2014-08-12 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2014-08-12
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - August 12, 2014

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good evening everyone good evening everyone this formal meeting of the board of education for august 12 2014 is called to order i'd like to extend a war and 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 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times and this meeting is also being streamed live on our pps tv services website director curler and student representative jaya's wall are absent this evening and before we get started i'd also like to take an opportunity to introduce everyone to our new board manager roseanne powell who is sitting right up here roseanne uh after a year the board is very happy to have her with us it took us about a year to to find her and we are really excited to have her joining us um on staff so okay at this time we will go ahead and do public comment uh miss houston do we have anyone signed up for public comment we do we have four our first two speakers donna cohen and adam robbins okay while you guys are coming forward i'll go ahead and read the instructions about 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 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 board or staff will follow up on various issues that are raised please be sure that you've left your contact information either phone number or email with ms houston pursuant to board policy 1.78.012 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 and will not be heard in this forum you have a total of three minutes to show your comments please begin by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes you'll see a green light on that box ahead of you when you have one minute left a yellow light will come on and when your time is up a buzzer will sound and you'll see the red light and we respectfully ask that you wrap up your comments at that time we sincerely appreciate your input and we thank you for your cooperation i'm donna cohen c-o-h-e-n i have three points um first before you go to bed tonight spend a couple of minutes thinking about this you told us that roosevelt is going to now have two fully equipped stem spaces it's kind of like adding one plus one equals one because we've been saying that neither of those spaces is large enough for fully equipped stem workspace which is why they need to be adjacent if you think otherwise you need to show us that you need to create a diagram a schematic something that indicates not neces you have to put the equipment in any specific location but all of the stuff is going to have to be in there just get it in the room and show us that it works it seems like you expect the community to just take things at your word and i prefer to work from an evidence-based place so please do that second point pps desperately needs help with stem that's pretty obvious at this point especially the tech engineering part the te of stem you should hire tech uh engineering educator who is experienced and has leadership qualities as soon as possible if no one is available in oregon do a national search you might go through the existing program teacher ed programs in other states in the country and talk to the heads of the programs get a recommendation for a student they've had who's now out working and and has he has these qualities excuse me and then have that person oversee the tech engineering component of stem for the district you can also contact the international technology and engineering educators association which is i sent you information about their conference and finally many people in portland public schools misunderstand the core tenet of stem which is to design something that solves a problem build a prototype test and redesign if necessary this is the engineering design process many people confuse science experiments with the engineering design process in
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fact this is such a significant issue that the next generation science standards have addressed this and they say although engineering design is similar to scientific inquiry there are different significant there are significant differences for example scientific inquiry involves the formulation of a question that can be answered through investigation while engineering design involves the formulation of a problem that can be solved through design so every stem project should be evaluated on the basis of whether it follows the engineering design process with inquiries into such things as design iterations science principles involved math principles involved tools and equipment used was the problem solved and is there a log book showing the progress uh and the development of your of your project this type of evaluation is something that this person can help you figure out so thank you very much my name is adam robbins last name rob ins i'm here today to address the bond measure funded remodel of roosevelt high school i find the remodeling project thrilling both as a future roosevelt high school parent as a resident north portland as a practicing design professional and as a treasurer of the board of the saint john's neighborhood association but i do have a concern about the stem space as designed stem education spaces succeed where all the tools resources and instructors are combined in the same area where the most interactions between instructors professionals and students can happen across the broader spectrum of expertise and ideas in roosevelt's current plan these areas have been split into two separate areas and opposite wings of the building which can only result in a less effective stem space the current stem space design appears incidental as if an afterthought and is not the best use of the available square footage the pps representatives that came to the sgna general meeting in july assured us that the structure is flexible enough that the stem spaces can eventually be combined but as a design professional i know it is much more efficient to take care of this plan change now before the program is in place before the students have their workshop set up and i also know the functionality of spaces should take precedence over packing square footage into a box in september my two daughters begin sixth grade at george middle school one of roosevelt's feeder schools my daughter lucy is heavily interested in stem subjects identifying herself as a scientist as early as age four she has been involved in first lego robotics competitions and constantly pursues activities in science and engineering i am counting on pps to create an integrated stem education facility and so is my daughter having a divided and dysfunctional stem education area right out of the gate in 2017 as she starts at roosevelt will detract from education and telling her that it's okay because the space can be reimagined later and combined later i don't feel is good enough she'll be there the first day of school fall 2017 and the stem education space needs to be built correctly the first time it is unacceptable to let this project proceed with the flawed design i ask now is the time to avoid making a mistake a mistake that has been brewing for months but a mistake that if uncorrected will have effects for years if not decades to come now is the time for action we the roosevelt high school community are not asking for something extra we are asking that the space be built correctly the first time roosevelt is rising please do not push it back down thank you next we have mike rosen and jane greenhouse you can go ahead and start okay jane greenhouse green h-a-l-g-h i'm here to discuss the corrective action plan and to urge pps to live up to its commitment to offer a full day of high school to every student to genuinely offer a full day pps needs to provide high school principals with more teachers now as we're not close to providing a full day to the majority of high school students looking at the preliminary forecasting data there's some great news 97 of freshmen at roosevelt will get a full day 94 at madison 81 at jefferson but at cleveland only 43 will get a full day and at lincoln 17 that's 17 of freshmen let's talk about lincoln for a moment that's my son's school if you do some simple math and divide the fte you've provided to lincoln with the number of students and then divide by eight classes you'll discover you're not funding enough fte to give lincoln students even seven classes not even seven foundation money is now being used simply to get us to part-time school it's not just a problem at lincoln comprehensive high schools across the city need more staffing fewer than half of wilson students are forecast for a full day only 34 percent of cleveland students grant and franklin are right at
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50. lincoln is at 19. over the past few years pps has created a culture of part-time high school by restricting most students to seven classes the parent complaint was filed last year when you tried to kept students to six classes you've sent a consistent message to students that part-time school is just fine for most high schoolers as educators you need to learn lead and show students that high school should be a full-time commitment pps needs to provide principals with enough teachers to offer enough sections of classes so students can take a full day parents are counting on educators in the district to counsel students about what is really needed to graduate and be ready for college or a career pps's milestones are clear to graduate on time to meet college-ready benchmarks another of your stated goals is by 10th grade students should have passed course subjects with strong grades of b or better you also set the benchmark to earn nine college credits using these standards almost all of our students need access to a full day of instruction because most pps students aren't meeting these standards they need support classes career related learning study hall with instruction college prep classes like ib and ap so it's crucial that high school principals be given the teachers they need now to provide every student with a full day of school thank you thank you okay thank you to everybody for your comments and again please feel free to connect with the board manager or with miss houston who can make sure she has your contact information so at this time we'll go ahead and have the superintendent's report superintendent smith um yes and i think we have some photos to go along with this up on the screen yeah so um my superintendent report is really a tribute to the staff and parents and families who have been part of keeping our students engaged during the summer and preparing our buildings and our programs for the school year and for the future so people have been very busy this summer our principals and secretaries are back in school this week teachers will soon follow we have project community care on august 23rd and i'm hoping a lot of people are planning to join us to help work on the grounds and buildings to welcome our students back students are back for the first day of school on september 2nd and kindergartners start on september 5th so this is our summer bond construction and as you know the 2014 summer bond construction work is going really well all 12 summers the buildings that we're being focused on this summer are on time and on budget so the working has included roof repairs seismic strengthening improvements to build accessibility and science classrooms i got to visit three of them today it was very exciting and really amazing what's being pulled together in a very very tight time frame this summer one example elevator projects are underway in three schools they'll give students staff and parents access to areas of the building they have that have not been easy to reach the work is made possible as you all know from the 482 million dollar school improvement bond that our voters passed in 2012 so we're really excited about how this is shaping up and we will be ready for kids on september 2nd so summer interns and you're going to hear more about this as part of the bond update but we have taken internships to a new level this summer we welcomed oriented trained and deployed 25 interns the largest district level cadre of paid interns in memory the program is called building futures district staff has gotten to know the and know the interns by their red id badges and i think we have some interns with us here this evening the students are wearing intern t-shirts during the day and they've been great at the work that they're doing so they've been doing answering district phone lines tabling at community events photographing construction at the summer bond worksites and you'll hear more about them tonight during the office of school modernization report but welcome and thank you to our interns who chose pps as the place they were working some of these students have um are are continuing pps students and some actually graduated last year and this was their first out of school job after graduating so we're really excited about this clarendon early learning center is getting ready to open in september this program is housed at the old clarendon school building in north portland the center will bring together several head start and culturally specific preschool programs we'll also have parent resources for children and families from 15 months to five years old and the center will support learning for our communities youngest students and then assist them and their families in the transition to kindergarten we hope clarendon will be the first of several such centers across the district
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over time and at this moment we want to thank our partners albina early head start oregon community foundation indian education neighborhood house and the pps teen parent program so we're really excited about this opening this in september lions in the park we had the summer james john elementary teachers organized a reading program that they called lions in the park which is named for the james john mascot they wanted to help their students beat the summer slide so they came to pps and portland park summer lunch events to read with their students the program has been a roaring success ha ha teachers teachers from other schools also began stopping by to read to students and we want to thank all those teachers for making early literacy a priority all year long and thank you to portland parks and rec for being such a great partner with us this summer in feeding families and actually these photos we had all of our principals posed with little messages to students so that they could send home personalized messages to students about reading over the summer so we really had infused a lot of what are the messaging matches messages going home we're all about reading rosa parks students and teachers started their year-round schedule in july and this is the start of a two-year pilot program that rosa parks is testing out for the district we know that year-round schedules have shown to improve academic outcomes for students in other districts around the country and for pps we're looking to rosa parks to see what kind of outcomes they get doing their year-round school so and actually i visited rosa parks earlier this week or let the end of last week and it was totally exciting everybody families everybody's back and engaged benson had summer scholars again this summer we had a six-week summer program that wrapped up on august 8th with 2 400 students participating over the course of two three-week sessions some 2 400 students summer scholars hosted high school students from over 25 portland metro area schools and programs it's a high school credit recovery and credit advancement program for students who want to recover credit improve a grade or get ahead by earning original credit approximately 23 students will have completed their graduation requirements during summer scholars and will receive their 2014 diploma from their respective high school this month in addition we had 35 students who completed their essential skill requirement in reading writing or math this summer and in partnership with portland parks and recreation we served nearly 6 700 meals breakfast and lunch during the six-week summer program and i want to thank the many staff and partners who helped to make this a success this is a big deal for a lot of our students so and as part of when they have something to finish up this allows the opportunity to do that now harriet adair is not with us here in the audience which i was hoping that she would be but harriet who is our assistant superintendent for school operations and support recently received the president's award from the confederation of oregon school administrators and she was on leave when the award was given to her at the cosa convention at the coast this summer so we were hoping to do it here tonight so that she would get recognition and it was presented by the kosa president and vernon elementary school principal tina acker who served as prince president of cosa this year harriet began her career with pps in 1970 as a middle school teacher and moved into the principal ranks and then to the district level and she has led such key initiatives as pre-k implementation supervised principles in nearly every cluster of schools and develop special expertise in early learning so she is the person who's really championing the clarence clarendon earlier learning hub she's also taught education at portland state and has been a mentor and inspiration to hundreds of teachers particularly teachers of color in the district as well as a mentor to many of the leaders in the district congratulations to harriet and thank you for your ongoing commitment to pps and she does she's just a part of and loves this district so so i'm also happy to announce the 2014 portland public schools garden cookbook you may know that our district has more than 60 school gardens those gardens are used to teach core curriculum including math science writing and art our gardens are also a safe place where students can be outside and focus on the natural environment nancy bond who is our resource conservation coordinator with the district's facilities department along with our americorps environmental projects coordinator angela olivario created this cookbook by compiling recipes stories and
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photographs from each of the district's gardens they also got art from students who worked in the gardens and these cookbooks have been published to raise money for the school gardens so far more than a thousand of the cookbooks have been sold at five dollars a piece raising almost five thousand dollars for next year's garden program so well you know you were supposed to be provided one tonight but we will be finding those for you and getting them to you they're really cool they're very beautiful cookbook we will get you we will we will be getting um you know that's a great question i think they're available online but tony do you know how we how these are available to the public how can one get one okay we will post this on the board the board page in the uh if people are interested in getting a cookbook another summer program fabian fast track summer pilot program we had 50 kindergartners and first graders getting an introduction to school this summer during a pilot program called fabian fast track which helped prepare students for academic success here you have a shot of kids being prepared students received breakfast and lunch along with math reading and writing instruction and there was also a an artist in residence hour artists provided visual arts and dance instruction including having a garage band play for the students so this is funded through all hands raised an all hands raised equity grant concordia university schools uniting neighborhoods or the sun program and pbs english as a second language and early childhood education departments so it's really exciting the program different programs that schools have run this summer in order to keep kids connected to school and not to lose lose ground during the summer and to introduce we had our early kindergarten transition programs happening in a number of schools again this year and then finally as part of our third grade reading campaign we've had athletes and authors doing events across the district both last year and then again this summer so one of the authors that came and read at rosa parks was renee watson who was a jefferson graduate and nationally recognized children's book author she came to rosa parks last week to inspire students and assist with our third grade reading campaign we had a gathering of more than 200 children with their families who came and have she read one of her books it was a really wonderful event really great great inspiration for young readers and young writers but um we are going to play for you a clip from that katu showed about this event k2's valerie hurst live in the newsroom with this val who is this and what is she doing what's the mission here her name is renee watson she graduated from jefferson high school now lives in new york city uh where she is a children's book author she's also a performer she's back home right now kicking off a partnership she has with portland public schools and some non-profits in town like the multnomah county library she has advice for both kids and parents when it comes to improving reading skills last night she was reading some of her own work to kids at rosa parks school and she talked about where her skills have taken her experts say reading at grade level by third grade sets a kid up for success a better chance at graduating and starting a career but a big number nearly 70 percent of kids don't meet that mark renee says parents have to be involved not just giving a child a book but reading with the child and parents really owning that responsibility of sitting down with the young person and reading with them discussing the story now she also suggests that we be role models to parents by doing our own reading in front of the kids so they see that as adults we still need to have good reading skills and by the way just last month oregon's chief education officer told the oregonian that her priorities for the year included improving reading instruction for kids who are approaching third grade we're live in the newsroom valerie hurst k2 news yeah it's wonderful when you have the parents invested in reading with their kids right they know how important that is it's reaching out to all the other parents maybe who who don't realize the level of importance that's important for sure all right val thank you nice coverage actually it's been great having the reading events at schools where they've drawn large numbers of families and our partners and they feel very festive pizza offered but really great energy and the kids ask great questions both of the athletes and the authors and it's been wonderful to have portland public school authors people who have become authors come back
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and read to our kids so this was a wonderful event and that's it good stuff going on in our schools this summer thank you very much okay let's move on to our next agenda item which would be the bond accountability committee quarterly report the board appreciates the opportunity to hear the report this evening from the bond accountability committee i'd like to ask our invite chairman there he is kevin spellman to present the report tonight and thank you chair knowledge board superintendent smith with me today is one of our committee members steve marsh who in his day job is auditor for multnomah county and i'd like to say that we on the committee really appreciate the skills that he brings and the skepticism that he brings to this process it's really valuable that's why we're there so appreciate it steve um the bac met july 16 and before we talk about any of the reporting i want to restate as i do each quarter the appreciation we have for the staff osm staff who continue to be totally open and transparent and if we're not satisfied that it's transparent enough they go back and they make it more transparent and their patience at least is uh appreciated and it's really been a joy to work with them we heard a lot about what's been happening the last quarter it's been a very productive quarter and certainly the last month has been productive uh superintendent smith gave you an update on ip14 so i won't go over that other than to say i don't want to jinx that work because there's still a little time to go but um it's really impressive um the work that's been done not only in this very tight time frame but going way back to the beginning programming designing bidding and putting the work in place this is not i said this last summer this is not a trivial exercise and it kind of seems like it is because it's gone so smoothly um the real key i think to that success and we heard about this from the uh from staff is the commitment to the lessons learned cycle this year they use some of the lessons learned related to invoicing and change order management and i think that that's been reflected for ip15 they've used lessons learned from this year which was that design should have started maybe a little earlier ip15 will start earlier and there have been a couple of hiccups this year in terms of the osip that delayed the notice to proceed that can be taken care of next year so um again no one's resting on their laurels they're learning the lessons and improving things going forward um we heard about the status of fabian and i won't dwell on that either other than to say that we are really interested in how this is going to play out since it the word unique is is overused um but this is unique so we're interested to see how this is going to going to work we also committed to having the staff report to us on the performance audit recommendations which they did and their work on that has gone gone well and actually bill hirsch from the performance auditors attended the meeting and i think that's a valuable exercise um the real current issues just briefly there was there are some new procedures involved in this summer's work that will also be involved in the forthcoming work i mentioned the ocep there's a learning curve there certainly that will and there's also the workforce and hiring program and we talked about that before but this is the these are the first contracts where that's been put in place it's a it's a program that is familiar to contractors so we applaud the district for not reinventing the wheel there but instead working with the city to use a program that's been in place for some years student involvement i know jim is going to talk about that later and
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so we won't dwell on that other than to applaud the the direction here and also um to just say that we're still working on how to measure that if you recall the initial metrics really didn't work and we haven't solved that problem but um clearly progress has been made on the ground as it were but we've got to figure out how to measure this budget staff continues to provide a great transparency in budgeting which is really not very easy with the complexity of this this measure the primary thing that's happened in the last quarter was the allocation of the escalation reserves out to the projects and we spent a lot of time in the meeting talking about that and and committee members were fearful that since the budgets had increased as they would that designers then would design to the increased budget and and staff um uh made it clear that that is not the mechanism that's not the way this is going to work we'll we'll see obviously but some members did express concern that the escalation reserve may not be enough they're in their own businesses they've experienced some significant inflation and market adjustments in this last 12 months and and certainly i've observed that too um this is not to say we're critical of the original reserve amount which we were concerned about certainly at the outset but it there there was rationale for that and it was you can never have the exact right amount so we're not being critical of that we're just concerned about it going forward um since our meeting and your your board has approved uh other sources of funding for the quote additional criteria we've got to find a better term for that by the way um and uh with with the hope as i understand it at least the hope that that will be able to be paid back by savings within the bond program and the bond premium is kind of the prime candidate and we certainly hope that happens we do though have some concern that if that does not happen we're going to be right back in this battle between high schools and the ip work there's nothing to be done about that at this point but we don't think that that battle has gone away necessarily um schedule on the high schools obviously both were behind as you know through the for a number of reasons um franklin has certainly made progress we're looking forward to hearing the progress that roosevelt is making we've not had that report yet but we expect um and have been assured that that will be forthcoming so the end date doesn't doesn't change um on communication subsequent to our meeting a a i think a very useful section has been added to the bond um website area frequently asked questions and as i understand it that will be updated regularly and i think that that i hope that that will be very helpful it's certainly an attempt at greater transparency generally i think it's been a good quarter for the bond program we especially on the high schools we're really pleased that now that all the base decisions have been made that the expert teams and they really are pretty impressive teams can go to work and and produce and reach the objectives that you've set for them steve um i guess i uh steve march uh on the committee and i just i'd maybe sum it up to say that the bond accountability committee is uh cautiously optimistic at this point um there's always some risks going forward the risks probably could be in the term of a strong economic rebound which causes uh cost pressures and contractor pressures the while we kept the amount of reserves stable the expanded amount of the project means there's a smaller percentage available for for reserves so um again it's the where we kind of remain a little
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cautious about that ipv work that's been promised versus the expanded scope so questions from board members bobby so thank you so much for being here um i just wanted to first just fill in the community in terms of some of the acronyms that we throw around so ip stands for our improvement projects those are our summer improvement projects so when we refer to ip15 that's the projects that we plan to do in the summer of 2015 and osm is our office of school modernization and then you threw in a new one this time which was the insurance program the insurance program and i wanted to read exactly osip is the owner-controlled insurance program so if people are trying to understand some of the jargon we use and all of us do it so um so it sounds to me like you um continue to have concern about some of the funds that we set aside for additional classroom space in particular and larger buildings and do you and i think that you know many of us share that concern do you know when we'll have a better sense of whether we're going to be able to use the bond proceeds to uh cover that the financial staff would be better equipped to answer that question but my understanding is next year i think yeah our understanding is after the next bond sale okay so i think there were going to be three bond sales so after the next one people might be more comfortable okay in releasing something i will look forward to your report at that time and actually we have david wanting to add a little bit more to that question so i'm going to ask you to come on up and over your shoulder so uh convinced partly right there's there's really two things three things that we will get better uh intelligence about as time unfolds the growth in assessed value so the the basic property tax collections that we can we can get we've had one year so far with every passing year we get you know we'll be better off in terms of understanding what our situation is the collection rate on those taxes thank you the collection rate on those taxes and then the third thing is as kevin says our experience with subsequent bond sales so those three factors uh and our next bond sale will probably be in the spring of 2015. and we'll know pretty quickly then and we'll know i mean in 2015 we'll know exactly what we get at that point and we'll have you know november of this year we'll have another year of property tax collections so that'll help thank you any other questions okay thank you kevin and steve thank you very much for being here and thank you very much for your service on the committee okay to move on to our next agenda item that would be a similar topic quarterly report from the office of school modernization superintendent smith um yes jim owens who's our executive director of the office of school modernization will do this report here comes uh well thank you superintendent smith and good evening school board i'd like to begin this evening by saying thank you to our bond accountability committee we staff have been very very appreciative of the insights that they've been able to provide on the program and in working with us over the some of the complexities and some of the nuances around the program and around the projects with their background and experience i think it's really paid dividends uh to the district uh overall both in terms of the transparency as well as some of the perspectives that they they brought to the table and it's been a great opportunity for osm staff and really the entire district team to be able to have the conversation and to be able to meet regularly with them on a number of topics we don't just meet quarterly we actually meet when specific issues come up and they're very gracious to spend their time with us and they all have day jobs and the opportunity to to meet and to review some of these topics again some of which are rather quite complicated is really great i think and
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certainly we're looking forward to continuing that in your board packages you received as you do every month the balanced scorecard update the one that you have before you now is for the month of august and again i would emphasize that each month as we present as we prepare the information it's intended to showcase what's changing what specific concerns staff has around different projects or program issues and it's really intended to be really an instrument that allows us to highlight the different perspectives of the program of course it's about far more than just budget we also look at the schedules we look at the stakeholder involvement and we look at our equity perspective and it's designed in a way to to really promote understanding and i hope it's a good tool and one that we'll continue to use during our quarterly updates but also as you have questions or as other issues surface we're always happy to to respond to that so for the month of august and you've heard previously tonight that there's a lot of really really good things going on in the program and we're certainly proud of what's been accomplished not just the work that is occurring this summer which we're very very confident about but also about a lot of other progress that's been made on many different fronts we've had an opportunity to continue to show that overall we're in the green if you will and that indicates the overall perspective on the program but also the program remains on budget on time and visible to the community and those are three tenets that we continue to repeat in a variety of forums to highlight uh to highlight the program certainly there's an expectation that that continues as we move forward and staff and so many are really committed to that making sure that that continues every every month however with a program of this size and complexity there's always challenges that we face and as we go through the eight-year program and as a reminder we're still in year two that we're learning quite a bit and we're applying those lessons to deliver the work more effectively ultimately resulting in facilities that that support teaching and learning activities which of course is why we're doing this work in the first place tonight we're in addition to the update we also would like to highlight some of the work that we've done during student engagement and we have a short video that our community involvement public affairs staff have put together which really will highlight some of some of the work that students have done with our bond team the interns have worked across the district but in particular the bond work has been really good and an opportunity for the students to see the design construction industry in many cases for the first time and we have several here that we'll be introducing uh here shortly i'm also pleased i failed to mention that uh to my left is gina yurkovich who's joining me tonight who's our senior manager for career development and career technical education and jeannie has been very very key in helping us establish a lot of the student engagement protocols which again is part of our part of our equity perspective and so she'll be speaking as well about some of the work that was done done this summer so in terms of overall program status again i would continue i would echo the bond accountability committee's assessment i think that as we look at the work that's been accomplished certainly highlighting the summer the ip or improvement project 2014. we took on twice as many schools as last summer and all 12 of the schools are actually being worked on as we speak and we have another week and a half to get to substantial completion stage and to be ready for uh students on the second of september and so we're very very confident that that will be accomplished i was very pleased that superintendent smith was able to join for a tour of three of the schools uh today and i think it really conveyed a sense of the amount of activity that's going on these sites while while kids are away and as the administrators and teachers come back i think we're going to see some really significant improvements at these at these schools ip2014 is very much uh on budget as well in fact i would say at this stage we're doing considerably better than what i expected relative to the change order rates relative to the costs to respond to differing site conditions zero missions and the like we're actually doing quite a bit better in fact simply better than last last summer so really pleased to see that we also again applied the lessons from the previous summer
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we've got a lot of really strong contractors and design professionals and a great partnership with our program management construction management uh partner here international and by putting additional staff on the projects i think it's made a real difference so again more more lessons for us on the high school front you've heard a couple remarks tonight about the continuation or the moving further into the design development phase for both franklin and roosevelt both of those teams are working very hard to get us to the next stage which is to complete their design development and to get us to the point where we can establish our construction budgets or our guaranteed maximum price we're planning to have those in place before the end of the calendar year because believe it or not construction needs to start at both of those schools late next spring it's hard to believe they're they're moving like that but they really are and this is a very iterative sequence process and so all of this work is vitally important to get us to that stage so that we're able to complete the construction in time to have those schools ready for students in the fall of 2017. so pleased that we're seeing that i'm happy to point out tonight that the makeup schedule that we've been referring to for the high schools in the case of franklin has been reconciled the design project team have concluded that they're back up on schedule and so on the balanced score card we'll be reflecting that as a green cell as we complete design development phase and so they're very much on track and moving ahead in the case of roosevelt we've got some some pretty unique challenges there a big one is the phasing plan how we're going to do the work with the students there at the school we initially when the bond was built we're expecting to have about 800 students there there's now over a thousand so being able to phase the work will require bringing in some relocatable portable facilities it'll involve a number of site configuration challenges and the firm will the contractor will have to work around that to minimize disruption to the teaching and learning activities so again we're very confident there but it's going to take us a little bit longer to reconcile that schedule and to get that makeup plan such that we have the confidence there to to be able to move forward with it and then lastly the fabian replacement project is one that continues to command a lot of excitement in the community and the partnership with concordia is really going to result in a really enhanced facility there both in terms of the district's k-12 programs as well as concordia's college of education we are on a planned hold it sounds like the old space program but we're our countdown was moving ahead we had our design team take us through half of the schematic design and pause while concordia completes or continues on with their fundraising program concordia as you know is contributing a significant amount to the project and the way the master plan and the schematics are currently developed it's a fully integrated project so there aren't any severable pieces if you will that you can break off that are concordias or this is the districts and that's important to recognize because i think as we go forward we really want to continue to manage this as a single project undertaking and again the schedule that we're on is still still aligned with the fall of 2017 just like the two high schools so there's some of the primary areas that i wanted to highlight i'd like to next move into our equity perspective because i think it's important to continue to demonstrate the efforts and the progress that's being made here recall that our equity and public purchasing and contracting policy is the primary driving document that we are implementing as part of the bond program and that there are three divisions to the equity and public purchasing and contracting that relate to our mwsc mwesb firm participation our workforce equity and our student engagement and each of them are you know have their own features and in the balanced scorecard we've uh you know we've attempted to lay out the performance measures and we're looking at how we're progressing in terms of the mwsb participation and that's minority women owned emerging small business owned firms uh we're still steady at approximately 11
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against our aspirational goal of 18 and again we've talked previously here about why we're at 11 but it's really a reflection of the business community of the construction industry here uh when you're doing hard bid work as we move into the the cmgc contracts with our with our two high schools we certainly expect to see that change to actually improve so we'll monitor that closely i also want to highlight how much we've actually paid out on invoices to uh to these firms and it's actually in excess of two million dollars so that's a that's a pretty big number when you look at uh pps as a as a business enterprise if you will that's that's that's pretty significant and it is impacting the community the second area on uh contractor workforce equity we have the partnership with the city of portland uh to help measure how our construction contractors are providing apprenticeable trades or apprentices if you will on their projects and we established a 20 20 objective and that's that's a measure of the number of apprentice hours work divided by the total number of hours worked and the city is actually out on our job sites working with our teams and our measuring we just got our first preliminary report from them about two weeks ago and we're actually exceeding the 20 objective and this this is another really important component because it reflects the commitment that we're making to workers of color and women we're measuring different characteristics of the contractor teams and so our initial indication is is we're doing really well here and we'll be getting monthly reports from the city that i'll be rolling into the balanced scorecard and then finally our student engagement component again as it relates to our contractors and consultants this is where we include their participation in engagement with our students in a number of different areas this is a summary sheet that you've seen before that we're using to showcase the the trend and this is the cumulative uh summary uh the student career experiences is a reflection of of how many students have been impacted by the bond work and it's a culmination of different types of engagements career learning opportunities that are presented the number of firms that are participating in it and the hours that they're actually contributing with students whether it's under intern relationships whether it's job shadowing whether it's presentations in the classroom but we really had contractors step up and are and are providing this engagement with our students this time i'd like to tee up a short video that i had mentioned earlier which will highlight some of the activities that we've had with the interns this summer the summer works internship program is an opportunity for students primarily low-income students to learn about careers to learn about work readiness skills and have a paid job during the summer this is an opportunity for kids to have the whole experience from the work readiness training learning about resume writing doing mock interviews i am being placed in positions and having to learn to work with people as a team member it's a real job and they've had to do real work so as you know the board recently approved the purchase of chromebooks for all of our teachers throughout the district so we've been fortunate enough to have these folks here configuring all these chromebooks for our teachers they're learning to be on time they're learning to be in communication with the supervisor you know we've got a few of them that have really taken on leadership roles and are leading their own team now so it's it's been a really positive experience for many kids their first job is working at a fast food restaurant or doing yard work this is kind of a first job where they're in a professional environment and getting to learn valuable skills that they can take with them regardless of what they do after they graduate right now i'm interning in the mail room basically i take mail that's incoming from b-e-s-c or we take pony mill and we sort it and then we meter it it's a great resume builder i mean if you've never had a job you don't really know how to go about getting a job this is a
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good way to start you off it gives you experience so we have 25 students involved in our summer works internship program here at esc and beyond that there are about 200 students who have been placed in jobs around the city of portland um and throughout multnomah county i was really impressed after the first time we sat down you know kind of the first time car to fill out i said you know do you like what you're doing she's like i'm having so much fun i i think it's offering them an opportunity they might not otherwise have you know um it's uh it's not always easy finding a finding a job and and getting your first one can be difficult so having this you know on your resume and this experience under your belt already can give you that edge moving forward i'm excited about how this is all played out we've never had paid interns here in the portland public so this is really a great start to a program that i hope will continue on and that every summer we have more students and more opportunities available because of the networking we were allowed to do with us like so different departments will send emails asking if that we have any available interns and that kind of thing so we go do projects for them and we just talk and get to know each other and then magic happens and i got job offers so first i want to introduce you to um four students who four of our interns who are here there's max who's working at hearing max is from mount scott there you go and demarcus is a bond communications intern and demarcus is from grant and veronica is working in maintenance musical instrument repair and finis is a wilson grad and also working in the bonds communications department so they're doing a phenomenal job and they're here to represent all of the students who are working with us this summer i appreciate you taking the time to come down here and and participate tonight um so if you're going to do the next so i just wanted to give you a sense of what's happening here this summer so on the left hand side um these are interns that are related to the bond so you can see that we have students in bond communications working in the bond program i'm looking at nutritional services and i know that's not part of the bond so i like a little error there hiri international o'planning and borah architects and then you can see that we also have the rest of our other departments as part of the internship program and i want to acknowledge tony magliano at this point because those other internship opportunities came about because tony happened to be in a meeting with us talking about it and he said well we could do that and so all of a sudden there were more experiences available for our students in the next slide this just is a slide to show that we have participation across the district so i can see that it's a little hard to to read but you every one of our high schools has um an intern participating this summer in the bond or otherwise or out throughout the city through the summer works program and we also have students from our multiple pathways programs participating so it's it's exciting that we have this many students involved in paid internship internship opportunities i want to tell you a little bit about what summer works provides for us all of our students have to go through work readiness training to be part to even be considered to be part of summer works internships um they are provide job clubs and they will do a reverse networking fair all of these things to prepare our students for their next job for pps and our mentors they provided supervisor training mentor training they are the point of contact if there is an issue or a question or a problem and they are the employer of record and at a cost of two thousand dollars per student and students are being paid minimum wage which is just about the two thousand dollars for the summer uh in addition to that we did some things in portland public so we did a welcome to pps orientation and superintendent smith was part of that um we've toured the students through um the besc and all of the different parts of the building and the different departments they've had cross-training opportunities to work with other departments and the the communication interns have also put together a student blog which we can make that link available to you and there's a little bio about each of the interns for the mentors and i want to acknowledge kim fox middleton and jan osborne weekly updates i
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ideas to help them engage the the interns and so the idea is to provide this wrap around service so that our students are totally engaged and our mentors are comfortable with what's going on as well i want to also acknowledge summer works and our partners from work systems because they are helping us put this together and that would be heather fit excuse me barb timper and rhys lord we have 15 mentors here at the besc who have been who have done an amazing job kim fox middleton and david mayne from communications jan from jan osborne from the office of school modernization and lastly the career coordinators because they are the ones who went out and recruited these students to to be part of this so it's really exciting and the last thing i'll say is that some of the students who are participating on the bond side their salaries are paid through the grants that we receive so the cte revitalization grant and the benson stem cte grant so we've been able to tie all those pieces together as well so with that okay this time i'd like to invite any questions that the board may have about the update including any questions you may have for our interns that are here tonight so i think the first thing i'd like to do is ask the four students to come up and take some questions from the board i particularly would like to hear what you think the best part of this experience is so did you know you were going to be asked questions there'll be a test after this you could just remind us of your name before you go ahead and the grant general he could start my name is demarcus carlow i recently graduated from grand high school veronica i go to de la salle okay phineas lusu graduated from wilson high school max van donsel i graduated from mount scott learning center okay so if you could tell us what you think has been the best part about this experience what you've learned or what's the best part i feel like the best part of this experience would have to be you know my position i'm in right now so i'm a community outreach and i love the position and just you know interacting with other kids and telling people about the bond outside and stuff like that i love it i work at a musical repair shop and i would say the best experience would be doing something you've never done before and just getting those skills and just working somewhere you would never think you would um i work at community outreach the best part of the job is like i got a chance to meet with new people how to communicate with people mostly you're gonna have to get close to that microphone there we go i uh i worked under hearing international and the best part about that experience was getting uh insider look into the career field that i planned on entering and getting my degree in great other questions board members i have a quick comment not a question but a comment but it's really nice to hear that there's a you feel that there's a value to this and whether it's a sort of a career path or it's an opportunity to try something different that you wouldn't necessarily have i know the organization i work for we've had interns student interns over the last several years and it has been equally important and rewarding for the professionals in in the offices who get an opportunity to engage youth in ways different than what they normally get to and at the end of the day at the end of the summer actually you begin to see uh almost a transformation of um you know willingness and interest a uh professionalism and uh it's an exciting thing to see so congratulations on the opportunity to to take advantage of this and good job actually taking advantage of it because a lot of students still don't so thank you for being here tonight in addition to your service and work this summer it makes a huge difference for us to see the actual to hear from the students and to see you not just to hear his you know numbers on a page that's important too but to have you here is really important so i appreciate you taking your evening to be here thank you so much thank you i'm curious if you have ideas for us on how to do outreach to other students
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next year and to tell them about the experience that you've had how did you learn about the program through the um summer works and i'm pretty sure everybody who said you know we would jump on this we said you know we'll take it you know that's basically what we said and yeah i'm glad personally i'm glad that i decided to do this i would say continue what you guys do this is a great way to outreach to other people and it's working okay anybody else anybody right well once again thank you all for taking the time out this evening we know you don't have to be here we really appreciate it and thank you very much for your service to the district we really appreciate it thank you jim and jeannie you're back up we had two people speak tonight on the roosevelt cte putting them together i've gotten innumerable emails about that i just wonder where we are in terms of that i mean are we just saying now they don't know what they're talking about uh they keep talking about well we'll bring in experts and stuff i mean is that our approach to them or is our approach yeah they've got a good idea we're trying to see how we can do this uh i mean what is our approach from the cte and the uh uh stem office which i guess that's you miss mitch so um i'm going to defer that it's part of the office of teaching and learning office of schools and though i'm part of the conversation i'm not the point on the conversation and so i don't want to speak on on behalf of everyone i think there are other people that probably could answer that i'm sorry but uh be more in tune with what's going on than i am so but you're not so you're really not taking a leadership role in that i'm not i guess i would comment comment director buell that the uh the integration of the of the work at roosevelt in terms of the facility uh obviously depends upon the program uh development piece and that component is being developed through our office of schools and people who are looking at how the spaces will be utilized and of course from the construction standpoint uh the spaces will need to support that so that is a work in progress so the the when does the what's the deadline for deciding whether to put those two spaces together so in terms of the facility solution for that we're already uh we're already executing the the split uh maker space stem space so basically we're saying those people don't know what they're talking about well we're i think we're we're saying we we disagree in terms of having uh two spaces or one space that we believe based on a whole body of information that the the two makerspace configurations is workable there's examples in many districts across the country that do that and that the expertise that's that's coming in is really looking at the programmatic aspects of how how those spaces will be used but the design aspect that's in the roosevelt project right now is proceeding ahead with with separate spaces so the we've got we've looked around the country and found out that there's places that have them split and they like them split and they said that was a good idea could you send me maybe five of those with the names of the people who are up so i could call and and see if actually you have a pretty a pretty good list of school districts that have used that and so and at the end they like it and i can get the names of the people so i can make a phone call and say hey do you like this having it separate would have been better together what you're saying is that if i call them they're going to say we like it better separate than together i'm not sure how they would characterize their response to you but they certainly would be able to share their experience in having the split spaces and how they're using it but that wasn't really my question my question was is it better to have them are we saying it's better to have them apart than to have them together and if that's the case then when i called those places where they were apart they should say yes it's better to have them apart than together if i said would you rather they
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were all together and stem was on one spot they would say no we'd rather they were split into two is that what you're saying because you reference these other places where it takes there's other places where it takes place but it can be taking place and they may be lamenting today you know it would have been great to have those together and perhaps correct so so really the fact that there were other places doesn't have anything to do we're just saying those people don't know what we're taught they're talking about it's and we're saying it's better to have them apart in terms of the constraints at the roosevelt site in terms of everything as it all goes together considerations better apart and they can and the main constraints are so the the constraints of the design in terms of being able to accommodate the student capacities the adjacency requirements that are outlined in our educational specification for comprehensive high schools taking everything into account the expertise among our design professionals led by bisetti architects it is the optimal solution for us to move forward and so as we uh interface with our office of schools in terms of how they're using the spaces they are working a plan to do it out of the two separate spaces and we do have a stem expert on our a stem expert who's taking leadership and saying this is a better idea or do we have somebody i'll put down there and i can talk to them okay getting a little over my skis here but we have um we have an approach that will be led by educators who will be looking at expertise from the community and from a variety of sources who will come and help with that with that body of work so we're not really using any stem experts because because the people who spoke tonight one of the things that they keep talking about is we've got stem experts who would tell you this stuff needs to be together we're sending in stem you ask these experts they'll all tell you that so if that's we should have stem experts that are telling you us that they don't need to be together and those would be who would i call to talk to about i would have to get back to you on that okay that'd be great if you would i really appreciate that okay thank you for answering my question i know i'm kind of pushing on you but at the same time there's a lot of people pushing on them and i think we need to make sure we're on the right track and i don't necessarily hear the answers that i'm looking for but i appreciate you being open with me i appreciate that director buehl i'd like to provide a little bit of further clarification cj sylvester the chief of school modernization you had talked about the combined stem space versus separate space as either being one being better than the other and in fact that's not what the experiences that other school districts have told us in other words having them separated or having different career technical education strands in different locations in the building is not better or worse than having them all in a single location so it's not the binary um two choices choices that you were characterizing that one is better than the other it's simply that that both of them are viable design uh options and characteristics one of them worked well at the franklin site for us and the other one worked well for us at the roosevelt site because of the unique site characteristics and what schools would i call to talk to them about this to to verify that and that's the list that jim said he's got jim's gonna send me that list of who would tell me and they'll say it doesn't make any difference is what you're saying is that correct well what if you're calling a school for instance that has the site that has the stem in a variety of locations throughout the school they will tell you how well that is working for them if you call a school that has the stem in a single location they will tell you how that is working for them they won't again go into the binary about whether they think well maybe they will but again that's what we'll find out i guess thank you thank you for that information and well um i guess i would say while we continue to listen to the community about this we already voted on this quite some time ago with schematic design and we're moving forward with where we are right now that is correct thank you any other questions from did you have a question about it during the actual bond campaign i had spoken with the portland police bureau and fire to a certain extent and made a commitment that we would run the design specifications pass them i've been told that that is happening or has happened i just want to verify that again and i'd be curious to hear whether they had any specific changes or recommendations or whether you're still in the process we're still
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in the process we recently posted on our website the construction design guidelines which i think is what you were asking not about our head spec because they're different documents but they're related i just don't know at what stage the police and fire bureaus in portland are going to have a chance to look at these designs and comment when there's still time to make changes what i can say is that the fire bureau is part of the permitting process as opposed to the police bureau so they actually interface with the documents and our designs at different times um and with the police bureau what we talked about um is using the characteristics of um community uh of through environmental design there's uh there's actually an acronym that i need to think about what the um september yes um community protection through environmental design i don't think it's protection but it's through environmental design and so there's a whole series of security related uh design characteristics that are part of the design process as we move forward and we are working very closely with our own security department who then acts as our interface with the police bureau so things like how you design it so that you have you don't have places for people to buy correct yeah correct that's both in transit to the building and external to the building and it's regarding relationships of spaces to each other internal to the building as well as even things like landscaping on the external of the building and i'm not sure exactly what you're asking so here's involvement here's the cities are all involved with in 2016 when we go out for our next bond and i go to the police union and ask them for their endorsement or support are they going to say that they had a great experience with portland public schools and that we ran the design past them and if the answer is yes i'm happy and if the answer is no i'd appreciate that that happened okay thanks i'm not sure but it doesn't really matter i just want it to happen so thanks okay thank you very much everybody okay moving on to the next part of our agenda is a corrective action plan the board voted on this plan at their june 23rd meeting tonight we're going to receive an update on the plan superintendent smith would you like to introduce this let's see um yes and amanda whalen chief of staff will present the update on the plan and thank you again to all the students as they're leaving us so good evening board members tonight i'm here to provide you with an update on our audit process in june you approved our corrective action plan and as part of the order from the state we're in the process of developing an audit process with the parents coalition that will be submitted to the oregon department of education by august 15th we have had three meetings with the parents coalition in the last few weeks that were facilitated by cindy hunt from the oregon department of education the audit process will focus on the two findings from deputy director saxton's order and our corrective action plan first meeting the 130 course hour requirement for high schools and second developing a compliant complaint policy while this document is not yet finalized i wanted to provide you with some of the information about what we are considering as part of the audit process and that we will be finalizing in the next few days for the 130 hour requirement we are developing trackers that the high schools will use to monitor course hours and identify any changes that need to be made to ensure that all courses are in compliance this information will be posted on a website for easy viewing additionally we will be identifying an independent auditor to monitor school hours on a monthly basis for the complaint policy staff is in the process of circulating a draft policy and administrative directive for feedback we will then make revisions and bring back to the board for a work session on september 9th any changes from that work session will then be incorporated into the draft that is presented to the board on september 23rd for first reading as with all policies this policy will be posted to our website for comment for at least 28 days before the board votes on the final policy for the audit we will be looking at a number of different measures for the effectiveness of the complaint policy and its user friendliness also per our finding our policy will need to identify when a complainant could appeal to the state once we have an agreed upon audit document i will provide it to the board we will also provide you with periodic updates from the audit over the course of the year i wanted to take a moment to also thank the parents coalition and the oregon department of education for their work on this process thanks thank you director bill you have a question what was the august 15th date again so we need to provide the oregon department of education with an agreed-upon audit process oh just the audit process so when is when are we going to have the uh
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the uh finalization of what we're doing around the hours we already have that is that so we have a vote on i mean i don't know um so we have a schedule in place that we um that is going that is going to be in place at all the high schools that meets the 130 course hour requirements and the 990 we met all those two so the that was the finding that we were not found to be out of compliance on the 990. the uh and this is the first day of school in other words one of the things we've talked about all the along is that we are going to allow every student we're going to demand that every student take an eight period day unless they have a signed note from their parents and that we're all set up to do that that's my understanding uh in terms of at least by october 1st but by october 1st it seems kind of late to do that are we going the first day of school if i'm a student in any of our major high schools let's call you know i don't know they're dividing them up some way i can't get it straight in any of our high schools the first day you walk in you can take eight hours in fact you're going to be assigned to an eight hour i mean an eight period day unless you have a signed form from your parent you're assigned to that now somebody was talking about 17 or only signed up in that of freshmen at lincoln so 83 have a note from their parents saying they don't have to take all those classes sounds a little i don't know it sounds a little off to me um so let me start with a different like by saying that the issue of the of students taking eight periods is not part of the audit process right so the 130 course hour requirement is about the actual length of the courses and meeting the 130 course hours over the course of the year for each course so that's a separate separation along the way it's separate but in a way it's the same in that if a kid walks in the first day and can't take eight classes then he's obviously or she's obviously not meeting the 130 hour requirement the class she's getting a zero hour requirement she's getting zero hours and if they wait in order to get the class until september 1st then they're not meeting 130 hours either because i mean that's what it seems like to me where am i wrong so um the 130 course hour is based on the number of hours of the courses offered it doesn't necessarily so students who are absent for a day and sick obviously wouldn't you know meet one wouldn't necessarily be there for every hour of the course so that's the first part so the second part of this is the issue of the forecasting so as we have talked about before students were given forecast forms in the spring where they were um asked to forecast for eight classes and had to have a parent signature if they were not going to forecast for eight and that has been the case all along when we provided the early forecast information to the parents coalition we did so with the caveat that really those are numbers in flux so we've had you know and we've said like the forecast data is not really the data that we are looking at as we you know for the number of classes students actually landed that is the data that we have come october one that we've provided in november for the last two years so really that's it's two these are two different topics well for kid so i mean i guess one point two is that september first is not just you go in and you may have um forecasts of different things you may change classes you may add you may drop i mean my experience with high school is that you're not set in stone on september 1st and you're still and so staff is working really hard here on all the school sites to figure all that out and to provide the courses and get everything in line so i guess my question was just to make sure i'm clarifying i'm understanding what you're working on in terms of the corrective action plan and the audit is specifically the 130 course hours and the complaint policy and arriving at a complaint policy that is deemed acceptable and effective and a good improvement yeah that's that's the two things that you're working on those are the two audit issues yes and so i guess i'm hearing you know um multiple i'm seeing sort of multiple additional issues and requests being brought up around this so i guess you know a question around you know we have the limit what the actual scope is is the 130 course hours and the complaint policy and knowing that you are trying to get everyone scheduled and all the high schools up and running just to concern about are there you know these additional requests and what time is that taking for staff versus the time we need to make sure that we have everything ready for kids coming into school so i would say that's um our high school principals are working really hard right now to create schedules where students can take the all these classes that they uh you know the number of classes that they have requested um we've been you know and so we are really still in the
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process of that we've been working with synergy this year for the first time but principals are in the process of creating master schedules identifying any additional staff needs that they may have looking at their enrollment numbers and all and like we have counselors coming back in a couple weeks and they're going to continue to work with families and with students to continue to identify what the best classes are for students and make sure that we're able to offer our students that opportunity um so i have two questions the one is in terms of the complaint and the draft policy on uh parent complaint first of all i'm incredibly grateful that we are working on this it should be a user-friendly process and i know we have an ombudsman in place now um when are we going to see a uh is september 9th really the first time we're going to get a a pretty substantial look at this or are you going to have some board engagement or involvement as you go so we've provided you with a draft already um and so september haven't been asked to give comments are we are we supposed to be getting those to you at this point so you could um so what we have been really doing is trying to work with community partners and other members of the community to get feedback at this point september 9th is the meeting where we're going to come to you this it will not be at all a final draft and it would be the moment for this doing a deep dive at a work session um really where you have the opportunity to provide feedback and really look at and the complaint policy and make sure that you believe it meets those needs okay and i understand the 990 isn't part of the actual complaint um but so it was so can i just it was part of the complaint it's not part of the audit process so i just want to because i'm sorry i just wanted it it's really confusing so i just want to make sure we're tight so i i get i get that in terms of this we're looking at the complaint in the 130. as we're looking at 990 i have been told that we have the possibility of releasing staff out to schools in august or in october obviously august would be preferred so what is the information that we need in order to release staff and do we have any idea of how many staff we would release at this point so if you want to do this at the next board meeting that's fine with me so that it's a separate discussion but it it is a real discussion and a real concern so senior directors are right now working with all of their principals so the principals have been back in the buildings now for you know depending on the principal a week a week and a half and really looking at their schedules and finalizing that as i said we have counselors coming back soon here in order to do that as well and really the building of the master schedule and is a process that's happening right now and we're looking at you know by name teachers classes that they're being assigned number of students that have forecasted for those classes and really going through and trying you know by school by name by you know really trying to figure out what the needs are going to be we have said that if we are able to identify you know a need to release fte in august that we will do so um normally what we've done as you know is there's a no there's a ton of shift that happens you know we have students who enrolled in april who wound up going to different schools and really there's a bunch of shifting so really some of this is how do we sift through based on past um experience and figure out who we're expecting who we're not clarifying who's going to be there so we're really in the process of still doing that so um i'm you know we're have we're continuing to have discussions with high school principals and the senior directors around that question dr bill let me go back and ask the follow-up question uh to what i was talking about so if i'm going into our schools the first day of school i will find that every kid who doesn't have a signed form from their parent has a full eight period schedule is that correct and in other words suppose a kid said you know i want to take art and then we can't get that kid into art so now he only has or she only has seven periods covered we're one short do we say hey kid you're taking spanish or hey kid you're taking such and such because we can't get you your elective so we're giving you this one and therefore you have a full school day is that what i'm going to find if i can walk out in the schools or am i going to find that actually we don't have a full school day for every kid which is the opposite of what i think we keep talking about that we do have so each my understanding is that on the forecasting forum students listed alternatives so if they were not able to fit them into their first round of courses then what we'd be doing is looking at some of the alternatives they listed if that doesn't fit into their schedule we would be having counselors work with those families to see if there's an eighth class that the student was interested in taking that fit within their schedule and that's the commitment
01h 30m 00s
that we've made and you know my hope is that we will not be making as many of those conversations after the first day of school but there will be a possibility based on who shows up for courses whether there are things that wind up opening my understanding is at the high school level this is often in those first couple of weeks they're sort of uh you know we expected 40 kids in this journalism class and only 30 are coming so you know what can we do there we expected 30 in here and 20 are coming there's room in here for other additional students and making that opportunity available and now i'm not trying to suggest this is not incredibly difficult and complex i believe that it is i just want us to be honest i'm not honest it's a wrong word i just want us to be forthright about what actually is happening so i can understand what's actually happening not what sounds like it's kind of happening or a little bit over here for instance we is it is that correct that we have 17 percent of kids in lincoln high school who are showing up as freshmen who have notes from their parents who say they're not taking they don't have to take a full school day as i said i don't like i don't i don't know what like the forecasting numbers as i said we've been very clear these are not finalized numbers and they're not something well but i mean can you can you opt out of a full school day as a freshman or a sophomore i mean you can't so the only thing why would we i mean why would we even let kids do that i'm confused about it so the thing the only thing i would add to this conversation is that um the that much of this how we're doing this this year has emerged from work that we've did with the parents coalition and so previously you opted you had to opt in to your eighth class what we did this year and communi and this was largely sight driven so each school could be doing it differently what we did so truly like what the messaging was came from the individual school so last year we actually did this as a more unified message that was with the principals but the district coordinated it and this year will be the first year that we're doing what you're describing which is um you sign up for eight classes unless you have the parent signature to pull you out but this is our first year of doing it that way this is an important thing and that we messaged that in the course guides we messaged it on the forecasting forms and there are three points where we're doing additional adding staffing taking a look at it and figuring out how we add so we did it in the spring and we try and do as much of the staffing as we can then so schools are able to hang on to their existing staff however they have what they have in terms of information at that point we do it again right now in august when when staff are coming back and working with students to try and finalize schedules and then we do it again as you know in the fall when people have landed and we know where kids actually are but part of the art in this last part is that you don't end up having to you've overstaffed based on what people believe and then you end up having to take staff away so we're trying to hit it and what you've got right now in the forecasting information is the process that's not done so we can keep doing every day here's what we know about where we are with forecasting it's going to keep not looking done until it's done so that that's the that's the complexity of right now trying to um characterize where are we is we've got people are in motion working with families right now but theoretically what we've said in motion this year is that what you've said is true that um you need to have to have done the work with your family to say i'm i'm opting out as opposed to that i have to come forward and say hey i want an eighth class so it's a very different framework this year that we hope will end up with kids taking maximum amount of classes and that is district-wide with all our main high schools and the communication was unified so everybody got the same communication everybody had the same message in their course guides and this has largely been the work we've done with the parents coalition this is on all levels in other words we allow freshmen to opt out of parts of school our goal is to have particularly freshmen and sophomores taking the eight classes or programming themselves for for eight periods like again it's going to really be different student to student but that you're we're working with you to program you for eight periods and i just want to say that well i haven't spoken with miss chapman the other principals who i spoke to about their forecasting numbers said especially at the ninth grade that wasn't reflecting you know the way it was showing up in synergy did not reflect the number of students who would actually forecast for eight periods and i will that was low i saw photographs of the lincoln lincoln forecasting tables were on every single table where they were working with students to sign up it said you must sign up for eight classes i mean so like the principals this year have done a real like proactive effort in terms of what kids are signing up for but again really individual and you know different where they are school to school and we're using for you know first round or we're just
01h 35m 00s
at the beginning of using synergy too which i know has added some complexity too i'll look into this more and maybe i can have some more questions you're welcome to follow up with us yeah and stay stay closely tuned into this thank you director beale for bringing it up uh director atkins so i just say i appreciate the um real hard work that staff is doing to get us to the point where we have you know through now until when the final you know when schedules are finalized and kids are set and i'm sure the parent coalition appreciates all the work that you're doing as well i mean i get that we also have the corrective action plan they're working on that so that's really good we'll get the 130 hours kind of documented and clear and then we'll have a really new and improved complaint policy so that's that's terrific but i guess you know i really hope the focus that staff is allowed to really focus on the intensity that you're what you're trying to do right now is keep your time and energy focused on getting school set up and getting ready for students so i appreciate that and then you know when we can look and see okay given this complete shift um thanks to this input and and help from the parents coalition where are we um how did we do over this entire process but right now we're in the midst of the you know excuse me you guys are in the midst of the intensity of it so um i'm just looking for you to be able to do that and complete it successfully and then we can then we can uh then we can assess and see how we did i think i would tag onto that and thank amanda and carol both for those you know that detailed explanation of all i think it's a really confusing process for people um it's difficult uh and it's not over till it's over and as we know those numbers flex a lot i mean i watched my kids when they were in school and i know from a teacher's perspective the worst thing one of the worst things you could do is uh be assigned to a school and then not have enough students show up and then have to be go to it to go to another school which would be really horrible when you're doing all that work so lots and lots of moving parts and i appreciate the um the explanations and i think that that helps the public understand what's happening as well so can i add one more p one more comment to this um this year like so we have not said everybody's gonna get every exact class that they want so you're not necessarily gonna get your first choice and you heard we've had asked for what are your alternates what we should not hear is students asking for another class and being told we can we don't we can't offer you that so like that's the one we want to hear back about if you're getting that answer someplace one and you board members may be hearing from me coming back and saying we need to go into reserves to take x dollars in order to add x number of staff in order to to meet that demand so i mean that's part of the um that's part of where we are so but we so again you may not get x class that was your first choice and the thing you really want but if there is room in a class you may be offered that and we shouldn't be turning kids down from wanting a class that we then say we can't provide okay of course period yeah director beale is wailing if there's somebody in the audience or myself who wants to look at the the complaint draft document and wants to send uh comments or changes that they would suggest who would they send that to would that be go to you or would that go to uh mr isaacs or who would you so that could either come to me or judy martin who is the ombudsman okay who's raising our hand in the back of the room thank you and the date for the final date for uh getting that prior to bringing it to the board would be september september 3rd okay thank you thank you very much any other questions comments bobby so i'm um still focused on the 990 and i know again it's not part of what we have to do by august 15th but when will we be able to see more accurate forecasting sheets or information so we have a better sense of how well this is working because i've seen lots of different sheets and all of them feel kind of alarming to me so at some point will we as a board get that and would that be relatively soon i hope so so we're working with the schools right now and we have got like our system i mean part of this is that the system is not caught up and so really figuring out what do we need getting those master schedules together what we have done in the past has been to look on october 1 and see which classes students landed in so that is what and you know so to me like in terms of what's going to be the most accurate information in terms of how this actually went that'll be the day now working with principals and look as i said looking at teachers by name and students we're trying to figure out where are places where we need to add additional fte so it's probably so we won't have it in a chart that's going to look like that but we're going to
01h 40m 00s
continue to work with them in terms of trying to provide more information and we're confident that in terms of students wanting eight periods we will provide the staff to make that happen if we get the request that's why i'm saying to you one we this year we should not have students who are saying i want another class period and we should be saying we're looking for what do we have where do we have openings and get you in your another class period if we don't i'm coming back to you to say either either we use the first line is that we're using the fte that we haven't set aside and again in two waves august and then october and there's a balance there of how like the principles make it visible to their senior director what they believe they need um they're looking at again what are teachers teaching where do we have teachers with empty periods and we will be in a dialogue about okay can that teacher be teaching something if we've got a teacher who's booked for only two periods what are they doing in the other three i mean we're going to go through a process and that's what we're looking at right now to make sure we're maximizing what we've got in our staffing in terms of what courses are available to kids but as we go through that process then we'll allocate staff that we haven't set aside um and then next stage would be i'm coming back to you and saying we still need x number of staff in order to completely fulfill the requests that we're getting the need and the demand that we're getting right okay so i also just wanted to say thank you to you amanda in particular for working with the parents coalition because i know tom and i sat in on one meeting and then i sat in on a second meeting with the parents coalition so i definitely appreciate and know that you're doing some really hard work and i especially want to thank the folks in the parents coalition themselves for making this such a visible issue not just for portland public schools but for high schools around oregon who have any period day this is a this is a significant issue and we're kind of at the cutting edge of it and in fact i think that every other school district in oregon that has an eight period day will learn from us so i'm fortunate to be the guinea pig but we're doing the good work and i think the parents coalition for helping us with that so thank you and actually the one other thing i'd add is that both the parents coalition and pbs are on a statewide work group looking at this issue that met i think believe the first time tomorrow and we'll meet three times taking a look at what's this because this is like so the 130 there are numbers of um districts that were not meeting 130 who um we were in a position to have been able to figure this out in order to to have a plan in place to do it starting in september there are many districts that submitted waivers for the coming year and ours will be being able to deliver on this and that the tracking mechanism is really asking each school to recalibrate if you drop below for any reason you've got to figure out your plan for recalibrating as we go so that we're not we aren't below by the time we hit the end of the year so that's great but yeah it's a statewide issue and we're participating in statewide solution building anything else thanks man anyone okay wonderful thank you thank you uh ms weyland so let's move on to our business agenda the board will now consider that miss houston are there any changes okay do you have a motion and a second to adopt the business agenda second uh director regan moves and director belial seconds the adoption of the business agenda miss houston is there any public comment okay is there any board discussion on the business agenda no okay the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed didn't hear any uh no abstentions the business agenda is approved by a vote of we got six to zero okay so the next regular meeting where's amanda we're looking at it okay so um the the next meeting that will be of the board will be a business meeting of the board and will be held on tuesday august 19th at noon here in the auditorium on tuesday september 2nd the board will hold a retreat at five o'clock at the yeast conference room here in the besc a study session of the board will occur on tuesday september 9th here in the auditorium at 6. so thank you very much for everybody who attended and we are adjourned

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2014-2015, https://www.pps.net/Page/1893 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:53.371200Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2014-08-12 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - August 12, 2014

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