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Good evening. I would like to call to order the October 5, 2020 Lake Washington School Board study session. But the record reflect that all board members are present and participating remotely. All meeting participants will also be participating remotely in alignment with the current proclamation issued by Governor Inslee. This board meeting will be live streamed and will be available on the district's website. If you are unable to live stream in the meeting, viewers can call 425.

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I am 36-2813 conference ID 37-127 to listen to the meeting.

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Regular board meetings and study sessions will continue to be live streamed to the Lake

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Washington School District website and posted reviewing within two days.

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There are two topics for tonight for the study session.

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The first is professional learning surrounding the operational expectation policy development

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in particular, our equity policy.

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And the second is the 2020-2021 budget.

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We will start with the equity policy.

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And Dr. Holman.

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Great, thank you.

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And so tonight really is part of the launch

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into the board's work around developing an equity policy.

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And I heard some comments tonight

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during the board meeting that the timeline may not

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be right and so we can talk about that if we want.

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There was reasons why we built in that amount of time, it was around really community engagement

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upfront and we have another community engagement process at the end of October, as really

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that initial discussion with the community and we had talked about then having another opportunity

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to loop back with communities to dialogue about the work you'd been doing before finalizing

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And so we can talk about if that's the right process and timing.

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We also want to make sure that we are accessing community voice through this process so that they understand the process so that the board is informed around community values in this work and that that's really reflected in the final policy that the board ultimately adopts.

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And so, Matt and Gloria met last week, did some work around, as we think about policy, what are some critical questions to start asking? WASDA has accessed all, well, anyone that submitted their policies to WASDA, or any that they know about? They have listed all of the equity policies. As you know, the majority of districts are not policy governance districts.

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and so an operational expectation or an executive limitations in policy governance is not typical.

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And so currently we were able to divine two Washington State executive limitations focused on equity.

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And so tonight we're going to use those as a springboard to help us think about the aspects of that policy

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as we start thinking about the development of our policy work.

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And so I want to walk through a bit of a presentation to kind of reorient us to where we are in process and effort in things like that.

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Matt and Gloria will also join in.

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So if either of you have comments or really any cabinet members have comments around the work we've been doing, the conversations we've been having,

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please feel free just to join in and I don't know if I'll be able to see you so

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you may just need to interrupt and chime in. So I'm going to go ahead and share my

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screen.

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And this is just a visual of that timeline that we have started. We

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started this last week really with our linkages, with our community members,

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community groups and different communities, and if I remember correctly, I believe we

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were able to complete nine of those sessions.

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I think three of the sessions we need to reschedule and work with those groups again.

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If I think about that amount of face time with board members and community, I think that's

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just tremendous.

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And I think that's one of the benefits of all of us really learning how to use this remote

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space for really valid reasons and so it was really enjoyable to sit and listen, hear

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the dialogue, the conversation, while difficult to hear some of the stories.

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It really helps set the stage for the work you're doing as a board and really we are doing

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as a district and provides clear rationale that the work of ensuring that our marginalized

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populations feel connected, engaged, safe, that they can trust their school district,

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their schools, and staff.

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That is really important work and that is how we are going to reduce academic gaps,

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opportunity gaps, and really provide that ceiling of excellence for every student.

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The next step is really to do that studying and review around policy, policy statements,

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and really start doing some draft work as a board,

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then take that work back out to the community,

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kind of in that January, February timeframe,

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March and April, starting to,

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to put pencil to paper again, finalizing a policy,

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and then really taking action towards the end of the year.

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As you know, we can adjust this timeline as we go.

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We don't need to do that tonight,

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but if that's a conversation the board wants to have,

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we can engage in that.

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Just

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as a reminder, I know the board is aware, but for anyone that is new to our governance structure,

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the board has policy that really governs the school district and sets parameters and outcomes

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that the superintendent is to achieve or work within.

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And really the administrative policy is about the operations of the school district.

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How do we do the things that we do in a variety of different areas?

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And so that's just a distinction and so the policy that the board writes may look different

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to people than they are typically used to reading.

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Our administrative equity policy that we are working on will probably look more familiar

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to the community but those two really have to be in concert with one another because as

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the board sets parameters, which then will require data reporting, either hard data, soft data.

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We want our administrative policy really to echo those same values and sentiments.

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During the linkages, we ask the community a number of questions, really more to start dialogue,

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to really have them express their experiences, their feelings, and really provide the board

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with information to then start developing and understanding around values because the operational

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expectation focused on equity will really be a value statement from the board. And so I know

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tonight during board member comments, I heard a number of values expressed from each board member

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that the community communicated in those sessions. And so I think that's a great start and we'll

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continue that later in October.

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What we are doing right now with all of those data is we are compiling that so that board

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members, because as you know, two board members at each session, so there obviously were

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three others that didn't participate in that.

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We want each board member to be able to have access to the dialogue, which as you know was

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anonymous note-taking from our cabinet members, just to capture the information and experiences

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to be able to pass along to the entire and full board.

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And so tonight, our thinking was to take these two

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executive limitations policies, which we know are more similar to

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what operational expectation policy will read like,

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and just do some analysis and discussion around that policy.

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We have some guiding questions to help lead that discussion.

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And so, I think it will be a good launch point to our work in the policy realm.

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And then, as you know, in future meetings, we'll want to come back to those linkage

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reports, do some dialogue, pull out values that we heard from the community, and probably

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start to do some work around that.

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We also know that we, to do that work, we're going to come in with a set of guiding questions

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that will help us unpack those data.

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And so tonight we're gonna start with example policies.

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It's a quad school district in Northeastern

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are the two Washington State school districts

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that currently have board policy focused on equity.

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And so I'm gonna let Matt and Gloria kind of talk

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through these questions and they develop these questions

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really to help the board kind of think

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think about the policies as they read them and then for further dialogue and discussion.

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So Matt, Gloria, why don't you kind of talk about how these will help the board unpack

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and potentially guide them in future work around policy?

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All right.

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Thank you, Dr. Holman.

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And so just a moment where we'll take some time for the board members to be able to read

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through the two executive limitations policies that Isquan North Thurston have adopted.

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And as you're reading through those, I thought these questions would be good both to focus

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you and to attend on elements in those policies.

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And then for us to come back and to engage in discussion around the board's observations

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of those policies.

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And so the first question really is to look at to what extent is race isolated in these policies?

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And I think director Lilliburty talked earlier, you know, in the board meeting around just your

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impression from linkages of really how we think about equity. There's a lot of different aspects to it,

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But how frequently thinking about race in the context of equity came out in the midst

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of our community discussions last week.

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And so we want to look to see to what extent is race isolated?

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Is it called out explicitly?

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Is it implied or is it silent in these policies?

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Because that's a decision point that the board is going to have to make around when it's

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to the point to adopt initial policies

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of how explicit are you going to isolate

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and name race in your equity policy.

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Another question is really to be thinking about

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what we call a theory of action.

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So which essentially is if we do X,

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if we hold this value,

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or if we have this expectation for the superintendent,

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is there some, is it clear what the board,

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these boards intend will result. So what would happen as a result? And I think that in our conversations we've heard, there's some certain outcomes that ultimately, there's an interest to seeing that that happens.

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And so being able to track back to that and saying, and if we want in order for that to happen, what is it that we believe needs to be explicitly stated in these policies around

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values or expectations. So can we see that through line between the policy and the intended outcome?

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And so if we can pull that out and that's explicit and that's clear, generally that would be, you know, probably make for a stronger policy.

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If that's not as clear to us in these policies, that could give us some things to think about and for the board to have conversations around.

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You know, we look at exemplars to see, are there things that we might want to copy?

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So are there things that somebody else has already articulated that really resonate

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with us?

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And so I think also looking at, are there specific elements that really seem to fit the

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board's interest when it comes to reducing the likelihood that we are able to predict

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education model comes on the basis of race or some other characteristic.

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And so, since the board has expressed that as a value and an interest around

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or equity policies, are there certain aspects of these policies that we can point at

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and say, yeah, actually, that really seems to speak to the challenge that we're wanting to face.

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And then, are there things that are noticeable in their absence as well?

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And so, you know, we may not be able to put language to them at this stage, but when you're reading these policies, what don't they speak to is also really important to attend to and thinking about the reason for that.

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So we were thinking these, these kind of four guiding questions would be a good starting point,

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in terms of looking to see how at least two other districts in our state that have a similar

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governance model have developed policies around equity. Gory, do you have anything else that you

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I want to add for the board to, before they dig into the policies.

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Nope, you'd explain it perfectly.

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Thank you.

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All right, Dr. Holman.

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Great, and so in the board folder, there are two policies right now.

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And I believe Diane also emailed them to the board.

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I can't see board members right now, because I'm sharing my screen.

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Let me, there we go.

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Do you have access to those policies, or maybe I'll ask it in the opposite?

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Does anyone not have those two policies?

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To us, so we've got minutes.

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Okay, yeah.

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Great.

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So why don't we take a few minutes to read those policies?

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I'm gonna put those prompts back up.

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Take a few notes and then we'll kind of go through question by question and actually have a discussion and a dialogue about those concepts related to these policies, document that so we can kind of start our process of documenting the board's conversations around the equity policies.

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The two draft policies that were shared with us. I don't think these are currently posted to the district's website for public viewing, but can we make sure that they are? I think we're spending time looking at it. I'd like public to see what it is we're viewing as well.

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I'm checking the district website now. I sent an email to our webmaster, so I'll follow that up with another email with her to make sure that those materials are posted. Okay. Thank you.

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Let's see a couple more minutes, Eric. Yeah. Okay.

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I'm ready when others are.

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Chris, you're ready?

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Chris, you're ready?

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John.

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Yes.

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I just looked on the district website and those examples of the district equity policies are posted on the district website.

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So anyone would like to view them and go to the district website and look on the current October 5th board meeting and find examples of those two policies.

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Great. Thank you, Diane.

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Thank you, Diane. Excellent. And

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those examples are North-Thirson and ASQA, correct? Yes, they are. Yes.

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Okay, I want to make sure I was on the right thing. I can find the other document.

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In Syrian, Cassandra, Mark, just let us know when you're ready. I'm here. Okay, ready. I'm ready.

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you

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know I might ask Gloria to I know there's a question and and maybe this is

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something we want to do some more studying discussion reading about as a

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group the idea of centering on race I know that conceptually that can be

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challenging for some individuals in the community.

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I would like Gloria to share with us, you know, how does centering on race actually address

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inequities for all students.

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And so I've heard her, you know, say this before and she does a great job of explaining

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this.

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So Gloria, that would just, I think, be beneficial as we launch into this conversation.

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Sure.

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So, we think about centering on race when we look at the foundations of our country and

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how it was founded even when we think about pre-colonial America with our indigenous tribes.

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We think about the beginning of our country, even though it's rough to think about it, we

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think about our indigenous tribes and how people came over to take over the land, however,

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we feel about it, that is what occurred, and then as we think about the bringing over

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of Africans to work the land as an economic commodity, instead of people, from the founding

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of our country and pre the founding, that it will center on race and minimizing a group

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of people.

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And so from the very beginning, race has been at the center of this work.

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So, as we fast-forward across time, race has always been part of it, whether it is related

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to the idea of the Supreme Court when we have people from different countries, as they

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came over to immigrate, they petition to be considered white, and what does that idea

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of whiteness afford people.

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And with that, we think about how that's centering an idea of whiteness and white people.

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That's not about someone white being bad or someone not being white being good.

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This idea that race is a piece of that history even from that point.

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So we think about fast forward some more and we think about even the point around our LGBTQIA community.

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When it comes to race with our LGBTQIA community,

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there's an intersection there for example when we think about our trans community.

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And for example, if a person is black and they are also trans, that's the intersectionality

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which means you have multiple identities that come into that.

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And with that, there are multiple barriers that are erected with that.

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And another example, we think about the idea of racist self when it comes to women.

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And we do know that with affirmative action, for example, it was meant that one of the tenants

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of affirmative action was around the idea that we afford or give or open up and release

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barriers for people that have had barriers against them. So we think about affirmative action,

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most people think about that it was meant to, and that it helped black African-American people

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more than any other group. In reality, it actually centered white women in a sense, and they,

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certain barriers were broken with white women in the boardroom and around work and around getting

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credit card things like that. And we think about black women that same privileges weren't really

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afforded. So we think about all the barriers that were broken over time. Race ended up being

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that singular barrier that remained. Even if someone made it up to a certain level that had a

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when race intersected, there was a paid disparity or there was a lack of space afforded to this person.

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So I give all of the examples to say race intersected all of those from the beginning of

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of indigenous brethren land being taken away

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and pushed onto reservations on up to our current time.

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So even though it seems in the past, it's really not.

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So that little trip down history is just an example

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of why we sent you race

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because when we think about all the things

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and all these barriers, race is always there

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and the shadows and sometimes it's in the forefront.

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So when we disconnect race from that,

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we don't have a full view of how our society

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impact people, and we try to take that away from that. Our society makes it visible.

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So even when we don't talk about it, and we see it come up in income and housing with

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red lining, which people weren't allowed to live in, which neighborhoods, and even now

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that there are different rates and insurance and different rates in the price that you get

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for interest on the house. So race always comes in, whether we want it to exist or not.

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So, we sent you race. It's like the idea of raising all boats, even though like we may be in

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the same storm, but our boats are different. So, it's like that idea that when we send

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you're on race, that means a person that identifies as gay and black. They rise when someone

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when we think about being in classrooms when we send your race and think about trying to have

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have a diverse workforce and we want our staff to reflect our diverse community, that

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then makes our schools stronger. So those are all like just pieces of why we sent your

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race because it's there. Race is a social construct as we all know but just because it's

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a social construct, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't mean it doesn't come

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in the room, whether we want it to or not. So that's why we sent your race because it's

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always there whether we want to talk about it or not. I hope that helps.

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Yeah, and so I know one of the questions that potentially that the board has.

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So if we center on race, when we think about our obligation to all of our students.

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So let's say there's a student who is Caucasian and is living in poverty.

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How does then centering on race help us then address all of our students,

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including a student that may not be a person of color.

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A good question because sometimes there are stereotypes that are connected with

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that if it is a person of color then it's a direct link to poverty.

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As we know we have wealthy people from all racial categories.

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So we do center on race when we think of that there is a student who's white and in poverty

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and we think about that the resources follow.

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So, when we center on race, there are certain deficit mindsets that are imbued with an educational

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system, unfortunately, because it was made for certain groups to thrive and certain groups

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to not thrive.

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And so, when we look at the eye, when we think about funding schools, that unfortunately,

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and unfortunately sometimes in a strictly tied to race

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and certain stereotypes that people may have

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about certain groups.

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And so when we think about funding,

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putting funding something equitably,

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like a lot of schools and many districts,

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no matter school, that they are funded by student

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to say this how many principals you have,

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this how many counselors you have.

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And when we think about funding in an equitable way,

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Then we think about what does the data look like, not just SBA data, what are also form

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of assessments look like and qualitative data that we have.

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We have that type of data, and sometimes it's linked to a deficit mindset, unfortunately,

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but that can sometimes drive what resources schools have, and like a lot of times it is not

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tight to race, but it's done so in a way that is not necessarily appropriate.

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And so funding can follow a model that looks at data like that, and at the same time a student who identifies as white and who may be low income.

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They will receive funding because should receive more funding at a particular school, and we think of it that way because it had changes.

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So in the big scheme of things, when we think about race, even though a school may not have a high population of just say, let's you know, let's next students.

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But if we reframe how we look at equity, that we can drive our budget in a way that

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it's not equal but equitable, it does change how we see things because sometimes we look

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at things in a black and white way and literally black and white by race or the idea that one

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student equals this much money.

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So when we start to think of that we sent you a race in that that doesn't mean that it's to exclude

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as a decision of why students we bring in those other inner setionalities that come in because we are changing a way we think about how we fund and we're changing a way we think about what a student looks like that needs help because one we start think about, we have a lot of students, when our districts and families that identify is black, african, african, african, matrican, latino, latin ex for example, even though there's disparate data right there, and also cause attention to us, calls for us to put our attention on what is the data really telling us. That is a systems issue.

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and at the same time, that we think differently about how we fund things beyond race, but race

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sometimes gets us in the room to have that conversation.

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Great.

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Great.

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Thank you.

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Hey, Matt.

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Hey, John.

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I'm going to ask you to maybe expand a little bit more for the board on a concept.

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I think we've used it before, perhaps, with the board, but it's a critical distinction.

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And I would argue that it's something we really need to be.

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as we think about both board policy and administrative policy that we need to really be intentional about.

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And that's where you use the term deficit or deficit mindset. We also, the opposite of that

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is thinking as an asset mindset. And so I'll kind of start in on this term and then Gory, I'd really

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love if you could kind of build off of that. So a deficit mindset is kind of like a fixing mindset,

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The assumption is that there is something that needs to be fixed within a population that the problem is actually centered with a population.

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And that's problematic from civil standpoints.

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I would argue that the biggest problem with that is that it actually absolves us as educators from actually taking some ownership

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of the role in which we and our systems contribute to the disparities that we see and that we're wanting to address.

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And so if we've taken an asset base of my view, really is looking at how do we essentially, how do we, first of all,

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How are we reflective about the ways in which our systems are either helping lifting people

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up to reach their excellence or perhaps suppressing or marginalizing or oppressing populations?

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And so, Gloria brought that term into the room. I just think it is very easy to fall into a deficit

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mindset and would be something that would really caution us to kind of call out and just be

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aware of as we're engaging in conversations because policies have a lot of power that way.

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And you certainly don't want to be doing harm as a result of the ways in which we've

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crafted our policies. So I don't worry if you have anything to add on that.

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Thank you for explaining that more because sometimes that is what happens we think about

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policies and how we write them in which students that we are populists and we're targeting because the idea of an equity policy

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is that we're not disenfranchising one group for another. It's that how do we get to equal but we can't get to equal until we really think about what equity looks like.

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And so we think about these policies, a technical fix, sometimes comes to mind around the idea of deficit-based thinking.

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So, one may think, oh, we're going to have more tutors because we're going to help these

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poor students or these poor families instead of thinking that our families bring a lot

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into the space around cultural nuance and gifts and talents, and that it is about having

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high standards, but what do those standards look like and how are they more universal and open?

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And so, we think about the systems fix and looking at ourselves, it's more like how,

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think

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than that, around having strong, diverse categories of teachers.

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So that when we think of a systems fix, when we think about a policy, that's when that

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comes in sort of the depth of base, which is about fixing kids and fixing families.

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Instead of looking at how our system has unintentionally and sometimes intentionally disenfranchised groups

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of students and families.

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So, yep.

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Sorry, I was looking to make sure my mic was my second mic was turned on.

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Are there other cabinet members that want to comment on this before we then open this

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up for board members to ask questions and then we can get into kind of the dialogue specific

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to policy.

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I'd love to add something.

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I just said Gloria text and it's on a theory called funds of knowledge and it's with

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the thinking that people come to the table competent with experiences that add value.

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And so when you think of asset-based thinking in comparison to deficit-based thinking, that's

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It's really a good place to start, and I don't know how new the thinking is, but it's

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certainly one that allows students to be looked at differently.

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It really came up in a, oh, probably about eight or nine years ago, there was a young Latin

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next boy in East LA who created, he was the impetus behind the, I'm not remembering what

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But it's the Cardboard Challenge and there's a link on the Internet and it's Keynes Arcade,

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C-A-I-N apostrophe S. And that whole concept about him having funds of knowledge and experiences

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really was the impetus behind the Cardboard Challenge and he talked about his teachers

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seeing him differently.

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when they started to look at him as if he came from a place that had

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experiences and had values and so just thinking about asset-based thinking and

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how that you know changes the trajectory for students but also for teachers so

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just wanted to add that in. Thank you. I saw Mike's hand come up and then why don't we

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go Chris and then Eric? Yeah one other thing I'd add actually it's related to an

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article that we'll be reading tomorrow in our instructional bargaining group by an author

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and an instructional kind of expert, Zoretta Hammond. We also have to think about what

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is every kid need? And again, it's not going to a deficit, but you know, I think a few of

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us were in a really wonderful session the other night with a high school teacher who was talking

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about her work to bring social justice into her curriculum. At the same time, if you back

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that up to early grades, if kids can't read and can't get access to mathematics, they

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won't have access to the knowledge that's in the things that they need to read and the

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ideas that they need to access.

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And so we have an obligation to make sure every kid reads, and I think connecting to the point

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we were just hearing is, you can't go in to say, well, some kids can and some kids can't,

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some kids don't have books at home and some do.

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You have to start with every kid can learn.

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And we have to change our approaches to make sure every pit can learn.

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And that means bringing in students experiences and bringing in their strengths and building on those.

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But at the same time, it also doesn't mean you set aside really good literacy instruction or really good math instruction for every single kid.

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And when you're not reaching kids, you have to ask what's your obligation to adjust.

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I just want to have that in the conversation too.

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I think that's an important part, and oftentimes we make lots of excuses, or we do lots of

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set-asides and say, some kids maybe can't learn, or those are our biases that we have

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to explore.

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But that instructional component has to be built in as well if we're going to talk about

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racial equity.

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Thanks, Mike.

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Chris?

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So I want to say thank you to everyone who's trying to help me catch up on this, because

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be perfectly honest, to Joyce's point, I do not feel confident coming to the table on this issue.

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And it's not just because, if you look at us, I have spent the last four board meetings,

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trying to find the lighting that makes me look a little bit less like Casper the Ghost.

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And the fact is, I am clearly the widest number of our board.

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And, you know, these things, it's, I have a question very specifically for Gloria and

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Centering race is something where I'm trying to wrap my head around it.

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When it comes to equity, there are four dimensions that I care about passionately.

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Race, ability, identity, and the income.

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And if I'm saying that race is the first among equals, I'm cool with it.

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But if I'm saying that race is where I have to start,

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that makes me feel like I've just left the other three dimensions behind.

390
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You made them less important.

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Yeah, so we think about centering raised, it's about not raised being first, it's about

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being centered.

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So I think about it as it's like if it's a hierarchy, then it's one, two, three, four.

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But if I think about it being centered, like you have race here, you have ability.

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If a student, for example, has a disability, there are more likely, for example, to, for

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many districts. If there is a behavioral issue, a black and Latino Latinx student, they're

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more likely to be pushed into or got a really strong towards special education. If it's

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a right student, it's more likely that that may not happen. So we think about that ability

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part because the behavior can be seen as per cautiousness or immaturity, where the black

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student is seen as something else. Especially when they've done studies that when a black

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Black children and black boys seem like black men and black men are treated like black boys.

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So you think about the idea around that, that's why ability raises at the center because

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for ability you are more likely for that to happen.

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And when I think about even the income piece, there's a study I think in the Wall Street Journal

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and we've done this work also with PEG that despite income level, a poor white student, sometimes

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their SAT score is higher than a student that is black and higher income.

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That doesn't mean that the higher income black student isn't doing the work isn't as worthy.

408
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We think about how that test was crafted and about what kids know and about what people

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tell kids about.

410
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You can do this.

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I believe in you.

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These are access.

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This is access information.

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This is information source, SAT, ACT, all those pieces intersect with that or you can have

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a really bright Latino life next student and they might not know or be given opportunity

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or income level to have six months worth of prep sessions before SAT happens.

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So then race comes in real right there if a person believes they're worthy or not to even have the information or the access to

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Let's have a prep club that someone doesn't have transportation to stay at school or to get there so it comes in there

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even identity

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They've recent through the American Pediatric Association that black students on average receive six to eight races or racialized

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Incidents at day when we think about that kind of trauma if you're in trauma because a racialized

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is despite your income level, you are then trying to go into clashing to take a test when

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you just heard the inward and hallway, or if you just been called inward, or something ridiculous

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happened, all those things are going on and you're doing racial gymnastics and mental gymnastics

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to get into a space to be totally engaged. And there are kids that are far exceeding that

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when I think about our students of color, particularly our black African-American and Latino

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you know, last night students that in spite of all those things they are still achieving.

428
00:57:06,850 --> 00:57:10,870
And we think about the students that do not graduate in a four-year time span.

429
00:57:11,290 --> 00:57:15,550
They come from particular groups and I posit it's not because they can't do it, it's because

430
00:57:15,550 --> 00:57:17,790
all those layers and with that.

431
00:57:18,070 --> 00:57:22,430
So we think about ability identity and income when you have all those layers on top of it

432
00:57:22,430 --> 00:57:27,230
regardless of your income or someone is thinking from the age of being a preschooler that you

433
00:57:27,230 --> 00:57:31,750
are more likely to be in trouble or get into trouble, those things all come back to race.

434
00:57:31,750 --> 00:57:37,390
So it's not about the hierarchy of race, which is really alive and well in our country right now when we think about

435
00:57:38,470 --> 00:57:45,190
Patriarch and how that exists and and who people trust the most even being people of color and we think about all of the data around that.

436
00:57:45,590 --> 00:57:50,610
So it's not about hierarchy. It's about sintering race because everything else. There's a through line tool

437
00:57:50,610 --> 00:57:59,210
We look at data around disparities and even when kids make it race is always in the room because race has been in the room since over 400 years ago

438
00:57:59,210 --> 00:58:01,690
when people came here and

439
00:58:01,690 --> 00:58:12,750
And that started. So that's why it's there that is there I can work with that as as a premise where it has to be part of the conversation in all of these dimensions.

440
00:58:13,050 --> 00:58:21,950
I guess the one thing that I've been fretting over as we go as we pursue this conversation is what about white kids who are LGBTQ?

441
00:58:22,990 --> 00:58:30,050
What about the white kids who are spent? What about the white kids who are low income? I don't want to leave them outside of our equity policy.

442
00:58:30,050 --> 00:58:35,010
if there's any way we can avoid that and I guess that makes me feel better about it.

443
00:58:35,090 --> 00:58:41,450
So that's just something I'm still struggling with and I want to make sure we don't lose.

444
00:58:42,290 --> 00:58:47,290
Oh and I'm glad you are bringing that up because that is the silence that's there that people

445
00:58:47,290 --> 00:58:53,010
are thinking about which could end up being a negative and like at the tailwind as we work through

446
00:58:53,010 --> 00:59:00,450
admin and board policy is that when we center race that means we think about

447
00:59:00,450 --> 00:59:04,510
centering race that doesn't mean not white people we think about even though

448
00:59:04,510 --> 00:59:10,050
we think about race as being that includes white even though there's cultural

449
00:59:10,050 --> 00:59:14,830
pieces that have come in that change that over time that is still there that

450
00:59:14,830 --> 00:59:18,770
race that white isn't an absence of race it's just how does that look in our

451
00:59:18,770 --> 00:59:22,070
country and how does that look with our educational system and I think we will

452
00:59:22,070 --> 00:59:27,010
be remiss if we didn't think about that because what that can end up causing is sometimes

453
00:59:27,010 --> 00:59:34,450
anchor. It can cause disenchantment so that always has to be there. So I think we think

454
00:59:34,450 --> 00:59:41,790
about even broadly about racial equity work. It means also supporting white students

455
00:59:41,790 --> 00:59:46,170
and other people of color that may not identify themselves as people of color for their own

456
00:59:46,170 --> 00:59:51,370
particular reasons is that they're part of the process because if we as people

457
00:59:51,370 --> 00:59:55,710
color could have done it absent of white people for equality it would have been

458
00:59:55,710 --> 00:59:59,830
done so with that it's all of us coming together to do it which doesn't mean

459
01:00:00,000 --> 01:00:06,840
Meeting white people outside the door, it's having all people together as allies in this work.

460
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:08,320
Thanks.

461
01:00:11,710 --> 01:00:11,890
Eric?

462
01:00:17,460 --> 01:00:21,260
I'm going to jump in. Chris, I'm glad Chris went first because he said a lot of things.

463
01:00:21,260 --> 01:00:29,780
I was going to say, I don't, I'll just say plus one to what director Carlson was saying that I was at it. I just want to acknowledge that I'm,

464
01:00:31,340 --> 01:00:40,420
and be honest about that I'm having a real hard time working on and you know it's a

465
01:00:40,420 --> 01:00:47,100
new way of thinking for me. These are new ideas for me and I'm just really I'm so wrestling

466
01:00:47,100 --> 01:00:54,460
with them and yeah I mean I have always thought about I have thought about the same dimensions

467
01:00:54,460 --> 01:01:00,940
There's Director Carlson for our, for our anchored work, and if I were to have just sat

468
01:01:00,940 --> 01:01:05,160
down on my own two weeks ago and started drafting a policy, I would have probably had

469
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:11,340
bored, you know, discrete subgroups, and I would have thought about it that way and just

470
01:01:11,340 --> 01:01:12,380
rattled things off.

471
01:01:12,920 --> 01:01:19,860
The idea of centering on race also, I mean, I'll begin, I'll be taught, I just want to be

472
01:01:19,860 --> 01:01:21,280
honest, makes me uncomfortable.

473
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:31,040
I don't, for me, it is more difficult to have those conversations than to have conversations

474
01:01:31,040 --> 01:01:33,280
about income.

475
01:01:34,580 --> 01:01:42,440
I find myself more comfortable, but that's part of this process is learning and I'm

476
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:43,360
working through that.

477
01:01:43,520 --> 01:01:45,460
So I just wanted to put that out there for the board.

478
01:01:45,680 --> 01:01:46,960
I don't know where I was at right now.

479
01:01:50,980 --> 01:01:52,220
I just

480
01:01:54,820 --> 01:02:01,140
wanted to mention when it clicked for me, I do have biracial children, but they're

481
01:02:01,140 --> 01:02:02,760
not half black.

482
01:02:03,940 --> 01:02:13,940
I do have disabled children one cognitively and one physically, and it is a, to say it's

483
01:02:13,940 --> 01:02:17,980
a ton of work and a ton of joy, you know, is an understatement.

484
01:02:17,980 --> 01:02:29,730
But when it finally kicked for me that race is in the center of all of it is what if, you

485
01:02:29,730 --> 01:02:36,550
know, I was going through a divorce and I didn't have money and I had disabled kids and

486
01:02:36,960 --> 01:02:37,810
we were black.

487
01:02:38,780 --> 01:02:43,390
How much more difficult would all of that been in my life?

488
01:02:44,550 --> 01:02:51,830
I think it would have been so much more added stress and so many more things to deal with

489
01:02:51,830 --> 01:02:56,950
emotionally, and I don't know that I would have been as welcomed and treated in the same

490
01:02:56,950 --> 01:02:59,330
way when talking with surgeons.

491
01:03:00,790 --> 01:03:03,530
You know, they tell you, you know you're a child best.

492
01:03:04,170 --> 01:03:08,350
You tell me what you think you want to do with this big medical decision.

493
01:03:09,070 --> 01:03:14,450
I'm not sure I would have been asked those same questions the same way had I not been white.

494
01:03:17,100 --> 01:03:18,500
Thank you.

495
01:03:21,230 --> 01:03:21,330
And

496
01:03:24,660 --> 01:03:32,220
I'll just kind of speak a little personally here as a father to two young growing white boys.

497
01:03:32,800 --> 01:03:38,380
And thinking about also when we talk about and have conversations that center on race,

498
01:03:39,620 --> 01:03:46,320
what are the values that we're communicating to each and every one of our students as well?

499
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:53,920
And so that's something that's apparent. I've had to be really thoughtful about how I'm communicating

500
01:03:53,920 --> 01:04:00,880
around the values and trying to equip my children to be able to talk about race and as somebody

501
01:04:00,880 --> 01:04:08,520
that's still as a white person trying to learn to be able to really be courageous in that space.

502
01:04:09,340 --> 01:04:15,300
And so I think also maybe for framing for the board and we've talked about, Dr.

503
01:04:15,300 --> 01:04:16,500
or home and talked about this a lot,

504
01:04:16,740 --> 01:04:20,680
but in August is that with your equity policy,

505
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:23,380
you're looking perhaps to both disrupt

506
01:04:23,910 --> 01:04:27,340
the inequities or the predictability of outcomes

507
01:04:28,030 --> 01:04:29,580
that the board is carrying about.

508
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:32,740
But you're also, we're also thinking about

509
01:04:32,740 --> 01:04:36,060
if our mission and vision is to fully equip each and every one

510
01:04:36,060 --> 01:04:40,200
of our children and our students to be able to go out

511
01:04:40,200 --> 01:04:42,620
and be contributing members of society.

512
01:04:42,620 --> 01:04:50,240
Um, for each and every one of our students, uh, the, you know, the way the policies and

513
01:04:50,240 --> 01:04:55,080
the ways that we communicate, um, at, uh, at the board and administrative levels communicate

514
01:04:55,080 --> 01:05:01,640
those values and we're, we're setting examples. Um, and so I also think about how do, how

515
01:05:01,640 --> 01:05:07,940
does this type of work impact children who look like my children, as well as, as children

516
01:05:07,940 --> 01:05:14,860
who look like you know who are children of color and so I think there's multiple layers that

517
01:05:14,860 --> 01:05:20,820
is you're working through this policy that is good to be thinking about because when the board

518
01:05:20,820 --> 01:05:27,900
articulates values we're also communicating some things around what does it mean to be a contributing

519
01:05:27,900 --> 01:05:33,540
member in the society and how well are we actually preparing each and every one of our children

520
01:05:33,540 --> 01:05:37,980
to do so. Thank you. Chris.

521
01:05:41,940 --> 01:05:45,060
So actually, Gloria, I just wanted to ask a question again. I find

522
01:05:45,060 --> 01:05:51,840
it useful to try to restate what I've heard from someone to make sure I've understood it. So

523
01:05:51,840 --> 01:06:00,460
centering race in this conversation is a way of saying that we can't responsibly try to tackle equity

524
01:06:00,460 --> 01:06:05,940
for any of these other dimensions without simultaneously tackling race as a dimension of equity.

525
01:06:06,740 --> 01:06:07,240
Is that fair?

526
01:06:07,940 --> 01:06:10,360
Yes, because of the intersections with that,

527
01:06:10,380 --> 01:06:13,660
because then it's almost like we're not being as efficient,

528
01:06:13,700 --> 01:06:15,180
not that this is efficient work.

529
01:06:15,700 --> 01:06:17,800
But if you say we're going to look at our support,

530
01:06:17,920 --> 01:06:21,520
our LGBTQIA community, but then we think about that we have,

531
01:06:21,520 --> 01:06:23,840
for example, that I work with,

532
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:26,860
an openly gay black male student service special education.

533
01:06:27,680 --> 01:06:29,980
His experience in Washington School District

534
01:06:29,980 --> 01:06:33,320
has not been great on many levels and race intersects

535
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,000
and also the idea that he doesn't feel connected or valued.

536
01:06:36,720 --> 01:06:41,380
within the place where he is a student and so we were to say okay student we're

537
01:06:41,380 --> 01:06:46,040
gonna deal we're gonna think about how do we change policy so or uplift the

538
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:51,460
policy levels pass around around gender but if there are still struggles we

539
01:06:51,460 --> 01:06:54,660
have to do a race we're not looking at the whole person and so not that all

540
01:06:54,660 --> 01:06:58,340
students have those all those intersectionalities but we're treating we're

541
01:06:58,340 --> 01:07:02,580
supporting our community solicitly instead of saying one at a time because we've

542
01:07:02,580 --> 01:07:04,220
done that, and it hasn't worked.

543
01:07:04,540 --> 01:07:06,800
We think about women's suffrage that when you see the

544
01:07:06,800 --> 01:07:09,880
commerce like, yes, the anti-versive women's suffrage.

545
01:07:10,040 --> 01:07:11,760
But black women didn't receive the right to vote

546
01:07:11,760 --> 01:07:13,140
until way after that.

547
01:07:13,460 --> 01:07:16,160
So if vote were handled at the same time, we would have

548
01:07:16,160 --> 01:07:19,280
then not had so many people continuously disenfranchised

549
01:07:19,280 --> 01:07:21,240
instead of chipping away at it one at a time.

550
01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:28,420
Another piece for me, and then why don't we dive into the

551
01:07:28,420 --> 01:07:30,960
policy and actually have that conversation.

552
01:07:30,960 --> 01:07:41,740
It is so easy for all of us not to talk about race, that it is critically important.

553
01:07:42,590 --> 01:07:49,700
So for me, that's another reason to center on race, because we have to, unfortunately,

554
01:07:50,240 --> 01:08:00,240
force and remind ourselves to have the dialogue about race, and that as a key part of this

555
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:08,460
work. And so it's that it's the constant reminder that it is race and because it's it's really easy

556
01:08:08,460 --> 01:08:15,260
to put race conversations aside because they are so challenging. And so I think that's another

557
01:08:15,260 --> 01:08:22,000
piece. I don't know if that's a piece, a legitimate piece. That is something for me that is important to

558
01:08:22,000 --> 01:08:26,340
always have race as part of the conversation because I know it's easy not to.

559
01:08:28,440 --> 01:08:30,080
I see three hands

560
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:37,340
Cassandra, Mike and Eric, I don't know if you had questions, and then I just saw

561
01:08:37,340 --> 01:08:38,860
Mark's hand come up.

562
01:08:54,450 --> 01:09:00,850
No, I had my call. I lost the audio from you folks. I see

563
01:09:00,850 --> 01:09:06,350
where we're going. I think we are still are missing another aspect and especially

564
01:09:06,350 --> 01:09:13,210
there's multicultural as our difference is, the variety of religions. We are at

565
01:09:13,210 --> 01:09:24,450
ignoring or ignoring, but I seem to be putting on the side religious prejudices, the anti-sivitism,

566
01:09:24,610 --> 01:09:30,630
the anti-Muslim, pervasive attitudes are in this district.

567
01:09:32,830 --> 01:09:38,230
This interestingly enough, this conversation was going to happen about a week or so ago

568
01:09:38,230 --> 01:09:44,110
And then all of a sudden, I made a call, John said that's, we're talking about equity

569
01:09:44,110 --> 01:09:49,890
on young Kipper and all of the Jewish families are going to be in services, or they're going

570
01:09:49,890 --> 01:09:50,710
to be with their families.

571
01:09:51,090 --> 01:09:56,250
So we moved it very quickly, but it's, again, it's one of those things that it's an invisible,

572
01:09:56,410 --> 01:10:02,430
if you will, issue that I think we still need to address as well as into raise now.

573
01:10:02,430 --> 01:10:12,330
I think the importance of getting into race gets us past a number of the other barriers

574
01:10:13,790 --> 01:10:21,550
but when it comes to religious or cultural differences as well, I think we still need to keep our eyes on that, especially with the indigenous peoples.

575
01:10:25,370 --> 01:10:34,510
I'm failing. I can't see us. I want to see us address the racial issues but I want to be able to bring the others along with us

576
01:10:34,510 --> 01:10:39,310
Because if we leave one group behind, then we've lived, we've created another chasm.

577
01:10:42,210 --> 01:10:43,350
Absolutely, thank you, Mark.

578
01:10:44,150 --> 01:10:48,850
I think to me, there's some key terms in this work.

579
01:10:48,970 --> 01:10:53,310
One of them being inclusion, inclusivity.

580
01:10:53,850 --> 01:11:00,110
That concept that 31,000 students feel as though they have a place in our schools,

581
01:11:00,370 --> 01:11:01,930
they feel safe in our schools.

582
01:11:01,930 --> 01:11:11,470
they don't have to change who they are to enter into our classrooms and you just

583
01:11:11,470 --> 01:11:17,950
identified another layer of this work. And so none of this is about excluding

584
01:11:17,950 --> 01:11:25,630
any group or individual. It's about creating pathways for inclusion for all of

585
01:11:25,630 --> 01:11:29,010
our students. So thank you. Thank you for that comment.

586
01:11:31,390 --> 01:11:32,050
Matt, do you want to

587
01:11:32,050 --> 01:11:36,690
lead the board through the dialogue around the policy?

588
01:11:38,800 --> 01:11:40,160
I'm happy, too.

589
01:11:40,480 --> 01:11:44,680
So we've started to have a pretty robust conversation

590
01:11:44,680 --> 01:11:48,520
around isolating race or maybe around why that is.

591
01:11:48,740 --> 01:11:51,000
So let's start with that first question.

592
01:11:51,660 --> 01:11:55,220
And in the two model policies that we looked at here,

593
01:11:55,660 --> 01:12:01,000
just as board members, how did you identify ways

594
01:12:01,000 --> 01:12:05,100
in which race was isolated in these policies,

595
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:07,320
was there's anything that jumped out at you

596
01:12:07,320 --> 01:12:08,420
as you were looking at them?

597
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:14,600
See I think I see Chris's hand and then Mark's hand?

598
01:12:19,220 --> 01:12:22,620
When it came to the policies, there's a value statement

599
01:12:22,620 --> 01:12:23,700
on the top of the both of them

600
01:12:23,700 --> 01:12:25,380
and then there's a bunch of sub bullets.

601
01:12:26,260 --> 01:12:27,780
And the value statements in both,

602
01:12:28,340 --> 01:12:31,420
race was the first dimension listed

603
01:12:31,420 --> 01:12:40,960
in a list of multiple dimensions and I actually felt that was the appropriate way

604
01:12:40,960 --> 01:12:48,660
to speak to it that raises is you can't tackle any of the others not tackling race but

605
01:12:48,660 --> 01:12:53,720
that we were explicitly saying it was race and not that race is the only.

606
01:12:57,760 --> 01:12:58,820
Director Blusner?

607
01:12:58,820 --> 01:12:59,540
Sir,

608
01:13:12,020 --> 01:13:13,160
if you're talking, you're on mute.

609
01:13:14,180 --> 01:13:16,100
Putting again, cheese, thank you.

610
01:13:20,490 --> 01:13:22,490
So I guess when I look at these two policies,

611
01:13:22,810 --> 01:13:25,090
I do see race as stated first, but that to me

612
01:13:25,090 --> 01:13:27,090
does not give it extra weight in that.

613
01:13:27,210 --> 01:13:30,210
It actually just lays it out as a list of items.

614
01:13:31,210 --> 01:13:34,170
I believe that you can call it out more specifically.

615
01:13:34,450 --> 01:13:36,150
This was actually a discussion that took place

616
01:13:36,150 --> 01:13:38,670
around the WASDA educational equity statement.

617
01:13:39,730 --> 01:13:42,430
That really, you call out race and background

618
01:13:42,430 --> 01:13:47,210
and characteristics, but you do make it clear that race is one of those to play out.

619
01:13:47,390 --> 01:13:51,630
So, I like the value statement. I think that's important where it should be,

620
01:13:51,730 --> 01:13:56,630
but I do think it should get called out explicitly separately.

621
01:13:58,430 --> 01:14:01,790
Can you explain what you mean by that? I don't understand yet.

622
01:14:02,770 --> 01:14:08,110
So, when you get a whole list of characteristics, like you see on these, right,

623
01:14:08,890 --> 01:14:13,950
or if they put in the comments of such as, so you see, regardless of race status,

624
01:14:14,270 --> 01:14:20,550
there's no, that's just listing a variety of terms. I think you could call it

625
01:14:20,550 --> 01:14:24,150
out stronger, you could talk about racial prejudice, you could talk about

626
01:14:24,150 --> 01:14:29,190
discrimination, you can talk about multiple things as opposed to inequities and

627
01:14:29,190 --> 01:14:34,890
bias, it can be a little stronger in that, and that those are races, one of those,

628
01:14:34,890 --> 01:14:37,910
and it is a key one that you call out separately.

629
01:14:41,590 --> 01:14:41,910
Eric?

630
01:14:47,570 --> 01:14:49,310
It's in a, I'm looking at the

631
01:14:49,310 --> 01:14:54,830
Istiqua policy. I don't mean this, I don't think anyone is supposed to go towards

632
01:14:54,830 --> 01:14:59,110
listening, but I don't mean this as a criticism. I, in fact, this is probably

633
01:14:59,110 --> 01:14:59,810
It would be my equivalent.

634
01:15:02,680 --> 01:15:09,800
I feel like it dances around race without ever really acknowledging it. I'll give you a few examples.

635
01:15:10,320 --> 01:15:19,620
For example, one subpart A, the superintendent shall recognize the existence of systemic and institutional inequities for students.

636
01:15:19,620 --> 01:15:24,020
Well, what systems make inequities are we talking about?

637
01:15:24,660 --> 01:15:29,400
I think the one we've heard the most about are ones based on race.

638
01:15:32,100 --> 01:15:37,460
And the policy here, it has a lot where if you just went at it, you can say,

639
01:15:37,520 --> 01:15:41,980
they're probably talking about race, but it doesn't say that.

640
01:15:41,980 --> 01:15:44,440
And, you

641
01:15:46,490 --> 01:15:52,850
know, one other note that I had from meetings was a lot of people on the community

642
01:15:52,850 --> 01:15:58,830
were telling us to be bold with our policy, and I'm trying to do that when I think about

643
01:15:58,830 --> 01:15:59,050
this.

644
01:15:59,370 --> 01:16:05,870
Again, I come into this with fear, with talking about race, so these are sort of things

645
01:16:05,870 --> 01:16:10,790
I'm noticing about myself as I'm reviewing these policies, and also noticing all the policies.

646
01:16:14,060 --> 01:16:15,640
Mark, I think your hand was next.

647
01:16:17,280 --> 01:16:17,900
Thank you.

648
01:16:19,360 --> 01:16:23,020
One of the things I noticed about the other policies and perhaps they predate the timeframe

649
01:16:23,020 --> 01:16:25,460
for it, I can't imagine it to be quite frank.

650
01:16:26,840 --> 01:16:32,200
The issue of not, I think perhaps the reason why race got lost in one of the other policies

651
01:16:32,200 --> 01:16:39,200
that Eric was speaking to, there is no emphasis or there is no galvanizing phrase

652
01:16:39,200 --> 01:16:45,200
that really draw people's attention, it's kind of just, it was a little paddling, if you will.

653
01:16:45,600 --> 01:16:51,040
And my thought is, if we avoid the term Black Lives Matter,

654
01:16:51,540 --> 01:16:57,720
we're not getting anyone's attention and we're ignoring a large segment of the problem.

655
01:16:58,560 --> 01:17:05,460
And to acknowledge that aspect, that finally it highlights what we really intend to do.

656
01:17:05,460 --> 01:17:21,400
We intend to raise as an issue and as a look at the way we teach, look at the way we acknowledge folks, look at the way we look at learning styles,

657
01:17:22,840 --> 01:17:29,480
every all thing about learning what we have in our curriculum so I think that we

658
01:17:29,480 --> 01:17:35,900
need to be able to have a galvanizing point up front to be quite frank if you

659
01:17:35,900 --> 01:17:46,760
know the reason get folks attention to listen to it that's it thank you hands

660
01:17:48,900 --> 01:17:52,820
on moving so I think I see Chris and then Eric this

661
01:17:57,140 --> 01:17:58,200
race isolated in these

662
01:17:58,200 --> 01:18:02,360
policies is not the question I'm really interested in. I'm interested in how should

663
01:18:02,360 --> 01:18:09,860
race be isolated in policies. And from that perspective, looking at this, there are things

664
01:18:09,860 --> 01:18:17,140
where race should be not just were committed to raising the achievement of all learners

665
01:18:17,140 --> 01:18:22,820
regardless of race, but to acknowledge the systemic inequities that have been present

666
01:18:22,820 --> 01:18:32,420
or race. That is, to me how should race be isolated isn't at the level of the bullet point

667
01:18:32,420 --> 01:18:39,900
because we want the superintendent to provide equitable access for all of these strata.

668
01:18:40,440 --> 01:18:46,780
But at the beginning, why are we committed to raising the achievement of all learners regardless

669
01:18:46,780 --> 01:18:52,940
levels of race, status, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because race is the definition

670
01:18:52,940 --> 01:19:04,660
of institutional disadvantage, but that is the textbook case of why opportunity, how

671
01:19:04,660 --> 01:19:06,580
opportunity is consistently denied.

672
01:19:07,620 --> 01:19:15,060
And so I think putting something in there about why we carry about race, perhaps more explicitly

673
01:19:15,060 --> 01:19:23,140
then we put in for the others where many of these do fit together but you know the problem always

674
01:19:23,140 --> 01:19:28,560
becomes okay so if we say we care about race because does that mean we then have to have a clause

675
01:19:28,560 --> 01:19:35,500
for we care about each of these other constituencies because and I don't I don't know how to solve how to

676
01:19:35,500 --> 01:19:36,180
that needle.

677
01:19:42,490 --> 01:19:50,230
Eric and then I think we'll move on to subsequent questions. So one

678
01:19:50,230 --> 01:19:56,690
thing I've as a listener director Carlson also thinking about myself is earlier

679
01:19:56,690 --> 01:20:03,050
we talked about the idea of the concepts of a desk visit mindset versus asset-based

680
01:20:03,050 --> 01:20:11,770
mindset. And I still don't fully understand that. And I worry, you know, what's the

681
01:20:11,770 --> 01:20:13,850
thing Chris was talking about? What do you personally say?

682
01:20:16,690 --> 01:20:18,870
I can't, so the director

683
01:20:18,870 --> 01:20:24,590
Carlson just said that those concepts resonate my mind again and realize that I do not know

684
01:20:24,590 --> 01:20:25,550
how to apply them.

685
01:20:27,570 --> 01:20:31,690
I still don't know how to apply those in working on this policy.

686
01:20:31,690 --> 01:20:34,610
or even an understanding policies.

687
01:20:35,990 --> 01:20:39,130
I'm going to go or is maybe going to rescue me here

688
01:20:39,130 --> 01:20:40,710
or at least give me some help.

689
01:20:40,850 --> 01:20:41,010
Yeah.

690
01:20:42,130 --> 01:20:44,330
Well, I was thinking to help with the idea.

691
01:20:44,330 --> 01:20:46,590
I hear the word fears coming up a lot too.

692
01:20:46,830 --> 01:20:51,710
And the idea around what you just mentioned around race

693
01:20:51,710 --> 01:20:58,070
and I think what would be helpful would be some background reading

694
01:20:58,070 --> 01:21:00,470
around the idea around death-to-base thinking.

695
01:21:00,470 --> 01:21:13,510
And I think if some reading around the formation of education and who was meant to uphold and put in a preferential situation, that will be helpful.

696
01:21:13,610 --> 01:21:17,430
And also there's some critical race theory, which is a little bit different.

697
01:21:17,610 --> 01:21:29,770
It's a little bit more harder hitting in the way that it traces a direct through line between the concept of race and how that plays out politically.

698
01:21:29,770 --> 01:21:36,250
and institutions. That could be really helpful. And one, because this work can be fear-inducing,

699
01:21:36,310 --> 01:21:42,470
especially when it takes us out of our comfort zones. So I was just offering that, because there's

700
01:21:42,470 --> 01:21:47,090
nothing in this session that I can say to make you less fearful. And like a little bit that you've

701
01:21:47,090 --> 01:21:52,850
gotten from us around deficit-based thinking, I think that some work Zoretta Hammond lays it out

702
01:21:52,850 --> 01:21:59,510
really well and also offer resource around critical race theory which could really help

703
01:22:00,370 --> 01:22:05,010
think deeply about the deficit-based thinking which could frame some of work for your board policy

704
01:22:05,010 --> 01:22:09,730
even though some of the details of this will come out in the admin policy more likely than a board

705
01:22:09,730 --> 01:22:15,730
policy. Yeah and I think just building on that I think this you know hearing as the

706
01:22:15,730 --> 01:22:18,490
the board's having this conversation.

707
01:22:19,390 --> 01:22:24,490
This is also giving us some ideas of ways

708
01:22:24,490 --> 01:22:26,370
in which we can continue to support the board

709
01:22:27,530 --> 01:22:32,150
as you engage in your work to develop policy.

710
01:22:34,070 --> 01:22:35,230
Siri, and then Mike?

711
01:22:37,500 --> 01:22:39,640
Yeah, so Mike was just around the whole asset building

712
01:22:39,640 --> 01:22:42,160
that it would be good to be getting some stronger back

713
01:22:42,160 --> 01:22:44,320
on the floor, kind of address that really, to Jess.

714
01:22:44,320 --> 01:22:49,820
Yes, I think that's the way to really think about writing the policy is with that angle

715
01:22:49,820 --> 01:22:55,040
because I'm 100 percent in agreement that everybody comes to the table with a lot and

716
01:22:55,040 --> 01:22:55,700
how do we build?

717
01:22:55,880 --> 01:23:00,960
How do we ensure this policy does that same thing along that line?

718
01:23:06,520 --> 01:23:10,800
Yeah, maybe just to offer two concrete examples of where there may be deficit-based thinking

719
01:23:10,800 --> 01:23:11,500
in our system.

720
01:23:11,800 --> 01:23:16,980
And I think Gloria mentioned earlier, we have an over-representation of students who are

721
01:23:16,980 --> 01:23:20,740
referred to special education who are Latinx or black.

722
01:23:22,260 --> 01:23:25,860
And we know that you can look at other schools

723
01:23:25,860 --> 01:23:27,220
and other districts that don't have

724
01:23:27,220 --> 01:23:28,620
that same representation.

725
01:23:28,840 --> 01:23:30,000
And so then you have to ask the question,

726
01:23:30,000 --> 01:23:32,220
well, why are so many Latinx students

727
01:23:32,220 --> 01:23:33,840
being referred to special education?

728
01:23:34,080 --> 01:23:36,500
And that does lead to the question,

729
01:23:36,640 --> 01:23:38,400
is there a deficit-based thinking there

730
01:23:38,860 --> 01:23:41,900
that there's something missing that that student would

731
01:23:41,900 --> 01:23:43,620
need special education services?

732
01:23:43,780 --> 01:23:46,200
And in fact, there's something that makes us think

733
01:23:46,200 --> 01:23:52,400
there's a disability there. Rather than thinking that maybe it's the way that we're teaching

734
01:23:52,400 --> 01:23:57,780
and so are we teaching in a way that makes the language accessible to students? Are we taking

735
01:23:57,780 --> 01:24:02,300
advantage of their own learned experiences and their lived experiences? Are kids seeing themselves

736
01:24:02,300 --> 01:24:08,000
in the books that they're reading, in the stories that we're telling? And if not, they may not be

737
01:24:08,000 --> 01:24:13,980
connecting to our curriculum. And so as a result of that, we assume that there's something missing

738
01:24:13,980 --> 01:24:18,500
or something wrong with them as opposed to changing our system and changing our structure.

739
01:24:19,040 --> 01:24:23,800
There was a nice example I heard somebody shared one time, you know, if your flower is not

740
01:24:24,540 --> 01:24:29,780
blooming or blossoming, you don't try to fix the flower. You enrich the soil, you'll water more,

741
01:24:29,900 --> 01:24:36,020
you fix the environment. And that's really I think where we are. There was a superintendent down in

742
01:24:36,020 --> 01:24:41,320
San Diego, Rudy Crew, black superintendent who was saying, you know, oftentimes too, we fall into

743
01:24:41,320 --> 01:24:44,020
to this, oh, the poor, name the group,

744
01:24:44,260 --> 01:24:46,520
black student, Hispanic student, poor student,

745
01:24:47,000 --> 01:24:50,280
and we have a tendency to lower our expectations sometimes too.

746
01:24:50,460 --> 01:24:52,640
And so again, there are we pushing students

747
01:24:52,640 --> 01:24:54,220
into special education, because well,

748
01:24:54,360 --> 01:24:55,620
they're just, they're not coming along.

749
01:24:55,740 --> 01:24:58,640
So those are really concrete examples of deficit thinking

750
01:24:58,640 --> 01:25:00,740
and how we have to change our approach

751
01:25:00,740 --> 01:25:03,100
as opposed to trying to fix our kids

752
01:25:03,100 --> 01:25:04,220
who really don't need fixing.

753
01:25:04,400 --> 01:25:05,700
They just need good instruction

754
01:25:05,700 --> 01:25:08,020
that's suited to their learning styles

755
01:25:08,020 --> 01:25:10,220
or their learning needs or their language abilities

756
01:25:10,220 --> 01:25:17,700
and not assume that they're coming in with something missing, but assume that maybe there's just a mismatch between what we're doing and what their

757
01:25:17,700 --> 01:25:24,600
experiences are, and if we can bridge that, I think it's gross things, or Adam's talking about, then we can actually start making a difference.

758
01:25:25,100 --> 01:25:30,200
As opposed to if you think there's something wrong with the kid, your approach is very different, and we see that in our system.

759
01:25:30,840 --> 01:25:35,280
I think there's some real opportunities. It's a function of people understanding more.

760
01:25:35,280 --> 01:25:41,160
And so Mike, I'm just going to jump off, build off of what you were just sharing there and

761
01:25:42,000 --> 01:25:47,980
then I think that actually can help kind of steer us in looking into the connection

762
01:25:47,980 --> 01:25:54,540
between an asset based kind of mindset or outlook and it's a theory of action.

763
01:25:54,800 --> 01:25:57,420
So Mike just articulated several theories of action.

764
01:25:57,660 --> 01:26:03,660
So for example, one theory of action would be that if students see representations of themselves

765
01:26:04,400 --> 01:26:07,780
in the curriculum and to the materials that they're reading,

766
01:26:08,160 --> 01:26:12,020
the examples that are provided that as a result,

767
01:26:12,360 --> 01:26:14,700
they're going to have higher levels of engagement

768
01:26:14,700 --> 01:26:19,780
and subsequently you would expect to have higher,

769
01:26:19,980 --> 01:26:23,660
you know, better academic outcomes as a result.

770
01:26:23,920 --> 01:26:26,060
So that's an example of a theory of action.

771
01:26:26,200 --> 01:26:28,040
It might just articulate several of those

772
01:26:28,040 --> 01:26:31,420
that really go back and look at the ways

773
01:26:31,420 --> 01:26:41,040
in which our educational system influences or impacts our students and so I think that actually

774
01:26:41,040 --> 01:26:46,720
might be a helpful way for us to look at these policies because if we can look at a theory of

775
01:26:46,720 --> 01:26:53,680
action we can hold up and say is that theory of action asset based because it's really primarily

776
01:26:53,680 --> 01:26:58,560
focused back on the ways in which we are at the extent to which we aren't meeting students needs

777
01:26:58,560 --> 01:27:04,980
or as a deficit based in ways in which we're blaming the flower or it's so to speak.

778
01:27:05,400 --> 01:27:12,840
So why don't we do that and just kind of call out like what just generally,

779
01:27:13,700 --> 01:27:19,140
what were some of the theories of action that you pulled out in these equity policies?

780
01:27:20,560 --> 01:27:25,880
And that might help us be mindful as we go to develop a, as a board goes to develop a policy

781
01:27:26,980 --> 01:27:32,640
around kind of what are you wanting to see that and why would you what's the

782
01:27:32,640 --> 01:27:34,220
change that you would expect as a result?

783
01:27:49,700 --> 01:27:51,180
Those are some complicated questions.

784
01:27:52,460 --> 01:27:59,740
So let me take a stab at starting that conversation because to me it's a

785
01:28:01,950 --> 01:28:08,250
theory of action comes down to dimensions where we can change this is from

786
01:28:08,250 --> 01:28:13,370
things in place. And this is where I'm starting to see that there might be a web

787
01:28:13,370 --> 01:28:18,830
of connections, because not all of these apply to all of the subsets that we've already

788
01:28:18,830 --> 01:28:25,810
started discussing, I mean, race, ability, which abilities physical, cognitive, or mental

789
01:28:25,810 --> 01:28:32,150
health, identity, which to me means LGBTQ or religion or ethnicity, all of these are things

790
01:28:32,150 --> 01:28:38,150
that you get at home, and then income is something, but cultural fluency, does cultural fluency

791
01:28:38,150 --> 01:28:38,830
apply to income?

792
01:28:39,130 --> 01:28:39,710
No, it doesn't.

793
01:28:39,710 --> 01:28:52,470
But cultural fluency sure as hell applies to identity and so, you know, the the theories of action to me sort of start with cultural fluency, support systems, and

794
01:28:54,350 --> 01:28:58,750
I'm running out of dimensions, but I'm sure that there's a leafy not one hiding that I'm missing

795
01:29:02,080 --> 01:29:09,460
Expectation that's cultural. Well anyway, but these are the big picture things we need to connect as things we can

796
01:29:09,460 --> 01:29:19,480
And X is that we can do to influence, to support groups that have inequitable outcomes

797
01:29:19,480 --> 01:29:20,980
in achieving actual work.

798
01:29:22,860 --> 01:29:24,520
Is that, I hope that's not.

799
01:29:26,860 --> 01:29:30,600
Well, thank you for jumping in there, because it is complex.

800
01:29:31,580 --> 01:29:36,820
I see Siri, Cassandra, I've raised her hand, so Siri, do you want to jump in next, like

801
01:29:36,820 --> 01:29:37,180
Cassandra?

802
01:29:38,680 --> 01:29:39,180
Sure.

803
01:29:39,600 --> 01:29:43,960
So, as I was trying to think about the stare of action, I was like, I needed to move

804
01:29:43,960 --> 01:29:44,540
to examples.

805
01:29:44,840 --> 01:29:48,220
So I was just thinking, so I went through the first in policy to look through and say,

806
01:29:48,220 --> 01:29:52,880
okay, so if this is the policy, that you will not fail to recruit employee support and

807
01:29:52,880 --> 01:29:57,260
retain a workforce reflective of our diverse student population and continuously develop

808
01:29:57,260 --> 01:29:57,920
that workforce.

809
01:29:57,920 --> 01:29:59,560
of course, that day.

810
01:30:00,000 --> 01:30:10,640
The result is that our students will feel represented and engaged and therefore have stronger academic outcome. Am I giving this correct as to how that's playing out? Yes.

811
01:30:13,020 --> 01:30:29,120
Yeah, that would, that would be a great example as a theory of action would be if we have a, if our work, our educational workforce is more representative of the student population, which we serve as a result.

812
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:34,720
our students are going to engage and have positive outcomes.

813
01:30:34,980 --> 01:30:39,680
So you're essentially saying that this board is highlighting that we think this is almost

814
01:30:39,680 --> 01:30:46,740
like a necessary condition to achieve that outcome and so as a board you're going to

815
01:30:46,740 --> 01:30:52,820
have to talk about what do we think are those conditions in order to get us to more equitable

816
01:30:52,820 --> 01:30:54,160
outcomes for our students.

817
01:30:54,160 --> 01:31:15,900
And so when I think of the whole asset conversation was there you know the the one that I see doing and it lines well actually with what I heard in several of the linkages was recognizing the strengths that come to the table of our students, our families, our teachers, our community and being able to build off of those going forward.

818
01:31:19,030 --> 01:31:22,590
because, ideally, by doing that, you can then start to address some of those inequities.

819
01:31:22,750 --> 01:31:30,030
I also think the whole key piece in there of addressing systemic problems and challenges.

820
01:31:30,390 --> 01:31:33,590
That is a key thing that has to happen.

821
01:31:33,730 --> 01:31:36,230
I mean, I remember speaking about paradigm shift.

822
01:31:36,890 --> 01:31:38,810
That's what has to happen.

823
01:31:42,540 --> 01:31:43,580
Thank you, Cassandra.

824
01:31:44,720 --> 01:31:54,200
I'm just thinking about having good and avid volunteer at the high school level and every

825
01:31:54,200 --> 01:31:59,600
time I walked in the door I thought why don't we have an element of this in all the classes

826
01:32:00,390 --> 01:32:08,240
because really it's trying to set expectations at a higher level to give you the opportunity

827
01:32:09,210 --> 01:32:12,080
to go a couple different directions after high school.

828
01:32:12,080 --> 01:32:27,540
So why wouldn't we be setting those expectations just generally for all students to make sure that they had the option to go to college by getting all those pre-rexed on and doing things in order so they have enough time and high school to finish them.

829
01:32:29,440 --> 01:32:40,860
I don't know how avid is going in a remote setting or if we're doing it, but I've always thought that that could be expanded to reach a lot larger population.

830
01:32:40,860 --> 01:32:48,940
The other thing I wanted to mention was with the home to school partnership, families

831
01:32:48,940 --> 01:32:56,820
to your local community school and when you're an elementary, it's historically been easier

832
01:32:56,820 --> 01:33:02,400
to develop some of those partnerships because you're taking your child to school and picking

833
01:33:02,400 --> 01:33:02,820
them up.

834
01:33:03,420 --> 01:33:10,480
However, there's now a large percentage of parents that their student goes to daycare and

835
01:33:10,480 --> 01:33:15,760
somebody else brings them to school, so you're missing a whole lot of connection

836
01:33:15,760 --> 01:33:22,100
opportunity because they can't be there. And I feel that we need to reach out to

837
01:33:22,100 --> 01:33:29,400
our parent community to make those ties stronger. If they would like to participate,

838
01:33:29,620 --> 01:33:33,140
we would like to partner with them. And that goes for all students.

839
01:33:35,400 --> 01:33:36,100
I think there's

840
01:33:36,100 --> 01:33:43,540
things we could do in the almost immediate future, that would help us get more

841
01:33:43,540 --> 01:33:44,900
diversity into our.

842
01:33:48,230 --> 01:33:50,830
Thank you, Sandra. I see Mark in the Eric.

843
01:33:54,360 --> 01:33:56,320
Yes, thanks. As

844
01:33:56,320 --> 01:34:00,600
we're going through this discussion, especially when it comes to curriculum, our

845
01:34:00,600 --> 01:34:07,220
reminded of shortly after I joined the board, there was a problem with the

846
01:34:07,220 --> 01:34:14,160
the curriculum on world history, and among the problems, and to be quite frank, it was

847
01:34:14,160 --> 01:34:21,140
the primary focus at the time because the parents who brought it up, Muslim religion was

848
01:34:21,140 --> 01:34:28,660
not even mentioned in the history book. And the reason that was given at the time was

849
01:34:28,660 --> 01:34:35,240
that we had to have a certain century cutoff, and they missed it. And to be quite frank,

850
01:34:35,240 --> 01:34:44,580
I think that's another example, I think, of disinclusion, exclusion, if you will, culturally.

851
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:46,900
I hate to see that happen.

852
01:34:47,480 --> 01:34:54,720
And I know it is happening in our history classes with race and other ethnicities,

853
01:34:55,840 --> 01:34:59,860
whether it's black, indigenous people, whatever.

854
01:35:01,640 --> 01:35:08,880
in Latinx groups. I would like to see us make sure that we learn from that experience.

855
01:35:08,980 --> 01:35:16,000
And I would, to be quite frank, never heard the end result. I was just told it was dismissed because, after all,

856
01:35:16,160 --> 01:35:19,560
they missed the cutoff point, if you will. I hope that's no longer being used.

857
01:35:23,160 --> 01:35:24,080
Thank you, Mark, Eric.

858
01:35:26,480 --> 01:35:32,560
Yeah, so there's two. I believe both of the policies have similar language.

859
01:35:34,600 --> 01:35:40,180
and I'm going to try to articulate the theory of action when I think it's going

860
01:35:42,580 --> 01:35:43,680
to consider it.

861
01:35:43,880 --> 01:35:47,560
I'll just pick it up from ISQUAS, but I believe it was also in the North-Thirst.

862
01:35:47,920 --> 01:35:52,940
There's a policy of the effect of to promote an environment and a culture that supports and encourages

863
01:35:52,940 --> 01:35:55,120
the effect of engagement of all students and fosters.

864
01:35:56,580 --> 01:35:58,260
I lost the player.

865
01:35:58,760 --> 01:36:00,500
Fosters cultural competency in students.

866
01:36:00,500 --> 01:36:05,620
students. And for me, the theory of action is if

867
01:36:07,900 --> 01:36:13,740
our students feel welcome and feel like

868
01:36:13,740 --> 01:36:25,180
they can trust the system that they're participating in, that there will be, well, that's

869
01:36:25,180 --> 01:36:30,200
an interesting question. So I'm trying to connect the dots here. I suppose that one,

870
01:36:30,400 --> 01:36:33,320
there will feel a bit more comfortable of accessing the different things that our

871
01:36:33,320 --> 01:36:42,080
system can provide. And two, I think if it's, you know, I can, first of all experience,

872
01:36:42,200 --> 01:36:47,000
when you feel more comfortable in your environment, you're, it's easier to succeed. It's just

873
01:36:47,000 --> 01:36:49,280
easier to do better when you feel supported and comfortable.

874
01:36:53,460 --> 01:36:53,580
Right.

875
01:36:54,360 --> 01:36:54,500
Yeah.

876
01:36:55,100 --> 01:36:55,500
Yeah.

877
01:36:55,740 --> 01:37:01,300
We've heard a lot. We heard a lot of, you know, the community languages I attended, I heard

878
01:37:01,300 --> 01:37:08,200
a lot of feedback along the lines of just wanting to be able to feel that trust, not feeling

879
01:37:08,200 --> 01:37:15,820
a part of the district, but feeling like this is something I'm having to push to interact

880
01:37:15,820 --> 01:37:16,160
with.

881
01:37:19,060 --> 01:37:20,640
Thank you very much.

882
01:37:20,740 --> 01:37:24,580
This has been a really, hopefully you found this a really rich conversation.

883
01:37:24,960 --> 01:37:30,740
I know I've been taking some notes and you know, some ways that we can continue to support

884
01:37:31,300 --> 01:37:32,620
you as you have these conversations.

885
01:37:32,620 --> 01:37:39,220
I think maybe a good way to just kind of wrap up and we'll just just go around and for each

886
01:37:39,220 --> 01:37:45,540
board member to either identify an aspect of one of these policies. So if there was just something

887
01:37:45,540 --> 01:37:52,080
that spoke to you that just really resonated, I want to hold on to this because that I could see

888
01:37:52,080 --> 01:38:01,100
that having a place ultimately in our policy or what was just something that was missing and

889
01:38:01,100 --> 01:38:05,360
that was absent in these policies that you'd like to.

890
01:38:05,660 --> 01:38:07,780
So we'll just kind of quickly go around.

891
01:38:08,000 --> 01:38:10,180
And if each board member can identify,

892
01:38:10,360 --> 01:38:12,020
there's something that's hold on to this

893
01:38:12,020 --> 01:38:13,300
or maybe something that was missing.

894
01:38:14,940 --> 01:38:17,860
And if you just want to raise your hands when you're ready

895
01:38:17,860 --> 01:38:21,680
and then we'll wrap up and we'll address the budget.

896
01:38:22,900 --> 01:38:23,200
Cassandra?

897
01:38:24,900 --> 01:38:27,800
Something that really resonates with me is,

898
01:38:27,800 --> 01:38:35,640
is when you can no longer predict the likelihood of success, I think that might be one of the

899
01:38:35,640 --> 01:38:43,100
best ways I have ever heard equity define when you can no longer predict whether or

900
01:38:43,100 --> 01:38:44,020
not you're going to succeed.

901
01:38:47,440 --> 01:38:48,080
Thank you.

902
01:38:59,690 --> 01:39:02,130
Yeah, so I've got two.

903
01:39:02,350 --> 01:39:08,630
The first is that this is getting down in the weeds, but I think at an appropriate level.

904
01:39:08,630 --> 01:39:13,830
I think discipline didn't get called out enough, equity in discipline, disciplinary

905
01:39:13,830 --> 01:39:17,230
action was a big theme that I took from several of the meetings I was in.

906
01:39:19,550 --> 01:39:25,670
The other one that is, you know, of all the things, I don't know if it gives me hope or

907
01:39:25,670 --> 01:39:29,170
it just confuses me, but gender is not the same thing as sex.

908
01:39:30,310 --> 01:39:37,650
And the fact that sex doesn't show up in either of these policies, male and female remains

909
01:39:37,650 --> 01:39:42,510
a breakout that we get. And it's something I think should be part of our equity policy.

910
01:39:42,690 --> 01:39:46,930
Even if we largely treat it as a mountain that has been summited.

911
01:39:50,520 --> 01:39:52,040
Thank you. Mark.

912
01:39:58,820 --> 01:40:04,520
So I look at the policies that we've been given. And now I've left for a crack. I think it's

913
01:40:04,520 --> 01:40:09,980
the, uh, uh, it's called doesn't really address, uh, the issue of curriculum and a balanced

914
01:40:09,980 --> 01:40:18,760
curriculum, the idea of being more inclusive in that curriculum. To me, whether it's kids

915
01:40:18,760 --> 01:40:24,880
that they can identify in the literature, or it's the way history is presented, or

916
01:40:24,880 --> 01:40:30,380
political science is presented, then they're not going to feel a part of the class either.

917
01:40:31,420 --> 01:40:36,580
So as I looked, I wanted to make sure that when we look at this, that we look at how we

918
01:40:36,580 --> 01:40:44,620
can change the system, if you will, if there's a systemic problem, part of that systemic,

919
01:40:44,620 --> 01:40:47,920
if you will, or part of that system, is the curriculum.

920
01:40:48,480 --> 01:40:54,460
If we don't address that, then we're really trying to, we're probably going to basically

921
01:40:56,320 --> 01:41:02,300
do ourselves the failure in that respect, not intentionally, but I think it will be a

922
01:41:02,300 --> 01:41:07,020
missing GAMP that will come down back to Haunt as if you.

923
01:41:09,610 --> 01:41:10,070
All right, thanks.

924
01:41:11,170 --> 01:41:14,070
Siri, and then we'll wrap up with Eric.

925
01:41:16,260 --> 01:41:19,140
So I think that the focus on systemic issues

926
01:41:19,140 --> 01:41:21,480
and how you change those as a key thing the policy has

927
01:41:21,480 --> 01:41:21,880
to have.

928
01:41:22,100 --> 01:41:27,240
I appreciated the working to be very system focused

929
01:41:27,240 --> 01:41:29,700
in these policies that they were not trying to say.

930
01:41:29,840 --> 01:41:31,160
You need to resolve the kid issue.

931
01:41:31,260 --> 01:41:33,540
But really, it was how do you address the bigger picture

932
01:41:33,540 --> 01:41:39,780
around it. I liked the way that actually social emotional learning and well-being was called

933
01:41:39,780 --> 01:41:46,600
out as well as not just curriculum as Mark was speaking to but the extracurricular as

934
01:41:46,600 --> 01:41:49,600
I think to that it's the whole community component.

935
01:41:51,680 --> 01:41:53,700
Those are the pieces that I thought about

936
01:41:53,700 --> 01:41:55,500
that I really liked with in it.

937
01:41:57,600 --> 01:42:01,060
I also think the value statement at the top where the board

938
01:42:01,060 --> 01:42:05,000
it actually states a value statement and then it moves through to what the superintendent

939
01:42:05,000 --> 01:42:09,460
shall or not fail I think is of importance because that's why we can really call that

940
01:42:09,460 --> 01:42:10,160
piece out.

941
01:42:13,080 --> 01:42:13,500
Thanks.

942
01:42:14,500 --> 01:42:15,080
Eric.

943
01:42:16,260 --> 01:42:21,360
The one that really is resonated with me is in the InstaQuad policy it's the superintendent

944
01:42:21,360 --> 01:42:26,560
shall and provide equitable access and academic support throughout our educational system.

945
01:42:28,900 --> 01:42:33,220
We talk about this all the time, you look at who we are accessing a lot of our programs

946
01:42:33,220 --> 01:42:34,480
and it is not equitable.

947
01:42:38,780 --> 01:42:40,240
That one really resonates with me.

948
01:42:43,700 --> 01:42:43,820
Great.

949
01:42:44,400 --> 01:42:45,620
Well, thank you.

950
01:42:47,420 --> 01:42:53,960
I certainly appreciate that everybody's willingness to really lean into hard conversations.

951
01:42:54,400 --> 01:42:59,540
And I think also, you know, the courage we call these courageous conversations and the courage

952
01:42:59,540 --> 01:43:05,440
to just acknowledge the challenge and sometimes the discomfort in having these conversations.

953
01:43:06,120 --> 01:43:10,960
And we've for the past hour and a half have a really rich conversation around these.

954
01:43:11,120 --> 01:43:14,600
So thank you for letting me give me the opportunity to facilitate this and

955
01:43:14,600 --> 01:43:18,920
for the willingness to lean into this conversation.

956
01:43:22,350 --> 01:43:27,890
In board briefs this week, you'll find two articles that I'm going to pass along.

957
01:43:28,310 --> 01:43:30,070
I don't know what those articles are yet.

958
01:43:30,070 --> 01:43:38,770
but the topics will be an article about centering race in the work and an article on asset-based mindset.

959
01:43:39,870 --> 01:43:47,190
Just as I heard the conversation, I think those are two key pieces that continue to think about and learn,

960
01:43:47,530 --> 01:43:56,070
and so I'll connect with the team around that because I know there's a wealth of knowledge within the group

961
01:43:56,070 --> 01:44:01,970
to provide the board with some really quality reading that's really focused on those two topics.

962
01:44:02,310 --> 01:44:05,770
So I hope you found the conversation valuable.

963
01:44:06,450 --> 01:44:14,030
It's not easy work, you know, when I talked about that individual journey that each of us are on,

964
01:44:14,830 --> 01:44:19,510
it's just that commitment to growth, always learning, always growing.

965
01:44:19,850 --> 01:44:24,810
And I appreciate the board being willing to do that work in public.

966
01:44:25,690 --> 01:44:30,550
because it's hard enough to do in a small group and it's probably even harder

967
01:44:30,550 --> 01:44:36,590
that it's recorded and being broadcast live. So let's just be honest that's

968
01:44:36,590 --> 01:44:41,250
that's not easy. So thank you Gloria for coming in and you know providing

969
01:44:41,250 --> 01:44:47,690
context and background and joy and Mike and Matt. So just thank you everybody for

970
01:44:47,690 --> 01:44:51,750
engaging in this conversation and so appreciate that.

971
01:44:54,250 --> 01:44:58,250
Are we ready to move on to a budget?

972
01:45:01,170 --> 01:45:13,550
Can I have a five minute break? Why don't we make a standard header handrake? Do you want to one last? No, I'm just not very efficient. My handrake.

973
01:45:15,910 --> 01:45:25,070
I'm like a five minute break, do I? So back it eight, 15? Yeah, let's do that. Great. Thank you. Thank you.

974
01:50:50,160 --> 01:50:50,880
I am here.

975
01:50:54,460 --> 01:50:59,080
Back live, Eric. Okay. The next and last.

976
01:50:59,080 --> 01:51:04,260
Last topic for tonight's study session is a 2020-2021 budget update.

977
01:51:05,440 --> 01:51:09,620
Dr. Holman, will you, I think you're going to hand it off to Barbara, were you latest through this?

978
01:51:10,000 --> 01:51:14,840
Yeah, I'll preface it and then hand it off to Barbara.

979
01:51:15,160 --> 01:51:26,820
So, as you know, very interesting year related to finances, I think to start it off, we are in good fiscal shape.

980
01:51:27,520 --> 01:51:33,300
We have planned well, we have contingencies and reserves.

981
01:51:34,800 --> 01:51:43,320
And everything that has led up to this year has really set us up to be in a good solid fiscal place.

982
01:51:43,760 --> 01:51:50,980
That doesn't mean we don't need to look ahead and kind of know what's happening at a very detailed level, but we are in a good fiscal place.

983
01:51:50,980 --> 01:51:57,080
So, I want to lead with that because I think that's a very important part for like Washington

984
01:51:57,080 --> 01:51:57,900
school district.

985
01:51:58,140 --> 01:52:02,520
That is not the case for many districts across the state of Washington.

986
01:52:02,520 --> 01:52:08,220
When you see districts that have had to lay off their entire fleet of bus drivers and half

987
01:52:08,220 --> 01:52:13,480
of their parent educators, you know, when you see those things, I would imagine it probably

988
01:52:13,480 --> 01:52:19,060
evokes questions and how are we doing and why aren't we doing that, things like that.

989
01:52:19,060 --> 01:52:26,540
And so Barbara and team have walked through really to

990
01:52:29,040 --> 01:52:32,080
talk about our budget,

991
01:52:34,370 --> 01:52:35,030
revenues

992
01:52:35,030 --> 01:52:42,750
and expenditures in a way to articulate kind of the impact of COVID and remote learning

993
01:52:43,380 --> 01:52:46,310
along with where we are fiscally.

994
01:52:46,790 --> 01:52:52,770
And so she and I have gone back and forth a number of times around this because it sounds

995
01:52:52,770 --> 01:53:01,130
simple, but it is a complex topic when you're talking about a lack of revenue coming in versus an actual expenditure.

996
01:53:01,490 --> 01:53:05,770
Those are two very different ways of either not receiving money or

997
01:53:05,770 --> 01:53:08,030
expending money that you weren't anticipating.

998
01:53:08,310 --> 01:53:13,450
And so we tried to articulate this in a very easy to consume way.

999
01:53:13,850 --> 01:53:22,150
And so with that, I will introduce Barbara Postumus, our associate superintendent of business and support services.

1000
01:53:22,150 --> 01:53:26,390
Great. Thank you, John, and I'm going to share my PowerPoint.

1001
01:53:38,340 --> 01:53:46,660
All right. Here it is. So tonight we're going to review. We've been talking with the board

1002
01:53:46,660 --> 01:53:54,520
since March and discussing the financial impacts. And as John mentioned, it's not only financial

1003
01:53:54,520 --> 01:54:01,660
impacts of what we've had to spend in PPE and software and cleaning, but decreased revenue

1004
01:54:01,660 --> 01:54:07,980
as well. So tonight we're going to focus on the impact, really, to the 2021 budget. So we're

1005
01:54:07,980 --> 01:54:12,800
going to talk about our budget outlook and the assumptions around that. We're going to look

1006
01:54:12,800 --> 01:54:15,840
at specific budget impacts and then talk about next steps.

1007
01:54:18,110 --> 01:54:20,830
So first I want to tie our conversation

1008
01:54:20,830 --> 01:54:29,830
back to our policy. So OE5 is our operational expectation around financial planning and it

1009
01:54:29,830 --> 01:54:41,690
discuss is not only the budget that we will develop but it also in item 5.4 and 5.5, it talks about

1010
01:54:41,690 --> 01:54:46,550
we will share our assumptions which we will continue to do with you tonight and then

1011
01:54:46,550 --> 01:54:56,050
assures fiscal soundness in future years and then our policy also talks about providing necessary

1012
01:54:56,050 --> 01:55:01,550
information to the board on matters with significant budgetary impacts so we're

1013
01:55:01,550 --> 01:55:03,410
going to again talk about that tonight.

1014
01:55:06,370 --> 01:55:08,030
So we'll go over Outlook and Assumptions

1015
01:55:08,030 --> 01:55:12,750
and tonight is focused on the general fund that is our primary day-to-day

1016
01:55:12,750 --> 01:55:21,150
operations and where most the majority of the impacts are being felt. So first

1017
01:55:21,150 --> 01:55:25,850
I want to review some assumptions based on the data that I will share with you

1018
01:55:25,850 --> 01:55:36,850
So right now we are assuming that the legislature will not give districts any mid-year state funding cuts.

1019
01:55:37,170 --> 01:55:41,730
So currently the legislature comes back in session in January.

1020
01:55:42,450 --> 01:55:47,170
We know there is a statewide revenue deficit due to the economy.

1021
01:55:47,870 --> 01:55:53,950
But right now these assumptions assume no additional cuts to school districts, no cuts to school districts.

1022
01:55:53,950 --> 01:56:01,010
We have shared with the board in the past that because we are not transporting the majority

1023
01:56:01,010 --> 01:56:05,610
of our students, they will be reducing our transportation revenue.

1024
01:56:06,310 --> 01:56:11,710
There is the potential that the legislature will provide some relief when they come back

1025
01:56:11,710 --> 01:56:17,850
in session in January, but our assumptions right now assume that we will receive the full

1026
01:56:17,850 --> 01:56:20,030
loss in transportation.

1027
01:56:21,570 --> 01:56:29,070
I'll share with you the enrollment decline that we are expecting and the assumptions

1028
01:56:29,070 --> 01:56:35,150
assume that the enrollment decline won't get worse, so just no additional enrollment

1029
01:56:35,150 --> 01:56:37,570
decline other than what we've already experienced.

1030
01:56:38,290 --> 01:56:48,950
Right now our nutrition services program through the federal waiver is self-supporting with

1031
01:56:48,950 --> 01:56:52,970
the free grab and go meals because that's funded by the federal government, so the assumptions

1032
01:56:52,970 --> 01:56:59,090
assume that continues. Our extended day program again, I'll provide more details later on

1033
01:56:59,090 --> 01:57:06,970
in the presentation currently is not self-supporting. The revenue losses that I'll share and any

1034
01:57:06,970 --> 01:57:14,430
expenditure savings we're assuming right now, the full school year impact, so if as things change,

1035
01:57:14,430 --> 01:57:20,490
we will need to update those assumptions, but right now we're assuming all losses are for the full

1036
01:57:20,490 --> 01:57:28,250
school year. And then PPE costs, we know how much we've spent to date, we know how much we've

1037
01:57:28,250 --> 01:57:36,310
ordered, and some, we've ordered some equipment for the whole year, but we've, other things were

1038
01:57:36,310 --> 01:57:42,050
ordering as we needed, so we're ordering each month. So the cost for the whole school year is still

1039
01:57:42,050 --> 01:57:51,850
determined. And then the assumption this assumes, we know the WIA has pushed sports back

1040
01:57:51,850 --> 01:57:58,770
to the spring, so hopefully we will be able to continue our athletics for the year but

1041
01:57:58,770 --> 01:58:05,510
the assumptions and what I'm sharing assumes that the whole year, that we won't have

1042
01:58:05,510 --> 01:58:11,510
athletics for the whole year. So again, those things, these numbers can change as we go

1043
01:58:11,510 --> 01:58:12,750
further into the year.

1044
01:58:13,050 --> 01:58:15,110
And Barbara, I just want to comment to the board.

1045
01:58:15,610 --> 01:58:21,270
These were, as Barbara and I were talking about, how do we give an update around the budget?

1046
01:58:21,710 --> 01:58:28,690
We had to develop assumptions that we then could apply to the update and to the information,

1047
01:58:29,050 --> 01:58:32,710
versus us really having an indication around some of these things.

1048
01:58:32,710 --> 01:58:38,850
It just was our mechanism to provide clarity around what the numbers actually are representing.

1049
01:58:38,850 --> 01:58:53,350
Right. So this next slide is just high level summary of kind of the budget outlook that we are not going to receive approximately almost 47 million in revenues due to COVID and remote learning.

1050
01:58:54,010 --> 01:59:00,590
We're not going to spend about 33 and a half million dollars in expenditures due to COVID and remote learning.

1051
01:59:00,590 --> 01:59:07,190
And so this is going to mean that we're going to use an additional $13.4 million in fund

1052
01:59:07,190 --> 01:59:12,910
balance. This is above our budget had already planned. We were already planning on spending

1053
01:59:12,910 --> 01:59:18,790
down fund balance of about $9 million. So this will be an additional $13.4 million in

1054
01:59:18,790 --> 01:59:25,210
fund balance that we will need to spend down. As John mentioned at the beginning, as we

1055
01:59:25,210 --> 01:59:32,110
are in a good financial position. I'll show you on the next slide we had estimated a fun balance

1056
01:59:32,110 --> 01:59:40,070
of around $90 million to start the year. We do estimate that number will be higher than that.

1057
01:59:40,390 --> 01:59:45,490
Most likely we're going to have some committed carryover that's committed for certain purposes,

1058
01:59:45,750 --> 01:59:53,410
such as grants, our CTE program, building budgets, things like that. So we are estimating right now

1059
01:59:53,410 --> 01:59:59,230
that will end the year at a total fund balance of 75 million, and as we go forward.

1060
02:00:00,110 --> 02:00:29,950
Through of the year, we will be updating those numbers. So just a reminder, this was the chart that we shared at the board meeting in June and the four year plan. And so we have an intentional use of fund balance. You can see here we are in the 2020 school year, but we are intentionally spending that fund balance down. And so that will give us time to get us through the next few years as we evaluate

1061
02:00:29,950 --> 02:00:35,750
the long-term impacts of COVID and remote, the impacts that remote learning will have on our

1062
02:00:35,750 --> 02:00:36,110
districts.

1063
02:00:40,390 --> 02:00:44,410
I want to talk about the key changes in enrollment and we have shared preliminary

1064
02:00:45,590 --> 02:00:52,950
final September numbers with the board. Go ahead. Before you move on, I believe, I think that's

1065
02:00:52,950 --> 02:01:01,170
Chris, put his hand in the last slide. That's all right. I just wanted to acknowledge that we're

1066
02:01:01,170 --> 02:01:07,630
spending down the fund balance. This is exactly why one carries forward a fund balance.

1067
02:01:07,810 --> 02:01:14,550
In case you have a crazy year or five and thank you for planning to do so because this

1068
02:01:14,550 --> 02:01:17,010
is why we've carried it forward as well as we might know.

1069
02:01:17,590 --> 02:01:23,410
Yes, thank you. We're very fortunate to have that fund balance that we can help us through

1070
02:01:23,410 --> 02:01:29,050
that situation. So we have shared September and

1071
02:01:29,050 --> 02:01:35,870
enrollment information with a board. We did have our official October 1 count on Thursday,

1072
02:01:36,110 --> 02:01:44,350
October 1st. We are still verifying these numbers. Normally, we grow about 2 to 300 students

1073
02:01:44,350 --> 02:01:50,210
between September and October, which is why you normally use the October count as your

1074
02:01:50,210 --> 02:01:58,670
official count. But our FTE this year actually remained level. In fact, it was slight decrease

1075
02:01:58,670 --> 02:02:00,750
but for the most part, the FTE.

1076
02:02:00,930 --> 02:02:03,830
So we didn't realize, again, between September and October.

1077
02:02:04,830 --> 02:02:06,810
So what these figures represent,

1078
02:02:07,010 --> 02:02:09,310
the first column is last year's enrollment.

1079
02:02:10,050 --> 02:02:15,210
So we enrolled 30,637 students in the 1920 school year.

1080
02:02:15,350 --> 02:02:17,170
And these are average annual FTE.

1081
02:02:17,390 --> 02:02:18,630
This is not headcount.

1082
02:02:19,330 --> 02:02:21,550
So this is what we are funded on.

1083
02:02:22,070 --> 02:02:27,050
We budgeted to grow just about 220 students

1084
02:02:27,050 --> 02:02:34,110
to 30,000 eight fifty-fourths. Our budget was slight a little bit of growth over last year,

1085
02:02:34,270 --> 02:02:39,910
not the significant growth that we've been seeing. So we are actually projecting now

1086
02:02:39,910 --> 02:02:48,510
based on our September and October numbers, an average annual moment of 30,000, 30,000, 40 students.

1087
02:02:48,710 --> 02:02:54,890
So we're projecting a decline right now, about 800 students in K-12 and then slight decline

1088
02:02:54,890 --> 02:03:05,430
in our ALE, so 814 FTE students, and again I'll talk about the impact of revenue loss revenue

1089
02:03:05,430 --> 02:03:12,010
because of that in the next couple slides. Barbara, Chris has a question. Okay. Yeah, quick one

1090
02:03:12,010 --> 02:03:19,890
on this slide. Is the 645 elementary student decreases? Is that mostly just lack of new kindergarteners,

1091
02:03:19,890 --> 02:03:21,890
or is that spread across the whole age range?

1092
02:03:22,230 --> 02:03:26,010
It actually, we projected a lower kindergarten number

1093
02:03:26,590 --> 02:03:31,690
in our budget because of, we saw the registrations

1094
02:03:31,690 --> 02:03:33,490
in kindergarten were slowing down,

1095
02:03:33,730 --> 02:03:36,330
so it is very evenly spread though

1096
02:03:36,330 --> 02:03:38,490
between first and fifth grade.

1097
02:03:39,010 --> 02:03:39,910
Okay, so thank you.

1098
02:03:40,330 --> 02:03:40,430
Yeah,

1099
02:03:43,920 --> 02:03:44,520
Mark?

1100
02:03:45,600 --> 02:03:48,300
I'm sorry, Mark, to interrupt a quick question.

1101
02:03:49,120 --> 02:03:50,840
Is there any way to be able to determine,

1102
02:03:51,060 --> 02:03:52,720
I'm guessing no, but I'll ask a question.

1103
02:03:52,720 --> 02:03:59,920
And how many of these students we've lost due to people going into remote schools if

1104
02:03:59,920 --> 02:04:05,980
you will, or the online schools, are homeschooling if you will, I guess that was a question.

1105
02:04:07,260 --> 02:04:14,300
Yeah, we can look the, because we are, we have, we are a typically growing school district,

1106
02:04:14,380 --> 02:04:19,920
we do have a lot of families moving into areas, so we, many students withdraw because they're

1107
02:04:19,920 --> 02:04:26,620
moving but so we did we had a preliminary look at the numbers of students losing

1108
02:04:26,620 --> 02:04:33,800
but it's hard to kind of narrow down the dates of when they're leaving so that's

1109
02:04:33,800 --> 02:04:37,240
something we will continue to look at to see if we can narrow down kind of the

1110
02:04:37,240 --> 02:04:43,480
reasons why families have left because it also could be.

1111
02:04:43,480 --> 02:04:46,340
It's an important thing, I can go ahead.

1112
02:04:47,080 --> 02:04:49,800
Sorry, it also could be that families aren't moving

1113
02:04:49,800 --> 02:04:52,480
into the area as well due to COVID.

1114
02:04:54,660 --> 02:04:57,780
Well, I, you know, it's kind of hard to find out

1115
02:04:57,780 --> 02:04:59,540
why they're leaving or why they're not,

1116
02:05:00,040 --> 02:05:01,620
why they're leaving the district,

1117
02:05:01,820 --> 02:05:03,600
because no one gives an exit interview, I guess,

1118
02:05:03,700 --> 02:05:08,080
for students, do we have any indication

1119
02:05:08,080 --> 02:05:10,000
as to how this compares to the other districts?

1120
02:05:11,080 --> 02:05:16,420
are we now third compared to Tacoma or Spokane or?

1121
02:05:16,800 --> 02:05:21,700
Yeah, I believe we're still retaining our second largest district.

1122
02:05:22,080 --> 02:05:27,120
Again, once we have the official October counts from all across the state

1123
02:05:27,120 --> 02:05:28,700
will be able to compare those numbers.

1124
02:05:29,220 --> 02:05:32,840
We did have preliminary September comparison statewide

1125
02:05:32,840 --> 02:05:38,640
and we were one of the, we were, I think, the lowest loss in King County.

1126
02:05:38,640 --> 02:05:54,320
So we lost about 0.6% compared to last September, where many of our neighboring districts have lost two to five percent, and if some even more than that.

1127
02:05:54,740 --> 02:05:58,620
So our loss is a lot less than everybody else.

1128
02:05:59,640 --> 02:06:00,720
Thank you.

1129
02:06:00,720 --> 02:06:02,220
Yep, you're welcome.

1130
02:06:03,940 --> 02:06:13,660
Okay, so the next slide, I want to just show that our budget is, even though our enrollment

1131
02:06:13,660 --> 02:06:19,920
is down, we still have a commitment to the staff that we hire, and 86% of our budget

1132
02:06:19,920 --> 02:06:22,220
is committed to staff salaries and benefits.

1133
02:06:22,220 --> 02:06:32,000
So, and only 5% supplies the materials and then 9% on purchase services and very slim

1134
02:06:32,000 --> 02:06:34,360
part of the pie on travel and capital outlay.

1135
02:06:34,600 --> 02:06:43,340
So I just want to make sure, just remind everyone how much of our budget is for people,

1136
02:06:43,600 --> 02:06:46,160
the fabulous people that we have working for us.

1137
02:06:48,850 --> 02:06:55,710
Okay, so these are the slides we're trying to give you rather than throw a lot of data

1138
02:06:55,710 --> 02:06:56,410
at you.

1139
02:06:56,590 --> 02:07:01,810
We're going to give you kind of the high level, simplified overview of the impacts to

1140
02:07:02,490 --> 02:07:03,570
our budget this year.

1141
02:07:03,830 --> 02:07:13,590
So as I mentioned, we've lost 800 basic ed students and about 120 special education students

1142
02:07:14,110 --> 02:07:15,250
are enrollment is down.

1143
02:07:15,250 --> 02:07:22,790
And so, and of that in special ed, about 20 of that relates to preschool and the rest is our K-21 students.

1144
02:07:23,390 --> 02:07:34,730
And so, that really impacts us 808.3 million in basic ed and 1.2 million in special ed revenue decline due to enrollment.

1145
02:07:34,990 --> 02:07:39,970
So, that's a 9.5 million dollar loss due to just enrollment.

1146
02:07:39,970 --> 02:07:40,110
improvement.

1147
02:07:43,480 --> 02:07:50,920
Then our transportation impact, as I mentioned, we are expecting a revenue

1148
02:07:50,920 --> 02:07:59,660
loss and for assumption purposes we are assuming 100% loss in our revenue of $10.2 million.

1149
02:08:01,220 --> 02:08:06,400
We do, we are transporting some special ed students, we will be providing that information

1150
02:08:06,400 --> 02:08:14,760
to the state so we will not know probably until January though how much of an impact, how much revenue

1151
02:08:14,760 --> 02:08:24,380
we will receive because of our minimal transportation right now. But yes, we are losing 10.2 million in

1152
02:08:24,380 --> 02:08:34,440
revenue, but we are also saving some contractual services costs. Our McKinney-Vento, we use a company

1153
02:08:34,440 --> 02:08:41,380
called ALC to transport a lot of our students. One-on-one special ed students were able to do that

1154
02:08:41,380 --> 02:08:49,300
with our bus drivers right now. So we have additional savings. And so we believe the transportation

1155
02:08:49,300 --> 02:08:55,180
impact will be approximately a 5.6 million dollar loss in revenue or net.

1156
02:08:59,620 --> 02:09:01,000
So we also talked about,

1157
02:09:01,640 --> 02:09:06,720
we want to talk about staff impacts. As I mentioned with our enrollment decline, you know, we didn't

1158
02:09:06,720 --> 02:09:13,800
start seeing that enrollment decline really until two weeks before school started in August,

1159
02:09:14,160 --> 02:09:21,300
and so we had already hired most of our staff, and so we committed to those staff.

1160
02:09:22,200 --> 02:09:28,240
We are experiencing, so we will expect to experience savings in, we have some unfilled positions

1161
02:09:28,240 --> 02:09:30,100
this year that we haven't filled.

1162
02:09:30,100 --> 02:09:37,280
We believe we will have less expenditures for substitutes this year due to remote learning.

1163
02:09:38,140 --> 02:09:48,580
We will have, there's contractual services that we aren't sending right now, such as our SRO program is on pause due to remote learning.

1164
02:09:49,320 --> 02:09:53,920
And then we will have additional costs probably for leave impacts.

1165
02:09:53,920 --> 02:10:03,260
the federal government provided an additional, what's called FFCRA leave through December 31st that provides additional leave,

1166
02:10:04,080 --> 02:10:13,900
allows staff to go on leave due to school closures, so all of those impacts we will be, you know, feeling through the rest of the year.

1167
02:10:14,200 --> 02:10:21,220
So, but right now we're estimating $5.2 million in savings due to reduced staffing costs.

1168
02:10:21,220 --> 02:10:22,240
We

1169
02:10:24,830 --> 02:10:30,530
also have local fee programs where we receive revenue, such as our athletic participation

1170
02:10:30,530 --> 02:10:36,930
fees, our facility use fees, we have the community we charge for when the community

1171
02:10:36,930 --> 02:10:43,250
rents our buildings, rents our stadiums, rents our theaters, all of those fees, we are

1172
02:10:43,250 --> 02:10:46,470
assuming we will receive none of those fees this year.

1173
02:10:46,470 --> 02:10:59,150
We charge our preschool families, our typical preschool students who join our special ed students in preschool, pay fees for part of that program.

1174
02:10:59,750 --> 02:11:08,130
Those fees are reduced this year, not because it's not all families are registering for preschool.

1175
02:11:08,130 --> 02:11:25,730
and then we also are buildings collect material, fees, and fines, and those aren't being collected this year, but we also are saving money in not spending funds on replacing lost items and purchasing certain materials.

1176
02:11:25,990 --> 02:11:33,670
So overall, the impact of our local fee programs is the savings of about $700,000.

1177
02:11:33,670 --> 02:11:35,090
So,

1178
02:11:38,430 --> 02:11:43,390
and then our federal program, as we've shared with the word, we received a total of

1179
02:11:43,390 --> 02:11:50,630
about $1.7 million from the Federal Government through the CARES Act, and that is to help

1180
02:11:50,630 --> 02:11:57,510
districts with remote learning expenditures, including PPE, professional development and

1181
02:11:57,510 --> 02:12:05,750
training equipment, and so our district has spent the current cost and spending for remote

1182
02:12:05,750 --> 02:12:13,110
learning, and this includes a mention curriculum training and software. All of our distancing

1183
02:12:13,110 --> 02:12:20,610
signage and markers are disinfectant and cleaning supplies, hand sanitizers, the masks.

1184
02:12:22,410 --> 02:12:32,390
I mentioned our technology. We bought additional servers. We also used – so we also provided

1185
02:12:32,390 --> 02:12:40,870
additional staffing support, so all of those costs are adding up right now to about $3.8 million

1186
02:12:42,130 --> 02:12:50,750
and of which we will receive reimbursement for 1.7 so that we at $2.1 million loss due to the

1187
02:12:50,750 --> 02:12:53,470
cost of remote learning.

1188
02:12:57,270 --> 02:13:00,670
And this doesn't include the additional PPE that we will need to continue

1189
02:13:00,670 --> 02:13:01,930
to buy throughout the year.

1190
02:13:04,260 --> 02:13:09,960
So the last slide I have is nutrition, our self-supporting programs.

1191
02:13:09,960 --> 02:13:16,860
I talked a little bit about both of these under our assumptions. So as I mentioned, nutrition

1192
02:13:16,860 --> 02:13:22,220
services is normally a $10 million program, both on the revenue side and the expenditure side.

1193
02:13:22,640 --> 02:13:30,800
That has been significantly reduced. The Grab and Go meal service right now is being funded through

1194
02:13:30,800 --> 02:13:36,120
the federal waiver. They've committed to funding that through December 31st. So beyond

1195
02:13:36,120 --> 02:13:41,360
that we don't know the long-term impact on that. So right now we're assuming nutrition

1196
02:13:41,360 --> 02:13:48,200
services through the the grab and go through the federal waiver is operating on a self-supporting

1197
02:13:48,200 --> 02:13:54,660
basis. I will mention, you know, we partner, we've been a partner with the DEXO food service

1198
02:13:54,660 --> 02:13:57,000
for over 30 years.

1199
02:13:57,520 --> 02:14:00,080
They, again, they're a separate company.

1200
02:14:00,380 --> 02:14:03,500
They did have to furlough staff

1201
02:14:04,360 --> 02:14:10,480
in order to maintain self-supporting programs.

1202
02:14:10,780 --> 02:14:12,640
So they have staff on furlough

1203
02:14:12,640 --> 02:14:14,480
because we are not serving students

1204
02:14:14,480 --> 02:14:15,840
in our schools right now.

1205
02:14:16,940 --> 02:14:20,520
Our extended day child care program normally operates

1206
02:14:20,520 --> 02:14:24,240
at 12 locations and serves over 700 students

1207
02:14:24,240 --> 02:14:30,760
before and after school. Right now our extended day program is serving 20 students at two sites,

1208
02:14:31,220 --> 02:14:40,300
but we have commitments to maintain the staff, and so right now we're expecting a 2.1 million

1209
02:14:40,300 --> 02:14:42,060
dollar loss in that program.

1210
02:14:46,000 --> 02:14:51,800
So overall, just continuing in the short term, we will continue to

1211
02:14:51,800 --> 02:14:59,720
review unfilled positions as they come out to determine what should be filled, what should remain unfilled.

1212
02:15:00,000 --> 02:15:29,440
Due to remote learning, we will continue to monitor our revenues, expenditures for changes, and then as we begin planning for next year, we're going to need to bring our staffing back in alignment within our enrollment, whether those the enrollment continues to decrease, or we will see, you know, re-eaning enrollment, but we will need to bring our staffing back in alignment, and then we'll need to continue to align

1213
02:15:29,440 --> 02:15:35,580
align our expenditures with our resources so that we do remain physically sound in the long-term.

1214
02:15:38,050 --> 02:15:45,330
So, that concludes my information and presentation. So, any other further questions from the board?

1215
02:15:53,550 --> 02:15:56,630
So, Cassandra, Chris and then Siri?

1216
02:15:58,490 --> 02:16:05,750
So, thank you for the presentation and I have been wondering quite a bit if our numbers have been

1217
02:16:05,750 --> 02:16:11,930
changing since last time you and I discussed the expenditures. It sounds like it has gone up to 2.8

1218
02:16:11,930 --> 02:16:21,690
million as far as COVID related expenditures. So we do have a lot of assumptions which sound

1219
02:16:21,690 --> 02:16:28,350
like smart sound assumptions at this point. When will the board be notified if one of those assumptions

1220
02:16:28,350 --> 02:16:35,450
changes. Will we be, will you give us a heads up, drop an email just to say, okay, this

1221
02:16:35,450 --> 02:16:39,690
part change, are you, is there another report that you're going to say, okay, and quarterly

1222
02:16:39,690 --> 02:16:41,270
imminent update you?

1223
02:16:42,870 --> 02:16:49,050
You know, I would, so those assumptions are all kind of like you said, it's almost like

1224
02:16:49,050 --> 02:16:56,650
programmatic decisions that we had to assume in order to do this. And so, we know, you

1225
02:16:56,650 --> 02:17:08,950
You know, WIA is planning for a return, and so along with that will come probably a message to the board around when athletics and activities will start up.

1226
02:17:09,810 --> 02:17:16,710
As Barbara and team then analyze the budget impact of that, if it's substantial, then we would bring that to the board.

1227
02:17:16,710 --> 02:17:29,810
If it's nominal, then it's probably not something that we would bring to the board initially, but start kind of collecting those pieces and notify the board along the way.

1228
02:17:30,230 --> 02:17:40,850
So yes, the board will be notified of this along the way, but probably if it's a nominal change, it probably won't be elevated to notifying the board.

1229
02:17:41,190 --> 02:17:43,850
But as we start collecting some of these things, yes.

1230
02:17:44,450 --> 02:17:50,210
If I could ask that just the COVID-related expenses, if you could give me a heads-up barber

1231
02:17:50,210 --> 02:17:55,910
when those change so that if I'm talking with legislators, I can give them sort of an

1232
02:17:55,910 --> 02:17:58,270
accurate picture of where we stand.

1233
02:17:58,710 --> 02:17:58,830
Yeah.

1234
02:17:59,210 --> 02:18:04,490
And we've been working on an infographic and we'll get that posted on our website as well

1235
02:18:04,490 --> 02:18:08,950
and we'll share that with the board as an infographics showing all of those expenditures

1236
02:18:08,950 --> 02:18:10,330
and how that breaks down.

1237
02:18:10,330 --> 02:18:16,370
And again, knowing that that's really the impact of what we've had to buy or what we've

1238
02:18:16,370 --> 02:18:20,850
had to spend, there are other impacts such as the revenue losses that we've talked

1239
02:18:20,850 --> 02:18:24,310
about, that that infographic doesn't capture.

1240
02:18:25,030 --> 02:18:32,970
So, but yes, we will share that with you and the other piece is as we normally do during

1241
02:18:32,970 --> 02:18:38,070
a legislative session, once the legislature is back in session, we will keep the board

1242
02:18:38,070 --> 02:18:46,930
informed as we hear about major legislative decisions or bills that might impact us will

1243
02:18:46,930 --> 02:18:50,850
keep you informed of those impacts. Thank you.

1244
02:18:53,320 --> 02:18:54,160
Chris,

1245
02:18:56,750 --> 02:18:59,130
thank you, Barbara, for the heroic efforts

1246
02:18:59,130 --> 02:19:05,590
to develop a budget when the assumptions we know this year has been crazy for violating assumptions

1247
02:19:05,590 --> 02:19:07,310
So, this is a great gun.

1248
02:19:09,530 --> 02:19:14,590
And the other thing I wanted to see is give you feedback that I really liked the way

1249
02:19:14,590 --> 02:19:20,070
you've managed to still be usually the last dozen slides in this deck would have been

1250
02:19:20,070 --> 02:19:21,070
the series of tables.

1251
02:19:22,470 --> 02:19:27,270
Distilling that down to here's the subject and here's the impact is huge.

1252
02:19:27,630 --> 02:19:28,210
Thank you.

1253
02:19:28,450 --> 02:19:29,710
I really appreciate that.

1254
02:19:30,510 --> 02:19:31,650
You're welcome, Chris.

1255
02:19:32,170 --> 02:19:34,610
And guess what the first draft looked like.

1256
02:19:34,610 --> 02:19:40,190
it had a lot of a lot of very complex tables that probably would have been

1257
02:19:40,190 --> 02:19:47,290
diffusing and I finally had a shift and gave you the simplified version so

1258
02:19:47,290 --> 02:19:51,230
well you're definitely was excellent good job well thank you

1259
02:19:53,280 --> 02:19:54,020
in Siri

1260
02:20:01,120 --> 02:20:03,620
okay

1261
02:20:06,370 --> 02:20:07,470
one of

1262
02:20:07,470 --> 02:20:14,770
these days so thank you and I would agree I appreciated the the remedy in which

1263
02:20:14,770 --> 02:20:18,630
to put that information together and do that in a very complex sort of thing that often

1264
02:20:18,630 --> 02:20:21,510
takes more time than all the other information.

1265
02:20:22,130 --> 02:20:27,790
The question that I had was in regards to we, I know transportation and drivers are not

1266
02:20:27,790 --> 02:20:32,590
being utilized in driving buses as much and you had mentioned like with extended day that

1267
02:20:32,590 --> 02:20:37,930
we're keeping all that staff on or only so my question would be what roles are those staff

1268
02:20:37,930 --> 02:20:43,030
now in if it's not in providing the services that they were doing prior?

1269
02:20:43,030 --> 02:20:50,990
Yeah, great. So our bus drivers are the majority of our bus drivers are being utilized to transport

1270
02:20:50,990 --> 02:20:59,990
special ed students with an AM-PM model that actually takes more drivers and so we have

1271
02:21:01,090 --> 02:21:08,750
number of drivers just they're working less hours but more drivers. So some are doing AM routes

1272
02:21:08,750 --> 02:21:15,770
and others are doing PM routes and we have some drivers because many of our drivers are in the

1273
02:21:15,770 --> 02:21:22,330
high risk category so some drivers have voluntarily taken a leave this year. Other drivers,

1274
02:21:22,350 --> 02:21:27,070
we have a small number of drivers that are continuing. If they're not assigned to a route, they're either

1275
02:21:27,070 --> 02:21:35,690
studying. We're using them as subs or they're coming in on a daily basis to clean buses and do work

1276
02:21:35,690 --> 02:21:43,950
on site. We have, we are utilizing other drivers to deliver, do the male deliveries. And so that's

1277
02:21:43,950 --> 02:21:50,130
how our drivers are being used. Our extended day staff are being distributed to our elementary

1278
02:21:50,130 --> 02:21:58,330
schools. And so they're helping out our elementary schools with the needed supports of remote learning

1279
02:21:59,190 --> 02:22:01,570
that our schools are needing right now.

1280
02:22:03,580 --> 02:22:05,920
Okay, thanks. It's great that you were able to come up with

1281
02:22:05,920 --> 02:22:08,900
a very flexible way in which to address these and be able to

1282
02:22:08,900 --> 02:22:09,860
sheet through that.

1283
02:22:10,340 --> 02:22:12,680
The only other piece I was trying to understand that might be easy

1284
02:22:12,680 --> 02:22:15,040
if you actually go back to it was looking at your ending fun

1285
02:22:15,040 --> 02:22:15,440
balance.

1286
02:22:16,600 --> 02:22:19,400
I was just trying to put all the numbers together and I was not doing a

1287
02:22:19,400 --> 02:22:20,140
very good job.

1288
02:22:22,680 --> 02:22:26,020
Yeah, and it's just an estimate right now, so a regional budget.

1289
02:22:27,200 --> 02:22:28,220
So let me go back.

1290
02:22:28,520 --> 02:22:33,120
So this slide, we had originally projected a $90 million

1291
02:22:33,120 --> 02:22:40,360
dollar beginning fund balance for this year and use of fund balance of 10 and so that

1292
02:22:40,360 --> 02:22:48,780
left us with $80 million. We are expecting this number to be higher, around $100 million.

1293
02:22:49,580 --> 02:22:56,960
Our beginning fund balance is expected to be higher. We are expecting to use more fund

1294
02:22:56,960 --> 02:23:05,000
balance, so about $25 million. So that leaves us with this, let me go back one, the $75 million

1295
02:23:05,000 --> 02:23:12,970
that we mentioned here. So we had planned for 80 and it's coming out to be 75 instead.

1296
02:23:13,190 --> 02:23:18,550
Yeah. It's going, it's, we're going to start the year with more, we're going to spend more

1297
02:23:18,550 --> 02:23:25,070
fun balance and in the year with slightly less than we estimated. And so this is also that

1298
02:23:25,070 --> 02:23:29,730
I can serve this budgeting process that we've gone through in order to be able to have that.

1299
02:23:30,410 --> 02:23:32,350
That's correct, so no, that's right, that makes.

1300
02:23:32,850 --> 02:23:44,330
And one other aspect to the fund balance, it's also now accounting for the savings from being fully remote last spring.

1301
02:23:45,310 --> 02:23:54,490
And so with the school closure, that also brought along a number of savings which then increased our fund balance unbeknownst.

1302
02:23:54,490 --> 02:23:57,590
to us at the beginning of last school year.

1303
02:23:59,620 --> 02:24:01,620
Well, I'm assuming any decrease,

1304
02:24:01,780 --> 02:24:03,520
that's the reserve economic impact.

1305
02:24:03,760 --> 02:24:05,160
That's the reason we put that aside

1306
02:24:05,160 --> 02:24:07,620
specifically for anything that was COVID related.

1307
02:24:08,340 --> 02:24:08,560
Correct.

1308
02:24:09,100 --> 02:24:09,280
Okay.

1309
02:24:10,340 --> 02:24:11,080
Thank you.

1310
02:24:11,320 --> 02:24:12,100
You're welcome.

1311
02:24:12,800 --> 02:24:13,040
Eric.

1312
02:24:14,760 --> 02:24:16,840
Yeah, so I want to stay on,

1313
02:24:17,340 --> 02:24:19,420
I've already got back to slide nine.

1314
02:24:20,160 --> 02:24:20,460
Sorry.

1315
02:24:24,480 --> 02:24:27,660
So we have set aside the reserve economic impact

1316
02:24:27,660 --> 02:24:31,220
fund to cover unplanned contingencies.

1317
02:24:31,880 --> 02:24:33,280
I essentially have that right, right?

1318
02:24:34,620 --> 02:24:40,320
And we are, as I look at this, we are retaining that because we still,

1319
02:24:40,420 --> 02:24:43,520
there are a number of assumptions built into this budget.

1320
02:24:43,640 --> 02:24:45,740
We still, we still don't know.

1321
02:24:46,120 --> 02:24:48,540
There's still a lot of risk related to COVID.

1322
02:24:49,080 --> 02:24:55,360
So the plan, as I see this here, is to not spend that piece down currently.

1323
02:24:55,360 --> 02:25:08,740
It's to spend down the other part of the fund balance and retain this other, the reserve economic impact fund for what we set up for, which is unknown contingencies that could resolve.

1324
02:25:09,080 --> 02:25:09,540
Do I have that right?

1325
02:25:10,020 --> 02:25:10,700
Okay, thank you.

1326
02:25:11,060 --> 02:25:22,700
That would be the plan, and as I mentioned, we still don't know, you know, what the next, it's not only this legislative session, you know, and this impacts to this budget year,

1327
02:25:22,700 --> 02:25:30,660
but the legislative session could bring impacts to future budget years that we are not prepared for right now.

1328
02:25:31,020 --> 02:25:34,300
So I think that remains very prudent.

1329
02:25:34,600 --> 02:25:35,100
Okay, thank you.

1330
02:25:35,380 --> 02:25:43,380
And if I remember correctly, Barbara, correct me, but to use the reserve funds, it takes formal board action.

1331
02:25:43,900 --> 02:25:44,380
Correct.

1332
02:25:45,020 --> 02:25:46,160
Yeah, okay.

1333
02:25:49,390 --> 02:25:50,470
Okay, thank you.

1334
02:25:50,470 --> 02:25:54,750
Great. It's any other questions?

1335
02:25:57,290 --> 02:25:59,130
If not, that's our budget update.

1336
02:26:01,770 --> 02:26:06,950
Great. Thank you. It was very digestible.

1337
02:26:07,750 --> 02:26:08,350
Thank you.

1338
02:26:08,510 --> 02:26:09,570
Obviously digestible.

1339
02:26:12,040 --> 02:26:17,860
Okay. That is the last item on our agenda for tonight.

1340
02:26:19,800 --> 02:26:23,220
I don't think I need a motion to adjourn the study session.

1341
02:26:23,220 --> 02:26:26,900
And so we're back on October,

1342
02:26:28,000 --> 02:26:30,780
although I'm having and having computer problems again.

1343
02:26:33,360 --> 02:26:34,340
I can't remember where we're back.

1344
02:26:34,580 --> 02:26:35,660
Thanks to each of the day.

1345
02:26:35,960 --> 02:26:37,180
So whatever that, whatever that works out.

1346
02:26:37,180 --> 02:26:38,680
October 26th.

1347
02:26:38,680 --> 02:26:39,660
Very good.

1348
02:26:41,690 --> 02:26:43,330
Yeah, October 26th.

1349
02:26:43,330 --> 02:26:47,710
October 26th and the waiver was extended until November 9th.

1350
02:26:47,830 --> 02:26:48,490
It was extended.

1351
02:26:49,010 --> 02:26:49,230
Yes.

1352
02:26:51,860 --> 02:26:54,260
So we'll be having the business meeting at 5,

1353
02:26:54,540 --> 02:26:56,080
followed by a study session scheduled for 6.

1354
02:26:56,080 --> 02:26:58,260
But comment say when we finish the business meeting

1355
02:26:59,860 --> 02:27:04,800
Okay, thanks everyone. That's it meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Have a good night everybody