Don’t have time to attend or watch an entire school board meeting? You can stay up to date with this SESEC information resource!
Upcoming Meetings
- School Board Special Meeting: Engagement – February 26, 2025 at Baily Gatzert Elementary
February 12, 2025 – Regular Monthly Board Meeting
- District staff presented information about their progress so far in implementing consistent curriculum-embedded assessments of student learning at every school.
- The Board voted 4-2 (with 1 abstention) to extend the Superintendent’s contract for an additional year. The contract was originally set to end on June 30, 2026, and will now continue through June 30, 2027.
- The results of a Legislature-sponsored enrollment study of Seattle families with school-aged children were presented to the Board
- In a conversation around the district’s Advanced Learning program, Board members engaged district staff in conversation around the now 14-year delay in fully implementing a Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) across all schools in SPS, originally required by Board Policy 2163 approved in 2011
- Director Sarju (District 5) read excerpts from the book Linda Brown, You Are Not Alone to children from the audience in honor of Black History Month.
- Meeting agenda linked here.
January 22, 2025 – Regular Monthly Board Meeting
- Held a progress monitoring session on the extent to which the district is meeting the college and career readiness goals in the current (2019-2024) Strategic Plan, district staff found positive trends for meeting the goals
- Held a work session to discuss how to incorporate additional community feedback it received in December and January into the proposed goals and guardrails for the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan currently under development. The Board voted to hold a special session on January 29, 2025 in order to finalize and vote on the 2025-2030 Strategic Plan
- Heard from district staff on the development of the 2025-26 SPS budget, including scenarios in which the Legislature increases K-12 funding and in which it does not.
- Meeting agenda linked here
December 18, 2024- Regular Monthly Board Meeting
- The board received reports from the Superintendent regarding the District’s progress on its goals for early literacy and middle school mathematics.
- Accepted an audit report from Moss Adams regarding ongoing barriers to the Board’s efforts since 2021 to implement a best-practice governance model (student outcomes-focused governance). Auditors provided specific recommendations for a successful transition to policy governance, which can be found in the report (linked in the meeting agenda).
- Director Liza Rankin’s one-year term as Board president came to a close, and Director Gina Topp (District 6) was elected Board President for 2025. Director Evan Briggs (District 3) takes on the Board vice president role for 2025 from Director Michele Sarju (District 5).
- The Board passed a budget resolution directing the Superintendent to present a plan for balancing the District’s budget that is aligned with the Strategic Plan’s goals for student outcomes, and to create and work with a task force or advisory group to develop a multi-year budget forecast for the District. (Resolution is also linked in the meeting agenda.)
- The District’s HR director was required to read a Notice of Unfair Labor Practices into the minutes of the meeting (regarding adjudicated labor violations at Rainier View Elementary school). (The notice is also linked in the meeting agenda.)
December 11, 2024- Special Work Session Summary
- The School Board held a special work session on December 11 to finalize goals for student outcomes in SPS for the next five years (2025-2030).
- The School Board undertook extensive community consultation earlier this year to identify the community’s vision for what graduates of SPS should know and be able to do.
- That vision informed the two goals identified on 12/11 by the School Board: a strong start (early literacy), and a strong finish to ensure SPS graduates are prepared for the future of their choice (“life ready” high school pathways).
- Each goal includes metrics identifying how SPS will improve in these two areas from a 2025 baseline to 2030.
- Now that the School Board has finalized these goals, the work moves to the Superintendent, who is responsible for drafting a Strategic Plan to identify how SPS will achieve the metrics and reach the goals.
- More information from the work session is available here. The session recording can be viewed here.
December 3, 2024- Board Special Meeting Audit Committee
Two important audit reports were presented to the School Board Audit Committee on December 3. One assessed the school counseling function in SPS and found opportunities to improve student outcomes through better understanding and support of the school counselor role, especially in high schools.
Another report assessed the District’s implementation of the Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) and found that there is a strong need for more consistent implementation of this critical structure for addressing students’ academic and social-emotional needs. Both are linked here.
District staff will be presenting progress reports to the Board on reading and math at the board meeting Wednesday. These reports update the board on progress toward the strategic plan goals for students in these areas, including why or why not the District is on track to meet the goals.