2015-09-01 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2015-09-01
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Meeting Type regular
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Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - September 1, 2015

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when they get on um superintendent Smith is absent tonight due to family emergency and uh wanted to let her know on behalf of the board and the whole PPS community that we're thinking about her and her family uh Amanda whan our chief of staff will be joining at the dis introducing agenda items director sparza Brown is also absent this evening um we would now uh go to Suzanne um on Cohen on behalf of the Portland Association of teachers uh who's going to come um and present uh speak to us tonight welcome yeah thank espe chair kler for giving us time on the agenda tonight I am Suzanne Cohen the P vice president and I'm here as a part of a team effort with the p advocacy committee which I'll tell you just a little bit about in a minute and this is Tia Smith Wallace an educator from Lincoln High School and also one of the members of our advocacy committee as Educators um we believe that a safe and supportive learning environment is one of the cornerstones of creating the schools our students deserve and we're here tonight because Frontline educators are clear there's a safety crisis in Portland Public Schools and we need your help in addressing it tonight we're going to be presenting some of the key findings from a safety survey we conducted with our members last spring um but the most important result is right here more than a third of Educators believe that their school environment is unsafe this figure is even more disturbing when you consider that in 2014 as a part of the national tell survey only 14% of Educators felt their school environment was unsafe this last school year we saw a substantial increase of students and staff getting hurt in our schools and to be blunt the district's response has been abysmal how many concussions or trips to the hospital will it take for PPS to address the very real safety issues in our schools and give us the resources we need to deal with the problems we face as a part of our survey we gave respondents space to write open-ended comments in each section and we'll be sharing some of these comments with you as a part of our presentation I think they really drive home the gravity of the situation we're seeing in our um classrooms so here are a few of the comments addressing safety um one educator said students do not feel safe because there is at times a feeling of chaos students who are doing the right thing do not necessarily see anything being done when others don't do the right thing uh another educator reported I have a student with severe behavioral and emotional needs he is in my full he is in my class full-time usually without support this student is unpredictable he hits runs throws objects yells and pushes others I worry about the safety of my other students so as I mentioned this has been a team effort spearheaded by our advocacy committee and I want to take a moment to give special thank to all our members at P we are committed to building the schools Portland Students deserve which includes a safe and supportive learning environment and as Educators we're going to use all the tools at our disposal including our contract to give the students what they need so one important role that we can play is giving um an independent uh information and an authentic teacher voice to the school board about what's actually happening in our schools so that we can address the problems and find real Solutions together and that's why we're here tonight so let me tell you a little bit about the survey every P member covered by our main contract with the district received the survey we received responses from over 30% of our members about a thousand Educators and so tonight we're just going to present some of our key results and then we'll be attending the teaching and learning committee to go over more of the survey results tonight we're going to focus on three areas um um we're going to talk about the district's track record of developing disseminating and applying its own discipline policies in Portland Public Schools we're also going to talk a little bit about the district's decision to hollow out the Continuum of special education services and PPS as a part of a special ed redesign and how that's impacted classroom safety and then we can't ignore the long withstanding problem in PPS which is the patchwork of discipline systems across the district and more importantly the
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fact that most are not not provided with the resources they require and are too often imposed from above rather than being developed collaboratively in our schools so before I go any further I want to talk about something that I'm sure you're all thinking about which is the connection between safety issues and our shared goal of reducing suspensions and expulsions generally as well as specifically eliminating disproportionate disciplines for student of color students of color and PPS as P leaders we all want to reduce the number of suspensions and expulsions in Portland schools because if kids aren't in school they aren't learning and we have to recognize and address that racial disparities and discipline not just here in Portland but our Nationwide and the figures are staggering and what's happening is not right No One Believes it's okay to suspend or expel black brown or native students more frequently than their white counter points Parts but as we we will discuss in more detail tonight ppss approach directing an arbitrary reduction in suspensions and expulsions is starting at the wrong end of the problem we need real supports in place on the front end so we can head off the kinds of behaviors that might trigger a suspension or expulsion in the first place we want every student to have their individual social and emotional needs met it's part of our Union's commitment to building the schools that all Portland Students deserve but it requires a safe and supportive learning environment last week Sarah singer Rick pman and lenzo po reported that PPS is on track to achieve the goal of reducing exclusionary discipline by 50% and still working to reduce disproportionate disciplines by the same margin when asked these District officials provided very few specifics as to how they were achieving these results our survey results paint a very different picture of what's Happening inside our schools and offer some insights into why and how the number of exclusionary disciplines reported by the district continue to decline the contrast between our report tonight and last week's presentation should serve as a red flag to all of you especially when more than a third of your staff twice as many as the year before report that their school environment is unsafe so I don't want to keep you all in suspense here's our conclusions first PPS is doing a poor job following its own rules and the pat contract which three of you that served last year voted to approve this problem runs from top to bottom including spotty work by the district disseminating district-wide policies developing school-based discipline plans communicating standards to Educators and consistently applying discipline standards with students second we're seeing a big problem stemming from The District's special ed redesign in effect the district has been hollowing out the Continuum of service for special education students particularly cutting out midlevel options like Behavior classrooms this has left Educators and building administrators with options at either end of the spectrum such as a more restrictive placement or mainstreaming students without necessary supports it's not fair to our students and it's contributing to unsafe classroom conditions and finally the district continues to use a hodgepodge of disciplinary systems rarely giving us any of the fronted resources necessary to head off behaviors that trigger suspensions and expulsions positive programs such as PBIS and restorative justice are implemented half-hazard Le it seems that the district is more interested in jinting up positive headlines than rather than actually addressing behavior problems implementation of many programs has been so peacemeal and top down that in most places failure is almost guaranteed so we have a lot of work to do so one of the the first things we wanted to find out with our survey was how the district was doing implementing their own policies as Educators we know that there's a few steps involved in effective discipline program first you have to have clear expectations second administrators have to communicate those expectations to both students and staff third those expectations and any consequences have to be consistently applied and finally the response to specific in incidences has to be timely so let's see how we're doing in each of these four areas in addition to this districtwide student rights and responsibility handbook each school is required to create a written student discipline plan these plans are supposed to be finalized in May for the following school year and Educators and families should receive them within the first two weeks of school what we found when we asked our members however is that this is just not happening we ask respondents if their school has a written student discipline
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plan 62% report that they do not have or do not know if their school has a written building student discipline plan one educator wrote I have asked to see one and have never been given one I was told there is no handbook another said we have written rules and expectations but not procedures to follow when said rules and expectations are violated we also asked our members if they thought administrators at their school clearly communicated policies and procedures regarding student conduct given the previous slide it probably won't surprise you that half of our members do not believe policies and procedures are clearly communicated staff is not really sure what the policies and procedures are I'm not even sure the administration really knows what they are with all the change happening another educator said there's no transparency students will engage in very unsafe behaviors and administrators respond that their hands are tied by the district that they cannot exclude students students get the message there are no real consequences for their behavior so their behavior escalates to dangerous levels so I want to take a moment to emphasize an issue that we've heard over and over again from our survey respondents that building administrators are not applying the consequences our policies tell us should be applied or not applying them consistently we think it's clear that this is a result of the district telling administrators they're being evaluated on reducing the number of disciplines at their school and I feel their pain because just like teachers they've been asked to solve a problem without any of the resources necessary that a real solution requires but you can't wave a magic wand and make these problems go away and it's this pressure from the district is having another really toxic side effect which is it is seriously undermining The credibility of our statistics on discipline and referrals we've received widespread reports that ad administrators are systematically suppressing or Under reporting discipline problems not filing referrals changing them once in the the system the whole gamut we all support the goal of reducing exclusionary disciplines and disproportionate discipline but cooking the books is not a solution and in the long run it makes the problem worse because it undermines trust and the district's credibility as the last quote suggested students are getting the wrong message about behavioral expectations we asked our members if student consequences were consistent with the building discipline plans or the student rights and responsibilities handbook and nearly half 47% disagreed uh when asked about consequences one educator responded our written building plan does not outline or describe consequences the district handbook does not seem to be followed at all another noted students at our school are not safe there are no real consequences for violent behaviors students will be sent to the office only to be returned to class 5 minutes later students are bullied and our administrators are either unwilling or unable to hold kids accountable another responded this there is minimal to no information shared regarding how discipline is determined defined assigned Etc as a teacher I feel in the dark about what discipline issues exist at my school if there are any Trends I should be noticing or anything that may assist in protecting and Aiden students and so here you see again the message coming down down from the top is don't apply consequences because we have to improve our statistics and I think it's telling that when you were asking lenzo Po and Sarah singer and Rick kersman last week how we achieved the reductions that they reported they couldn't really tell you are we seeing fewer problematic behaviors do we have more tools short of exclusion to deal with them do we know which behavior programs are most effective at helping us reach our goals the facts that we didn't get clear answers to these questions bothers me and I think it should bother you too Suzanne uh how long Al are you U I'm just trying to get a sense of our timing here oh um good question I think cut yeah they're about 10 more slides to go and we've gone through about 14 so what do you think okay I mean our understanding we want to take this in depth into committee but you're here so keep keep going it's great information um yeah yeah we just so we just picked out actually just a few parts of the survey and we're saving the rest for the committee and then any like questions or followup we could do there that's all right thank thank yeah no thank you I didn't mean to um so here's another key element in effectively addressing disruptive behavior which is a timely response and
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so when we asked our members if they felt like they had um a timely followup to discipline referrals by nearly a 2 to1 margin they said they do not one educator responded my students have received referrals and there is nothing in Synergy or nothing of substance when the behavior is repeated and the consequence remains conference the behavior does not change and the students suffer another said I never hear a word 99% of the time students are sent back to class or show up the next day and so here you see that te again do whatever it takes to reduce referrals it's definitely undermining confidence among teachers in the system and that should have you worried and second on time Linus I want to make sure you understand why it's so critical if you have a student that is disruptive or physically acting out this is not just making learning harder for his or her classmates the longer that behavior goes unaddressed by administrators the greater the risk that that behavior escalates and someone gets hurt HT we've seen students assaulted by their peers how many concussions or other forms of bodily harm could we have avoided with more timely action by the district and it's probably no surprise after seeing these findings that our members feel the referral process in the school is neither efficient nor effective their response was an overwhelming answering no to this question by a 3 to1 margin the following quote really summarizes the challenges our members are facing every day in the classroom and why we're here talking to you while we write referrals and appropriately escalate we are told that students cannot be suspended and we have no form of detention or in school suspension these factors create a situation in which the students feel they can get away with anything therefore making our classroom management plans nearly useless um so the second important area we wanted to address tonight is the district's decision to hollow out the Continuum of special education services and PPS and how that's um impacted classroom safety and so our members were very clear about this problem 70% do not feel there's adequate supports for special education students whose behaviors create unsafe classroom conditions we've worked from September through April to finally get some support through special ed for three students in this building it has impacted the entire building and I have to credit our principal for being persistent in helping us get the students the help they need we don't have adequate supports and need one-on ones for certain students the model we have doesn't support the number of IEPs in my classroom close to 15 IEPs in one class alone there needs to be a more efficient process for taking Data Tracking students who are struggling and helping teachers design and Implement interventions many students are falling through the cracks until they get in second to fourth grade at which time they are already very behind academically and behavior-wise so what I really want to emphasize is that the root of this problem is the way the district is redesigning special education services most Educators agree that there should be a whole range of options at our disposal allowing us to find the right environment for each student but the district has been hollowing out that Continuum of services particularly reducing midlevel options like Behavior classrooms and this is left uh Educators and building administrators with options at each end of the spectrum such as a more restrictive placement or mainstreaming students without the necessary supports so for many neither of these options work particularly well and it's not fair to our special education students or their classmates and we have to face the fact that the practice of mainstreaming special education students without additional supports is contributing to unsafe conditions and we certainly don't want to place students in a more restrictive environment than necessary but ironically the district is making that more likely by eliminating Behavior classrooms and mainstreaming students with little to no supports and the final issue we wanted to touch on tonight is another longstanding problem in the district which is the patchwork of discipline we asked our members to name the different discipline systems operating at their school and as you can see there was a wide variety of discipline systems that work in the district with PBIS and restorative justice as the most commonly identified note that we asked people to check all that apply so the numbers do not add up to 100% but what's really important to note is that this variation has created a lot of confusion about what is or isn't actually in place in a given school as you can see from these comments in our survey neither discipline style PBIS or RJ has been fully explained we have just been told that we are doing these models we were explicitly told that the district is making our school do restorative justice but without an RJ trainer we are but we are still expected to follow it whatever it is another said
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I strongly believe in the imperative to reduce inequity in student discipline and I believe that restorative justice is a powerful to Tool in doing so however the way it has been implemented was to just throw out the referral process I've had several incidents with students that would previously have gotten them suspended they experienced no consequences and then we did not want to go through an RJ process before the student was returned to my class this only exacerbates issues rather than resolve them another reported like so many initiatives we talk about PBIS we say it frames our work and yet there is not enough time for teachers to develop a meaningful program we get a superficial set of protocols and structures but never enough time to develop real embodied understanding and the problems run a lot deeper than the patchwork of different discipline systems and two of these in particularly stand out over and over again our members reported that whatever system a school said it was using Educators were generally not provided with the training and support necessary to actually use it even top administrators like Rick kersman acknowledge that in fewer 20% of our schools our programs like PBIS or restorative justice fully implemented what does that mean for the other 80% of our schools a second point we heard over and over again is that these programs were being imposed from above rather than being developed collaboratively in our schools and I don't know how familiar everyone is with programs like restorative justice but that runs counter to the very DNA of these programs they can't be mandated from the top down you need to build community shared values and Trust for these programs to work and they require a lot of resources and staff on the front end they also require a lot of time most season restorative justice practitioners say it takes three to five years to get restorative justice program up and running it does not appear that the district is committed committing that kind of time or resources to make this work and as a school board you should be very worried about this kind of cynicism seeping into our schools it corrodes trust and it makes real change even harder Pat leaders want real meaningful change that supports our students and creates a shared Vision excellent safe public schools in every neighborhood and let's be clear we know what works we have to recognize that doing this right costs a lot more money upfront but in the long run it will save PPS money money and the state so much more because we're setting people up for success in life and then we're disrupting the school to prison Pipeline and so at this point I want to leave you with a question a food for thought that we can delve into deeper in the committee and other questions um but do you feel that you know what PPS has done differently to achieve the results presented to you last week and let me just close by saying that as Educators we will never stop working to create safe and supportive learning environments for all our students in all our schools but we know that we can't do that by wishing away the very real problems facing some of our students or minimizing the resources required to do this effectively we look forward to working with you and the district on Solutions designed to support both our students and our teachers thank you for your time sorry if that took too long thank you appreciate it and um this will go in more depth to uh Steve learning uh teaching committee um and I know that that the superintendent and her team is working with you on on these issues as we go forward so totally appreciate it okay thank you very much for your time thank you thank you very much okay at this time we will have a public comment do we have anybody signed up for public comment we do we have six okay and minor understand was there a student that wanted to testify tonight and I wanted to make sure that he does you want to do that now Michael I yeah okay uh come on down and testify uh good evening everybody my name is Michael yfi and I'm a junior at Lincoln High School and for the last six months I've been organizing the stem toown speaker series uh which is a series of free entrepreneurship and Leadership talks targeted towards high school students and featuring notable local Leaders with the aim to inspire Future Leaders and create useful takeaways our first event takes place Monday September September 14th pardon me and so far the journey has been rather exciting the series which takes place at Portland center stage in the Pearl District will bring together over 1,000 students from throughout the
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Portland metro area and we'll also offer resources from numerous Portland area organizations that students can follow up on if they enjoy the talks this series is also part of an effort to connect our education with the World At Large because when students get to see the application of their education it makes learning that much more engaging I cannot stress the importance of resources and the importance of experiences enough which is why I strongly support partnering with local organizations and institutions for the betterment of students unfortunately I'm running the the series on a total budget of $50 even though it requires a multitude of expenses including but not limited to event space promotion t-shirts for volunteers domain names nonprofit registration expenses security and transportation for students so far I've been able to cover a majority of these expenses with donations and sheer sheer Goodwill on the part of many volunteers but the two items that we're having the hardest time with our security to ensure that every student attending has an enjoyable and safe experience and transp ation for PPS students that might not have a convenient way of coming and attending this valuable learning opportunity the reason I I'm here today is to inquire if the school board and District as a whole would be willing to step in and work with Stumptown to make sure that every student in the district has access to this valuable resource and to ensure that the series is beneficial and successful for every student involved thank you thank you thank you for coming thanks and if you could check in with Rosanne Powell who's our board manager over here so she can get contact information so we can get back to you thank perfect thank you thank you very much our first two speakers Greg Burl and Lisa Kae okay um my name is Greg Burl b r r i l l and here I am again um I just want to remind you I I had a speech uh prepared but after hearing um Suzanne Cohen I have to say something totally different I want to remind you that whatever the problem they all have causes and we really need to find the causes if we spend any time trying to figure out who's to blame for any of this that's just time that our children aren't going to have effective schooling this past spring I spoke about forgiving if there's anybody to forgive let's just do it and get it over with right because what I want to say is I have watched even though I haven't been in the room I have watched every board meeting from beginning to end at least once I'm really enjoying listening to you get to know each other I'm really happy to hear director Rosen and director Anthony who've been uh active in the school system for years and the knowledge and perspective they bring um director conam and um director aspara Brown I love the questions that you're asking and the way you're participating I love I I hope that the vision that we are trying to see for uh P Portland Public Schools coming back isn't marred by reaction to crisis you know I'm I love the things that are happening and then when I watch some of the things that you have to deal with that are in place from prior boards and trying you know I see you trying to not let it interfere with the vision of building our school system back so I'm I'm just uh I'm really happy about the good things that are going on and but I do want to remind you that this report that you just heard presented it has to do with why I no longer go to some of the schools that were my favorite schools to go to I am going to go again this year to see what's happening because I can't wait to get back and help students at some of the places where some of this chaos is going on um so uh I'm just going to not use my entire three minutes and thank you very much for your attention thank you thank you hi my name is Lisa Kane um K NE Lisa spelled the regular way and I am teaching now at woodlon elementary well woodlon K8 after having spent 15 years at ay and um I would like to to Echo what Greg is saying and and that it's time to really look deeply deeply at what's underneath and above and around these problems that clearly exist and um I'm here to give you sort of a personal touch on what it is that I've noticed in the difference in the places I've been and pretty much wherever I am I think about the three
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s's structure systems and supports and I'm I'm going to speak today about one student who um came to our school district as a kindergartener um from a very restrictive placement um looking forward to to an education that didn't have those restrictions and sat in a meeting with with parents and and with people from both our district and and multiple systems that supported this this little child and um what was clear and abundant to me was that what was in place for him previous to our district in order to build the successes that he was beginning to experience were not going to be in place in our school we had no discipline support outside of our um Learning Center teacher we event we did we did get a a singular person but this was an EA that was able to help but um we had no classrooms available to to deescalate we didn't have so much as a closet available to deescalate a student who needed quiet safe space um we had no way of of of we don't have Gates on our our facility our playground we spent time after time chasing this student around because we had no way to keep him safe other than holding him down which is not acceptable um at the meeting where we were we were told it would be six to 12 weeks to effective placement and we had seven months seven months of trying to to keep this child safe and I was part of the safety plan holding the door shut while he tantrum across the hall that's not and he was never suspended to my knowledge that's not success my sister once tried to bake um banana bread and she used molass she the the recipe called her molasses and she used uh soy sauce because it looked the same it didn't taste the same and it wasn't banana bread and I think it's really important that we ask ourselves what the ingredients are to safe effective supports for our most vulnerable students because they are not uniform they are not equally accessible and they are not the things that are leading to what we see as reduction in discipline thank you very much and I hope that this is something that we look seriously on thank you thank you next we have Jerry Walker and Julie Barnes hi my name is Julie Barnes I'm a school psychologist here in Portland I've been here with Portland for over a decade um I wanted to speak to inclusive practices and special education and just some thoughts on it so um inclusive practices can be a great thing when students are able to be in the General Ed instead of in a separate special ed classroom it can be beneficial for not only that special ed student but General ed students as well um but it needs to be approached from the systems way of thinking it's a bigger thing than just including a student in a classroom physically including and some districts that have done it successfully have used things such as um Team teaching or co- teing or smaller class sizes so that the teacher can address and serve the needs of not only the included student but all the general students as well um these things of course require the funding the support the training and thoughtful implementation so I wanted to highlight this with um an example from my one of my schools we have a kindergartener and a first grader that have Down syndrome that are included in their General classes they have pair of professionals they each have a pair of professional with them or a one-on-one throughout the day and they're doing okay they're able to be included um but when you look at the bigger picture the systems way of thinking the the school has been assigned two pair professionals and one goes to one student and one goes to the other well last year the kindergartener the first grader was a kindergartener and we also had two pair professionals so now that there's two students who need the same Services we still only have two pair professionals and so that effectively means we have a cut in the services that other body that used to be available to help all the other students is no longer available but that's inclusion so it's inclusion at the cost of some or the cost of them of many to make it happen for those two students um so so I just wanted to sum up that
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inclusion can be a wonderful thing but it needs to be approached from the bigger picture way of thinking thoughtfully um supported funded training it can't just be the physical placement of a student in the General Ed um so thank you for your time and thanks for considering the way that we are approaching it Julie I had a question um so I wasn't I didn't know if I was tracking that correctly you had if you had a kindergartener and um a first grader and they each had their own educational assistant and what you're saying is they as they move up through the grades it's a loss to the grade they just left because that that classroom no longer has the educational assist what I meant is that last year we had a kindergartener only right and so we had we have two pair of Professionals for the school so the kindergartener had one I see and then there was another person who helped all the other special ed kids and even some others but you know she helped dozens of kids I a day so the par professional was working with other kids with special needs now have two kids with special needs you don't have somebody that can float right so on paper our absolute number of par professionals has remained unchanged we have two we had two but we now have two two students who require one on on throughout the day yeah but if you didn't have those two students you'd still have two pair of professionals depending on the population in your school you had those needs but I now I understand what you're saying so that was really help thank you thank you very much our last two speakers Diana Collins and Aubrey Pinger all right hello my name is Diana Collins D an c o l l i inss thank you to each of you for your commitment to serve and be willing to work towards real solutions so we can provide the best quality education at Portland Public Schools uh I understand that the federal and state governments have mandated that exclusionary discipline and suspension numbers need to be decreased and in PPS we are meeting our goals and although these numbers are fantastic for our district and state government as a teacher on the ground floor I think we are accomplishing these goals in a way that's not acceptable for our students we are doing it without intentional strategies or systems and I'm really worried about my students let's talk about George Middle School whose numbers dropped by 80% in discipline incidents on paper this is fantastic but as a professional educator at George I live through a student who physically came at me to beat me up in the hallway and who returned to my class A few year few few days later without in-class support I was cussed out on a regular basis and became numb to it because when I brought it up in a staff meeting everyone else was saying that they were experiencing the same thing from students in addition students would leave class on their own accord I would call for help at down to the office but the office was overwhelmed with other incidents happening all over the building and couldn't respond one incident stands out to me to to show you what I'm talking about there was a student who shut up to school every day she was inspiring to her peer group she was the first one to raise her hand in class and she helped tutor people at the P at the table where she sat she was enrolled in Avid and she even started a kindness Club at the school one day when she was walking down to lunch with her friends this student came running down the hall and he lacked the skills to to manage his behavior but he rammed into her and shoved her into the lockers and she fell hard and hit her her head on the ground she ended up having it or hitting her head so hard that she got a concussion for more than a month her doctor wrote a note that asked her teachers to be patient as she healed the parent expressed concerned about the lack of followup or care for her daughter the message conveyed to the mom was that boys will be boys the boy student involved did not receive any intervention for his behavior some of you may be thinking well maybe it was an accident a few days later the same student gave another student a bloody nose because he was throwing basketballs down the hallway he had reoccurring blowouts from classes and struggled to follow Basic School guidelines with documentation and resources we could have built a responsive plan to support this student with interventions or coaching to help him evolve his behavior as a teacher at George I saw this dysfunctional Behavior system repeated over and over again with different scenarios in different students this is one story of many although I'm no longer at George I believe the students and
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Community deserve the support and systems they need to build a truly safe responsible and respectful community so students can thrive in their learning thank you thank you thank you very much where are you teaching now at Robert gray and if you want any of you want to come visit me you can come I teach science and math it's really fun good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is Aubrey pegan stcker p a g e n s t e c h e r and I teach kindergarten at wood land School in Northeast I'd like to welcome our new board members thank you all for the hard work that you do on behalf of our students families and Educators and then uh as a side note I would like to thank you for funding kindergarten assistance I cannot tell you what a difference it is already making in our classrooms and it's going to make a huge huge difference for our students this year so thank you thank you um I'm also here tonight to speak to you regarding discipline and safety in our schools uh some of you may recall I addressed the board last school year about serious safety issues that were occurring in our kindergarten classrooms um and after the presentation at the Schoolboard meeting last week regarding the decrease in disciplinary incidents in PPS I felt moved to share some additional thoughts and observations with you based on my role as a classroom teacher and also as a leader within p i serve on the P exec board and I'm a liaison to the Jefferson cluster which affords me the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with many colleagues in my area and in many cases when a colleague has an unresolved concern or issue I'm the one that they call for help so the concerns that I share with you tonight are not just my own I'm here on behalf of dozens of Educators to have shared those experiences with me and the following are just a few examples of some of the challenges that we faced with disciplinary and behavioral issues last year um our student intervention team processes which exist to identify additional supports for students whether Behavioral or academic um are very often ineffective or not in place in many district buildings across our district students with severe or emotional behavioral needs have no significant or effective interventions in place for them at any point in the school year students routinely left the classroom building or school grounds causing safety issues for students and staff we have far too few specialists in our buildings who have the necessary training to respond appropriately and quickly to students whose safety is at risk restorative justice is referenced as an intervention for many behavioral incidents however RJ is not a synonym for having a one-on-one conversation with a student and then returning them to class but this is too often the practice in many of our schools uh there were also a number of incidents of students assaulting their classmates or teachers As You Are already heard and in many cases there were no significant consequences as a result nor was nor was there a consistent way that those occurrences were documented all these incidents occurred in multiple buildings during the prior school year so while the data reflects a decrease in incidents the data from our schools tells a different story and I have a few theories about how these two truths might be coexisting simultaneously um in a number of building staff have been discouraged from writing referrals at all in some cases stage two and three referrals that describe really serious behaviors have been handed back to and then they were told that those were minor or stage one behaviors despite those behaviors being described as stage two or three in the students rights and responsibilities handbook um referrals are not processed or input into Synergy in a timely way or at all I believe that that's also resulted in a delay for many students who would have otherwise been flagged down at the besc for more supports and interventions that was certainly the case for one of my students sorry I'm going to go a little over but I'll try to hurry um in many cases of serious and unsafe student Behavior families of students who are on the path to suspension were offered the option to pick their students up from school um or just they were sent home allegedly sick so the P members who care and work for students every day of course we want to be instrumental in efforts to decrease disproportionate discipline we have a moral and ethical responsibility as Educators to disrupt the school to prison pipeline but we're doing our students a disservice if the needle is moving because of technical changes to procedures and policies instead of adaptive changes within our systems and our schools um and if we choose technical Chang that lead to those short-term and superficial changes in data we're really paying just lip service to the communities of color whose children are being disproportionately disciplined um our families want and deserve to see real meaningful change and that's going to take time we're living in a very data driven age um but in order to be effective we have to ask ourselves if that data is accurate so I'd ask you to continue to critically question any fast and significant drops in student discipline issues um because to be sure the work that we're doing is making a change but I just really question whether or not could be quite so fast acting um so I'd like to offer an open invitation to you all to come and visit us at Woodline and come and visit my classroom speak with the teachers who are doing the work just to gain a more complete picture of the climate in our schools thank you for your time thank you thank you and thank you for all all that testimony yeah I wanted to thank Suzanne and all the teachers that came out for um the information they provided it was a really good perspective Ive and it was
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concisely presented so thank you okay uh we have a back to school report Amanda would you like to introduce so Antonio Lopez our assistant superintendent from the office of school performance is going to come forward and present some information on back to school including a video and then some information on the enrollment at our schools and the Staffing procedures that we're using that you've requested thank you uh good evening shair director the student representative it is my pleasure to let you know that as you know classes began last Thursday morning all across Portland Public Schools this year there are many changes going um all across the district one of Portland's Public School bigest School Franklin High School began the new school year away from their original campus and are now located at the Marshal campus for the next two years roosevel high school students return to class with visible signs of new construction going all around them and Fabian students began sing to their new home at tabman uh superintendent Carol Smith and School Board Amy gam joined faculty and parents at several schools Thursday morning to greet his students as they returned to class also on Thursday I had the pleasure of meeting uh director Rosen alen uh school here is a quick look at the first day of school in case you miss the excitement [Music] the whole Community is coming out for this clap in parents and teachers and uh Community are all coming to welcome kids to um to Franklin as they enter and we're going to do a big tunnel and have the kids come on through as we welcome their their home for the next two years it'll be fun yeah it's exciting [Music] [Applause] [Music] faan [Music] [Applause] [Music] everyone we are at F and at Tubman today is a first day of school for our first third fifth and seventh graders at Fabian at Tubman we are so excited our kids are coming in with smiles on their faces and they are loving our bigger building and are looking forward to our move back to fabbian in 2017 I like I yeah I like how it's bigger and I like all the new teachers that are join joining I'm here today fing the first day of school welcoming the students saying hello to parents and the community in general to make sure that they know that we have school buses now coming in and out the students they occupying the streets and make sure that everyone is safe so happy to be here and volunteering it's the first day of school we want to be kids I know foxos Kimberly Eaton joins us live this morning with a look at where Franklin High School students are starting to year on a new campus good morning Kim good morning lots of kids already showing up here for the first day of school very excited as you said Franklin students will be on a new campus they'll be here at Marshall High School for the next couple years while their school is being renovated now tear down on the old Franklin High School started this summer as part of a $16 million modernization project when it's done the district says the school will have upgrades like a two-story Lobby and Performing Art Center but in the meantime that means all students are are relocated to the Marshall High School campus now Marshall has been closed for years so it had to undergo some work too to even have kids here things like fire alarms roof repairs and it updates students and teachers will be here this year and next as far as getting to class today police want to send a warning out to drivers they say because Marshall has been closed for so long people might not expect a school zone they'll be upping patrols here in all around the city as students come and go this week and administrators say they just want everyone to get here to the first day of class
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safely reporting live this morning in southeast Portland I'm Kimberly eaten back to you I think there's excitement about that and and big preparation to come and relocate here to the uh Marshall campus as you can hear behind me down the road A6 million project is blending Century old history with new Innovative facilities when Franklin reopens you'll find a new Fine Arts performing center and a new gym and Athletic Facility to name a few things for students here especially seniors it'll take some time to adjust but this family says they're ready it is W feeling because it's no longer part of the original Franklin anymore but you know what we're going to press on and enjoy it what does that mean keep Franklin strong to you as a mom we're a family you know we were at Franklin for 3 years and then we have to move over here and a lot of people were unsur a lot of parents were like our our kids going to be able to move forward and by keeping it strong we're keeping it strong for for them [Music] I heard that this might be the greatest freshman class that Roosevelt has ever seen so I said good morning everyone good morning good morning welcome to Roosevelt welcome back today is very important particularly since we're under modernization right now we task each student leader with leading a group around school they' have experience here at Roosevelt they are the experts who better to teach our freshmen the right way to go go move them around campus teach them about everything there is to know about Roosevelt they need to know what's going on with the school like it's construction so we need to be aware of what classes we have to go to so far we went to the library right now we're in the gym my name is Mr Smith I'm the athletic director here at Roosevelt High School we have just basically two main rules you have to abide by no food no drink unless it's water we've got some dust we've got things out of place a little bit but that's why we're here to say it's okay over here where there's all construction is the old gym so basically that's the reason why we have that I was um glad to have the opportunity after I got my own kids off to school to come out and welcome our students and thank them for their their patience and their excitement about the whole process of the rebuilding of the high school our students are going to have more space we're going to have awesome programing here from our stem our Athletics academics we've got the full package out here in North Portland and we're very excited about it [Music] [Applause] thank you thank you okay Antonio Lopez is also going to give you as I said an update on um enrollment and Staffing at now in fall all right so I'm going to ask uh H Shay James senior director for the office of colle and K Readiness to join me and David Deputy CFO and budget director for this presentation I just want to acknowledge while Shay is coming up I want to thank you all for responding to this inquiry which came from the board I think we asked for more detail on um enrollment updates than you were anticipating and you pulled it all together um we're really interested in you know making Staffing adjustments as as urgently as possible so thank you so much for doing what it took to pull us together well thank you it is our pleasure so um we going to start with um just the timeline so you you have a sense of what has been happening and where we going on early March that's when schools got their uh initial Staffing from March to June that's when we release additional Staffing and we release approximately 20 FTE to deals with issues of um are we meeting the core program right and then I'm going to talk about theault balancing and we had
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we started with 20a FTE for full balancing we're down to 20 and I'm going to explain uh the process how how we're going to go about it okay and the way I'm um I'm going to start with Kinder and then I'm going to start with high school and then I'm going to come up then I'm going to come back to first through eight the reason I'm sted with those two um with Kinder and high school is because there are um past practices that we're uh we continue and then there are some agreements in terms of the high school that we need to make sure that we are buy by so let me start with Kinder in Kinder what uh what we have done as a past practice that um when classroom hit 25 students they get 25 students when they get the 26 student then they talk to the senior director and the senior director then we monitor the numbers right uh for example if the students uh if there are 26 students we might allocate a uh educational assistant but if he gets to 30 then we start thinking about maybe a teacher so we can divide that classroom the to students into two classrooms so that's those are the trigger points in terms of that conversation that is happening uh the schools and the senior director regarding regards to um class sizes what we have done uh and we continue to monitor is that those Kinder classrooms that are over 30 kids we have allocated in some of those we have allocated teachers uh last week we allocated teachers and I and I will tell you which schools and what we have right now is we have some classrooms that they have uh large class sizes right that we're we're we're um like I said we have allocated some FTE we monitoring others but we also have quite a few schools that they're under enroll right so we have some schools and like Fabian right that we allocated three teachers but uh when we look at the numbers uh there were like 18 kids in roll the reason that it'sa kids enrolled because some of the schools are under construction so uh we know that some of the kids will be coming back and parents will be enrolling them that's why we want to away until we do the first physical count because what we don't want is to um start taking um teachers for from schools that are under enroll and then finding out that later on the kids are coming back the first physical count is this Thursday and we already have some ideas where we're going to need additional FTE and when we can do some adjustments so it is about responding for um to the schools whose enrollment is high that we need to to figure out what we're going to do and also for the schools that under enroll how to make sure that we don't pull them out early then later on the kids are going to show up so that's in terms of the the Kinder um those are the Hydraulics that we working with right and how to balance how to balance so uh the schools that have over enrollment they get support and the ones that under enroll we don't uh prematurely pull teachers out I'm going to go to the high school in the high school we've been in constant conversation with the principls in regards to um in regards to uh in regards to student load how many many how many kids do they see in the full day and also in terms of the periods that are thought right so we look at the high schools and then we look say here is the FD how many teachers are teaching six out of the eight periods right and from there we ask come we uh we ask questions to the principles like if they're teaching five what else
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are they doing right so this is the conversation that we're that we're having with the high schools and we want to make sure that they get what they need but also for us to understand how are they um um the Staffing how are they um doing the Staffing for their schools those are the Dynamics that we have we released yesterday we releas two FTE to two schools we're looking at the third school and we're looking also at the number of students that are showing up that's why the Thursday physical count becomes really important because what it happens in high schools is the students roll over from last year to this year from 9 to 10 grade and 10 to 11 right and we want to wait um to look at the first and the second count to figure out how many students actually show up so um in terms of this those are the two ones that like I said we have a we have a a a practice and the other in the high school those are the ones the agreements that we have in terms of a class load and a period start then once we address those two we will come back to the first through a grade right in those we're monitoring like for example today the senior directors they met and we have about 15 schools that we have a good idea that they going to need additional FTE and we're ready to deploy that FTE we're going to wait on Thursday to make sure that we bu five that the numbers are accurate so out of the 20 we have about probably 13 FTE that uh we're pretty sure that we're going to have to allocate because there are some classes where there are 33 kids that we need to find we need to find ways to support them and like I say if there are less then for the first throughway we look when you get to uh 30 kids per classroom then we start figure out is that IA instruction assistant that we can put in the classroom or or a teacher okay um Antonio yes um I just want to see if I'm checking this right so you did send out to FTE to high schools and who did where did they go one went to Lincoln and the other went to Cleveland okay that's great because those they're really bursting okay and then are you saying that right at as of now there are a total of 20 FTE 20 teachers that are available to deploy we have 20 FD for the follow balancing but one the one question I have about that is you're talking about making a position available to them they'll still have to hire the position right which will some of them yes if it is for example the Kinder what we do is if we know that the students are not going to show up for a school that is under enroll we can make some decisions to move that teacher from this school to this school okay got it for the high schools they might have to uh hire from somebody depending on the availability of people with that endorsement okay thanks and so these are the these are the schools that we sent FTE the last week uh we sent to uh so you see the schools the other hydraulic that we have to think about like for example gleno we had a teacher for that schools but they don't have space so space is also an issue in terms that the the capacity of the building to be able to haul another so those are also things that we consider so in this situation like Leno with Nia uh the additional there is that two High School to that that I was talking about uh what I want to show also if you can you move the next one is this is the these are the parents patterns of a enrollment fluctuation that we're seeing that we also um monitoring right so a school might have like I said because the high school enrolls it students over right and that's why we wait for the uh first physical count and the
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second physical count to find out which students didn't show up where the weekend dropped them so this is just from last year so that gives you an idea of what are what are the Dynamics at play so Antonio I was confused by that because somebody um leaked this to us um before the meeting and they showed us um that um graph and then they showed us what this year looked like and what was different what's not in the August 20th 2014 that's what's in Synergy but you're not showing um what projection was used to allocate staff and so when I look at that right column and you see you know totals up to minus 333 it could still be significantly more students than um you know that were originally allocated for is that making sense right so so really the most relevant number is the Delta between the uh number that was used for allocation budget allocation and the actual as opposed to the Synergy that's true what we what we wanted to show you with this is the fact that there is at the same time as as there are kids coming in and being enrolled there are also there's also a sure we're we're not implying by this necessarily as you say the real comparison is um one of the comparisons is what what was the number used for initial Staffing and what is the number after all of the movement we just this was you know as you said we got requests for this information at relatively short notice last in the last two hours as we were putting things together we had this one to hand so what this shows is that there is there's an there is a drop off and once we've gone through the second physical count we'll have more reliable numbers sure just sorry and just for the people who haven't seen the data what I wanted to say is um the majority of our high schools show at least in Synergy as of today an increase of estimated enrollment above what they were allocated for so I just we are work so to your point we are working between um those three numbers so and I'm sorry I hate to interrupt but I do want to follow follow up on director rosen's earlier question uh as we consider how long it takes to get a teacher particularly into a high school class what uh and I I recognize you don't have this information on you right now but since you're looking you're taking actual physical counts in very early September and in midt why the twoe delay until October first for those numbers we're actually going to be looking at the numbers as soon as possible after that second physical count this just happened to be last year the data that was in this chart which we found as we were looking for things said October 1 we're going to be looking at this as soon as we can get that second physical count firmed up and we have meetings scheduled for like two or 3 days after that second physical count to be able to review the numbers and start figuring out what action needs to be taken and I would Al I'm sorry go ahead no in in actually the principles these are some of the um recommendations the sooner that we can make that decision so that way because then becomes more challenging to find the teachers with a certification so just to let you know that we keeping an eye on those um um numbers and we're in constant conversation with the principles and where the areas that we know that we have that is pretty clear then we have allocated the FDA and we will continue to do so like on the four we will revisit against the number I mean on the on Thursday when we do the fysical count on the third we will come back and revisit those numbers and have more conversations with the with the High School principles and also with the other schools that uh first through eight it's good to hear that sense of urgency because it seems like the um delay in the Staffing should only be in the realm of what the margin of error is likely to be in terms of the enrollment drop and we know at least uh I think Cleveland Lincoln and Wilson that we have an enrollment bulge on the books now of more than 100 students and so
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that's roughly for FTE so even if we're thinking about three as soon as possible and then seeing how the other shoe drops um that seems like maybe a wise strategy yes totally and we're looking at Wilson and I think we we just need a couple more uh conversations with Brian because it's the other one those three are the ones that we really looking at night so there's a there's another perspective on this that I'm concerned about there um I mean with this many more students in high schools we have space issues and some of these high schools like Lincoln I mean we're at probably going to be around 1700 students it's a school that's designed for somewhere in the 900 and we had a fire so we lost some um portable space and my understanding is there's no urgency to replace that portable space um at Lincoln and so I just want to hear how you're going to address that issue so in terms of the spay for the classroom I'm not the person to was going to say we can ask Tony to come up can I just ask do we have other questions on the enrollment Staffing that we would want to do I have one other question which is um regarding not just teaching positions but the schoolwide support positions in the High School based on a per student basis so um just in the next couple of weeks if you could take a a close look at um where those are in each of our schools not just the comprehensive high schools and be able to report back to us what those ratios are and what we might need to do in terms of um supplementing those support positions in the schools that are seeing the enrollment bulges right so one of the things that we look at in addition to teachers is we have schools because of the way we allocate that school support Staffing there are thresholds if you cross 500 you get an assistant principal if you cross a certain threshold and I can I can assure you that principales are very diligent in helping us be very aware of the fact that their school could well be Crossing one of those thresholds so that's part of the conversation that's happening as well that's good because those positions have as much of a bearing on our students as the teachers in the classroom and we understand that too and and just for uh for you to knowe that some of the FD that we released for high school early on was ex exactly high schools that were over 1600 so they have an additional administrator and also schools that are on the bond that there is some word there some support that they need so we release also some administrative support any other questions okay mine uh could you please go back to slide number three I'm afraid I'm about to become the least popular person in the room uh that would be [Laughter] hard do you want to raise your hand quiet David no back one more um I feel compelled to ask about this because I hear about it uh a lot from people in the community reviewing suspect that addresses uh how are you doing that and what are you doing do you want me to answer so we um we're still in the process of figuring out exactly what our process will be this year in years past I will tell you the enrollment and transfer center has had an investigator um who has actually gone to do some investigation on addresses really looking um the working with schools especially those that are overcrowded to ensure that we have accurate and reliable data on hand showing um that we have true addresses for students um we also have looked um pulling different reports that show um a number of students showing up with similar or the same address um who are perhaps from different families um so that would be another way that we would look are you guys sorry but but this is what's happened in the past I think we have not quite um we have not uh you know planned out exactly what we're doing this year but we are getting a number of the same um emails and concerns that you have that um there has been sort of too low of a bar set for ensuring that students are enrolling with the correct address Steve actually said he's going to go all over the place so he wanted me to go first so to set him up I wanted to know Manda are you checking do you have an investigator checking the addresses of the board members no I suspect that there it should you should look at that maybe for Steve um we have we had parents that I talked to before the meeting from three
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different elementary schools and they had specific questions I thought maybe we could just have them make their statement and and get a response if we had or tell them we'd respond later one is uh over here from lellan and was asking about the vice principal which they normally in the past have changed can you just State your thing why don't you just go ahead and and ask well because I don't remember the exact so wording we director constam brought up the issue of schoolwide supports and what happens if a school essentially what happens if a school um is discovered to have you know higher number of students and cross that threshold and I said that's one of the things we're monitoring lellan is one of the schools where if the physical count confirms the numbers then they will be above a threshold that would have qualified for an assistant principle and that's one of the things that we look I don't think that's his question no it has to do with uh with the fact that in the past the vice principal go you go ahead and ask him no no no all right well I can ask the question I so let me let let me in in the past L Allan what they were able to do is convert there we go that's the question the FTE from a a assistant principal to a teacher and what we're saying is that this year we're not allowing that that's a sleep it slow for us because then we were going to we're going to be hearing from others if this school was able to do it we want to do it too so what we're doing is there are there are two things Al and that we're looking at most likely they will get the 1.0 assistant principle if they're 500 over and also we're looking at their third grade classroom that it has 33 students most likely we're going to release a FTE to relief the third grade those are the the the third grade aluan is one of those that we're pretty certain that we're going to have to help them out in terms with an additional FTE so they're over the they weren't over in the past and they're over now the the numbers to have a vice principal yes sir okay and and the issue when I was talking to the principle is that he doesn't have a space he say I don't have not even a closet to put the assistant principle right so we're going to figure out what that looks like but um it is true that they earn an assistant principle based on the numbers and we're going to verify it on the for when we got the physical count and again the third grade that's the one that is almost certain that they going to get an additional uh teacher and that's on top of the one one that you already that's on top of exactly so we have about 13 additions that we're going to look on Thursday once we get the physical count that we're we're pretty certain that a lot of those going to go out and I can give you a list it's about uh 18 schools that we're looking you know some of those are half time a fraction of afd so it sounds like in that specific situation it's not as if the assistant principal is going to cost them a staff person they'll be it sounds like they're going to be made whole plus they're going to end up with an assistant principal that we won't have you know and we got Forest Park a couple uh mothers down here they had a was it about you had 36 or something we got anything on that or we need to get back yes we for Forest Park we have we're looking at that and we have right now on the list we have an additional FTE that will go into that school one or two or um okay let's uh I'm just going to keep going I think that the just is uh that after Thursday we're going to have a better sense of where we're going to be um and let's find out where it is I I do have a question in terms of um the the pool um I mean do you anticipate the pool being expanded I mean you know or we're get beond the needs are beyond what we have beyond the amount of FTE
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right now in this is just um we have about like I said 13 or 14 FD that we're thinking um we might have to release after the fourth right and then we're looking at the high schools I do not see us going needing more right now it depends also we're going to be monitoring the other schools if that are under enroll see if the kids is showing up and so uh it's hard to tell you but right now we feel pretty good okay with the numbers that we have and we can keep you updated on that as we're as we're moving through the process so it would come up as an issue Amanda you need ended up needing more than the absolutely people that you have the F available then that you know that would cost that would cost money obviously and and my last one and this year what we did what we did different is that we release early on in the areas that we know that's why we ended out with only 28 the previous year we had 38 or 40 FD for full balancing so we realized that principles need to know early on if they're going to get a FTE so this past year uh I mean this uh in this year we release more early on so that's can you my last question was can you speak to Sabin got a something in Sab it's going okay it's on the list on the list first grade it's on the list right on I have the list that I can give you a copies in the FDA that we we were thinking okay would be helpful to be able to tell people that we're looking at it because we are receiving communication from people in those schools so I think I think it's safe to say that we're looking at all the schools across the district that we'll and as I as Antonio said that after so Friday when we have all the numbers in we'll be able to give more information on the decisions that are being made and I know you guys are moving faster than you have in the past and so I want to say that I appreciate and I think it'll make a big difference um sorry I have 26 schools 26 that we're monitoring and and that we know that we're going to release in some FD so I can give you the list okay and then I would say that anybody everybody from schools that are here make sure you talk to Roseanne who after Thursday or Friday will get right back to you in CCS as well on the solution so thank you uh yes thanks I think one of the things that we still have to look at is the portable situation I mean we condemn the Portables and which is okay to do but if you've got a school like Lewan last year which could have moved a class into the portable I done the portable for 20 years maybe not so bad if you get a decent portable but the problem that we have is that the city won't let us put in a portable which will take care of overcrowding to help out and they want well they will but it's a half a million dollars to do it and it's way too much you can do Portables way less expensive in the across in Vancouver in the school district I worked in Evergreen they had all sorts of Portables and they had Portables because the school the Washington won't let you build Beyond Your Capacity for what you have right now in other words you can't build a school for a larger capacity in the state of Washington beyond what you so the first thing that happened I was in a brand new school first thing that happens they brought in eight Portables well that's not good but if you've got lellan last year and they could put a portable out there for $60,000 or $70,000 we could have done that taken care of that we could remove the portable move it it's not it's not like we can wait 50 years on some of those schools to make sure that we build the new school schol for and we need to look at that um you've brought that point up before and I think it's a good one I I'm going to send it to um the operations of budget committee because I think we should do something about iteration okay well I thought we were gonna have Tony come up absolutely yeah so that's I want to get to that point so just uh uh uh before Tony gets here I really appreciate all the questions that you send for enrollments so I'll be more than happy you know if uh uh if you need more information so we look at all your questions that you said and and hopefully with this um overview kind of gives you an idea that we really we want to be res uh responsive to the schools but we also want to be responsible in terms of how how we allocate the resources so I do have one last question for yeah um just a clarification the kindergarten we get to 26 and we really are looking at it to make changes that right looking first grade did we used to have a system where we went if you got to a certain number in the first grade we've never had that for
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some reason I had misunderstood that I guess and so if you get to 30 then we look at it we get to 30 we look at it I can't I can't say never director bu but in the last 12 years well only go back uh to 1975 so maybe they had it then you have an advantage of yeah they might had it back then and I think it was I think they did but there were a lot of things different in 1975 including our whole funding system yes they used to get a little more money so we know we're we're aware of the class size right and and so like I said we want to we want to be responsive but also be responsible in terms of the you know the allocation we know that 30 yeah for the first through fifth is not the ideal but at least we have we have a range that we can engage in the conversations in the additional support that they need thank you thank you very much thank you thank you imprecise science so Chief Operating Officer Tony Magano come up and talk about Portables well Linn Lincoln Lincoln in particular good even um I Heard the question was about the Portables at Lincoln yes right so specifically Lincoln needs more teachers and has a lot more students and it had a fire so it lost space and so my concern is we've known about that for some time there may be some creative options available but it sounds like we have a static situation so to the extent that we are going to have a significant um significantly more students at a school like Lincoln like 1700 for school built for 900 how are we going to get Portables out there ASAP so I I heard a couple couple things and the first I'd like to say is there has been urgency in this and it started the day of the fire when risk management facilities the building principle procurement all met to find out to begin the process of how do we get this cleaned up what are our next steps um what are we how are we going to be ready for for the first day of school and get kids in classes that was the most urgent and pressing need which we did it took a lot of Creative Solutions within the building moving things around but students are in classrooms right now the problem with um Portables on the Lincoln site um we've had a pretty poor relationship with the city historically we've done a lot we've done a lot of work as a staff cleaning that up and being good partners and following process um those Portables that are placed at Lincoln were permitted to be there up until 2001 by right we're not entitled to them it's a land use issue which is a 60-day process by code um it's a zoning issue um and in working with the principal we felt that the best approach was rather than just asking the city for to replace the modular that we lost let's go and do something significant and go for some sort oflex and pull out the the existing modu the remaining modular as well there's no immediate solution for that because we have kids or students in that existing modular so we don't and we don't have a place to put them so from a and from a construction timeline perspective getting anything done before uh during this school year is really a tough move through the city even ordering a modu buying the a modular there's a lead time with that so we're we're talking to an architect now um we've let the city know that we're coming with this so that they're prepared so what's the what's the time that you're expecting to have a solution because another option is to look at space in the vicinity of the school that you can rent right and we could we've looked at space within the area around the school students require something that's called educational occupancy which is not you know putting students in a home that doesn't have egress and it it's not a safe um to have not as safe as the portable we put staff in those right a portable rate an e occupancy rating has fire um protection in them um it's not they're old they're wooden
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they're flammable as we know um the houses are the Portables right the houses the other other property right okay so um this is a tough this is a tough place to be in a school that's already at capacity right and my heart sank when I got a call at 2:30 in the morning on another school fight sure right right um so have we initiated any conversations with the city of Portland um regarding what exceptions to the process might be available given the urgency of the situation and the extreme overcrowding so I made a personal call to Paul Scarlet who's the director of BDS letting him know the predicament we were in and that he and he said he would begin to initiate conversations with his staff um we have a new senior director of facilities now David Hobs who was in a conversation with an architect that we'd like to get on board because when you go to the city you'd like to have an idea they want to see what you're thinking what the plan is and we need an architect to help us with that um but right now you know our plan is um to work with the city as best we can hope that they don't ask us to remove the existing modular because it's not permitted to be be there as well and put us in a further bind with housing students um and try to have some sort of um I don't I don't know if it'll be a standard stick modular or if the city will require us to do something that blends more in with the urban landscape um so that it doesn't stand out because the answer is yes you're in conversation with the city yes I guess what I'm wondering about is um what's the quickest solution and is the quickest solution to rent space is the quickest solution to get another module uh another modular space and the concern that the city would ask you to take down the the mo the other modular and I guess put further pressure on the school seems kind of absurd seems like the plan would be that if we had to take corrective action for that modular we'd have some sort of phased plan so I still don't understand Tony you know what is the best solution we're pursuing to get this done as soon as possible and what is as soon as possible because my experience with government is if you go in there and you say to them we have a problem we want you to help us solve it that's one way to approach it another way to approach it is we have a problem we have two months this is what we want to do and we want you to help us do it and if it's not politically tenable for you then we have to find that political urgency so that's what I'm not hearing I'm hearing more like we have a problem and we don't think there's a way to solve it and we expect it'll go into next year and the urgency I'm seeing is it needed a solution a month ago so what is the urgency what are do we have a two months we're going to get this done what are we telling the city so I I guess I'm not understanding what is kids are in class um are we are we trying to add more teachers to the building and we need more we're adding more teachers because we have more students the problem is that you have a school designed for 900 students you have 1 1700 students probably and you're down a significant amount of space because of the fire which of course you know is out of our control and so in terms of um sort of like there's a limited number of space so if we don't have any more space we have new students and we lost space that means someone's being crowded somewhere and somewhere in that building there's a condition that's not conducive to learning well I'm skeptical I guess that that was actually the case even prior to the loss of the two additional class so it's sort of like the problems just continuing to compound so it seems like you have to have new space so what's the quickest way to get the new space how do you put pressure on the city to be flexible and what's our goal well I think the best way to be um put pressure on a city is to have a really good methodology and plan to implement and and not go in there um not knowing what you want to do right that I agree right so what do we want to do that's the work
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we're doing now getting an architect on board working with an architect on on what what are some reasonable designs that we could take to the city to get to to meet their permit all their code requirements permitting requirements yeah and all I would say is if getting a a design takes x amount of weeks but getting a portable and putting pressure to get permitting and that's going to be ad because the need is so great I want to know what the risk analysis is so there's a really good solution that could take a lot of time but there's a satisfactory solution that could take less time and meet the need that's what I want to understand that I'm I'm not quite hearing that so if we wanted to approach the city with um some sort of modular that you roll in there on Wheels um we could take that approach and but there still would that solve the problem well it would get you two classrooms not four um well why not bringing then two modulars well we got we got so that we're demoing we still have to go through a land use 60-day land use so we're going to experience growth pain um no matter what we do for for a while I just if we're going to add more teachers to that building then we have a more serious problem than um where we were when the module initially burnt down where we were with number of students so we're going to add more teachers we're going to add something like a hundred students and so it sounds like we need to rethink what the solution is really quickly or where we add the students right and to acknowledge that this is a problem that is requiring an unconventional solution and it's we I think have a collective appetite to portray it that way to the city of Portland great I think that's a really good way to put it and I think we're also continuing to explore the other options as they are made available or you know brought to our attention so I mean I think the hard part is here trying to hold both and we continue to do that really looking for Solutions thank you Tony thanks Tony really appreciate it okay next on the agenda is Portland State University memorandum understanding Amanda would you like to introduce this sorry my job um I'd like to um call up Chief um chief of school modernization CJ Sylvester welcome thank you name is CJ Sylvester I'm the chief of the office of School modelization Portland Public Schools and with me here this evening is Sarah King who is our director of real estate and asset management in the facilities Department we also have here this evening what have turned out to be some very patient people um some representatives from Portland State University who will be available to answer any questions you may have of Portland State as uh the other party to the proposed memorandum of understanding and also representatives from Echo North West who did the development feasibility study for sou Lincoln High School Sarah and I are going to provide a single presentation this evening as regards the two items on the agenda that are the opportunities for the Lincoln High School site as they both uh relate to the imminent Master planning process the first is a memorandum of understanding between the district and Portland State University the second is a potential for partnership as regards underground parking at a fully modernized Lincoln high schools Portland Public Schools and Portland State University currently have a number of educational Partnerships that benefit students from both agencies and in particular provide valuable access to dual credit courses of study across our entire High School System the Lincoln High School site is unique amongst District properties in its Central City location proximate to Portland State University it is for this reason that Portland State is willing to consider collocating its Graduate School of Education with a fully modernized Lincoln High School the reason this conversation is both possible and appropriate at this moment in time is that last year the board directed staff to proceed with Master planning three high school campuses Benson Lincoln and Madison in preparation for a potential 2016 school building Improvement Bond measure all three Master plans are to be complete by June 2016 Portland State is on a similar timeline for the Graduate School of Education as we are for our fully
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modernized Lincoln High School if a ballot measure moves forward in November 2016 as and is approved by the voters there is synergy in the potential collocation of student Educators with a comprehensive High School the co-development of facilities would add value and benefits to both Portland State and Portland Public Schools the memorandum of understanding commits both parties to participate in a public Master planning process this is not the only site that PSU is considering if for its Graduate School of Education and the memorandum of understanding does not limit PPS to just this one Capital Partner staff recommends the board adopt the resolution authorizing execution of this memorandum of understandings As We Know s are you hearing me thank you as you know Lincoln High School has a unique development opportunity due to its geography it's at the West End of downtown where we see higher residential densities mixed use uh event venues and institutions like churches the zoning on the Lincoln that has applied to Lincoln allows a wide variety of uses residential commercial educational entertainment institutions with a great height limit and a uh greater density of development than most of our other schools so we have potential to do something on Lincoln High School that we may not be uh see possible at other school sites in order to better understand what is financially feasible on the site prior to starting the master planning process Eon North West undertook an analysis of Redevelopment potential and Lincoln the study uh conducted a conducted a excuse me conducted to identify a range of options housing Hotel office and parking and looked at the development Horizon of the next four to six years the study made several assumptions first that Lincoln High School will be rebuilt along 18th Avenue and the reason for that is that moving the school to the West End of the site allows uh us to swing students onsite during construction PPS retains ownership of land as the study indicated ground leasing is a better Financial deal for Portland Public Schools than selling and that the modernization of Lincoln High School may include Portland State University graduate school of education we are considering a partnership with them the study looked at several scenarios additional sports facilities along the 14th Avenue um Frontage that's made available if we build the school on the 18th along 18th Street maximizing developable land looked at two scenarios full full block scenarios which uh totaled 402 40,000 foot BL excuse me 40,000 foot total and two half blocks of 20,000 square fet a third scenario included underground parking garage underground parking is very expensive it's about 40,000 dollars per space and we know that the bond cannot cover underground parking however we also know that there's significant demand for parking in the area and that we may have potential Partners willing to fund a parking garage so the study looked at the opportunity for developing one level of parking for approximately or between 600 to 1300 spaces giving Lincoln all the parking that it would need as well as offering parking for the greater area and we would look to others to pay for that the study finded excuse me the study's findings incl uh concluded that partnering with PSU and for parking maximizes land for education and Athletics structured parking provides Lincoln parking benefits as I just stated ground leasing offers better return than selling and some private development is feasible along 14th Street the study also noted that waiting for property that um there was no sense of urgency in developing along 14th Avenue and that waiting delaying would uh as property values rise would only benefit poor uh PPS in the future so staff's recommendation given what we saw in the report is that we partner with Portland State University to to explore location of a graduate school of education on the Lincoln High School campus that we lamb
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Bank Parcels to retain the option for future private development along 14th Avenue and that we activate the building Frontage along 18th Avenue through educational uses as CJ said we have Representatives here from both Portland State University and Echo Northwest who can help answer any questions that you may have thank you questions we need a motion before no I I think we can ask questions and then have a motion have a discussion um educational uses along 18th Street what would those be what are you thinking about well is the report U indicates it's um an important design concept to try to activate the 14th Street Frontage meaning that there's a certain amount of transparency if you will between the street and a building so you're not pedest I'm talking 18th they said 18th right 18 yes yes so that um so that you know the building doesn't Pro provide just a blank facade to the outside street so there are a couple of ways to do that one would be um to activate the street with ground floor retail as the study indicates um PPS could include um space for outside parties to rent say a Subway sandwich shop for example but that would put us in a property management position that is Maybe were're not best suited for so there are other ways to activate for example putting the cafeteria or putting a dance studio or putting something up close to the street that provides a visual interest uh both ways and and a transparency between the building and the street that's helpful thank you and when you're talking about the bill I know we are so far from really talking about this um but I'm assuming that we're talking several stories for the school not just yeah I know we've got a long way to go other questions Steve what do you mean by land bank does that mean we don't develop it it's a good question yes we hold that and we hold do we so if we build the school on the Lincoln site it would mean that we would actually build the school on a smaller site because I'm I'm not for selling off any public property that the school district owns period under any circumstances except if they would trade us an equal or more amount of property for the property but that would be a trade not a sale I'm not for selling any of our we've got tons of people coming into this city in the next 20 years and we're going to need every thing we want so I would be if I'm voting for this would I be voting to landbank director Bill the answer to that would be no um what the feasibility study said was that depending on how we master plan the site if there's a desire to land bank you could put certain types of facilities on the 14th Avenue Frontage that could allow you to develop them in the future it does not mean that any action that's taking here tonight um or even through the master planning process is preparing for development for future sale of the property you mean like basketball courts right right for instance that's what they were showing there that that that's the kind of thing that could be should there be a desire at any point in the future by a future board of education to sell um property for any reason that um gra leas or a ground lease right and just to be clear the the motion that we hopefully will entertain when somebody introduces it um is a um a memorandum of understanding with PSU there there's two items and the other's parking right yes correct okay but we're going to do one at a time correct and this first one is and neither of them is about land banking yes I move that we go go ahead just because there are other questions and we'll get to ask a couple of questions um so maybe this is a about the resolution yeah we have a resolution well it's more complicated than that so so I guess part of the question is the relation one question is the relation maybe this is for Jolly the relationship of theou to the resolution passing the resolution means that we're approving the district sign theou as it exists now is that true that's not complicated you don't think
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so that's officially not complicated it's a good question good question so in this case yes answer yes that that that the theou that we would execute would be what was it what in your board package okay and so if we had comments or questions about theou language we can ask that's we can ask questions about that sure okay yeah okay um so here yeah well yeah and I don't whoever needs to answer the question is fine with me so there were a couple of things in the memorandum of understanding and it's in the understanding section um and so when I look at um item three psu's Graduate School of Education um blah blah blah other potential areas of collaboration will be considered in the master plan along with the district's educational specs for comprehensive high school and what I'm trying to figure out is this isn't ex this isn't exclusive to PSU I mean there are other partners that could come in and would have the same access as PSU has so I guess the question is does the memorandum of understanding establish some exclusivity for PSU in terms of a partnership of this kind of magnitude with Lincoln no it does not in fact item four under understanding specifically says nor does it preclude the district from entering into M us or other forms of agreement with additional Capital partners for the Lincoln site okay and so I'm not being factious but if that's the case then why do we need anou why can't PSU just walk into the Master planning process off the street like anyone else because uh this is about them providing capital investment uh to the project this is if it's built there's no capital investment in the master planning process we're paying for that that's correct um but in the absence of a memorandum of understanding between two public agencies it is unlikely that one public agency would master plan for another public agency without an explicit documentation and agreement between the two parties but so then just to clarify that um PPS is paying for the master plan PSU is allocating staff correct to the master planning process so I don't understand how that comports with what you just said because it sounded like what you said is that um PSU is investing money in the master planning process and they're not they're investing staff resources that's correct um and what they've invested already in their graduate school of education is putting together the building program requirements which is no small investment on their part for their own facility in the same way that we have invested in education specifications right and maybe I mean it's maybe I don't know that it's a big deal but they have to do that anyway wherever they build their graduate school so I still don't understand why they couldn't just walk in off the street and be part of the master planning process without anou but I'll I don't think I'm going get an the most fundamental um reason is because we're building for a different capacity uh while going into the master planning if we're know that we're housing that institution as well well as we did with I just the thing I guess the concern is or the the interest I have is and you've answered this this doesn't provide um PSU with any um enhanced access over any other entity that would want to partner with linkoln high school at the in the same of for facility or building or whatever of the same a project of the same magnitude no although I'm not certain exactly what you're talking about enhanced uh um you know meaning if somebody walked into the master planning process and said hey I want to build a graduate school for something else or I want to have an undergraduate component they would have the same kind of access if it was a if it was a Capital Partnership the first thing we would do is is establish a memorandum of understanding with them okay so this we do not have people walking into the master planning process and saying I'm thinking that I'd like to build a $10 million build of the building we have people in the community that are interested in
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figuring out how PPS can do a better job of partnering with a ton of other people in the community that have maybe different Visions than PSU so that's why I'm asking the first thing to do is for for any potential partner to sit down with a PPS staff and we start working on this and so that can happen even with this mou somebody can come in and initiate that discussion it's not as if we have deal so I I would just like to interject for a second and recognize the work that link the Lincoln long-term planning committee has been doing over a series of years and this is just one of many ideas that have surfaced within that committee and I was going to wait till the discussion period after the resolution was introduced to bring this up but I guess I'll just um do it now you know one of the things that um that I am thinking about looking at the staff recommend commendations on this is that there are many things missing regarding the master planning process and potential partners and potential ideas um that aren't represented here I'm fine with that because this mou is specific to these particular uses but I just want to recognize that there are people in our community who have put in so much time and effort to really being Visionary about the master planning process for Lincoln for Benson for all of our schools so this is just a teeny slice of that that does not preclude any more ideas partnership capital investment um any of that right and I and I want to say that's why I'm asking the question I just want it to be clear to everyone who hasn't been as intimately involved and that's great so that is the point and and it is spelled out to to your point Mike well I mean these are subject to Future interpretation by lawyers and people um so one more um so I didn't mean to overemphasize people so on number eight PSU in the district will ensure transparency and accountability for each organization's contributions to this partnership along with the results of planning efforts including public component of the process and the thing that I'm most interested is the public component of the process but I'm not sure what transparency and accountability means what what's your vision of how the substance of how that gets implemented um what that effectively means director Rosen is that both uh Portland State and Portland Public Schools staff and the agencies are equally responsible for ensuring that the public process is inclusive uh is it's intensive it's extensive that all of the material is um visible that all of the process is visible um all of the kinds of things that we normally associate with transparency and accountability in a public setting I mean I can say that this same language was used in the uh original material uh in our relationship with Concordia University as part of the fa and Ka project okay so if that gives you some indication of of what to use as a guide for how that process well I just I mean I think each Community um and each project is unique in terms of culture expectations and capacity and so while I appreciate that um the fabbi and Concordia relationship is as far as I know has gone really well I don't know that that's going to be the model for the perfect cookie cutter model for Lincoln just like I don't know that Lincoln's um um public process is going to be the Kirky cutter model for Grant and one of the concerns I have is that's the go-to place for PPS this is the way we did it so this is the way we're going to do it so I'm interested in understanding that that flexibility exists because I do think that the Lincoln project is going to be very unique just like I think the grant project will be very unique so that's why I'm asking thanks thank you Mike any other questions for staff on this issue before we get a motion on the table okay thank thank you very much for uh coming um so the board will now consider resolution number 5140 authorizing the superintendent to execute a memorandum of understanding with Portland State University for master planning and a potential cocation of Portland State's Graduate School of Education with a fully mod modernized Lincoln High School do I have a motion
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to Mo I just I don't know if this is the place on the language no this is not the okay so director nolles moves director Rosen seconds the motion to adopt a resolution 5140 um suen is there any citizen comment on the resolution no no comment okay uh is there any board discussion on this resolution so I just wanted to clarify there the superintendent in in the resolution the one paragraph um the Board of Education authorizes the superintendent to enter into the memorandum of understanding it's not we already have the memorandum of understanding why wouldn't it just be the attached memorandum of understanding it's kind of confusing to me it says there okay so the question is is this going to be negotiated further Jolly or the one in the board packet the final version of the memorandum that's going to be signed by PSU and PPS what I understood CJ to just say is that this is the final version of theou okay so then why wouldn't it be referenced in the resolution as the want to be signed um if that if that's not speciic Ally clear hold on I'm just trying to pull up the resolution so that's typically the way that the business agenda is um I'm sorry it's just not coming up here that's typically the language in right a instead of the and the would be um as attached so um you the wrong one sorry no that's okay that's okay I mean it's just it's it's a specific I mean I think Mike's got a correct point so maybe you can help us with the wording that specifies the this memor I mean it is the the the memorandum so how How would how would we word that in the resolution and make it specific so if you want to say uh the memoranda attached to the business agenda if you want to introduce a Amendment to the resolution is what you would do and then the board would vote on the amendment to the resolution okay that would be Mike you want to do that uh could I interrupt yes uh the motion is for uh theou correct the the the motion is uh we're considering PSU you're not considering the next resolution correct okay yeah yeah thank thank you so the motion so would you like to to make a a a motion to amend so I'd like to make a motion to amend resolution 51 40 to change the paragraph starting item one to enter in the memorandum of understanding tach to this resolution is there second to that motion second okay it's been moved and seconded to amend the resolution to read the board educating hereby authorized super attendant to enter into the memorandum understanding Mike what was the last part of that um attached to this resolution attached to this resolution um all those in favor say I I all those opposed okay so moved um it has been approved so now we will consider the resolution as amended um is there any other board discussion go forth and partner right thank you to PSU okay so um we now will consider uh the resolution 5140 which uh direct the superintendent to enter into the memorandum of understanding with PSU all those in favor of I I all those opposed okay we're voting for The Resolution yes we are can we ask questions about no we just did okay you jumped after the thing we're voting on the parking facilities no voting the other one y memorandum understanding sorry okay uh any opposed okay the resolution 5140 which directs the superintendent to enter into the memorandum of understanding of PSU has
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passed by a vote of six to zero with student representative I Katie Davidson is an i okay thank you thank you to PSU thank you to PSU thank you again PSU our first partner okay um I I kind of thought that the the parking was covered but is there more staff report on it as we move into the there is no more staff report okay great so appreciate that um the board will now consider resolution 5141 authorizing the superintendent to pursue Partnerships for underground parking facilities as a part of the Lincoln High School Master planning process do I have a motion so moov director nolles moves second second director Rosen seconds the motion to adopt resolution 5141 Miss hon is there any citizen comment yes we have four our first two speakers will Dan and Rita Moore welcome thank you okay we're changing the okay my name is thank you for having me here my name is Will Dan DN and I'm a parent of two Portland Public School alumni in a longtime PPS Advocate and I'm also an architect who specializes in education and Urban Development and I have to say as enthusiastic support the resolutions uh on the table the understanding uh the memorandum of understanding for to pursue a Capital Partnership with PSU uh and the proposal to create Partnerships for underground parking on the Lincoln site however I'm a bit concerned about these proposals as presented today are indicative of a weak public involvement and optimistic schedule assumptions we should all share a huge sense of urgency about the work that before us in preparation for the 2016 bond this effort must embrace the lessons learned from the current work and the opportunities presented by recent Personnel changes critical among the Lessons Learned is a general dissatisfaction with the depth and sincerity of community outreach effective community outreach will give the public ownership of their schools and the process and is one of the most important ingredients for passing the next Bond measure public involvement is not to be feared key among the opportunities is this new board and I'm delighted to see you assembled and excited to see the ideas that come from you um and the other one is the change the recently announced change in Personnel at the top of the office of school modernization um the most critical decision facing you um although I heard some pretty important ones earlier in the testimony um is is the hiring of a new of new management for the office of school modernization these new hires uh because there are a couple offer the opportunity to improve the public process PPS should make a successful public engagement experience a primary Criterion for selection and seek out candidates who have managed successful Bond projects with exemplary Community involvement other school districts Spokane and Seattle to name to have succeeded and we should benefit from the experience in our region or we should hire a portlander with a reputation as a great listener consensus Builder and collaborator absent a candidate this week PPS should consider appointing an interim director to signal to the public the intention to improve public engagement I read the job description posted it is exhaustive and yet does not clearly State either the priorities or the opportunities for this critical position write a clear statement that screams the desire of finding the best leaders to work with our communities on behalf of our children time is running out Bond projects are behind schedule months have been spent in secret to determine whether we can talk publicly about educational Partnerships and parking a few more minutes another minute um even starting today with consultant selection you would have barely 6 months to Master Plan before the bond campaign must begin this is an extremely short time to solidify Partnerships and produce shared Community Visions for Lincoln venson and Madison failing at building consensus with our community puts the bond program at risk support for the 2016 Bond needs to be earned not assumed we must do what we ask our kids to do tell us why you what you are doing and why you're doing it if it isn't working try something else ask the right questions be nimble
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be bold thank you thank you Dy noted thank you do look like and is is R not here reita is going next okay so you're are you on the list do we have a I'm sure do we have others Beyond R yes we have Scott and okay Robin just want to make sure you're on your list yeah wait yeah I'm not an interloper uh chairman kler and directors and student representative Davidson uh thanks for listening to our testimony tonight I'm Scott Bailey with community and parents for public schools commonly known as cpps I'm here tonight to comment on the most current developments at Lincoln and how they reflect on the implementation of the construction bond to date you may know that cpps requested and the district agree to retain an independent contractor to evaluate the public processes at Roosevelt Franklin and Fabian we wanted independent documentation of the lessons that could be learned from those processes and we're delighted to partner with PPS on this project unfortunately while this audit is going on and despite many public pronouncements from District staff about Lessons Learned it seems the same mistakes are being made take for example what's on the agenda tonight as someone who worked hard to get the bond passed I would like to be up here waving a pom pom saying way to go team but instead I'm kind of smacking my head again District staff could have and should have been working closely with the Lincoln Community uh keeping them in the loop about the timing of the PSU mou and the Eco Northwest study instead the community was bluntly told not to talk with PSU and the Eco Northwest study was shrouded in secrecy we could be up here celebrating another collaborative step forward and instead we on the community side woke up the other day trying to make heads or tals about what looked like a piece of Master planning done without the community's input poor communication leads to mistress and alienation of which we have a surplus good communication and collaboration builds trust and a sense of ownership on the public in our schools as a member of the Grant Community who applied to be on the grant designed Advisory Group I watched with some concern as the timeline for the announcement of the dag went Far Over deadline thus delaying the beginning of the master planning process several months and likely putting a lot of pressure on the staff assigned to it uh and to Dag members of just get the job done with a reduced timeline this is unfair to them and increases the risk of a subpar design I was disappointed that while there were several dag members who were listed under the neighborhood representation category the there are no representatives from neighborhood associations further was stated in the charter for the de that the grant Alumni Association would have a representative on the dag yet the representative that the association forwarded to the district who happened to be me uh was not selected it's not about me being on the I'm fine not being on the deag but what I'm criticizing is a selection process that didn't have the Integrity to stick by what it said what all this points to is a continued lack of commitment on the part of the district to run good efficient public engagement processes instead we find that fundamental decisions like the decision whether to modernize an existing building or demolish it and start from scratch have already been made before the process starts that basic principles of public engagement which staff are well aware of are all too often ignored and in the case of school design the planning process is so short that important options never make it on the table we've seen how the that played out at Roosevelt will the same play out at Grant thank you thank you thank you and so next we have Rita Moore and Robin aarda welcome thank you my name is Rita Moore uh n r also with cpps as my colleagues have noted tonight and in previous testimony the design process for the high school rebuilds has been problematic with delays and flawed Community engagement processes but the time is right to hit the reset button and improve the design process going forward we're completing the first phase of three projects and moving on to the to plan three new projects in a much changed environment a new board a change in leadership at the school of office uh the office of school monetization and a new director of The Office of teaching and learning Mr R as director constam stated two meetings ago board members have a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the
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construction projects proceed on time and on budget but also our responsibility to ensure that the quality of the new buildings as is as good as it can be within existing resources in addition to my colleagues remarks we'd like to offer a few concrete suggestions for how we might improve the design processes one ensure that Community engagement is Meaningful if people p ps truly believes that collaboration with stakeholders will produce better outcomes that it needs to be done well with clear guidelines and expectations for all parties in its oversight role we ask the board to focus on the content of the community engagement efforts not just the number of meetings and email addresses compiled if students parents Teachers Community leaders and business partners are not given really meaningful opportunities to influence decision-making then engagement efforts may actually proed to be counterproductive on the other hand genuine collaboration can produce new ideas resolve problems and generate the excitement and support that we would expect for projects that are critical to the future of this city two greatly enhance the role of the office of teaching and learning in the design process if form is to follow function then the educational side of the house needs to be much more active than it has been to date from the beginning and throughout the design process we've been ured that OTL and teachers have been consulted throughout the design phase of the three schools but in our view Educators should be playing a much more Central and visible role in designing these schools than they have to date we're particularly concerned that CTE and stem issues have not received the systematic attention that they deserve since CTE and stem spaces uh typically require more space and often dedicated space it is imperative that the office of teaching and learning be centrally involved in the design process from the very beginning we strongly encourage PPS to elaborate the long promised CTE plan for the district within the next six months ideally this plan would have been available to guide the high school design processes three years ago the idea that we may still not have a plan in hand when we go for a second bond is deeply troubling it's worth noting that in terms of existing CTE and stem curriculum most of the high schools are more similar to Roosevelt than to Franklin um after a long and divisive fight we finally feel like PPS is taking the stem space issue at Roosevelt seriously and sincerely hope that the plan to convert the auto shop will come to fruition but the fact that this is still an issue even after construction has started speaks to the flaws in the design process and The Perils of forging ahead without a clear CTE stem plan in place PPS is plan to modernize schools all over the city should be caused for celebration we know that the future of this city rests in no small part on the future future of its educational resources we all want these efforts to succeed we want our Collective Legacy to be schools that future Generations Marvel that and thank us for We Stand ready to help you accomplish that if only you'll let us thank you very much thank you and I am Robin abadia AB a d a and first I just want to say welcome to the new board members thank you for stepping up to this Challenge and thank you to the existing more members for the years of service that you give I'm a parent of two children in PPS a fourth and a sixth grader and like thousands of other parents I've been watching closely the school monetization process I've pinned a lot of hopes on it because I have young children and I desperately want them to be in a a modern high school that's safe when the earthquake happens I want them to be able to be in learning in spaces that are large enough to accommodate our growing population and I want them to be flexible enough um the buildings to change as 21st century teaching and learning evolve and I came here tonight because as a bystander I'm concerned about what I'm seeing thus far I'm seeing missed deadlines in the process lackluster public involvement and limited communication with the community which has entrusted the district not only with its dollars but more importantly its children specifically I'm not seeing meaningful movement when it comes to the next Bond in 2016 something we're really excited about master planning really needs to begin right now and there are whole communities of parents and um people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get to work on it each week that passes is a lost opportunity to engage the public instead I read the Eco Northwest report which analyzes the Lincoln campus from its developmental potential development potential I'd like us all to keep one thing in mind throughout this whole process that PPS is in the business of educating children not developing real estate while partnering with PSU is great and it's laudable and it's educational purposes just because we can entertain the notion of building hotels and apartments on an already small
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school campus doesn't mean that we should I understand that with any major new project or process there are bound to be problems that's normal but we're bark embarking on a 32-year journey together to modernize our entire city schools let's not let it falter right out of the gate with new bonds and pro major projects rolling out each four years as projected the simultaneous need to deliver top-notch results on current projects while still carefully planning for the next phases will be the new normal for the foreseeable future just because there are thousands of us who desperately need new high schools to be rebuilt doesn't mean that PPS has guaranteed the votes in 2016 PPS needs to earn those votes starting right now now is the time that we can write the ship and start fresh with this next round and the best way to get people to vote for future bonds is to run the current ones with as much integrity and professionalism and substantive public engagement as you can so I'm here to ask you as board members please don't let PPS mess this up don't mess this up for my kids but really more importantly please let's make sure the thousands of other kids that go through PPS schools in the coming decades um are in the right spaces parents and community members are here to support you and we're ready to get going thank you thank you thank you that's it that's it okay uh is there any more discussion on this resolution before we vote I just have a couple of questions just to clarify on the parking if the parking structure generates revenue does the re how does that work is that Revenue that goes to PPS or we're trading the property for and the cost of building it or again the it's going to be balanced against the revenue um that's a theoretical are just discussion question yeah that's I mean not question is are just discussions yeah but go go ahead all right yeah so does that mean I heard the question all right and joining us is a farcus with Northwest um who's the principal involved with the the study um one thing I would say at at the front end is that we don't know yet what the nature and extent of the partnership would be okay whether it would be a for-profit or a non nonprofit organization and how any Revenue would flow so just as a practical matter we're so far in advance of knowing those kinds of things but a can talk a little bit about some of the things that have happened in other places okay just to clarify but that's to be decided in that'll be decided in the future there'll be a discussion of that yes so CJ isn't it true that I mean these are just discussions right that's correct we may not even do this yeah I understand that I understand that pan I also want to understand R responding to you Mike I'm asking a question these are just discussions correct that is correct and and this making any decisions about go through the same kind of process that um any kind of capital Partnerships have previously here at the district which is memorandums of understanding predevelopment agreements development agreements all of which of course come before the board for discussion and then I guess a would address this there is a is there a potential for generating Revenue through parking structure right U so if if a partnership were to come together you could set the partnership partnership up as a nonprofit corporation uh the school district already owns the land so you don't have to contribute any more financially other parties wouldthe hypothetically contribute financially uh a nonprofit has the ability to issue its own bonds that are revenue bonds and so there will be a commitment by the users of the parking garage uh to help pay off those bonds so uh there are a number of ways to set this up um there are interested parties that just want to talk with you about it at this point in time okay so the potential exists that there might be Revenue after everything's paid for potential right we have in Revenue now thank you and then the other question I had was about the partners um and not to name any names but there right now there are people that we can talk to about this that are interested in it but there no there have been no decisions made I mean other partners could come in anyone can come in and have a discussion about their idea of how the parking could work it isn't narrowed down to any set of people okay thank you any other comments or questions okay um the board will now vote on resolution 5141 all in favor
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please indicate by saying I I I all opposed um resolution 5141 directing uh superintendent and her dese into discussions with potential Partners regarding potential parking is passed by vote of 61 six to zero with student representative I Katie gson is I okay thank you uh we'll now have the first reading of the revised tax exempt Bond post issuance compliance policy Amanda will you introduce it please sorry Yousef Awad who's our chief financial officer will come up to talk about the Amendments um briefly um up to board policy number 810.02 chairman of the board board directors uh good evening before he is the first reading for um to revise the policy it's our bond policy and what we're doing is we're adding component to uh compliance with the federal laws and SEC um requirements that's really in a nutshell what's the what's the the revision for the policy this is the first read we have taken it to the U budget committee and they have approved it and now it's before you and I'll be happy to answer any questions are any questions okay um the proposed policy will be posted on the board website and the public comment period is 21 days with the last date of comment being September 22nd uh contact information for public comment will be posted with the policy the board will hold a second reading of the policy on October 5th 2015 thank thank you thank you appreciate yeah uh the board will now consider the remainder of the business agenda having already voted on resolutions 5140 and 5141 uh Miss hon are there any changes to the business agenda there are not do I have a motion and second to adopt the business agenda so move second okay director conam moves and director nolles seconds the adoption of the business agenda uh Miss hon is there any public comment on the business agenda no okay um the board will now do you have a comment yeah I just have one question on the um the family health care for Benson Tech so there's $80,000 roughly for equipment so I just didn't understand or wanted to understand the relationship of that money to the money that we voted to provide uh is that related to that I any sense look get a call I'm helping he be a out oh I'd be very happy to answer uh it's absolutely tremendous uh the money that we are looking at allocating uh we have looked at on the budget and operations committee is to build out the space okay this money is a grant Benson is receiving okay great to buy supplies good furniture and equipment thank you okay any other discussion the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all all oppose indicate by saying no uh the business agenda is approved by vote of six to zero with student representative Davidson voting yes great uh the next meeting of the board will be held Wednesday September 16th and this


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