00:00Thank you everyone for holding being patient with us with the extension of
00:05time. We will now move on to the second item on the agenda the action item
00:12approving resolution 2026-27-11 authorizing the superintendent to take
00:19legal action regarding IL 26-638. Can I have a motion for this item? Yes you can as
00:34soon as soon as I can find it. Oh shoot it's on my other computer does
00:41somebody else have it there can somebody else read it? Yes where's the I move the
00:48board approve resolution number 2026-27-11 authorizing legal action
00:57regarding initiative measure number IL 26-638. Do I have a second? Second. Great thank
01:09you motion and second I'm gonna pass this over to director Mizrahi to introduce
01:14this item. Thank you president top so before I talk about the language behind
01:19the resolution I want to say clearly that as a board director I was opposed to
01:24initiative 638 as a father of three daughters who play sports I was opposed
01:28to 638 but actually I'm not saying that for that reason I'm saying this to say
01:33that actually the vote we're taking right now doesn't have anything to do with how
01:36I voted on 638 or how any other board director voted on 638 this is actually
01:40about our responsibilities as school board directors when we take our oath of
01:45office we swear an oath that says that we will support the Constitution of the
01:48United States the Constitution and the laws of Washington State was an actual
01:52quote from both we take the actual resolution this resolution is attempting to
01:57sort that out and how we reconcile that oath with the language of initiative 638
02:02Washington already has important laws on the books laws that protect student
02:06privacy laws that guarantee equal protection and access to educational
02:09opportunities laws that protect students from discrimination initiative 638 did not
02:14repeal any of those laws so all those laws still exist and right now I don't see how
02:20we can implement the requirements of initiative 638 without violating those
02:24other laws and constitutional protections it raises serious questions about
02:28equal protection student privacy and whether we're creating additional
02:30barriers for female student athletes to pursue to participate in school
02:34athletics we can't pick one new law to follow and disregard other laws that's
02:39not what our oath tells us to do and when those laws potentially conflict we
02:42actually have a system for resolving those conflicts and that's called the
02:45courts our responsibilities ask the courts to help us understand how to meet
02:50all of our legal obligations especially when the rights of privacy dignity and
02:54students are at stake we received a lot of messages about
02:57tonight's resolutions many people are urging us to act to protect students others are
03:02acting or asking us to support initiative 638 and respectable the voters I want to
03:07address that directly I believe that what we're doing tonight is actually both
03:11protecting students and respecting the will of voters because yes voters
03:14supported the initiative 638 and we do take that seriously but our democracy also
03:19produced all those other laws those laws didn't come out of nowhere they came from the
03:23democratic process from representatives from votes and from our constitutional
03:27principles so those protections also reflect the will of the people we can't say
03:31we're respecting democracy if we treat the most recent vote as a reason to
03:34ignore all the other laws that are on the books and that's really what this
03:37resolution is about we're not asking the superintendent to pick and choose
03:40which laws to follow we're authorizing the superintendent working with our legal
03:44counsel to ask the courts to help resolve these serious legal questions because we have an
03:49obligation to uphold all of the laws and we have an obligation to protect
03:52students who are counting on us so that's why I'm supporting the resolution
03:55tonight thank you director Mizrahi do other board directors have comments they'd
04:02like to make director rinkin yeah similar to director Mizrahi we've we've taken a
04:11positional you know we as the whole board has taken a position on this
04:16initiative before it before people had the opportunity to vote on it stating our
04:22our values so I'm not going to repeat all of that but the part that I'm that makes
04:31this important for us to look to legal counsel and to direct our superintendent to
04:35authorize the use of those resources is because part of the initiative says that
04:41policies procedures rules and other requirements adopted in accordance with RCW
04:46you 28 a 600 200 by a school board of directors must you know implement the
04:55the initiative and we have 30 days so in addition to the conflicts in law that
05:03director Mizrahi brought up typically a board adopts two kinds of policies their own
05:10governing policies or bylaws and then the policies that provide direction to
05:15implement state law and those are the policies that the superintendent is charged
05:19with following the process usually involves other entities like OSPI like
05:30WASDA who do legal review do rulemaking write the model policy to instruct
05:36districts how to best comply with the law in this case this initiative is asking 295
05:43districts to do that all individually to figure out how to comply with something that is
05:48legally very complicated it does conflict and so and that typically takes months not 30
05:55days to go from legislation rulemaking model policy a board adoption of the policy and so
06:04I wanted to make that that really clear that the the direction from the board to the superintendent
06:11is not overturn the will of the voters it's not make let's pretend this never happened it's we do
06:19not among the seven of us and among the groups of five on 295 other school districts 294 other school
06:25districts in the state and I've been getting messages and calls from fellow directors all over
06:29the state that are saying how how do how are we supposed to do this what is the policy how
06:35are you
06:35able to do this or how how are we addressing this because it is it is actually very much not
06:41straightforward and so in addition to to other positions and what director of mizrahi see mizrahi
06:49has said we we need the advice and support of legal counsel and someone to weigh in on what this
06:55law is
06:56actually saying um and uh yeah that's it other directors
07:10all right i will look then to our student representative advisory vote i think we had some
07:17student representatives join yes student representative fonts
07:33um i would like to advise yes on this resolution
07:37great great great go ahead yeah representative fonts um i would like to advise yes on this resolution
08:01i believe that is all the student reps we have with us this evening thank you all right and seeing
08:10no
08:10other board directors who'd like to speak i will ask staff to please call the vote
08:17vice president briggs aye director la valley aye director mizrahi yes director rankin
08:33yes director smith aye director song yes president top yes
08:45yes dean this motion is passed unanimously
08:46yes
08:47All right.
