2012-10-15 PPS School Board Study Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2012-10-15
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	study
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education, 10/15/12 Study Session

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wait are we set here thank you this study session of the Board of Education for October 15th is called to order welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers this meeting has been televised live and where we play throughout the next two weeks please check the World website for replay time I want to start by thanking the tax supervising and taxing commission that just uh concluded a meeting here and and basically a hearing on the on the school band that is coming up for about November 6th I hope everybody gets out there on boats we need your support I also wanted to acknowledge the presence of PSU students one of our former colleagues De La Cruz Williams has a tendency to try to get them out to this board meetings I'm not sure where are they you know so thank you all for being present Mr I see Mr Poe now is in the ranks of a student with uh De La Cruz okay um anyway welcome um and I know you probably follow up with uh individual board members in regards to what our experience is here if I remember that assignment that delivers gives but um we look forward to that email with their follow-up questions uh we're gonna start with uh public comment uh has anybody signed up for our public comment yes we have one Catherine Dunn is done oh have you testified before the board I have okay it's a pretty simple week here to listen and pay as close attention to we just ask that you be respectful as you address the board members and also staff and you have about three minutes uh the lights will come on uh when you have two minutes two minutes left the yellow light will come on and then uh the red light will will come on and at that point the Buster will sound and we ask you to conclude your comments at that point so thank you in advance for being here okay okay thank you so I just go ahead and start okay good evening thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight my name is Catherine Dunn and this is my husband Brian ormiston we are here seeking guidance and support from the Portland Public Schools we hope for an advocate within the PPS system who can support our goal of getting our daughter Julia into the Mandarin immersion program this year for first grade we believe she should be granted entry because she was for the first and only child on the waiting list and five students have withdrawn from the program Julia did not get into kindergarten via the lottery last year she was waitlisted we petitioned through PPS and we qualified for a hardship case sadly there was no space as the classes were filled to capacity so we took out a loan and sent Julia to the international school for kindergarten with a determination to try again for first grade last February we once again went to the required meeting filled out a petition qualified for a hardship case and became number one on the waiting list for first grade Julia was in fact the only kid on the waiting list for first grade this summer we sold our house and now rent in the Woodstock neighborhood while we actively look for a home to buy in District um at the start over the summer three kids disenrolled from first grade at the start of the Year another one dropped out now there is a fifth we continue however however to be told there is no space for Julia even when five children have have left the program over the past five months I've made multiple attempts to contact principal Patterson I have telephoned leaving messages requesting to meet with her in person I have stopped by the Woodstock front office I even dropped by a letter with her assistant it was our wish to introduce ourselves have a dialogue and find out the reasons why when five students withdraw there is not room for one to enroll I understand she is very busy yet I also find it remarkable that in five months I have not had the opportunity to speak with her directly it is not my intention to offend principal Patterson by seeking assistance from you but I feel as though I have hit a dead end I simply cannot understand how a public school can turn down one student when five have withdrawn from the program the Japanese program at Richmond capped their classes at 28. the Russian program have not of 29 kids in their first grade classes Woodstock has 27 in one class and 28 in the other why isn't there room for one more please allow Julia entry into first grade this year or at the very least compromise with us keep the waiting list intact with Julia number one for the past two years we have done everything asked of us by Woodstock Elementary and
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the PPS office of enrollment and transfer it would be devastating if another family decided this year on a whim that they would like to try and transfer and got in ahead of us our motivation to be here tonight is our daughter we brought Julia home from China when she was 14 months she has grown into a delightful and inquisitive six-year-old girl she loves to play dress up swing on the monkey bars draw from her imagination and play with her friends what she loves most however is learning Mandarin her passion is our passion thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to be here tonight we greatly appreciate your time thank you and one of the things that I didn't mention at the at the as I was mentioned in terms of the guidance is that we don't necessarily engage in regards to the testimonies given here but our staff will follow up so if you can provide your contact information to Catherine selfish back there that we they don't address we don't necessarily engage in the discussion today okay thank you very much that was it thank you um so we have the Franklin cluster presentation um tonight will be the first of our high school cluster presentations this presentation is featuring different School clusters um each month we'll hope to do this we'll allow the board to conduct a deeper dive on on the Milestone data at the school level we have allocated about an hour for this discussion 30 minutes for presentation maximum and I tend to try to keep it to that um and as a reminder for ourselves in regards to support uh you know the whole look at the Milestone data is is one of those things that we continue to have as as part of our monitoring approach so superintendent Smith if you want to introduce the staff that will be coming our chief academic officer and just say we're really excited about this we've been looking at the Milestone data as an entire district for several years now and this is our opportunity to look at each cluster so we're doing a cluster each month Franklin is our first one so we're really excited to actually hear from principals hear about specific strategies that they're working that are raising achievement and helping close the gap and specific challenges that they face as a cluster but we will be doing one of these each month and really seeing the entire feeder pattern and what the strategies are across a feeder pattern that are part of how we're raising our graduation rate so Sue Anne good evening it's a pleasure to be here with the large number of our principals who are here tonight and so I want to just rapidly hand things off to Antonio Lopez and Tripp Goodall the regional administrators supervising this feeder pattern strand in our school district it's an exciting opportunity for us to collaborate more deeply on a K-12 look at how we're doing and so thank you just for creating the space for us tonight and so I will invite Antonio and trip forward to narrate their the Journey of the Franklin cluster tube foreign superintendent Smith School Board directors thanks again for providing us time this evening to discuss um the Franklin cluster schools the intent of these presentations is to provide you insights around the challenges and the accomplishments found within our neighborhood schools we know that aligning our work at the Pre-K 12 through the we know that aligning our work Pre-K 12 is of critical importance students arriving at our high schools need to be high school ready capable in
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four years to graduate from high school able to have access to college and career opportunities we hope this year to establish opportunities for the feeder principals to meet with our high school principals to better align the work within each cluster we hope to get a Common Language around things like quality culturally responsive instructions sound grading practices and equity we're confident that through aligning our work student achievement will improve and we will narrow the achievement Gap across our district we have a great group of principals here tonight to speak with you and I'm honored to have my good friend and colleague Antonio Lopez continue this presentation thank you very much co-chairs Gonzalez and Belial directors a student representative and superintendent it is a great honor to be here in front of you and to bring this amazing group of principles that are they're going to introduce themselves but I wanna I wanna start by saying that I'm really honored to be working with such a great uh group of people that are committed to make sure that our students are successful that they have what they need and that we we are working in collaboration to make sure that we build this K-12 alignment so before I continue I'm going to ask the administrators to introduce themselves in their school s Pam Joyner principal at Lane Middle School this is my second year assistant principal at Kelly School you and Brawley and I'm the principal at Glencoe Elementary it's my first year I'm Brenda Fox I'm the principal of Richard K-8 and this is my this is McLaughlin principal at Mary's middle fifth year Amy Kleiner principal at Sunnyside my second year as principal I was the AP there for four years I'm Chris Gutierrez I'm the interim principal at Kristen Kevin crotchet principal at early to school just started my third year at Arleta um and I'm starting my third year at Atkinson my name is Heather Hall I'm the principal at Woodmere and I think this is Sharon Allen I've been at Kelly on The Beverly Pruitt Richmond Japanese immersion pre-k through fifth grade and this is my fourth year for a lottery magnet for the entire District thank you thank you the only one is missing is the only one missing is John horde from Land school he was not able to be here to go to um situation but he called me I want to tell you in terms of how excited I am to be working with this with this cluster like I said before this is an amazing group of people that we're committed in in collaborating and working hard to make sure that our students get the education that they deserve that we engage our community we're committed a hundred percent to the Milestones we're committed to the 100 of our current Kinder students by the time they're in third grade to be um reading to learn I want to tell you that is not only the commitment for the current kindergartens we're committed to make sure that the students that currently are in our school to receive the education and the skills that they need to be successful so it's not that we're waiting for the kindergartens to beat their graders we're working with the current first graders and second graders to make sure that they're acquiring the skills necessary for them to learn to read we have been working with our principals in several areas there are four areas that we currently uh that we shows as a focus the first one is equity so we're meeting with our principals in terms of establishing the codes what is it that they want to accomplish in terms of equity are we having monthly meetings in which we will gonna discuss what are the what are the things in their school and how they're moving it Forward how it's Equity um translated into in the classroom and cultural responsive instruction in terms of how they're working with their teachers to be um um
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to be able to to interact with students in a in a cultural responsive way we're also looking at the Milestones not only that third grade but also looking at the seventh grade in in into High School the other area that we work in is in quality of instruction what is it that our principles are doing to work with our teachers to make sure that they receive the professional development that they need in terms of how to look at the evaluation process and make it a meaningful and how to uh how to engage our teachers in a more reflective way the other area the last wonderful area that we're working is in discipline looking at discipline and every month like I say in these four areas we're going to be meeting and and seeing what progress has been made discipline is we pick a discipline because we know that we have a lot of work to do in terms of how to make sure that we have practices that are Equitable where we don't have a high representation of students of color in terms of the suspensions and expulsions so those are the areas that we will be monitoring in in a monthly basis principles will have a working portfolio in which they will put evidence I mean we'll put evidence of what is the word that is that is happening at their school and the next part you're going to hear from a couple of principals that they will tell you some of the successes that they have seen in their school and some of the challenges so I'm going to ask Debbie armendaris and Heather Hall to come to the front good evening my name is Heather Hall and I've been elected to start first and so um I just want to tell you a little bit about Woodmere Elementary just in case you don't know we're K5 um building and we have roughly uh 389 not roughly exactly 389 students today uh whereas I'm a single administrator in the building we have a sun school program we are we have been identified as a Zone school so we have 87 free and reduced lunch and about half of our students come from families that speak a language other than English at home about 31 or 121 of our kids qualify for ESL services or as fun is working on emergent bilingual programming we have over a dozen languages spoken and more than more cultures we have an amazing staff at Woodmere and they work hard to do what's best for kids and this summer we were identified as a focus school as part of the esea waiver and that through that process it's really allowed us to take a look at what's working and what we're doing well and the areas that we need growth in so prior to becoming a Zone school about two years ago we really struggled with accessing intervention curriculum to accelerate our student learning and also being able to access our data in a timely and user-friendly format um and our ability to have high leverage plcs that really impacted student learning and those were all challenges had been challenges for years and with becoming a school a Zone school it was really a Tipping Point for us last year when we were given the gift of a school Improvement specialist assists and it's been an essential resource in allowing our building to move the necessary necessary work forward and just to give you a little bit of insight as to what that's allowed us to do it's given me a partner being alone in the building it's really important for me to have a partner that allows all of her time is focused on instructional development of the staff it's someone to ensure that we're able to utilize data in a timely manner that's very accessible for our teachers it's increased our ability to have meaningful conversations through our embedded PD based strictly on student data whether it's in the form of student work formative assessment indicators or summative assessments it's allowed us to do a much better job integrating the district initiatives such as Equity PBIS data wise and the RTI work in in our that's going on in our school into our
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our weekly conversations it's also helped us to create a culture shift in our building and we have someone that is able to do coaching with the teachers someone that's able to step in and allow teachers to do peer coaching we have someone that is there to step in and look at children that aren't fitting exactly into groups and see what we can do to help them be more successful in the classroom and we're also able to really connect to the district big buckets of work and so um there was these results that directly impact our kids are really that teachers are having very high level conversations during their 90-minute embedded PD time and staff meeting time that have a very direct um impact on the quality of instruction in the classroom we're able to provide tier two and three interventions for students in reading and behavior this year because we've been able to shift resources around a bit because few of our students that are coming up are Primary students are in need of tier three interventions we're able to devote some of those resources to math um and we really have enabled teachers to work together to problem solve issues about relevant curriculum and student learning and we are also working this year to embed ELD instruction do content-based ELD instruction in the classroom and interrupt you for one second I'm just going to ask you to if you can like to spell out those all those acronyms yes this was the sake of the public and ourselves to be remind of it and if possible also you know in in a brief way explain what your one tier two tier three entails okay because otherwise I mean I think the public will be so our tier three okay our tier three interventions so it kind of goes um tier two are kids that are able to access the Core Curriculum so they are students that are on track for meeting Benchmark our tier two instruction are for our kiddos that are almost meeting Benchmark and our tier three are our kiddos that are for this from meeting Benchmark that are getting specially designed instruction to support not clear enough or I'm just trying to to just uh just kidding the kiddos part um sometimes that's not I mean we heard it before okay I think it's important to be kind of be conscious of the fact that we use a lot of inspeak okay so um so our ELD is English language development so we're able to do content based so teaching ESL in the classroom through a Content area we are integrating the work we're doing in Behavior through PBIS so and Bobby good job and our work with equity and sheltered instructions so making sure our second language students can access the curriculum we are embracing our work that we this we have had for the past two years um funded partially through uh title one we have partnered with them to do the early and Title One and son to do the early kindergarten transition program that has been piloted at our school and also Harrison Park that gives our kindergarten students a three-week head start on starting kindergarten at the in August so um the target audience for that is kindergartners that have not had incoming kindergartners that have not had a preschool experience and so that has been very successful for us and it has a very large parent component as well and our parents have loved it very nice feedback they met last week to talk about that and um we have also been able to do um in the realm of exciting things in in our world we've really been able to leverage our partnership with sun to do some nice work uh extending the school day and meeting parents where they need to be met so some of that is basic needs um with our work we've been able to do
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these exciting things including all the alphabet soup um because we believe we can think outside the box and we can do what's best for our kids we believe that we can take the structures that have kind of been a part of you know the response to intervention and all the the initiatives we have as a district and make them fit what our school and our kids need and most importantly we have a vision and a school Improvement specialist that really helps us glue our work together and is that connection piece for us as far as challenges go um the budget an uncertain budget is definitely a challenge we work really hard to create sustainable systems and we're not always sure if there's going to be someone to maintain that system in coming years we have to make some pretty terrible choices on things that we keep and things that we hold because we believe that they're what's best for kids academically at the expense of something else and we have to pretty much always say we could do more if only um are definitely words that come up a lot and time is another challenge that we Face there's not enough time for us to do what needs to be done and our plate is very full and so there's always more to do so got a lot going on hi I'm uh I'm David minaris and I'm glad Heather went first because she um she kind of told my story I think she told all of our stories um one thing that we have found very challenging at Atkinson School where I'm the principal and we have a we have a neighborhood side and we have an immersion side of Spanish Immersion inside but you guys probably knew that right yes okay um but one of the things that we find very challenging is making data driven decisions around instruction and instructional groupings and along with that data-driven decisions one of the challenges we find is identifying our students of color within our neighborhood program because we really have so few um so one of what has worked at Atkinson School is really a credit to Carol because what has worked has been aligning ourselves and our school Improvement strategy to the superintendent's strategy District strategy and that is around accountability and systems of accountability rigorous core programs safety nets and providing our students with strong teachers so I could really talk about each one of those bullet points for about an hour but I don't think I have that much time so I'll just tell you about one thing and yes Martin is shaking his head so I'll just tell you about one one strategy we've used and that's around rigorous programs so we have because we're not a Zone school we have not always had access to a lot of the staff development that zone schools that are are provided and that's just a financial reality but we have been able to use some of our Title One money when we were at Title One School we're not a Taiwan school anymore that's okay um to participate and to kind of sneak in the back door to some of those staff trainings for Zone schools and what we've done is really strengthen our reading program uh it used to be at Atkinson School that if you were on grade level in Reading you received on grade level instruction or reading and if you were below grade level in Reading then you only received below grade level instruction and reading so that's really not acceptable that is not that strategy of providing strong rigorous programs for everyone so we did a lot of work around well what does it mean to have Fidelity to the current reading program which is the Scott forsman program what are the essential pieces in that and those conversations were not things that we needed to dream up or figure out on our own because the office of curriculum and instruction had done that for the Zone school so all we had to do was pay for our subs show up at the Zone school training and um and take that knowledge we we took that we've been benchmarking students as all schools have been and looking at that data but because we have increased the Fidelity that means we've we've increased how much we use the Scott enforcement materials that the district has purchased we've I have required teachers to turn into me the unit Assessments in the Scott forsman so you know if you have to turn in the unit assessment you're going to make sure that you taught the stuff and your kids do well on the unit assessment and then when teachers turn that into me they they highlight the students of color so doing that helps us all hold ourselves accountable for students that in some classrooms we're talking about two or three students and that has been
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I think very helpful in creating a shift among our staff they hold themselves accountable for those students because they know that they're going to have to highlight them and turn them into me and they know that this is part of our Milestones work this is the gap these are the kids who represent the Gap that we're trying to close so having that data piece with the benchmarking data piece has helped us triangulate where students are and strategize what we do after we teach students the grade level materials in Reading then when we it's time to differentiate for students that are low and for students that are high how do I decide how I'm going to build my instructional groupings and we do that through triangulating the data with all these different data points one of the challenges for us around that is that we don't have a school Improvement specialist so we don't have a person that manages all that data for us so I have been doing some of that and I I obviously can't do all of that and I have one FTE that I kept us reading intervention and those and I split over two people and they have been helping me kind of analyze that data but we certainly have not been able to do that at the level that Heather's sis had has been able to lead her school in doing that I will also tell you that one of the things that makes it very difficult is that some of the difficult decisions that we have to make as as principals I chose to keep that one FTE at Atkinson school and that means that we lost some other things and it was really a community conversation to figure out well we want music for everyone but we want reading for everyone and in order to get reading for everyone some kids have to have more FTE um so that was a very difficult conversation that we had to have in community members I think some of them you will remember them because they came to your meetings last year insisted that they they did feel that's not their own kid someone else's kid needed that um that ft so that is always a challenge always a challenge but again I think what's been successful for us um what's been what's helped us have results is to align our school Improvement plan to superintendent's work and the work that is being carried out in the zone schools thank well it's uh my pleasure and honor to introduce Shea James principal of Franklin High School a school that has a long and proud tradition a very dedicated Community including a very loyal alumni base during the high school system design meetings more than a thousand people attended parents students alumni and packed that Auditorium Franklin has a deep commitment to all its students the work of principal James and the teachers at Franklin has made a significant difference especially in raising the achievement of students of color their efforts have gained national and local attention Franklin's ranked 16th among amongst Oregon schools high schools by U.S News their Advanced Scholars Program has been nationally recognized for their support and access to advanced placement courses dramatically increasing the number of students of color taking AP classes and then last year many of you were there Franklin was featured by the Oregon Department of Education for its focus on equity and Excellence Shea is an incredible advocate for her community for her students and her staff and I'm proud to work with her Shane thank you Tara Gonzalez and members of the board thank you for the opportunity to speak about Franklin's accomplishments and challenges today in many ways Franklin High School has been an example of our District's aspirations to deliver both excellence and equity we're proud of what we've accomplished and we're excited about the ways our school is changing at the same time we Face challenges that are unique to Franklin and challenges that are shared by other schools let me Begin by sharing some of the many things I am proud of about Franklin the first is our school's commitment to equity starting under the leadership of the late Dr Charles Hobson Franklin has pioneered school-wide efforts to make Equity a focus of instruction and our school's culture and climate starting with courageous conversations we have made Equity a consistent strand of our professional development in addition our teachers and administrators conduct quarterly reviews of our disaggregated student data and we discuss culturally competent strategies to improve our results and reduce disparities in the classroom
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our focus on Equity has driven a school-wide commitment to wrapping our arms around all of our kids and providing them both providing them with both challenges and supports from our ninth grade academies to our weekly and meetings to identify and help students who are at risk of dropping out our goal is to build strong and supportive relationships that keep students on track through our Advanced Scholars Program we are also raising expectations and giving our students the opportunity to take advanced placement and dual college credit courses putting them on the road to college success I'm also proud of the way our school has become larger and a stronger Community following the merge of Marshall and Franklin I am pleased that Franklin's focus on both equity and Excellence has produced State and National recognition for the accomplishments of our students and staff and Tripp just mentioned a few of them last and I'll and I'll repeat because they're we're proud of them last school year we received a celebrating Student Success award from the Oregon Department of Education for our work towards closing the achievement Gap earlier this year Franklin was ranked as the 16th best high school in Oregon and recognized nationally by the U.S news and World reports and Franklin also received a spotlight on success award for achievement in Access and Equity from the College Board I am particularly proud of the state and National recognition that Franklin has received because our school has had high percentages of students of color and high numbers of students who qualify for free and reduce lunch Franklin has shown that race and income do not always predict student achievement or student school Success in fact we know that high schools can close the gap raise graduation rates provide access and support for advanced placement courses and other important measures of academic Excellence because Franklin has experienced it and yet we also know we have a lot more work to do at the same time our demographics are changing Franklin now has the highest special education population among our high schools I think with five more students than Madison so not a lot but we're there and it's the home to district-wide special education program which is reflected in our school data we also have the second highest English language Learners population among our high schools second to Madison by one student and I think that this number often goes unnoticed we have the highest number of students on free and reduced lunch we don't have the highest percentage but we have the highest straight numbers at over 800 kids in our school this evolution in our student population offers Franklin new challenges but also new opportunities and as a staff we view last year's student achievement data as a new Baseline because we became a new school at the same time here's what is not changing at Franklin our goal is to close the gap and help all students succeed just as our enrollment has increased we will work hard to raise student achievement for every student every group of students in our school I just really want to thank you for the opportunity to share our successes and our challenge tonight and I'm happy to answer any questions you're done with your presentation is that correct for you're right on time so at this point we're gonna open it up for for discussion and questions from the from the board we all received a a packet of information in regards to the Franklin cluster School profiles and in addition to the presentation that we got here today so question comments and you received the Milestone data for this cluster no I had one question as I was looking at how many Peter schools there are you've got 14 or 15 it seems like right between your well I mean all the way coming up between k5s k-8s and middle schools um and we have over the years um converted some middle schools to k-8s or some K-5 skates and it looks like you have a pretty good mix of kids coming in either through a K-8 model or through a middle school model as those kids arrive at your doorstep do you have can you can you tell any differences in how well they're prepared for high school because each of the models has different things that are wonderful about them and each of the models is things that aren't can you can
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you give us any sense of that expensive academics I wouldn't say that it's greatly noticeable in terms of student experiences and what they've been able to have access to prior to coming that is noticeable you know have students have have the opportunity to change classes in the hallway have they had an opportunity to have lockers what have they been exposed to that we can see when they come in the door and in terms of them continuing on and graduating do you see any difference in in kids who have been through a K-8 versus the middle school I don't know if we have data on this district-wide so I was just kind of curious if you have any sense of that and we could we haven't we haven't looked at that data um in particular what I can tell you anecdotally is we were really worried this year about the math Core Curriculum and students coming you know prior students started their algebra one two freshmen at chapter one and this year they were going to be starting at chapter five and I'll tell you I had three teachers in my office the other day telling our team our admin team how the teachers at our feeder schools rocked it last year like they've never seen before because kids know they said they are ready and really in each class they can count the number of kids on one hand that really are not at Benchmark and not ready to start at chapter five so it was the biggest um that was the most students that they've seen come in this year at any particular time in math we were really excited about that because we were very nervous yeah so is that a result of the new math curriculum from last year is that the change that that occurred last year I think these students went through the counterparts could probably talk to that a little bit better we this has been new to us we haven't been high schools really haven't been at the table um through this math piece and so we're kind of just coming in and learning but we were worried and and incredibly surprised pleasantly surprised for all groups of students so I don't know if one of them and after very recently were involved even you were involved in quite a bit on the math yeah so you can step up a little bit or yeah yeah colleagues up there so yeah um the the answer to that is that the first four chapters uh what was ninth grade algebra did move down last starting last year to eighth grade in the core program math so how's it now that you're in the the other side from this Central Administration into the actual implementation on the on the direct um in terms of you know what I see personally in terms of the the changes um yeah it's it's it's an interesting shift and it's one that I made actually one other time before in my career and um I think that um the the biggest shift that you know for me personally that's that's gratifying is to be able to work with kids um every day again um I think that it's you know a human response to to doing work in a in a in an office setting is to um somehow um not say I wouldn't say lose lose perspective but it's difficult to maintain perspective on working with kids every day when you're not around kids every day and so for me personally that's been uh very very gratifying and I'm really glad to be doing what I'm doing so you recommended all Central administrators to make sure that they it's it's funny I was just having this conversation today with uh with jolly who came out for a visit she came out to Glencoe and uh I I think it would be a really a really great thing for for everybody that works centrally to have an opportunity to to be in schools thank you all the requests in our materials that we receive this weekend included Your milestones work and I would be remiss if or we all would if you were missing we didn't acknowledge the great strides that have been made in every single category you guys are improving and that is really wonderful to see but shayad you just briefly mentioned your Advanced Scholars Program would you go into a little more detail about that because I think that's that's pretty special program at Franklin and one that I hope that we're going to be replicating other around the district it is and and the advanced Scholars one of our challenges
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can you can you explain what it is for the public out there absolutely I will um for us our our students that opted it's optional for students to opt into the program when they choose to do so they make a commitment that they will maintain a certain grade point average they also maintain that over the four years they will take a certain amount of advanced placement courses or dual college credit courses they are also each given a mentor and they meet with a mentor on a regular basis during lunch the mentors talking about all aspects you know looking at their transcripts with them having conversations about college and Beyond and also students by being in this program they agree to sit in on additional courses and and this is really at their own time like lunch they might pop into a pre-ap strategy course that teaches them how to do AP strategies so you know you've got the high expectations but the program really gives the support so that students can meet that those expectations so it's not that they're just left to flounder on their own I think what has been particularly incredible at Franklin is the amount of underrepresented students that are now participating in AP as a result of our advanced placement program we have about I'd say 25 to 30 percent of the school involved in it it's pretty incredible it's a program that our community is behind and when you say what it is in the community a lot of people know what it is and so and and for the last few years that we can probably say that every single student that's been in advanced placement program has gone on to college students to be part of this program so that it's not there isn't the underrepresentation problem right right so um because the mentors are teachers in the building and folks in the building I'm also a mentor of a not quite as many as the teachers take but we do a lot of personal invitations with students there's a lot of advertisement that happens in the classroom because it's all you know homegrown and it's in there it's we really get out and get after it a lot of informational meetings and then of course Pizza never hurts for lunch to help get students there to hear the information so and then also student to student we have a peer ventor program in our building that also a lot of the students are telling other students about it and and you got to get in there and sometimes we do a little will and deal you know we have a student that might end up in our office for a discipline and and that might be the hook that we use to go a different route rather than a painted house so all kinds of different so it's interesting you should say that particular piece because you know in our packets we uh I love these little uh fact sheets about the schools I think it's really interesting kind of nerdy but um the uh the school environment the comparable District average for student suspension is seven and a half percent um about three oh less than three and a half percent for students at um at Franklin and I'm interested in hearing maybe why that is and are there alternatives to suspension that you found have worked equally or as well or better yeah I definitely have to we have a peer mediation program in our building that's completely ran by students they're trained it's an incredible program we have one of our teachers anibo Rivera who's ran that for several years we also have we do in-school suspension which you know is a form of suspension but it also keeps kids in school and allows them to do their homework and not just kind of you know outside and on the streets and I think that our Equity work really has also played a role in you know as I mentioned we're looking at data on a quarterly basis with teachers so they're actually looking at each one of their individual pieces of data on discipline and grade by subcategories so I those are some of the things are happening and and I would be remiss to say you know I you have um administrators of color in the building that I think also plays a role and I don't think that that's a have to but I I think that that does play a role in it yeah so I'm kind of a follow-up maybe it's more for for trip or Antonio just in terms of when we have these best practices that are clearly succeeding and really making a difference in a school and I know there are conversations in between clusters it's great that you
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have this very cluster-wide focus and cohesion but to what extent are we really sharing and or encouraging requiring whatever that the best practices be applied in other schools in the district other high schools in particular in this instance if a real really important high school strategy I know this year we're having an additional high school meeting each month and part of that is there's two things one for me is a big one of the sound reading practices that all of the high school principals want to get involved in that conversation and then the rest of the time it's really about sharing doing Folks at home need to hear so last year we had uh once a month leadership and we didn't have a second time really to meet as a group and so this year all of the RAS really wanted to have more time to work with our respective principals to be able to talk about best practices and so we now have about a four hour period third Thursday of each month and so for me one of the things is sound grading practices that's a just a non-negotiable because I think getting that consistency and talking about best practices around assessment and identifying the needs of our kids is important but then the other time is really about sharing out practices that are occurring in our schools I know with um Antonio and Sasha and others we've talked about how can we bring our feeder principles together with our high school principal to talk about things around what I'll call academic civilities behavioral expectations because if we really do believe in the neighborhood School concept there's no reason why we shouldn't be aligning practices from one school to the next from one grade level to the next so that when students do arrive at Franklin for example it's not like we're having to teach them things that they haven't already learned and so we're excited about getting that conversation going so I know with all of the high school principals I've given them my support to provide the the mechanism if you will to bring people together at the high school to be able to do that so now it's a matter of coordinating that that opportunity I mean it's always that challenge of not wanting it to be you know cookie cutter each girls have their individual character and so forth and yet wanting to make sure that the urgency is clear and that we are moving forward in an aligned way as a district and we've identified the problem and we're seeing some examples of what really is working so just I think we're all pretty eager to see understanding that there can be some differences but I don't know that there really are I mean we've got kids being suspended who shouldn't be out of school and who should be encouraged to reach their potential through their courses and you know AP whatever so I just want to put a word in for let's keep let's have more folks doing with what you're doing and I know there's other things great things happen in other high schools as well that won't imply they aren't but I'm just it's just that urgency and let's let's be willing to change what we're doing so the practice sharing occurs in the um in the high school specific meetings or in the cluster meetings also our leadership academies this year we have a group of I think it's almost 20 23 25 principals who are driving the content of that and really looking at how they're making visible practices that are working and sharing practice on all sorts of things but it's really being driven by principal need and and and ability to make visible things that are working so and we reach out to each other and we're doing a lot of that work I you know just a couple weeks ago I had a phone call from Vivian and hey I'm coming over to your school on Friday I want to see what you're doing here and you know we've had some conversations with Carol Benson and Madison and I could say it all but and I and I'm can only imagine that that's happening as well the feeders absolutely yeah yes and I'm gonna put Anthony on the spot in a minute here so as as you all have been talking I've been hearing things like you know one of you as an instructional specialist one of you has a pure mediation program another has a school Improvement specialist and I keep thinking about all the different strategies that you use with the limited funds that you have and I guess one of the questions I was trying to think about is if at some point the governor and the Oregon education investment board actually decided to invest more in education is there would there be any consensus about how additional funds might be used to really raise the bar in terms of student achievement or closing
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the achievement Gap is I mean is there anything that kind of you screams out to principals like oh my God I would love to have all right now and she can Echo this I'm sure and the principles here but last year there was a unanimous support for the instructional Specialists that worked at the high schools and um you know we weren't able to preserve that position in its entirety in all of our schools but that was a position that across the board principles really really valued the work that instructional Specialists provided in our schools at the high school level with the instructor of the essential skills requirement now having a dedicated person in the building to really monitor that work to help teachers understand for example how to embed writing in the curriculum those kinds of things it's incredibly valuable a full a full day schedule for kids would be imperative that would be a late top priority for high school and how about at the middle school k5k level is there anything that would kind of stand out okay are you gonna write this down seeing us how I am not a title one school or a Zone school I'm just a school I think absolutely what Heather talked about a school Improvement specialist someone who can manage all the data but then in addition to that interventionists and that's teachers who can work with your lowest students which are the tier two tier three students with your low students while that homeroom teacher is working with a different group so it would be having our lowest students not have any independent work time which for our low student is is not super productive time so interventionists and schools Improvement Specialists for sure it's good it's not it's not gonna so just uh we had a couple of specific results called out of the couple schools in terms of just vast improvements for Latino students so we heard from Atkinson it sounds like this the highlighting piece of where your teachers are being held accountable for the students of color may be contributing to because you went from at the third grade milestone for um from 47 to 72 percent for Hispanic students but I was wondering about Bridger it's um and it's only 16 but you had to jump from 13 to 56 so I just didn't know if there are any specific strategies just along the same lines of hearing about best practices and congratulations to everybody for your great gains and it's very exciting for me well I'm going to Echo my colleagues need for the school Improvement specialist and the interventionist I'm fortunate enough to have both of those in my building and a lot of that came from getting the school and prevent specialist for the first time putting clear structures in for response to intervention that have been missing prior to that in my school and so every student is in a two in the appropriate tier we Benchmark we progress monitor we re-evaluate we come together as teams to do that so the school Improvement specialist leaves a lot of that work but without the interventionist piece it can't happen so it's that one-two punch if you will and I'll tell you the one thing that keeps me up at nights right now is I'm thinking about Staffing for next year already and knowing that the school Improvement Specialists were a two-year position and that I won't have that gift from the district and what's going to happen next year and how am I going to make this work for my kids next year the school Improvement specialist is really focused on the data part partly data partly professional development so working with teachers on correct improving their practice right and the intervention is to someone who's really working with students exactly exactly so for instance my school Improvement specialist will pull together every grade level team about once a month and they will work for half days we have a half day subs and they will come together and look at every single child in the in the grade level and talk about where they are right now where they were are they staying at core are they falling below are we seeing kids jump from third tier to one and if we are what is that teacher doing or what is that intervention is doing and how do we start replicating that out at every grade level great thank you I hope the Oregon education investment board and Dr Woody crew are listening to all of you send them
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yeah you know by my by my timing I think it's still close to 10 minutes and and by the way the board can extend the time if needed you know one of the uh again I I think that as as my colleagues have mentioned I think we're we're impressed in regards to the the gains that have been made I think throughout the the schools uh and wanted to to I guess look at some of the things that that I mean we didn't we don't necessarily didn't look at in regards to school Improvement plans I know those were done last year and I got a chance to to view him last year but there is still some you know different uh there's not necessarily we don't have necessarily the consistency across all of them yet but I think what we're what I was looking for also is is the consistency regards to the actually the sharing of the experiences and and what's what specifically has been done to share those experiences that where there is learning uh particularly I think that in I was looking at you know the the work that was done with with latino students but also African-American students I think even though there's small numbers but there is definitely a lot of gains that were made in in this area and I mean those are two populations particularly I think that they have we have had challenges whether it's a district so right so what what how are you earning your pay in other words as a as a regional administrator you know working with the with the principles well you know I'm really lucky to work with uh with just amazing people that are committed to the work and in terms of learning from each other like for example this Thursday all of us gonna meet at the school at lent and we're going to do classroom observations using the new evaluation tool and we're gonna look at for example some of the indicators in the teacher evaluation the purpose of that is to calibrate our thinking in terms of how do we provide meaningful input feedback for teachers so they can they can they can use that to better their instructions so um all of us here are really committed yeah to the equity work to the four areas that I mentioned earlier the equity the Milestones call it instruction and the discipline data and it is we know that there are every school is different and but as you can see from the data there are some schools that are really doing an amazing job and part of visiting each other in the schools is to to know what are the things that they're doing that are being successful and what are the challenges and what are the things that we can learn and what are the things that we as a cluster can say these are the really good sound strategies that we we wanted to duplicate in every school so it's a learning it's a learning process and we're really committing in terms of the equity work and desegregating data and looking at our students that historically have been their needs have not been made and so I'm really excited of meeting uh once a month with every principal and just go over these markers because I think it will it will it will provide us a great Avenue for us too to really pull out those things that we know that are successful and and visiting each other's building buildings does that answer your question well it does I mean I think it helps I think to not leave it more some of the specifics in regards to some of that work um that is taking place the other part I mean this is one of the the most diverse in in terms of the the immersion programs right that that the district incorporated into one cluster and there's that Dynamic of a neighborhood School versus a magnet school right or or part of it and then the other part of it is is that I mean I think both interns will blend in and uh Bridger schools that started with one strand and there's always you know the the the attrition and also the numbers that were might not be present so how do we how is that uh I mean how is that discussion happening as a cluster in regards to how to pester those students that are both emerging bilingual
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students but also students that are already in those programs to be able to strengthen those programs so one of the discussions that we've been having for quite a few years how to make the immersion programs where it is in the school that there is not one program um competing with the other but how can we have that to program support each other in terms of of the strategies and the support um we have seen some challenges in terms of making sure that that there is not a competition for students but rather look at what the student needs to be successful and how do we own our neighborhood kids and how do we own our own immersion kids together as a school as a staff so that's the conversation that we still have we still have in in terms of you know how we support those those two programs to coexist and to support each other you know I'm just looking at Debbie because I know she's she's one that will rob students from other schools um not not putting it that way but but it's again I mean I think getting back to the whole question of how do we how do we provide a program that is that is most useful for that student whether that student is in another school and but that school does not necessarily have it right and and that's I think that a challenging discussion but I think it will be an important discussion to be had in regards to and in your cluster given that you have more programs uh I'll be definitely uh I think it's a board member be interested in regards to what Reflections you can give us in regards to provide some guidance on that because there is that um I think you know in the in the past when when Atkinson was the only program in in southeast Southeast that was accessible to the folks in Northeast and Southeast you know parents were coming from regular to to enroll at Atkinson there might still be some families that are left over that belong in regular that that are finishing up at Atkinson but you know it's is still a challenge I think for us as a district in regards to how to how do I address those needs and but how to do it in a way that that uh that is coordinated right right rather than and and have some I guess criteria right in place for us to to be able to do that more and and I think that that is yeah I agree with you and I think that's the word that GM Garcia the new director of for merchants who is doing in terms of how do we make sure that there is coordination there is a systemic approach to immersion uh so that way you know you don't have a programs competing uh with each other that that's what we used to do so now so we're we're making some progress there's still work to do but I'm confident that we will get there um we have had a new event teacher evaluation tool in place for about a year full year plus at this point and it was 31 years before we changed since we changed that tool um do you would anyone have any anecdotal evidence of the impact that's having either in supporting teachers or in supporting student achievement either way it would just be helpful for us to hear some of that if anybody wants to share it it's amazing I can speak in front of a large number of children but uh this makes me nervous um you know in regards to the new tool the teacher framework tool it's a rubric based tool that um for me has really begun to allow me to get very deep into and very specific into the conversations with teachers it's no longer a did that didn't do that or yes no type of um of a tool it's much more of looking at an element of instruction that that we know to be good practice and then really thinking about what we saw how did that um play out in the classroom with the kids you had so we're really talking about the classroom right now as I saw it when I was either walking through or or sitting down for a formal of observation the other thing that this new tool does for me
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um is it lets me think about evaluation over the entire school year rather than three moments of 45 minutes that I've said in the sat in that classroom um it's really structured now so that I'm talking about with teachers engaging with teachers on instruction over time rather than a particular time that's been probably the biggest as well okay thank you and if I can add to that age that is the observation is evidence-based so and that's the part that's why this Thursday we're we're visiting a land school and what we're just looking is what did you see and what's the evidence so um the the new tool it to it was it was time to to bring a new tool and I and I think that that is gonna it's gonna give us some really good results and before you leave can you remind us of your name in that school there yeah Kevin crotchet and I'm at early to school okay Debbie did you wanted to add something to that is he jumping off the chair there so I just you know you know we haven't heard too many folks on this side know especially within the Spanish Immersion providing an opportunity for those kids yeah but within the the Spanish immersion programs in our cluster we are very United um and very strategic in trying to identify proactively students for whom this program is not just an enrichment but is really their only uh hope for success and that is because their native language is Spanish and we have been working collaboratively to ensure that all students that at this point that go through the process because they do have to go through the process are able to get into one of our programs and that's that's work that I think I'm very proud of and that helps me sleep at night knowing that at least within our cluster all Native Spanish-speaking students get into these programs thank you I hope the other clusters are actually listening because those questions will be coming up so I didn't want to come and either on the on the teaching tool outside working oh I just heard something that I wanted to chime Mr s immersion at Mount Tabor students learn in Japanese Spanish English and we do have a deaf and hard of hearing program as well so there's a lot of American Sign Language and when I came to Mount Tabor I was determined that this be a positive thing about our school not a dividing thing um but one thing that I know is when it comes to FTE that is a time when it feels like different programs are competing so I was not at Mount Tabor in the spring but I believe their bottom line was a 1.8 staff reduction before the add back but also the Japanese program is growing and the Spanish Immersion program is going growing so we needed to add a Spanish Immersion teacher and add a Japanese teacher while cutting 1.8 and it's in those scarce resource times like that that you do end up with people feeling like their programs are competing because we want to be transparent so I'm sharing with parents how these immersion programs are growing in the school they can see the writing on the wall um and that's just a time when I think that we do end up with people feeling like School within a school vying for limited resources in particular when the board made that decision to Channel them to to Mount Everest and I'm very happy they're there um my assistant principal and I would love to expand World Language offerings in the school and for every student at Mount Tabor to be they have the opportunity to be bilingual and bicultural we would like to grow on that that we have all of these languages in the school so that's something that we're trying to think about for next year um so you know I just wanted to bring that up that those are the difficult times when you're explaining to your community that you're cutting 1.8 plus two more in order to add no thank you definitely I think is something that we need to keep in mind but NS folks learn how to address that that challenge I think it would be important for us as a whole as a district to to learn but also to to be realistic in regards to what's or not realistic but at least be aware of what the actual investment needs to be to be able to get those things off the ground I'm worried about having an internet thank you Marty
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hi Marty Diaz I'm not nervous with kids but see what you're saying I wanted to talk again about the evaluation tool and one very important thing that I want to bring at just one small point that the evaluation tool has been I think one of the Monumental things that we have done in our district because it has created a bridge between our Equity work and the evaluation process the opportunity for all students is a non-negotiable and I think that the evaluation tool has provided that for us so I wanted to say thank you for that because there's it's objective it's right there as evidence proved you know if you don't do what it's in that domain it's non-negotiable and it creates an opportunity for old kids and it's a great bridge between equity Equity work so that I wanted to make that point thank you hi I'm Pam Joyner and I'm at Lane Middle School and I just wanted to throw in a pitch for what I would consider an emerging strategy that we're using at Lane using restorative justice practices to impact our discipline and also our school climate and so this is something we became interested in last spring but have gone full on with this year not only modeling it for our staff and staff meetings to build trust and add a stronger culture amongst our ourselves but also how it can be used in the classroom and then how it also is used at the discipline level we in the spring got rid of or changed our position of having a student management specialist who's usually the disciplinarian and went with just like a school Improvement specialist we have a behavior Improvement specialist that takes that rule so it takes a lot of work because you're actually bringing students together and you're talking about whatever happened and what was the impact and how you can go about making that right and it takes lots and lots of time but what we've found so far is through the month of September and this far into October we've had one referral and that's it so if you look at our discipline data so maybe next year this time I'll be talking about the whole year looking like that'd be great thank you any other yeah evaluation tool could you speak to adding a student evaluation to that and if any of you have added a student evaluation or just want to speak about whether you think that would be something important to add or if you don't think it's important I believe that's very important as a matter of fact before we started our meeting I was meeting with our esteem Franklin principle about I had an equity meeting this afternoon with some teachers and they were developing our next PD and it was awesome to see these teachers creating I just set back and they wrote the agenda and they said how great it would be to have Franklin High School students seniors that are graduating come back to Kelly and in our last PD have him come back and speak to the teachers and without it being punitive speaking to what was important to them and what was effective for them and I I couldn't believe they were saying this because this was our second middle schooler and this is elementary and having teachers who are working on presentations to the staff with their own Equity uh by autobiography it's an amazing thing and so so now I'm gonna see if I could do that if I could bring Franklin High School graduates or high school seniors come to Kelly's school and speak to our staff especially students of color um this uh started because I spoke to the staff in our first PD I had Cynthia McLeod also come to our staff and discuss about the opportunity Gap that's those are her words I'm not going to take credit and she spoke to our staff about our son
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her son and um and I spoke to the staff about my brown Latino son and she spoke about her son who's an African-American and um the staff really really enjoyed that non-punitive conversation that we were having with them and I had the first volunteer was her school Improvement specialist he's going to do his autobiography to the staff on Wednesday morning and the staff was collectively planning on students having input since they were K5 I don't think that they have the maturity at that point but I believe that having high school seniors come back to a K-5 would be a great impact to our to our to our teachers kids and I want to thank you all so I'm just gonna say I want to just say thank you to this cluster for being our lead cluster you guys did a great job it was wonderful to hear from all of you and we wanted a photo op moment with the board and the cluster because we're going to have a series collectible series of photographs cluster by cluster with the board yeah and I think we've got a we got Terry ready to take a picture for us okay great so we just want to collect up in here with the board and do a quick group group shot and we're going to take a quick break five minute break to do this you're okay sure connections thank you we're gonna get started again uh thank you all again we thank the the principals the regional administrator for the Franken cluster for joining us here as well strip you know for my high schools um we're gonna move on to Rosa Parks uh School real estate transaction understanding that you know this is an item that has been discussed previously but superintendent Smith nonetheless is going to introduce this item actually CJ Sylvester our chief operating officer and Bob Alexander will come up to talk about this transaction and this is Rosa Parks actually was financed back in 2005 and been on a 30-year lease that at the seventh year we needed to make a decision about purchase or continue to lease at a higher at a higher price and that's the moment we are at at this at this moment to be presented by CJ and Bob thank you very much good evening I'm Bob Alexander program director planning and asset management this item as was said was before you for your consideration in the August 20th board meeting and it's also been the subject of an executive session Rosa Parks school was built with New Market tax credit funding in 2005 PPS entered into a 30-year lease with an option to purchase for the school which after seven years allowed for the owners of the new Columbia campus Corporation Called in 4C to require purchase of the school at an agreed upon price of 8 million 889 778. um in 4C through home forward formally the housing authority of Portland Boys and Girls Club in the PPC PPS staff have been meeting and determined at the most effective way to acquire the school would be through formation of a commercial condominium which would be jointly owned by PPS and the Boys and Girls Club as a footnote this commercial condominium doesn't have anything to do with housing it's a common method of financial ownership with two or more parties in
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this case with the Boys and Girls Club it is used commercially Multnomah County Library in the Hollywood District is built as a commercial condominium with housing above the import on MLK are two of those examples if I can get this to come up the commercial condominium would consist of three units which are owned and maintained by each party unit one is the current space occupied by the boys and girls club that would be on your far left unit two is the space we currently share with the boys and girls club which includes a cafeteria kitchen Music Room art room Etc which will be owned by PPS and unit 3 is the main educational classroom portion of the Rosa Parks school also owned by PPS not unlike other condominiums in addition to the privately owned portions there are common spaces identified as general common elements these are owned by the condo association and would be maintained jointly this also includes items like the roof over the units one in one as well as the utilities which would be owned jointly these areas are described in the Declaration of bylaws summarized in your packets and shown on the attached plant in your packets the Condominium Association would be controlled by a board of directors with each unit entitled to a board member we would have two director positions in the boys and girls club would have one however budgets and other key operating decisions would require a unanimous vote this map depicts the common area both units one and two and we currently have a shared space agreement with the boys and girls club which reimburses PPS for expenses maintaining an operating unit to the cafeteria area this agreement will continue but has to be amended to reflect the new ownership model the covered play area shown here at the top of the screen would also be subject to the shared space agreement this area may become a full Gem of the Boys and Girls Club decides to develop it in that way in the meantime our students are using the gym in the adjacent Parks and Rec building nearby to complete this transaction closing is anticipated on October 29th PPS would be purchasing units two and three subject to the terms of the Declaration bylaws and Platt by signing the deed from n4c PPS would be a member of the commercial Condominium Association and appoint two board members who would be David Wine Deputy CFO and myself the association would also need to establish accounts develop procedures and mechanisms to allow for operation of the commercial condominium we believe this funding mechanism through New Market tax credits have allowed us to have a quality educational facility which is not only cost effective but also in the best interest of the students the district and the taxpayers thank you and I'd be happy to answer any questions before we get into questions I'd like to introduce resolution so that way we can have that as part of the discussion if we need to have a discussion then okay so we'll now consider resolution 4656 authorizing agreements for the purchase and operation of new Columbia Youth Center condominium Rosa Parks School do I have a motion in a second director Sergeant Lewis and director more seconds the motion to adapt resolution 4656 misuse and is there any citizen comment no okay now we can get into more discussion on this is there any board discussion information provided but I don't have any further questions all right thank you again all for your work the board will now vote on resolution 4656 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes no resolution 4656 approved by about a seven to zero with student representing Garcia voting yes thank you again thank you very much so moving on to we have the Milestones achievement compact discussion so our next items will be will be an update on the milestones and how they are going to align the achievement with that achievement compact targets tonight we'll discuss revising this year achievement compact targets with the board voting on the revised targets at our October 29th board meeting the achievement compacts are now an annual
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action item for the board superintendent Smith you can say more on this item I will so um back when we set our achievement compact targets at the in the spring we said we want we would come back in October when we had our current data and and update those targets to reflect current data and at the beginning of last year when we knew the achievement compacts were coming and we knew that we were going to be labeling them something very similar to what our Milestones had been labeled but that they may have different definitions we said okay at the point the achievement compacts come into play then we'll line this all up so we've got one set of measures so what I'm going to walk you through first is that transition from the definitions we've been using for our Milestones over to the definitions that will be used for the achievement compacts and then how our data aligns and then Melissa Goff our executive director of teaching and learning will come up and walk us through how those how then that the update to our achievement compact for discussion tonight than to be voted on at our next meeting so what we first have is just what what looks familiar because we've been using this since 2009-10 which is our Milestones framework and our measures at Key of Student Success at Key transition points as they move through our system and we have been picking three of those that we are setting both a five point a target of a five-point gain for students of overall and then a five point narrowing of the gap um we've measured progress at those Milestones since 2009-10 and are now aligning with the achievement compact measures so the changes in the key measures the third grade reading to learn our previous measure as a on the Milestones was exceeding the state Benchmark the state has now moved its cut score to be in between what was formerly meets and exceeds so we are aligning with that and the reason for us previously using exceeds was it was a better predictor of success as you got to eighth grade the state is moving in that direction for the same reason so we are now using the state meets or exceeds a higher cut score and what we've now done is use the new cut score for this year and then apply it to last year's data so we could see the growth in our milestone the seventh grade writing test which was the measure we used for impacting ready for high school the state discontinued the state writing exam so we've pulled that out of our our uh our measures this year but we're advocating along with many other districts to put that back in because we still believe it's a good predictor of success both in high school and in college um the on track to graduate measure which for us was the entering 10th grade on track credit wise the state measure is finishing ninth grade with six credits and ninety percent attendance what our measure was formerly was entering 10th grade with six credits with a grade of C or better in your core classes so it's a different delimiter it's both the six credits which predicts on-time graduation with uh five times more likely to graduate on time if you have those six credits our other delimiter was the c or better in court classes the state's delimiter is the 90 attendance so we're moving over to the 90 attendance as our what we'll we'll take that now as our measure and we did the same thing of applying this year's measure to last year's data so we could see the growth pushing ninth grade with six credits or beginning 10th grade with six or measuring at the same time we are so we're still measuring this this at as students enter 10th grade so that the summer between 9th and 10th counts yes we still are counting and that was a big conversation about we're trying we were trying to do you still want the time for the intervention to occur if somebody hasn't completed ninth grade and this does yeah I wondered about how that attendance piece would fit because if somebody really does poorly in ninth grade but in the summer after ninth grade gets your credits all caught up and so under our farmer marker they would be ready but they might have had really poor attendance all year in ninth grade so and they're not considered on track to graduate or they won't count in this measure and and one of the conversations we're having with the state and as you remember we did a white paper that basically was a district conversation with the state about the measures and one of the recommendations we made was separating the the attendance and the on-track credit wise so that you see Miss two distinct features as opposed to because yes you could be on track with six credits and have 89 percent attendance and you won't count in this measure or as you say have bad
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attendance and then catch up and the predictor we believe is the six credits uh you know on track credit wise clearly having 90 attendance is going to be another success factor though so we were advocating to separate them has the two measures um okay so our actual data on this year's on our milestones and what you're looking at so you see our 910 actual on reading to learn was 71 percent and our largest gap was between our Hispanic students and our white students at 30 34 point gap our Target was to have a five-point gain overall and a catch-up like meaning narrowing the Gap by Five Points what we actually accomplished was increasing our reading to learn by six percentage points so up to 77 percent and narrowing the Gap by Four Points so it went from 34 points down to 30 point gap between our Hispanic and white students are on track to graduate our actual last year was 63 percent and our largest gap was between our multiracial group and our white students by a 25 Point Gap we set a five point target and a five point narrowing we ended up with a seven point gain seven point percentage Point gain and our students on track to graduate bringing us up to 70 percent and a three-point narrowing of the Gap with a gap of 22 points between our highest and lowest and then our four-year cohort graduation rate and this is um again you're looking at a different set of years here so this is uh the change between 0910 and 10 11 because when we get this data is January so we will be getting our next having our next graduation data at Midway through the year so the most recent four-year cohort graduation rate it went from 54 percent um up eight percentage points to 62 percent which we're still saying is painfully not where we want to be and where We've Got Deep urgency around how we are moving that but it was an eight percentage Point gain so moving in the right direction our largest gap was between our Hispanic and white students at 27 points that Gap was reduced by nine percentage points so we now have an 18 percentage Point Gap so progress in the right direction on our four-year cohort graduation rate and we'll be bringing we'll come back and be discussing that one again when we get our next year's data in January but that that's progress on our milestones and the transition and then this these are the bar graphs now between last year and this year and I'm just going to kind of give you the visual so you get the progress disaggregated by race on the third grade reading benchmark are on track to graduate with six credits and ninety percent or better attendance where you're just kind of getting the visual of progress there disaggregated by race um our four-year cohort graduation rate from 0809 910 and 10 11 disaggregated by race and then our four-year cohort graduation rate at our comprehensive and focused schools and you will get print copies of all of these um all of these so that takes us over to Melissa Goff our direct executive director of teaching and learning who will now transition this over into our achievement compact Target setting you know people have questions about the milestones and the conversion from one to the other did that make sense it's rain yeah it's our percussion kind of scary it is it's intense wow gosh what an intro um so thank you superintendent Smith um so I have this opportunity to share with you about the achievement compacts and a little greater specificity and I'm going to speak loudly just in case you can't hear over the rain in in Portland Public Schools we are raised in achievement for all students while also accelerating achievement for students we have historically poorly served that's our complete and total focus raised achievement for all and close the racial opportunity Gap continuing to do this means having high expectations and aspirational targets yet while we are setting our Targets on our achievement compact goals with the state of Oregon we do not yet know how these goals may impact the funding of our schools in the future we must be mindful of not putting our schools at risk of losing any additional State dollars we so vitally need to drive success for all kids the following options and recommendations
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are based upon our awareness of this balance late last year the Oregon legislature directed all K-12 school districts to develop annual achievement compacts with the Oregon education investment board the first of these compacts would come into play during this the 2012-13 school year the expressed intent for this Arrangement was to focus both funding and strategies at the state and local level in order for us collectively to achieve our Statewide achievement goals one outcome of this commitment is the development of an achievement compact advisory committee the PPS committee will be tasked to create a recommendation report for the board setting targets for 2013-14 and identifying the strategies we will employ in order to achieve these targets our hope is that just as we expect the state legislature to use the collective recommendations to inform education funding PPS will be able to use these recommendations to inform our 2013-14 budget process since the initial achievement compact targets were proposed by PPS to the state ode has accepted our Appeal on our graduation rate numbers as a result we are recommending to the board that we update our targets using the original methodology with the updated accurate numbers thus we recommend an updated four-year graduation rate of 65 percent The Five-Year graduation rate number has also been revised to align with the revised four-year graduation rate data for 2010-11 and the updated overall Target is 69 percent we recommend that the target set in the spring are maintained for this school year in the following areas our five-year completion rate our post-secondary enrollment and earning nine plus college credits so third grade reading proficiency this is another Target we are updating to a to a higher level after our finalized data has been reviewed we're recommending a five percentage Point increase aligned with our Milestone targets that we set each year in math this is a new uh a new Target for us although we're always measuring our student growth in math so our Target here has been updated to reflect current data and we recommend using the same methodology as for our other achievement compact targets to develop this goal when PPS originally submitted the sixth grade on track goal we recommended keeping the attendance rate at its current level given the difficulty in dramatically shifting student attendance without resources targeted specifically at that marker the state has chosen this marker without a tie to an academic measure there is research that indicates students who are severely chronically absent in sixth grade have signif significantly higher Dropout rates given this we recommend the board Target an increased attendance rate of one percent this is given that our resources continue to be a factor in our ability to immediately address this issue our ninth grade on track indicator couples attendance and six or more credits as superintendent Smith indicated earlier and is similar to our pre-existing milestone we recommend that we develop an aspirational Target and that we continue to track and both internally and externally report attendance and credits as separate measures ninth grade attendance has also been shown to be an indicator in a student's likelihood to graduate from high school in four years priority schools we have six schools labeled as priority by the state of Oregon King Madison okley Green Roosevelt Rosa Parks and Woodlawn of these three automatically receive priority status because they are Sig schools aside from our school Improvement Grant schools priority schools quote represent the bottom five percent of high poverty schools in the state and have been identified as most in need of assistance in turning around student achievement and growth unquote three of our priority schools have been receiving additional support the last two years as part of our targeting supports to our Zone schools much of which you've heard described here tonight we have reviewed our Title 1 allocation in order to support the one school on the list who has not had formalized Central support to date we have nine schools listed as Focus schools these are described by the state as the bottom 15 percent of high poverty schools that have faced challenges with
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closing the achievement Gap and getting all students to achieve at high levels several of these schools have been receiving supports through our Zone School model as well and we are currently evaluating how to differentiate support to Target needs for individual schools and students as Oregon Department of Education is still fine-tuning this part of the waiver we are working under some unknowns we do not anticipate the identification of any new Focus or priority schools this year in addition the state has shared that current Focus or priority schools May maintain that designation for up to four years as a result we recommend that we have as our Target that we maintain the total number of focus and priority schools at 15 that our Target would be not to go any higher than those that we've currently identified we would like to call out that the state is not yet consistently using the term historically underserved when referencing student groups for whom our current educational system strategies content and approaches are not working we would like to emphasize with the board the importance in our taking the responsibility for any lack of Student Success in addition we recommend using the same Target methodology to every student group included in the waiver in order to achieve our district goal to raise achievement for all while also closing the racial achievement Gap thank you questions so I have a really basic question I have to confess I'm having a really hard time following the state's form and part of that is probably because I don't have the color and I think it's color coded but for the life of me I can't figure out what it all means and I get I you know okay good it's not just me and I just the state it's just continually frustrating to me that not only is the state not providing us with resources but they're they're obfuscating I just I can't think of another word but anyway I appreciate all that you guys are doing to meet this latest unfunded mandate and if there's a way to explain well thank you I think I I left my state form up at my chair um however what I can say that I think is confusing about how the data is expressed in the tables that are provided there are that you're looking at all students up again right next to underrepresented student groups and um when we look at comparative growth we're always wanting to show our Gap closing but we don't have expressed on the data that you have in front of you you don't have the non-under represented students in one column and the underrepresented student right you have so it's very difficult to see exactly uh thank you whether or not you're oh the black and white copy so now I can see where your struggles are yeah um so I just can't even understand what the targets are I have to confess because I don't know I don't have gray and I don't have blue so blue is the targets so maybe there's a way to just tell us which so if you if if you are on if you go to the College and Career ready the page that says College and Career ready at the top only because that's the page that I happen to be are we going on the one that's with the resolution or the hook that they're all the same one that's right on the back of the resolution immediately thank you immediately in the resolution okay okay you might have another one all right yes I've got the whole packet in multiple formats so if you look at the if you look regardless of whether it's in color or not um and you're looking at the one that has the four year and five year completion rates up at the top the column our Target column is on the far right so the reason it's confusing I I believe it could be confusing um is this the title of ninth graders of 2009-10 so you're looking at kids who entered into the ninth grade in the 2009-10 school year who would now be seniors in the 2012-13 school year so that is your target it's not easy to identify because it's not called out as this school year when you're looking at the column at the top of the column read is that where we are so these are all of this chart and its
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goals for this year so over here this right here over on this one where you're looking at the top look at those label at the very top that says College and Career ready one and then you're looking right over here 9th 10th I mean 9th graders of 2009 10 and then that's our goal because you're going to see our old data over on the left-hand side and our targets are on the right hand side up there it's really confusing it's a really confusing form yeah it's a difficult format to um to walk parents through so I just can't walk board members for it right right so as we go through as we go through and we're talking with um when I get to talk to teachers and parents out at sites it's a long conversation and um add to that linguistic diversity cultural diversity of the groups that I'm speaking with and it it definitely adds um a lack of transparency I guess and is the Oregon Department of Education or whoever's in charge of this going to be doing a simpler I mean even their report cards imperfect as they are at least are somewhat understandable so we're making copies for you in color but then Heroes here it is oh yeah no I don't think so so gray is estimates and blue so this is our goal for this year but and go all the way up we're talking at different numbers than what we were looking at before you'd make it up here with me Melissa yes so when I'm looking at Ninth Grade on track it looks like 2011-12 we were at 70 historically underserved we were 60 there's a there's a 10 point gap and then if I look at 12 13 where goal for all is 75 in the historically underserved is at 64 it looks to me like the Gap actually increases right can you talk a little bit about I know that has to do with our methodology but can you help explain why that yes so I'm going to try to explain and Amanda's going to correct me if I am incorrect so um part of what I first referenced was you're not looking at the historically underserved students up against the non-historically underserved students so they are also included in the all in the all in the all so when you're looking at the growth trajectory um right it impacts that as well but I'm not sure that accounts for an increasing of the gap between historically underserved and they all what we go ahead no I was just going to say part of what's confusing here too is so they don't they don't show you the data for white students and we've been measuring our gap between white students and the lowest performing groups you're looking at now all students and aggregated historically underserved students it's just a different you're looking at a different thing than have we been this is part of the translation difficulty and we're also looking at these measures happening at a different moment in time than when we've done our measures so the translations are all we're just being patient with the trying to figure out how we do the translations how's that director belisle I I am going to take your question back to Joseph Joe sucks that'd be great it's a great question well no thank you that's back here I think that it's mathematically possible like I I think that there's a way to have that be true but it um I'd want to make sure that we're clear about when we were looking at when we're pulling out historically underserved against white students yes um it gets really confusing we're not doing so I'm going to take you've now gotten a couple theories I'm going to take one more in here which is that on this we did not apply for the ninth grade on track we did not apply the white paper methodology for all students we did the achievement the Milestone Target that we have set in the past of going five percent I believe the historically underserved is pro is using the methodology from the white paper so that would be so I believe that is why there's the difference and is there sorry is there a reason why we chose not to use the white paper methodology is it partly because our white paper methodology would have actually shown a really goofy number and the state probably would have come back to us and said you can't be aiming lower and or that's insufficient progress so so the white paper methodology for you mean for the ninth grade on track yes did not use the we are recommending not using the white paper methodology
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because as we transition over to the Milestones the idea was to continue to set the high expectations and the high the aspirational targets that we've used in the past it would have been a lower Target I think it would have been um I think it would have been 73 if I remember correctly it would have been 73 if we had used the white paper methodology this was keeping in line with the setting of The Five percentage Point gain for ninth grade on track so following right along that I'm kind of concerned about using the white paper methodology on our four-year graduation rate that is lower than what we said as our goal in the past and so I don't really understand why we would say three points is our goal at this point that isn't really satisfactory to me that our goal is three points when we're at 62. okay okay and I think wow well soon you can come up I think that when we had a discussion before when Joe Suggs director of research and evaluation was here he talked about how to move somebody in a certain amount of time to get them to get the number to be a hundred percent and that um you actually don't just randomly pick five five five that there's actually a narrowing of a certain percentage and then the next year you do a certain percentage um and it closes in that which is why it looks like we're not doing but I hear that it doesn't it's not very satisfying to be as a board member sitting here to say well our goal is only three points yeah so so and just if I could reiterate what Melissa said um the the targeted goals that we're applying here I don't believe correctly reflect our actual aspirations and our intentions and so part of the uncertainty for us right now in setting these targets is that we don't know what the state plans to do with or about these and so what we are doing is trying to reflect thoughtfully that we and and surrounding districts believe that to close these gaps for the class of 2025 that this is what it would take as a minimum to roll forward but what we cannot possibly be so patient as these low goals suggest so please know that neither our Milestones nor our intentionality in terms of how we are executing school at this point is reflected by these and so there is just a disparity that we don't see we don't yet understand and what the states plan is in terms of responsiveness so to set an aspirational goal here and then have a punitive response from the state would be counterproductive when in fact we and the state both want to propel achievement for all students and accelerated achievement for students we have historically underserved so so that includes students of color emerging bilingual students special education students so um so so please understand that this is a formal document that goes alongside our Milestones document which goes alongside our true aspiration is that every kindergartner this year is on track to read by third grade and so that's a very different metric and but our responsibility in this compact document is to is to reflect based on what we see as the trajectory for the class of 2025. it's the word punitive yes yes coming from the state and so I mean I'm just you know wondering about that given that that I think that the argument that was used by the state was trying to get away from this punitive actions that were taken by the uh No Child Left Behind legislation and so how is that translating into actual practice then I I I'm it's conjecture that that that's a possibility so the so the state has said they wanted to move away from a punitive um labeling system but in a time of reduced resources and intentionality to concentrate resources in places where they're where achievement has not yet happened um it's uncertain to us at this point how the state will leverage funding how the state will act on what they see as you know in in the event that a school or a district does not meet the the Target no I think I mean both militants who enter saying this like exactly as we're approaching it and all of this is evolving and so even as they're setting out what are we doing with focus on priority schools as they're developing a new funding mechanism and there'll be a hearing this next Thursday that's really at a very macro stage that we don't know how this translates but the ideas that have been
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put forward are they want to incent practices that are working which we don't know what that means there's not a conversation about what the base is yet so at the same time we're setting targets that you don't know what the state's response is to if you don't meet the targets so part of where we're putting stakes in the ground about the same places we've got them as Milestones is that's what we've already claimed them as the places we're working for our milestones and we don't know if it will result in reduced resource if you're not hitting your targets or increased resource if you're not I mean it's just the rules are evolving as we are putting commitments on paper so we're we're being um well we're just we're working to be try to be responsible about how we're setting them and being thoughtful about where we're putting our stakes in the ground and our local Stakes are at like our extremely aspirational are stakes in the achievement compact are being thoughtful question about the form and thanks very much for the the color version although I still think the state needs to go back to to send me this little has any user friendliness but anyway and I really sympathize with you guys trying to deal with this oh my gosh um so past the first page the disaggregated data that's an informational piece so Equity are students succeeding across all populations the way they're doing the the goals and the targets is purely by all and historically underserved there's and so we're showing the disaggregated data there aren't specific Targets in there right so all those other pages are just this year's Snapchat or is it this okay 2006 see I'm still confused about what how they're putting this in it's like it's a it's a just a data over multiple years disaggregated the rice do we have the right data up for you that we're looking at here um yeah creators 2009 10. third goals yeah I mean there's there's three pages of it yep the last one is just blank oh those are the optional fields which they said oh set yourself some additional targets look at Blue yeah keep going in any place you got the blue Okay so so the first page is just data it's just I'm sorry I just I just looked at this and I gave up when I was trying to study the packet this weekend so I'm sorry to be asking such dumb questions right now I think they're relevant questions and again I'm going to make sure Amanda I'm sorry to make sure I'm telling you the truth um but I believe those are the the goal targets for for those groups of students in the blue thus you can see some pretty large variances between the performance groups so we're also there's also going to be different incentives punishments whatever's carrots or sticks for each of these measures as well that's what we don't know we don't know that's where the unknowns are so okay so can I just ask a really simple question so we have a four-year graduation rate a five-year graduationary and a five-year completion rate what's a five-year completion so um in the graduation cohort only students who receive a regular Ed diploma are counted whereas in the completion rate students who receive a GED or students who receive a modified diploma based on a significant learning disability designation would also be counted so so there are two different ways of measuring ask another data question I'm back on the second to last page I think that page right there um so it it looks to me if I compare 2008 with 2009 so 2008 nine goals with the 2009 10 goals for economically disadvantaged we raised it by four percent limited English proficiency we raised it by four percent five percent etc etc and then all of a sudden we get to both Asian and tag and they're only Changed by one percent can do we have some thought about why I'm comparison I'm sorry I'm looking at Ninth Grade on track okay okay at the 2008-2009 9th graders
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or excuse me the 2011-2012 ninth graders all in red then I'm comparing down to the 2012-2013th ninth grade on track okay so the bottom row of the top grid and the bottom row of the last group so different kids right okay the next year kids okay so again the the methodology is back mapping from a hundred percent and the difference in between where students are currently performing to that hundred percent marker so when you back map and students are already performing at a higher level um there's less movement yeah do we have um respecting um director sergeants coming about three percent graduation goal um feels really dissatisfying and knowing hearing our explanation that that's not how we're conducting our school or our goals but we submitted with other districts correct um the the white paper methodology and said we propose using this have what have been the discussions has the state come back and said well that's a really good methodology we should adopt that or have they given any feedback about that you know um so I know they've received it and there's I've been in informal conversations so I don't know in terms of what I would represent as the state's conversation about it and I do think like they did send letters back to a number of districts and said these aren't hot these aren't aggressive enough these aren't high enough we were not one of those districts because we had originally submitted and said we're going to come back and we and re-establish Targets in October when we have data this is so great I know part elements that came through in the white paper have been a regular part of the discussion as people are grappling with this and how to use this Portland Public Schools comes up with aspirational goals will we publish those anywhere make them public anywhere are we going to come up with aspirational goals or are we going to stick with these our aspirational goals are reflected I would say in our milestones and also the third grade one where we've said that we wanted to have every kindergartner who's entering this year be which is our class of 2025 reach 100 by the time they're in third grade so that's probably our boldest statement of saying we could get 100 of our kids who are entering kindergarten this year to reach the third grade Milestone by the time they hit third grade and then our our Milestone targets that are the ones we're setting for ourselves which of course we want to exceed and not you know but it's about the 5.5 point is greater than what we're setting on the uh on the achievement compact um and in terms of Are We publishing them anywhere well I'm just trying to if we have an aspirational goal it would be nice to know whether we're hitting it or not hitting it so if we have it printed out somewhere so we all understand where we're so inspiring I mean so that's the point that's what we're doing with our Milestones I believe is to holding ourselves accountable those to those and Publishing them and we'll print those in our out our results in our annual report and I mean we did every year since we've started reporting on our milestones we do an annual report to the community that we send to everybody every I think registered voter not just members of the district to say here's what here's how we're progressing on our Milestone so we'll do that again with our current Milestones data and then the achievement compacts again will this will will send us into the state it'll be part of their bigger picture but then we'll have our achievement compact committee come back and do recommendations on this document in February to you to you we report publicly on our Milestones data which is what we as a group have said were we're using to monitor ourselves and hold ourselves accountable I've been griping a lot about the state's Forum on this and just in general about the whole lack of it um investment thus far that we've seen But I do along those lines I do want to point out one thing I appreciate about this otherwise crazy form which is that it does point out the difference between the actual amount of money that we're receiving from the state for schools and the quality education model recommended amount which is a best practice recommended amount so again just for the for the folks at home I just want to call that out that the 2012-13 State funding for Portland Public Schools is 338 million and we're the legislature to follow the Constitution and follow the quality education model of funding we would receive 455 million so that would be a heck of a lot of the school intervention schools
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the instructional Specialists and the student intervention specialist um we haven't we could do we could do the math on how many of those resolutions teams we could have in every building and we just heard tonight the dramatic difference that has full days for high school so I'm just on the soapbox once again so I appreciate that the state put that is transparent about that piece of data if this is going over to I mean we haven't seen any sign of willingness to invest from the Oregon Oregon education investment board thus far and if it's going over to be a political football in the legislature where there are lots of folks who don't believe in public education it's just a very worrisome State of Affairs and meanwhile you guys on top of everything else you're having to do to try to serve kids are having to deal with this this boggles the mind so my sympathies and my appreciation for what you're doing again we're going to be looking at this on 29th October 29th so if there are some real misgivings in regards to the targets at least let us know and then we can make sure the staff brings back that reverse version and also the some of the additional information in regards to some of the questions you could post that Joe sucks will will answer right yes and I'm still behind no um 75 minutes so now we're moving on to superintendence evaluation we all received a a document and so I'd like to you know maybe begin with with to see if there's any comments from the board members in regards to that I'm going to resolution for six weeks four six five seven here um I'm gonna put this the performance appraisal procedure for us this time I thought was very very good and very thoughtful meeting small groups of board members with superintendent to let her know where we felt the district was going under her leadership and where we hoped it would go in the future um and I for one am very thankful that we have superintendent Smith and that she is now entering I think her sixth year sixth year with us because just like we talk about stable school funding stable School District leadership is just as important and after six years only three of those have I've been on the board to watch her work directly I think that the district and is reflected in our evaluation of her the first line it's clear we're heading in the right direction and I think it's clear to all of us that we're heading in the right direction but at the same time we all know that there's still a lot of work to be done but I think that that work for the district is a lot easier for us when we have a leader who's been with us for a long period of time and who commands a great deal of respect in the community her she's very visible she's working Statewide and on a national level the equity work that we have done in this district has made a tremendous difference in our students and how our students are able to achieve and so not something that I was familiar with when I first came on the board and I am a True Believer now I think it's made a tremendous difference for our students and for our staff um to be very excited about watching the difference in how the differences they're able to make with the children of color based on the equity work we're doing and then finally I just have to point out that you know eight points gain in our graduation rate and a nine point close in our achievement Gap is something that we should be proud of as a district and I and that's happening under the superintendent's leadership so I'm very pleased to be voting in favor of her performance evaluation tonight thank you director Knowles I think one of the things we should take the opportunity to do we've talked about a lot of bad news but I think I'd like to just mention one piece of work that I think I hope that voters will affirm that this
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work on November 6th but um you know it was a blow when we lost the bond measure a year ago in May but I think we had a really excellent process led by the superintendent and hearing from the community about why that measure wasn't supported and in developing um a new package that was really a lot of hard work by the board a lot of hard work by the community but really led by the superintendent and her Excellence staff and um I'm really heartened by that work and feel like we've really clearly going in the right direction in terms of what I hope the voters will support us and being able to do in our facilities to start the long road uh towards improving all of our facilities but get that work started this year so I think that that's that's just an excellent piece of work and um and I want that to be called out thank you director sergeant I think I don't have a I have a degree with everything that's already been said and just um just my gratitude to Carol for her dedication to this District um and what she gives of herself to this district and the kids and staff and um and I think it really it it sums up I think the that we're heading in the right direction there's still so much to be done I think we're all in agreement on that I feel like there's a real sense of um where the momentum is and you just feel like I can trust your not only obviously your integrity but also your your vision and your your kind of common sense and also your sixth sense about organizationally how to how to lead us and to navigate through stuff like what we were just talking about incredible challenges so I just thank you for your leadership and I'm just really grateful that you're our superintendent star dragons it's fun to add one thing in particular that I appreciate which is um you know I serve on the Oregon School Board Association and when you serve at that level you end up hearing from a lot of different uh school board members and superintendents and I am often um told how grateful uh others are for the work that you're doing in Multnomah County with the other Multnomah County superintendents and at the state level some of the Cosa leadership work that you're doing with the you know Beaverton Salem superintendents and the rest um and I know you've also been working with some of our schools of Education which teach our teachers and that is kind of long term work where we aren't necessarily going to see an immediate benefit but it will certainly have a huge benefit over time but it's it's kind of one of those patient ongoing kind of work that you have to get that you have to do so I think in terms of I mean I would agree with director Knowles that the fact that you've been here for six years is huge I mean most Urban school districts it's about two and a half years and I think that you've clearly gotten your legs under you and I think you're seen as a mentor by a lot of other superintendents and other districts even in terms of some of the work that we're doing other districts look to us for some of the practices that we're doing which is kind of fun um so I mean we still certainly have a long way to go ourselves in terms of graduation rate in other areas but it feels like we're on the same page and I'm kind of moving in the right direction I'd Love Tonight hearing from the principals specifically it makes in in that really is something that I think we should remember is I you have spent an enormous amount of time developing our principal leadership and truly having them be instructional leaders rather than building managers and I think that shows tonight with what we heard um and you know for me anyway as a board member I'd love to have more and more interaction all the time with principals because it's really where you hear what's going on um so it's uh I I appreciate the fact that you've been here as long as you are that you're willing to stick with us and we have a whole lot of work to continue to do and I think we are all feeling a great amount of urgency to get there but it's complicated work thank you thanks directory before we move on I think you know given that that um you know they're sticking with us in in in spite of all the challenges I think that the director rely was going to speak to director Morton has been if that's okay that's why okay I think uh I want to piggyback on some of the
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things that that other folks had said uh the work I think Carol that you've done um uh with our Equity initiative is really important the work in the schools but also we can't forget that we also passed a board policy on minority women in small business Partnerships so that's something that's really going to be significant I think in how we invest our resources from this district and that's a big part of what what I think this this district is about and and why we actually lead in equity work around not just our region but our our state in the country I also wanted to mention too uh the stability that you've been able to offer during the budget process this last year you know 27 I think was the rough estimate it's probably more like 34 million given some of the federal dollars deficit over this last year and able to uh stage it in a manner where we felt ownership not just not just here across the board but the the communities that were going to be the most affected by it and the schools had a process to uh to engage which actually leads to my my another comment about Community engagement that I feel has been incredibly fantastic over the last year it's been mentioned around the long-range facilities plan the listening sessions I know you know when I when I meet with and reach out to communities of color they're saying very different things over this last year than what I've heard in the past and that's a testament to the to the leadership that you're offering the district and I really appreciate that um I think that's probably it thanks director Morgan you're welcome director Morton and saying that you've done an excellent job reaching out to students as well as community members and I think recently the Student Union and the superintendent student advisory Council has really appreciated being able to meet with you and you asked for our feedback and us feel like our voice is important to the school district and the decisions being made so thank you for that that's good thanks I won't reiterate what everybody has said but I do think that the the proof when when you can get a group a whole cluster of principles together and they can articulate so much of the work that um that we've been hearing about and putting in place and how focused it is not just at our level but through the organization I I just that's extraordinary one the second is is I remember not being on the board and thinking wow superintendent Smith put a stake in the ground and said I want you to evaluate me on outcomes and here we are five years later looking at your outcomes and seeing that we improved the graduation rate even if some of that was just tracking students down it means we weren't doing as poor as people like to pretend we were um and narrowing that Gap um those are extraordinary results three percent closing in the Gap we know we can do five and I appreciate your commitment to that but I just want to highlight that that it's extraordinary and we are fortunate to have you which leads me into part of I guess a comment that I want to make that I took some time because I don't think people realize in the context of of our community some of some of the sacrifices you and your team have made as we've continued to cut millions and millions of dollars to get those kind of outcomes it's not like you can put additional resources in so I guess I just want to note publicly that superintendent Smith's salary has remained flat since we hired her six years ago year after year the superintendent has um has declined any salary increase that we might have proposed I think there was at least one year when when it was recommended and she said I cannot do this in a time of diminished resources as a result the superintendent's salary is significantly below market for superintendents in comparable urban districts and I know that we like to look at Oregon and say Oregon is unique but the fact of the matter is we're competing in a national stage if we were to try to attract somebody including superintendent trying to keep her from going someplace and it's important for us to notice that in addition other staff members throughout PPS have foregone raises for years and they also this year took furloughs in order to preserve a full school year in our classroom staff we both deeply appreciate it the commitment and the sacrifice and at the same time recognize that this is not a sustainable long-term strategy when the first was proposed it was done for a reduction a one-time budget savings that could hopefully get us through a tough time year two similar situation and here we are six years into it we need to be able to offer competitive salaries in order to attract and retain the best talent to serve our students so
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while the superintendent is for growing another salary increase at this time I think that we as a board are interested in finding an analysis that accurately Compares our salaries both in our community and our state and nationally so that we can build an employee compensation policy and structure that both appropriately reflect the marketplace and the caliber of talent that we as a district want to attain and attract so I just I want to say thank you I for as many budget cuts as I've gone through in my personal work or in our family I cannot say that I know other than folks who have lost their employment which we know that is a very real issue for many people in our community I do not know anybody else who has not seen an increase of some sort in the past six years so thank you and thank you for that commitment as a board to looking at this for the whole organization it's a huge issue for us and one that I'm just glad to feel the United commitment to address and we we need to be able to attract and retain those best this great leaders and again I think that that's a those cuts or those in essence rollbacks in regards to the administrators I think one we had to do is a response to the of the reality economic reality that we faced and that was uh I think the host was always that it was a temporary measure that was being taken and the other part of it is that it was I think a conscious decision both in regards to the board and also on the administrators coming forth in in in in essence I think proposing those things also that it was a response to some of the things that I think that we keep hearing from from the public in regards to that we're too heavy on administration were were too heavy in regards to those those resources but more and more we continue to to cut back on the on on the on our ability to be able to provide needed resources and buildings in the in the in the in in support direct support to those schools as we heard from those administrators I think today um so we're now consider resolution four six five seven the superintendent superintendent's uh performance appraisal for 2012 do I have a motion a second on resolution for six by seven director knows moose and and director Atkins seconds uh the adoption resolution for six uh five seven Miss Houston is there any public comment on resolution 4657 thank you is there any more disc for the discussion on this the world were now born resolution 4657 all in favor please uh indicate by saying yes yes all posted Syndicate by saying no resolution 4657s have provided seven to zero was soon represented as the ability yes yes so now that we 've done the performance appraised all the adoptions and performance appraisal for superintendent we are now going to consider wrestling 4658 the extension with employment of contract with Carol Smith superintendent of Portland Public Schools so I have a mission a second resolution for six five eight moves and director Morton seconds the adoption resolution 4658 he's using is there any citizen comment on this resolution is there any board discussion on this resolution that's why I try to do it at the beginning so that way this other items don't take long so the ball now bone resolution for six uh five eight all in favor please send the game by saying yes yes all the post questions indicate by saying no resolution 4658 is approved by a board of seven to zero with student representative Asia voting yes thank you all and thank you all thank you and actually this is the one thing I will say is it's a pleasure working with this board I frequently say we have an outstanding board and just the teamwork that it goes on in putting together what we put together and having the coherency we have at this point is is an active teamwork and the tremendous staff here in this District who I just feel fortunate to work with every day but I can feel our movement in the places that have been persisting over time on the same strategies and not where we are Reinventing but we're persisting in really focus and uh and hard work and that's just a tribute to um board great board great staff and great
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efforts of the district as a whole so and it was wonderful hearing from our principals I loved having the cluster here tonight it was just really great so anyway thank you all thank you wait and I accept that was the next question yeah I forgot I needed to answer yes except I also wanted to just on behalf of the board thank co-chair of Belial for kind of leading us through this process because I think it was a huge amount of work too heard of all heard all of us and and get the evaluation done and I know you took a huge amount of time for that so thank you very much yes I know I did it earlier and I forgot to do it so thank you again for the reminder and and truly I think directors uh director relios culture reliables efforts in regards to make sure that we have continuity in regards to the development of the of the performance appraisal report I think it was was key in regards to getting us here so thank you again um we are again already preparing for what's coming in in regards to the next uh next year and we have um basically what is going to be like an overview in regards to the budget uh process update for this next year and superintendent Smith looks like you don't have to introduce this stuff because they're already stepping up is that and I will introduce our Deputy CFO David wind and this is part of our commitment to continuing to bring back what the budget process is so that we're really preparing everybody and making it visible what's coming so brief update on the budget process but I can't resist the temptation since I'm the first staff person to come up here after the subject you just discussed I'd like to thank you for your support and appointment of the superintendent because I think I speak for all of the staff that we are proud to work for this District under her leadership I am your Deputy CFO and budget director and I want to introduce Sarah bottomley who is new newly assumed the responsibility of assistant budget director and you have a memo and a document that outlines the timeline so we'll just hit the high points as most of you know from prior experience there are really three major budget events that Define the timeline or the budget the superintendent proposes the budget to the board and delivers a budget message to the community everything that happens up to that point is the budget development at that point the budget is yours to do with what you will and your next major action after that is acting as the budget committee to approve the budget and then usually fairly one of the last acts of the school and fiscal year is you acting as governing body adopting the budget so we're going to quickly summarize four dates that are penciled in at this point for the budget for 2013. good evening we propose presenting our high-level PPS budget forecast on December 17th the governor will propose his state budget on December 1st so we'll go public with our projections for State funding for PPS after he names a figure for K-12 funding by that point we'll also have more certainty around some of the other numbers that we need to estimate the budget development will continue through April 15th this year which is the date we have the superintendent scheduled to propose a budget and our tentative schedule would have the board convening as the budget committee on May 20th to approve the budget in budget adoption would be 17th as kind of we as outlined in the memo that you had in your packet there are a number of entities involved both internal to the district and uh Community stakeholders and partners I just wanted to highlight a number of those so the citizen budget Review Committee has a role to play in reporting to you on the budget I'm happy to confirm you've already appointed them three months earlier this year than you did last year and our first meeting of cbrc is next week the district employee and stakeholder team is representatives of old employee groups and we have a standing slot on the agenda to talk about budget issues with them we'll be meeting with a coalition of communities of color on a regular basis two and we always seem to have the opportunity to put out surveys and
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questionnaires as part of the process and then public meetings are also your opportunity to hear from the public and depending on what it is that we end up contemplating we may have public meetings as part of the budget development depend on what unfolds in the months to come so with that we'll you have a timeline in front of you if you've got any questions we'd be happy to field those now thank you again it's just a reminder for us in regards to just being aware of the process and yeah the information will come I'm sure there's a way to get this off but I don't know what it is so the we have yeah we have the business agenda remaining um so the board will now consider the business agenda having already voted on resolution 4656 through 4658 Miss Houston is there any changes to the business agenda yeah do I have a motion a second to adopt a business agenda so moved second director Morton director moose and director Knowles secondly adoption business agenda is Ernie board discussion on the business agenda is there any public comment the board were not born on business agenda all your favorite place indicate by saying yes yes all the prosperous agendas are probably about 7-0 we still represented yes and we now come to announcing of the next meeting of the board will be a regular meeting because here in the four editorium October 29th at 6 pm is there any public announcements that you need to make I was afraid you were going to go right I just this is the most part of the announcement I knew I knew that was I just wanted to take a moment to recognize Charles Hobson and have a moment of recognition so Charles was Deputy superintendent here in Portland um actually he was the principal at Franklin and Shea and um Shay James who we just heard present tonight and Petra Callan who is the principal at Madison both served as Vice principals under him and he was a significant force in actually a lot of the results that we're seeing today in his leadership at Franklin he then became a deputy superintendent here and then went to his home state of Arkansas to Pulaski County to serve as superintendent and then on to Houston where he was most recently working on school Improvement in Houston and he passed away this past week of an illness he'll be honored in Arkansas on Wednesday in a service and I just want on behalf of all of us for his family to know that we're thinking about him here we've been remembering him and his impact on our kids and on our district and it was just a terrible full shock to learn of his passing so I just wanted to take a moment to honor the impact that Charles had on the students and families and and this District um the culture of this District so close with the moment of science for

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2012-2013, https://www.pps.net/Page/2225 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:54.937864Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2012-10-15 PPS School Board Study Session

Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education, 10/15/12 Study Session

Sources