Meeting Summary
November 17, 1998
9:00am - 12:00pm
The Phoenix Room
Radisson / Quality Inn Hotel
SeaTac, Washington

Commission Attendance

Mona Lee Locke and Melinda French Gates, Co-Chairs; Don Brunell, Craig Cole, Kim Cook,
Robbin Dunn, Sheri Flies, Peter Jackson, Marty Jacobs, Lynn Kessler, Mary Ellen O’Keeffe,
Scott Oki, Dee Ann Perea, Yvonne Ullas, Lawrence White, Gayle Womack, Kyle Yasuda
and Diana Yu.

Others in Attendance

Sheila Connors, Deb Rough-Mack ; Meeting Facilitators

Meeting Summary:

Robin Zukoski welcomed the Commission and made a few announcements. First, the Commission
had arranged to meet in Olympia during its December meeting. This has changed since the
November meeting. The December 15 meeting will now be held at the Bellevue Hilton Hotel.
Second, Mrs. Zukoski gave a brief update on the Commission’s Parent Meetings. Spokane was held
on November 10 and was a great success, Yakima would be held on Thursday, November 19, and
the Tri-City meeting would occur on December 8. Mrs. Zukoski also announced that the Commission
would have Parent Meetings on January 14 in Bellingham and on January 28 in Vancouver. Mrs.
Zukoski explained that there would be time for public comment at the end of the meeting.

Mrs. Zukoski then introduced the facilitators Sheila Connors and Deb Rough-Mack who were asked
to come back to continue discussion and facilitation of the Commission’s goals.

The facilitators started with an overview of what was to occur during this working session.
They explained that they would review the purpose statement from the

previous meeting and then move forward to defining the action steps the ommission would take
to get to the Commission’s goals. The facilitators then reviewed these items from the last meeting.

Mrs. Gates then briefly discussed the Parents meeting that occurred in Spokane on November 10.
She explained that the meeting went very well, the discussion groups were very useful and
helped the Commissioners to understand the needs of the Spokane Community. Mrs. Locke
reiterated the success of the meeting and explained that they heard time and time again that
parents wanted all encompassing support.

Mrs. Gates then explained to the Commission that she wanted to discuss a couple of items prior
to continuing the work with the facilitators. First, the Commission’s legislative agenda. Mrs. Gates
explained that she and co-chair, Mrs. Locke, have written a letter to the Governor recommending
the legislative items that were developed during the October 20 meeting.

Second, Mrs. Gates explained to the Commission that the co-chairs had condensed the goals from 5
goals to 4 goals by incorporating the 5^th goal into the other goals. Mrs. Gates then asked the
Commission to review the goals, and opened the meeting up for discussion of these items. Diana Yu
expressed concern that the Basic Health Plan was not being utilized to its full potential.
Representative Kessler commented that the Basic Health Plan was currently being funded to cover
people with incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty level and that Healthy Options
(coverage for children) was included in the plan. Mrs. Locke noted that during the Spokane meeting
many parents expressed the need for having testing for hearing and vision screening for infants.
Kyle Yasuda explained that there was currently a task force on newborn hearing and screening and
that the taskforce would be developing a report to the legislature on its findings. Mrs. Locke noted
that service integration was inherent in goal 1. Some concern was expressed that developing a 0-3
program be included in goal 1. The Commission agreed that the category of unmet needs would be
addressed in the Bill of Rights for kids.

The facilitators then began to proceed with the development of action steps. They asked the
Commission if they wanted to address one goal at a time, or work on all goals simultaneously.
The Commission agreed to work on the first goal: "Blueprint for integrated approach to Early Care
Education and Parent support that is family focused."

Based on the three action steps that were identified to meet this goal, the Commissioners were
asked to break into groups to work on the key tasks involved in each action step.

Next, each group was asked to give a brief report back to the Commission on the key tasks identified
for that group’s action step*

After the reports, the commission agreed that they would continue this process at the next meeting.

At the end of the meeting Mrs. Gates thanked Sheila Connor, Marsha Fraser and Debbie Rough-Mack
for their help facilitating the process. Their work with the Commission is now complete.

The meeting was adjourned.

Home | Meetings