Tomorrow: Two meetings, bring your kids
Hi everyone,
Tomorrow is a big day. Two meetings, both in the BISD Board Room. We are trying to make this more family-friendly than last time, there is more on that below. We've also included context on where things stand below the meeting info.
Community meeting with the district
Thursday, May 14 4:30 PM
BISD Board Room, 9530 NE High School Road
This is the meeting Superintendent Amii Thompson has invited the community to. It runs until 5:30.
In her last email to us, Amii committed to providing preliminary answers to our twelve questions ahead of tomorrow's meeting. We are very appreciative of her and her staff taking this step. Those answers will likely shape the questions many of you will want to raise at the community meeting. As soon as we have them, we will send a short follow-up email.
There should be a zoom link for this meeting too but we don't have it yet. We will pass it along before the meeting tomorrow.
Board meeting
Thursday, May 14 5:30 PM for public comment sign-in (closes at 5:45 sharp) 5:45 PM meeting begins
BISD Board Room, 9530 NE High School Road
The BISD Board Room is located off High School Road between Bainbridge High School and Commodore Options, adjacent to the lower gym. Map
If you plan to comment by Zoom instead of in person, you must sign up by 4 PM on Thursday by emailing Lani Chaffee at lchaffee@bisd303.org.
Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82527598003
A note on public comment
The most powerful thing you can do in your three minutes is tell the Board why this matters to your family. What you have noticed. What your children have experienced. What concerns you. The substantive case for action lives in what the community sees, not in what advocacy materials say.
A growing number of districts around the country are acting on this even without perfect answers, because moving in mostly the right direction is far better than not moving at all.
Three minutes is not long. Speak from where you are. Bring your kids if it helps. The Board needs to see the community, not just read our case.
Bringing the kids
We are working to make tomorrow, especially the board meeting, more family-friendly. The board room sits right next to the Odyssey playground. We will have art supplies set up and a few parents rotating in and out of the board room so kids are watched and parents can still hear or give public comment.
Bene Pizza
Bene Pizza has very generously offered to donate pizza for tomorrow night! Please reply to this email with how many adults and kids are coming and we will get enough for everyone.
RSVPs help us plan.
Where things stand
Over the past two weeks, our engagement with the Superintendent has clarified the path forward. The May 14 presentation of the Strategic Plan is information-only. The Board's vote is scheduled for May 28.
We are now asking that our five structural commitments on classroom technology live in a companion resolution alongside the Strategic Plan rather than inside it. Three reasons.
We acknowledge that the Strategic Plan process has been substantial. Asking for a rewrite of that work at the eleventh hour is costly, and attaching commitments to a single goal inside the plan may ultimately mean little.
Superintendent Thompson described a parallel path in her last reply to us. A separate Board action addressing classroom technology fits inside that framing.
A resolution is structurally cleaner than embedded language. It can be specific where goal statements cannot. It commits the Board to direction without requiring detailed implementation language. And it produces a distinct vote, which clarifies what the Board has actually committed to.
What this means for tomorrow: the May 14 meeting is the moment to make the substantive case directly to the Board. Procedure can come later. Thursday is about why this matters.
Our correspondence with the district
We have committed to publishing our correspondence with the district. You can find it here: https://intentionaltechbi.org/correspondence. We will continue to add to it as the conversation develops.
Thank you for staying with this. Tomorrow matters. Come if you can, bring your family, and we will see you there.
Jordan and The Intentional Tech Team
Past Emails: