E39 - May 21, 2025 School Board Special Meeting

See our Show Notes

Christie Robertson: Welcome to Rainy Day Recess, where we study and discuss Seattle Public Schools. I'm Kristi Robertson. Today we are covering the May 21st special meeting of the school board, which was two parts. The first part was a budget work session and provided the most detailed look yet at next year's budget. And then the second part was interim guardrail metrics, for the next strategic plan. 

I'm going to be sharing some podcast updates and a call for help at the end of the episode. So if you've ever considered getting involved with Rainy Day Recess, stay tuned.

[00:00:37] Budget - Revenue

Christie Robertson: Let's get into the meeting, starting with the budget presentation. The legislative session is now wrapped and the state budget is signed, and so we finally have a clearer picture of what Seattle Public Schools is working with for the 2025-26 school year. And here's the headline: Seattle Public Schools is getting about $25 million in new revenue.

About $13 million of that is coming from the state, mostly for special education and also for what's called MSOC – materials, supplies and operating costs. Also known as “Keep the Lights on” money. Here's Assistant Superintendent of Finance, Dr. Kurt Buttleman.

Kurt Buttleman: The state coalesced around the big three of special education, operating costs, and transportation. So you'll see that special education, the net for Seattle Public Schools is about $6.5 million in additional funds through some changes that were made. And then the net for materials, supplies, and operating costs, is about $2.7 million. Transportation, there wasn't a significant investment by the legislature. There was some tweaks to alternative vehicles that can be included in the transportation formally going forward. 

Christie Robertson: The rest of the increased revenue comes from a local levee lid lift. 

Kurt Buttleman: A significant bill of note is ESHB 2049, which gave Seattle public schools and other districts with local levies increased authority to collect locally, so $500 more per student. The impact of that for Seattle Public Schools in the 25-26 budget proposal that we're previewing tonight is about an additional $13 million for next year's budget.

Christie Robertson: That means that SPS can collect more money from the local levee that was just passed in February. Of course, this raises equity concerns between districts because property-wealthy districts like Seattle can raise much more locally. But then the legislature only made very modest increases to help districts that can't raise as much from their property values.

I just wanna note a couple of areas where money was decreased to school districts that we are starting to see signs of for next school year. One is that an outdoor learning grant was defunded and that was money that was supporting a lot of fifth grade camps. And we've already heard from a number of schools that are being told that they can't do fifth grade camps next year.

Another area of funding was cut was to organizations that were partnering with Seattle Public Schools to provide college readiness support to underserved students. 

If you follow this podcast, you've heard a lot about the state legislature. And if you have not, and you wanna know more about this, you can listen to the “Big 3 Briefing” series where Megan Larkin and I followed the legislature throughout its process, and you can listen to the final episode to learn more details about the money that is coming to Seattle Public Schools and other districts across the state.

In this meeting, the district staff also flagged growing risks to the 6.5% of our budget that comes from federal funding. Here's Chief of Staff Bev Redmond , explaining the concern.

Bev Redmond: In that 6.5% you have important categories like Title I, special 3ducation, our school food services, Head Start, and other restricted funding. So all of that is a part of the services that we provide to students. And having that compromised in any kind of way puts us in a vulnerable position. 

So our superintendent did ask us to convene what we call a Federal Response Team, or a cross-departmental team, to begin to analyze any of the executive orders that come through, determine what steps need to be taken, if any, and then communicating with families, staff any kind of impact or any changes or pivots that we will have. 

Christie Robertson: Director Joe Mizrahi and Director Liza Rankin followed up on this.

Joe Mizrahi: Is there a contingency plan for what happens if mid-budget cycle that $80 million gets cut or some portion of it does? You know, when you look at that list, it's obviously some very essential services. So it's not like you could just not provide those things that that $80 million is going towards. What other levers do we have to fill in that gap? Or is there any indication from OSPI that there would be a statewide plan, assuming we're probably not the only district dealing with this problem to address that?

Liza Rankin: I was actually just on a call with some other folks from the Federal Relations Network through WSSDA, and we are going to put together a group to specifically go... a statewide coalition... go talk to OSPI about the impacts of the federal dollars to districts to urge OSPI to also think about how they will support districts across the state if some of these things are eliminated.

Christie Robertson: So there's going to be a statewide coalition, it sounds like. And I've also heard that if some of these federal threats materialize, the governor would likely call a special legislative session so that the state can figure out what it is going to do in the wake of those kinds of cuts.

[00:06:08] Budget - board input conversation

Christie Robertson: After laying out the new revenues budget, staff prepared to present their plan. But before they dove in, several board directors raised questions about the budget process itself. In the months leading up to this meeting, there's been very little information about the budget shared with the board. Several of the directors felt like they were being asked to rubber stamp a budget that they hadn't helped shape. Building level budgets have long since been submitted, and the legal deadline for notifying staff about Reductions In Force or layoffs has passed. Directors Joe Mizrahi and Evan Briggs asked pointedly whether the board was actually being asked for input or whether it was just receiving an informational update.

Joe Mizrahi: I guess I would just wonder if – and maybe this will help inform the rest of the presentation and comments too – if staff had any response or thoughts on this timing question and, you know, where is there flexibility in the budget? And if building budgets have already been allocated, is this more of a FYI? Or are there things that if the community or if the board had strong feedback about that could be altered?

Evan Briggs: I just wanted to echo director Mizrahi’s question about: Is the purpose of this really just an FYI because... or, and to Director Rankin's point too, I think there's very little that can be changed at this point? So it would be helpful to know what are we actually doing here now tonight? 

Christie Robertson: Dr. Buttleman acknowledged that there really aren't many opportunities for change at this stage and said that he wants this process to improve in future years.

Kurt Buttleman: So the question around is this just “FYI, here's what we're doing.” The main focus of this conversation tonight, I hope, is to how to continue to improve doing what we're doing so that we aren't just... you're not sitting there thinking, “here's just an FYI next year”, but it's an iterative process. We're not there yet. 

Christie Robertson: Chief Operating Officer Fred Podesta said something pretty similar.

Fred Podesta: This was a difficult year to re-engineer everything for a lot of reasons. Just 'cause there were a lot of unknowns and we still in the transition of many issues. But we're taking that to heart – the point that you raised is at this stage, what discretion is left? And not that it couldn't be exercised, but it would be difficult for us to operationalize that. 

Christie Robertson: Director Rankin who is in her fifth or sixth year on the board, expressed this frustration.

Liza Rankin: This is feeling like Groundhog Day. And so if there's something different you need from the board to kick off serious evaluation of our processes and actually make those changes that we did direct a year and a half ago, please tell us what it is and we will do it. 

Christie Robertson: And as a board watcher, I would agree that this conversation gave me deja vu. I've heard the board say the same kind of thing in previous years, that “next year we wanna actually participate in the process.”

The funny thing is, the one year I saw a real difference was in the 2024-25 budget development process last year. Details of the budget actually came way earlier. Superintendent Jones had more budget briefings with more detail and more discussion. And the plan itself was really bold. Because the board had asked for bold. It included the whole Well Resourced Schools movement, and it culminated in the school closure plans.

But when it actually came closer to the time to implement, the plan was pulled back. And part of me wonders if staff are wary of repeating such an intense process just to end up treading water again.

[00:09:53] Budget - closing the deficit

Christie Robertson: So after that discussion, staff turned to the heart of the matter. How is the district going to close the $104 million shortfall for the 25-26 school year? Chief Operating Officer Fred Podesta, and Assistant Superintendent of Finance, Dr. Kurt Buttleman, outlined a mix of ongoing and one-time measures to close the gap.

As we already outlined, there's new revenue sources, most of which are ongoing – a local levy capacity lift and new state funding for special education and material supplies and operating costs. There's also part of the $13 million coming from the state is a one-time $50 per student boost. So that will not be continued

Turning to the district side, most of the money that they're using to plug the gap is actually coming from fund shifts. The biggest chunk is by using the ending fund balance from 2023-2024. And this means basically the money that they didn't spend, from the 23-24 school year. And this raises really interesting issues that we end up having so much reserves at the end of each year, even though we have budget deficits. At any rate, that's the biggest chunk of how we're plugging the hole – $42.4 million left over from the 23-24 school year. 

Then there's delaying repayment of our rainy day fund, also known as the Economic Stabilization Account. This has been delayed before and we're delaying it again. We're also, again, delaying paying part of the Interfund loan. This was money that was transferred from the capital budget to the operating budget. And then we're using interest earnings from capital fund investments. So those are the balance sheet kinds of measures. 

And then there's just a few actual cost reductions that SPS is doing to plug the hole. Really just about $6 million that are actual reductions. $5.4 million is coming from reductions to central office staffing and expenses. Most of that is from just not hiring for vacant or eliminated positions. And then there's just $1 million dollars about coming from some reductions to payments to non-represented staff. There's some vacation cash outs that are being reduced and there will be some furlough days for those staff.

One surprise for many is that there were no changes to bell times. Earlier this year, staff had repeatedly said that we were just going to have to shift from two bell times to three bell times, meaning that some schools would start much earlier and some schools would start much later than they do now. That has been presented as basically inevitable, but it appears that it's off the table for now. My feeling is that they really just don't wanna deal with any more community backlash this year, and they don't wanna make any major changes in a year where we are seeing so many shifts in leadership.

Okay. So adding all of those three things together, the new revenues, the balance sheet changes and the central staff and non-represented staff changes. Director Michelle Sarju confirmed the math.

Michelle Sarju: Because the line of numbers doesn't have a total, does that add up to the $103M?

Kurt Buttleman: Yeah. 

Michelle Sarju: Okay. 

Kurt Buttleman: Yes. 

Michelle Sarju: So what we're telling the community is for the 2025-2026, we are going to basically eliminate the deficit for that school year. 

Kurt Buttleman: correct, 

Michelle Sarju: But it's going to continue to be a deficit. So in other words, we don't have a long-term solution for solving the deficit. 

Kurt Buttleman: That's correct. Yes.

Michelle Sarju: When is that gonna happen? 

Kurt Buttleman: Right. That's the hundred million dollar question. 

Michelle Sarju: That's the hundred million dollar question.

Christie Robertson: Staff were clear that while the budget fills the gap for the coming year, it does not fix the district's structural deficit. This has definitely been a holding pattern for Seattle Public Schools. The structural deficit and the difficult decisions it will force will fall mostly upon the next superintendent and the incoming school board.

[00:14:18] Guardrails

Christie Robertson: So let's turn to the second part of the meeting. The second half of the May 21st special meeting continued a conversation the board had started earlier about interim guardrail metrics. This is a key part of how the district monitors its progress on the new strategic plan. 

So to remind listeners, the school board adopted a Student Outcomes Focused Governance framework for their operations a few years ago. The framework emphasizes setting goals for student outcomes, measuring progress regularly on those goals and assuring that the district does not violate guardrails that represent the community's values on the way to achieving their goals.

The guardrails were defined by the school board already, and the district's job is to come up with interim metrics to track over time how well the district is living up to the guardrails. At this meeting, district staff presented draft metrics for three of the guardrails, and you can see details of these again in the meeting materials.

The three guardrails they talked about were: Guardrail Two, about safe and welcoming schools. Guardrail Three, about racial equity in staff practice. And Guardrail Four about community engagement. 

I wanna walk through the metrics just so you can get an idea of what they're proposing, so that we can all start to think about whether these are going to do a good job of making sure that our values are not violated. And again, these are all draft.

So Guardrail Two for safe and welcoming environments. There's two climate survey measures regarding the percent of students who say they feel physically and emotionally safe at school. The third thing is the percent of schools conducting monthly emergency preparedness drills. So those are the three ways that they're measuring safe and welcoming environments.

For racial equity, they are measuring the percent of staff who have completed anti-racism training, the percent of staff who say they feel prepared to implement anti-racist practices, and then two other climate survey questions – whether students feel that staff are responsive to race and equity issues, and whether students say that the curriculum reflects their experiences. Those are the racial equity measures.

For Guardrail Four, around community engagement, four measures. First, the percent of central office and school leaders who've been trained on community engagement, the percent of school leaders who say they feel prepared to engage with families, the percent of students, families and staff who say they have opportunities to inform decision making, and the percent of board decisions that document engagement strategies. 

So I looked through these quite a bit and thought about the pros and cons of these measures. You'll notice that they rely heavily on climate surveys to capture student and staff perceptions. And then they also rely on tracking completion of training and other compliance-related inputs. 

Climate surveys are a great tool for a lot of things. But overall, I think that the biggest difficulty with these is that they're very narrow and specific. If you listen to school board testimony, and you look at the kinds of issues that families put into Let's Talk, in some ways, the vast majority of them are actually violations of the community's values. And they’re violations of the guardrails that the board has laid out. 

Concerns raised in public testimony, just a few examples might be lack of access to interpretation services, enrollment policies that don't meet heritage speakers' needs, issues with student IEPs that aren't going fulfilled, difficulties between a principal and a community at a particular school, difficulties that a particular demographic is experiencing with punitive discipline. 

So a good measure of whether the metrics fit might be, would they catch the guardrail violations that come up in school board testimony. None of those examples would likely be caught by the kinds of metrics that staff is trying to develop here, and that makes me think that we might need to just approach this from a whole different way.

Part of the problem is that guardrails violations happen at the margins. Surveys that go across the whole district or across the whole student body won't necessarily capture them.

The fact that testimony is full of guardrail violations also suggests that the best source of insight into guardrail compliance is the community itself. So one promising approach might be to proactively engage community members by sharing the list of guardrails and asking for feedback on how the district is doing in each area. Or another approach might involve systematically analyzing community input received through channels like Let's Talk or public meetings, and then mapping the data onto the guardrail categories and trying to suss out where there are corners that are being missed.

I will say that the district and the board seemed flexible about the guardrails, and so I think that they may be open to exploring other approaches. Nobody seemed set on any of these measures. So it'll be interesting to see if a new superintendent and a new board will look to other models to really make sure that the values of our community aren't being violated.

And I guess one final thing I'll say about that is that a major topic of discussion in our district is trust. And I think a good amount of the lack of trust is based on what you could call guardrail violations. So I actually see a lot of promise in trying to outline our guardrails and then really make sure that if and when they're violated, we address that. I think that things like responding to the lack of interpreter access for deaf and hard of hearing individuals by apologizing and making structural changes is the exact kind of thing that builds trust in response to a guardrail violation. And so I really do hope that the board and district staff continue to make use of the tool that guardrail monitoring could be to help us heal in our communities.

There's a whole other discussion about this that would probably make its whole own episode, and that's how neighboring districts are doing this kind of thing. I won't go into details here, but I will link to the guardrail monitoring systems at some neighboring districts that I looked into – University Place, Bellingham and Federal Way. All of them use policy governance. And both University Place and Bellingham have lots of monitoring documents on their websites. They call them Executive Limitations, but they really are very parallel to our guardrails.

[00:22:04] Guardrails - finalize or leave open?

Christie Robertson: There was then a conversation between Vice President Evan Briggs, President Gina Topp, and Director Liza Rankin about whether they should settle on the metrics as is or leave them open. 

Liza Rankin: A question I have is, again, that we're going through a superintendent transition. We could have someone that comes in that says, “oh, I interpret that in this way, and in my previous district, this and this worked really well, and I'd like to try that.” And I don't think we should say “too bad, we've already interpreted it for you.” I don't... 

Gina Topp: And remember, the superintendent can change the interim metrics at any point. So this... do we want to pull this back in with our feedback, come our retreat or something? And look at it again? Just trying to understand or gauge where we want to go here. 

Evan Briggs: Yeah, I think that's a really good question. And I'm wondering if maybe, I don't know that maybe we do wanna even pause on this. 'cause I guess what I'm, you're right that a new superintendent can change these metrics at any time, but why spend our time workshopping these if they're just gonna get changed when a new superintendent comes in? And I do think it's, it would be really valuable to have that person's perspective on these. So for that reason, I feel like I could make a case for just pausing on these until we have completed that transition. But I'm curious what other people think. 

Gina Topp: My only concern there is, trying to schedule out and looking at our calendar and our monitoring and the work that needs to happen in that place. Are we just going to miss having guard guardrails for the first six months of the school year type of thing?

Evan Briggs: I think because the guardrails get monitored so much less frequently than the goals, I think we could probably work around that. 

Christie Robertson: COO Fred Podesta chimed in. 

Fred Podesta: May I make a recommendation? 

Gina Topp: Yes. 

Fred Podesta: And this mostly probably reflects my own failings. But I don't feel like we as a group have matured on how guardrails actually work and what the process is. And again, I'm probably projecting my own insecurity around this topic.

It feels like if we went with something and just worked on the practice of progress monitoring, even if they're not what you think... We’ll take the feedback we're getting to heart, make some adjustments and then just work on it. So we can work on “how do these things work” instead of “what are they”. And that maybe would give that flexibility for the next administration to adjust. But they would be adjusting for a system that we have some practice with.

Gina Topp: Yeah, I think that's perfect, and I'm hearing a lot of Yeses around the table. And I think that makes sense, 'cause we can't stop doing our work just because we don't have a superintendent. We've got the system in place. 

Christie Robertson: So that was the guardrail discussion. 

[00:25:06] Conclusion

Christie Robertson: To recap this meeting. The district has a balanced budget for 25-26, thanks, largely to one-time fixes and some new state and local funding. The structural deficit remains unresolved. Board directors are asking for earlier milestones and clearer ways to influence the budget process next year. Interim guardrail metrics are still being shaped. And the next major milestone for the budget is the public hearing on June 4th, where folks can sign up for testimony starting Monday, June 2nd. And the board will vote to finalize the budget on July 1st. 

And now for that note about the podcast. Rainy Day Recess is entering a period of transition. Our amazing intern, Jasmine Pulido, is wrapping up her last couple of projects, including a look at the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition's recent report on the last 30 years of history of Seattle Public Schools. And Jasmine will also be doing a reflection on what she's learned this year. But after these couple of projects, maybe with the exception of when I can rope her in here and there, the podcast, and I will miss her very dearly. 

So that means I'm looking for help. I will probably take a break over the summer and do some figuring out about what's next for the podcast and how to keep it going sustainably. If you care about public education reporting in Seattle and you want to get involved, let's chat. Here's what I'm looking for:

* I would love a co-host. Ideally, someone who brings a different perspective than mine. Maybe somebody from the south end, maybe somebody who is bipoc, somebody who comes from a marginalized group. A co-host helps plan episodes, cover board meetings, does back and forth with me making lots of decisions, and dives into production. So preferably somebody willing to learn audio editing or technical production skills. 

* I could definitely use help with social media. That could be a different person. 

* And especially if you have ideas about the business end of things, sustainability, funding, or even finding a long term home for the podcast.

If you think you'd be a fit for any of these roles, if you have any other ideas, contact me at hello@rainydayrecess.org.

Meanwhile, as always, stay curious, stay cozy, and thanks for listening to Rainy Day Recess.