2014-12-09 PPS School Board Study Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2014-12-09
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	study
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education - Study Session - December 09, 2014

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okay we're going to go ahead and get [Music] started thank you everyone so much for being here tonight so we've got time set aside until 6:30 for um input on the enrollment and transfer recommendations so I think my understanding is we have two minutes each and we have I'm sure a number of folks signed up so um Miss Houston can you call down the first two names please sure our first two speakers Kathy y and tamoo thanks so much for being here and do we need to read the have the comment the yeah so you've got two minutes each the red light uh comes on after two minutes and we ask you to wrap up at that time thanks so much for being here tonight we really appreciate it should I if you want to go ahead and just say your name and spell your last so my name for the record is Kathy way and um I am here on behalf of apano the asian-pacific American network of Oregon um as an advocacy organization we are very much interested in improving outcomes from members of our Asian and Pacific Islander communities I know the school board is very familiar with our organization um through our um um current uh through our past work around some of the Dual language emersion programs for the Vietnamese Community we are also a proud partner of the Coalition for communities of color and together with them strongly support policies that will eliminate racial disparities within our education system we um are actually here today to just applaud the work of the sacket in their review of enrollment and transfer policies and aligning these in particular with the district's racial Equity um educational policy for many years aano has been advocating better outcomes for our students especially of those who are English language Learners the simple fact is that many of these students are the first in their family to attend American educational system such as myself and my own family however their chance for success is greatly diminished if they are not afforded appropriate language-based education If the child in the family cannot succeed academically then the family unit also suffers as a whole I have seen this firsthand while working with many of the Immigrant and Refugee communities um in my own community and some of these kids have some of the worst graduation rates some of the highest Dropout rates the model minority stereotype continues to plague our Asian community and has an adverse effect on our students so while we know that there are small groups in the Asian community that do well academically there are also many other groups such as recent immigrants refugees and also those living in poverty that do not succeed at very high rates these experiences are often very lucked so am I yeah sorry is this time just go ahead and wrap up that would be great okay so again I want to just you know applaud the saet recommendations um in particular um if with its current review and assessment of the focus option schools and other programs uh we applaud the effort to expand dual language emerging programs and we feel like there are many underserved communities that can uh truly benefit from some of the policy changes and the recommendations and lastly we also um uh I'm sorry kind of just sking through all my notes but in conclusion I think we really just support some of the policy recommendations of the sacket and we know that we want to continue building a relationship and a trusted um a trusted relationship with community members as well as board members so thank you for your time thank you very much I'll do it after this go ahead thank you for being here hi my name is I have a daughter attending Atman Elementary School I I hope the school board will understand how difficult it is to retain cultural identity for all minority in America especially for second and third Generations those who are not connected with their own Heritage when they are growing up tends to regret this and feel they are missing out on something very important in later life I have many friends of my generation who have both Japanese appearance but attended English only schools now they do not speak their native language or fully connect with their native culture they um these friends a few ungrounded and lost as though they don't belong to either side full cultural enrichment cannot be obain solely at home or at the occasional social Gathering it is common to hear parents say their children spoke Japanese until age five or six but once they start to hang out with English speaking friends the Japanese faded away emerging program like that at Richmond provide more than the Common Core it provides the true sense of cultural pride in community under cutting sibling preference in the lottery jeiz this cultural connection for our entire community and within individual families it poses an increased risk for younger
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children to grow up without fully embracing their cultural identity more importantly it risk undermining their natural connection to their siblings second recommendations were made with very Noble intentions that everyone agrees must be addressed however it doesn't seem that sck has consider the wide ranging impact of destabilizing sibling connections at school will sack it or will school be responsible for the identity crisis children face will they be able to explain to one child why his or her sibling must to go to a different school will they be able to rebuild the incredibly important connection between brothers and sisters as we try to provide opportunity for all members of of our community let's not Overlook one of the most important personal relationship in the lives of all children their connection with their brothers and sisters thank you for your time and consideration I hope you will make the best decision for the community thank you very much so before oh thank you so much so I before we go on with the next two um folks we have I believe interpreters in Spanish Russian Chinese Somali and Vietnamese could the interpreters make themselves known so if anybody needs interpretation Services you want to introduce yourselves that would be great come on down great thank you very much someon the next two Jess Thompson and Bonnie Richardson my name is Jess Thompson j s t h m PS n dear board directors thank you for taking time to consider both the superintendent's advisory committee on enrollment and transfers recommendation and the superintendent's uh final proposal on enrollment and transfer this proposal represents the very best of what Portland has to offer the charge to align our current enrollment and transfer policy with the racial educational Equity policy the coming together through sacket of focus option families Charter School administrators neighborhood families sped families tag families policy e experts and more to collectively study a problem and develop Solutions a belief that the way we do business is not providing Equitable access to educational opportunities or outcomes to our most historically underserved students a multi-year study of historical current and future data that is informed by past current and possible policy changes and a deep sense of urgency to make right past wrongs I applaud all who worked highly to make Portland a better place to live for all of our residents I know you are deep in thought about the these issues and I know you are studying the research and proposals I hope the board will pass the proposal if you do not I have a few words to share I believe it would be better then if we did not have a racial educational Equity policy for most communities systems are designed to produce the outcomes they produce and so it is in Portland the only difference is we know better we actually have a racial educational Equity policy for Community for communities without such progressive lens with W with which to view policy they can argue when faced with inequities that they don't see them that they aren't that bad that it would be terrible to make changes that would cause discomfort to others or that it is too complicated or difficult to make change um to to healthare educational criminal justice housing or other political or government systems I get that those communities are still clinging to a race blind Utopia that issues any discussion of public policy and historically underserved students if you vote against the proposal you are in effect voting against the racial educational Equity policy a vote vote against the suggested changes to the enrollment policy says to our historically underst serve students we know that our current enrollment and transfer policies create inequitable access and outcomes and we don't care we're not going to change policy to create more Equitable educational system for you please pass the policies thank [Applause] you uh my name is Bonnie Richardson and um I'm a full-time working parent and so is my husband we have three children all through the Japanese magnet program one in ninth grade one in fourth grade and one in second grade and I come here to kind of share that experience with you
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in my perspective um and to do that I just have to give a little bit about my background um I'm half Japanese my mother is an immigrant from Japan she's First Generation Um I grew up in the public school system but not here and we did speak Japanese as somebody earlier was saying as I was growing up with my two siblings but when we went to school we were discouraged from speaking Japanese and there was no language program of course this is in the 7s s um when I moved here and I also had my mother move here as well um we were very happy to be part of this Japanese Community which is um a wonderful Community now the the wonderful thing about this particular program was to be able to offer that to my children and to other people who have children who want to have the same culture and language um so we've been able to do that and it's been very fortunate but what is so important that I've realized is to make sure that we keep the culture and the language as part of our family so all three of my children could have that if we were denied that opportunity it would be very difficult um for families like mine and I will say that often in the Japanese Community I can speak this for my mother who would never get up here to speak it's very difficult from that cultural perspective to get up here and to tell you how how she feels or how we feel in the community um but it is important from a cultural perspective to have the language stay with our family and now I'm happy to say that my children are more fluent than I am I cannot read or write although I can speak a little and they do speak and read and write with my mom um every day so I encourage you to vote for it thank you next we have Mary owenby and Rita Moore um it's Marcy Oni and I'm a mother to five students in the PPS schools my oldest is 12 and a seventh grader and my youngest is in my youngest student is in kindergarten they attend two different schools one is our neighborhood K5 school and the other is access Academy so um what I want to speak to tonight is the transfer policy that specifically affects sibling preference I am a family that because of access of specific sibling preference already am divided among two schools so I'm going to speak to my personal experience here I strongly believe that access to educational opportunities for low income and typically underserved communities needs to improve however I believe the proposed policy change giving preference to lowincome families over siblings will cause more harm than it has potential for good here are my reasons firstly many Focus option schools because they draw from all of PPS and not one neighborhood work to develop a sense of community shifting policy away from sibling preference will result in dividing families between two or more schools this not only stresses individual families it causes a loss of Parental support to the schools as families struggle to be in multiple places and are unable to fully commit to one school parental support and strong Community are vital to our school's success secondly PPS families with a child in a focus option school or program expect that siblings will receive preference if this policy change passes it will betray the promise made at enrollment we need a districtwide climate of trust and support the policies a family enters with should be honored thirdly I appreciate the work that sacka has done to address these sensitive issues unfortunately to create real equality we need to create more opportunity for students to receive the high quality education they desire may I finish like very close the proposed policy change will not actually create more opportunities for more students it merely manipulates demographics to to create true Equity we need to expand and replicate successful schools and programs and we need Outreach and accessible Transportation those will be key to making these opportunities available to all students I believe one of the most Equitable things one of the most Equitable actions PPS can take is to affirm the value of every family and school Community by keeping sibling preference a high priority as we work to
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improve the quality education quality of education for all students thank you my name is Rita Moore MW and as you probably know I'm a member of sacket um I'd like to um focus my remarks on the the scope of the package that sacket has produced um thus Far We've tended to most of the discussion has been focused on a a relatively small portion of the package and I think it's important to remind everybody that this package was intended to stabilize neighborhood schools and and to um restore neighborhood schools to the heart of their neighborhoods and the Heart of the district um I'd also like to remind everybody that sacket was convenient originally in 2008 following a 2006 audit of the transfer system that showed numerous problems that the transfer system at that point had exacerbated um the problems related to gentrification had had increased concentration of poverty um the audit was not flattering about the transfer policy um when sacket was convened in 2008 we focused on high school redesign uh our mandate was to um to advocate for the stability and sustainability of the high school system we didn't use an equity lens specifically because at that point a policy had not been adopted but we were very committed to ensuring Equitable access to Quality education um this latest iteration of the committee more formally applied the racial educational Equity lens but it's notable that sackett's diagnosis of the problem and our recommendations for a solution are essentially the same as they were in 2009 and 2010 neighborhood schools are and should be the heart of this District the vast majority of students attend neighborhood schools we need to have a system that supports neighborhood schools provides stability and enrollment it's the foundation for school Improvement it provides for Community stability for the kids who especially the kids who need it most and you now have an opportunity to undo some of the negative impacts of the experiments that have occurred in the last 15 years in Portland Public Schools and I would ask you to support the entire package thank you thank you our next two speakers are Brian Cura and Gabrielle Boulevard go ahead hello my name is uh Brian Kimura uh thank you for uh hearing our comments um I'm here to express my concerns about the proposed Lottery restructuring and as a third generation Japanese American as a parent of a kindergarten student enrolled at Richmond Elementary uh with a younger sibling expected to enter kindergarten in 2016 and also as a board member member of Oregon Nik endowment a nonprofit Japanese American civil rights organization that preserves and educates the public of the history of Japanese Americans at the Forefront of this organization's mission is our efforts to preserve and strengthen the Japanese and Japanese American community in and around Portland uh from my experience with o organ endowment the Richmond families have served as a foundation for the Japanese American and Japanese Community within Portland immersing children and families linguistically and culturally has boosted the growth of the community as a whole preserving traditions and cultures introducing New Traditions and bringing families together from different backgrounds we have seen growth due to the parents involvement with their children's activities and then becoming engaged after seeing how vibrant the community truly is when it comes to enrollment the enrollment Lottery at Richmond the reprioritizing of sibling priority should not be viewed lightly Community starts with family and engaging families from different backgrounds is difficult when one children has an opportunity to learn a new language and the other does not when the language is practiced at home with other siblings the language becomes a household custom and and strengthens family bonds but when no other family members speak the same language the students do not have a chance to practice without family
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support and siblings uh studying the same languages the students enrolled in the program may start to question the point of learning it it also creates a disparity between the siblings when one is enrolled in a specialized program and the other is not the enrolled student can talk to their classmates but outside of school and home it becomes a virtually meaningless language Community is where it matters my child who is currently enrolled in kindergarten at Richmond has a younger sibling and my wife and I are concerned about our youngest daughter not being admitted my youngest daughter has learned learning Japanese in preschool and it is important to us as a family to have her continue learning Japanese with her sister at Richmond our daughter is in kindergarten loves the language but there is limited opportunity for her to practice at home my wife and I do not speak Lang the language very well but are committed to having our children learn we understand the importance of being able to speak and practice the language inside the household Mr kamur could you wrap up please I'm sorry okay I'll be real quick it pains me to think that the polic proposed policy would prevent my daughters from being able to develop their language skills together uh we all have stressful lives and are looking to simplify separate school commutes for families will add unnecessary stress to all with two children at different schools this would put a huge burden on our lives and take our children to different areas of the city and it will complicate morning drop offs and pickups and unnecessary stress to any family thank you we need to we need to wrap up because we have well thank you very much for listening thank you very much go ahead my name is Gabrielle Mercedes Bolivar b o l i v a r PPS Board of director superintendent and student rep on June 13th 2011 the PPS board of directors made a historic move and voted unanimously to approve board resolution 4459 the racial educational Equity policy on February 25th 2013 the PPS Board of director unanimously approved board resolution number 4718 the Jefferson prek througha cluster enrollment balancing referred to as GB item number four of this resolution specifically States the board direct staff to develop and recommend a process for a comprehensive review of School boundary districtwide and policies related to student assignment and transfer to better align with the racial educational Equity policy and promote strong capture rates and academic programs at every grade level as a result of this board directive superintendent Smith charge sacket with aligning the enrollment and transfer policies to the racial education Equity policy to better serve historically inter Serv students our family supports the recommendation is presented by superintendent Smith to the school board on number on November 25th 2014 a policy is a guiding framework of values a high level overall plan embracing the general goals of governmental body our neighborhood schools are the strength of our community a place where all students should belong and be welcomed including siblings ending the past practice of neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers will strengthen the consistency of enrollment year-over-year lead to the better allocation of Staffing and inform the districtwide band review advisory committee we recognize that there are hardships that can exist for a student or family that require a petition to attend a school outside of their neighborhood school we support strengthening of the petition process and Alignment to the racial educational Equity policy to better serve our historically underserved students we support the review of identified PPS Focus option alternative schools consistent with current policy and to further review of this policy and align it to the racial educational Equity policy we support the recommendation to change the lottery preference for Focus option schools this recommendation directly aligns to our racial educational Equity policy and will over time lead to an increase in in the diversity of focus option schools to better reflect the demographic of our district we support students staying to the highest grade of the school they have been placed in a special education program and have had transitioned into general education this aligns current policy with the racial educational Equity policy and historically ured students our special education students have the lowest graduation uh outcomes of all student groups all students have a right to belong in their school Community many that were not placed there by choice but for Access for specialized services policy changes are not the end as we know from the ongoing work of our racial educational Equity policy it is the first step step the steps that follow will include investment into the procedural practice and implementation changes that will occur next as a former PPS Alam a current PPS parent we have been waiting our lifetime to see these changes and appreciate that the district is finally arriving thank you thank you and our last two speakers Scott Bailey and Nadia Martinez once again I get four minutes actually not because we we have two left in the entire oh I'm sorry am I going first if you're I'm gonna say please watch my two-year-old back there all hi my name is thank you brother all right my name is n martinez Chantry I'm a former PPS student I went to groud I went to
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Hosford and then I transferred to go to Lincoln and I had an exceptionally hard time there with all the privileged white students and I dropped out I am now a mother of three children I live in North Portland and my son goes to siten and I'm not going to bore you with all the stats because I'm assuming you all read the reports because I read them and I'm pretty busy um and yes vote vote on everything that miss Smith has to say because it's important that my children are all going to go to an excellent school we need the resources we need people to stay we need to show that it's a great place to be and I want to be there I am also a PPS employee and I work at Buckman and I see the resources there and what the students there get and what my son does not get at sit and I can't do anything about it except come here and say please help us I'm here representing siton there's nobody else here that looks like me there's nobody else here from that neighborhood because it's incredibly difficult to get here here I'm here with all three of my children it's it's a mess it's always a mess we all have work we all have things to do that's it because I'm going to respect you all the time thank you thank you very much thank you you want to go take your okay can I start now okay my name is Scott Bailey I'm a sacket member I'm going to be wearing two hats in two minutes good luck um a couple of things it's an obscure line in the sacket report um but I want to tell you what the line is and what the intent behind it can be uh pardon me quote a possible way to mitigate both of these concerns is for PPS to investigate whether qualitative criteria should be added to the application process for Focus option schools s and a qualitative criteria that we had in mind was cult cultural heritage uh and I think that would address many of the concerns that were brought here tonight that goes beyond whether somebody actually speaks U the Japanese language for example or not um secondly I want to say we have a lot of inequities in our country uh and we have a system that here in Portland that makes our inequities worse worse around race worse around income work worse around special needs children you have a chance to correct that this has been out there for a long time it's time to act now and my question for you is whether you're going to go halfway or all the way um The Oregonian has editorialized three times against the sacket recommendations almost identical editorials three or four years ago right around High School rebalancing it's going to be disaster parents will flee blah blah blah blah guess what that didn't happen why because you stepped in you did what needed to do to be done to strengthen neighborhood high schools and it's been a great success uh finally I will switch hats um as president of community and parents for public schools our board voted unanimously in favor of the superintendent's package uh and we want to thank you for applying the racial Equity lenss to your work thank you very much all right thank you everyone for being here tonight we really appreciate it and over to Shar ol and the regular meeting so is everybody staying okay want to start with that bunch of people moving out of the room okay ready this there'll be public comment during this part of the um meeting as well have you signed up for public comment okay hang on just a second here okay um this study session of the board of education for December 9 2014 is called to order I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers while our study sessions are generally limited to our receip of information from staff and discussions of that information and review of resolutions prior to a vote at times we can conduct votes during study sessions any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the Board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PPS TV services website so the first thing on our agenda is public comment so um at this time Miss Houston do we have anyone signed up for public comment we have six I know we have at least
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one so while those people are coming go ahead our first two speakers are Christine Klein and febe arander okay so while they're coming forward I'll go ahead and read the uh instructions for uh public comment thank you for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments to the board we value public input and we look forward to hearing your thoughts and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen and reflect on your comments the board will not respond to any comments or questions during the public comment period but we've asked our board manager rosean pel who is standing up here the side to follow up with issues raised during public testimony you can meet with her and she will take your information if you'd like to talk to us further guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter so you have three minutes uh the lights in front of you uh please St please start by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes of your testimony the green light will go on in front of you when you have one minute left they're right up here when you have one minute left the yellow light will go on and when that time is up the red light will come on and a buzzer will sound and we ask that you wrap it up within a couple of seconds after that and we sincerely appreciate your input and thank you so much for being here tonight you may go ahead uh so I am Christine Klein last name spelled KL e i n uh good evening uh my name is Christine Klein as I said and I teach first grade Spanish Immersion at ainson elementary school superintendent Smith and members of the school board I want to speak to you about the value of the 2014 courageous conversation Summit in which I participated in October I Shar these comments as a white woman my race is the dominant racial group that has created the current system of Education that is not serving students of all Races Equity work is difficult heart work as a white woman I have found this work to be emotional humbling and empowering it is demanded that I make adaptive changes in my practice which means that I start with myself through examination of my beliefs that I recognize my privilege as a white person and that I identify my personal participation in the perpetuation of institutionalized racism this process for my heart and belief system has taken time guidance and learning I have been a supportive and active participant in equity work since 2010 on my school spell and Care teams but until I went to this this Summit I was not ready to fully integrate this arduous work in my practice each day I become stronger and a more effective teacher to all my students but my journey with this work must never stop I believe that as a white person I must receive continued support and opportunity so that I can help eradicate the racialized achievement Gap Equity is not solely an issue for people of color or for those who work with students of color Equity work is for absolutely every everyone as a white person it is crucial that I identify my role in supporting the oppressive systems in place or the achievement Gap will never be closed studies show that one of the most powerful indicators for Student Success is a healthy sense of self I believe that the equity work that I have had the honor of participating in has helped me to develop a sense of self that enables me to reach each of my students I am grateful for that thank you thank you my name is Fe araris armm n d a r Iz I teach 7eventh and eighth grade language arts and social studies and Spanish Immersion at Beach School an opinion that has been shared publicly in our community is that attending the summit for courageous conversations was a waste of money for that reason I am here my own perspective share shaped by my racial identity as a Latina is that using my professional development funds to attend this conference was a worthwhile investment when I think of all the PD available to me this conference has had the deepest most far-reaching impact I want to take you to my classroom my second year teaching and look with me at a line forming by the door the reading specialist is taking students who are at one or two grade levels behind what I see what we all see is that all the brown and black students are lining up and most students left are white I remember looking at that line and asking myself how am I going to change this and how do I make these changes systemic at a personal level the conference deepened my understanding of race and I gained a stronger sense of my identity as a leader for Equity at a school level I have been able to bring back what I learned and lead not only in My Equity team but also in other committees and in conversations with colleagues at a district level my contribution is a part of making this work sustainable by building on the momentum of the
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conference and equipping other teachers to become leaders for Equity because of the conference I am confident in my belief that I am not alone in this work and that I have the support of many Educators in this District who are struggling with the same issue in their classrooms in talking to colleagues and leaders across our country I was able to see how my work in the classroom fits into the work that we do as a district in educating children our next generation of citizens so they lead for equity in our city and in our nation thank you for your support with this work thank you for sharing those next we have Emily Grant Molina and Colleen Smith hi you can go ahead okay um my name is Emily Grant Molina the last name is gr a n t space m o l i n a um members of the board I'm here to speak about the courageous conversation Summit I have been an ESL and dual language teacher at East and West silven for the past seven years attendance at the summit was an extremely beneficial experience for me as a dual language teacher and also as a member of the equity team in my building I've been through the Beyond diversity training and I promoted equity in my building over the last two years but nothing has come as close and helping me feel prepared to do this work as I felt when I left the summit engaging in courageous conversations and promoting equity in our schools is not a simple clear-cut task it's a personal process that we go through as teachers to explore our own background and the filters that we use every day which are then communicated to our students through the decisions that we make in our classrooms for a person of color working with students of Color Race and Equity are constantly present in one's thoughts and procedures in the classroom for me though as a white woman working in a school with predominantly white students I knew it was important but I didn't realize until I was at the summit how incredibly imperative it is I was able to leave with the confidence and tools to engage other white people in my building in this conversation while always keeping at the center of my focus how I can serve students of color better in my classroom and also in my Stu my school community more than just the role in my building though this work has put my concept of how I can Contin continue to work with dual language teachers across the district into clearer focus with the expansion of dual language programs and the continued opportunities provided through that department to collaborate and strengthen my connections with schools all over Portland I see how important this work is to our district in closing the achievement Gap and also supporting native language development I came back inspired to engage fully and equity in my building with quote all deliver at speed end quote as Glenn Singleton put it as well as expanding my participation districtwide working with Debbie Michael mol and Alma recently I was accepted as a participant in the language arts adoption team and I know that what I gained at the summer will influence the work that I do to support that curriculum adoption if anyone were to ask me if it was worth the money spent to go to New Orleans I would not hesitate in saying yes Not only was it a life-changing experience for me but my hope is that it will change the educational outcomes of my students and that I will be able to support programs and teachers across the district with what I've learned thank you thank you thank [Applause] you next we have Laura Steep and atsuko andu oh you want to go first me um hi my name is Laura Steep and I'm the mother of two sons uh age 15 and 11 my oldest completed the full Odyssey K8 experience for the Odyssey program ay her school and my youngest is is in sixth grade there um so he's in his seventh year and I have also played a leadership role there on the parent teacher governance group uh for multiple years I was the chair for three years and the secretary for one so obviously I'm passionate about the the program um I'm here tonight to read to you some excerpts from a letter that represents what we consider to be the collective response of the Odyssey Community uh to the sacket committee and its recommendations um like all all of the focus programs in the city of Portland the recent report and recommendations have been pretty uh hot in terms of our debate um and we uh gathered the community for several open Forum sessions to collect our thoughts and
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opinions which this sort of represents um we obviously care a great deal about our own children uh but we are also a very tight Community uh We Care a great deal about the experience of all the kids that are in our program but also the kids of Portland who we think deserve educational options that deliver repeatable results I hope our point of view influences you today so first we want to talk about those areas uh where we want to endorse and support the sacka recommendations um first our community was pleased to see the superintend attend most recent updates uh and revisions to the original recommendations and are particularly heartened that the options uh were hurt that the uh concerns were heard around the issue of sibling preference which of course was a big deal here tonight um we want to make sure that sibling preference uh does play a role in populating our school certainly for the current committed families we welcome and believe in the value of diversity in all of our all of our schools and certainly uh can get behind the idea that we would have balanced and representative representation in The Odyssey program well of course we realistic about neighborhood demographics we're the only program in the southwest Portland so that makes us a little bit different um we definitely support sec's findings that the complexity of the lottery and outreach are big barriers to establishing a pipeline of diverse families into our program we've talked about it for many years in our parent teaching teacher group and we welcome the district's active support to simplify the lottery and facilitate city-wide marketing to publicize the excellent educational opportunity that Focus programs provide including our own um our other opinions we're concerned a little bit that sack's recommendations seem to be based on this idea that Focus programs tail are tailored only to some of the community and not all uh we do not believe that is our experience as parents in this program and we believe our program is uniquely subverted suited to diverse classrooms our teachers team teach our classrooms are multi-grade and our kids learn in teams where they Mentor each other and learn a lot about the different learning styles and paces of kids um so we think it's uniquely good at actually adapting to diverse environments it also has a heavy experiential component which also addresses lots of different learning needs we think that's very special about us in addition our curriculum focuses on uniquely analyzing history through the lenses of race gender culture and historical time we look at race and gender through all sorts of lenses literature um and activities and again we think it's uniquely uh suited to a diverse Community finally um we could say a lot of other things but we think our results speak for themselves we think the Odyssey program has a unique methodology that could be replicated in other programs including neighborhood schools um and we are unique in that we sit with a neighborhood school and have helped make that school survive and not be closed so we think that's that's also unique and we' like to see more of that in the city of Portland thank you thank [Applause] you so instead of and um this an shiman and s c h e i m an um we um I'm a second grade Japanese teacher at Richmond Elementary School um we understand that you've been receiving many letters and emails from parents of Richmond's Japanese ersion program regarding proposed changes to the enrollment and transfer Lottery system please allow me to speak on the P um from the perspective of a teacher and know that I'm representing many others at our school I would like to talk to you about the practice of co- enrolling siblings and how it is beneficial to everyone first let me say as a teacher that we honor the district's priority to close the achievement Gap among PPS students we know that learning a second language is a powerful asset for a student's future and we welcome this opportunity to extend the gift of language to all children in the most current proposal regarding lotteries for our school enrollment slots for students who qualify for free and reduced lunch will come before the slots of siblings we understand that this is intended to close the achievement Gap but that goal cannot be realized if the pro if the program falters please consider what our school needs in order to continue to thrive and best serve all of its students including those who are historically underserved the practice of drawing siblings early in the lottery is a benefit to underserved students in two ways first younger siblings of students in the program almost always arrive in kindergarten with a strong language Foundation this is acquired through Years of Living around their siblings who sing speak and read aloud at home this may seem to only be an advantage for siblings it is in fact an advantage for the whole class as it raises the overall language competency which allows the class to achieve higher levels of language and content than they would otherwise our prek program which will be discontinued next year has shown that having a substantial portion of the class with language experience raises the level of achievement for all of our students siblings which generally make up a third of each class often arrive in kindergarten with great enthusiasm for the language due to their family connection and this enthusiasm spreads to their peers second assuring families that siblings will be able to co- enroll provides a needed stability in our enrollment numbers and in our community a unique aspect of one-way immersion programs is that when we lose a student it is nearly impossible to find another
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for that slot to enroll they would need to be a native speaker which we capture the majority of in kindergarten many of our families have strong desires to keep their children together and we worry that parents who are unsure if their younger siblings would be able to enroll will keep their family together by leaving this would open slots that we won't be able to fill weakening and endangering our program we cannot best serve students if our program crumbles it's not enough to give families um vague assurances that siblings will probably be able to enroll when families enrolled in our program they understood that their younger children would be able to join it is not surprising that these families are feeling angry and distrustful upon hearing that the district may not honor that understanding families which are stressed and uncertain cannot focus on making School communities great for everyone please show teachers and families that you care not only about how policies look on paper but about how the students you aim to serve will actually be effect uh will actually um sorry I'm going to start that sentence again please show teachers and families that you care not only about how priorities look on paper but about how the students you aim to serve will actually be affected by the changes you implement thank you for your time thank you thank you to everybody we appreciate you uh being here tonight pardon me so I'd like to present you know speech because all the teacher wanted to come but couldn't make it so we corrected all the signatures from the teachers and I would like go ahead and you can just give it to Roseanne she's right behind you there there you go I hope that thank you very much thank you everybody who came to testify [Applause] tonight okay um next on our agenda is a discussion around males of color pledge and um as a representative of our board on the Council of great SK City Schools excuse me I have a little cold tonight I'm trying to suck a cough drop and so I may have some trouble speaking anyway uh I was honored to support the males of color Pledge on behalf of Portland Public Schools traveling to Washington DC in meeting with President Obama last summer tonight the board will discuss our own resolution and support of the ma males of color pledge superintendent Smith would you like to go ahead um yes I'll just do a little background um so as chair Nolls just described back in July um we traveled with 60 other of the large Urban school districts in the country um and stood with President Obama as he rolled out my brother's keer and signed on to a pledge to support specific strategies for success for males of color in our Urban school system uh we then came back together in October I believe um for a day and a half with those same school districts looking at how each of us build our action plans um and so Portland Public Schools has been involved in our overall strategic plan that looks at all of our students our Equity plan that looks of how we're specifically developing strategies to serve our students of color and then right now we're specifically looking at how we disaggregate our data by gender and look at that gender gap and by language so that strategies and we're asking every one of our principles to really look at the mail of color in your school and how are you developing specific strategies very personally looking at individual students um to ensure their success um this is also partnering with mayor Char Charlie hailes who is doing a back black male success work group so we're really looking at how how are we aligning uh the work that we're doing um and tonight um this is part of a a conversation here of in light of what's happened in Ferguson what's happened in New York what's happened in Cleveland what's happened in Baltimore more in terms of um males of color uh we wanted to reaffirm our work as a district in supporting success for our males of color here in Portland Public Schools so so within our packet there is a uh resolution that we will be voting on at the next board meeting um I'd just like to take a moment to read that um and I think I'm going to ask Bobby to do it because you were you were interested I mean you've been working on this as well and I have a cough drop so have you got Portland Public Schools males of color pledge recital in 2011 the Portland Public Schools Board of Education adopted a racial educational Equity policy that states quote closing this achievement Gap while raising achievement for all students is the top priority of the Board of Education the superintendent and all District staff Grace must cease to be a ictor of
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student achievement and success end quote two to oper to operationalize the racial educational Equity policy the board reviews and receives regular reports on annual action plans three the district has adopted three priorities to promote student achievement and success one all students will be reading a benchmark by the end of third grade two reducing overall exclusionary discipline and eliminating disproportionality three accelerating High schol School graduation and completion rates so recital number four the district is developing an action plan in support of the Council of great City Schools males of color pledge which is a collective commitment to improve educational outcomes for boys and young men of color and is part of the president's My Brothers Keeper initiative recital five the board agrees with the Council of great City schools in its statement that quote on its face the tragic events in Ferguson concerned the police and the local community But ultimately this is a case about how America's institutions including our schools respect the well-being rights and futures of all of our young people this broader reading of Ferguson extends to how our schools Define and meet out Justice and ensure that all students have access to the highest standards and opportunities end quote so the resolved a the board remains committed to the intent and purpose of the racial educ educational Equity policy and its call for urgency to address the achievement Gap in our schools and Across the Nation B Portland Public Schools is one of 67 Urban school districts Nationwide to sign on to the males of color pledge we support the attached pledge by America's great City schools around males of color and C the board will continue to work with our city county and Community Partners to support all students specifically to increase the males of color who are succeeding academically and socially in our schools and who are on track to succeed in high school college career and is contributing members of our community thank you okay discussion for board members thoughts Dr b um I don't have any prepared thoughts I just um want to appreciate our reaffirming of our work um and specifically calling out um the obvious events of the past um couple of months although this is nothing new it's just gotten a lot of press and so I appreciate us calling that out and standing in solidarity um to say that we um as the leaders of a big institution um are responsible for making sure the outcomes of all of our students um but especially those who have been disproportionately affected um change for the better I would I would add um you know I think when No Child Left Behind that the only good thing really about No Child Left Behind is that it asked us to look at um differentiated data around our students and that actually was enormously helpful in everyone Across the Nation understanding um the achievement Gap and what it is and when it starts and how to try to address it um what the No Child Left Behind Act didn't do was to ask us to look at the difference in achievement between boys and girls and um I think it's something that we at Portland Public Schools have started a couple of years ago to pay attention to and I know for me it became very obvious when I was um I don't know six eight years ago um starting to take my kids on college tours and suddenly realizing that um among most of the colleges that we visited 60% of the students were girls 40% of the students were boys and um there was a real obvious sign there that we were doing something wrong at the K12 level and leaving our boys behind um I think by specifically looking at our black boys it gives us an opportunity to um figure out where we have the most potential to change our system um and when we change our system for black boys it is going to have an impact um all the way up and through the system but that needs to be a place that we measure um and look at first because again like on these college Tores um where we could see that the boys were falling behind in American Education systems um you see the black boys falling behind oftentimes Native American boys falling behind and others but it's the black boys that we've seen kind of across the system Across the Nation where we're struggling the most and we can't allow that to happen anymore others uh Matt
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thank you and I I want to thank my colleagues who um put the effort into moving uh moving this resolution forward uh one of the things that I think is really important about the role that we play on the board is um how we set the tone and how we create a culture within our district and uh uh and and the other piece of that too is how um how we're Guided by uh the community in which we represent um um but I think this is a uh this is something that um needs to be if it isn't already needs to be directly in front of our faces the fact that and this is a fact um but the fact that we can predict student achievement by race in our district is humiliating it's uh terrifying it's um embarrassing and disappointing and all of these other things that uh all these other words that aren't ready for prime time but um to me it is the reason why uh we have students of color boys of color coming into our schools um you know to use this term and I've heard you know I've said this before but as Outsiders that this is a place that I am not uh I am not going to be successful except if I'm exceptional and the only way to be exceptional is is not to behave like my community behaves or like my culture behaves and uh and that to me is completely unacceptable so this is a uh to me this you know resolution is a symbol um but I hope it's also something that sets a tone and it sets a tone for a district and a community and a city and hopefully a state in terms of our education our uh relationship to educational in itions around the state um that this is something we have to pay attention to because as our racial educational Equity policy says it is not acceptable for us to be able to determine achievement by race and that can happen and it may not be happening with your student or your child but it is happening around our city so I'm obviously in full support of this uh and uh and I'm excited to be um to be a part of it I think the other very small piece um too that's worth mentioning is that uh this in no way diminishes the other areas that we need to consider too uh whether that is um the gender gap whether that is income uh challenges that we have around students with uh A diversity of income uh these are issues that we need to be dealing with on and and addressing on a parallel track to this um but this is something that we can do and we can do now and as a community I think port Portland is is uh prepared equipped to do it it's just a matter of us showing the effort towards it so thank you thank you others Matt sound so well yeah Tom yeah you know um yeah um in light of the reason a lot of students have been reacting around the district too and I think that we as District leaders coming out and stating that we too are working for the same thing that a lot of our black student unions have been having courageous conversations during lunch I got to attend one and it was great hearing students discuss these issues that we too are being faced with and I think that Us coming out showing that we are in full support of our black students and all students is great so I'm in full agreement with this it's good to hear that to hear that um Ruther you know Steve anything you okay okay um I would just uh tag along with u Matt and U make a comment about how this helps us set the tone here in the district I think especially as a board it's important for us to set that tone I know that when we adopted the racial educational Equity policy it made a huge difference to our staff and to their ability to do the things that they needed to do within their own classrooms and within our schools uh to make sure that all of our students were um achieving and I um you know we we just have to help set that tone and it's not only for our staff and our schools are setting the tone but we also um I think our leaders in this in our community uh with our uh City happy to see that the mayor I've heard the mayor's coming uh working hard on a um a similar uh resolution and uh happy to see that um and and all of our other partners uh that we work with so I'm excited to have this come forward next week and looking forward to voting on it anybody else okay all right great thank you so much
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okay excuse me our um next thing on our agenda is our comprehensive annual financial report we discuss this uh briefly at our meeting on December 2nd uh superintendent Smith would you like to go ahead and introduce the item um I would so this is a followup to um our last meeting I'm introducing uh Sheree Lewis who is the director of accounting and we'll be introducing our Auditors to hear directly from them Shere good evening everyone thank you CHS in the board and the audience and hopefully I don't clear them out like the last time so somebody else is speaking so it might be more effective I'd like to introduce our Auditors T qua tkw that's most people and this is the partner Tim Gillette and he's going to present our financial statement in relation to what the Auditors have to say thank you for being here great thanks Shar thanks for having me everybody it's nice to see you again or some of some of you it's the first time but many of you I've seen before I am Tim Gillette partner with talet corvol and orwick or tkw that works too um here to present the comprehensive annual financial report I know you went through it last week so I'm going to move pretty quickly I think usually that's what people want but I'm happy to answer questions spend more time go into it more deeply uh I mean this is what I I do but I understand anyway so let me move on let's get right into it the it's a big report I mean it's what couple hundred Pages or something maybe not quite it's a quite a quite a few uh but but most of it is yours really my part is is a very small part so and I want to mostly talk about my part which starts on the number page one even though it's about 20 pages into here the independent auditor report there's a prescribed format that this goes through uh we talk about the fact that we've audited the statements we talk about Management's responsibility what's our responsibility the good part is down at the bottom of that first page where we start talking about the opinions or our opinions which is really what you hire us for is to give our opinion on the financial statements and we give you a a what's now called an unmodified opinion or a clean opinion in our opinion the financial statements present fairly in all material respects in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the US Etc so the statements are fairly presented in our opinion the report goes on actually goes on for another couple of pages um there is a lot more than just the basic financial statements in in the comprehensive annual financial report and we talk about our responsibility for each of those parts so the next part talks about required supplementary information there's some parts of that Management's discussion and Analysis and the schedule of funding process not part of the basic financials but there's still required information to be in there but we don't express an opinion on those our audit doesn't extend to those things then there's another group of required supplementary information the budgetary comparison information for the general fund the grant fund Pur rate stabilization Reserve fund again they're not part of the basic financials although they are required financial information but we do enough work on those that in our opinion those those statements are fairly stated in all material respects in relation to the basic financial statements taken as a whole and we talk about other information that's in the report um and it's listed in the table of contents I won't list it off but it's the supplementary information and again we do enough work on that that we express our opinion that it's fairly stated in Rel of the financial statements taken as a whole now there are a couple of pieces the introductory and the statistical sections that we don't do any audit work on although we do read them but we don't express an opinion on them third page uh really is referring you to other reports um the first one is other reporting required by government auditing standards there are a couple of other reports they issued I'll talk about those in a minute and there's some reporting required by Oregon minimum standards and we'll get to that as well so following my report I've see some smiles here maybe I'm going too slowly I'm going as fast as I can no you're doing a great job okay you're better I cleared the room you have an audience they haven't they haven't all run out yet so that's that's good the next part in the comprehensive annual financial report is Management's discussion and Analysis and this is Management's part it's not ours I always like to refer people to this though if you're not going to spend you know 8 hours hours reading through every
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page of this thing which is about what it takes uh Management's discussion and Analysis is a great time great place to spend some time it does give you a good overview of things it prevents some some uh comparative information for you to look at and so forth now the basic statements themselves start on page 16 there's really nothing uh real new in the format this year you might remember the format changed a little bit last year with the adoption of governmental Accounting Standards Board statements number 63 and 65 which just changed a little bit of wording excuse me no new pronouncements this year so nothing nothing really changed much there and I'm not going to talk about the statements themselves I'm not going to talk about the footnotes again unless you all have questions in which case I'm happy to go into them but if there aren't any I'm going to skip all the way back to page 144 excuse me the next part of this that's actually mine uh the independent Auditors report required by Oregon state regulations there's some things that the state requires us to specifically look at in terms of compliance uh this lists those areas that we look at deposit of public funds etc etc and anything that we found we had one very minor finding in our sample of 60 students uh that we looked at were absent more than 10 consecutive days there was one that didn't get withdrawn quite in time small finding um but we're required to report it as part of our obligation Under Oregon standards and that's it for the comp annual financial report and I would move into the single audit so-called or we call it the single audit on the cover om circular a133 whatever you want to call it this is the part that's required by the federal government because of all of the federal grants that you get and expend uh we have a couple of reports in here they look similar uh they're slightly different the first one's really over financial reporting so it's internal control over financial reporting and compliance and blah blah blah um cut to the chase the good part is down at the bottom of that first page where it says we did not identify any deficiencies in internal control that we consider to be material weaknesses that's a very good thing um and uh on the top of the next page the end of the paragraph the results of our test disclose no instances of non-compliance or other matters that are required to be reported again another good thing and let me go on to the next report and then let me make some some comments the next one is compliance for each of the major federal programs uh the report on internal control over compliance report on the testing of compliance talks about your responsibility our responsibility again the good part's down at the bottom there in our opinion the district complied in all material respects with the compliance requirements Etc internal control is over on the next page the third paragraph down we didn't identify any deficiencies in internal control over compliance we consider to be material weaknesses and finally we report on the schedule of expend of federal Awards the good part of that is the the last sentence in our opinion the schedule of expenditures of federal Awards fairly stated in all material respects blah blah blah it's very unusual to not have any findings in the single audit I mean I do a lot of these so I I can tell you that Sheree Cheryl the whole staff deserves a big pat on the back especially in organization [Applause] I mean an organization this size and with this complexity to get through without any findings is pretty remarkable and for those of you that have been around for a while you know that in some prior years we've had some findings and stuff so it's this is a good year it's a great thing um let's see there's some other things but I think I won't I won't mind just go right over that the last thing is the the letter to the board it's one it's our required communication uh we're required to communicate these things to those charged with governance that would be you guys in this case um what we're to communicate is prescribed by Professional Standards uh you know frankly there's not much in here that I really want to talk about uh it's mostly uh pretty standard well the one thing I might talk about new accounting standards that are
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going to come into effect in the future there's one we've talked about a little bit in in some years past and I will mention it again because it's going to hit this next year gasby statement number 68 is the one where you're going to report your Pur liability on your statement of net position for the first time uh nobody knows yet exactly how big that number is going to be um we've there been some statements from pers that they hope to let let everybody know by the end of the year which let's see I think it's the 9th kind of running out of time but hopefully sometime soon you'll get an idea of how large that number will be it will change the look of the statement and net position some people some some governmental entities it's going to change the look a lot maybe for you maybe not so much because you you did do some uh prefunding of pers liabilities when you sold Bonds in previous years and set up side accounts and so forth so hopefully it's not going to be a huge number but uh it it will look different you should be aware it's coming so when when we did that this last year with the p contract we also redid the Actuarial in relation to some of the purs and the liability that we have associated with that so we save some money there and our site account on our purs refunding bonds both the the one we did a year and a half ago and the ones we did in 2003 and 2002 our side account is increased uh tremendously in this last year which will greatly assist us in the future on how we present the 68 which is our pending liability how we present it on the balance sheet and left to what our liability will be in the future because typically we've only had to do pay as you go so you haven't seen the fu full extent of how that will represent and that's what 68 will do it will basically represent your financial statements on a totally different basis you'll look at it at the total liability instead of how we've kind of gone it one year at a time so that's the big difference in P 68 and P 67 I guess the other thing people sometimes ask about and just to make clear This only affects the entity-wide statements does not affect the fund statements at all and and it doesn't change any realities it's just a recognition of what already exists so it's it's just a different way of looking at the way things already are I don't have anything else I'm happy to answer questions but otherwise I'm done and uh again thank you for having me appreciate the opportunity of Portland Public Schools is a good Organization for us to work with appreciate all the work Shar and Cheryl and everybody else the whole staff does and uh appreciate the opportunity okay thank you well thank you um Mr Gillette we appreciate having you come each year to tell us talk to us about this and appreciate your work with our staff um we know they do a really great job so um so other board members questions comments no it's well done it's pretty straightforward isn't it it is it is you bet well frankly you want the report from your auditor to be pretty boring I know that I'm fully aware that we want it boring done a good job yeah thank you very much thank you so much I've done a good job boring you thanks that's okay I cleared the room last time you kept the audience the audience everybody's still here for you that's right good take note Sheree thank you okay um with that we will now consider resolution 4995 acceptance and approval of the comprehensive annual financial report reports to management and report on requirements of the single audit and om circular a-133 do I have a motion in a second so move second director Morton moose and director B bile excuse me seconds the motion to adopt resolution 4995 Miss Houston Public comment no okay any any board discussion I just want to again Express an appreciation to staff um these this this is really complex work and I know we've been at it for a year or two um but that being said it's really easy with all those numbers and all those spreadsheets to get something off and I just really appreciate staff's hard work to keep these books clean and fairly stated and thank you to our Auditors for um for making sure that we're on the right track thank you for you com others okay um the board will now vote on resolution 4995 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes any opposed abstentions resolution 4995 is approved by a vote of 7 to zero with student representative jawell voting yes yes right thank you again for being here and for such a great report
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let's get my [Applause] hand okay the next item on our agenda is our continuing discussions on enrollment and transfer um as a reminder last month the board received the recommendations from the superintendent on aligning our enrollment and transfer policy with our raal educational Equity policy the board held a town hall on this subject on December 1st a public meeting on December 2nd and a public hearing tonight before this meeting we'll take an hour tonight for the board to discuss the proposals again and superintendent Smith is there anything else you'd like to add before we get started here yes just briefly um so the staff um this week and this is largely for the audience because the board received this but I wanted to let you know the information that we provided to the board um prior to this discussion and then tonight is really reserved for board discussion with staff available to respond but we provided uh information about the petition process and how it worked and how it's worked historically um we provided information playing out more scenarios and particularly for the impact of focus option Lottery changes so one of the most significant things in that came from sacket to me they had three recommendations one of which was moving um free and reduced meal status from a weight to a preference which was significant in terms of the impact that it has second thing was a recommendation to do a geographic um balancing factor which did not go forward in my recommendations largely because of its impact on sibling preference and then the conversation you've heard most significantly um in all of our testimony has been which order then do you take the uh free and reduced lunch meal or meal status and sibling preference which has been the biggest item of discussion and where we've done a bunch of modeling um what happens given past history what happens given you know future scenarios of who may apply so that's been largely the discussion and we did some more modeling on that for the board um but the biggest impactor in terms of alignment with the racial Equity policy was really moving it from a weight to a preference which has a significantly higher impact so just to say that one it what is part of the recommendation and now we're into a further level of of Distinction the third batch of materials were um were a response to the request of what would be a marketing plan and Outreach plan um to support Focus option schools which is another piece of the recommendation and finally uh information about um preliminary budget ads that would be for the year the current budget year so things that we would bring forward as budget amendments in January um depending on what parts of the policy actually happened so the board got that packet um and then finally a copy of our existing educational options policy which outlines what the review would look like for our um focus option schools and all of this is available on the website I'm sure the board's going to ask questions about it but it was a lot of detail they just received to inform their discussion tonight um and John isacs and Judy brandan are available um for further Dialogue on these topics should the board want it and with that it is over to you guys okay um thank you very much Carol and thank you staff for preparing so much information for us uh I know it's an ongoing request but it really does help us and we really appreciate the work that you guys put into that so um just to and rosan is there a clicker yeah okay take it so this weekend um Sunday afternoon uh after I had had some conversations with my co-chair Ruth um we and with some of Staff we had some uh I sent an email out to all of the board members it had to do with where I thought we currently were um and that included some of the things that Carol just talked about one would be that I think everybody kind of thinks that yeah we're probably in agreement on a focus review of all of our Focus option programs um we also I'm seeing in my conversations with people just some interest in eliminating the lottery for neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers that one as well um and expanding the petition process which is why we've asked uh Judy for more information on the petitions which was very helpful um and I think one of the most important things is the promotion of our Focus option programs across the district because we haven't really done a very good job of that and some some cases we've actually asked them not to so I think that's a good idea and then there's some spad uh specializ recommendations that we are I think kind
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of in agreement with um but I think that the most important thing that I don't that I think everybody here agrees with um is the change um of free and reduced lunch to a preference from just a waiting that's going to be a big difference for us regardless of how we end up with our sibling preference or our um regardless of how what order we put them in the fact that um free and reduced lunch is now a preference is going to be but make a big difference in all this so um what I asked board members to do was to look through what I had sent out to everybody and then think about it and call me or or email me if they wanted to um and then we're going to discuss it tonight so those that's kind of where I see we are um I'm not I don't I'm sure each one of my board or my colleagues on the board has other ideas about that but that's kind of what I was thinking about um and so I'm asking each of you to look at that um to think about what we did there and I actually had staff am I going to do this right that one H so here's the current recommendation for preferences again that means that there's a preference now for free and reduced lunch in addition to co-enrolled siblings and then ah these were some of the options that I threw out to uh my colleagues about how we might look at this in different ways and all of us are all over the board talking about this stuff that's why we're continuing to talk about that's why we're continuing to take public testimony continuing to get emails um but the first one is a preference for siblings of current students with Co within a CO enrolled category um with the percentage of slots for free and reduced lunch being above the sibling preferences the second one was grandfathering uh siblings of current students so that siblings of current students uh in 20145 were first then the preference for free and reduced lunch then any other co-enrolled siblings another one preference first with commitment to review co-enrolled siblings uh preference for students eligible for free and reduced lunch up to the districtwide average of overall slots and it says annual review of preferences based on new access to free uh full full day kindergarten because we know that's going to affect uh how where student students end up and marketing information to make larger larger population and also not up on here is the um work that staff is doing on a petition process um that that I think should apply and I think we all agree applies to every one of these ideas but there was one that's missing did we miss miss grandfather siblings I think the second one that's it okay well the first you missed one the first one the first one is the superintendent first one is the recomend it it's just not up there okay so with that um I'm just going to open it up to everybody and if people have other ideas or uh comments on this or on other things that I talked about sooner than maybe just a process point that in terms of the timing that we we want to be able to go out for our first reading next week right right right so we're trying to get by sort of trying to clarify where folks are at is we in order to between the first and second reading the second reading would be in January if there's a substance of change then we would have to start all over again and the whole process so we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to make the window that we're trying to make in order to enact whatever changes we're going to do for this coming year so what we're trying to get at is to try to land on something that has support um from a majority of the board at least a majority of the board so that we know going into the first reading that we're pretty solid in support of that so it's not because substantively change during between the first and second reading forcing us to restart the whole thing right hence my reasoning for putting out what I thought we were all pretty much in agreement on and then just narrowing it down to the right which is really helpful for things where we're just trying to hammer out the last pieces so comments board members no comments Steve Jo comment yeah I don't see up there though one that would make a difference between language immersion the two language immersion programs and other FOC they already have because they already have a different preference and waiting system I think from the beginning they were going to be a different I'm looking at Judy to confirm this hang on hang on just a second so what exactly are you what what exactly are you look I was suggesting that the language programs had the co-enrolled
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siblings first okay and in terms of the other in terms of the other programs I if we're going to make those changes I thought we should have some way and there's a difference here because the language programs I think they're critical to have the siblings enrolled and the other programs theoretically my understanding is that there are programs that are saying if you're going to D viny you've got an interest in art m MH well maybe your second sibling doesn't have an interest in art and so I think there's a little difference there between those two categories and so the other one I'd like to you know suggest maybe that we think about having a uh if your other sibling does have an interest in art then maybe you get a preference and you have to demonstrate that that's the case that that's the kind of the way that I was thinking if we want to go the other way I don't so um just to be clear there aren't any preferences for art at Da Vinci it's just a lottery exactly but but so which brings you to the next Point uh is there's no preferences for there sibling preferences at D Vinci though correct now yes there are okay so no preference around interest and then we're trying to say that you keep the sibling preference behind the free and reduced lunch and I'm saying that in that case at D viny that you would have a sibling preference if they were interested in art I don't know if we're re I mean are we do we have a are we creating uh and I think this is one of the questions that I had two weeks ago for the superintendent are schools like d viny and odyssey are those built around students uh uh students uh interests or are they just things that we threw out there and they're out there and you can flee your neighborhood school by going that direction I mean it's which is it which which we really haven't established to my way of thinking which it is I mean for me if you're going to have an art school or you're going to have a history School uh you're going you should have children who are interested in art or history in that school and that should be the types of children we're trying to draw to but if that's not the case then uh we're just giving people a chance to get out of their own neighborhood I mean how does that what is our thinking what is your thinking behind that that was a question I had two weeks ago so actually I'll say this is part of the um point of doing the review that's really looking at what's the state mission of a school and what's the current how are we operationalizing adherence to the mission that was the you know state of purpose for starting a focus option school and I'm tracking your recommendation here as being um that we're really saying Focus options are interest driven schools or particular um educational model that wouldn't necessarily follow that it could be an interest of one sibling in a family but not of another and it it be this is most of the focus op Focus options are with that in mind in terms of it's a it's a type of a right I think that's exactly right I think it's that's why it's so important to to adhere to our existing policy which calls for that review and that's I mean I think exactly I just see a difference between that the in the language Focus op option in the language and there's a I mean it's just comes out differently to me I'm not yeah I like the review it's a good fifth option we should be we should be reviewing that right so your suggestion was with the language programs co-enrolled siblings first is that what you said Steve yes and is that co-enrolled right now as in a grandfather St Co no it's co enroll period going forward okay so that's number four then maybe basically I they c number four I'm sorry number five five number five number [Applause] five well I'll just I'll just Le in then yeah go ahead yeah so I mean I am um firmly in support of the superintendent's recommendation number one and um I you know just in looking at all the um the numbers again I really want to appreciate staff all the extra work they put into the additional scenarios and the memos and information about the petition process in the Outreach that was very helpful um so I mean and I did additional crunching of mbers in my own amateur way to try to kind of wrestle with different scenarios and what would happen over time as the numbers of um pre reduced students increase and and so forth and I guess both in the original um recommendation and then my additional um working with the numbers I'm just not seeing a negative impact for siblings I totally
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recognize the concern and the value absolutely but to me it is so essential and it will best align us with our racial education Equity policy to put in place the super Rec superintendent recommendation and given that I'm not seeing a negative impact for siblings as a result of it that to me that's the best way that's what we should be doing others Bobby so I think I'm basically landing on number four um and for a couple of reasons um I think that we can have an ex Equity policy that coexists with um respecting and supporting keeping families together um one of the things I've been thinking about is if you if you when I when I look at our Focus families and when I hear from our Focus families I I believe their testimony that they would like to have their schools be more diverse I believe that they want to welcome lowincome um and more diverse families what I worry about is if we um put the free and reduced first in the sibling preference second then all of a sudden that sense of welcoming and wanting and working with us to actually try to achieve the policy goal could get undermined um because families might become more concerned about whether their kid their next kid's going to get in versus another kid whereas if you keep the sibling preference as it is I mean I think there's really very little difference between both but it's just how the families and the schools are going to be interpreting it but if you um if you keep the sibling preference first I think you're going to actively see our Focus School families Embrace this change and I think we're actually going to see the change happen faster um so when I look at when I look at the sacket recommendation and I totally respect everyone on the socket committee and the recommendation that you brought forward to us superintendent I don't look at this as throwing away your recommendation the second recommendation I look at it as accepting 95% of what was there um I mean really the big things are that I mean first of all we have to all recognize that next year for the first time we are going to have free full day kindergarten across the district and I think that's actually going to have a significant impact on what happens with our Focus programs anyway um so I think that's worth remembering in the back of our minds um but what we're talking about accepting is that we will be eliminating the neighborhood to Neighborhood Lottery process we'll be evaluating our Focus programs to make sure they're actually doing what we are hoping they're doing we'll have full day kindergarten throughout the district which is going to help us um we're switching the uh free and reduced from a weight to a preference which is going to be huge um we are including a free and reduced preference up to 45% of the enrollment at the school which is huge um we're moving from you know Lottery to a stronger petition process we are um respecting that special ed kids should their family should be able to stay together um I think the recommendation includes increas increasing the ratio of native speakers at both Richmond and answorth again I think that those communities would look forward to that um change so I guess my sense at this point is we're talking about a whole lot of changes and we're stuck in this one in my opinion relatively minor one but it means a whole lot for some um and I don't I I guess I would ask that we consider moving forward with number four and stating in the policy that we'll do a review in two years and see how far we've come or if we've come far enough and whether we need to come back and take a look at it so the the reason I can get to four is because it says with a commitment to review um because if it turns out that we haven't made the kind of progress that we're hoping to make then we do need to come back and revisit it but I think we're going to get there with all of these other changes that um are being recommended and I don't see that we need to um in my opinion disrespect families by um creating the instability and an expectation that that your kids can't attend the same school so Mina yeah I'm going to go with I agree with number one mostly because um somebody ear said we could go full out or we could do it halfway and I think
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that this just really shows our support um for really creating an equ equitable system for all um kind of going along with our discussion earlier of setting a tone I think this would really set a tone that we are really moving forward to commit to all of our students and I think this is just a good way to show our community our commitment to every student and that we really believe that these students who historically have been underserved really have a chance to get into those schools and I think that it's more about setting the tone as well which is why I agre with number one thank you others no Tom yeah I'll just I mean I think I've been pretty clear um that we can do both and we should do both so you I I would be um comfortable with four or or five um and um totally preach of all the sacket work uh Rita pointed out oh there she is um yeah the the the guts of this whole proposal is about um making our neighborhood schools uh great uh and and um and this proposal whether whatever you land on one through five that's still going to happen because of the of really the great work and the meat of the proposals that are in front of us so um I'm at four or five thank you um you know I've been relatively uh silent in our conversations trying to um trying to absorb the testimony and the um opinions and the perspectives uh that so many people have shared both here and in our hearings and in our town halls and in our um emails and I really greatly appreciate that um there are uh I think there are moments in time when we have opportunities to um as I mentioned earlier set the tone um make a statement uh make a um what I would consider progress uh and and I think this board and I think this district has historically um not lived up to those expectations uh I think that continues to be repeated in the stories of uh both clusters and communities who have been disenfranchised have been um I I set in a position to feel less than and I and we heard that loud and clear last week during our conversation Our Town Hall conversation uh Jefferson High School um that is not the beginning or the end of it though um this occurs around the district I I think we have to be very um very motivated to to make change right now and I I think with respect the number four um the number four option up there um which states a commitment to review uh to too many of our community members uh too many in certain clusters uh feels like a pretty empty promise and uh it does to me um because frankly the next time the first time and uh and I think we have to uh we have to manage ourselves in a way that uh is reflective of a true sincere commitment towards our racial educational Equity that's the direction that we clearly gave um clearly gave uh to the superintendent who clearly gave to sacket who clearly um provided a varant intensive process to their discussion and as a res as as a result created recommendations to their superintendent who has now provided those to us this is what we've asked for and this is what we got and I think we have to we have to move forward with recommendations that will perhaps create discomfort I think we can mitigate some of that discomfort uh in how we operationalize this this implementation I think we can but I think we have to be true to the
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recommendations that provide us with an opportunity to um to move uh the the capacity of this this organization and this District to best serve our students and again I I can't say you know on the on the heels of of a uh you know a first reading of a resolution that supports our um uh you know intentionally supports our our black male students in our district uh this is one of this one of the ways we can do more than just make a statement this or make a uh you know nice uh resolution this is a way we can we can push this District into policy practice that that improves outcomes and I you know I don't want to ramble on but I I feel like too late it's okay okay we have hour another uh but the uh my my feeling my feet are firmly planted in the superintendent's recommendations uh and I feel like that's the best healthiest direction for our district to [Applause] go great did want anything to say no yes okay not sure not sure how I feel about the applauding it feels like a yay part like it feel it doesn't feel good to me I'll just say that um partly because it it implies winners and losers and I really think that um the options here um have for the most part mitigated losers there aren't losers I don't see um I think that there are uh advantages to one or the other and that's what we're hearing expressed um and I I've appreciated the expression and I've um I've heard a lot and I've learned a lot um from much of the testimony and I appreciate that um I appreciate um the superintendent recommendations um what you've brought forward um and sacket work uh to to make sure that um the best opportunity we have to align um our racial Equity policy um is is uh the superintendent's recommendation um but co-enrolled siblings is a is a challenge to me um because um people have asked you know has anybody done any research about other districts and I've been for the past two years been reading a lot about other districts and what they've done and how they've done it and what they've done um and co-enrolled siblings is a challenge everywhere I'll just say this is not unique to us um because everybody recognizes the value of family um not necessarily um um everybody recognizes the value of family and often times what happens is people um regardless of how people feel philosophically about it the reality of a parent being split between two schools is very very challenging it interrupts it interrupts people's day um so even if people are philosophically in favor of something or against something it almost doesn't matter because it's about whether or not you can function so I just the the co-enrollment siblings is um is something something I'm I I'm still wrestling with uh I I see I can't say I don't see differences but we've seen so many scenarios what if it's 60% we got we saw one today that had 3,000 applicants what if 3,000 lowincome applicants and so there have been lots of modeling lots of different options um lot lots of hypotheticals some of which well there's a fallacy in that one well and there's a fallacy in that one and there's I mean they're models right everyone comes with some kind of um issue but when I look at what what we understand to be our current reality um I I don't see um in the next three or four years a significant difference um between one and four so then how do you decide between one and four um to me it is um going with the recommendation uh that um aligns us with our current policy which is what you had set out um with SA um to give you the recommendation for and so um I don't want to say for no better reason um because it's a good reason um but because I don't see co-enrolled siblings suffering um under that at least for a couple years again there are many things that are going to change in our city um over the next four or five years and there may be a whole something that we didn't anticipate so I'm going to throw a one a in and say I would be in favor of um superintendent's recommendations with a commitment to review um how did how did we do um did
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we did we in fact see a really big increase in low income did we get out of whack did all of a sudden a whole bunch of siblings not um make it in which um which I think would be informative for us um whether or not I still say and this really relates to what I think Matt you were saying about the oper oper oper operationalization of this is really about this um petition transfer process um so that's where I want to spend more of my time on while not throwing away the decision about whether or not it's um sibling preference first or um sibling preference second but right now I'm I'm leaning towards the superintendent's recommendations could I just add I would totally I mean I think I assume that any of these would have a commitment to review and make sure that no matter what we we're not having unintended outcomes that we can adjust as we go so I would totally right support your your 1A right I think I said that when I was talking about the slides no no no it's okay every one of them because it only comes out under number four there so I understand yeah so but I think we've all been pretty clear that we want to have a regular review of all of this so um so uh I am very similar in my thought process um with um just about everybody here because I think we're all thinking about the same thing we're just coming out in a different place on it so um and first of all I want to say um I think that it's the fact that we are actually looking at this is great um and the fact that we're actually considering um moving free and reduced lunch to a preference is a huge step it's a big deal um but for me uh it's also very important that we have strong families in our schools and for a number of reasons one one of the best biggest ones being uh particularly in Focus option schools I know this because my kids went to focus option schools um the family really builds that I think somebody said it tonight you don't really have a neighborhood you are from all over the place and so your community becomes that that group that you are working with to make the school successful and um you want to do that for your whole family when you're in now I also had students my students went to three different schools at one time um not because they were in but that was because of their ages you know so all of us are used to dropping kids off at different places and doing different things so I understand the the difficulty if you have to do that but I really uh I think that we have to consider the importance of family um in all of our programs I was in a school today and there were were I was there for opening bell and All Families coming in bringing their students you know no bus in that no busing at that school All Families all coming in bringing their students all hanging out all talking to each other this is a huge piece of our schools to have those families in the building so um and I also think that uh I'm interested in uh the marketing piece I think I mentioned it earlier I think that we have we have not reached out to families um in our neighborhoods to see if they are interested in folks option program um and at the same time we want our students to stay in their local neighborhood schools so we have kind of a push pull here we want our neighborhood schools to be strong we want our students to stay there but we're also going to Market our Focus option programs to every family and and pull them out of the neighborhood so we have a little push pull here as well well I would just but I think really what um what staff is looking at is specific and culturally responsive Outreach to underserved families not districtwide that would be a difference in the past it's just been hey everyone here's these choices come oh in the past it has been don't talk about your program no actually there was the the fair and three years ago we did away with that remember I know so what I'm saying is what we're talking about now is using the equity lens on that Outreach so it's not the idea would be exactly yeah so it's different than the tension is is um I think SA recomend commendations and the superintendent's responses to um to um adjust that with with an equity L but most of the neighborhood schools that we looking out are schools that have a large population of students with free and reduced lunch those neighborhood schools that we trying to strengthen right so so to me that's but I think part part of the issue part of the the problem has been though that the focus options have tended not to draw those students that so as a result We've Ended up with largely white middle class families right Domina the I'm saying it's it's a different because we're not pulling the students out we're not
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wanting them to leave their neighborhood school well we're saying the same thing okay I think but maybe not okay anyway um so the other part of it is so the marketing piece and I think I talked last week about um I'm my concern about the Outreach piece and then also making it uh possible for those students who are on free and reduced lunch to actually get to those Focus option schools that are around the district the one difficult piece is transportation um um especially for free and reduced lunch families to get their students from North Portland to Southeast or from there was a woman here who spoke from Odyssey all the way over to Southwest if you want your student to go there so um so I I think that just um myself I think that just our change and all the work that we've done this far the sack at work as well um and moving a free and reduced lunch to a preference is a big B step for the district and will make a huge difference in these programs only if we Market them only if they come only if we provide opportunities for students to get to the schools then it will make a huge difference if we don't do any of those other things it's not going to make a difference because the students still are not going to come um so in the end I come down I think probably in support of um uh having a sibling preference first and a free and reduced lunch following following that so others there a couple of things that came to mind and um one of the one of the challenges that I've had in uh hearing this and I haven't really been put been able to put a name to it but it feels like there's a um there's sort of this game of Fear Factor and uh it's this um fear in whether you know it's an intentionally sort of placed fear out there or a very real fear I I don't want to um put a judgment on that but there's this this um fear of a a change and we've heard testimony of a change in the culture of our school and a change in um we're not going to get the kind of support we get if we make this change and there's a fear in that and I think there's a fear um even in some of us if we make a decision that in fact the change will occur and we then it becomes an unknown and um I think you know again where I where my mind goes is that um I understand the discomfort that change makes um but I also understand the need for us to create a new normal and uh because right now um and four decades and for generations of Portland Public School students um we have had certain students in certain neighborhoods in certain so socioeconomic classes of certain races who have not had an opportunity to experience things and uh that's why I feel so um I feel so uh committed to the racial educational Equity policy um and in the importance of it uh uh being implemented I think though this new normal is um is different but it's also I think it's also different good and I think we shouldn't be fearful of that different uh particularly when it is in alignment with things like the racial educational Equity policy particularly when it creates opportunities and I know that fear um is very real and I know that's a challenge but I want us and I think we need to get to that new I do too I do too and I think we can get there any of these policies so okay one's just a question for you Pam you one's a question for you oh um you had referenced that um nothing's going to change unless we can figure out how to get students there um access issues are do I hear you recommending or supportive of adding Transportation I think we have to look at it absolutely do you think that's from what we know now which is little do do you do you anticipate that being a likelihood a likelihood yeah I think it depends on uh my colleagues voting for transportation dollars for these programs I you know not that long ago we used to have hubs where students would gather and get on a bus and then they take them um I don't see as much of that now I don't know my kids aren't that age anymore they're in college so they can get there on their own um but I know at one time we used to have that we cut some of that back during our big budget cuts but uh yeah see Transportation as
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being an important thing just like I think marketing is an important piece and and we'll bring you Transportation potential options in the budget Pro during the budgeting process so I guess that's a concern I have obviously is that um looking at a Governor's budget right now that doesn't pay for um for K12 education I I I just think it's unlikely um but at the same time if you if you um if you want students who AR and reduced lunch to get to those schools we've got to do something they're not going to be taking three buses when kindergarten and that gets back to the whole discussion again about the review as well as the the PSU work around what are what are the programs that we have where are they located should they be replicated should they be relocated and so forth I mean it's Again part of that larger holistic discussion but to me in the meantime this this is the one this is as as we all know it's just one lever but it's a really important one both in terms of the actual operations of the district symbolically in terms of again the tone we're setting and how um how closely in alignment and how um strongly we're going to adhere to our racial educational Equity policy so for me the superintendent's recommendation does respect families it does keep families together it respects all families and um to me that's the higher bar to me is that we are getting as as closely in alignment with the equity policy as we can we certainly commit to review from all As aspects of this right we don't want unended consequences for anyone I'm not seeing those those unintended consequences to of negative um outcomes to be likely for siblings I really am not when I'm looking at it if that were to happen of course we would move to address that and vice versa right so but to me given the history of this district and the fact of as as Matt was so eloquently stating you know the so the the Decades of not just in this aspect in so many other aspects of the District of families not being heard their need needs not being met that we're now taking a series of affirmative steps and this is a really important one to address that to be able to say well we won't quite get there but we promise we'll come back later and fix it if it turns out that we still aren't getting there I agree with Matt that Rings Hollow based on this District's past performance and just the way our society operates we clearly have had huge amounts of of push back I understand parents and and staff are fear full of change um but again I see the superintendent's recommendation as respecting and keeping stable All Families as well as these these wonderful programs so that's that's where I come down and I you know I respect that folks have different approaches to it that we all want what's good for kids and for families um but to me it's really essential that at this historic moment for the board when we're making these other historic changes to this policy that is clearly so flawed that we that we do the whole thing that we don't do a pieace meal and I I don't disagree with you Ruth we just have one small disagreement so and I don't think that the superintendent's policy is disrespecting families at all the superintendent has a great deal of respect for our families but we have to make sure that our families are happy in our schools because that's what holds them in our schools and I think uh having a student who uh having your family commit to a school is having your family commit to a school and build that school and be a part of it not have it's not your child you're committing it's your family to me that's just to me so are you suggesting that we should change it to be a guarantee rather than a preference for siblings no it's a preference it's it will be a guarantee it has been a guarantee all along and that's I mean that's again that's if that's what we're saying then that's a different I mean again what we're trying to do is is is also hold that we have these we have a whole population of our district who is not in accessing these programs so I think I believe that the superintendance recommendation holds holds these in balance in an appropriate way but but the modeling doesn't show that there's 100% of the slots filled by siblings in anything no nor are they excluded because we're going to be able to have I know so in my mind we're arguing over very small arguing over small things that I want to I want to support I want to make sure that our families are supported and and our free and reduced lunch families are supported as much as our all the other families so it's a support for every family not just famili who are not on free and reduced so I guess what I'm saying is that because if you're seeing that it's so similar when you say well why not just go with number four I'm saying why not just go with number one because I know obviously we know that I know but the reason for that is because what goes with number four is and we promise to come back and fix it in the future if it doesn't work out go number one too you just said it goes with said either way can I finish I know I know so but what we're asking for to
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accomplish with the review of number four is that we will Elevate or or um highlight or make sure that we attend to the needs of low-income families versus um oh I'm yeah versus in number one we're saying we want to make sure that we don't have any unintended consequences for more privileged Community well we've been acting in that way for 20 years right right so I think the likelihood that we're going to come back and make sure that a more privileged communi needs are being met is very high I don't think that's what the um yearly review is looking for not to see that for to me it's to see that we're getting 45% of our free and reduced lunch families in the school and I will be jumping for joy when that happens right I guess what I'm trying to say is just in terms of the district's processes and priorities and what gets heard and what gets acted upon again like Matt was saying it rings Hollow to say we won't quite get in alignment with our racial education Equity policy but we promised to come back and fix I don't agree we're not in alignment and Ruth I would say we're this this proposal whether you're number one two three four or five taken in entirety we're totally in alignment with our our ratio Equity policy I think and and so and Matt I mean I totally understand you're saying and my only comeback is is we can do we can do both we can we can celebrate families and celebrate racial equity and access uh and you know this is about access to education and it's not only about access to these schools it's about access to every kid for good education that's where the whole neighborhood school thing comes in and review of these my hope is is that the review of these Focus options um entices us to to go put some of these programs in our neighborhood schools um you know I I mentioned lifting the cap on Bens I mean it's it's all about how do we uh get more options and access to to our to all of our communities and this does it so I I don't buy the notion that it's an either or I just I don't I'm not saying that it's an either or what I'm saying is that number one does do both as well and I'm not understanding on number one doesn't do both and I'm not saying it's an either or I'm just saying it always has been yeah an either or um and not just you know PPS doesn't hold the uh uh isn't the only uh organization in town that has made decisions that have benefited a few um decisions across our city across our County I mean these are you you don't have the disparities that you have including in Education Without there being um either an intentional intentionally ignoring or an oblivion to uh the conditions that exist and what I'm suggesting is that we know what the conditions are that exist and we need to take action to to move it forward is it in either or I sure hope not but there's no evidence that I've seen that says that there's a possibility otherwise if there if I can if I can get an assurance more than a well let's let's have a commitment to review because again I think that that does ring Hollow and I apologize but it it really does um it doesn't make me uncomfortable by well I yeah I mean I think that's that certainly is your is your truth it it may not make you make you uncomfortable I can point to entire communities and neighborhoods that that terrifies and for good reason because each and every year that's the promise that's made and each and every year that's the promise that's broken we're we're about to implement uh a a complete package that um that fulfills a promise um that the board made prior to when I was on board but I'm I'm very well the history so we're not breaking promises tonight or tomorrow next whenever we do this we're fulfilling promises Steve yeah I agree with Pam that you can uh you can go forward with uh you can go forward and it's best to go forward to allow The Sibling preference at the top because you can't correct that you can correct the other uh because once a child's held out of that program that's part of the problem with those two language programs you hold somebody out and that's it they don't get back in
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that once they're out they're out because you can't enter in at different spots that's another reason I'm really supportive of The Sibling preference but that's that's not what I want to say really here what I really want to say is that if we're going to stay true to these recommendations this is a small portion of this this is a huge change throughout the district I can list 20 other things easily right off top boom boom boom boom boom that I think we do that do not meet our Equity policy let's start with the testing the way we deal with the testing that's so I'm I'm one of the founders of an organization that believes that that testing is racist the way that we test in now in Oregon and the way we implement it and push everything let's talk of we I can go right down the line with 20 things that we're doing that we should be doing differently that are racially and that are Equity wise not done the way that we should be it doesn't fit it so because of those we no no I'm not saying because of those I'm just saying I'm just saying that if you want to sit and talk about it fine I'll give you a list and you can support them all I well but you're not going to support my list that's what I'm saying are you going to support the exactly that's what I'm saying everybody that's my point everybody kind of comes down in a little different spot on this and I come down in a spot that okay the testing okay the uh the uh almost all of the reform movement in America is basically inequitable for people it creates incredible inequities and millionaires back running uh running uh pearon education make hundreds of millions of dollars off our children and they create all these inequities that take place in in schools all across America so let's come out on that the fact that we doing that we're doing scripted that we're doing scripted presentations highly inequitable you don't do scripted presentations over at Forest Park you the fact that we that we take teachers out of the schools and we take them out of the schools in in our in our Focus priority schools but we don't take them out in our schools that aren't a focused priority same time highly inequitable stuff I mean we can I can make 20 arguments if we would like that that are way more inequitable than send than way more inequitable than sending well this is the time you're supposed to Able discuss this tonight weed to discuss we're discussing discing the that's what I'm not all of the other inequities in the no I'm on the policy because we're going to vote on it not all the we're going to vote on it down the line but next week the idea that we pull these kids these teachers out of schools and so if you go to school in in a focused priority School you might not have your teacher there 16 days officially where if you're up here at uh some school that's not focused priority that's in a uh you're teachers aren't pulled out well that's inequitable incredibly inequitable and it's directly it's directly inequitable towards children of color towards children who are poor poorer than other children I mean the inequities abound I'm not saying that does I'm just saying that we can talk about all that stuff to the same I think it's way worse than allowing three or four kids to go with their sibling preference and inequity we're we're really actually damaging we can see the damage we're doing in one case and the other it's okay are you with me on everybody with me on the S back and with me on on putting these teachers back in schools and with me on not having schools uh pulling uh schools for late openings way more in neighborhoods that have more underserved kids or we're all together for doing that the answer is I'm sorry but we're not allog together are we on that exactly not we're not talking about that today but that we are talking about that that's the small we're g to talk about that I have a question for uh Carol in terms of the budget stuff which we we'll deal with on in January but but we had a a piece so what you have is um in that was specifically if the things that we would propose adding in the budget amendment in January depending on what it is you agree to in terms of the policy yeah and and it's a projections yeah so I'm just uh in your organization our organization who who's overseen the focus uh schools now so the focus option schools right now are each overseen by the senior director of each cluster and we don't have like a focus option person um we're look we're proposing that the
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review process would be conducted through the um uh system planning and performance office so that we'd add a person who that's specifically what they're tasked with and yeah so and we'd set up a review schedule for reviewing the focus option school doing the focus option review similar to what we do with Charter Schools right now we and and alternative schools we do do those processes for those schools and who does is that the charter manager and I just curious buck and so I was just curious is it do is there a way we can do that without um another full FTE was my question and I mean it's it's a Time intensive process to doth so Steve could I just go back to one of the things you were saying earlier um before you were talking about the smarter balance resolution that we all unanimously reported but the um you you made a statement and I'm want to make sure I got this right you said we we can't fix I'm sorry it wasn't this more Bal that we we again we're all we all came out com but it's how we're dealing with it as a district that I'm concerned so you said something I think what you said was we can't fix the sibling piece but we can go back and fix the free and reduce lunch piece because if one sibling doesn't get in then that's then that's damaging to that to that family no it's D you can't repeat repeat that thing right put that sibling back in you could add more kids up for I understand that might be some specific kids and I guess what I'm seeing in the superintendent's recommendation and in the numbers is that I think there was one sibling would not have been placed across all of the schools in one of the three years and that's where I'm coming out with saying this I do not see a negative impact for siblings in this proposal because what we know and what we've heard from staff is absolutely there would be either you know an additional slot created or a very easily approved petition because of this one exception right um so to me that's something that absolutely can and would be fixed you know immediately by staff and certainly would be caught in a in a review process um or during the actual kind of Lottery process itself if it started bubbling up we would hear about that and I know we would take action about that versus and again to me it's we can fix I I guess I'm just seeing that we can fix that easily just as well as we if we say we can fix the free and reduced lunch later it's to me just again based on the history of this District it's it's always kind of a later it's we promise we'll take care of it we have an opportunity now to say we're going to hold both these in high value we are going to do both and that absolutely you know if if one sibling doesn't get in of course we're going to address that but again I'm just there seems to a a sense that you know it's going to be this huge problem and therefore we have to you know I don't think it's going to be and I really think that we're going to be able to build in the safeguards to make sure that that uh you know that families are supported can I ask Judy a question here about this so Judy you provided data on the history in terms of reasons for petitions will you address um co-enrolled siblings in terms of that as a petition just historical data on that it would be my pleasure um it's a frequent request um in part because we have a number of schools that have been closed to Lottery transfers so the petition reasons information that you got covered all of our schools not just focus options um and so that's one of the reasons that siblings rise to the top for because there are many families who can't use a lottery to get there so um be about uh 250 240 to 250 of our about approximately 1100 petitions a year are for co-enrolled siblings that request usually see receives the highest priority that a principal can give to it um principes will usually work to their greatest degree to find a way to place a sibling that they either didn't know about before or that hasn't had a different opportunity to seek admission to that school that's current correct across the entire District that's current practice across the district well it's the practice that we've seen the data available to you is over the last three years so you have the the like what have been the reasons for right right any other comments or tells you how how important sibling preferences so right I guess my Pam my thing I was going to say is I guess the um I'm not necessarily as concerned um right now about the current siblings I'm concerned more about families looking at Focus schools and whether or
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not they're going to actually apply if they don't believe that it's a family decision um and I think you're going to see a lot of these a lot less interest in these programs and maybe that's the intention is to just abolish them um I don't want them abolished um but maybe that's the the intention is uh just force everybody back to the neighborhood schools so um but to me if I was looking at one of these programs and I didn't have a a strong sense that my next child would get in there too therefore it's not a family decision um especially on the language immersion ones but I think for a lot of the other programs too it's a concern so I think it would have a bigger impact but I guess I'm I guess I'm still not understanding how looking at this I can get totally for that a change from the current is is causes fear but if you if we made this change on that the superintendent's recommending and just looking at how the numbers would play out um based on the historic number of siblings who have applied and given that there's um a set aside up to a limit for free and reduced I guess I'm just not seeing how where that huge uncertainty to the point of not even being willing to apply to these great programs would come because again it was one sibling would not have been placed in one school in one of three years that's looking at historic data not going forward well but are are there suddenly going to be is there suddenly going to be a hugee yeah we're making massive changes here we're making huge changes here but in terms of the number of siblings that would be coming forward certainly there we hope we hope and expect there'll be a massive changes in the number of low-income applicants but again because it's a set aside up to a certain number that's going to there's going to be folks turned away after a certain point whereas we're always going to have the sibling preference but we're not going to suddenly have I think one email was saying we're not you know families aren going to suddenly have 13 kids so and families do age up and out and into those other schools right so I was trying to I was trying to project over time you know doubling the number of free and reduced and then looking at how you know and also the grandfathering piece if you have the attrition of the current families which of course you never know exactly it was just an attempt to try to model it out and I was again no one was being turned none of the none of the siblings were being turned away so I I guess I'm just not seeing I get that the transition and going from the status quo to something different it creates fear and uncertainty right now but I really feel like rolling this out and people seeing that it's it's not going to have an actual impact on your ability to keep your family together um we're not going to have uh you know folks fleeing from our Focus options and if you really believe that it's not going to have an impact then why don't you just support number four because number one is in better alignment with our racial educational Equity policy from my perspective and I think we've had a policy over the years that we try to keep our families together so I don't you know it was a practice and we're doing both and a practice um I have a couple of questions one um actually just a statement um Bobby I'm not sure if you mentioned this but you you you question the intention of whether or not the intention of these recommendations was to actually just shut down Focus schools and it's a fear I heard um from some folks in conversations I've had and I just can you help me like whose intention do you think that do you think this board is interested in the hidden intention of that do you think the superintendent is do you think sacket has a hidden agenda to to raise that as a question I think that there will be a sense of instability going forward about whether or not folks will apply to focus programs sure but you you question whether that was an intention of the the recommendations who who would have that intention yeah I'm just asking the question if we know that it might destabilize uh potential applicants to focus programs then the questions out there it's been asked I'm not just I'm not the only one who's asking that's why I said that's why I've heard it but I guess when I don't believe it's the intention but I think it could be interpreted that way and I think we should be careful yeah I think we've done a lot of things that have um sent a message of destabilizing across this District over the years so sorry sorry that was just a comment that was have I do um so the other piece is that this reminds me a little bit of a conversation um with a school that uh we closed Tubman uh women's Academy um that for a couple of years we had worked with them to say you know we need to get the word out um and they expressed frustration about not being able to Market to other schools but yet in their last one year at least if not two years they hit every PTA um and made sure that people were aware of it and they were still unable to um to reach reach the accommodations and so I think uh director Morton mentioned something about it rings Hollow until and he'd feel better with an assurance so I have a thought um I don't think that I could get to number four yes unless we put in some
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sort of Target and that this is partly I heard um some Focus option schools in our discussion say you tell me what I need to hit and I'll hit it um so I think that in our resolution that we can say what is our next year goal for them and in that review if they are not at that goal um then perhaps it just automatically reverts to to one so we don't even have to vote on it because what'll happen is if we don't hit the goal or if we don't make some kind of effort we're going to go through this process again where we're going to have lots of families having to come out bring all their kids go through this destabilization issue um and we're going to have to have this same conversation with all this consternation so if everybody just knows that here's the Target and if not we don't hit that Target we go back to um number one I that that would provide me an assurance um that that would work and it would provide schools with Clarity of what they're what they're aiming for comment on that yeah go ahead so I appreciate the creative and um creative thinking um I guess my concern or a concern with that would be just in terms of that given the the time that we really are trying to make changes for this current year to be able to come up with before we've done a review of the different programs to be able to come up with what those targets I I agree should be trying to find yeah no I appreciate that trying to find a way for me to get to yes yeah ieve I'm have a slightly different topic which is exactly on what we're talking about sack recommendations no we're talking about the superintendent's recommendation I'm talking about superintendent's recommendation read something for us no I'm going to suggest I'm going to pull this up because this is a list of this is things that I caught brought out of the sacka recommendations which have to which talk about we need to do if we're going to do their recommendations and we've referred several times to how bringing the High School attendance areas back in kids going to their own high school but we did some very specific things that made these those schools better than they were before and that's what sacka basically says in their recommendation if you're going to do this then you've got to make these schools better than they were before and we need to have a a plan that's specifically directed at school after school we had a plan that was directed at Madison we had a plan that's directed at Roosevelt and this is 60 schools or so maybe it's not that many but there's a handful of schools that we need to have specific plans what we're going to do and last week I talked a little bit about how we had to do we couldn't do business as usual we need to do some things and so I'm very concerned that what we do is not more common core espc what we do is some of the things that are outlined in the sacka recommendations where they talk about engaging activities they talk about things that actually improve the school more reading teachers in there more resources and so forth and so forth which I talked about two weeks ago and so that it's just a concern I want to note because when we get to the budget process I'm going to be asking that question over and over and over and over again about okay what how does this help these schools which we've now told people your child must go to school in your neighborhood if you're going to live in our school district your child must go to school in our neighborhood but we don't care if your school's good well I never think that we don't care if the school's good but we have not been as successful as we need to be in making sure that those schools have the resources and have a program and have staff and so forth that really makes them work well and I think we need to think a lot about that and I'm supporting the sack of recommendations but we need to think about that way beyond anything that we have and we need to maybe change course too on how we think about making those schools work uh because we're not a lot of them are not doing a very good job because we're caught up in the mandates as opposed to being cut up on how to make that school work and we didn't get caught up the high schools are different because you don't get caught up in the mandates in high school they're not spending all the time working on the testing they have all these other classes and courses and so forth so it's different with elementary schools and with primary schools particularly and we need to look at that um there's a lot of things we need to be able to talk more openly than we have about those things so I'm just like to make that comment MAA yeah along the fear of not having enough applicants or people I think that if we do our job well of Outreach which if we don't plan on doing it well we shouldn't do it at all then we will have an applicant pool it might be a little different from what's previously been but there's going to be an applicant pool of really
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diverse students and I think that will just build the community even more at these schools so I don't think we should fear not having an applicant fear unless we fear that we can't do our job well so I think with that we can maybe expect a different applicant pool but I don't think we should fear that change I think it's just going to build an even stronger diverse Community Within These schools great thank you uh Greg sorry I forgot one note on my paper um I part of what again I I go back to number one for is because it um we are ending neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers period end of sentence which means everybody that has a family member that was expecting to get priority no longer does and so we're saying to one group of parents that are in Focus Lottery option well you guys are Lottery Focus option um will continue to give you a higher preference or a preference um but all the neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers you're just out of luck and so that feels inconsistent to me I'm I I'm still in favor of um of that but it it just feels more consistent to me um to to not give um people who are already at a focus option School even more of a preference for because it encourages I think people who might be in neighborhood to Neighborhood to even do more um focus option Bobby that statement didn't sound correct to me it didn't quite follow it either so are you listen go for it again so I'm going to double check with with Judy but my understanding right is we're entering neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers right so that means if the lottery process just the Lottery lottery so there're still so can still do it with petition the same reasoning that we just dismissed option number one one up here and went with option number four because we didn't like siblings to have to enter the lottery in option one what we're saying is for Focus option schools they should still get to Lottery with the sibling preference first and I'm saying that feels inconsistent to me not saying it's a deal breaker but it just sends a very clear message to folks who are in Focus schools versus neighborhood to Neighborhood you're saying that they would have to go into a petition if they going forward if they wanted to say but I want to keep my sibling here in the school which is the reason why because we're grandfather and current students but not current families who have transferred to a different neighborhood School previously going forward I think okay there is no there is no preference for siblings who are going to just a different neighborhood school is that correct or they have to you should do this one I think that was that was in the list of the hardships is my recollection so right so director BL if I understood correctly your concern is that a family who enters the petition process to keep their cooll siblings together at a neighborhood school doesn't have the highest level of of um preference that's in a policy like the board has not set down in policy that their student will have higher preference than any other student for that seat it'll be determined through the petition process and even though we can see that there are lots of families who have done that and most of them have been successful it's not the same as what's there for the lottery procedure do I understand that correctly that's correct and it's not even that it that I'm recommending we create that policy I'm just saying it was the reason why folks are landing on four which is inconsistent to not stay with number one okay so um let me just say that I hope that we all are not losing the broader picture and the excitement that we have around all of the work that we're doing for um for enrollment and transfer and uh again thank you to sacket for bringing forward all these recommendations um but but let's remember you know we we we're doing a focus option review which will be great we're eliminating the lottery for neighborhood to Neighborhood transfers we're expanding the petition process um we're doing promotions for Focus option schools we're working with our special ed students we have a preference for free and red reduced lunch I mean we're doing a lot of really um intentional things we're actually to me we're being very intentional about free and reduced lunch I mean this is a big deal um so let's as we're all discussing this let's remember all the good things that we're doing with this policy um and although we not everybody may be happy with our final decision um try and focus on some of the really great things that are going to happen out of this because it's going to be great so with that I think we're ending that piece okay no other com you are superintendent Smith well only in the um in terms of guidance to the staff of
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what the policy is we're bringing you back for your first reading we're still in a pretty actually direct you I probably don't have a clear sense of where you are but um which but you're split you're still split director bule I still don't know where he is you're where where are you number five are you on number five four he's four oh you're on four okay I was on four there were four people on so we're four to three four to three okay gotcha okay anything else great thank you oh great sorry yes um I thought I saw interest in um possibly a 4A I'll say 4 a again where we had a specific Target that had some automatic triggers and was I wrong so you want to talk about that some more I'm just interested to see if if there is somebody that would be interested were there others who were interested in that majority interested I mean I think I think if it's say um if it offers us an opportunity to create some accountability around how we how we're actually intentionally recruiting and bringing students into um into these schools I I absolutely think uh a Target is appropriate I think the next question is what that Target would be so Target for Target for number excuse me Target for the number of free and reduced lunch students who would be in the school is that what I'm hearing is that your would the number be I think is the question well the first you know 45% get in so applying is well right now we're not even having the applicants so I know we're not having applicants so Judy you're shaking your head give us your staff opinion on this I am listening intently and want to make sure that we understand so um if you go with four and um you have a situation like we did at Winter Haven a couple years ago where um 75% of the applicants for the kindergarten class were siblings that leaves 25% of the um applicants who could get in would be for the students who qualify for free and reduced meals or Head Start start now if what you're asking can I ask you a quick question on that of those 75% were any of them free and reduced lunch students um no no okay thank you um and I think only two of them had actual lottery numbers that would have if it was a just a straight Lottery okay thank you I I think that's right but I'll double check um so if I understand correctly that could happen but you would look at the applicant pool and you would say well um our Target for Winter Haven was 45% free and reduced meals applicants and they had 45% but they only got 25% of the slots so then you would change to something else because of it no so I would say that it's reasonable for example in year one um to um increase your free and reduced lunch count by X percentage enrolled at your school or um that right or that you had to be at 25% and if you weren't at 25% then clearly the policy change didn't work as intended and therefore it would revert back to a switching of preferences it it is a built-in accountability trigger so can I just ask if is that not the the same as say phasing in the um up to the 45% of your first tier like like phasing in over a series of years it is similar to that but because what I'm hearing from colleagues is they're interested number four which does that um I want to build in some accountability that that our review doesn't then languish for another year and a half after that um which in in case if it was built into the resolution um we would just know that when we had those numbers which direction we're going and it would provide local local schools with with the target number that they're looking for okay not 45% but something else that would be set and once you if you had that amount of applicants then the next year you have another Target I mean we're aiming for 45% right yeah and but it doesn't affect the lottery order the lottery order Remains the Same if you if you reached your target for number one wouldn't that be a disincentive for people to want to apply CA a l i just wanted to make sure that I understood okay there are other questions maybe we can email you and I think that's what I'm hearing from colleagues is where what number would we pick is the number I I actually confused on the connection so I mean and we're not going to solve tonight so maybe you can go home and think about it a little more and communicate with us we do need to land on something for well it's it's related to let's say that next year next year we we keep the sibling preference with first commitment which is what I hear a
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majority of us saying um but it turns out that the focus option schools um increase their free and reduced lunch by 1% well clearly our intended Our intention to bring Equity to it something did not work right and is that the sibling preference that did that did not that only got 1% there where's the connection lack of Outreach um depends right so that's that's more of a problem around that's where where fa right but I think the the issue is that it's that's the problem if the policy is in place as the incentive as part of the incentive that we need to be able to have and what I think what I hear you saying Greg is that it would revert if we could figure out what that Target could be there would be the accountability so that would revert automatically without going through this whole process all over again to having um the free and reduce preference what what I heard is that for example let's say that it's Outreach when I when I'm talking with families from these Focus options they literally said give us a number and we'll hit it we can be in every school whichever school you want us to be you tell us that number and we'll meet it so it's a way to engage the community in this Outreach because if it's just up to central office folks or just up to a particular school I'm worried that it'll be more challenging because we we don't have the relationships that families would have with each other so to me it incentivizes meeting that goal for a whole Community can I also put out there I mean I haven't heard anyone talk about um option number three the Grand and you know any of the grandfathering options um I I can't get to number four but I could potentially as a compromise consider where we would um keep the um freeer this preference first but before that as a transitional piece um grandfather and the siblings of the current families know how the folks thought about that Mina yeah um I would feel comfortable with that especially because the parents who have testified most of them have kids in and that's kind of what they signed up for when they put their first child in and I think it's fair that they do get their children in cuz like they went into those schools with that intention and I think if those parents get that that's fair but I think that then parents signing up in the future with their first child they will go in with a different intention and I think that might um make it a easier transition from like no from Full sibling preference to none so I think that it seems fair to do that for the parents thanks but just to be clear there will still be a sibling preference yeah yeah but like that we prioritize um free and reduce lunch over sibling preference others any other comments on the grandfather no I'm more excited about grandfather number yeah grandfather what yeah I mean that's what I was just saying I can't get to four but sorry go ahead no I was going to say I think that was my my point of um I think there's a there could be a strategy to mitigate some of the challenges around around this uh during the implementation I think that what that grandfathering might look like could be a part of those strategies others I I don't I wouldn't be in favor of Grandfather because I don't think it's the right I mean I just think four is the right thing to do right um I would be willing to talk about three um only in a um testing situation that me yeah um so with a with a date within we're doing a Sunset and then we go come back and look at it again and see so if there's been a because in in the end I mean my concern is all around the strength of the schools the way family strengthens schools I mean so I I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get to anything that would do away with a sibling preference but I'm willing to look at a grandfathering piece for so that's an interesting I mean rather than just talking about review which has been the language we've using so far but to introduce into this a sunset I don't know you mean Sunset so because a sunset forces a decision one way or the other right it's not just we'll review it and we might take action or we might not or we'll get some data and we may or may not pay attention to it the sense that if it's built in then that way so with number three but I I think I just heard you say a little bit different is that you would you would consider going with number three as long as we had a sunset build in so that if we saw there was an adverse impact that we would be it would we could structure it different ways but basically it it
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it's it's um yeah so it wouldn't be that we would see an adverse impact it would be so that we could see that we can hit the 45% number for free and reduced lunch with siblings that would be the I yeah and by the same token siblings can be a a detriment to the school that's not what I was saying yeah you are because what I'm saying is that there isn't an adverse impact to families being able to have their siing be part of the program right the adverse impacts are all potentially all around so what I'm talking about is any review or Sunset would look at the holistic piure but I I think I think I'm hearing for people who would support that you're no one you're no one three with a sunset you are a possible yeah you're just you're being [Laughter] quiet I think that grandfather and everybody is fine at having four is five I think well I think four makes more sense but if you can't get to four then you better get to three we're at four at four yeah so if we're at four we're at four that's the best thing that's that's what I favor but yeah okay poy are you still are you still strong for okay right am stuck in the middle again so I'll I'll citate on it so um anything else anyone else yeah thank you very much you guys really tough discussion and really good discussion appreciate that um so let's move on to our next uh agenda item which is our workload committee we have a quarterly update from the committee um got these guys are just one of many topics on our board's work plan superintendent Smith um yes so it's part of our last contract negotiating our last contract with the Portland Association of teachers we formed a workload committee to look at ongoing issues of workload um and we have um Shan Murray our Chief Human Resources officer Brock Logan our director of Labor Relations and Lisa Kane from Portland Association of teachers here to give us an update on um the progress of the workload committee so Sean thank you good evening board members superintendent Smith I'm Shan Murray Chief Human resources I have with me Brock Logan who is the director of employment and Labor Relations for the district and also a workload Committee Member we're also expecting Lisa Kaine who is a representative of Pat and so we want to be able to provide her the opportunity to provide a report should she come in is she not here is she coming Sean just not here yet we don't know um we're expecting her but she hasn't we could briefly do our conference reports while you guys just wait for a little bit is coming we can do that sure do you know how to get hold of her all right yeah let's wait let's wait let's if we get sure thank you if we think there's a chance she'll come that would be great for somebody text her or something like that yeah she's coming well we late we'll go ahead and do our there we are go ahead and do our board member uh conference reports um two of us attended conferences this fall I attended the Council of great City Schools uh and director B attended the summit for courageous conversations we heard a lot about that the greatest conversations tonight which was wonderful um according to our board policy we report back on what we learned or what we found out when we were at conferences so I'm going to let Dr B go first talk a little bit about Great's conversations great thank you um and it was really nice to have staff come testify today about did you do that no I I don't think I did that somebody did I I think they probably saw it on the agenda and thought it was a good opportunity um it was great so as you'll all recall the um Summit on courageous conversations on Race uh was held October 27th through 29th there were two days prior um pre-summit um sessions that some folks attended from our team we had a really healthy team I don't know the exact number um but it was a significant size and it's really gratifying to see so many staff not only invested in the work but used their own professional development many of them um funds to to go um to attend this conference i' I've heard my colleagues sometimes talk about or at least a colleague talk about top- down professional development and here's a great example of um them deciding what what's most relevant most interesting and most useful to to them and their their teaching um and so it was really heartening to see the size of the group that we had um in New Orleans I want to highlight I know that
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um I think it was two weeks ago we got to celebrate uh Al Elma um Velasquez uh for being recognized and it's really interesting the award is learning and teaching and I love that they put learning first um because really teaching is about uh lifelong learning and instilling that that love of learning um and that to me is really what I find this conference about is um realizing and taking a critical look at our own beliefs and our own um our own way of being our own assumptions in the world um so that it can inform our decision-making process that it can inform um our policy decisions my policy decisions I guess um and I've heard some folks sometimes Express surprise that uh that courageous conversations on race it's not an instructional practice um and as I I see more curriculums rolled out or more Direction in what folks should be teaching this to me is professional development done right because um it doesn't actually give you a pat answer it it asks you to do the work and when I went through um school to be a teacher it was all about reflective practice how are the decisions that you are making impacting your students how do you most effectively bring students to um the understanding of those the learning and some of that is by um getting them to to activate some of what they already know they call it activating topic schema but really you have to understand what they bring with them so that you can engage them in a real and meaningful way with the content that you're giving and this um this conference this Summit um is just masterful at that and when you're dealing with or working with 900 folks from other school districts across the country that are engaged in the same work looking at institutions realizing what decisions are made every day in those buildings regardless of whether it's from board or down to um the custodial staff it is really um really motivating really educational and to see how different people come at this work um while still encouraging teachers to um teachers and board members whoever is there encouraging us to do our own work again it if um it is about our own pursuit of how do we learn and how do we best Express um express ourselves and get to the outcomes that we want um the the other thing um that I guess I I'll just say from I I got to attend a number of different um sessions but the two sessions I'll hold up for my colleagues that I really appreciated was um working in family engagement and um how it works with Collective impact and I don't know how many of you are familiar with the work that all hands raised is doing right now but there's a lot of work right now around Collective impact it's about a whole Community wrapping around and how do you engage your community in ways that are not traditional um so that you're making sure that all the voices are heard and that you're Building A system that actually serves all students um the other one was a really um successful Indian education um session that talked about it was it from AIO Minnesota and they have they have the students that are in their Indian education they have 100% graduation um and it was really fascinating to hear how they were doing it often times Indian education um provide some extra extra funding for Native students um and oftentimes the strategy is that we're going to do some more tutoring some more academic support U and what oio found is actually if you take those students and give them um Heritage experiences so so one one of the experiences for example is they went out for a week and they actually walked a trail that their ancestors had been forced to walk to a concentration camp at Fort Snelling um and they talked about what they experienced and what the pride was and what the the Heritage was that is how they're getting to 100% is they realized they had to give them a cultural identity and a cultural value that was outside of just more school for school's sake so found those two really powerful and I offer it to us as we as we think about um how we're educating our students um and I guess another part part that I appreciate about this and then I'll turn it over back to you Pam is um that what I what I appreciate about getting the opportunity to go to this is It's participating in professional development that we're asking staff to do now it's not possible for me to to participate in all the professional development that our staff do or have access to um but it's really if we're going to ask our staff um to do this work um then I think that we have to be willing and interested and invested in doing this work so I thank my colleagues uh for providing me the opportunity to go and I would highly encourage um anybody that has an opportunity near his future to go thank
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you great thank you very much yeah can I ask a question Bobby sure um did you find that there were very many districts who sent school board members this year oh good question um I did um it it seems to be growing um which is fantastic because um as I kind of reference that it's great to have so many different levels from school districts because you can really talk about the issues at your school both as how it relates to race and how you're educating students um across the disparities that exist across the country but also a myriad of other options that many school districts are facing so it's a great time to connect with them but more school districts are actually I'm really glad I know that was one of the things when I went um a couple years back I went for several years in a row and I know I I talked to Glenn we talked to Glenn Singleton on several occasions that if you don't include board members um in this work then you can have a a superintendent who you know does all this professional development with their staff and then that superintendent leaves the next superintendent comes in and you do something completely different right so what what we're doing because we have board members involved is we're passing policy related to equity and we're setting budget priorities related to equity and um and we're talking um about what we're doing and I it makes a huge difference and so it had been a concern for many years that we weren't seeing that many board members I'm really thrilled to to hear that that's picking up and I hope that more of us go next year it really is an unbelievable conference s times I've gone twice and then last year we we organized serve an affinity session for board members and it was very unstructured but it was really just so valuable to share that from the board member perspective um what Equity leadership looks like and the and the challenges as well as so powerful to be there with our with our team and I'll say actually this year there were a number of boards who sent multi members from the same board CU I actually sat with a couple groups of board members from other cities that was powerful for them to be with their colleagues so I would yeah and I you know it's it's a scheduling challenge too but now we have Rosanne on board fully this this coming year we can ear warning early warning so we can get it on our calendars CU we're all busy yeah I know it's great oh we had U I think we had saved excuse me I think we had saved a couple of spots and and just the timing of it didn't work out for other board members So and I've I've never had the opportunity to go to that one because it comes so close to the council great City Schools so it's either at the same time or directly after that and you know you can only take so much time off of work so I know know there goes that vacation time right yeah exactly um so just a little bit about the Council of great City Schools uh superintendent Smith and I uh lenzo po who I saw back there in the back and Jola Fontaine and myself we attended the uh Council great City Schools uh in Milwaukee Wisconsin not nearly as exciting as New Orleans but don't don't tell the Milwaukee people that um they know it they know it's a great City actually it's a lot like Portland so no I me it's a great City just like us yeah um and uh so we all went uh a couple of days early for the pre-conference which superintendent Smith already talked a little bit about um on working on our implementation plan for our um young men of color and support of President Obama is My Brother's Keeper initiative um with the chastisement from uh Mike Casserly who's the executive director that he gets a call every week from the White House wanting to know where we all are on our implementation plans so that was kind of yeah so we really was an incentive for all of those districts who attended to really work on those uh quite a bit um just a little bit about the council it represents about 67 Urban school districts in the US us and that means about about 7 million students um of those about 70% are eligible for free and reduced lunch 80% are children's of color and 19% speak English as a a second language um so you know PPS is the only Urban School District in Portland and or in Oregon excuse me and the council provid us provides us an opportunity to meet with other school districts of our size who are experiencing the same kinds of um things with their students because of our Urban environment and it's it's really different for us than going to um local um events to share uh information um so the other i i attended several workshops on the topics from Principal evaluation to budgeting to just everything I uh facilitated a panel on social emotional learning and was able to talk a little bit about what we do here at Portland Public Schools uh with PBIS and and restorative justice and some of our um Partners which was great to talk about as the facilitator um and at this time I'm chairing the membership committee so I participated in a membership Workshop
02h 55m 00s
there are always more districts trying to join the council it's a pretty exclusive group um but we always have new people coming especially I think Greg and Bobby were both mentioning board members it's always great to see more board members coming to these because of the continuity the longevity of board members it's great to see um and to talk to other people people to other board members from districts about what's happening in their district and how they're how they're um overcoming issues or new policies Portland is always very popular around talking about our racial educational Equity policy um there are a lot of districts who uh want to talk to us and who want to see our policy and want to hear all about how we um put that together and and how it's working for us so we're we're popular um and then the other thing is uh uh as a board member I'm also the executive committee I received u a number of reports uh done by the research Council the one that's uh I have not got a final on it yet but I will come back and share it with everybody when we do is the council has done um a survey on uh testing and all of the uh Council school districts um the amount of testing what you're testing for is it a national test local test state test um so they've done a survey of all those districts and we're going to see very soon what the results are of that so I'm looking forward to Bringing that back to talk about so that's it great thank you for your Worden tting surve testing the testing and Portland participated in that so good so looking back at the workload committee do we have no Lisa just the two of you still okay and Brock all right thank you for waiting you guys just in case she showed up I think that's important so come on down thank you board members uh like I said before if Miss Kane does show up we'll provide her an opportunity to go ahead and provide her input as well what's your last name oh my last name no not her last name Kane k a n e all right so if you recall the 2013 2016 collective bargaining agreement establishes a workload committee with the p at and the district to consider options for eliminating workload for our professional Educators at the suggestion of the human resources department to the board and also the workload committee quarterly updates regarding the progress of the committee and the types of workload issues would be provided to the board i' also like to note that superintendent Smith has allocated a million dollars to in the budget to address potential workload issues for professional Educators since the last workload committee update to the board the committee has established standing meetings of twice a month and the parties have entered into a memorandum of understanding that does two things one increases the number of committee members from 10 to 12 that's six for the union six for the district and it also changes the reference of Chief academic officer to to assistant superintendent of school performance so at this time I will let Brock Logan Prov provide the committee update um and I do want to just take a minute to point out that the committee is the one where the committee discussed this so this update is truly coming from the committee this is an hr's take on what's Happening um so um very happy to report that the we talked before about having an online form where employees could uh P members could submit their request for a review of their workload when they felt their workload was inequitable that is live active up and running it is accessible to teachers and other professional Educators on both the p and the PPS web page um we are still working through kind of a connection issue to get our uniserve consultant to have access to few of those but uh we're getting there but the main thing is the form is up and active and live and available we have so far received eight requests for individual workload review I would say that um a number of those actually point out kind of the um kind of the bigger picture or Global work work issues the topics that they've included um are workload in special education the loss or lack of funding to maintain the Synergy leads Medicaid administrative billing and support for classrooms with large numbers of students Andor with um students in the process of being evaluated for special services the uh committee at this point is not prepared to make formal recommendations we're still in the process of reviewing information and Gathering data and kind of looking at what the big pictures are but there are a few Concepts that the committee has discussed in length and is comfortable coming forward and asking that the board
03h 00m 00s
kind of consider those in your deliberations so one uh when projects such as major system or system changes or it rollouts or that type of thing are submitted for approval um the project should be required to include a plan for both implementation and ongoing support um along those lines the committee is supportive of its's request for continued funding for Synergy leads or some other form of ongoing support for the Synergy system in the schools uh second the committee again as a general concept supports coordination of new initiatives between the different departments within the district so there's just you know fewer things that are coming out and and often you know three departments put something out new and don't realize that three departments are putting something out new the people receiving them now three different things they have to juggle and finally the committee is um very supportive of ongoing funding for substitute coverage or other resource allocation for teachers who who are required to conduct one-on-one testing with students so often a teacher has to sit down with an individual student do a particular test whether that's for language acquisition or some other thing and they've also got their other 22 or 26 or however many kids are in their class that are under their supervision and it's just um you know the phrase that came up in the committee was you can't be in two places at once you can't be sitting here and giving this child child undivided attention and supervising 22 26 whatever number it is other children so those are things that um the committee has discussed and again we don't have a specific recommendation but those concepts are there any questions do you have a timeline for when you're going to actually do some action out of this committee where they actually make somebody's workload less well I will say that of the eight requests that have come in and and I would point out that the committee has really two charges one is to look at the overall picture and see if we can come up with recommendations for pieces of work to can be R your elements that can be changed to reduce workload overall so it's kind of a global concept and then there is this Avenue for individual review within the Avenues of individual review with eight requests we've received one of those the department it came from when it came forward they were able to resolve it uh so that one's been resolved um I believe a couple of the others actually kind of worked them self out but it's kind of like okay so I've had this problem going on since the first day of school it's finally resolved so there's nothing to do at this point but that's why that's more of the global how do we plan for these things and so even though it came in on this individual request form what it really highlighted is an area that we need to look at on the global side of it um and then the other thing is the committee did uh take specific action around the Synergy lead piece that for the grading day I think it was November 10th if I remember right to fund up to four hours at um the hourly rate for the Synergy lead in the high schools just to help their peers that needed help with the new system and getting grades in and all of that um and it's it's not clear that every High School access those funds but that we I know two of them have said that they have so did uh uh the part about the testing the oneon-one that includes like the Adept test which is one of the major ones that we give on the ESL what about the Dibbles test that one of the things that we do seem to be doing in Dibbles tests that are that were maintaining that the teacher himself or herself has to give the Dibbles test as opposed to maybe an EA giving that dibles test I mean that's kind of on the testing stuff are you looking at other testing things like the have you started to look at that or is that are you punching that over to the testing committee uh no so there has been some discussion um we've identified a number of the global issues to talk about and the the impact of testing uh is one especially with like the amount of of um prep work teachers have to do before administering a test especially a new test um how do we count for that and we didn't on the one-on-one testing we didn't specify that to a single test I know adep is one of them um I don't remember what it stands for but elpa is is one of them there's a number of I don't know if dibles is one of them but if it's a one-on-one test or is a teacher that's why we say either ongoing substitute support for that um or some kind of other resource and I I will tell you that based on the last discussion and this is not something that the committee is coming forward with but this is my take on that discussion so I want to be clear about that that I'm not speaking for the commit right now but a number of the things we've talked about we get down to if we could replace the educational assistance the library assistance since the office support in the schools a lot of what teachers when they're telling their story are talking about is there used to be somebody else in the school that could help with this or do this whether it's Duty or you know
03h 05m 00s
any of that kind of stuff and the loss of those AIDS in the school is one of the things that has a huge impact on them so so along the idea of if on the testing what we've said was either substitutes that's that's a solution that's been that's been used on and off in the past and one of the frustrations the committee had is okay this comes up every single year and every single year we treat it like it's a new problem so let's do something let's have a plan for it let's be ongoing and have a place in there that could be substitutes that's in the past been something that's been allowed is put a substitute in the school to be with the class while the teacher is doing the testing or other resource so it's but let's get a fix to realize you can't have one person doing two things in two different places at exactly the same time and one of the things that we haven't done in the past was to communicate that you could get those substitutes which they already had decided last year they said you could get a substitute for your adep test but it wasn't evidently as I understand it communicated to anybody so a lot of people just went along with their thing so the communication aspect is a something that you should maybe factor in as we go along I would think other questions Bobby so first of all I'm just so excited to see this level of communication between the two parties it's really um positive um I had two quick questions one is you um are looking to increase the number of committee members to 12 did you explain why sure um in our last report the reason for increasing the committee members from 10 to 12 was to provide greater representation in terms of various issues and subject areas okay and then um of the million dollars that we set aside to all to this committee um has has any of that been spent or so the allocation for uh Synergy support at the high schools that could have been up to $1,800 that's the only money that's been allocated So Far So remind me again what happens because we put that aside to be sort of a a a pool or a fund to address urgent workload issues so remind me again what happens if those aren't surfaced and does it revert no I get dis spended yeah so a couple things I mean I think we would all we'll determine how much we're allocating next year and do a similar allocation so it's not like a rolling fund it would be when we figure out a number that we put in the budget next year but part of the point is also to surface things like when Brock's identifying themes that are coming up right is things that we would recommend in the next budget process that we try and address systemically so it's also trying to identify some of the systemic issues and this is intended to be able to be responsive for immediate things so we can resolve them as they're occurring what I would say is the committee is still in the process of gathering information to review these request and one of the things that's come up on a couple of themes the committee so so let's say on the individual request that comes in says in this situation we think we should fund an EA and the committee could say we're going to fund that EA this year and make a recommendation to the board that EA should be funded for this well the problem is right now we know that it's a problem in that one classroom in that one school right and if we say okay great you filled out the form you get an EA and then we find out there are 85 classrooms in this District that have the exact same problem a million dollars doesn't buy 85 educational assistants so you know the same thing if you if you were to do something and say okay we're going to put a million dollars towards X because X will reduce teacher workload and then we have new things that come in we're like sorry we've got nothing we can do about so it's it's a balancing act and really finding out what is the impact of this districtwide is this a one-time one case scenario that we can fix this um is this something that this money will make a real difference now and we can then come forward with a recommendation to change for the future or is it you know putting a Band-Aid on a large hemorrhaging wound um yeah thank you very much uh Matt this is um Pro probably just a reiteration but I think it's going to be really important um as we move forward in planning for next year's budget I we would I I would love I think they're um I'm but there was a little bit of a slow start to this committee and uh and um I think some probably average you know uh results at least what I can tell uh but I think this is a place where where some magic could really happen in in creating uh both dialogue how we how we approach challenges collectively uh AC both from the district perspective and from the association perspective and uh would I I want to do whatever I can in this role to to help support that and direct sta the superint tenant and staff to to
03h 10m 00s
focus on this is really an opportunity and I want to find a way to support that on the board um uh in the budget process too because I think there could be a lot a lot of good that can come out of this so great Steve did you have something I just was going to say that the million dollars is should be spent this year on workload this year year and then next year if we still under the contract be another million dollars that's how it's that's how it was set up not worry about the long range thing about it but get it let's get the money spent and the workload reduced that's the whole point of it in my opinion seems awful slow I think Brock's point is a really is really well taken though that part of the value of this is surfacing the systemic issues and that we could have a situation where just because you know c a small number of teachers happen to utilize the process there could still be many many others who needed it so back the equity again Equity yeah if I could just comment on director Morton's comment one of the things I think and I I'm not sure that these committee meetings are open for anybody if they wanted to come see them we'd probably as a committee have to talk about that but if you were a fly on the wall during these committee meetings I would suggest that you couldn't sit there and say who's from which side it doesn't seem like their sides it is feels like one committee the dialogue is one committee problem solving gathering information looking for Solutions it's a really positive committee it's fun to be on that's good to hear that's really great we all want our teachers to have everything they need so okay great thank you guys so let's move on to our business agenda board will now consider the remaining item on its business agenda having already voted on 4995 Miss Houston any changes there is not do I have a motion and second for the business agenda still moved second goodness director Morton moo and director B seconds the adoption of the business agenda any public comment no any board discussion Bobby I think you had something I do so I think the only thing that we are actually voting on now under the business agenda is related to this purge bubble yes um so I had a quick discussion with Sean earlier and said I'm find voting with this because it basically applies January 1st till June 30th of this year and I I I can see that we have to do it but I would like to request that we have a that a discussion take place um around this whole area so as an example um right now we have an incentive in place right now where if employees tell us they're going to retire early um we give them a little bonus because it allows us to be more planful um at the same time we've changed our teacher contract so we don't have three rounds of hiring anymore and the reason we had that incentive originally is because we felt like there was some gaming of the system and um and so I want to kind of look at that incentive again and see if it still needs to be in place but the the other thing I would say is should we be incenting employees to retire on June 30th rather than on January 1st and it seems like this is almost enabling and embold people to retire on January 1 and instead of it seems like it's opposite of what we should be incentivizing and so I have some concerns about it and I don't know that we need to address that I just want but even just tea up the conversation I want to tea up the conversation I'm not sure that this is a a smart longterm so two points in regards to this issue um based on years and age and years of service the employee would be retiring uh essentially with this mou uh employees would essentially be able to retire for work until the end of the school year it assists the district and continuing the flow of having a teacher in place and not having the problem of trying to find a teacher to replace uh that retiree until the end of the year and then also uh and looking at and I guess I'm just asking whether we can incentivize that in a different way that might make more sense I me clearly we want our employees to stay through June 30th every year right um so I'm just I mean we I just want us to think it through a little bit we definitely can explore options um with the um incentive in regards to early notice of retiring I mean essentially that helps the district to understand where those vacancies are taking place and
03h 15m 00s
essentially we know ahead of time where we need to recruit so that's one of the reasons why we have that incentive in place agreed but there was a there was another reason that we put that in place as well so I I just think it's worth looking at again so again I'm going to vote for this it makes sense I'm just asking think it's this has been in place this kind of thing has been in place for quite some time we've never had to change it that's it right okay anything else any other comments thanks okay the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes any excuse me anybody opposed extensions business agenda is approved by a vote of 7even to zero with student representative Jal voting yes yes okay the next meeting of the board will be held on Tuesday December 16th and this

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)

2014-12-09 PPS School Board Study Session

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Event 1: Board of Education - Study Session - December 09, 2014

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