Rainy Day Rundown: Cancelled Closures, Denied Recalls, and Performance Audits

Rainy Day Rundown is your weekly update on the latest happenings in education and the community. From important meetings and policy decisions to ongoing conversations and local initiatives, we keep you in the loop and ready to engage. 

In this episode:

1. Special School Board Special Meeting (November 26, 2024)
2. Hearing for the Petition to Recall Board President Liza Rankin (December 2, 2024)
3. School Board Audit Committee Meeting (December 3, 2024)
4. Special Education Audit Report to JLARC, a joint committee of the Washington State Legislature 
5. Community Notes

See our Show Notes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:29 Special School Board Meeting January 26
• 5:46 Recall Hearing
• 10:57 Audit Committee Meeting December 2
• 24:56 JLARC Special Education Audit Report
• 35:43 Community Corner
• 36:09 RE-RECORD: Maybe re-record this section highlighted above, Christie? And below too... it's all cut up and weird-sounding. Then you can also add that Shawn Scott was there too.

Transcript

E2 - Rainy Day Rundown Dec 6

Intro

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

[00:00:08] Jasmine Pulido: And I'm Jasmine Pulido.

Today is our Rainy Day Rundown, which is a new type of episode we are offering to you where we'll go through the most recent news events and buzz-worthy topics related to Seattle Public Education.

[00:00:22] Christie Robertson: We hope to do episodes like this approximately every week or two. Let us know what you think about the format or if there's things that you think that we should include in our next Rainy Day Rundown.

Let's list out the things that we want to cover as a table of contents for this episode.

[00:00:39] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, sounds good.

[00:00:40] Christie Robertson: There is the special school board meeting that happened last week on November 26th, where they officially canceled the school closures for the 25/26 school year.

There was an audit meeting for the school board. 

[00:00:55] Jasmine Pulido: There was a hearing with a judge regarding the recall petition against school board director Liza Rankin, and dismissal of the recall petition. 

[00:01:06] Christie Robertson: On the legislative side, there was an audit on special education that I'm really excited to talk about. That report will guide some of what happens in the upcoming legislative session. 

And then we had a few community initiatives and events that happened this week. And that's what we hope to talk about today. 

Special School Board Meeting January 26

[00:01:29] Christie Robertson: Let's start out with the special school board meeting, November 26th. There was only 1 item on the agenda. It had two parts to it. Essentially, they canceled the resolution from the board that told the superintendent to come up with closures, and then they accepted the superintendent's withdrawal of his closure plan. Yeah, really confusing legal language that basically said closures aren't happening.

[00:01:56] Jasmine Pulido: And there was some confusion also about the task force, wasn't there? 

[00:02:00] Christie Robertson: Yeah. If you remember, the resolution that the board sent to the superintendent included various pieces thanks to Director Gina Topp. A couple of things that she wanted, in addition to a closure plan, were a citizen task force that would help guide the closure process. Of course, that part is no longer relevant, but she and President Rankin had other tasks in mind for that citizen task force, including helping come up with a longer-term budget plan. And obviously, that IS still relevant. So Director Topp was wondering, will the task force still be in place to fulfill those other functions? 

[00:02:45] Gina Topp: One further legal question. Mr Narver. This would keep the rest of the resolution intact? Because in my mind, I think the resolution does three things. It directs the preliminary recommendations. It directs the creation of a budget stability plan moving forward, and it creates a task force. So those two other items remain intact?

[00:03:07] Christie Robertson: There was a lot of back and forth on that and confusion. And it's not even really clear where they landed. 

[00:03:12] Jasmine Pulido: Here's Superintendent Jones on his interpretation of the change in direction. 

[00:03:16] Brent Jones: My interpretation is a narrow interpretation that there will not be a task force for the purposes of school closures. If another task force is necessary or needed, as contemplated in a resolution, that would be an amendment, so to speak, of the resolution. So, I'm clear of not continuing with the task force for the 25/26 school closure and consolidation.

[00:03:42] Christie Robertson: So I think that if Director Topp wants that task force to be in place, which I hope she does, that she'll have to bring that forward at a future board meeting, hopefully on December 18th.

They also never really answered Director Topp's question about whether the direction to bring forward a longer term budget stability plan was still in place, which is a really important question.

[00:04:03] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I'll say that I really appreciated that they continued to ask for clarity regarding the task force. Both Gina Topp and Sarah Clark... Am I missing any directors? Did anyone else say? Oh, I think, did Director Sarju say anything regarding clarity?

[00:04:19] Christie Robertson: Yes. She was asking about clarity as well. She especially wanted clarity that this was not saying that there will never be closures but there's not closures for next year.

[00:04:31] Michelle Sarju: I want to make sure that we're all clear that it's just for this year. Because the way it reads to me and then the email that was sent, it has left people with the impression that we're not ever going to consider school closures again. And I think we need to be transparent and clear with families in the district; that's not what this is saying. This is not saying, "We are not going to even consider school closures again". What it IS saying is that we will not be making or accepting recommendations for closures for the next school year, which would be 25/26. Is that correct? 

[00:05:17] Greg Narver: That is absolutely correct. 

[00:05:19] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I think what I found to be a great nod to the community was for them to keep mentioning, "We know that the community wants a lot of clarity on this, so can you say this again and can you say it in a way that we know exactly what is happening because of the legalese is making it confusing." Yeah, I appreciated that. 

And that was pretty much the entire thing. 

[00:05:40] Christie Robertson: Yeah, that was the meeting. 

Recall Hearing

[00:05:46] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. So let's talk about the recall, which has been a big topic on a lot of people's minds, the recall petition against school board director Liza Rankin. 

[00:05:54] Christie Robertson: Yeah. And should we talk about what were the main complaints? 

[00:05:56] Jasmine Pulido: Sure. 

Okay. I'm going to read the five points from the website that the group set up called RecallRankin.Com, and this is their petition page. It says, "We seek the recall of Director Rankin for:

 1) adopting a rushed and improper process for closing schools.

 2) repeatedly failing to provide transparency and community engagement on decisions critical to the well-being of the district.

 3) failing to perform the basic oversight of the district expected of any board director.

 4) failing to uphold the responsibilities of the school board to ensure the district delivers student educational outcomes.

 And 5) closing the Interagency Academy without following the proper procedure. 

Each of these repeated failures not only rise to the level of misfeasance, malfeasance, and/or violation of oath of office, they endanger the future of Seattle Public Schools, they hinder and undermine the education of Seattle's children, and they do damage to the public's trust in a foundational civic institution."

[00:07:05] Christie Robertson: So that's the outline of their claims. 

[00:07:08] Jasmine Pulido: On Monday was a hearing in front of a judge, and essentially, at this hearing, what happens is the judge will look over the reasons for the recall and decide whether or not to move forward with the process. And if it moves forward, then what happens is the people who are issuing the recall would then gather signatures to put it on the ballot. 

[00:07:30] Christie Robertson: The lawyer for this group went into a couple of the details of some of the specific items, such as that there was a vote texted in or that A. J. Crabill from Council of Great City Schools attended an executive session. 

 The judge pushed back throughout the arguments. He kept saying like, it's not whether people like President Rankin. It's not whether people disagree with her decisions. There has to be either misfeasance, malfeasance, or violation of oath of office. That would be grounds for a recall. And none of those did he find were legally sufficient. And so he dismissed it.

[00:08:11] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. And you were actually in the room watching the hearing, Christie. What was the vibe like in that room?

[00:08:16] Christie Robertson: Oh, it was tense. It was tense. It was a small courtroom, and it was pretty full. There was maybe like half a dozen press. And I think that clearly, there was quite a bit of relief for her supporters who were there when it was dismissed.

[00:08:34] Jasmine Pulido:  There is this one thing that I've been thinking about, which is that just a few years ago, there was also a recall effort, but it was for the entire board, not a single person. And so the interesting part of this happening again a few years later is that it singled out President Rankin, and I'm sure that must have been hard to digest, to know that you were the one person picked out of the entire board. Obviously, you're the president as well, but, yeah, being under that much scrutiny by yourself in the hearing must have been pretty intense.

[00:09:06] Christie Robertson: Oh, yeah. That can't have been fun. And I think that was actually a significant part of the discussion in the hearing was about how much can one board director, even if they're the president, be held to account. Some of the things had been initiated by previous boards. Some of the things were done by the whole board. In particular, the judge was dismissive of the allegation on the poor student outcomes because he was like, "How can one board director  be held accountable for student outcomes not improving." 

[00:09:34] Jasmine Pulido:  And I remember in our interview with Ben Gitenstein that he said that recalls are very unlikely to be successful. So the fact that the recall didn't move forward, I think maybe wasn't totally a surprise, but the group was willing to go forward with it anyway under the idea that even just going through with the process would send a clear message 

[00:09:56] Christie Robertson: The group that put forward the petition for recall stated that they hadn't been surprised by the outcome but that what they were surprised about was the outpouring of public support for their cause and that they were moving on to focus on looking for candidates to run for school board for the next election.

 Rankin's statement after the hearing was that she was looking forward to getting back to work and doing work for the kids, which is what she had run for office to do.

 I put in a request for the materials for this hearing at King County Superior Court, and when I get it, we can link it from the show notes. 

And this this Christie jumping in to say that I've received all the documents. It's the petitioner's claim, the rebuttal, the ruling, and a recording of the entire hearing. So you can find those all on our show notes.

Audit Committee Meeting December 2

[00:10:57] Christie Robertson: Okay, we've got a good segue to the next topic on our rundown, which is a meeting of the sole remaining committee of the school board, which is the audit committee. This meeting happened on Monday, December 2nd.

It used to be the audit and finance committee, which was 1 of the complaints of the petitioners was that there was no longer a finance committee in a situation where we have a terrible budget. 

The judge said that complaints like that school board meetings had been reduced to 1 a month or that the finance committee had been removed were not valid grounds for recall because they are not legal requirements. Fiduciary oversight is a legal requirement, but it's not said how that's going to be done. 

[00:11:45] Jasmine Pulido: Interesting. I wonder if, later there will be more legal language around policy. 

[00:11:50] Christie Robertson: Yeah, that's a great question. But there still is an audit committee of the school board, for now. Interestingly, at the very end of the audit meeting, they discussed the possibility of making this no longer a school board committee or at least no longer having school board directors on it. I'm not sure exactly how this would work, but they're considering converting this to be a committee of community members. It would be the auditor and it would be qualified community members who sit on it rather than school board directors. 

So this whole committee meeting, which was 3 hours long with lots of details about how the school district operates was really striking me as how counter to Student Outcomes Focused Governance it is. If you miss the old way that the school board used to operate, you want to watch the audit committee meetings because that's where they actually talk about how things work within the school district. It's very operational.

[00:12:49] Jasmine Pulido: Interesting. I have heard community members talk about wanting to be more involved. So that could be...

 In some ways, it satisfies both parties. School directors want to be more on outcomes, and then the community wants more information on audit stuff.

[00:13:10] Christie Robertson: Yeah, exactly. Let's listen to how Andrew Medina, the school district auditor, presented this to the board.

[00:13:18] Andrew Medina: So our current structure is three board directors. We have the option to add one or more public advisers to the committee. They are advisory only, and they're currently vacant. They have proven valuable in the past, although we've had challenges in getting public advisors. So, leading practice from the Institute of Internal Auditors and a 2017 white paper from the Council of Great City Schools identifies a best practice of "an audit committee should be comprised of individuals who are independent of the school district and who are collectively experts in auditing, finance, risk management, information, technology, and government." Audit committee member independence will also be identified in an updated version of the white paper that we're hoping to publish either later this month or early January. 

So advantages of having a fully independent audit committee- it's recommended by the Council of Great City Schools. A committee comprised of experienced professionals who have no authority over the district's operation or decision-making processes can shield the internal audit staff from any actual or perceived pressure that would compromise our objectivity and independence and allow internal auditors to conduct our work without any fear of retaliation, retribution or political pressure. That also aligns with the Student Outcomes Focused Governance model by allowing board directors to focus on student outcomes rather than an audit committee, which is more of an operational function. And having a committee comprised of individuals who are experts may result in improved decision-making or oversight of the audit function. 

Some disadvantages, however, is finding volunteers to serve on the committee. The possibility that community volunteers might also have any personal or political agendas. Developing a transition plan and then determining the committee's composition and procedures. Will it be entirely community members? Will be a hybrid, with board directors also serving? How many community members? How long are the terms? Will they apply or be appointed? And the potentially reduced direct communication between board directors and the director of internal audit. 

[00:15:34] Christie Robertson: One question I have is, would it still be subject to open public meetings? Would still in public? That would suck if it weren't in public. It's really great to actually get some of this information. 

I want to play a little clip of President Rankin speaking to what people in community have been asking for, which is just more ability to help and be able to influence what's happening in Seattle Public Schools. Sitting on an audit committee could be a great way for those experts that we see just spinning up their spreadsheets to try to help from the outside. It would be great to put some of those smart minds to work to help Seattle Public Schools. So here's what she says about that.

[00:16:18] Liza Rankin: In my experience in SPS in the last decade, this year and last year I feel fairly comfortable saying I've probably seen the lowest number of like work group, community participation, advisory task force things than I've ever seen in SPS. As we go into the next year, I think this would be a good conversation to have in January. As we go towards the strategic plan, as we go towards whatever that we are going to want and need the participation, expertise, and support of the community. Is there a way we can sort of turn a page and be more invitational just in general? Because a lot of these kinds of things that traditionally have been around in my experience have disappeared. I'm not sure why. It doesn't matter really why. In inviting more people to participate this could be part of a great opportunity to be like, here are the ways in which... 

And also to clarify the role of the board. Like, we are oversight, we are representatives making sure you said you did this, did it happen? Great. Did it happen in a way that aligns with our community values? Great. We actually are not supposed to be involved in everything that involves people. Many more community members can and should be involved in this collaborative project that is public schools. 

[00:17:41] Christie Robertson: I was glad to hear her say that.

[00:17:43] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, that's great. It would be nice for everyone to be on the same team. 

[00:17:47] Christie Robertson: That would be very nice. 

So that's the meta-level discussion about the audit committee. 

One thing that came up in one of the audits (and just to fill in here, this was an audit around the efficient efficacy of the counselor role at SPS), and I texted this to you, Jasmine because I was so shocked by it, was that 70 percent of Seattle Public School seniors required waivers to graduate in 2023.

[00:18:11] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. What does that mean? 

[00:18:13] Christie Robertson: That means that they didn't fulfill the graduation requirements, and yet they graduated.

[00:18:18] Jasmine Pulido: Are these people who were what grade when COVID happened? Freshman, probably? So they were just entering high school when COVID happened? Because the whole point of the waivers is regarding any missed credits because of COVID. Is that right? 

[00:18:31] Christie Robertson: That's definitely 1 of them. I'd like to read more about this. I have to admit that I did not read the something like 187-page committee document in its entirety, so I don't know the details about what kind of waivers, but I was shocked by that. 

This is Christie chiming in to say that the document has been updated and is actually 223 pages long now, but it doesn't include any detail about what kind of waivers they're talking about. 

And I want to play Director Sarju because she also sat up and took note of that and gave 1 of her great speeches to try to get everybody to like, pause and think about a key piece of information. Not just go about your meetings, but stop a minute and think about what these data show. Here's what Director Sarju said. 

[00:19:19] Michelle Sarju: I'm having a hard time assimilating what I heard you say. I had to go off-camera because... The graphic of smoke coming out of one's ears. That's what was happening for me. And one of the things that I think I heard you say... these are not your words. These are my words... is that this process of waivers is essentially padding our graduation statistics. 

And I just want to state for the record: to me, this is a fire. We have a fire that we need to respond to. And I don't know what the answer is. I'm dismayed. But I have to remain hopeful that we will accept the recommendations that you all have made. Because, on the surface, they seem sensible. They seem logical. They seem responsive. They seem objective. And they actually seem implementable. But that's not your issue. 

 If we are giving kids waivers so we can do this – the wash your hands sign – “They graduated. We're done.” Not ready. They're not ready. We're pretending. We're pretending like we're preparing our kids to go out and compete in the marketplace when behind the scenes, we're just giving them waivers so we can say we graduated X number of percent. We are failing kids. That's fundamentally failing kids.

[00:20:51] Christie Robertson: There were a ton of audits. I'm not gonna talk about all of them. 

I guess then the only other audit that I want to specifically bring up was about the Rainier View response. If you remember, there was a huge community and teacher outcry at Rainier View last year. There was a lot of public testimony about it, against the principal at Rainier View, who was later removed from her position and put in central office. And that came about after years of just brewing issues that had not been addressed properly. And that's what this audit was about was the process of handling the community and teacher complaints.

[00:21:35] Jasmine Pulido: That sounds really interesting.

[00:21:43] Christie Robertson: Unsatisfyingly,

[00:21:45] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, no.

[00:21:47] Christie Robertson: the response was very nonspecific, I would say. The response was given by Bev Redmond, the chief of staff, and it was what we have come to expect in a lot of these situations of just a lot of "don't worry, we've got this. People are talking, things are going to get better, but things were fine anyway.

[00:22:11] Jasmine Pulido: There are coversations. Yeah. 

[00:22:13] Christie Robertson: Discussions are happening. Don't you worry your heads about this." 

[00:22:17] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah. Great trust-building statements. 

[00:22:21] Christie Robertson: Yeah, and the most salient, closest thing to something concrete that I heard was that meetings are happening to figure out how to address these problems better in the future. And the meetings are happening between PASS, the principals union, SEA, the teachers union, HR for Seattle Public Schools... No community representation. Basically, it's being viewed as completely an HR issue. And that is important. The staff complaints were a big part of what was happening there, but it was also a community, parent, and student, very significant issues that were raised, and they're not being involved in that conversation at all.

[00:23:17] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I think that's a really big topic, and I'm glad that they're discussing it. I'm working on an episode on the school board right now, which will be coming out soon, and one of the points of discussion is the process in which someone goes about complaining about anything that's happening in their building and how a lot of that process ends up going to the school board, even though the school board isn't actually supposed to be monitoring that.

Yeah, I'm curious to hear how these meetings go. And hopefully, at some point they let community members in. But the thing that is hard for me is how the legal part of everything gets in the way of the community-building part. A lot of the times I feel like when the community is left out of it, it's because of legal stuff.

[00:23:56] Christie Robertson: Yeah. And in general, from what I've seen from what's come to board meetings, the response of the district has been to be more protective of central administration and more protective of principals, which is the opposite of what I think a lot of people might have expected out of all that community outcry. They might have thought we need to be able to make it easier to hold principals and their supervisors to account. And that's definitely not the direction that this is going. 

 Okay. So that was that. That's it for the Audit committee meeting. But for any of you nerds out there, I know we have some of those among our listeners who wish that they knew more about what happens in the school district and how things work. I definitely recommend watching audit meetings.

[00:24:42] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, good to know.

[00:24:42] Christie Robertson: They're online. They're not recorded... They are recorded, but you have to like go... 

[00:24:46] Jasmine Pulido: You have to request it.

[00:24:48] Christie Robertson: You have to request it. Whereas the regular school board meetings are just automatically put on SPS TV and they're there.

[00:24:54] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah.

JLARC Special Education Audit Report

[00:24:56] Christie Robertson: Okay, Should we talk about the legislative item?

[00:25:04] Jasmine Pulido: The JLARC thing? 

[00:25:06] Christie Robertson: Yeah the JLARC. 

Okay, so I know a lot of people don't follow the legislature very closely. It can be very confusing how it relates to your local school district happenings. So, just briefly, I will remind people that there's a legislative session that is about to start next month in January. It's an important what they call a long session that will be going from January through April. And it is going to control how much money we get for one thing to fill our budget hole. So I think probably a lot more people are aware of it than usual because of that.

[00:25:42] Jasmine Pulido: And they only do this every two years. 

[00:25:44] Christie Robertson: Yep, every 2 years is where they can actually make significant budget changes. And this is 1 of those. What happens in these months leading up to January is that they get reports that they've commissioned from the previous year. So, there are committees right now that are meeting to hear reports, and one of those committees is called JLARC, which is the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee. 

The report that they just got a few days ago and were presented today, Wednesday, December 4th, when we're recording this was a special education audit. And it was so interesting. It's a long PDF that will link from our show notes. There's also 1 page summaries for those of you who just want to know the basics. And I think it was presented to this committee in a very understandable fashion. So we will also link the video on TVW of this presentation, which is maybe the easiest way to really understand what was found in these audits.

[00:26:47] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. And what was found in these audits?

[00:26:49] Christie Robertson: So there were two parts to the audit. The first part was about funding. And the main take-home finding was that school districts across Washington state spend about 26 percent more on funding special education than they are given by the legislature.

[00:27:11] Jasmine Pulido: Woah.

[00:27:12] Christie Robertson: That whole amount is supposed to be funded by the legislature. And we knew this, but it's nice to, like, have a number and to have a real study that like, finds this and spells it out in real terms. The legislature is not fully funding special education. The way that the legislature funds special education is basically a multiplier, where they take how much general education money a student with an IEP gets. And they add on another, it's approximately another full amount. So it's basically like you get 200 percent of the amount for a kid with an IEP, then. 

[00:27:51] Jasmine Pulido: But it's like a fixed amount?? 

[00:27:53] Christie Robertson: It's a fixed amount. If you get an IEP, you get this amount. It doesn't matter if you have a one-on-one person with you all the time and need extensive physical therapy and all kinds of devices. Or if you just have a learning disability, and you need a slightly modified curriculum for part of the day. Those get funded the exact same amount. Seems obvious, but here is the official telling to the legislature that is really not a very appropriate way to do it, that they should be funding more based on what students need.

[00:28:25] Jasmine Pulido: And special education is actually tiered, the way that we categorize it. 

[00:28:29] Christie Robertson: In Seattle. 

[00:28:30] Jasmine Pulido: In Seattle! Oh, ok. 

[00:28:32] Christie Robertson: That is a Seattle invention, those tiers.

[00:28:34] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, ok, ok, got it. But on the state level, there is no tiering at all as far as the way that special education is funded per student. 

[00:28:42] Christie Robertson: Nope. 

[00:28:42] Jasmine Pulido: Okay.

[00:28:43] Christie Robertson: And our representative Gerry Pollet from the 46th legislative district, who is one of the best advocates for special education in the legislature, so I watch him closely, he asked about that. He asked for suggestions for what would be a better way to do it than just a multiplier. There's 13 categories of disability that qualify you for special education. Should we have different amounts of funding based on those disabilities? And the answer from the people who did the study was that some states do it that way, but they're moving away from that because it also doesn't correlate very well to what student need is. Really, what you should do is look at what students need and what services are being provided by the district and provide funding based on that.

[00:29:28] Jasmine Pulido: But that would take a lot more work 

[00:29:33] Christie Robertson:  Yeah. That's the next step is figuring out what that formula should be. But in the study was actually a survey of what other states do in terms of this. 

[00:29:38] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, what are other seeds doing? Has anyone found a formula that works really well? I'd love to know.

[00:29:47] Christie Robertson: Yeah. 

The second audit of special education that was presented to the audit and review committee of the legislature was about performance. So that was funding, and this is about like, how is special education doing, with a focus on inclusion?

[00:30:03] Jasmine Pulido: Okay.

[00:30:04] Christie Robertson: Because, in 2018, a shocking result came to light that Washington state is 46th out of 50 in terms of how inclusive we are of kids with disabilities in our general education classrooms. And so everybody sat up and was like, “Whoa, wow, we're doing really bad!” And that's measured by percent of time in the general education classroom, which they acknowledged is not necessarily a measure of how successful things are. But, we have improved from 46th to 37th by that measure.

 I'm going to play a clip from the committee meeting, that's the conclusion of the auditors, saying that the big problem that we have in Washington state is that there is no stated goal about being more inclusive. The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state, they've been given a little bit of money, but they haven't been given like, a clear directive. "We want to improve inclusion. Come up with some measurements, come up with a plan for how to do it. And let's measure our results." 

Instead, it's just been this piecemeal thing. The audit found that some districts are doing it. They're doing it in different ways. They're sometimes doing it. There are materials offered by OSPI. They're sometimes being used. It's 100 percent voluntary, and there's no concerted effort. 

[00:31:31] Francisco Santamarina, JLARC staff: JLARC staff consulted with national experts to examine different ways to increase inclusion. The researchers compared Washington's approach with all other states, current research, and the practices promoted by the United States Department of Education. The experts identified six strategies to improve inclusion. And they recommended that implementation should be coordinated across all six categories and in all districts statewide. 

Through our review of OSP documentation and our interviews with 58 school districts, we found that OSPI and school districts are using many of these six strategies. We also found that none of the six strategies are required by the state. Efforts are voluntary and/or have not been implemented by all districts statewide. Because not all students nor all districts are being served by these current efforts, their reach and their impact on inclusion is limited. 

The first strategy is to increase opportunities for young children with disabilities ages three to five to be with their non-disabled peers. For example. Increased learning and social activities with any necessary commendations and interventions for students such as a transitional kindergarten program that was implemented by one of the districts that we interviewed. 

The second strategy is to offer multiple tiers of support for all students who struggle with academic and or behavioral challenges. Educators can provide targeted help to struggling students in the classroom setting. This approach is referred to as a Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports. OSPI has adopted this kind of support framework and it offers related training through voluntary professional development and supports to districts. Yeah, 43 out of the 58 districts that we interviewed said that they have not fully implemented this Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports. 

The third strategy is to train teachers to use practices with demonstrated success. Research shows that these high-leverage practices can promote inclusive education regardless of students' disabilities or grade level. OSPI and its partners have created a website for educators to access related professional development and resources. Those trainings are voluntary. 

The fourth strategy is to use instructional technology to increase accessibility and improve student outcomes. One example is assistive devices that helps students with disabilities access the curriculum and to participate in classroom activities. OSPI supports the special education technology center, which provides voluntary training, consulting services, and technology to support students with disabilities. 

The fifth strategy is to design learning materials and activities to allow for multiple means of engagement and expression. It encourages teachers to use a variety of approaches in the classroom and to accommodate all learners. For example, presenting information in different ways, such as visual audio or hands-on activities. This approach is called the universal design for learning or UDL. OSPI has collaborated with partner organizations to create a website with UDL resources. Access is voluntary, and Washington does not actively promote the use of UDL through state policies. 

And the sixth strategy is to enhance training, coaching, and mentoring for administrators, principals, and other school leaders about how their schools can provide inclusive, special education. OSPI has worked with state higher education institutions to promote inclusive leadership training for principals. It also offers voluntary technical assistance to administrators. In interviews with administrators, some of them reported that they have received insufficient training on this topic. 

[00:35:25] Christie Robertson: So that was their one and only recommendation for this part of the audit was if you want to improve inclusion, make a goal of it and make a plan for how to do it. 

[00:35:36] Jasmine Pulido: So make a plan. 

[00:35:37] Christie Robertson: Yeah, like, set a goal and make a plan! 

[00:35:40] Jasmine Pulido: That seems to That seems to be the theme of this year. 

Community Corner

[00:35:43] Jasmine Pulido: 

[00:35:43] Christie Robertson: Okay, the last section of our rundown today is the community corner. We want to talk about some of the things that we know other people are working on that relate to Seattle Public Schools. 

[00:35:56] Jasmine Pulido: I wanted to ask you about the teach-in that was at Franklin, because that happened a couple weeks ago, right? What was it, and how did that go? 

[00:36:03] Christie Robertson:  The teach-in was run by a group called Seattle CORE, which is a group of  SEA union members. 

[00:36:09] Jasmine Pulido: Oh, is that the rank and file educators? 

[00:36:11] Christie Robertson: Yeah. Rank and file educators. You can find them on Instagram. Their two big things were anti school closures and pro legislative funding. 

[00:36:20] Jasmine Pulido: Okay. And they had speakers and... 

[00:36:24] Christie Robertson: Yep, they had speakers. Alex Rouse, who we are about to have an episode with was there.  Jesse Hagopian, who's a really super active local activist... 

[00:36:37] Jasmine Pulido: And we also had two school board directors there, right? 

[00:36:39] Christie Robertson: Two school board directors were in the audience and participated in the workshops. 

[00:36:42] Jasmine Pulido: Director Hershey and Director Rankin. 

[00:36:44] Christie Robertson: Yes, and I was impressed that they were there because it was so anti school closure I was really glad they were there to listen and participate.

[00:36:51] Jasmine Pulido: They answered questions from community about school closures and everything. 

[00:36:57] Christie Robertson: So, yeah, there were a ton of people there, lots of people trying to find ways to address our funding issues and how to improve our schools. 

One thing that I wanted to mention community-wise is, I ran into Debbie Carlsen there, who previously ran for school board and now is turning to an effort of trying to help other community members get involved in running for school board, which can be... as someone who ran for school board, be extremely intimidating and difficult to know how to do. Yeah, is there any training, like, currently? I did a training run by EMERGE, which is for women candidates. It was expensive. Debbie Carlsen is working on putting together something that's free. 

And there's other community members that are forming a PAC that would help with funding, which is a huge barrier to entry. I have other friends who ran for school board and the amount of funds that were were just not possible for them. So it's cutting out people who we really could use their voices. 

[00:38:00] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, and especially if we're talking about equity and about privilege, then those are things that need to be addressed. Yeah.

Is there official dates for that?

[00:38:07] Christie Robertson: Yes, I think there are. We can put a link in the show notes. 

[00:38:11] Jasmine Pulido: Should we talk about the Billion Dollar Bake Sale? 

[00:38:14] Christie Robertson: The Billion Dollar Bake Sale is a group that is all about raising awareness about funding issues in public education. There's a lot of information on their website. I think it's January 30th where they're going to go have a big event in Olympia and talk to legislators about school funding. This is a statewide effort gaining a lot of steam. And I recommend that you go check that out. 

[00:38:37] Jasmine Pulido: Yeah, I actually was at an event last night that mentioned Billion Dollar Bake Sale. I have one of their postcards. It says, "Dear State Representative, I urge you to make fully funding K through 12 public education a priority this legislative session. Public education is important to me because... fill in the blanks... sincerely, your constituent," and you can put your name in. So that's cool. 

And I'll just mention a little bit about the event I was at last night, which was Funding Schools 101. Fund SPS and Washington's Paramount Duty were there. Both of those organizations were started by parents. Fund SPS gave a presentation on common misconceptions regarding the budget deficit. And then Washington's Paramount Duty talked about state funding and gave a rundown of the five legislative asks they think would address the structural deficit that many of the districts in Washington state are in. So I found that really helpful. And then they took questions. basically everyone wanted to ask about engaging with the legislature and how to do that, how to do that effectively. Like who to do that with. And all of those things. Everyone seemed pretty honed in on what action can we take. So that was really nice to see. 

[00:39:56] Christie Robertson: Awesome. 

[00:39:58] Jasmine Pulido: Let us know what's going on that you think is notable, that folks that are following our district should know about at hello@rainydayrecess.Org. 

 That is a wrap on this first episode of our Ready Day Rundowns. You can find our show notes at our website, www.rainydayrecess.Org, or you can also subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. 

[00:40:19] Christie Robertson: If you like our work, please consider donating to us at our website. The price of a cup of coffee once a month is so helpful to us. And thank you so much for our current donors. 

[00:40:28] Jasmine Pulido: Yes. Thank you so much. Really, really helpful. 

Special thanks to Lester Mayo and Manzana Movement for our music. 

[00:40:35] Christie Robertson: And thank you to Cheryl Jenrow for the amazing new logo that you can now see whenever you go to our podcast website. 

[00:40:41] Jasmine Pulido: Awesome. Well, I'm Jasmine Pulido 

[00:40:43] Christie Robertson: I'm Christie Robertson. Stay curious, stay cozy, and join us next time for Rainy Day Recess.