E12 - Rundown 4 - A Pretty Tight Ship

Rainy Day Recess, January 29, 2025

See our Show Notes.

[00:00:00] Jasmine Pulido: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. Thanks for joining us for our weekly rundown. 

Today we're diving into the latest school board meeting, where new president Gina Topp steered conversations about educational goals, budget planning, and community engagement.

[00:00:22] Christie Robertson: We'll also touch on the legislative session and talk about some community events.

School Board Meeting

So let's start with the school board meeting on January 22nd. Gina Topp, this was her first full meeting, and her approach was strikingly different from what went before.

[00:00:27] Jasmine Pulido: Totally agree. 

[00:00:41] Christie Robertson: Yeah, she ran a pretty tight ship. She was dismayed that the meeting ran all the way... did it go past nine?

[00:00:49] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, it did.

[00:00:52] Gina Topp: My first meeting, we're going to go past nine. It's not a great look. 

[00:00:56] Christie Robertson: As a facilitator myself, I found her to have really strong facilitation skills. During this discussion, she made sure to summarize different points of view and continued to bring in what they need to respond to. "This is what community is saying. And what thoughts do we have based on that feedback?"

SBM: New Goals and Guardrails

[00:01:14] Jasmine Pulido: Let's start with the goals and guardrails discussion. And just to set the stage, these are the board's guidance to the superintendent so that he can develop a five year strategic plan. Is that right?

[00:01:27] Christie Robertson: Yes, exactly. They had a pretty good discussion of several topics, and it definitely seems like there's going to be shifts in the goals and guardrails. So I'm really glad that they postponed to finalize.

They came into this with two goals. First was  a goal to increase reading scores by 10% in five years.

The second was raising graduation rates without waivers by 10% in five years as well.

[00:01:47] Jasmine Pulido: And then they also went through pieces of feedback that they got from the community. 

[00:01:59] Christie Robertson: Here's President Topp, summarizing before the conversation begins. 

[00:02:02] Gina Topp: Some of the themes that we heard, again, was this strong start, strong finish, a little bit about targets being more ambitious. Community members were also largely supportive of the guardrails, but maybe concerned about some of the vague language, how the guardrail for equitable access might be interpreted to reduce programming opportunities. I think there was some concern about what happened to the math goal. So a range of things.

[00:02:28] Christie Robertson: At the beginning of each piece of this meeting, President Topp said a little intro to lead them all into the discussion so that they were on the same page and didn't just dive straight into it. 

The first big discussion was about the target percentages: is 10% the right number?

[00:02:43] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah they definitely heard from the community that 10% wasn't very ambitious. Directors had different suggestions regarding that particular piece of feedback. 

[00:02:54] Christie Robertson: Yeah, the first one came from Director Rankin. And she said, “how about we at least raise it to 15%?”

[00:02:59] Liza Rankin: I would argue that the 10% would not push the changes to our system that we want to see and that our community is asking for and that a 15% goal would be more appropriate. 

[00:03:09] Jasmine Pulido: Briggs asked about "what would the budget need to get 95% of our kids to reading?"

[00:03:17] Evan Briggs: I really feel like that number should be, like, closer to 95%, frankly. So, I'm asking: what would a budget look like that made it a priority to ensure that all second and 3rd grade kids knew how to read?

[00:03:33] Christie Robertson: I thought this was amusing since we had just  in our last episode talked about the retreat, where they all talked about their different approaches. Vice President Briggs was the strongest on: "I'm totally action oriented and I want to go right NOW." So, of course she was the one who was like, "95%! Let's do it!"

I liked Brent Jones’s initial response. 

[00:03:53] Brent Jones: That's a world peace question. 

[00:03:54] Christie Robertson: And here's the response from Eric Anderson, director of research and evaluation. 

[00:03:55] Eric Anderson: I think the first key point to recognize is that the goal or the target is not the vision. The vision is that we want all, or 95%... probably 100% of our students to be successful in early literacy, etc. The goal is "how much progress are we going to make towards that vision over the next five years?" Right? And so that's one way to take the edge off of this feeling like, "wait a minute, this is all we can do?"

[00:04:24] Jasmine Pulido: I found this discussion maybe the most refreshing discussion I've heard in a long time. I actually honestly went away from this board meeting thinking, “is this the same board? This discussion was great. These are all the same people, right?” Yeah, it felt like a totally different, 

[00:04:40] Christie Robertson: it just takes a moderator. 

[00:04:42] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. It was a totally different feel. 

[00:04:44] Christie Robertson: It did. felt like a very different board. It's so great, because a lot of it is stuff that community members are thinking and want to know. 

Another thing that President Topp did was: I think Director Rankin was coming in with her, like, third long point, and President Topp said, “let's hear from people we haven't heard from yet.” And that's when we actually got to hear from Joe Mizrahi, who had a really great point too. 

[00:05:07] Joe Mizrahi: You were saying it from the positive standpoint of “something that we can achieve”. I agree with that, but I'll also frame it from the negative: “something that we can hold ourselves accountable to”. Because if your goal is too ambitious, it makes it impossible for us to say we didn't meet it. Because they say, "well, we didn't meet it, but we always knew that we couldn't meet this anyway. It was an aspirational goal." I want something that we can achieve. And then also that if we don't achieve it, we can say, "well, what the heck happened?"

[00:05:28] Brandon Hersey: Right.

[00:05:29] Christie Robertson: And that was director Hersey, agreeing with director Mizrahi.

[00:05:32] Jasmine Pulido: I do think that the speaking time felt a lot more balanced, and I liked hearing more from other directors. 

[00:05:38] Christie Robertson: Much more balanced. 

[00:05:39] Jasmine Pulido: Hersey talked about that 30-50% is too lofty of a goal, and that even though kids are capable, we can use the opportunity to dig into why we have a poor track record. 

[00:05:50] Brandon Hersey: Because, like, what I don't want to be is in a situation to where we have pushed a goal so high to where our system is not changing at a pace necessary to even get close to it. I would much rather look at this as an opportunity to really dig in to, "what does it mean to implement and succeed in a goal in a specific timeline?" Because, quite frankly, we don't have a lot of good track record and experience in doing that. 

As a person who has spent a considerable amount of my career in the classroom, anecdotally, yes, students can make growth 30, 40, 50% and sometimes even greater than that over the course of a year. A massive $1.5 billion system with a lot of adults that have their own opinions and their own paces and how they do things? When you're looking at systems of that scale, seeing that type of growth is rare. It is incredibly rare, and I can't think of a good example of a district that's been able to do that.

[00:06:47] Jasmine Pulido: And then Clark, I really appreciated this comment about how we still don't understand how the interventions work. We need to figure that out. 

[00:06:56] Sarah Clark: One thing that you said, Director Hersey, that kind of gave me pause was talking about the length of time that you've been serving in the role that you have. And that we still haven't narrowed down on really getting an understanding of what are the interventions that we're doing that are actually working. It's our responsibility to do that. Narrowing down on those targets, that's how we're going to help increase student outcomes, is by understanding what those exact interventions are. 

[00:06:57] Jasmine Pulido: And then Rankin talked about needing to have real conversations about trade-offs, and about how closing schools would have gotten us money to help us with these goals. 

[00:07:26] Liza Rankin: We know that I'm not here to be liked. ... We haven't been brave enough. Like, flat out. We haven't made progress because we haven't held anybody accountable to making progress. And I do want to know, what would it take to improve the students by this percentage? And then we can talk about if we're willing to give those things up. 

How much did we think we could get by closing and consolidating however many schools? 20 whatever million dollars? That's a lot of 2nd grade reading. And we didn't do it. We didn't have the real conversation about the tradeoffs. About smaller number of schools, larger number of schools... That whole conversation was not to close the budget gap. That was to free up resources for children. And we blew it.

[00:08:23] Christie Robertson: I think the problem with that kind of thinking... because if I knew that our horrible discrepancies between different racial and income groups was going to be fixed by closing schools, I would be on board with it. And the problem is that we don't know that. It's simplistic thinking. 

It feels good to say, "I'm going to be strong and I'm going to support closing HCC, and I'm going to support closing schools, and I'm going to support closing dual language programs." If you truly believe that it's going to help disadvantaged kids, then you're standing up strong in the face of adversity, you kind of feel like you're being a hero, right? 

But then when they actually get into the details of any of those things, you realize that it's not that simple. Some of the kids that are the most harmed by those drastic changes are, of course, going to be the most vulnerable ones. That's WHY they walked it back. 

[00:09:24] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, we heard a lot of testimony about that, for instance. Especially just hearing such blatant stuff like from the Deaf and Hard of Hearing cohort and the DLI program. 

I do think that following that narrative too closely can lead to a lot of black and white thinking about "how do we help our students?"

I felt like that really comes from the narrative of, "We can't keep doing the status quo and therefore we need to do something drastically different." and I think Rankin actually did say that during the discussion about the status quo needing to be different.

We also still don't have any data that shows that school closures helps our most disadvantaged students. In fact, we only have seen data that points to the opposite---that it hurts them the most. Why aren't we talking about that point more? 

Director Rankin also submitted some research to Dr. Perkins and the district staff in regards to the opportunity gap. There was a discussion then about the opportunity gap and targeted universalism. 

[00:10:24] Christie Robertson: Here's Eric Anderson again.

[00:10:26] Eric Anderson: First of all, the baseline for non FRL students is already 86%. It's above what the 5 year target would be. It turns out, mathematically, if you said, “well, what if they only grew by 5%? How much would the FRL students need to grow over the same period?” 

It turns out, mathematically, they'd have to grow by 20%. And so, that all of a sudden seems like: okay, what didn't seem very ambitious through the lens of all students, but really, the target is, we need to grow by 20 points. Which is 4 points consistently, every year, compounded, with our target group.

It turns out that if we did hit that target, a 20 point target for FRL and a 5 point target for non FRL, we would close the gap from 43 points to 28 points. And both groups would improve.

[00:11:14] Christie Robertson: But I still feel like that's not the goal they set. And when Dr. Ray Hart was here from the Council for Great City Schools, he was saying the same thing. Like, "You guys did not set a goal to work on the opportunity gap. You set an average goal." 

I've seen in several talks recently, in the legislature and beyond about how Washington is really doing fairly okay overall, and Seattle in particular is doing really quite well in terms of our average. But Washington State is like fifth from the bottom for opportunity gap. That is like our biggest problem. 

I went to a great event hosted by PTSAs in West Seattle, and Mary Fertakis, I think she's with the Fund Washington coalition, she showed a graph. I emailed her and the organizer to see if I could get her slides. 

But from what I can remember, like 20 years ago or something, there was like a 25 percentage gap between the top performing and the bottom performing, and they were Asian students and native students. There was a 25% gap between those top and bottom. And now it's like a 48% gap. It's still the same group at the top and the same group at the bottom. The average is fairly similar. 

Especially when the groups that are falling are a small percentage, you don't need to bring those scores up much. If you can get the other kids up that are the majority, that's going to be the better way to raise your average, if that's all you're going for is the average. 

[00:12:43] Jasmine Pulido: I see. So some issues with using average as a measurement. 

[00:12:48] Christie Robertson: Yeah, and I'm so surprised that they've gone this way, given how attuned many of them are to equity. In a way, they kind of started to address the opportunity gap... I feel like they got frustrated and gave up or something.

[00:13:03] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I guess what I was wondering was, if they are saying that they're still going to operate under targeted universalism. Then does that mean that they're going to have interim goals for targeted groups? 

[00:13:16] Christie Robertson: They keep mentioning that, but the Council for Great City Schools folks keep saying, “you guys aren't in charge of the interims.” 

I guess the thing they could say is "it's in our guardrails." But again, I don't have a lot of faith in the guardrails in controlling everything. They're aspirational, and they’re not monitored. 

I thought it was fascinating that Dr. Starosky actually gave a concrete answer to what it would take to increase the percentage from 10 to 15%. Like he had a number! He said it would take about $16-23 million to go from 10 to 15%. 

[00:13:53] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, that's right. Yeah. 

[00:13:54] Mike Starosky: So, this is just speaking generally. For a 5% increase... Now just this 5%. I'm just talking going from 10 to 15%. We would be increasing the amount of instructional coaching for our teachers. We would scale the infrastructure, DIBLS expansion, also curriculum adoption, after-school, personalized learning for our students not yet at standard, high dosage kinder tutoring... So just taking what we're trying to do at the 2nd grade already, what we've already shared for potential investment. This would cost between $16-23 million just to do this expansion. Let alone getting to 20, 25%. So when we're looking at the amount of investment that it would take, that's impacting infrastructure, professional development, curriculum. Is what we projected out. 

[00:14:48] Christie Robertson: That was cool that he had in mind what it would take to do that.

[00:14:53] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, which brings up a really interesting conversation, in general about: if we pick these goals, that means we're moving resources to that from something else. And if we don't get funding from the legislature, what are we willing to trade in order to put more resources into reading?

[00:15:10] Christie Robertson: Exactly. And like I was saying before, how do we make sure that we're doing more good than harm? Like, say we cut middle school and high school librarians to half time in order to have more reading intervention. How do we know that's going to be beneficial? Because libraries play a really important role, as we keep hearing. 

[00:15:29] Jasmine Pulido: Right? I was just thinking that like, that wouldn't make sense though, because the library is where you get the books!

[00:15:34] Christie Robertson: Yeah. So yeah, that's very hard. 

[00:15:37] Jasmine Pulido: Yep. 

So should we talk about the second goal? 

[00:15:40] Christie Robertson: So math was the one that was absent. and they apparently heard a lot of feedback where people were like, "wait, what happened to math?" 

[00:15:47] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, and what did they say about it? 

[00:15:49] Christie Robertson: That they just wanted to have two goals, because they wanted to focus their attentions more. 

[00:15:54] Jasmine Pulido: I also think that this is an overcompensation, where they were like, “we did too much last time! We didn't meet anything! So let's just reduce our goals, and then we'll be able to do it. We can feel proud of ourselves, because we did make some progress.”

[00:16:06] Christie Robertson: Yeah. It's not like you're not going to work on math, so it really doesn't save you much work-wise to remove the formal goal. And it decreases the transparency. 

[00:16:16] Jasmine Pulido: I also think that it was really interesting to hear how they were talking about intervention versus prevention. Director Sarju was saying, “I really don't want to go into intervention mode, because that harms BIPOC students the most.”

[00:16:28] Christie Robertson: And this was for the 4th vs. 7th grade math conversation, right?

[00:16:33] Michelle Sarju: I just... I struggle waiting until 7th grade. Because then we're in intervention mode. The people who suffer the most from intervention are our black, indigenous and other students of color. Historically. Like not just 2023 or 2022. We're talking decades. It's a catch-up game that we lose at. No – that kids lose at. 

[00:17:03] Christie Robertson: Jas, what did you think about Sarju’s point that intervention disproportionately harms BIPOC students?

[00:17:09] Jasmine Pulido: One of the educational experts was talking about how we're doing high-quality instruction, making sure that our teachers are supported and that the curriculum is good. And it's really not about whether the students are capable or not, right?

But I guess what I wanted to mention is that, if we're talking about high quality instruction, are we also talking about racial bias? Are we talking about representation of BIPOC educators? I feel like there isn't a discussion about those things. because maybe the directors can say “we know that all kids are capable”. But that doesn't mean that all of our teachers are operating under "all kids are capable". Versus "Oh, I have an African American boy in my class, and they don't tend to do well". You know what I mean? I wonder where that conversation is if we're talking about helping targeted groups. 

[00:18:03] Christie Robertson: Right. And what about Ethnic Studies curriculum? 

[00:18:04] Jasmine Pulido: Totally. 

[00:18:05] Christie Robertson: And then, like you said, just how abysmally we're doing on recruiting and retaining teachers of color.

[00:18:11] Jasmine Pulido:  Yeah. But as far as monitoring and creating a 4th versus 7th grade math goal goes, at least in general, they were saying a lot of the drop occurs in middle school. So the board directors were saying, "Should we do it before middle school to be preventative? Or should we do it during middle school, so if they drop off, then we can get them back on track for high school? If the math changes into middle school, then it might make more sense to measure it in middle school. And if we monitor it too early, you'll just miss a drop, right?” Because the drop is happening for a different type of math. 

Here's Dr. Perkins talking about that.

[00:18:51] Caleb Perkins: So I think the rationale why we brought the recommended 7th grade math goal was very much to, Director Clark, your point about, "How are we setting kids up for being able to access STEM careers, if they so choose?" And so where we see the unfortunate gatekeeping, if you will, happens so much more in middle school. We see the scores dropping at the middle school level most precipitously. Students of color furthest from educational justice accessing advanced coursework, they're less likely to if they don't succeed in middle school. That is the linchpin. 

Now I think I know there's interest from the board to potentially revisit and think about it in a new way. But to your point, Director Hersey, there are definitely things getting more complex. More word problems. And that's to Dr. Jones's, his connection between the reading and math piece. 

But if I were to say, where is that linchpin? It's the middle school math experience that ends up correlating highly with how well they're going to do in high school and beyond in math.

[00:19:45] Christie Robertson: I feel like they had an urge to land on 4th grade. To me, it felt a little bit like because they wanted to have a decision that was different. I think it really probably should be 7th grade. 

[00:19:56] Jasmine Pulido: I think they talked about it maybe being 6th grade, and I thought that could be a nice compromise. Because you are just coming into middle school, and then they can work on that into 7th and 8th grade, so that by high school, they're back on track.

[00:20:11] Christie Robertson: But again, it's funny. Because the idea with student outcomes focused governance is that the board is keeping to their lane, and they're relying on the educational experts to decide educational things. And, clearly, the educational experts are saying, “3rd grade reading and 7th grade math. That's where to measure. That's where the splits happen. That's where most people measure.” And the board, since this is like one of the few things they get to decide, is wanting to exercise their control.

[00:20:40] Jasmine Pulido: I think they sort of have to have that conversation of, like, "Are we sure that there aren't other options that feel better?" And so they try on all these other different sorts of outfits. 

[00:20:49] Christie Robertson: That’s true.

[00:20:50] Jasmine Pulido: And then they're like, “Okay, I guess you're right. But now we defer back to you. So what do you want to do? Oh, the same thing? Okay.”

[00:20:54] Christie Robertson: Yeah. Yes. And so I... It's hilarious – I'm pretty sure they're gonna go back to the original three goals that the district brought them, or something very similar, after all of these months. 

And that leads us into the discussion of the Graduation goal, which is the third one. 

Originally, the school district brought them this idea of “Diploma Plus,” which is that everyone has a “High School and Beyond Plan,” but that in addition to that, depending on which direction you're headed... I think I remember it being something like that you could have a dual credit, you could have work experience or an internship, or you could have a dual language certificate. Some kind of action that you've taken that shows that you are embarking on your next step. 

But the board said, “We don't want this Diploma Plus thing. That sounds too fancy. Let's just do the High School and Beyond Plan.”

Jones then brought them: High School and Beyond Plan + graduation without waivers. And there was discussion at the retreat, and here, about whether “without waivers" is really a meaningful measure.

Here's Caleb Perkins, executive director of college and career readiness.

[00:22:01] Caleb Perkins: The additional piece that I'll just put out there is "What do you want to look for to see that a student is already showing that they're ready to start doing it?" And is that coursework completion in a particular area? Is that a work-based learning experience? Is that a post-secondary application? 

All of those are measurable, all of those are doable, and those are the options I think you have in terms of whether you want to add that component – that they do something specific to show that they're actually starting to implement that plan. 

[00:22:33] Christie Robertson: And I have to play Rankin asking about three different times, "Can't we just do the High School and Beyond Plan?" And then everybody's saying, "Nope." 

[00:22:43] Liza Rankin: And so that part is or isn't already kind of baked into the High School and Beyond Plan?

[00:22:51] Caleb Perkins: In my estimation it's not. 

[00:22:52] Liza Rankin: Okay. 

[00:22:53] Caleb Perkins: By simply identifying your career interest, identifying your plans, you're not necessarily starting to implement those plans. It would be an additional step.

[00:23:02] Gina Topp: So updated language would look like those components of the high school and beyond Plan plus implementation in one of these three measurable ways.

[00:23:14] Liza Rankin: Well, I think if we... I mean... If the High School and Beyond Plan is already in there, we don't need to list out the bullets. My question is really: the High School and Beyond Plan, the measures that are contained in that already, is that sufficient to demonstrate readiness, or do we need something else?

[00:23:34] Brent Jones: I asked Dr. Perkins to say what those four elements again are, so we can hear it again. Are these, kind of, readiness criteria? So, please. 

[00:23:45] Caleb Perkins: So, identification of career goals, identification of post secondary plans, a course taking plan for the time they're in middle and high school, knowledge of financial aid, and a resume.

[00:23:58] Liza Rankin: If we think the High School and Beyond Plan, were it to be implemented consistently, would provide us the information about student readiness, it feels to me like we don't need to add anything else.

[00:24:09] Gina Topp: Dr. Perkins, could you list off the four implementation things that you had again? 

...

[00:24:14] Christie Robertson: She finally gives up.

I loved when Director Rankin whispered:

[00:24:21] Liza Rankin: Sounds like Diploma Plus but without the name but that's what we wanted so that's fine.

[00:24:23] Jasmine Pulido: The most compelling part of these conversations is when they turned it to the student reps to give input. They were like, "Uh, like, I mean, it sounds nice to you adults, I guess. But, uh, the implementation of this doesn't happen, like, at our schools." 

[00:24:43] Christie Robertson: Here's student director Colin Bragg, answering whether the High School and Beyond Plan meets the needs of assessing life readiness.  

[00:24:52] Colin Bragg: Yeah, I immediately heard that and went, “I don't think it does.” I don't think that currently, especially being a student who lives day to day and goes into mentorship class, and it's like, “We're going on Naviance today!” I don't think currently the action is being taken. Like, I feel like there's a lot that is said in the High School and Readiness Plan which is really good for, like, the prep. But actually saying that students are ready to go into that, I don't think is contained within the High School and Beyond Plan.

[00:25:20] Christie Robertson: Here's student Director Ilyas.

[00:25:21] Safiya Ilyas: Yeah, there's all these like steps and all, but being in high school, well... All of us are pretty much discouraged from taking dual credits or doing CTE or pathways. Which sucks. And a lot of students find it quite daunting. So, I wish there was, like, more support to help these students, so this plan eventually works, and students know what they want to do.

A lot is said in that plan, but none of it is actually followed through with. I did this internship this summer with a ton of private school kids, and I just remember them telling me about how their school set them up with jobs and, like, companies after graduation, or during the summer, or during the school year. And I just feel like, “We need that resource.” 

And we need something to write on our resumes. I mean, there's resumes, but what do we write on the resumes if you guys don't give us opportunities?

[00:26:21] Christie Robertson: Having the student directors there... I think the discussion might have gone a different way if they hadn't been sitting there. It's partially because they're students, but it's partially just because they're people on the ground.

[00:26:31] Jasmine Pulido: If you're a person who's supposed to be in a role where you're high-level thinking about things, in abstract and numbers... Unless you're actually talking to people who can speak to the personal experience directly and articulate it well, it's really just a thought exercise. And so I think anyone who is in that role needs to have that check. And having the student reps is really what that is.

[00:26:54] Christie Robertson: Totally, and that's another reason that testimony is so important. Because these directors for the past five years or something have been being told, “Oh, HCC is moving to the schools. And you have to hear people coming in and saying over and over, "It's not there. It's not there."

[00:27:10] Jasmine Pulido: Right, exactly.

[00:27:11] Christie Robertson: Should we talk about the guardrails for a couple minutes? 

The guardrails, they didn't have much time to talk about, they only talked about Guardrail One. And they all fairly well agreed on wanting to change the language. 

[00:27:23] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, they wanted to change the language to include feedback. That it's in the negative is something that community did not like. I did hear Director Rankin talk about how it's supposed to be sort of like a “thou shall not” document. And I understand that...

[00:27:36] Christie Robertson: They're not going to make it not negative.

[00:27:38] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, but I think at least take out the double negatives because if you're reflecting the educational system...

[00:27:43] Christie Robertson: They have like three levels of negatives.

[00:27:45] Jasmine Pulido: ...that does not look great on us. That's my opinion. 

And I'm glad the community keeps saying that because I completely agree. And there was just some conversation about what they DON’T mean. So for instance, as far as the equity perspective, they're like, "We don't mean that we're going to remove all access, and therefore it is equitable. We're going to make it more accessible to everyone. 

[00:28:00] Liza Rankin: I just wanted to make sure that we were very clear. A say to not allow inequitable access to high-quality educational opportunities is to make sure that nobody has them. “It's equitable! Nobody has it!” But that's definitely not what our intention was as a board. And it's definitely not what we heard from our community. 

[00:28:23] Christie Robertson: That was hilarious. That's kind of what they're doing for some things. 

[00:28:28] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. I was like, “Okay, I appreciate that you're spelling out this is what it actually means for equitable access, but...” 

We interviewed Kendall Fujioka for the Big Five, and Kendall was talking about how for Washington's Paramount Duty, they talk about, like, not discriminating based on race and creed and, sex. That could be interpreted as "We want to make sure everyone has access” or it can be interpreted as “We're not going to give any additional support to targeted groups.” Right?

[00:28:59] Christie Robertson: Here's a flashback to that interview.

[00:29:01] Kendall Fujioka: One of the things that I find really interesting about Washington constitutional language is it says, “It is the paramount duty of the state to amply fund schools regardless of race, caste, color..." One of my questions is: Does that mean that we can't do something more equitable? So technically, if you're looking at just the text of that language, we can't provide more funding for students who are in poverty. Because that would be a preference based on caste.

So I actually asked that question to Thomas A. Hearn, who was the lawyer for the McCleary case and for the Wahkiakum case. And he brought up the point that it's a question of interpretation, and it's a question of what's equitable and what's fair. But it depends on who's sitting in that judge seat, and what that person has to say. 

[00:29:44] Christie Robertson: Right, it could mean an equal instead of equitable. 

[00:29:46] Jasmine Pulido: Mm hmm, yeah. And so they're saying, "Trust us, That's not what we mean when we say that.” But I'm just like, “Maybe make the language clear that that's not what that is, so it can't be openly interpreted in another way.” When board members switch positions, for instance. Just thinking a lot about the way that, like, supreme courts can really change interpretations, even if the intention by the people who created it was different.

[00:30:10] Christie Robertson: Yeah, 100%. So I do think they're going to change that language.

[00:30:14] Jasmine Pulido: That's great. 

[00:30:14] Christie Robertson: I was gonna conclude with Briggs saying the motion to postpone. 

[00:30:17] Evan Briggs: I move that the school board postpone action on Action Item #1 until January 29th, 2025. 

[00:30:24] Christie Robertson: And they now have a meeting scheduled for that date. And, interestingly, it also includes the opportunity for public testimony.

SBM: Progress Monitoring

[00:30:32] Christie Robertson: We should at least mention progress monitoring. There is a steady increase in students meeting the graduation goal from this past strategic plan. That's: students graduating and graduating with an advanced class. There was a scattershot presentation and not a very robust discussion. 

[00:30:50] Jasmine Pulido: I liked what Dr. Brent Jones said about: during his time, it was really about taking a class and it wasn't as much about passing advanced coursework. 

[00:30:57] Brent Jones: And I think that combination of “take AND pass” is something also unique to Seattle.We pride ourselves, even when I was an honor student, to take the courses. But we didn't necessarily have that intentionality behind completing those courses.

[00:31:13] Christie Robertson: And they had a very interesting discussion on some of the more innovative ways that principals are achieving this... 

[00:31:22] Jasmine Pulido: Mm hmm. 

[00:31:23] Christie Robertson: ...for all student groups 

SBM: Budget

[00:31:24] Jasmine Pulido: Okay, now should we talk about the Budget.  

[00:31:27] Christie Robertson: I had been looking forward to this, because I expected there to be details on budget planning, given that it's January, and we almost are sure that we're going to need to make some cuts. Because we won't get $100 million from the legislature. So I was expecting to see really spelled out how the district expects to make up at least half of that. 

[00:31:47] Jasmine Pulido: To be fair, Superintendent Jones did say, "This is going to be high level. I know you want specifics and I promise specifics next time." 

[00:31:53] Christie Robertson: He didn't promise, though, did he? 

[00:31:55] Jasmine Pulido: I thought he did! 

[00:31:56] Christie Robertson: I heard him sort of say, "Yeah... Yeah, maybe."

[00:31:57] Brent Jones: And so we've been talking internally around, how can we give you all some more reassurance that we're not just talking in these general terms. But when we start to get more solid on what actually is gonna happen, we can put that in front of you. But I'm making a commitment that we're not going to move before you all get a chance to weigh in. 

Director Rankin was talking about, “I want to see more specificity here.” So, we're going to talk in probably uncomfortably-general terms. And then we'll start to draw down at our next sessions together.

[00:32:29] Christie Robertson: I just found the budget planning timeline on the SPS website. And according to that one, no details are coming until April 3rd!

The presentation on the two scenarios cracked me up, because Superintendent Jones presented one scenario where, for each category of cuts, it said it was going to be between $0 and $[some number] of cuts. 

[00:32:52] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I saw that, yeah. 

[00:32:53] Christie Robertson: And even if you added the maximum of every single item, it was basically the whole amount they had to cut. So, clearly none of them could be $0. They had to, like, all be the max. 

[00:33:03] Jasmine Pulido: Right. 

[00:33:04] Christie Robertson: It just didn't make any sense. 

And then they called the other scenario “Superintendent's Proposal," which included them getting money from the legislature. 

[00:33:16] Jasmine Pulido: I mean... 

[00:33:17] Christie Robertson: It's like, that's a great idea! “My idea is that the legislature gives us money!”

[00:33:20] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. 

[00:33:21] Christie Robertson: Here's Director Rankin, echoing that sentiment. 

[00:33:26] Liza Rankin: I ALSO recommend Scenario 2, where we do receive money from the legislature. But that's not up to us, necessarily. We don't know. And the most likely outcome is somewhere in between no funding and some funding. 

So, what I want to understand is: what recommendations would be made to continue to meet the needs of students and make progress on our goals should we not. I think we need to have... I don't want a side-by-side of every detail, but we really need to understand what the options are and what choices will be made. And we also really need to see that... Regardless of the level of our budget, we need to see a direct line towards living our values and still focusing our obligations to students. And so that that's kind of... when we get to February, we... I mean, it is... I'll just...

[00:34:22] Christie Robertson: They never really demanded more details in February though, unfortunately.

[00:34:29] Jasmine Pulido: In that particular scenario, just to summarize, they were like, “If we get funding from the legislature, then the only thing we would not do is staffing reductions.” 

[00:34:40] Christie Robertson: This is Kurt Buttleman, Assistant Superintendent in Finance.

[00:34:43] Kurt Buttleman: Some legislative funding between $30 and $60 million negates the need for reductions in school staffing.

[00:34:49] Jasmine Pulido: they had a really interesting conversation about optimism and pessimism. Director Sarju talked about, “Why are we being optimistic that we're going to get funding? We never get funding.”

[00:34:52] Michelle Sarju: One of my concerns with this presentation is that it can lead the community to believe that there's going to be an infusion of cash. You know, when you look at “$30-60 million”... And I guess I am trying to understand why there's optimism on behalf of the staff that we might get $30-60 million. Particularly when, in my day job, what I'm hearing is that there is no money.

[00:35:42] Christie Robertson: And to fill in, Michelle Sarju works for King County. So that's what she means by her day job.

[00:35:49] Jasmine Pulido: And Bev Redmond said, “We're going to be optimistic about it because we're pushing really hard this year. There's a lot of advocacy around this this year. There are things happening in the legislature around education that weren't before. And so we want to be optimistic because our kids deserve that.”

[00:36:02] Christie Robertson: Here's Chief of Staff Bev Redmond.

[00:36:07] Bev Redmond: Why be optimistic? We have been so pessimistic. Our kids deserve it. Yes. So we're going to push as hard as we possibly can. Our legislative delegation asked us to put some faith in them that they're carrying our message. We're absolutely doing that. Yes. We are pushing harder than we ever have before. Again, coupled with our levy. All of those things count. Everything matters. $30-60 million. We welcome it. Yes, we're going to be optimistic. 

Being on the other side of that, and I'm not saying that you're not bringing forth some realism. But we've got to move people. And moving them with a dose of realism and that optimism – we hope that's going to be that winning formula.  

[00:37:05] Jasmine Pulido: What did you think about this conversation? Were you optimist or pessimist?

[00:37:09] Christie Robertson: Oh, I'm a pessimist. That's just because I've watched the legislature so closely. I feel like the optimists are the people who haven't followed it as closely.

[00:37:18] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I get that. 

[00:37:19] Christie Robertson: Like, you think, "They can't possibly say no and we need the money so bad." But oh yeah, they can. I think the really interesting thing about Bev Redmond's point was: we might be more likely to get it if we're optimistic. Like if you're pessimistic, maybe you won't go ask for as much. So maybe you're more likely to get some if you go in there thinking you're going to get more. 

[00:37:39] Jasmine Pulido: Personally, I listened to Bev Redmond's tiny speech, and I was a little teary eyed. I was like, “Oh, I love this point of view.” 

I am an optimist. I'm definitely scared, but it was really nice to hear that. And I understand people who have been in this space for a long time feeling really jaded. I do think there needs to be maybe both parties at the table, right? 

[00:38:01] Christie Robertson: I think you partially need people to come in fresh who do believe that it's going to happen.

[00:38:09] Jasmine Pulido:  The bills around the Big 3 have all gone on to the next stage. And you can maybe confirm this, but what I heard was that thousands of people signed in pro for those bills. 

[00:38:11] Christie Robertson: Yes, they absolutely did. There were thousands. There were four Big 3 bills heard last week, and they all got thousands of signatures. 

The billion dollar bake sale is Thursday, and you and I and a bunch of other people are going down to Olympia, and they're actually voting on those same bills on that day. 

[00:38:39] Jasmine Pulido: Ooh, they are! 

[00:38:40] Christie Robertson: Yes.

[00:38:41] Jasmine Pulido: Ooh, that's exciting!

[00:38:42] Christie Robertson: Thursday morning at 10:30, so that would be cool to slip in there and see the vote. 

[00:38:48] Jasmine Pulido: Can we do that?? I want to see that!

[00:38:49] Christie Robertson: Yeah! It's so fun to see the committees and watch the process. 

[00:38:53] Jasmine Pulido: I want to do that. That would be fun. 

[00:38:55] Christie Robertson: You should go. 

SBM: Enrollment Study

[00:38:56] Christie Robertson: Last thing about the budget is that Fred Podesta gave a mention to the enrollment study that everyone's been wondering about. It is coming! Next month, we will get the results. And he gave a little preview of what we are going to see. 

[00:39:10] Jasmine Pulido: There was a survey of 1,400 caretakers of children, whether enrolled in SPS or not. What they found is that those that stayed in Seattle Public Schools were 86% Satisfied. With 55% Satisfied and then 30% Very Satisfied. The most commonly cited concerns of anyone who unenrolled or considered unenrolling from Seattle Public Schools was: 1) large class sizes, 2) funding, and 3) educational quality. 

[00:39:37] Christie Robertson: So that's coming at the February board meeting. 

[00:39:39] Jasmine Pulido: Mm hmm. 

[00:39:40] Christie Robertson: They put up a slide about all the different inputs to the budget over time. So you can see how they're going to have to be modifying the budget as time goes on.

[00:39:49] Jasmine Pulido: It was color coordinated...

[00:39:51] Christie Robertson: Yes. And of course the legislative session is the biggest one. But also they're doing a Strategy and Resource Analysis with funding from the Alliance for Education. AND, they are doing a real review of Weighted Staffing Standards, which people have been calling for, for a long time. 

This is Kurt Buttleman, Assistant Superintendent in Finance.

[00:40:09] Kurt Buttleman: Typically, the Weighted Staffing Standards group just makes some tweaks around the edges, in the margins. And this is the year that we're going to try and take advantage of the new strategic plan, the new direction, and make sure that the staffing standards model is in line with the goals of the organization going forward.

[00:40:27] Jasmine Pulido: Awesome.

[00:40:28] Christie Robertson: And for those who don't know, the Weighted Staffing Standards is the ratios that SPS sets up to determine how many staff go to each school, based on the number and the needs of students. 

SBM: Testimony Mashup

[00:40:42] Christie Robertson: We'll go out from this school board meeting coverage with our community sharing their thoughts and needs to the board. 

[00:40:48] Jasmine Pulido: The themes that came up a lot were comments on the goals and guardrails, mandating Ethnic Studies, option schools, and HCC.

Testimony: Libraries

[00:40:56] Jhana Saboe Hutchinson: By cutting the library funding, you would be breaking your promise to assure me and my peers for a decent education. Librarians are essential to our schools, as we can rely on that for not just books, but a study space, technology help, meeting spaces. games, drawing, and refuge and a stressful day. 

[00:41:14] Ryan Sander: My fellow speaker Rowan Harper and I created a petition titled “Save Our Libraries”. With this petition, we gathered signatures from over half the student body. Ballard has 1,600 students, meaning over 800 signed their names in support of our libraries, in support of its resources, and in support of its created safe space.

My fellow peers stood where I stand now and reiterated how important our libraries are. The question is if you will choose to listen. And if you still cannot see the value of our libraries from your desk, I ask that you step out from behind it.

[00:41:46] TuesD Chambers: I am not here on a rumor. You have a Weighted Staffing Standards committee that prioritized budget cuts. Those cuts need to be shared. 

[00:41:55] Claire Scott: I was thrilled to hear from our school board directors last month, and at the community listening session last week, that cuts to libraries have not yet been proposed. That's a huge relief for students, staff, and families, especially as reducing secondary librarians to half-time was specifically listed on the board's budget study session slideshow from August 28th. Given that, I would ask the board and superintendent to share the current recommended priority list for cuts and staffing standards from the Weighted Staffing Standards Committee.

Testimony: Disparities

[00:42:24] Michele Campbell: In the Leading Edge Advisors’ School Counseling Study presented at an audit meeting in December:

• Elementary school attendance shows increasing disparities by race, ethnicity. 
• Attendance drops in middle school. Disparities by race, ethnicities persist. 
• Attendance rates plummet in high school. Disparities by race and ethnicity persist. 
• Discipline data shows disparities by race and ethnicity across all school levels. 
• At Sandpoint elementary, 44% of 3rd grade students. are proficient in ELA. But 0% of 3rd grade African-American male are proficient. 
• At Hazel Wolf K-8, 77% of 7th grade students are proficient in ELA. But 0% of 7th grade African-American males are proficient. 
• At Roosevelt high school, 81% of 10th grade students are proficient in ELA, but only 35% of African American males are proficient. 

We should be looking at these numbers with everything that we do in the next five years. 

[00:43:37] Sebrena Burr: If you have not read the Leading Edge report by the Audit Committee, you need to do so immediately. How do we have students with no job and no degree six years... Yes, six years after graduating from Seattle Public Schools? It's unacceptable.

Testimony: Ethnic Studies

[00:43:59] Kristy Duong: Ethnic Studies has been a consistent community demand for years and continues to be a demand from educators, youth, families, and organizations like the ones here today. As a Black Lives Matter At Schools resolution passed today, we need to keep in mind that one of the demands is to mandate Ethnic Studies. And a demand for the superintendent is to make sure that Ethnic Studies is one of the priorities for developing the strategies to achieve the goals for the next strategic plan.

[00:44:23] Samantha Fogg: I am hearing from multiple students who are on waitlists to take Black Studies, but who cannot get into the class because it is full. There is no remote option being offered. And for many of these students, no other social studies class is being offered. It is not unusual for students to be denied access to a world language. And I have even heard from a high school student who was put on a waitlist for math class. 

Several years ago, I was told that due to anticipated declines in enrollment, Seattle Public Schools was planning to align high school schedules so that classes could be taught in a hybrid format by teachers who were skilled, with students at multiple schools interacting at once. What happened to that strategy? What has replaced it? Why are we telling high school students that they cannot access social studies?

Testimony: HCC

[00:45:09] Alex Feldman: Expanding Advanced Learning to neighborhood schools is a great goal. But until that program is ready, the Highly Capable cohort program’s sunsetting needs to be paused. Today the neighborhood school recommendation of in-class differentiation has no curriculum. And for this year's 1st graders, we've replaced a full-fledged program with what amounts to best intentions.

[00:45:26] Helen Lundell: I support any plan that develops meaningful differentiation with neighborhood schools, but we're not hearing any evidence that this is actually happening. What we are hearing is that the burden of moving Highly Capable programming into neighborhood schools will be put on individual teachers with little or no additional training or resources. 

[00:45:44] Christie Robertson: You heard from: 

[00:45:46] Jhana Saboe Hutchinson: Jhana Saboe Hutchinson 

[00:45:47] Ryan Sander: Ryan Sander. 

[00:45:48] TuesD Chambers: TuesD Chambers 

[00:45:49] Ellie Wilson-Jones: Claire Scott 

[00:45:50] Michele Campbell: Michele Campbell 

[00:45:51] Sebrena Burr: Sebrena Burr 

[00:45:52] Kristy Duong: Kristy Duong 

[00:45:53] Samantha Fogg: Samantha Fogg 

[00:45:54] Alex Feldman: Alex Feldman 

[00:45:55] Helen Lundell: Helen Lundell.

[00:45:56] Christie Robertson: Thanks to everybody who testified.

Legislature

[00:45:58] Christie Robertson: We're not going to talk much about the legislature, because we are doing a series with Megan Larkin where we track the Big 3 bills. But I want to call out one session that just really struck home with me, that was providing background on our juvenile justice system. I think about these kids a lot, because when kids go into the juvenile justice system, they often become invisible to us. But they are our kids, they're the same kids. 

This presentation was in the House Early Learning and Human Services Committee, and there were some very interesting data presented. For example, we are not in a juvenile crime wave. It's actually gone down a lot. There's an uptick since the pandemic, but it's still, like, well below where it was before the pandemic. 

Most interestingly, Washington is the only state that has a “presumptive determinate” sentencing system for juveniles. Which means that the judge does not have discretion. It's like, “if the kid did this, then here's what happens.”

[00:47:07] Jasmine Pulido: So there's a sort of formula. 

[00:47:09] Christie Robertson: Yeah, it's the criminal history and the presenting offense. It's a formula. Other states are more focused on the actual youth individuality. Utah's juvenile justice system is very individualized in terms of disposition and release decisions. And California uses the words "least restrictive environment", which is the same words we use in special education. “What's the least restrictive environment that this youth can be in? “

I'll put some slides from that into our show notes and a link to the video.

[00:47:43] Jasmine Pulido: I do find it true that we don't have that on our radar when kids go into the juvenile justice system. So it's good to know that they're talking about that in the legislature.

[00:47:53] Christie Robertson: Barely, but yeah.

Community Notes

[00:47:55] Jasmine Pulido: Okay, so let's talk about listener feedback and community notes. 

[00:47:59] Christie Robertson: We have one main item for you today. And that's that: 

[00:48:03] Jasmine Pulido: Our former Seattle Hall Pass co-host, Jane Tunks Demel, launched a new Blue Sky account called “Study Up Washington”. And that account provides real time updates on education in the Washington State Legislature. Which is super active right now, so I think it’s wonderful addition, to education coverage. 

[00:48:20] Christie Robertson: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Jane, for doing that. And you can find her at @studyupwa on  https://bsky.app/profile/studyupwa.bsky.social. 

This podcast was brought to you by Christie Robertson

[00:48:32] Jasmine Pulido: and Jasmine Pulido. Visit our website rainydayrecess.org to see our show notes, to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, or to donate to help us fund our work.

[00:48:40] Christie Robertson: Email us at hello@rainydayrecess.org. Thanks to Lester Mayo and the Manzana Movement for our theme music. 

[00:48:47] Jasmine Pulido: Stay curious, stay cozy, and join us next time for Rainy Day Recess.