2014-02-24 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2014-02-24
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - February 24, 2014

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ah okay ready good evening this formal meeting of the board of education for February 24 2014 is called to order I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the Board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PPS TV services website okay first on our agenda tonight is our classified Employee Appreciation we're very pleased to acknowledge our classified employees classified employees recognition week is March 3rd through the 7th I believe I speak for everyone on this board when I say that classified employees work often behind the scenes is valued by all of us bus drivers Food Service workers janitors school secretaries all of those people who help make our schools run smoothly we really appreciate their their work so superintendent Smith do you have comments and a resolution I think I do and part of what we do for classified appreciation week is we have 10 honorees that have been nominated who represent all of our classified staff and HR receives a total of 209 nominations nominating a total of 121 classified employees the selection involved our Union partners and department heads and was really difficult given the number of outstanding employees who were suggested as being recognized each honoree will receive a crystal paperweight that's inscribed to the BS logo and the words outstanding achievement in addition each honoree will receive copies of the nominations received on their behalf and a copy of the school board resolution which I will read to you momentarily and the gifts will be sent to each employee supervisor to present the honoree during classified Appreciation Week so the the classified employees being honored are lyanna Anna shenko who is with Ed Kelly school is an ESL educational assistant Timothy bethalov and Facilities who's an electrician Susan Hall who's at Skyline as a principal secretary Deborah Howard student transportation a bus driver Gretchen Johnson who's with special education as a senior administrator to Jose Manny mariscal who's at Cesar Chavez as a head custodian Lucy Miller at Scott School who's a para educator Aaron Sherry whose nutrition services lead Food Service assistant Virginia stensby who's at Cleveland works as a bookkeeper and Andrea Woodward who's at Bridal mile as a library assistant so they represent and were nominated by their colleagues and are being called out as outstanding accomplishments the resolution that will be read into the record Portland Public Schools classified employees are essential members of our educational team they are often our ambassadors to the public as well as caring familiar people in the lives of our students on the front lines and behind the scenes they create a positive learning environment for our students by assisting them in the classroom preparing and serving meals caring for their physical needs transporting them keeping them safe and aiding their families they keep our administrative and school offices humming attend to our buildings and grounds help us communicate with each other in our community Shepherd supplies and equipment and so much more we are grateful for their support the board of education for Portland Public Schools acknowledges and applauds Portland Public Schools assistive Tech practitioners attendance monitors book clerks bookkeepers bus drivers campus monitors clerks Community agents CNAs custodians educational assistants Food Service assistance instructional Tech assistance Library assistance licensed physical therapists certified occupational therapy assistance maintenance workers nutrition services orthopedic equipment techs occupational and physical therapists para Educators secretaries security techs sign language interpreters and Transportation Route schedulers for their efforts on behalf of the forty seven thousand students in our Portland Public Schools the classified employees deserve recognition and thanks the Board of Education declares March 3rd to 7 2014 classified Employee Appreciation Week in recognition of the many daily Services provided to enrich and support students in Portland Public Schools toward their highest achievement possible thank you thank you thank you to all of our classified staff
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thank you superintendent Smith we will now consider a resolution 4877 a resolution to recognize classified Employee Appreciation Week March 3rd to the 7th 2014. do I have a motion so moved director Regan moves and director Morton seconds the motion to adopt resolution 4877 Miss Houston is there any citizen comment no there's not is there any board discussion I just want to re-echo um what superintendent Smith just read that we know how important all these folks are in student contacting whether they serve as mentors in our buildings are always looking out for safety um getting students fed well making sure they have the supplies they need it's just really a great appreciation for for all the work they do and how important it is that every member of our school Community engage and supports our students so I just want to say thank you again thank you what else okay thank you again the board will now vote on resolution 4877 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions no resolution 4877 is approved by a vote of 7-0 with student representative Davidson voting yes thank you our next agenda item is the student superintendent's report superintendent Smith you want to go ahead and and give us your report I do and I actually want to start just by a brief acknowledgment of both of the bargaining teams the Portland Association of teachers and the district bargaining teams who after 10 months at the table last week reached a tentative agreement and averted a strike I will just say and all of you have been following this one all the way through I'm really pleased to have reached the tentative agreement we reached last week what happens at this point is an association of teachers is working with their members on communicating the details of the tentative agreement they go through their process of ratification it then comes to the board for the board's ratification which will be at the meeting next Monday night I want to just extend an incredible amount of appreciation to everybody because this required patience it required a lot of people stepping up to say here's how we will participate in supporting our students if in fact we had gone to a strike and you had just the entire Community coming together and really the entire Community feeling a sigh of relief when in fact we reached that tentative agreement so thank you to everyone's students teachers Community Partners every everybody who has been part of just seeing the seeing this one through and I feel really pleased just of what got what was worked out at the table to reach this tentative agreement we also have tonight our representatives from our high school Constitution teams with us and we had an outstanding showing at the state We the People competition last month we actually recognized this at an earlier board meeting but we wanted some of our constitution team members here tonight so we could recognize you uh in person Portland Public Schools team swept the state competition winning the top three Awards so Lincoln's team took first place Grant finished second and Franklin won third place and this year Madison it was the first year Madison had a constitution team and they received an outstanding performance award for unit six so they had a great showing and are off to a good start I'd like to ask the teams to stand up as I call your name so Lincoln's team which is coached by Tim swinehart please stand and let us recognize you thank you so Lincoln will be representing the state of Oregon at the national We the People competition in Washington DC in April I have enjoyed getting to greet the teams as they come back from the airport from the national competitions and it's totally exciting so we just think we'll all be with you when you're there representing us and congratulations we wish you luck in D.C Grant's team is being represented tonight by Andrew Davidson their coaches Jeremy Reinhold and last year Grant won the national and state competition uh National Championship so Andrew and Franklin as Franklin's team here so Franklin's Franklin was coached by Porsha Hall Franklin took third place this year and in 2010 Frank Franklin's team went to the state competition and in 2012 the team won the district competition congratulations to Franklin thank you
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and do we have anyone here from Madison representing Madison's team so once again Madison was had a new team this year and won the outstanding performance award for unit six and its coaches Amanda Alonso so we'll just send our Vibes over to Madison and say thank you thank you so Portland has won more national titles than any other city and all of those wins have been by Portland Public Schools High Schools Lincoln is the is only one of four schools in the country to win the national title four times if you win in April you will break the National Record so we will all be rooting for you Lincoln like woohoo and actually I want to call do a special call out to Maryland cover and the classroom law project because this is part of what has been the fuel for this here in Oregon I think and why we have such an outstanding showing and the coaches who have been committed to this for years so our coaches that come back year after year and Coach our our constitution teams and I know because I watch how much you all appreciate those coaches when you pour your love back into them and they've watched watch them watch you perform so anyway congratulations to all of you and thank you for being with us here tonight one more round foreign we also have a lot of student athletes who've been working hard during the winter sports season I wanted to recognize the devotion of all of our student athletes but specifically a shout out to the Wilson cheerleaders who want another state championship and the Wilson boys swim team and Franklin girls swim team both of which won regionals we also had several students do really well in the U.S Junior Olympics fencing competition here in Portland so and we've got a little call out to all of our athletes back there too actually while we've got the tech men back there I want to congratulate Benson High School on its 94th annual Tech show and once again students showcase their videos photography and web design and student made tools the KPBS radio station the Cobra car that they showcase and again the chair with the ejector seat so Benson's Tech show once again this is a huge hit for the whole community and nicely represented here tonight foreign you guys are being really well behaved for doing your demo thank you very much the final thing I wanted to just call out is the school choice lottery for high schools finished up Friday and we'll wrap up on March 7th for elementary middle and K-8 schools this year following through on a pledge that we made during the Jefferson enrollment balancing process last year we put a special focus on marketing schools in the Jeff cluster and our community coordinator Richard Gilliam partnered with principals teachers parent groups businesses and Community Partners in the Jefferson cluster to get the word out about our schools so these are a few of the the materials that went out and before I lose the Constitution teams we wanted to have a photograph of students up here with board members if I can get you to come on up in the in the front and we'd like we'd like a picture of ourselves with you all our celebrities here tonight I know you guys come on come over here congratulations all right stay right there
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thank you good to see you this is the way it is Constitution team we have a jacket left up on a front seat front row set it superintendent Smith are you um thank you very much at this time we'll go ahead and take student testimony Miss Houston are there any students signed up for student testimony yes we have three our first two speakers chivin prakash and Lupe Urbano okay okay well our speakers are coming forward I'll go ahead and read the instructions for public comment thank you very much for taking the time to come to our board meeting we deeply value public input and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and Reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board lies in actively listening and reflecting on the thoughts and opinions of others guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration when referring to board members staff and other presenters the board will not respond to any comments or questions at this time but the board or staff will follow up with various issues that are raised please make sure that you've left your contact information either phone number or email on the sign up sheet pursuant to board policy speakers may offer objective criticism of District Operations and programs but the board will not hear complaints concerning individual District personnel any complaints about specific employees should be directed to the superintendent's office that are not appropriate in this forum if you have a total of three minutes to share your comments please Begin by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes of testimony a green light will appear right there in front of you when you have one minute remaining a yellow light will go on and when their time is up a red light will go on and a buzzer will sound and we ask that you conclude your comments at that time we sincerely appreciate your input and thank you very much for your cooperation go ahead can I get you to get just a little closer I don't think it's picking you up okay p-r-a-k-a-s-h and I'm here to basically tell my experience and my testimony of um playing four years of soccer and uh my experience with high school has been really good because what sports has given me is an outlet of everything that goes on either that's at house at home in school whatever and I think that I've so far I've played four years of soccer and two years of football and um football and soccer are like totally different but the fact that if I go to a team and you're accepted by everyone on that team as a as a friend as a family makes a big difference in everyone's life and you know walking down the hallways in Benson or any other school as a player who plays any sports I think you're known because you make a difference in the player that's beside you or a person that's supporting your team no matter what even if that's a win loss tie whatever and it's the same for any other sport is if either if it's basketball wrestling softball baseball whatever I think that Sports gives every kid a way to express themselves outside of their classes and I think if there's anything if Sports gets taken away from me as a player or anybody I think it would be a big change because my my whole school has been based around soccer and I play soccer off season during season whatever but um the moment that I don't have that I would be a totally different person because I wouldn't have an outlet or a way to get away from my problems and I wouldn't be able to make as many friends because this freshman year started you
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get to make friends and you don't know anyone but as you play a sport I think it gives you a way to make other friends and if that gets taken away I think a lot of people would have very less friends and they would not be able to be what they are and that's it thank you thank you my name is Lupe Urbano and you are b-a-n-o and I wrote a little something so I'd like to share it with you guys okay high school students Bennett from from playing sports because it motivates us to perform well in school encourages us to be important in life in life skills provide scholarship opportunities participating in sports helps us as students to increase our grades in attendance these programs allow us as students to interact together to a common goal and that is to win in Excel physically it brings out the competitive side of students what school are we from thank you that's all I have to do okay thank you very much both of you and lastly we have Jocelyn Batista Jocelyn here yeah there we go foreign anytime oh okay um my name is Jocelyn Bautista and sports to me has been a great help I didn't play freshman year but I regret it so much soccer and basketball have been a big part of my life since I was little and taking it away I guess I could say I would be lost because it helped me made make so many friends a coach that's so great and has helped me so much and um I think with me and everybody else almost everybody else in the school they don't only make a team or they're not only part of a team they're part of a family and um taking away sports you're not only taking away something that we do every day after school you're taking away a home that um it's more like a place where we go and have fun make friends and it keeps us out of trouble in a way and um it just wouldn't be fair I think everybody can agree with me that Benson sports are great whether it's soccer basketball baseball softball wrestling it's it's just um it wouldn't be a good idea to take it away I think everybody is at least a part of some sport has tried a sport and has loved it I know I'm still thinking about joining other teams and um I'm really looking forward to next year to playing with my team with my girls and just being out there having something to do that helps me physically and mentally and it just it's a way to relieve stress and takes our mind off of things just for a little bit it's just great okay great thank you very much okay at this time we'll hear from student representative Davidson for his report yeah uh real quickly I would like to acknowledge all the students who are here tonight I really appreciate you coming and us getting to hear your story I think it's a really important one and I look forward to seeing how things turn out uh I definitely support what you're what you're trying to do so thank you superintendent Smith and fellow board members thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you all tonight over the past months you have received formal and informal plays for me to keep a strike from taking place in Portland I know that you've been waiting a long time for this so I am pleased to say that by a razor thin margin I can finally thank the bargaining teams and Leadership of Pat and PBS for successfully coming to a tentative agreement before a strike occurred nationally similar similar situations have plagued school districts thankfully we did not succumb to the same fate as
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other districts such as Chicago and Medford the last few days before the tentative agreement was reached I kept thinking back to the bargaining sessions I was able to attend over the summer I was reminded of the Mantra we are not Chicago which was repeated many times last week we once again reminded ourselves our community and all those who are watching that we are not Chicago or Medford we are Portland we can and we will do better drastic alterations within PPS will be crucial to this City's success in the future as far as I know none of you joined this board because you were satisfied with the status quo however despite our efforts our students are increasingly expected to do more with less during the negotiations I heard teachers say that although they were seeing pay increases in seeing increases in pay this contract they had taken decreases in pay over the past years meaning that they were still being compensated far less than they should have been students have been facing a similar dilemma for too long we've acquiesced to the decisions made by others which have condemned our students to have fewer opportunities for Success while we received more money this biennium from the state legislature we are still drastically underfunded our schools are not able to run at optimal levels and the students who make up Public Schools largely middle and lower class populations are being oppressed this labor negotiation which nearly tore our community apart should serve as a wake-up call for internal change as well as as external change we must stop fighting amongst ourselves and actively seek the funding that we so desperately need obtaining and retaining the best Educators in every classroom is critical to educational success my entire time on the board we have discussed the need for the best learning environments in every one of our soon-to-be modernized schools what good is having the best learning environment if we can't have the best and the best teachers there as well we need a contract that is competitive that draws the best and brightest into Portland pays enough to ensure those teachers are not spending an hour traveling by bus to get to work and addresses workloads so those teachers are able to do their job well and so that student and teacher relationships a critical aspect of the educational experience can be strengthened a stronger and more successful PPS will mean a level of economic Civic and communal Prosperity that has never been seen in Portland but as much as many politicians and lobbyists would like us to believe that is not possible with our current levels of funding the investment must must be made and be carefully managed we cannot afford the golden parachutes and short-sighted albeit Reckless decisions that have occurred in our past although work slowed drastically during the last month supersac has kept working to make sure the last half of the school year is even more successful than the first on March 13th at Madison High School super Sac will be hosting a community conversation around standardized testing and we hope as many people as possible can attend additionally in less than a month I and two of my fellow members of super Sac will be traveling to Washington DC to attend the national conference for the Council of the great City Schools accompanied by PPS staff members and director Knowles this year rather than having others speak up for us we decided to go raise our concerns ourselves while in DC we look forward to lobbying on behalf of the need for a larger education budget a more critical look at standardized testing in its applications as well as emphasizing the importance of prioritizing education I would like to thank superintendent Smith for giving us this opportunity to attend and represent the students of Portland at a national level we will also be the first students to ever attend the Council of the great City schools and I look forward to the opportunity to provide fresh insight and continue to prioritize student voice and education thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak and on behalf of the students of Portland thank you for serving on this board thank you very much Andrew as always it's always a pleasure to hear what you're thinking and we are also happy that you were able to provide such a positive report about negotiations so looking forward to working with you the rest of the year um at this time we will move into a public comment Miss Houston do we have anyone signed up for public comment we do we have six and our first two speakers are Debbie kitchen and Greg Burrell and I'm thinking that everybody who's going to be coming up for public comment heard the instructions earlier so I won't repeat those now welcome can go ahead all right today unlike all the other times that I've addressed you I don't have any prepared remarks my name is Greg Burrell b-u-r-r ill and the reason I don't have prepared
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comments is that I need to speak from the heart at this important time first of all I think that you understand that I've worked really hard to earn your respect over the last year or two in the comments the way I think about the future of Education in the United States and um the the thing is that this is a moment for forgiveness okay a student representative Davidson I I really appreciate some of the things that you said on that level we have to do a better job of working the only way we can ever have good education is if parents and students and teachers and administrators work together and I am addressing the tip of the iceberg right you are the people who have the power to go and seek funds for us to seek legislation for us but the thing you don't have the power to do is see into thousands of classrooms and see who actually walks in and to see what teachers have to deal with on a daily basis it makes no sense to have policies created at Behind Closed Doors by people who don't teach students tomorrow I'll be teaching at uh Metropolitan Learning Center today I was at George I can't think of policies that work for both of those schools and I can't think of the sort of mandate that would would make teachers in both schools perform I'm beginning to see the effects of punishing teachers this is my ninth year actually I'm almost done nine years I'm beginning to start my 10th year as a substitute teacher and there are some schools that I've had great days in the past and this year I'm not having great days at those schools I don't know you know it it's the same teachers for the most part so I don't know what's going on budget cuts so on and so forth but I just let me just get back as I as I end my remarks to this idea of forgiveness I I think that the teachers and the community stood up and got such um a great response that I think you're going to have to let us lead I think you're going to have to let us manage the implementation of Common Core because the administer can't get it right it's it's something that has to happen between teachers and and on-site School District administrators so I hope you'll consider this and I'll be back to talk to you in uh future weeks about the plan that I'm trying to get teachers and administrators behind thank you very much thank you our next two speakers are Katie Meyer and Teresa Rayford what school are you from go ahead yes go ahead um thank you members of the board and superintendent Smith for allowing me to speak about the Benson varsity football program there's a recommendation that Benson give up or as they're calling it rebuild of varsity football this is really the first step on a slippery slope that could easily end the football program and with the eventual result eliminating all sports at Benson no one goes to school to play JV except maybe as a recreational pastime students want a varsity football team to strive towards and to cheer for at Pep rallies this is part of a complete High School experience it is as important to them as their academic path some some even more and that's because it is so profoundly important in our culture beyond all reason you might say but that's the fact and as you all concluded during the high school redesign evidence-based best practices dictate that delivery of Career Technical education must be contained within a well-rounded academic and extracurricular learning environment Benson's consistent plates at or near the top of the graduation rates confirms This research therefore please disregard this uninformed argument that since Benson students choose a CTE path they also choose to give up everything else
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that's that's a flawed notion that does not support best practices in addition Vince's Dooms already give up plenty the longest car rides they got to get up earlier than everyone else they don't they don't have French drama band IB they're not traveling to Washington DC on the Constitution team um and they're not getting a host of other cool electives and extracurricular activities and you know what they willingly give that up because they've got their cool CTE electives that fit them better however to extend this argument to include Sports it's unfair and inequitable Benson has already given up Sports and lower level programs because of the cap on enrollment but no school or student body has to be give up give up varsity football not only does the decision to cut varsity football fail to support District achievement goals it also does not survive a look through the equity lens eliminating an integral part of school spirit and connection is an additional barrier to school engagement for these students who already have less Benson is a school with 64 percent free and reduced lunch 56 percent minority population Equity requires that Benson students have the opportunities they will not be able to afford outside of public education so much for listening great and lastly we have Scott Overton e good evening my name is Overton Scott over Erton good evening co-chairs Knowles Belial board members and superintendent Smith we the regional PTA wanted to publicly thank you for supporting the process that resulted in a tentative settlement with the Pat and averting a strike as we have testified in the past to strike is a no win situation for our students and Families hopefully the teacher members will ratify the contract as will the board and we can move on to the major task of educating our children and youth in Portland we as BT advocates for Children and Youth would be remiss if we did not point out that one of the major issues debated during this negotiation process was not a typical contract issue but that of class size the growing uproar of our community over many issues that impact teaching and learning in the classroom for example class size teacher preparation for mandates like Common Core time students are in school administrator quality configuration and size of schools just to name a few they Point toward a need to have an open and public discussion about these issues and many more that I will group together in the name of educational vision class size is so much more than the number of teachers hired since we have school buildings that cannot hold any more teachers and merely have a teaching presence does not mean that a teacher is prepared and able to ensure academic achievement for all of their students but it is a start and it opens the discussion for what is ideal class size School configuration and teacher preparation many of these issues which await attention by PPS and all teachers and staff are not the substance of the contract they are issues that provide the support teachers need build the leadership we need in every school building and throughout the district to give support build strength and create the success for students in every school we have seen the uneven way leadership is developed and supported in principles in teacher leaders and even in the way PPS connects with parents we have great examples of how it can work we know how to get moving and that is what we need to do now imagine how smoothly these contract negotiations might have gone had the district had the professional and the professional Educators students and families of students and The Wider Community already discussed what an ideal class side should be and what the obstacles the district faces in achieving that goal you as the PPS School Board have set goals for this year the first of which is I quote Portland Public Schools has a Clear Vision that is supported by genuine ownership of the board the superintendent and community to that end the regional PTA leaders asked that you asked this task the superintendent and her staff to begin this community-wide discussion about educational Vision so that we will be prepared for future debates and demands upon the limited resources available mandated full day kindergarten increased physical education instruction time issues are staring us down in the near future and there are sure to be other pressures on the decisions the board will need to make and prioritize in the coming few years we have too long postponed our difficult discussions and the board has had to act unilaterally with just the superintendent's recommendation on matters that concern the entire community it is our goal to have a community-wide
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public debate about our priorities in providing effective teaching and learning in the classrooms of Portland Public Schools that will help to inform the board and be able to lead us forward into a Clear Vision that is supported by genuine ownership of the community thank you for your continued hard work on behalf of the Children and Youth of our city and know that we stand to advocate for those children and youth in all that you do the PTA Regional leadership end units stand ready and willing to gladly help coordinate public meetings engage all our members in this discussion and assist the process in any possible way thank you thank you very much thank you to everyone for your comments if please feel free to connect with our board clerk Karen hewson if you haven't left your contact information next we have a report from our bond accountability committee I'm pleased to be the board liaison for the bond accountability committee and and very thankful for the experience they bring in reviewing our work on the bond projects we are pleased that they are here this evening to share with the board and the community their review of the work to date I also want to although she's not here right now welcome the new your new member Carol Cheryl Tweedy are excited to have someone else join the committee superintendent Smith would you like to introduce this item Kevin Spellman who will will give the report thank you um coach Knowles coache Belial members of the board superintendent Smith um with me today I have one of our committee members Willie Paul his background is really on point for this committee he is responsible for Capital operations of Kaiser Permanente in the northwest and Willie also served on the long range facilities advisory committee so he's got a bank round in how we got to this point um I think we emptied the room for you too um the committee met January 15 at Franklin High School and we received update reports the summer 2013 work was finally complete and staff reported that that came in almost a million dollars under budget the report that osm has for you today has that updated actually and it's more like I think it's a million one hundred thousand now so it's eight and a half percent under budget which is really impressive um the design status of Roosevelt and Franklin was discussed as well as Fabian and the status of the 12 schools for Summit 2014 and those are on schedule for bidding the spring as you know you have approved the high school Ed specs you've approved the master plans for Roosevelt and Franklin and you have approved the pre-construction services contracts for the construction manager General Contractors so things are really moving down the road pretty fast here um we heard also from the financial folks that the Auditors gave at least the first year of the bond they clean bill of health and our your performance order to talk to us about the work scope and how we intend to work together with them the money issues we touched on we talked about again the 14 million dollar almost 14 million dollar Bond premium that was achieved on the first Bond sale and the committee agrees with the staff position that this should remain in Reserve at this point so that has not been allocated to any of the facilities um staff was also responded to our previous request about more transparency on the schedules the project schedules because those had been um not deliberately opaque but um and it's very hard to get this kind of information across on so many projects in a short period of time with the committee but they've done a nice job of highlighting the key areas and um I think we'll be able to track that a lot better going forth I think by far the biggest concern and we're not really raising you know a real red flag at this point but we are concerned about budget schedule and scope on the Roosevelt and Franklin
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schools we don't have any evidence that there's a problem in any of those areas but we are concerned that we haven't really been following best practices to date the the original plan was to go through the Ed spec process complete that start Master planning complete that and start schematic design that which is where we are right now but a lot of this happened kind of concurrently and even as recently as Saturday the the Roosevelt um several of you were there the Roosevelt Gathering was still kind of at least to some extent talking about program and we need to get our professionals we need to tell them what we want and let them go implement the program and so we're concerned about future delays related to these these issues they're certainly legitimate issues there's no question about it but every time there is a delay or compression it increases risk to the program and we see ourselves as that's our role to identify that um starting with the 2014 work this summer the district will work with the city on Workforce training and hiring with a goal of 20 apprenticeship and we're that's that's a well established program and we're pretty confident that that will be able to be achieved so we're happy about that um the participation of minority women-owned emerging small businesses is still below the aspirational goal and just like we did this time last year we want to caution that our expectation for the bid work this summer is um is that we will not again make that goal is the nature of the legalities related to the bid work but we're happy that you now have two cmgcs on board and there's a lot more flexibility on the high school work so we're looking forward to that um we talked to the to staff and about student participation metrics which all show up green on the balance scorecard and that's frankly in our view that's because the metric is wrong um it's not a measure of real student participation and I think staff is going to be working on on changing that metric so we can really manage it um will it did what did I miss uh not much Kevin I think what you've done is provided a very accurate representation of the uh of the committee's overview of the process so far I merely want to re-emphasize one of the things that Kevin pointed out is that there are no silver bullets in this process there are no shortcuts when it comes to scope schedule and budget those three cannot be separated they all have an impact on one another and as professionals when we see an issue arise in any one of those three categories It's Our obligation to you to at least inform you and make that process transparent if we if we believe there are risks and we believe there are at this point but as Kevin mentioned uh nothing to the point where we would signal a red flag of serious concern merely a recognition that yes there's a risk when schedule is compressed and when phases are extended with the expectation that somehow the time will be made up in future phases that it it rarely occurs that way so our point tonight is to identify that generally we believe that things are going very well in the process but right now we see a risk in in schedule with the compression that's taken place to date and we're certainly open to questions uh questions from the board um how uh so we're one million under budget on for the 2013 roofs which is awesome um what two questions what can you pinpoint why the success so that you might want to replicate that if possible and second uh does under a million dollars under budget mean um the whole budget including contingencies or is that before we get to contingencies no that that um that's taking into account contingency so if I if I remember right and I'm not sure I am right I think there was 12 or 12 contingency on those on that work um I thought it was 15. well I know it was 15 earlier on but that may have um but so we didn't spend eight and a
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half percent of that yeah and what did we do right um I think the uh the bidding environment was positive it may be less positive this year I don't know I I think the economy is a little more robust um uh unforeseen conditions I think it they had to be managed really well to only spend kind of half of that contingency I think that's probably um a big part of the management of those projects and they did do a Lessons Learned exercise after the um after they closed out the project so I think the staff has made a good effort to to take the lessons and take them forward as Kevin indicates the bidding environment has been for several years now been favorable to owners not so favorable to to General Contractors but also with this type of work with Roofing work like like is being identified here with the savings um oftentimes you get into unforeseen conditions and I would have expected that with 12 to 15 percent contingency that should have covered any unforeseen conditions and I think it was just a matter of not running into some of those conditions that you might anticipate as you tear roofs apart not knowing exactly what extent of damage you'll find underneath um so it's a it's a combination of uh perhaps good scoping ahead of time and a positive bidding environment and and my other last question is just curiosity from how you guys view your your job in terms of of the process um how deep have you delved into you've talked about the three areas the actual budget uh and in terms of of what of what we're budgeting to get these projects done the amount of money in you know there's essentially three different contingency funds um the amount of money that goes to hard cost versus soft costs curious who know if if you've taken a deep dive into that and we have the benefit of your experience on that it's fair to say that there hasn't been um anything to dive too deeply into because the budgets have been very conceptual to this point um and by by the nature of the situation because no one knew what we were building and still to to some large extent I think the exciting time is going to be starting here in about uh the next months or so as the schematic designs on um Franklin and Roosevelt fleshed out a little bit the role of the cmgcs at this point is to start putting some more reliable numbers to to the designs as opposed to we're going to modernize the high school there's a little more so there will be some something more tangible uh uh if the committee feels like it needs to dive into that I I would want to and Willie you can tell me I think your experience is probably the same no one should be surprised if some of these early estimates come in over budget that's to some extent that's the nature of this process and that's why we have the cmgcs on board at this early stage and there'll be this kind of balancing act and tension between designers and contractors to reconcile everything so this is this is the exciting time to be looking at real budgets and real schedules and and correct we haven't taken that deep dive into the into the estimates uh and the budgets I should I should say and to my earlier Point budget scope and scheduler Inseparable so to this point they have just been budget with very high level conceptual scope and to that extent that's as far as we've been able to go in in evaluation of budgets to make sure that they look and feel correct in terms of how the budget categories are identified what percentage of numbers are carried for hard and soft costs what percentage is being carried for contingency and right now they look and feel appropriate but as Kevin says as we get deeper into the into the work it would be my expectation that we would also get a deeper view into those budgets as well come on so I had one specific question on your report which is kind of a follow-up to director Kohler and then I had two other questions um the specific question in terms of the follow-up is that director Kohler mentioned that we saved a million dollars on this Summer's work which is amazing so we've had that discussion um it also looks like we had about a million dollar overrun in what's called
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Bond oversight costs so can you also talk to us about that or what caused it or whether or not you feel like we've got that under control well there's a difference between those two the same numbers the the savings on summer 13 work has occurred has occurred we've achieved this same exactly the projected overrun on bond oversight costs is a projection and we've spent very little relatively speaking of those amounts so that's a projection by staff and and it looks again I just saw the updated budget that you've seen today and it doesn't go into the kind of detail that we've seen but it looks like that projection has been reduced somewhat in even in the last month so we know staff is looking at this and and trying to determine uh what they can do about it so it's not a point of huge concern for you at this point not at this point but it's it's on our checklist we'll be watching okay so I have two broader questions if people want to talk specifically about the report first somebody else or should I go okay so um as the bond oversight committee um I had two broad questions about how we're doing so far um clearly our goal was to build 21st century schools sustainable educationally appropriate so in our summer work last year on all of our roofs we did not do anything like solar or renewable on those roofs and I know that there was a lot of partnership work that was taking place a few months ago to see if that could happen on the roofs going forward so my first question is do you have any update on where we're at with all of that because obviously if we can save a lot of money on electrical costs over the years that's more money we can put into the classroom so can you help me we touched on it relatively briefly at the committee meeting but the the report essentially said that a partnership is underway with PGE and the PGE is working on a plan to address the um there was a there's a solar study done of those facilities in the last six months or so and so I think the ball is is in PG's hands although osm may have an update on that I don't know so uh superintendent Smith I'd love to get an update on that if we could as we go okay for questions okay we're already putting them on them should I wait on my other question for the next team then or it's a similar kind of question go ahead and put it out there okay I will go ahead and put it out there um Kevin I know that you were at the Roosevelt design team meeting this weekend we probably had 12 or 15 community members and a lot of other folks there and the specific Focus was on Career Technical education and the space for Career Technical education and director Kohler director Buell and director Kohler were there as well as myself so that was it was great to hear the discussion groups broke up into uh like five different subgroups and certainly the largest one was specific to Career Technical education at Roosevelt and the discussion that keeps coming up over and over again is this allocation of six thousand square feet for Career Technical education and every time in the design advisory meetings that it comes up what we're told is that's what we have to work with I mean that's what the Architects say over and over again that's what we have to work with and when we say who's giving you those instructions it seems to be from somewhere higher up it's certainly to my knowledge is not the board who has made that decision I don't know Carol for two this made the decision but as you look at any of our documentation if you look at Franklin it is more than twice as much Career Technical education space and in fact when you add some of the softer Career Technical education spaces at Franklin it's closer to 25 000 square feet you look at Roosevelts at six to nine six for specific maker space and nine broader so there seems to be a huge inequity there and I think the community is struggling to understand that I'm meaning at least the folks at the Roosevelt design team meeting so in that CTE subgroup a question was asked of the entire group do you believe that six thousand square feet is enough space and there was no one who felt it was
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enough space there was also a discussion on a side discussion about whether the CTE space and the stem Labs should be located adjacent with some adjacencies there was no one who believed that they shouldn't about half the group thought they should be adjacencies about the half group didn't really know so there was a lot of still discussion and I think it's one of your concerns as you sit here today is that we still don't seem to be there right and at some point we're going to get caught up in timeline and have some trouble so I guess I'm specifically asking you Carol to step into this conversation in a really meaningful way and help us figure out what is the appropriate amount of Career Technical education space going forward if we're building 21st century schools because right now the question is out there it's been out there for months and nobody's answering it so why are we building Franklin with way more than twice as much CTE space as Roosevelt so again it could be for the next person but that is the problem in terms of the timing that I think you're uh I think you know the the real fear I have is that in six or seven weeks um the Roosevelt schematic design is going to come before this board and the last thing we want is for that to be rejected right and I think and you at least have some board members here who would vote now at this time I hear that so and I will just say when back when we did that Ed specks conversation and um and you were looking both at how Franklin had handled the conversation and then how Roosevelt had with the direction they believed they'd gotten and part of your conversation was believing the 6 000 square feet was a minimum but that Franklin had wrestled with it and done something more with it that we were hoping to then say okay and and I it does not surprise me that we're having this kind of conversation on the first high schools that you had Ed specks that were in in theory that as it's getting more real people are attaching more specifics to the conversation but I think the conversation Franklin had we wanted to cross fertilize Roosevelt's conversation to say okay this is a minimum it's not saying you will only have six thousand square feet this is a minimum here are all the other features that we're considering to be CTE what are we what are we calling CT what are we calling stem I mean you ended up with a pretty robust conversation amongst yourselves about what you meant by this in passing of the Ed specks document and I think at this point the conversation between Franklin's designed Advisory Group and Roosevelt's design Advisory Group to say okay how do you cross fertilize those conversations for exactly the stage of design they're at is productive um but you guys just did this conversation as a board in terms of your sense making and what you understood at this point and what we were learning from Franklin's design Advisory Group as they were grappling with it and then how do we want to feed that back as an instruction to Roosevelt that it was not saying you're limited to the 6000 you could go beyond that but you as a design advisor group have to look at the trade-offs involved so I don't anyway design team meeting the question has come up about where does the 6000 squeak square feet come from and at every single meeting the group has been told this is what you have to work with at every single meeting just so you know director Reagan I have a feeling I I know the source of that and I think it's a symptom of this this concurrency that's been going on because I think that design team was working with draft Xbox and the draft aspects had six thousand square feet it hadn't come before this board but that's what it had and my guess and that is really only a guess but it seems to make sense to me that this is one of the symptoms of of this concurrency instead of a linear relationship I agree thank you any questions I want a second one director Reagan said about 10 000 or more square feet which should be out there it's talked about has been my exact same understanding I'm not an accountant though I know enough not to spend more money than I make but I'm also not an architect and I'm not a contractor but I am I did spend 40 over 40 years as a school teacher and so I kind of come out and look at these head specs from a school teacher angle and I'm sitting in that meeting going this doesn't make sense from a school teacher for instance uh
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the auxiliary gym doesn't have any seating in it we're going to build an auxiliary gym that's going to be out there for 50 60 years and no seating at all in it where it is they you sit in your class where do you have how do you play a JV game in a freshman game at the same time with no seating in it that means you have to get those kids out of school an extra hour and a half or two hours early who are playing basketball how do you bring in and and play some of the community activities with no cheating in it this is the place where they they spent they raised four million dollars to redo the football field when we're not maintaining very good by the way uh it's pretty bad I don't know hopefully we can do something about that but so I'm just going this doesn't make any sense and then also talking to the people in the uh in in the writing kind of small CP the writing workshop and the publishing and so forth well when I looked at that they've got doing stuff in the big space that you don't do in a big space with all the noise I mean and so I and there was a teacher at the table where I was and I asked how have we included teachers into this and she said well not much and so here's all these actual educational things that have a huge effect and I'm being told by the Roosevelt teacher who's pretty seemed like a pretty nice woman hey no we haven't been included so where have they been for a long time I mean are we going to actually build an auxiliary gym without any seating you know just those small seats is all you need along the edge which puts them another maybe 30 feet on the side um it can you help me out I mean am I lost on that director buellerman are not really involved in those any making sure you spent but I think they're not oversighting they're not oversighting any educational things at all no nothing you don't oversight anything you're just making sure the money is spent and building the building you know when you're not taking into account educational things what I what I was going to say is the next group that's up would probably be a better group to ask those questions of than this group here so but it's nice to get both groups to get those questions in fact the way everybody's thinking about it yeah thank you if you don't want you well I I can clarify or reinforce what co-chair Knowles said we we are not and we don't claim to be education experts we we were appointed to this committee because allegedly we're experts in the design and construction process is there somebody on your committee who's an educational expert no sir so we we had a bond oversight committee but no educational experts on it it's interesting thank you the bond oversight committee is married to people who are involved in the construction industry to help us to make sure that we are meeting the goals of our on time and on budget so yeah and I have huge respect for everything that you're doing and I know it's been an absolutely enormous time commitment so when I was bringing up the CTE to you specifically I think it's because you had expressed a concern about the timeline in particular and again I think that whether it's the auxiliary gym or whether it's this it could have an impact on the timeline if we don't Square these issues away soon so I think that's where so thank you very much exactly any other questions thank you gentlemen thank you very much for being here and thank you for your work on the committee please thank your uh your colleagues on the committee for us too okay at this time we will uh move to our next agenda item the quarterly Capital Improvement Bond update tonight we'll receive that uh update uh superintendent Smith would you like to go ahead and introduce this item so CJ Sylvester who's our chief operating officer we'll provide the quarterly update good evening thank you as usual in your um and I wanted to talk to you about tonight and to bring to your attention and go through a few of the details on is the summer Improvement project of 2014 which we have in front of us as the bond accountability committee chair and Committee Member indicated the project for 2013 was successfully
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completed at six School sites with a 13 million dollar budget the summer Improvement project team worked hard last year and is powering up for summer 2014 and what may be our most ambitious summer Improvement project with 12 sites and nearly a 16 million dollar budget we currently have three different design teams preparing construction documents for three separate invitations to bid these construction packages will be advertised in March and April and the bid Awards will come before you in May so that we can get started as soon as school is out there are two different ways to look at the summer Improvement project 2014's projects budget the pie chart shows the construction and contingency are 90 of project costs with design and permits at 10 percent the table identify cost by type of work so roof and roof related seismic is 53 percent of the 16 million other seismic is 27 percent accessibility upgrades at 15 percent and science classrooms at four percent we have six schools Arleta boys Elliott Humboldt Chief Joseph Creston Hosford and James John that are being re-roofed and having roof related seismic work completed this summer this means it will no longer rain in these classrooms and the seismic improvements being accomplished as part of the roof Replacements are far more cost effective to construct as the roof is being replaced this means we are being wise stewards of the Public's money we have eight schools that are receiving incremental seismic improvements Arleta Beach Creston grout Hosford James John Lane and Woodlawn all these improvements are contributing to Safe exiting from our schools in the event of an earthquake Beach Hosford and James John are further receiving accessibility improvements that include an elevator this is a major milestone for us we're beginning to add elevators to multi-story schools that currently have none other smaller accessibility improvements may seem like minor work but they make a big difference in the lives of our students and their families it's the difference between grandparents being able to see their grandchildren at school school or a student being able to attend their local neighborhood school because the educational program is now accessible and we are improving science classrooms at nine of these schools that have been previously mentioned as getting other work accomplished this summer these classrooms will also have new ADA compliance sinks and eye washes in addition to new furnishings and code compliant electrical service given the impact of snow days we are currently assuming 67 calendar days to accomplish this work before school restarts in the fall the exception to this is the elevator installations which will be accomplished on a non-interference basis with school activities and completed no later than next spring and by that time we'll be getting ready to bid the summer Improvement project 2015 work so I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about the summer Improvement project a scope of work summaries or anything that's in your packet this evening student representative Davidson um so kind of going back to the bond accountability committee's report I was wondering about the student engagement could you explain to me what those new strategies are for involving students more we're currently tied into the biz connect system I if you're familiar with that and so that's currently heavily Reliant upon school counselors being able to connect students to the biz connect system and so from a contractual standpoint we're requiring all of our design and Construction Consultants to um to enroll with Biz connect but then it's uh there's a gap between that enrollment that's occurring and how the students are being able to connect through Biz Connect into these opportunities so that's a gap it's kind of a systemic issue here at the district that we're trying to address but we know where the issue exists I don't know that we've fully come to understand how to correct it okay all right and then also the they also talked about the metric for you know gauging that is that this is the metric we're using the standard metric
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for well the metric we're using um is about our contractual requirement to make sure that our design um our a and our architectural engineering firms their subconsultants and all of our contractors are actually doing the work they're required to by contract in other words are they attending and participating in uh job fairs are they um do they have a student interns on site those kinds of things are they enrolled in Biz connect I think uh what the bond accountability committee is talking about and what the board has talked about in the past is how many students are we actually impacting so rather than the metric being one about contractual compliance how do we how do we turn that contractual compliance into something that's impacting the greatest number of students possible and that's where we're talking about this systemic issue of now that we've got all of our people enrolled in Biz connect how do we make sure then that those opportunities are conveyed to our students so that they can maximize their opportunity to participate so have we also looked at changing the metric yes that's the bot accountability committee has asked us to take a look at that and so staff's in process thank you opportunities once we move out of these summer Improvement projects into the the bigger high school projects that that will be that there will be great opportunities absolutely and uh there's two different ways to look at that just in terms of the scale of the project and the program both in terms of design and construction and at Roosevelt in particular where the where the school the students are going to be remaining on site the opportunity for daily observation of what's occurring on site and participation in those process whether it's design related or construction related we have the opportunity when we've got you know temporary walls in place to have viewing panels through with information about what's occurring on the other side of that wall so at Roosevelt in particular even more so than Franklin where the students are going to be off site we have a teaching and learning collaboration that could be extremely robust is there any sense as well that with the existing CTE classes and offerings that there's some way of connecting like whether it's at Benson or other schools like you know having direct connections ongoing between classrooms because it seems like we the thing that we were concerned about was the one-off internship that was such a limited number of kids versus so are you looking at ways that we can have our existing CTE classes connect directly in an ongoing way it is possible for us to be working with that as the bond accountability committee uh reported to you the the construction manager General Contractors have just recently come on board for those two projects but for instance we've looked at the the Mount Hood Early Learning Center that was recently constructed out there in support of the community college campus and they used CTE classes to construct some of the Furnishings for that Center and so those kinds of things are entirely possible as part of the process both at Franklin and at Roosevelt I mean a living curriculum here and I know it's an additional it's an opportunity but still that this is the chance to do that other comments director a question um when the budget uh oversight committee was here we talked about the contingencies and I was suggested 15 they said no 12. and this says 18. so could you just clarify what what it is well the uh if you're talking about the Improvement project for 2013 it varies a little bit month to month depending on the um projected costs of the project so what it starts out as and what it what it ultimately is once contract awarded and then what it is by the time we complete are three different things so um the million dollar savings if you will was just simply part of the contingency budget that was unused for 2013. and was that budget 15 or 12 of the 30. started at 15. and then then on this one we decided to go to 18 just as opposed to 15 on which one well this pie chart I'm in the Improvement project for 2014. ah there you go yeah it's showing an 18 right there come on up Dan Dan young is the operations manager for the office of school modernization so we'll be better served having him answer
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some of the nuanced questions so all of the Improvement projects start at 15 contingency in this particular project additional funds have been added to the project so as additional scope that the project manager hasn't forecasted the same amount of expenses so you see the contingency has gone up at this point in time and as the project goes forward we expect to go back down so in other words it's important cost of construction okay thank you and then and then the Professional Services is the management of the project the management of the project what is the what's the 10 percent services so the design team okay and then what about the um program management yeah our program management is running I think about five percent across the entire program and where is that reflected in this chart or is it just it actually it is it is not we we account for that uh as a separate line item under program Services uh throughout the entire Bond and then ultimately what happens uh is that the program Services get accounted for in the projects once the projects are complete so this is what we're looking at here in terms of the budget breakout is just for the program not for any for the project not for any program related expenses and then the program related um includes both actual staff here at PPS plus the firm that we've hired to create that to five percent correct okay thank you are these the people that asked my education question of the uh did you hear it the one about the Roosevelt involvement and the two small gymnasium and there were other things I looked at and thought this doesn't make sense from an educational standpoint if we in in the teacher had suggested they hadn't been included very well um well what I heard were three things from you one was that the auxiliary gym had no seating and that is correct the auxiliary gyms are provide opportunity for practice they're considered a practice gym the main gym has two full-size Courts for for competition so the auxiliary gym is further used for physical education classes in addition to practice court activities the you also indicated just so you know that I did catch it that the field maintenance is not particularly high quality you don't think at this moment and so I'll double check on that and then the publishing Center uh we actually have met with teachers so and they want each twice three times um I don't know the answer to that question off the top of my head but there will be continuing conversations through schematic design with the teachers so this is an ongoing process as we go through the master planning process and through the schematic design process and it's varied a little bit by the kind of environment which teachers in the kind of environment so in some instances like Special Ed we've actually been going Staffing and the design team have been going into the classrooms because that's the most comfortable place for the teachers and students to give their input in other instances we've brought groups of teachers together in order to talk about their specific Specialties such as science teachers and those kinds of things and that will continue to happen all right you had a meeting say with the coaches and the physical education people and they pointed out that Jim needed seating or would that be a no we didn't have a meeting with those people I don't know for certain whether that happened or not and I certainly don't know if they pointed that out but it would be the same response we know there is no seating in there we have no capacity to add seating in there because we don't have the dollars to add additional square feet so and in fact you may recall that back when we were talking about adding additional Career Tech space the auxiliary gym was one space in terms of the square feet that we could have simply not provided at all in order to provide additional square feet as an offset in Career Technical education so when the bond accountability committee talks about the inextricable link between schedule budget and scope that's what we're talking about you can't you can't add without in one place without subtracting from another the uh I don't really well maybe they want to add the seating and subtract from someplace else might be a good idea but the uh they haven't really met that much with teachers it doesn't sound like I mean a
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case and maybe the science teacher sat down and met but I mean is that nobody knows or I would I will have to get back to you on that because there's been a certain number of meetings that have taken place I have not personally been present in them because they can get you that information they have an auxiliary gym over there at Franklin yes is that does that have seating in it no so we're building two auxiliary gyms that are going to sit there for 50 years and neither one has any seating yet that's correct I personally think that's a huge mistake really not a not the way to go let me ask about uh mold at Roosevelt huge mold problem at Roosevelt what do we I mean are we have we recognized that and we have a plan to work with a huge mold problem in Roosevelt well you are identifying something that I don't know if it's entirely accurate um I don't either we have indoor air quality uh work that is done continuously here at the school district and so mold is an indoor air quality issue so right but I mean you've said there's a huge mold problem at Roosevelt High School I don't know if that's accurate would anybody look into that maybe and see if it is accurate I certainly can we yeah we have staff who do that very thing that's their job good but can somebody send me a report on that and see what we're doing and I think I could certainly have them contact you and let you know what they're currently evidently okay what about the permanent problem we're looking into the Berman problem how to deal with that health and safety does that as well oh okay good maybe somebody send me something on the Vermin problem too yep that would be great it would be the same person thank you now how would you get the how would you go about changing the uh the size of the gym at this point in time unless someone gives us directions on what they want us to remove from elsewhere in the program we we're not in a position to be able to increase the size of the gym unless we came up with more money someplace that too that's another way of doing it okay great now would I do then in the budget make a motion in the budget thing to increase the size of the gym no the budget is for operating focuses build a gymnasium can we build anything with our own budget do we ever build anything I mean do we ever we put in things yeah do we ever do anything like that is the question do we use the general fund ever ever for building anything is the question no it's really for maintenance and repair I know what it's for but do we ever build anything out of them you ever thought have we ever built anything out of the general fund I'm I have no doubt at all that some years ago that would have been possible but given the condition of the general fund over the last decade maybe we have at some point okay okay which raises the question of at what point are we going to let this process continue and let the professionals do their work because if we are continually raising additional changes concerns options trade-offs different ways we would redesign this we're not going to get this moving forward in our professionals our accountability committee has identified a serious concern not quite a red flag but I'm hearing on the border of that and I have huge respect for their professional expertise so I'm just you know wondering what we need to land this and we need to allow the work to move forward so if the CT in particular has come up over and over I keep thinking that we've resolved it and then it keeps coming up again so I'm not quite sure what what are we going to do I'm sort of asking him to order of us and at this point s are all moving forward and we'll bring a final plan to us and we'll either approve it or not and then we'll move forward and well but I'm sure that many many of us have a number of different concerns but just because I have a concern doesn't mean that that we should move forward that everything should stop to address my concern well I agree completely on that so I guess there we go so but but if we're hearing that the design Advisory Group does have some flexibility that they may not have realized they had for whatever reason is there still an opportunity for them is there an opportunity to very quickly get that addressed and have that be folded into their work going forward so that we don't keep hearing that the design Roosevelt design advisor at the end they're not at the end yet are they no but you you did approve that yeah which are the things that we're asking everybody to utilize as their framework for how they're doing the design right and the conversation you had about the CTE 6000 square feet was okay as part of the Ed specks consider this a minimum and that's how we would communicate it I mean you had a pretty robust discussion about exactly the conversation we're having right now and CTE and where Roosevelt's dag had gone through a conversation about trade-offs they were willing to make in order to
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increase the amount of square footage that they were allocating to CTE and part of what we said is let's have those because Roosevelt was operating under a an understanding that shooting four six thousand square feet as opposed to recognizing flexibility that Franklin had had exercised and we said let's make sure let's make it very clear that it's a minimum and that they may have the conversation about trade-offs they're willing to make yeah yes okay prescribed as you have six thousand square feet at every single design team meeting I can add it's been described that you have six thousand square feet we did have a workshop on Saturday morning as director Regan previously identified three board members were there so we had some good robust conversation this was a Roosevelt High School Workshop number one for the schematic design phase there is will be a workshop number two that is also open to the General Public um where there will be revised drawings that come forward as a result of the conversation that took place on Saturday uh this is the way that things have been working as we move through design processes both in the master plan and now in schematic design I would say right now the difference is about 3 000 square feet between Franklin and Roosevelt Franklin has a tendency to characterize general education classrooms in a more robust way in terms of their multiple uses but really they've got about 9 100 square feet in unique space and Roosevelt right now is looking at six thousand currently Roosevelt has more General Ed classrooms than Franklin has so I mean that's the difference in the square feet literally is the number of General Ed classrooms versus how much is in in Career Technical part of what came up at Saturday was was proximity between the Makerspace and the stem lab I think that's something that we started working on with the Design Consultants before everyone had even left the building so just know that that was the entire reason for Saturday Workshop the entire content was about the CTE both small CTE as Gina yerkovich says which is kind of career pathway and the large CTE or the big CTE which is the state approved programs and that was the very reason for the several hours that the community spent on Saturday having the conversation at Roosevelt High School that will influence the plans as they move forward director Buell I want to go back to the gymnasium so in the main in the main gymnasium you're going to have at Roosevelt and Franklin you're going to have two full-size courts 50 by 84. set next to each other with a curtain down the middle so you can play two competitive games at once correct so there's a curtain down the middle and there are 284 by 50 and they're seating on both sides correct any other questions um yeah so first of all in all of the design team meetings I've been at I haven't heard a single comment about mold or Vermin just so you know um and my general sense is that one of the reasons that we are rebuilding some of our schools is because they're incredibly old and leaky and um we probably have some mold and bourbon in most of our schools I mean it's just the way it is and thank God that we have this bond in place and we're going to start a reconstruction process so you know clearly we need to be looking at it whether it's a particular issue right now but that is our reality it's the reason we're going forward with this Bond thank God I would say director Buell in terms of the auxiliary gym that hasn't been something that's come up in a really big way in these meetings at all and I guess coming from my students attending Lincoln High School which has one gym having two full gyms with full attendance capacity Plus and it is all your gym sounds like heaven to me so I guess I'm not coming at it from the same perspective as you are it seems like a Monumental improvement over what many of our schools have and I do think there is a place for a practice gym that wouldn't necessarily be where the public are but um certainly legitimate to be thinking about whether or not we need some seating in there it's not for me a major concern and I haven't heard it as a major concern although I do know that somebody brought it up on Saturday it's one of the first times I've heard that um from the teacher Viewpoint that we maybe should be looking at and that was going to be my third comment is one of the
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reasons I think that we're struggling with the CTE conversation at Roosevelt is there's several of our high schools that have no current CTE offerings and I believe that Roosevelt is one of those and Franklin has a pretty robust CTE offering and so you're going to have teachers and staff at Franklin who really value CTE and understand what it does for kids and at Roosevelt you aren't necessarily going to have the same internal teaching Advocates and I guess that's where I want to make sure that our chief academic officer or superintendent the board is engaged in understanding what it is that we want to be providing to our students at our comprehensive schools when it comes to Career Technical education I'm not sure that we're going to necessarily find The Advocates internally of Roosevelt who are who are going to be doing that as much because it isn't currently offered there and it's just not it's there maybe isn't as much awareness but to have the inequitable offerings between our two first high schools is is where I'm as a school board member really struggling so I would I want to make sure that the academic part of our house is in these discussions in a really substantive way and making sure that we're doing right by our kids going forward so that's my concern below I just wanted to appreciate um you're calling out the difference in the actual square footage about 3 000 square feet difference and perhaps in what it's being called because I can remember our robust discussion about CTE here and saying you know we we're not sure that the the amount of space allotted at Franklin was enough and I think director curler came to the next design advisory group with me the committee and all of a sudden it was you know twenty thousand square feet and it wasn't really that more space had been found somewhere more scope or budget had been it was the adjacencies it was how how are we going to use this space and what are we going to call it how are we going to Envision its use which was really what got us there so I just um it sounds like some support that's needed for the design advisor group to help revision that and figure that out to me that's really what this is about is is how to how to classify it and how to how to how to think of that differently so that we can get that because I guess I just as I hear our discussion and I hear the the not a real red flag but just a caution I feel like our bond accountability committee is being very generous in trying to ankle to us that if we don't figure this out and stop getting in this way of pulling back and saying give us this give us more of that by the way just so you all know I'd also like a band and choir room and all of our things and right now we have them combined so we can all come up with lists of things that we don't from a teacher's perspective a band room is very different than aquarium I can go on and on we have a limited budget we are moving on this project we we made some trade-offs and whether or not we all understand all of them but I'm convinced hearing our discussion that all of us don't understand all of the trade-offs but um having confidence I have her excuse me I've heard of a lot of teacher meetings offers of teaching meetings offers of teacher meetings being not taken saying we're not interested for one reason or another what I've seen and again I can only speak to the the Franklin one so I I can't speak to Roosevelt is that there's been a great effort to reach out Community Partners have been invited um CTE has been invited all these different things about saying what do you need what does the space look like how does this look like and then they're taking that all in for the schematics design so I appreciate the discussion about CT it sounds again like we need to help re re-establish what how we're looking at those spaces at Roosevelt maybe more than coming up with more space but I just wanted to say thank you this is exciting and I just hope that we either take responsibility for delaying it if we wind up delaying it or that we realize that um we're we're picking at things that um maybe aren't aren't as important as they feel like they are right now and so go triple oil if I could just add on to what you just said I think the biggest issue that we're talking about now at Roosevelt is the area that is being set aside for maker space which is the larger area where you can have significant machinery and tools and right now at Roosevelt if you're looking at Woods Metals fabrication Manufacturing they are setting aside 2 000 square feet that's two classroom spaces you can't do true maker space in 2000 square feet and everybody recognizes that so you're right we need to take a look at it I would love to have our chief academic officer and others help us understand
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why there's so much more classroom space being set aside as opposed to making sure we have a robust maker space that's the conversation we need to have and we need to have it really soon because otherwise the decision will be made and it will be too late so that's the concern thanks director Buell yeah I'd like the second one Bobby said and I'd also like to say there's teachers meetings in their teacher meetings and and so there and there's a huge difference on how you construct those meanings and you construct those meetings with real input or you construct those meetings with phony input the huge percentage of normal teacher meetings throughout not just Portland Public Schools but period is are constructed generally in a phony manner not in one that really gets people in and actually frees them up to talk which is what I've talked about for a long time here and I think we you know I don't people say well yeah I met with the teachers yeah well they went out made a presentation listened to questions listen input but not real serious input and discussion that's what I'm talking about thank you any other comments I appreciate the way you uh articulated where Roosevelt's headed and and I do think there was an issue so I'm glad that it's been it's been opened up and folks are liberated to make trade-offs and just look at things and DJs and see all the things that Greg mentioned um I will just I will just say among here um that the the issue I think one issue which is going to make CTE pale in comparison is the notion of shared classrooms um and I just wanted to alert I'm hearing it in a big way from from teachers and uh I just want us to be real open-eyed about that about that issue in terms of of budget and timelines and and everything it's just um it scares me a little bit okay against that that will delay the whole the whole project yes that wouldn't be my fear so well thank you very much um CJ thank you I also want to um I've been very interested in the conversation thank you very much to all the board members certainly was robust but I also want to remind all of my colleagues that we have gone through the ad specs numerous times and we voted on them and we approved them now we can revisit them but it's going to take a majority of the board that wants to do that in order to do that so I think it's important that we remember that and as far as and with regard to Roosevelt I'll be very interested in seeing how that plays out in the end I think at least being interested in CTE like some of my colleagues I've been very pleased with what's happened at Franklin and I'm looking forward to seeing how the rose or the Roosevelt Community continues to struggle with that and see where they can end up so again I think it's important that we leave that to the community to let them make those decisions within the parameters that we set within the Ed specs that we all voted on already so thank you so much everybody next open enrollment board previously discussed this item on February 3rd meeting superintendent Smith would you like to present this item um yes so Judy Brennan who's the director of our enrollment and transfer services it will come on up and both do a little recap of what the discussion was previously but also be available to answer questions good evening um so in part this is just a statutory requirement every year school districts around Oregon are required by March 1st to designate whether they will be participating in the state's open enrollment plan which is a certain method of having kids go across district lines in addition to that we just wanted to make sure that you were aware that there are a number of other legislative changes coming down for students who transfer across district lines I believe the Senate voted on the most recent of those today and so we will have an update for you soon there are a number of families who live in other districts who are keenly interested in coming into Portland who are anxiously awaiting for what that's going to be because we will be having non-resident students apply through a separate lottery so that's the change in action that families have been experiencing while this is going on so
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your action tonight is really to decide on your own open enrollment um for the 2014-15 school year and I appreciate your your willingness to to work with us on the next set of changes that will be coming soon we'll now consider resolution 4878 in our district transfer procedures for the 2014-15 school year do I have a motion second someone second director Morton moves and director Atkins seconds the motion to adopt resolution 4878 Miss Houston is there any citizen comments no there's not thank you board discussion on this resolution as you will all remember we discuss this at our February 3rd meeting and there was also the information in the packet again this time so any discussion on this particular item okay the board will now vote on resolution 4878 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution 4878 is approved by about a 7-0 with student representative Davidson voting yes great thank you the business agenda the board will now consider the remaining issues on its business agenda having already voted on resolutions 4877 and 4878 Miss Houston are there any changes to the business agenda there is not do I have a motion and a second to adopt the business agenda so move second director Belial moves and director Morton seconds the adoption of the business agenda Miss Houston is there any public comment no there isn't okay is there any more discussion on the business agenda director Buell thank you if we look at 4874 where we're now hiring 19 temporary teachers indoor buildings starting actually the 14th of October and going through sometime in February we need to figure out a better system than doing this we get to the middle of the year and and maybe many of these are probably wonderful teachers Maybe but we need to have a system where we don't get to the middle of the year and we're pulling off of the different various substitute roles or something a good friend of mine is principal of the year last year in middle schools and I talked to him about his hiring ad in his David Douglas middle school and the last time he hired a teacher he went through 70 pages of substitute listings 70 pages and he went through everyone and he still was having difficulty getting who he really wanted he didn't finally get a really good teacher he said but we need a different system for our hiring altogether I think we're going to speed it up as we go out of the out of the negotiations it will speed up a little bit it's not going to speed up a lot I've talked and talked about a system that speeds it up a lot that puts us first in the 17 or so school districts in the entire metropolitan area and it puts us first and we hire a large percentage of people first not last which we've done for years we've been last we've been last for a long time when the Stanford children moved us from 18th to tide for 17th at one point and really thought it was a terrific thing but so when we get down to these hires we should be hiring these people permanently from our pool that we've already put together of the best teachers in the entire metropolitan area who we hired first I keep talking I wish Sean was here tonight uh to hear this I keep trying to get us to look at this system can't we look seriously about hiring first we could do it and when we get to this spot instead of now these are the teachers who have not been hired by anybody else and these are the best ones that we have but they're the ones who now are sitting here in the middle of the year unhired we should have already had these teachers hired and in place in most of these cases not all because there's no assistant that's going to do it all because you can't project it but there is a system that you can set up other school districts have done it Houston was doing it way back in the early 1980s for their system and so I'd just love to have us really recognize that our hiring system is not very good and it needs to be better and it's hard for me to as a board member to sit here and listen to the rest of the board and our Administration talk about wanting to get the best teachers that we possibly can in our classrooms and then not looking at a system that hires the best teachers that we possibly can in our classroom
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particularly in the most difficult areas which we're trying to serve I don't understand it and you can go ahead and continue to do it but it to me it does not make sense thank you director Martin thank you um I so director Buell I do have a question for you um and it is what here's I guess what I don't know and if Sean was here maybe he could tell us or someone else could but at what percentage during this time of the year do you think we would be hiring a percentage of our overall teacher numbers do you think would be we would be hiring at this time of the year Well you mean there's 20 there's 19 on the list right so what percentage that's a very very small percentage right I got 2 800 teachers or 2900 right yeah yeah it's a very small percentage Michelle so good evening um I think to speak to the question of why we've got temporary teachers being hired in October there's um typically two reasons one would be additional hire our teachers were putting into the system that happened later after our initial hiring so in October when we had additional funding to hire those teachers we have to hire them as temporary so that's why you're seeing folks being hired in October is that our own policy that is in our contractor APS PhD contract just a moment Michelle um are those uh teachers out of our some of those teachers out of our sub pool that are already yes yeah we both hire from our sub pool that's a majority of where we do get folks so we do hire substitutes every year typically if we're not able to hire but we have great teachers but we don't have to have positions and we'll hire them into the sub pool the other I just wanted to mention one teacher prior most of these are January hires so just to say there's one and the other reason would be for leaves of absence and that's really where you typically see all of the temporary teachers coming is their back filling for leaves that are greater than 60 days and again it's sort of under the contract we have to hire them as temporary teachers we always have we always have temporary teachers Midway three right right okay yes so director Regan um I had one quick question in um superintendent Smithy you don't need to answer it now if you don't have it but Portland Community College is our new intergovernmental agreement and it looks like a contract amount of 300 000 but the description is just Jefferson continue to provide the middle college partnership allowing high school students an opportunity here in high school and college credit which is great that's what the medical college is but I have no idea what this 300 000 is for so I'd love to get more information on that at some point the description is just so generic actually thank you for picking one up and dress up it's a program I absolutely love just don't understand what this is the contract with Portland Community College that's before you right now is our ongoing expansion of tuition share with Portland Community College for students at Jefferson High School doing dual credit courses at PCC so thank you that's much really exciting to see the growth there and see the um the growth on transcripts of students having dual credit opportunities where they've gotten their high school credits and college credits at the same time so that's exactly what that's very helpful thank you director Buell yeah the system that I'm kind of talking about doesn't put in just substitutes and it puts in permanently hired substitutes but that doesn't have anything to do with the resolution we're considering right now this is about temporary hiring permanent teachers right but what I was just commenting on my comments that you actually would have permanent teachers here that you would place they would be permanently hard which would be the best teachers better than you think of anybody else okay the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no an extension abstention excuse me business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative Davison voting yes everybody's backing away are you done where's my last page the next meeting of the board will be held on Monday March 3rd 2014. this

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2013-2014, https://www.pps.net/Page/2224 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:54.073648Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2014-02-24 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - February 24, 2014

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