AN ORDINANCE relating to the 2018 Families, Education, Preschool, and Promise Levy; approving an implementation and evaluation plan as required by Ordinance 125604; amending Ordinance 125724, which adopted the 2019 Budget; changing appropriations to the Department of Education and Early Learning and various budget control levels, and from various funds in the Budget; and ratifying and confirming certain prior acts; all by a 3/4 vote of the City Council.
The Report of the Gender Equity Safe Communities, New Americans and Education Committee Agenda Item 17 Council Bill 119 480 An Ordinance relating to the 2018 Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy. Catherine Gonzalez Council President Harrell, if I may request that the clerk also read Agenda Items 18 and 19 into the record. I'd like to speak to all three of them at once. Excellent. Please do that. Agenda Item 18 Resolution 31881a resolution relating to the 2018 Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy approving a partnership agreement between the City of Seattle and the Seattle College District and Agenda Item 19 Resolution 31882a resolution relating to the 2018 Families, Education, Preschool and Promise Levy approving a partnership between the City of Seattle and the Seattle School District . Number one, the committee recommends the resolutions be approved. Adopted. We will vote on them individually, of course. Councilmember Gonzalez, lead us through these. Thank you. Council President Harrell I spoke to all three of these pieces of legislation during council briefing today. I won't rehash all of the remarks that I made this morning, since I know that I spent quite some time going through all of the details of the amended version of the Council, Bill and I walked us through the bare components of the partnership agreements with our partners. I do just want to say that the bill, the underlying bill, which was originally transmitted by the mayor's office, the city council in this particular version of the bill is it includes nine different amendments from committee work in my committee. All all really centered around making sure that the implementation and evaluation plan, as presented in this Council Bill is in alignment with the the priorities of the City Council as adopted both in the ordinance and in the resolution that we all considered last year before the levy went to two voters for their consideration in the fall. And again, I won't belabor those points. I went through them pretty thoroughly this morning during a council briefing, but I'm very excited about having the council bill in front of us at this juncture, which will effectively provide appropriations to the Department of Education and Early Learning in order for Diehl to be able to begin the process of contracting out with partners, to begin the process of investing taxpayer dollars in the various areas of education, both from preschool to the K-through-12 system. And, of course, by establishing a sustainable revenue stream for the Seattle Promise Program, which will provide two free years of college for high school graduates of our public schools. And so Council Bill 119480 would accomplish all of those things consistent with the levy as adopted and approved by the voters. And of course, our Levy Oversight Committee also considered the bill and the resolutions that I'm about to talk to and recommends that the city council approve all of the above. The two resolutions that we will consider 3181 and 31882. Our resolutions that would approve the partnership agreements between Seattle School District Number one and the Seattle College District. These are our first two identified partners as it relates to the K through 12 Investments and the Seattle Promise Program. And again, the FAP Levy Oversight Committee reviewed those partnership agreements and approved or recommends that the City Council adopt those resolutions. I will also note that as it relates to the Seattle school district there, the Seattle School Board did review and consider the partnership agreements and they approved those partnership that partnership agreement last week during their Seattle school board meeting. I will just end by saying a few thank you's. There are some folks in the audience today and some folks who couldn't be here today. But I do want to thank some folks before we take a final vote. On advancing the implementation and evaluation plan and the accompanying partnership agreements. I'd like to thank Chancellor Pan from the Seattle Colleges. Thank you so much for being with us this afternoon. And Dr. Sheila Edwards Lang also here from Seattle Colleges. Thank you so much to both of you for your ongoing partnership and making sure that we got the model just right and that we're centering the Seattle Promise program on on those students who have the least amount of access and opportunity to pursue a college degree or a certification for a career after after graduating from high school . So really thank you. Thank you to both of you for all of the work that you've been doing us and for your ongoing commitment to making college accessible and affordable for as many students as as we possibly can. So thank you both. I also wanted to thank Superintendent Denise Juneau and her staff over at the Seattle Public School District, number one for all of their ongoing partnership and cooperation in structuring our education investments in a way that will really, really wrap around a student who has additional needs to be able to learn and and be successful in their academics. I've really enjoyed getting to know and work with Superintendent Juneau on these really critically important issues and have just been really honored to be able to share that space with her and to really see her center. The academic performance of our students that are furthest away from educational justice within the Seattle Public School System. So thank you all for your partnership. Equal thanks. Go out to the Seattle School Board and their members really appreciate their insight as we continue to develop these investments. And again, making sure that these partnership agreements are workable for the Seattle school district is really, really important to making sure that the investments are being leveraged as as efficiently and as strongly as possible as they continue to look at their budget as well. And then I would also like to thank the Department Education Early Learning director Dwayne Chappelle and all of his staff for all of their really hard work on shepherding this along. Over the last a year and a half or so, we've actually all collectively have been working on the families and Education, Preschool and Promise Levy proposal and now implementation evaluation plan since 2017. So it has been a long road and I'm really excited to be able to be at this juncture when we can finally give our final vote of approval to the Department of Education and Early Learning to begin deploying the dollars and investing in our kids through our partners. So thank you so much to Director Chappelle, who just happened to walk in. It's like he heard me and to all of his staff for really being so committed to to this work and ultimately to the kids of our city. So thank you all so much. I also want to thank Mayor Jenny Durkan for her cooperation and her steadfast commitment to working with my office and with City Council on advancing these really important areas of investment. Especially want to thank Chris Delano from her office, who's here with us and serves as a representative on the FAP Levy Oversight Committee. Thank you all so much for your ongoing partnership in and wanting to continue to work in a spirit of collaboration to make sure we give our kids the best opportunity they can have. And then lastly in my office, wanted to thank V Nguyen, who really worked very hard and diligently on shepherding through a lot of my policy priorities in this implementation and evaluation plan and the overall levy as a whole. I also want to thank her for shepherding through a lot of her own priorities in this levy to continue to invest in English language learners and diversifying our teachers and educators within the Seattle Public School System. And in really making sure that we are continuously centering our work on those students who again, are furthest away from opportunity. And then, last but not least, wanted to thank our former colleague, Rob Johnson, who was my co-chair on the Select Committee on Education and really worked closely with me and my staff and my office to just continue to champion the needs of kids, particularly in the K through 12 system. So he is missed because he's not here with us in in in the in the physical sense. But his legacy will continue to live on in the work that he did on this particular levy. So I want to give him a shout out also for all of his partnership on the Families and Education Preschool Levy, including this implementation evaluation plan. I think the only thing he didn't get to do was take a final vote in committee. So I know he's watching. So I want to thank him. I thank him for that. And. And with that being said, I would like to move for the council to adopt Council Bill 119480. It doesn't have to be moved because. Okay, well, then I won't move it, but I'll just encourage you all to support it. Very good. Well done. Any other comments or questions? Customer mosquito. Well, I was ready to second that because I'm very excited about the work that you've done. And I just want to congratulate you. Councilmember Gonzalez, you mentioned you and your co-chair have been working on this for years. And as we talked about it in your committee, there was a round of applause and murmurs as people had talked about how long they had been waiting for this to happen. So just a huge amount of congratulations to you and everything that you got accomplished in this levy. You had a good document to start with and you made it even better. Thank you for all the work that you did to include race and social justice, especially trying to think about alternative career pathways, good living wage jobs, making sure that we had a focus on our earliest learners. You mention a legacy as we think about our former colleague, Councilmember Johnson, and I think you should also give yourself a pat on the back for what did that for you, for the legacy that you've also included in this legislation. I also want to thank our colleagues, and especially you as the chair, for your support for the amendment that we were able to work in to make sure that our public dollars are being used to really support our institutions that are adhering to labor laws and a commitment to labor harmony. The amendment that we got in, as you read this morning, item number eight ensures that our city dollars makes ensure that our city dollars are providing a baseline protection for the labor policies that the city has already passed and that we don't further erode labor protections or collective worker voice. And I just think that this is really important to lift up, especially in the era of the Janice and the attacks on labor nationally, that we continue in this city to stand up and show what it means to be a strong Union City, to support workers across the board, whether or not they have a collective bargaining agreement or not. And I applaud you for including this in there. We were really excited to make sure that our amendment was included because we wanted to make sure that we we applaud the fact that when we have higher unionization rates, we see higher retention, less turnover, less stress and improved health outcomes. And all of these things are good for our kiddos and our city at large. I also think that it's important that we continue to applaud the good work that our public schools are doing just by recognizing the hard task that you all have in front of you to to raise our youngest learners all the way through now the Seattle Promise Program. So thank you for everything that you do and to your frontline staff for helping to raise and grow our kiddos in the in this community. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember skater Councilmember Swan. Thank you, Carol. This resolution adopts the implementation plan detailing how the funding from the education levy will be distributed to schools and programs. When the mayor first sent it to council, my office was concerned to see that the mayor explicitly put in the implementation plan that funding might go to charter schools in Seattle. I do not support charter schools as an institution. They are cynically used to disempower teachers and their unions. They remove democratic community oversight of schools and they drain resources from the already deeply underfunded district schools. Ever since labor movements have won public education, they have been relentless, profit driven forces trying to privatize it. In the nineties, these forces tried to push for vouchers that would take public education funds and put them towards private schools. When they failed to win support for that. They started pushing for charter schools, which in many states do not. In Washington state are operated by for profit companies with devastating impacts for both children and our teachers unions. The Waltons, the owners of Walmart and the Gates Foundation. Both are examples of institutions that pour money into charter schools, even in cases where charter schools may be well run. They siphon off funding from the district schools, hurting the education of other students. And of course, we know the most adversely affected are very low income and poverty stricken communities with no accountability. Seattle's charter schools are nonprofit, which is good, but they are all run by charter school chains out of California. I hope these problems are considered when funding awards are made so that Seattle Public Schools does not lose out. I will vote in favor of this implement implementation plan because I support the overwhelming majority of it. But I just wanted to state for the record that I do not support funds being taken from our public schools to fund charter schools. Ultimately, educators are charter schools will need to unionize to push back against the privatization and austerity agenda of the so-called school reformers. And it is encouraging that charter school teachers in cities like Chicago are starting to move towards this. As a member of an educator Union American Federation of Teachers Local 1789. I know firsthand how important unions are. Adjunct professors will tell you. You know, I join professors who cobble together a living by teaching courses, and different universities will tell you that they are paid more in introductions where they have a union than in universities where they don't. Even though the universities don't have unions and may actually have larger resources simply because when you have a union, you have better wages and benefits. If only educators at Seattle charter schools would want to unionize. I would urge you to contact the Seattle Educators Union or my office so that we can make sure that all charter schools are unionized and then ultimately brought into the public purview. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Swan. There's no further comments. I'll say a few words and then I'll ask Councilman Bizarre if she'd like to close. I just want to thank Councilmember Johnson and Councilmember Gonzalez basically for doing their job so well, that this is a time where the Legislative Department will do a very deep dove, almost very granular in its approach to make sure that the investments are exactly where our priorities are. And that's not easy. Work is thorough work. And I want to thank you and commend you for the level of detail that this legislation presents. Thank you very much. Councilwoman Gonzales, would you like to see any closing remarks before we vote? Just really quickly, I want to thank Councilmember and want for her remarks. I think it is important for us as an institution, an agency that continues to invest in education, to make sure that we are centering the children that we are investing in at the center of that work. And and I also think that our investments in the area of educator diversity really signals to potential partners that those are the things that we really value. So even though charter schools will be allowed to apply for levy dollars, it doesn't mean that they're guaranteed funding. And it is my expectation, I think the city council's expectation that deal will be taking our priorities very seriously, seriously in evaluating any applications for funding of public dollars in the space of education. So it is not it is very common for us to invest in nonprofit organizations. You know, our Seattle preschool promise I'm sorry, Seattle Preschool program relies on nonprofit agencies that are not public entities to deliver preschool and early learning opportunities. We also have a similar partnership with Seattle school districts in terms of co-locating preschool classrooms with K through 12 rooms. And again, I think my expectation and this council's expectation is that we will continue to work. With partners in the area of education that really fundamentally understand and have a strong commitment to race and social justice, equity and to educational justice, and at the same time, with partners who are willing to commit to transparency, accountability, reporting, data sharing and also to their workforce. We know that when we invest in our educators and when our educators look like the students they are serving, we do well in terms of reducing the opportunity and achievement gap for our students of color in particular. And and I have full faith in deal that they will figure out how to tread the line of complying with the law of the land while also continuing to center our investments on the students who need the most investment in order to be able to succeed in school and and beyond. And there is some work that is left to be done through the implementation and evaluation plan. For example, figuring out how to connect students who are graduating from charter schools, figuring out how to connect them to the opportunity of Seattle. Promise is something that still needs to be done. Again, those are dollars that go directly to and opportunities that go directly to students. And that's a good example of when I think this council would be supportive in general of making sure that those partnerships exist for purposes of connecting with the actual student and not punishing the student for having gone through a charter school process but could still benefit from Seattle promise. And the last thing that I'll say that I learned in terms of Council President's comments around the granular details in this space. One of the things I found most astonishing is when you dig into the demographics of who is attending the three charter schools in Seattle, it is a predominantly majority demographic of students, of color, of students and children who are on free and reduced lunch. And I think that's exactly the kind of population we want to be helping in the future. So my hope is that we've been able to thread the needle well enough here to be able to comply with state law while at the same time continuing to center our work on the students who need it the most. And, and I'm looking forward to continuing to, to do that hard work with deal and with community partners to make sure that we continue to get it right. So with that being said, thank you so much. Really appreciate my colleagues engagement on this, somewhat wonky but very important policy area and really look forward to continuing this work in my committee. Thank you. Okay. I think we're ready to vote. We're going to vote separately on three different piece of legislation. We'll take the bill. First, please call the role on the passage of Bill. Constable 119480. O'Brien I want I make sure I. Gonzalez I. Herbold, i. Whereas to by president narrow high eight in favor and unopposed. Bill passed and show sign it. We're going to vote on resolution 31881. Those in favor of adopting resolution 31881. Please vote i. I those oppose vote no. The motion carries and resolutions adopt and share with Senate and those in favor of adopting resolution 3188 to please vote. I. I. There's little work on those eyes. Please, Lord, I. There you go. Now we're now in rhythm. Those vote no. The motion carries a resolution of Adobe and the chair will sign it. Just one moment. I need a just a quick second. Can we applaud? Yes, we can. Yay! I was standing between the end and identifying a new colleague. So thank you so much for allowing me an extended period of commentary on this. Thank you. Okay. Filibustering and I may have to do that as well. Okay. We will move to the adoption of other resolutions. I don't believe we have any resolutions for introduction. Adoptions will move to other business, which of course is our council vacancy position.