. So they'll be rotating through the different regions over the course of the year. and then one school tour with a subset of directors every month. 

[00:09:06] Jasmine Pulido: But they're still not going to address the idea of moving back to two general meetings. It's definitely going to stay one general meeting, it sounds like.

[00:09:15] Christie Robertson: Yes. 

[00:09:16] Jasmine Pulido:Okay. What else do you want to say about this?

[00:09:19] Christie Robertson: They're going to have a quarterly newsletter. That would be cool. I've heard that before though, so we'll see. They added a new board office person, so that may help things run more smoothly. 

[00:09:31] Jasmine Pulido: And it looks like they're also postponing adding committee members to the audit committee. 

[00:09:35] Christie Robertson: Yes, It sounded like they may add community members as like non voting members.

The last thing they did in the meeting, Dr. Jones talked about the strategic plan. 

They spent most of the time talking about the different kinds of graduation waivers that are available. There's five kinds of waivers. Two of them were COVID related. There's still three that are used, but some of them sounded like they still thought that they were useful. Like 30% of them are a service learning waiver. 

Just a side note, I've heard this before, is that 24 credit hours are required for high school students. And almost all of our high schools have six credit days, which means that you have to basically fill every period for four years in order to make 24 credits. So if you fail a class or you have an accommodation to skip first period; every time that happens, you're missing a whole credit out of 24. One thing that's tied to student success is to have high schools with 7 credit days,which means they have 7 periods, and they have a lot more wiggle room every year. 

[00:10:34] Jasmine Pulido: That gives a little bit more flexibility so that it's not just pass or fail basically.

[00:10:44] Christie Robertson: Yeah, and then on top of that, a seven credit day would give you that space for electives so you can pursue special interests. Something that helps a lot of kids to get through high school.

[00:10:54] Jasmine Pulido: Does it make the day longer? 

[00:10:56] Christie Robertson: No, they just have shorter periods

[00:10:57] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, I see. Okay.

[00:10:59] Christie Robertson: And then, the other thing that's very tied to student success is having an advisory period, which most schools don't do. I know our principal at Roosevelt has been trying to bring in an advisory period and it hasn't happened.

But regardless, this last piece of the retreat... it was supposed to be a presentation about the strategic plan. Which should really give you a big picture of what the district is going to do for the next five years. And I did not come away with that picture. So a little frustrating 

[00:11:26] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. 

[00:11:27] Christie Robertson: That was my last note about the retreat 

I think we might as well talk about the goals and guardrails meetings now. 

[00:11:29] Jasmine Pulido: okay. 

[00:11:35] Christie Robertson: These were meetings that were set up to look at the board's draft goals and guardrails that are set to be approved at the January 22nd school board meeting, and take them back to community and check if the goals and guardrails that the board developed reflect the vision and values of the community. So like a check-back with community on what they've done. That was the idea. 

[00:11:49] Jasmine Pulido: So we both went, I went to the North end, Christie went to the online meeting. 

[00:11:55] Christie Robertson: Yeah, I did not go to the south end because I got caught in traffic. So I went to the online one. I did hear that there were only like three people besides board directors at the south end meeting. And how many people were at the north end meeting? 

[00:12:19] Jasmine Pulido: I counted, it was less than a dozen. So about 10. 

[00:12:21] Christie Robertson: Less than a dozen. Yeah, and there were probably... I would say there were less than ten at the online meeting that weren't board directors. 

So it's really weird to think that a dozen people are going to tell you whether or not you properly turned the vision and values from many more people into your goals and guardrails. Yeah, I do not think this was a success.

[00:12:44] Jasmine Pulido: Success because of the numbers? Or success because of the way that the vision and values are interpreted in the goals and guardrails that were presented?

[00:12:54] Christie Robertson: I don't think this was a good way for them to check whether they got the right goals and guardrails. 

[00:13:01] Jasmine Pulido: So what would you suggest?

[00:13:02] Christie Robertson: They really need to figure out a way to do engagement in a way that feels successful to them. This also came up in retreat. It's an ongoing theme when they talk about community engagement. They complain about how community engagement the way that we do it brings out a non representative sample of the community and tends to favor the people with more privilege. And I think that's very true. But what they usually do with that is discount the engagement that they do rather than try to do engagement in a different way. They still have not solved the problem of how to do an engagement in a way that they feel reflects the broader community.So then they end up just kind of throwing out whatever they learned from the engagements. If they don't like it, they just say, “well, it wasn't representative anyway.”

[00:13:48] Jasmine Pulido: And how much time was given an advertisement to attend these three meetings?

[00:13:54] Christie Robertson: Well, that was definitely a big problem. It only ended up being like less than a week, I think.

[00:13:58] Jasmine Pulido: Yes, that's certainly a problem.

[00:14:01] Christie Robertson: Yep. There were all kinds of problems. and they acknowledged the problems. And that's why some people in the community, and some board directors, were saying “we need to delay so that we have more time to engage.”

 We can talk about what happened to there, but I doubt that they're going to do anything with it. And frankly, in my mind, that kind of shouldn't because it was so unrepresentative.

[00:13:18] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. So I guess we'll see what happens with that or if nothing happens.

[00:14:23] Christie Robertson: We did hear from a community member by the name of Kaitlin Murdock. And she's been researching how successful different districts have been in terms of measured student outcomes. including some districts that have used SOFG (Student Outcomes Focused Governance). And then she takes some of the most successful districts, in particular Boston and Atlanta, and compares their goals and guardrails to Seattle's goals and guardrails. If you are somebody that is interested in Student Outcomes Focused Governance and strategic plans, you will be interested in this. We will link her findings in the show notes, so you can go take a look at that there.

[00:15:06] Jasmine Pulido: And what about what's going on with the legislature? Did you want to talk a little bit about that, Christie?

State Legislature

[00:15:13] Christie Robertson: We're doing some legislature stuff with Megan Larkin, as you can see in our feed. The one thing I will say here is that a lot of hearings in the first week cover background. So if you are interested in learning about the background of education in Washington state, there were some really interesting hearings in the House Education Committee that I will link to in the show notes that basically start from the beginning and outline our state's history development of education, education reforms. 

[00:15:46] Christie Robertson: And then the other background meeting that's interesting was, on January 9th before legislative session started, they had a legislative session preview, starting with a poll from Stuart Elway and Cascade PBS. They do a very, well respected poll to the broader constituents in the state of Washington to see what they want their legislators to focus on in the session. So that is very interesting, and I will link also to that in the show notes.

Also, both of the governors spoke there, the House and Senate leaders, and the budget leaders.

[00:16:19] Jasmine Pulido: Okay

[00:16:20] Christie Robertson: Okay, let's move on.

[00:16:22] Jasmine Pulido: We should talk about listener feedback and community notes. 

Listener Feedback & Community Notes 

 [00:16:26] Jasmine Pulido: Why don't you tell us, Christie, about the January 14th community event sponsored by Eastside PTAs and Teachers Unions.

[00:16:33] Christie Robertson: Yeah, so this was called "From Crisis to Classroom, Fair Funding for Washington Schools”. They had like 20 speakers speak in quick succession. Shaun Scott was there, our new representative in Seattle who is also on the education committee. Meesh Vecchio, the head of SEA, the Teachers Union in Seattle was there. Lots of school board presidents. Very interesting meeting. Oliver Miska was there and Jesse Hagopian, two local Seattle activists. Reykdal was there and he had some really great quotes.

I had just watched the January 9th session with the legislative leaders where many of the Republicans spoke about how the problem with education spending is spending, not funding. Here's some quotes from that session from Representative Drew Stokesbury and Senator John Braun.

[00:17:33] Drew Stokesbury: There's a severe structural mismatch between teachers, Teacher unions and the district, and it has led to very unstable district budgets for years. We know what happens when we just hand money to the districts. So yes, funded teachers are important, but other things are important too, like making sure there's enough funding for high needs special... kids in special education. Making sure there's enough money for material supplies and operating costs. So I think the legislature needs to be a little bolder when it comes to how we allocate this money to schools and maybe attach some more strings and more conditions so that it goes to all the things that are involved in a successful education. Yes, teachers, good teachers and well paid teachers are part of that, but they're not the only component of that.

[00:18:14] Senator John Braun: It's... people have different perspectives on this... roughly a $10 billion deficit over four years. Half of that is new spending. Almost half of it is the new collective bargaining agreements and we pay our state employees. We should pay them well. But when we have a $10 billion deficit, is it really justifiable to spend $4 billion over the next four years to pay them even better? Especially knowing that in 38 out of 39 counties, public sector employees are making more than private sector “employees”. And in particular, if you think we're going to consider taxing the private sector to pay the public sector employees more, while they're making more than the private sector, none of that really makes sense in my mind. 

[00:18:51] Christie Robertson: And I wanted to contrast that with what State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said. 

[00:18:56] Chris Reykdal: All of the narrative out there that this is a spending problem is a false narrative and it's dangerous. It vilifies public educators, and I mean that term broadly, from custodial to classroom teachers to counselors, bus drivers, food service, and all of the above. 

....

The BS narrative about, "oh, we put a bunch of money in eight years ago and it all went to the educators." Number one, that's where it's supposed to go. That's what we do. We either pay people to survive and thrive, or we hire more people to support students in our program. So that's exactly what it was supposed to do. And still we find ourselves behind. 

.... 

[00:19:28] Chris Reykdal: What we have is a revenue problem. We look at this data nationally. We know that in any other state on average, about 9. 8%, almost 10% of their economy would go back into their state and local governments. And in this state, it's a half percent below that. That's $4 billion a year, by the way, less money.

When we zoom into schools, when we say, “okay, how much of all that is going into schools?” In this state, only 3.1% of total GDP, so about 35-40% of public budgets are going into schools. In the average state, that is 3.6%. And again, that that's about $4 billion. If we were taxing Washingtonians the way we do everybody else, there would be about $4 billion more per year.

....

If all you're going to do is lift our percentage of the budget in K-12 by cutting everything else, you’ve failed nursing, you’ve failed counseling, you’ve failed mental health supports in communities and chemical dependency and housing issues. So, our kids and families need all that.

And again, let us never believe in the false narrative that educators are the reason for this. This is a tax code failure and a courage failure.

[00:20:30] Christie Robertson: So that's our state superintendent. And he definitely seems to be hardcore lobbying for education funding, which is good. He was sounding very much like Oliver Miska to me and very Big Five-y.

[00:20:46] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I'm happy to hear that.

[00:20:47] Christie Robertson: So that's the main thing that I wanted to call out from that. They recorded it, so if anybody wants to watch that, we'll link to it.

[00:20:55] Jasmine Pulido: That sounds great. 

Let's talk about the Billion Dollar Bake Sale.

[00:20:59] Christie Robertson: I just wanted to say that they are going to Olympia on January 30th.

[00:21:03] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. Are you going?

[00:21:04] Christie Robertson: Yes, I am going. Are you going?

[00:21:07] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I'm going to go.

[00:21:09] Christie Robertson: They are hoping for a big crowd. Legislators really care about who shows up in Olympia to demonstrate. And those of us who are near Olympia, like those of us in Seattle can really help in the statewide effort for education funding by going down to Olympia with a red shirt on and encouraging our legislators to support education funding. So go to BillionDollarBakesaleWA.com to find out more information about the January 30th event. 

I also to call out: one of our listeners wrote in about an event called "Understanding Our School Funding Crisis and Doing Something About It." That is January 23rd from 6-8 pm at the West Seattle High School Library. And you can contact Paul Bugala. about that at pbugala@gmail.com. It will feature presentations and a Q and A session with Mary Fertakis, a former Washington state board of education member, Oliver Miska of the People's Big Five, Robert Cruickshank from Washington's Paramount Duty, and SPS staff. So thanks for writing in, Paul. 

[00:22:18] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, and thanks for putting together another community event that has to do with helping fund our schools. 

And we have one more thing to talk about, which is  the levy informational meetings. You can watch one online on the SPS website. 

[00:22:31] Christie Robertson: It's just a presentation on the levies that are being proposed. Yeah. And there will be a vote on them at the February 11th special election.

[00:22:40] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. Well, I think that covers everything 

[00:22:43] Christie Robertson: Write in to us at hello@rainydayrecess.org. 

[00:22:45] Jasmine Pulido: You can find our show notes at our website, www.rainydayrecess.Org, or you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. 

[00:22:47] Christie Robertson: If you like our work, please rate and review us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[00:23:01] Jasmine Pulido: Yes. Special thanks to Lester Mayo and Manzana Movement for our music. 

 I'm Jasmine Pulido 

[00:23:07] Christie Robertson: I'm Christie Robertson. Stay curious, stay cozy and join us next time for Rainy Day Recess.