2015-10-05 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2015-10-05
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - October 5, 2015

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uh the formal meeting the board of education for October 5th 2015 is called to order I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks um in light of last week's tragedy in Roseberg uh there is a Collective feeling among the board um to do something acknowledge it publicly um Mike Rose an offer to write up a resolution I'd like uh Mike to introduce the item thanks Tom and um thanks to board members for um taking time to look at it and then also I had the opportunity to talk to representative Alyssa Kenny guy who been a strong Advocate on gun control in the legislature and she helped to um I would just um say that there are a few things that we wanted to want to accomplish with this resolution and it's important to note that all levels of government in the state the school district um our legislature and our governor all have opportunities to um take action that we believe could Advance um greater safety for our school children and our citizens through gun control and um we just start out the resolution saying and this will be short it is with great sadness that we remember the incidents of last Thursday where one teacher and each students died and nine were wounded when a gunman opened fire in a classroom at umca Community College College as a school board a district and a community of students teachers and parents our hearts and condolences go out to the people of Roseberg we can't begin to understand the heartache they are experiencing and so we send uplifting thoughts and prayers and the hope that as time passes their hearts and Community will begin to heal the problem of unchecked gun violence in our nation is so pervasive and Relentless that we can only expect a similar tragic event soon after the Press leaves Roseberg as Nicholas Kristoff one of Oregon's own said recently quote we've mourned too often seen too many schools and colleges devastated by shootings watch too many students get an education in grief it's time for a new approach to gun violence we're angry but we also need to be smart thank you um board will now consider resolution number 5152 that um do I have a motion for consideration so move second director Anthony moves and director nolles seconds the motion to adopt resolution 512 Miss po uh Miss pal you're not miss Houston um is there any public comment on resolution 5152 there is not okay uh is there board discussion on this resolution we can if you want to part of your discussion why don't you start resolution sure resolve that it resolve that Portland Public Schools will seek to confirm I got to put on my glasses consent to optimize the role in the provision of services that educate children about gun safety and seek to keep to firearm and seek to keep Firearms out of the hands of children continue to prevent the Pres of guns on school property provide and promote Early Access to mental health care services for students of all ages continue to restore in School counseling positions two Portland Public Schools request that the Oregon legislature swiftly enact law to require all orians to obtain a permit to purchase a handgun and that all owners of handguns already in circulation be required to obtain a permit significantly restrict the ability of citizens to obtain a concealed carry permit prohibit individuals from obtaining an open carry permit establish a 14-day waiting period for the legal purchase of all firearms prohibit the sale of all semi-automatic weapons the resale of semi-automatic weapons already in circulation the sale of kits to convert weapons to semi-automatic or full automatic use PPS requests the governor of Oregon to launch a significant Statewide campaign across all agencies to reduce gun violence in our communities and investigate ways to provide enhanced Community Based Mental Health
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Care all right than thank you Steve um any other comments okay the board will now vote on 5152 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all oppose indicate by saying no uh no extensions uh the resolution 5152 is approved by vote of seven to zero with student representative davidon voting yes yes yes okay thank you thank you Mike for your work on that thanks um public comment uh Miss pal do we have anyone signed up for public comment uh we do um I just say our students have arrived if you want to start oh then let's let's do the student testimony uh first then we have k k satang and Amy Lee welcome and um if you could just state your name for the record uh when you begin to speak the the green light will go on uh and then there'll be a yellow light and a red light in which time your time's up you've got three minutes Paul hello members of the Board of Education uh my name is k s hang I'm with the Asian Pacific American network of Oregon um for folks who I've met already it was nice meeting you for folks who I got in touch with I look forward to building with y'all um we're basically here to um talk about a campaign that our youth group um API leaders for liberation of Youth have started um and I wanted to throw it to them before I do I think for a lot of folks right now a lot of young people aren't engaged in the classroom for a lot of different reasons um part of the work we're trying to do is find out reasons and work to address these um reasons why folks aren't engaged in the classroom I think we feel like and are you identified um people don't for a lot of young people if we don't learn about people who look like us or we don't see ourselves reflected in the textbooks it's really hard to stay engaged um and um want to come to class um we also want to recognize and give a shout out to the folks working with the dignity schools campaign behind us um with all the hard work they're doing and we also know these issues with ethnic studies with discipline in schools is connected and we want work together to figure out ways we can support our students as best as possible um so I want to stop talking and then give some time for our young folks to talk about the campaign that they're working on right now thank hi my name is Amy and I'm a sophomore at Franklin High School did you state your last name for the record Lee um I want to talk about ethnic studies so uh right now US history is eurocentric and there is more to um US History than what than the contributions of um European Americans and we wanted to include uh all the contributions that other people of color have have done in the US um my name is Sheryl l l G and I am a freshman in college uh PCC um so the reason why I personally want to have Technic studies implemented in PBS high schools is personally because I feel like I would be more invested in my education and interested in learning what is offered for me and personally I barely graduated High School I was not motivated and I feel like if I had a cultural studies class an ethic studies class that would be relevant to me I would be more invested and want to learn more and probably have Higher Achievement rates in my other classes as well um a lot of my other peers feel that way too so I hope you guys can understand I'm Runo and I am a in high school and uh our campaign is uh missing pages of our history and it's an ethnic studies uh campaign and the the date that we are about to launch this event is October 15th from uh 5: to
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7: and we are hoping that you will help Us in this event and hope that you will talk for the event Steve has already uh accepted to speak at the event and I'm really excited to hear from him and I hope you guys can come too and I understand Mike is busy but he promised he would bring staff to check out like uh like to see who Ali is what we want over about uh see the community members and just really have fun because it's kind of like a party we'll have performances too and really get to know everybody yeah thank you all very much thank you very much I just wanted to there were three things that you we had talked about that you were asking for one was more history about people of color in our history classes filling in one was ethnic studies as an elective in each high school and the third was a website that allows us to allows our teachers to easily go and find this information is that is that correct clarification yes you said you working on that too so I I'm really excited about the website thing too you yeah thank you guys for coming is great I hope we can do all those things I sure I'm going to support yeah and I just wanted to say thank you to Steve and I had the opportunity to meet with these students and the rest of the Ally group on Friday and I passed around some of the material that they gave us they're um incredibly organized dedicated they know what they're talking about and um I'm looking forward to working with them and I did promise them that even though I would be out of town and not able to attend the event I would exent I would send my staff which I don't have any of but that they would be there to represent me but I'm going to find someone might be my wife but someone will be there thank you so much thanks thank great thank you thank you uh F there other students no no stud stud down you have the option to allow somebody from this group to speak we we do have I know I I realize that and I I'd like to uh I would I'd like to extend a student come up and speak to us sure we got two students up to you're a hard negotiator but let's bring on two go no we we've got two students show up this is student testimony ma we got room on this we will because you need to hear the voice can we start with our students we have room here on the yeah on this other one right here these are the black boys that you talk about in your data that this stuff is still happening to excuse me my name is Tyresa Garrett I know that you asked for a parent not to speak but my sons are young so it takes time and communication and it's a it's developmental process but what I would like to share as the other students shared as well is what happens when you do not share um when it comes to uh ethnicity and sharing the cultural piece uh on behalf of African-Americans and what that does to the psyche and how it is detrimental in regards to the euro uh Centric piece that are also in the history books um we've had issues to where and this is very personal but a student that has had um suicidal audiation at the schools because of the staff and teachers have been making racial comments and whatnot and um an issue to where a a student tried to hang themselves um from a a tetherball pole um that student is here tonight and um it's been very traumatizing and so we're just here to support whatever can be done on behalf of changing anything in PPS School Systems to help benefit the African Americans anything you want to say
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something um I have a question my name is Emanuel Gibson and why do we not learn about our history can you answer that can you answer it it's a it's a good question um and one that uh if you're not learning about your history now we need to do something about so I appreciate you and this new this new board is moving in that direction I used to I tried get the old board to do to go forward with that and they wouldn't the new board is going forward hopefully with that and hopefully before this year is out we will have some pretty good solid history surrounding African-Americans as well as other uh people of color I feel that it is to hold up the power structure of the white domination that's what I feel that it is and to in order for that to to to remain that's why we're not being taught about our history because we are a powerful people and we are we have contributed on so many great levels being the original people that is how I feel about it and that needed to be said Thank you anything you want to say we're not in disagreement certainly no that would be all thank you thank you very much thank you day D thank you gentlemen [Applause] okay uh is there a further public comment yes F we do we have Danielle simonelli and Gigi Cooper thank you for this opportunity my name is Danielle simonelli spelled s m o n l Li I and I have children who attend Portland Public Schools I'm here tonight to express parent concern with the forthcoming proposals to redraw School District boundaries as a means of addressing overcrowding and enhancing achievement redrawing the boundaries is a very disruptive solution to this problem to not only families and children but also the communities where they reside there is no data that we are aware of that demonstrates a narrowing of the achievement Gap and an improvement in graduation rates by simply altering District boundaries in addition the PPS audit in 2013 regarding graduation rate Improvement makes no mention of boundary reassignment School enrollment or even equal course offerings enrollment forecasts as well as the accuracy of those forecasts are strong determiners of where School boundaries lie and we would like to understand if changing demographics were taken into account if PPS forecasts are indeed accurate year after year then why are we in a constant state of overcrowding and how can we be sure we won't be doing this again in in the future we would especially like to challenge both the board and the Deb Committee in the use of the word Equity despite reviewing available documentation in online and inquiring during Town Halls we still don't have a satisfactory definition of equity as applied to redrawing District boundaries there is a difference between equity of opportunity and Equity of outcomes and everyone seems to approve of a world in which opportunity is equal even if outcomes are not PPS needs to differentiate between these and explain the metrics with which they are measured what key performance indicators will drive decisions and communicate results and data to parents and Educators speaking of kpis we notice that they are being discussed tonight in the agenda and there are two of particular importance which were not prioritized by DB is critical the first is promote safer routes to schools by limiting the number of natural and human-made physical boundaries students must cross Etc we believe that the safety of our children should be the first priority of PPS further more we believe that the availability of public transportation options should be included alongside sidewalks and bicycle Lanes when considering Alternatives the second D prioritize kpi States promote a sense of community by keeping neighborhoods together as much as possible given extensive literature around the predictive nature of an active community and parent involvement in students being successful Learners it's unclear to me why this would not be prioritized particularly given the superintendent's primary goals around reading graduation and reduction of expulsions it seems that enhancing and supporting community and parent involvement is a critical evidencebased strategy that should not be ignored when considering the boundaries we appreciate the board's serious review of the points I've highlighted tonight and thank you very much for your time thank you thank [Applause] you we have Tim Schultz and Dominic LEF
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welcome good evening um good evening and thank you for hearing me tonight my name is Tim Schultz and I'm the founder of PDX summer school program and also created the Jade journal in collaboration with know your city I want to share with you my experience at as a Harrison Park fifth grade teacher and the impact that State Testing has had on my classroom I want you to know that I share my view shared My Views with our principal and we had a discussion I acknowledge that while the limitations and focus for our students not at a benchmark are well- intended my purpose here is to talk to you about how the the impact on my students because my school Smarter Balance scores were low I have been directed that I cannot use novels to teach reading for the first six weeks of school this is a well attemped uh intended attempt to improve the reading of students at Harrison Park yet as a result my students will not be exposed to such quality authors as Ro doll Beverly clear and countless others because of their test results instead we were required to use the Scott porman curriculum as a teacher it seems counterintuitive that the way to improve students reading and writing score is to restrict their reading options the state results have far-reaching effects which are not limited to the classroom but also restricts what enhancements we offer to certain students at Harrison Park ESL students do not get to experience PE art music and Technology instead they are in ESL classes while the rest of the students go to those specials this was also a well intended attempt to improve student performance on state tests teachers at my school are being discouraged from taking Field Trips Again an attempt to maximize instruction time for the reading and math skills the past 5 years I've been able to take my students to Starbase a science-based camp that teach a stem curriculum that is directly aligned to Common Core but this year that was not allowed in fact Harrison in fact at Harrison Park the schedule only allowed time to teach reading math and writing I then wrote a letter to sh that I shared with several of you board members that explained the scheduling issue at Harrison Park along with my other concerns I do not know what happened behind the scene but two days after I shared the letter with my the letter my principal sent out an email explaining that they would change the schedule to allow teachers to teach science social studies and geography because quote someone had complained to the school board for my first four years of teaching fifth grade at Harrison Park I had my students take bike safety with the bike Transportation Alliance starting two years ago my principal cut that program because it took away too much in instructional time bike safety crucial in the urban areas my students ride in was stripped from them sadly these types of changes from limiting field trips to cutting programs are not limited to Harrison Park William Francis the St the director of the bike Transportation Alliance has found that overall standardized testing and school status have really influenced cancellations of bike safety since I started my position in August of 2014 low test scores follow poor schools this means that huge numbers of our poor youth are not offered the opportunity to learn valuable skills to ride bikes safely yet their wealthier counterparts are this raises important Equity issues that I think the board should be concerned about to me as a teacher in a high- propy school it is just plain wrong and this is not just an impact being felt at Harrison Park many other low performing PPS schools are adopting similar methods to improve student test results since State tests determine whether a school is failing or not districts have put an incredible emphas and pressure on administrators to get results this pressure and stress moves from teachers down to their students and the evitable logical conclusion is sadly easily reached that if this is happening at Harrison Park it surely is happening at other schools in similar situations in sharing this with you and identifying the inequity taking place in my school I also speak for numerous teachers who are reluctant to speak out as they don't want to draw the attention of their building principles or District administrators I sincerely hope you as board members reach out to teachers and hear their stories in a setting where they feel safe to share I share this with information with you openly and honestly and hopes that you take action on them it is truly up to you to make sure that we have act we actively fight fight against these inequities when we have the opportunity to do so the choice I see is this do we want to a district that teaches the whole child and engages them and meaningful learning experiences that help them grow to be successful and contributing members to their Community or do we want a district that teaches students to pass the state reading and math tests my experience in the classroom leads to believe that leads me to believe that we are already moving towards the ladder My Hope Is that we can see ourselves working toward the former thank you so much for hearing me tonight [Applause] a question go ahead okay uh Tim does uh what what grade what age are your kids I teach fifth grade fifth so you have a large fairly large number in clarifying here you have a fairly large number of kids who are at grade level or above in Reading do you have none or do you have some I have some I have some and you're not allowed to use novels with those some who are even at the grade the first
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six weeks of school no okay so I there other questions I had a question if you have a question I was school um so one of the things that you said Tim that's of concern is it sounds like there's this choice between in terms of accelerating achievement as a choice between um cutting accelerating achievement through more intense um uh teaching in course subjects versus subjects that could be considered more elective which tend to be motivational in terms of kids interests like um art or you talked about social studies and such and so just from a logic standpoint I understand that the approach might be to focus heavily on those core subjects I'm I'm wondering what you see as the balance if these kids need more time then what's the alternative um the alternativ is to teach those other subjects and integrate them with reading and math I mean I write because I was able to teach science my kids right now are doing a science experiment where they are growing different plants using the scientific method they are making journal entries and writing them down uh practicing those skills I check it they are also going to be recording uh getting data on them and then they will be making that into graphs and doing further math work so it is Geo those other subjects are reading and writing and math I mean they are absolutely integrated um but they are not directly teaching kids the skills that they need to pass the state test that is true but that's where in lies the argument I believe is what what kind of us you know what kind of students are we trying to what kind of education are we trying to provide the kids yeah and so then I just I appreciate that and then I just wanted to say in close in closing that I appreciate you bringing this issue forward and and I think it's unfortunate that the way the principal communicated in your school that somebody was singled out as if um it was a complaint versus constructive feedback appreciate that okay thank you and Tim thank you for your work at PDX summer school thank you yeah uh my name is Dominic laav l f a I'm a special education teacher at Wilson High School and um the issue that I want to bring to you today is just horrific overcrowding in our Focus programs in special education and um I have been alerting people about the situation for a while uh it's become just unbelievably acute this year uh and I'm kind of you know I'm a little surprised because you know the the the um word from the board last year was that you were addressing the situation you have not addressed it at all I can tell you uh my I teach a life skills program which is one kind of focus program and I have 18 kids uh in that program it's an unprecedented amount I know that um you know to get as a high school teacher to get up here in front of the board and complain about 18 kids sounds ridiculous because most of my colleagues in general education you know have you know 80 or something um but 18 kids in my program with three PA Educators is uh a sham it's a it's a shell it looks to the public like we have the program but in actual fact the kids are not getting the services that they need uh and in fact it in danger students we've already had several uh incidents this year and you know we're not very far into the year where students were seriously endangered I'm talking about physical risk um and you know I I know that my colleague who who uh runs another Focus program at Wilson and has the same amount of uh you know same numbers in his program uh you know I mean I I shouldn't speak for him but I I would guess that his you know looking at his program his goal for the year is for someone not to get hurt um for someone not to die in his program and I'm not exaggerating so um the you know and that's not an educational goal I uh myself I've been held up as a exemplary life skills teacher uh my program has been studied for to you know to be promoted around
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the district as an as an exemplary program a model uh this year it's been decimated it's been Trashed by special ed Administration who don't care about the numbers who don't care about my communications about Staffing levels um and you know that you know I don't know what else to do except tell you guys uh you know so I'm telling you um other issues across special ed uh uh are are really similar it's a simple problem it needs to be addressed uh our our behavioral support program was rebranded a Learning Center uh which of course doubled the case load in that uh um you know we call you know I've heard it called a learning a Behavior Support Center I've heard it called a a learning center with behavior supports I've heard it called lots of different things and lots of different context the net result though was that the case load was doubled and the Staffing was was reduced uh this is across the district I know from talking to my colleagues this is not just Wilson High School in fact I think Wilson may have it a little better I've heard of of life skills programs up in the mid 20s in terms of enrollment it's outrageous it's unprecedented staffing has not been increased in terms of par education support uh and it's it's horrific and our students are you know in the end uh you know you know we've created this situation where on paper we pretend we have special education services but in fact the good teachers that are trying to trying to serve their students are completely unable to do it and so it's a shame it's it's a paper forde over our program thank you thank you thank you okay thank you [Applause] are there any more public comment no okay okay um we now will uh talk about the enrollment balance and values framework the board discuss this item at its September 16th meeting superintendent Smith is there anything you'd like to add um no just that the um districtwide boundary Review Committee did a a big presentation to the board back in July there was discussion and I brought back a summary at the September 16th meeting and after that discussion told you I would bring back a resolution this evening um the resolution that's included in your packet number 5149 does three things it the Board of Education endorses the recommended values and policy framework for districtwide enrollment balancing and the key thing one of the key things we did last time was instead of just talking about um boundaries we called it enroll talked about a framework for enrollment balancing because it acknowledges multiple lever for having schools that can offer a full program so it is a policy framework for districtwide enrollment balancing two the board acknowledges and appreciates the work that the districtwide boundary advisory committee um has undertaken for developing the districtwide boundary review values and policy framework and three the board directs the superintendent to brief board members by the November um 2015 meeting on the development of enrollment balancing scenario so we're really asking dbre to go forward and build the with the staff to build scenarios uh that are aligned with the values and policy framework so those are the three things your resolution does and it is now before you for a vote okay uh the board will now consider resolution 5149 values in the policy framework for districtwide enrollment balancing do I have a motion so Mo director nolles moves and director sparza Brown seconds motion to adopt resolution 5149 po are there any public comment on 5149 I'm sorry is there any public comment yes there is uh Tony droi and and um I'm sorry and Brian owendoff hello my name is Tony Drogi Dr G I'm a parent of two children in Portland Public Schools and I'd like to start with a question have any studies been done on how these boundary changes will affect gentrification and if not why hasn't that been considered
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the next thing I'd like to talk about is what I witnessed at the DB districtwide balancing committee meeting on September the 17th well into the meeting an item not on the agenda was presented to the committee the 20 enrollment balancing factors that have been worked on for quite some time were presented to the committee with nine factors chosen as kpi's key performance indicators this was not on the agenda the committee had never seen these nine as far as I could tell as a as a citizen they had never seen these nine items chosen to the exclusion of the other 11 I'd like to read from the transcript of the meeting at 1 hour and 50 minutes and and 2 seconds the moderator of the meeting says let's let them meaning the committee read it 1 minute and 40 seconds later so just another minute 30 seconds later the PPS staff begin speaking instructing this committee on the details of how to vote of what the implications are they speak for some time then they say so what do you think Committee Member Scott Baylor said I feel hugely rushed and this the kpis is really important we've got to have more time for this PPS staff so Scott we're happy to hear your suggestions but we don't have meeting time for it but that doesn't mean you don't have opportunities as individuals to give input Scott I'm saying this really sucks as a way to run this meeting this is really important we don't have time to discuss it that's not okay with me PPS staff but could you give your input then we could come back with the input you've given and look at it Scott Bailey I want time to discuss this with people to think it through and discuss with this PE and discuss with this people is not a matter of my individual opinion we here as a committee for a reason and that so I can learn from other people PPS staff moves for a vote the majority of the committee side to was Scott Bailey PPS staff says so we will look to build some agenda time for this group for this group at a future meeting so it's 7 till and we still have a Critical Agenda item to come the next meeting on September 1st was cancelled now the administration is ready to put forward the proposed boundaries so what was important enough that they had to cut off discussion a presentation of a high production value PR video designed to convince the public of the transparency of this process I'd also like to ask in this entire process why there wasn't a linear progression in full view of the public with public input comment and oversight at every step moving sequentially from issues faced to values the values you're about to vote on tonight to enrollment balancing factors to the enrollment balancing factors that would be chosen as key performance indicator haers to propose possible scenarios if that had happened I believe most of us would have accepted your authority to make these difficult decisions regardless of the impact on our own personal concerns sir can you as things stand now and I quote debc member Scott Bailey it is not okay with us thank you thank you [Applause] great uh before we start I just want to make sure miss pal that we're getting the the lights going yes okay great thank you go ahead great my name is Brian endol I have three children in Portland Public Schools a 10th grader and eighth grader and a fifth grader uh and again I'm touching on the kpis that you're going to be discussing tonight
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one of the factors for evaluating capacity and enrollment includes compact boundaries how would increasing a potential travel distance by 50% to a high school aligned with metrics for a compact boundary what consideration is being given to distance and compliance with Federal safer routes to school law a change in a high school assignment for some middle school students could result in significant increases in travel time and potential travel over treacherous roads and bridges that will will not withstand a major earthquake potentially stranding our students on the opposite side of the river from their homes one other thing I ask you to consider is promoting a sense of communities another of the kpis and keeping neighborhoods together as much as possible our children will have their academic social and athletic lives dramatically changed if a significant boundary changes occurs you know my kids have spent eight years building relationships both in and out of school and having longer travel times is going to take away time for them for their studies and for their Athletics and other important life values I ask the board to carefully consider the kpis used and to consider all 20 not a specific list of nine thank you [Applause] we have Brooke Cohen and Matt marovic we pl excuse me uh we were kind of planning to tag team this um so might as well just introduce ourselves first and then read through um hello I'm Brooke Cowan c w an and I'm Matt marianovich m a r j a n o v i c Matt and I developed a solution to the enrollment balancing problem and attempted to present it to Deb in a series of six two-minute public comments in the spring this soft neighborhood model eliminates the need for frequent manual boundary changes a critical piece of the current Deb proposal we think the larger Community is interested in understanding more about how our model Works media reports and Deb summaries have unfortunately mischaracterized the model and its intents so we have collected the six original comments into a single cohesive document which we emailed to each of you this morning it is also available online at soft neighborhood model. G we would like to take this opportunity to introduce the soft neighborhood framework to you the board and to the larger Community the soft neighborhood model has been referred to in Deb documents and in media reports as a soft boundary model but in fact it is not a boundary model at all it is a neighborhood model that places students in schools close to their homes it is a dynamic enrollment balancing model that enables long-term enrollment stability for all schools it is an equitable model that encourages the mixing of populations and curtails the ability of families with more resources to buy into the public school of their choice within our framework children are assigned to one of the SE several schools that are closest to their home the criteria used for making a final assignment are one proximity and two capacity the proximity part means that if School a is closer than School B then assignment to a is more likely than assignment to B the capacity part means that the model will assign the right number of students to each School according to Target capacities provided by The District in other words the model assigns children to schools using an algorithm that satisfies each school's Target enrollment but is otherwise more likely to place them closer to their home its performance in fact the performance of any enrollment system considered by the district should be measured by concrete objective criteria such as how balanced the enrollments are at each School how far students have to travel to get to school how diverse the assignments are the soft neighborhood framework is not a school choice model the soft neighborhood model does not ask families to rank their preferred schools like any traditional neighborhood School model the only input a family has is its home address the soft neighborhood model emerged from the observation that there's a tightly coupled relationship between boundaries enrollment instability and inequity while the relationship between enrollment balancing and Equity has been widely acknowledged the critical role that boundaries play has not
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School boundaries create tangible Walls Within our city that make it possible to say that these kids will never go to school with those kids boundaries encourage wealthier families to move away from Bad geographic regions and cluster to good ones by tying School assignment to real estate boundaries Drive housing prices up in some regions and down in others thus boundaries facilitate enrollment and balance they facilitate socioeconomic economic stratification and they turn Public School assignment into a commodity boundaries are a historical artifact that have co-evolved with and reinforced the same racial and socioeconomic inequities that we as a community are struggling to overcome indeed these boundaries are the defining feature of the enrollment system which you are being asked asked to endorse tonight whether the whether those boundaries are nudged around year to year or once a decade the underlying system is the same and the end result will be the same the soft neighborhood model is a powerful alternative to the PPS hard boundary system this model emphasizes enrollment balancing a sense of neighborhood as well as mixing populations that would otherwise become stratified and segregated we have implemented and tested the soft neighborhood model against seven years of historical PPS enrollment data we have defined three objective metrics for evaluating our model on the basis of balance enrollments travel distance and school assignment diversity our experimental results suggest that the soft neighborhood model outperforms the historical hard boundary system with respect to enrollment balancing that the soft neighborhood model still assigns Schools students to schools reasonbly reasonably close to home and that the soft neighborhood model greatly improves assignment diversity these empirical results demonstrate the potential of the soft neighborhood model is a robust and Equitable solution to the enrollment balancing problem in PPS we encourage you and the larger Community to seriously consider the soft neighborhood model for PPS moreover we would like to see compelling empirical evidence that the DB proposal can actually achieve its stated balancing and Equity goals and we request an objective evaluation of the district's proposed solution in terms of the metrics we have defined any such evaluations must be implemented with transparency to the public it should use a data set that has been properly anonymized and released to the public and its entire methodology should be made available to the public for independent replication verification and validation thank you you make presentation to DB and then did they discuss your presentation um uh I gave six two-minute public comments so did they discuss those public comments that you know of or there was very little time there were I think two meetings where they had a few minutes to ask me some questions but not they didn't really discuss it no it was it it was not it was not there was no time set aside for discussion thank you very much so I just want to be clear so you have u a different modeling approach than the district is using and it's the soft boundary model that's soft neighborhood soft neighborhood model so do you have um information that puts that in context that you can share with the board your we oh you sent it out okay thanks little but we but I guess oh well I guess we'll get to this in discussion okay thank you I'll look at that thank you we have Aris G Lori Lombardi welcome hello hello everybody my name is aris JX i e uh um I have two daughters in Portland Public School I'm coming here just try to draw the concern of the impact of the school and Community change on our students and the advocacy from parents I'm afid I probably need to repeat a lot of concerns the other person already addressed so I have some question to ask the first one is which is more important the quality of of Education or enrollment balancing if you tell me me the important thing is enrollment then my question why not City set up a limit of the population or even set up cap of house number in a certain area to control the enrollment if the quality of the of the education is more important why send kids from a school with high academic achievement to a school with less achievement uh academic achievement does this fair to the students how can you guarantee students can still keep their High perform perance in the school
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with less PR programs I think we should do the opposite way so can anybody answer me the question okay my next question is uh related to my first one so changing the school also changing uh students social life and Community spending extra hours on traveling between school and home will disjoint their family and Community Life resulting in decreasing academic performance uh the third question is how important is parents advocacy do you think parents should just to spend hours uh do you think parents like to spend hours on traveling between home office and to school which is located totally in a different Community I do not think parents like to do that thank you thank you yes we're receiving volunteership every year from the school that means the school want the parents join them to see how their kids do well in the school if you say Okay parents advocacy from this part is not important I'm afraid I have to say you probably admit that you only want a parents to to donate money but volunte not volunteering the school activity okay uh my other question is do you have any data or survey to show you will succeed in increasing enrollment by shifting kids in another word do you have the data on percentage of the parents would agree or have to send their kids to another school if they're not willing to do this or they can find other options this is not successful I mean the shifting kids to increase the enrollment the balance the last question will be the safety issue everybody knows crossing the sorry crossing the bridge is not safe for kids and also for the families if we have any natural disaster happen that will SE uh the parents and our kids thank you thank you thank [Applause] you my name is Lori Lombardi thanks for letting me speak today thanks for hearing all these voices I can't imagine it's an easy job for you and we certainly appreciate that we live in in a place where we can be heard and we know that you're listening so thank you for that I do have concerns about the redistricting of Portland schools and the effect that it can have on the community as a whole I just I feel that there needs to be adequate time taken to thoroughly evaluate the redistricting decision-making process and I feel that there needs to be representation from families from every District affected I feel that there needs to be a full understanding at all levels the effects of fracturing a community and sending children on buses down hairpin turns and icy roads across rickety bridges for the sake of social engineering of our schools I'm hoping that we approach the issue of school inequity in a different way I'm hoping that we can focus on strengthening our schools increasing the physical capacity in overcrowded schools including collaboration with adjacent community colleges and working on funding programs for children in under underprivileged schools so that they have equal opportunity as well both my husband and I are involved in recruiting specialized talent to our city these are workers who help our economy and help create a strong City we also adore our local neighbors who have lived in their houses for Generations school school systems are a drawf for potential candidates relocating and an important factor in creating stability for our existing community members a non-transparent process of redistricting causes a community to lose faith in the public school system family like mine invest their life savings to find homes in great school systems that we believe in like Portland as these schools start to shift under our feet we start to lose our sense of stability and our faith in the public school system here this has far-reaching consequences for the community our economy and our city as a whole please look at the data and see if redistricting does indeed have a positive effect we've seen this fail in the past we don't want to repeat past mistakes please listen to the voices of the parents and the children who will be affected by this change thank you Michael J
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greetings uh thank you for letting me come up here tonight my name is Michael javac I'm a parent of two students here at the public uh Portland Public Schools and um I once again like many of these people are talking about the realigning of the school districts and and the balancing um if the purpose of the redrawing the School boundaries and the balancing is to improve education process for all students how does the potential of increase travel times improve the process for those who will see travel times tra increase from anywhere to 50 to 100% the increase in travel time would steal time away from homework extra extracurricular activities sleep and most importantly family um family time the time between students and parents is critical actually I would say essential to the success of every student I would like to see if there's been any studies research done about the actual impact to the children and increasing this time uh moving across the bridges moving um you know throughout the city district I don't need to spend any more time up here I just you know I'm concern parent and I want what's best for my children I like my children I like spending time with them and I'm very fortunate that I think they like me too so um thank you you guys do have a very you know difficult job and you know education extremely important I feel very fortunate I went to Public Schools I went to a public university and the more we put into our Public School Systems the better off the entire Community will be thank you thank you thank you all right is there any board discussion on this resolution I just want to reiterate for our families that not only are there no for gone conclusions in this process but there are not even any recommendations and so please continue to engage in the de Brack uh process and continue to come and communicate with us and um there are no secret plans behind the curtain that are already fully baked and I've had a lot of communication from parents this week who are fearful that there are some some decisions that are already set and I just want to to reassure you that that is not the case it's open process continue to engage in it and thanks for coming here tonight if it was open we would have been here all year go been on thanks um I'm just reiterating a little bit about what Amy said also would encourage all of you to go to the website um I'm I was the board still am a board representative on De U joined by Julia Spa Brown we're both happy to hear from it just last month I yeah yes um um always available to hear comments from parents um both on our personal EMA not our personal our district email um but uh I did also want to uh invite you to come to De meetings you've heard some people who were here um those are always going to be open to the public um and then I guess the the last part is I I'm I'm a little surprised I didn't get to look at my email today um at the number of people who are coming up and it seems like you already have an idea about you think what's going to happen um and I would just tell you again there is nothing now that uh has been developed um there is a framework uh that we're working with and it includes things like being concerned about transportation and distances and those kinds of things distance to school um when the framework is the thing that we're looking at tonight after we finish with this framework then the staff is going to bring a few scenarios to us but they have to run it through a framework there has to be something that we look at consistently across all the schools in the district and so um the staff will bring us some scenarios dpra will see those those are all meetings that are open to the public again so come on and come to the meetings um they'll make a recommendation to the superintendent in the middle of all this we'll be having lots of public comment we'll be going out to the communities there'll be meetings you'll have have an opportunity to come and tell us what you think about the different scenarios um so there's going to be lots and lots of of um public comment and Outreach to the community going on over the next couple of months and I encourage everybody all of you and for all of you to connect with all of your communities to make sure that you're following all that and that you are letting us know what you think if you your speakers excuse me sir that the staff said only kpis would be used for the initial scenarios and it
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did not include presentation it is untrue it is on YouTube it is public record only community members and all the people who are listening to us at home to say uh I know how concerned parents are about these process I had kids at in Portland Public Schools and I know I was concerned every time something like this came up stay involved contact us let us know what you think and be involved in the public side there also um there have been some Town Halls Google Town Halls another place to reach out and to get involved on those so um just stay informed and let us know don't wait till it's all the way at the end and go oh my gosh I don't I don't agree with this make sure that you're coming in to those meetings that we're having ahead of time so any other so I no no mine so Pam and jul attic question about the kpis and the testimony so what I'm what I wanted to understand is are there's nine kpis that have been selected no there are no kpis selected yet so what's the can you explain some of the confusion around people feeling like it's been narrow down and actually we also have Judy and John here I can't explain that but maybe let's have Judy or John to come on up and Jason's hereas Sarah's here lots of people who staff people who have been involved in the process Judy it's good to see the few less vantages good evening thank you for those kind words um Judy Brennan uh enrollment director singer senior director system planning and performance John Isaac chief of community involvement public affairs and Jason trly chair of D bra um I I think we just have a moment here where we were have to try and clarify um the the process that we're moving through it is vitally important that we um know that the values framework that the committee developed is endorsed so that we can then take those um that framework and move it into more concrete and substantive measures now at the last de meeting we shared some information about the full set of measures that are listed in um the administrative directive that governs this and we had a very brief discussion about places where staff felt strongly we could validate those measures we could deliver um you know sort of concrete ways of measuring is this scenario better or worse than what the past was we did pause and say take some time to to think that over that was the committee's request happy to honor it and there's time on the next agenda to further develop what those kpis are people get a chance to look at a a sample of what they could be not real changes because we do not as you said have any proposed real changes at this time so Judy could what's on the table tonight is the values framework correct just the frame Val framework so can you I I'm still confused can you explain how the KP is relate to the values framework yes and I would say that um an important part of the framework is that it um makes slight revisions to the administrative directive that's already in place regarding boundary change um states that um that those and other factors that should make this a strong process should govern all the different kinds of levers not just boundary change um so then we take those those statements such as um uh help me with the exact words sorry I don't have my copy the administrative direct use of facilities op optimal use of facilities and we say okay so what does that mean um DB has um encouraged us to focus on right sizing schools so in this case optimal use is probably coming down to which schools will be overcrowded that is don't have enough classrooms for teachers and which schools are under enrolled that is less than two sections per grade level so those are examples of how we would operationalize the concept that's in the administrative directive that DB has reviewed and provided some input on the other thing I would add is the having a set of key performance indicators they those the indicators come to life when you can actually compare them to a map it's really hard to talk about kpis in the abstract so part of the objective in
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the next meeting is to take a a sample or a madeup scenario and apply the existing set of kpis to them and then people can provide feedback and they can say these make sense these don't make sense and so that's literally where we are in the process one I'm sorry one other really important thing I think that I hope is helpful and that is that staff has been trying to find the key indicators that we think that we can display about any change anywhere this is at the first level under underneath that there will clearly be impacts at a school by school level that may indeed like cross a major arterial um involve um other kinds of factors that are pretty unique to that situation that of course we want to pay attention to if people call it out we want to be able to see it but because this is a districtwide process we're trying to find the key pieces that people can see and understand and use comparatively at the high level before they start going down school by school school yeah and I'm still confused I mean what I'm sensing from the people that testified is a concern that the key performance indicators will somehow um put boundaries around decisions that can be made they'll add they'll create a context that could drive decisions in a certain direction and so what I want to hear or understand is if there are nine key performance indicators what I heard is some of the committee wanted more discussion on it and it's not out of the realm of possibility that more performance indicators could be added yes absolutely okay there are there are not nine kpis at this particular th we're still working on the kpis yeah I think there's just confusion generated by some that that we've already done this work and we haven't it's not all done yet actually it's generated by it's not done it's not sorry not respond but I was witness Scott baile here I will try to composure this is a draft that is clear I admit that but the PPS staff I think some here you can look on the video it's on public record they indicated that initial excuse me you're out of words Steve do you want to say something well yeah do we have a draft that chose 9 kpi that's one of my question you can ask ask we can I go look so I'll just note any all the documents that are presented at D meetings are available on the website and we can send that link back to you so any of you can review this document okay Steve another question yeah I have a question oh are we we're going to get some maps here pretty soon I'm a big map guy on this able to visualize it so but we believe by the end of October we'll have if all goes well if if we're following the the framework if you vote on it tonight um we'll by the end of October have some actual proposals for change what we'll have later this week is a sample as Sarah indicated um that we're using for um instructional purpose to help familiarize the committee and others with the tools the information that will be in front of them soon learn to read it and because the committee um is a great resource uh um and a great representative body we want their feedback on formatting and on whether the measures that we're showing are correct so that's what we're going to do this week the map you see this week won't have actual proposals or actual changes are we going to get uh this's my actual question here now Tom and then I have a comment on the kpis which are marked up there the uh are we going to get a map and a uh something surrounding this this idea about the soft neighborhoods I mean can we get can we get something on that to compare that I mean I'm sorry I I'm I'm not a guy that kind of jumps on new stuff I just don't do but I read that through and it made a lot of sense to me and I thought well we should this should be something we should be looking at And discussing can we get a m can I guess asking the superintendent here Tom can we get a map on that too and I'm actually looking at the committee that heard the the my understanding is that our solver can um produce that type of map and we we haven't taken it off the table I mean that I keep I don't know how to say that in any other way but we are like creating on Thursday a sample scenario um just for illustrative purposes because it actually takes um we think it's really important to create a product that people can read and understand and so we have to put that out in front of someone to test it
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that's what's going to happen and then um as uh DB um wrestles with the tradeoffs and the and um and so forth we will produce whatever we can to support the process so so is that a yes or a no there sir yes that's a yes we're going to get aoft neighborhood you're interested if we're directed to do so we can do that I would say we the the capability exists we're as staff operating at the direction of the committee so we haven't there's no recommendation that's come out of the district white boundary review advisory committee to look at that model the committee actually spoke addressed this somewhat when they did their presentation a few months ago if the committee had further discussion and said we'd also like you to do that then the staff will do it so everything the staff's doing is at the direction of the recommendation that's come out of committee right now which is the values framework that's before you tonight and actually you know what I want to be able to do is walk you back and just tell you what the values framework is again because I feel like we're now getting confused with the work going on in the committee now so let me just do the bullets out of the summary document for you just to say here's the stage we're at with this CU there's a bunch of work ahead of us still what the guiding values were that were put forward equity and process and outcomes access to Equitable and effective programs and Facilities that provide appropriate environment for Effective programs those are the three guiding values the desired outcomes strong and stable enrollment in all of our schools clear responsive and transparent process and evidence the racial Equity lens has been incorporated into enrollment balancing process and then part of what is being put forward is that we apply this vales framework to all the components of enrollment changes not just boundaries so transfer adjustments building capacity changes Regional program relocation or resizing grade reconfigurations boundary change and opening or closing schools and then what the committee also did is they said here are the other things we want you to consider and they gave us some commentary on the pace of change for decisions that get made resources required for implementation technical components involved in a change Community input the long-term process and alternative enrollment methods for neighborhood schools part of what this values framework and the board agreeing to the values framework does is it says great we affirm the work so far and it lets the committee go forth and then start putting forth scenarios and maps and really specific things that we get to then grapple with I just check and make sure we're going to do the but this right now is the framework document that they came and presented in July and that you guys talked about at your last meeting that really is just again affirmation that we're on track with the values and then allows the committee to go forth and continue to do work all right okay should let on this should I finish up let me just let me clarify one other thing about the soft things stes for a group so um I remember I V if this is wrong you guys let me know but I vaguely remember I don't vaguely remember your testimony when you came for public comment I remember you very well uh but I wasn't there when we had the conversation at the next meeting um but my recollection is that um everybody was very interested in the soft boundary piece but the problem with it is that it starts with kindergarten and we need to have some changes happen now in our schools in order to make them be uh more Equitable across the district and if we are only doing it when we're starting a kindergarten then it's going to take 10 to 12 years before we get to a point is that wasn't that pretty close to what we were doing Jason so thank you chair kler and director NES to in addition to that what I think was of a priority for the membership and I'll just go back to the last um paragraph in the in our framework on that on the soft boundary model so there are a couple things to this um the last paragraph says the model success could be achieved if PPS is able to ensure a baseline of Equitable Academic Program offerings at every school which could help reduce creating a winners versus losers environment and a choice system we will only know how well it might work with further research by Portland Public Schools this model should be evaluated after PPS has developed plans for offering Baseline level of Academic Program offerings at all schools as well as grade configuration so I think the important tension that D BR recognized was we can evaluate this but there are Cur there are certain structures that we have to fix first in order to really evaluate the effectiveness so for example you could have the access to potential schools in North Portland but that's going to look different in southeast where you have immersion neighborhood schools and focus options so once the system is kind of you know addressed through the boundary review process or the enrollment balancing process we'll be able to say once we've you know hopefully improved Equitable access to offerings across the system that was de's higher priority so we can look at it but after certain systemic issues are fixed first go ahead you bet thank you yeah um so is that a no I'm still trying to figure out whether it's yes or no I'm I'm still like to see a yes here that we
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would look at this soft neighborhood model and see how it comes out it may not come out that's fine but at least we would look at it I think it's a yes we all we all is that a yes no one's really giving me a yes we are now the superintendent Sarah you're saying yes sir he's saying yes now cuz he just said no I'm I hate to do this but I yes and yes and later after the meeting people say oh no they didn't say yes said no not what I've heard director bule is yes we can okay yes it's been at the but it so far hasn't been the direction of the committee to do so one thing that I want to point out is that you have policy that says students have a guaranteed neighborhood school at this time a soft boundary says you have a guaranteed School nearby but it may not be the same school every year for your address so that could be a challenge to your existing policy we don't have any policy changes going forward at this time so if you were to try and Implement that later you might also have to tackle but the answer is because you said yes we can but the answer that I'm still looking for is yes we will bring forward a model of this now Sarah said yes we will are you saying now yes we will yeah I I think it would help for clarification for staff if you're looking for a model um if you are looking for us to model that as part of your deliberations or it's something that you're asking the committee to to do um I think that would help but the capability is here how we do it is what um the capability exist I hate it when I keep win on all these little arguments clario building it's not precluded by the framework with they're they're considering tonight it could be one of the scenarios an alternative Al scenario no we don't need a motion okay we don't need can I please make I'm sorry you cannot assignment does not change every year that's not correct thank you so um I think it's the intent of the board anybody can raise their hand and say no that both the committee and the staff take the soft model and use it in their evaluations um and bring in the scenarios and and bring it back with with everything else you're doing to um to give us the recommendation so is that so you want the you want the committee to consider it yes before it ever comes back here yes yes so is that clear no we want tell we want them to when they all when everything comes back we want one of them to be one of the Sor yes it starts there that was different than what you said yes I've been been doing this now for a long time and getting those words right is really critical okay anything else and then I'd like to vote on it okay last thing yes the people who kept saying there were nine marked off things haha you were dead right to prioritizes kpis nine of them and they're marked right here on the thing xxxxxxxx okay document well I know but it's on the draft it's prioritized as the all righty we're going to vote on this um so the board will now vote on resolution 5149 need more time all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed pleas indicate by saying no no are there any abstentions uh 5149 is approved by a vote of 7 to zero with student represent I voted NOC oh I'm sorry 6 to one uh with represented Davidson voting yes yes okay thank you okay uh superintendent Smith would you like to introduce the smarter balance assessment results I would and actually I would like to call up Joe sugs who is our re research evaluation and assessment director and Mary Anderson who's our district test coordinator and they're going to provide you with our final results from the smarter balance assessment that students took last spring and also tell you about planning for the coming year um and there we'll also talk about the evaluation that we completed of this year's testing and recommendations that are um are being made in the go forward so Joe and Mary good evening actually let me just say one more thing I'm going to ask that you guys let them get through their entire presentation before we do questions just because they will probably address a number of things that will be questions as you're going through so Joe good evening thank you um for allowing us a few minutes this evening um we would like to review with you how Portland Public Schools students performed this first year of the smarter balanced assessment I'm going to review some expected and actual student
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achievement as measured by the assessment as well as some um data on student participation on the tests I'll recap a couple of recent policy decisions uh related to smarter balance that affect our students and then I'll turn the mic over to Mary to share lessons learned from this year of testing and some of our planned and potential Communications around student performance and expectations for this school year the smarter balanced assessment measures student learning in the areas of English language arts often referred to as Ela and Mathematics students receive a scale score on the assessment the Consortium the smarter balance Consortium has defined cut scores along the achievement scale that divide student performance into four levels for the 20145 year OD has not defined names for these levels other than level one level two level three and level four with level four being the highest students performing at level three or level four are considered to be on track for College and Career Readiness within the English language arts subject students results are reported in the areas of Reading Writing listening and research and within the math test student results are reported in the areas of Concepts and procedures problem solving and modeling and data analysis and communicating reasoning these areas within each subject are referred to as claims just to get throw a little go out there um some key points to keep in mind as we review student student achievement this evening first of all this is a baseline year or a starting point for the new tests measuring learning on the common core standards because it is a different test measuring new learning targets it is not possible to compare student performance on this test to performance on other tests such as the Oaks reading and math assessments and then smarter balance test results are only one indicator among men of student learning and achievement and that should be kept in mind when reviewing any Summit of test results the smarter balance consortion predicted levels of student achievement based on field test results and other factors this chart shows predicted and actual results on the English language arts test data shown are the percent of students in the level three and level four categories combined uh this first set of bars is the predict projected achievement by this marter balance Consortium as we saw in the data released publicly a couple of weeks ago in the state Statewide performance exceeded the predicted results Portland Students in turn exceeded both the predicted and actual State results despite this better than expected performance of our students the results from the the first year of of this assessment highlight more than ever existing achievement gaps and show that all students still have plenty of room to grow this slide demonstrates for English language arts the persistent racial achievement gap for example 42% of white students achieved at level four while only 6% of black students achieved a level four here is the chart showing the predicted and then State and PPS actual results on the mathematics assessment the trend is similar although the level of performance is a little bit lower for level three and level four and again a chart showing the highlighting the achievement the racial achievement gap on the math test with regard excuse me with regard to student participation on the tests the federal and state expectation is that at least 94 and a half% of students overall and for each accountability Group which includes students by race and ethnicity English language Learners special education and economically disadvantaged students so 94 and a half% % of these groups must participate in the tests Portland Public Schools fell short of the 94 and a half participation Target in most student groups and the actual rates are shown here the lighter bar on the left is the English language arts and the darker bar is the math assessment participation rates the US Department of Education has contacted States who missed participation Targets this last year and asked State superintendent to report on how they will address the lower participation rates at the state and local District level in turn the Oregon Department of Education has asked Portland Public Schools and other Oregon districts with lower participation how they will address this concern for the coming year or for the current school year high school participation was noticeably lower than elementary and middle grade participation there are a couple of factors that contribute to this first of all students who who met their essential skills graduation requirements on the Oaks test in their
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in their ninth or 10th grade years were allowed to bank those scores uh for essential skills also students who met those requirements through other means such as the PSAT had less motivation to participate in the smaller smarter balanced assessments as with other grade levels we also had a significant number of parents who elected to exempt their students from testing this past year and in addition high school students were more likely to refuse to test than students St in lower grades it is important to keep in mind these lower participation rates as we look at student achievement because the student achievement either at the district and school level for some schools will not or may not be representative of all students in those locations who may have tested uh but but who chose to opt out um now we'll take a look at uh PPS student performance in a little bit more detail um and before we dive into a couple of the graphs there are a couple of things to keep in mind regarding what is represented in the charts that we've put together uh while the state of Oregon is including student performance on the extended assessment in the results that they've released publicly um and the extended assessment is an alternate assessment for students with the most severe um cognitive disabilities we have included these results from P we have excluded extended assessment results from the PPS data in order to present a baseline view of the smarter balanced results only in addition students who were home or private schooled but took the test foreign exchange students students in their first year of us School enrollment and students in a general education setting for less than 40% of the time are excluded in the results that you'll be seeing here these considerations are to maintain consistency with State reporting as much as possible and consistency in our reporting from year to year on the next couple of slides you will see some graphs showing testing rates these are there there's a little pie chart in these graphs that shows testing rates these are not calculated exactly the same as the state participation rates and although the numbers are similar they will not be identical to other data that you may have seen um due to differences in calculation methods the not tested groups included in the charts here include students who tested but answered too few items to generate a score students whose tests were invalidated for any reason and and students whose parents Exempted them from testing this first slide shows English language arts performance and using this slide I'll do a quick orientation to the report at the top of the report the subject area in this case English language arts um or math but this is the ELA report is identified as well as whether this is a report focusing on overall student achievement or on the claim level data this particular report is for overall achievement the large colored bars in the center show achievement by performance level for the district and to the left of the color bars are tabular results representing the same numbers also shown is the number of students participating in the test just to the right of the bars and to the right of that set of data is the small pie chart that shows the percent of students who tested in this case of the district the remainder of the chart displays bar charts of student performance for various student groups including by grade level gender race and ethnicity um and then by uh English language Learners economically disadvantaged special education and talented gifted identified students overall 63% of students in Portland Public Schools achieved at a level three or level four on the ELA test of students who participated in the test this slide shows the district perform performance on the mathematics test overall 52% of students achieved a level three or four on this test also included in your packet but not part of the slide presentation tonight is the list of schools with each school's overall uh test results and those are grouped by K5 K8 middle school high school and then by our multiple Pathways configurations um to allow for some comparison now I'm going to shift gears and talk about a couple of important policies updates the first one is that on September 17th the Oregon State Board of Education uh voted to adopt smarter balanced cut scores that can be used to demonstrate proficiency on the essential skills graduation requirements of Reading Writing and Mathematics um for context by state law students cannot be held accountable to a higher graduation standard uh unless they're notified by Spring of their eighth grade year and so in order to comply with that requirement the organ Department Department of Education had to do some statistical number crunching
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to identify Smarter Balance cut scores that are equivalent to the 236 for example on the Oaks assessment that students have used in the past and those were the scores that were proposed and adopted by the state board the math cut score is 2543 on the overall math scale which is equal to the cut score for level two achievement the reading cut score is a 2515 on the reading claim of the ELA test which falls in the lower end of level two and then the writing score is 2583 on the writing claim of the English language arts test which is equal to the cut score cut score for level three achievement we have communicated these cut scores to central office and building administrators through an administrator's corre connection notice as well as directly to high school administrators we will also be communicating these cut scores to students and parents when we send home their test results um toward the end of this week and next week and Mary will comment a little bit more on that report in a moment the second policy update is House Bill 2655 also known as the student assessment Bill of Rights this passed earlier this year this bill requires the Department of Education to develop Communications for families the districts will share regarding State testing this ALS this bill also directs OD to develop a Statewide form for parents to excuse their students from testing if they they choose to do so this bill does not go into effect until January of 2016 until that time current laws regarding testing exemptions are still in effect OD has determined that the intent of this bill with regard to testing exemptions applies only to the smarter balanced assessments current rules around testing exemptions for other state requirement testing requirements such as Oak science and Alpa will remain in effect after January 1st OD plans to release forms Communications and further information about this on November 9th and that concludes my portion of this I'll turn the mic over to Mary and she can talk about her a couple other pieces so I'm going to speak to the lessons learned from the first year of administration the full evaluation was included in your packet and there was a summary that was provided uh in addition to the full summary that was actually geared towards School leaders before I go into some of our findings I do want to give you a little background uh for you but also everyone listening as far as what this evaluation uh included the systems planning performance conducted this EV evaluation based upon direct interviews from principles and uh surveys to test administrators those test administrators include teachers across our district and also the test coordinators at the school level there was a survey given to them with different questions and that those test coordinators include teachers uh Vice principls uh assistant principles and principles in buildings and so we felt as so there was one voice that was definitely missing uh after speaking to those we needed to talk to some of the kids we did get the opportunity to interview almost 100 students that were in attendance of the sun program over the summer to ask them about what their experience was during testing the purpose of this evaluation was to focus in on the operational end of of State assessment Administration in this first year there were some uh structural changes to this new test and that were um were anticip ated to cause some uh major complications and so I'll go into the findings as a highlight of the findings there were some uh actual areas of of uh good news from our test coordinators and and principles particularly with with the uh they did comment on increased Operational Support that uh uh research evaluation offered to our school buildings that was uh generally uh very positive scheduling and coordinating the variety of sections of the new test since there's multiple parts to each of the test uh posed a lot of challenges and a variety of challenges across buildings there was different types of information uh getting out at different times and so definitely have areas to grow as far as communication is concerned with all of our buildings and all the people AC in our buildings and uh I'm actually in a to last b u test coordinators particularly commented that the political climate surrounding the new tests uh made it extraordinarily difficult for them to conduct their operational uh duties as test coordinators in the school buildings but I have to share with you the thing that really impacted me the most uh that was actually hearing from the students and this the student experience from what the these kids said now most of them uh the vast majority were in grades three four and five because they were in attendance uh Sun program and that's who had to access to you but the things that they commented on um for the most part were things that we do have control over in our
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buildings and the reason why I wanted to share this with you is that there was there were large challenges in administrating in the administration of these tests last year but that we do have some ability to improve the experience of our students during the testing and as District test coordinator that's my primary focus this year in providing support to our test coordinators in our buildings and building schedules that can help positively impact the environment in the elements of this test that we can control for a Communications this year as Joe did mention earlier um one of the pieces that's coming out very shortly are the individual student reports this is actually an annual uh uh expectation for us to disr these to home to to families each year those will be uh mailed to homes a week of October 12th the reports this year have been redesigned uh primarily to incorporate the new tests and the way that those are uh shown by the OD designed reports uh OD does create individual student reports for schools and districts to use uh unfortunately to to our size uh the way that we get those reports makes it extraordinarily difficult to mail them home and so we uh create our own so we can uh mail it more efficiently and so we did redesign to reflect some of the changes uh that OD had in their design and also we decided to include all state tests in the reports this year you have two samples in your packet but I did want to call out a couple pieces to the new individual student reports the cover page provides a brief summary of every state assessment included in this report and um this page uh for those of our families who uh prefer Communications in one of our other five supported languages also have this page uh translated that will be mailed along with the rest of it here's a sample of what the English language arts scores look like in the new presentation uh there's a slider View and we see the overall score at the top the overall performance level is the Shaded level at across the top and then the claim levels uh scores are shown below you'll also notice there's some text at the bottom there and that is the OD provided descriptors of the overall performance level for that particular test one other thing I'd like to add that you actually don't see in your samples but for those students that are currently 12th graders who took the test last year as an 11th grader if their score did or did not meet essential skills it is also displayed on this report directly so there's no guessing game they don't have to check something else to see if their score made the cut then there's also a a sample of mathematics it's a similar design with the overall score above and the claim levels below another piece that I'd like to uh share with you there are multiple examples in your uh packet but I want to explain why we have it there as Joe mentioned earlier federal department of education has contacted State offices of Education regarding student participation in annual tests State assessments and in turn OD has contacted superintendents of districts and schools across organ that did not meet participation requirements Deputy superintendent nor has requested that we provide what PPS has done and will do to address student participation as well as referred us to the OD smarter balanced Communications toolkit these resources are intended by OD to support school and districtwide communication plans and you were provided a few samples in your packet um this toolkit currently includes uh sample letters and for building leaders to use to address families there are a variety of PowerPoint presentations geared towards staff and for families uh there are also several messaging guides in the form of talking points frequently asked questions and even scripts for rooc calls or recorded messages uh to go out to families and many handouts with similar information about the tests want to thank you for your time tonight and we look forward to discussion as to how much or if any of these materials we may use in during this year's Communications thank you thank you you thank you uh board members questions or comments I had um I'm sorry I had a question Mary about the administr Lessons Learned um well two questions on that slide one was information about and understanding of the test widely varied by role and then the last one political climate was a considerable Challenge and impacted operational administrative
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Administration efforts can you say more about what what those points mean so what we found was uh some it was asymmetric information depending on role and so depending upon who was answering some rather similar questions whether there would be building principles uh school test coordinators regardless of their role and teachers who were test administrators uh they were definitely getting different information and so uh so that's what we found as far as um how that all you know that that was something that we didn't anticipate finding so on that point and do you think the answers were different because people had different opinions or the information that was distributed wasn't you know uniformly understood I I think that both had a role to play to be honest absolutely per people's personal opinions uh about the test came through and the survey responses and interview questions absolutely but uh the Imp the purpose of the evaluation was to evaluate the administration itself to determine what would we do uh similar or different this coming year uh and and we did find that there was a difference in understanding of things uh that that shouldn't have been there so I think that uh one of the things well I think I know one of the the things this year would be working on building communication within school buildings uh so that that test coordinator isn't the only person uh that's the font of knowledge but to build more of a team approach uh for administering in the school buildings great and then on that point the political climate what did what challenges did those pose on the operational side well then I i' I'd actually call you to the first few pages There's a summary of each of the kind of different groups of stakeholders and there is um sorry I'm just going page let me give you the correct number the summary of the report the summary for test coordin ators I think is the most indicative of this finding and and really um illustrates uh what I'm saying far better than I could uh one test coordinator so it's on I'm on page six of the evaluation um and it's it's some uh so can you just show I'm sorry I'm not tracking are you you're on is it this document right no yeah but I'm inside of the document I'm I just didn't want to uh say this from memory yeah no the quotes pulled here were indicative of of many quotes uh from the stakeholder group and I'd like to call your attention of the final bullet point under the test coordinator section on the middle of page six um this is quotes from test coordinators and school buildings it sometimes felt like we were the bad guys because we were sharing info that was not readily accepted or appreciated teachers and parents who are philosophically or politically opposed to testing made the whole season pretty unbearable now this is from the test coordinators that were trying to do an operational job create testing schedules inform people when they were going to be testing where they were going to be testing and uh you know it was it was rather operational and so the so these people that were trying to perform their duties encountered um a lot of challenges and trying to share information about when they were testing who was testing uh in what room what days and uh gathering information back from teachers uh about making decisions around operational choices and um they encountered a lot of uh difficulties because they also had to address the political beliefs and whatnot so they were basically The Messengers that got the brunt of the dissatisfaction so how would you address that and I mean and have you thought about what ways you would address that this coming year I hope to be able to try to pull apart the operational duties that many of these people who are test coordinators are teachers are trying to do uh away from the political positioning M and messaging uh so that they're able to do this job that they're doing outside of the regular duty hours for the most part uh so that they're able to to take care of that piece of it to make good decisions for their students and their buildings to make sure that they're they're really optimizing the testing environment for those kids that are testing and um and allow other people in the building to to to work with communicating with their community and with teachers well I I was just going to respond to your response um so I just wanted to say thanks I got the impression from looking at this that because it was the first year and because it it's a pretty politicized event it was pretty difficult and I um I appreciate that um you did this surveying that gives sort of a for my perspective a perspective of the people on the ground the people that were directly affected you know what their feedback is and it and um I appreciate that you're trying to incorporate that into the next iteration so thank you thank you I think we'll go uh Julie do you have I
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was just curious to if we have participation rates disaggregated by subgroups that would be helpful and then I've also um asked Amanda I think to to help us really understand the patterns here that we're seeing that reinforce our you know um long-standing uh achievement disparities that to have the data really disaggregated by subgroups at the school level so that would really help us looking at as a board do we have instructional gaps to fill in so that we can really start impacting the achievement rate based on assessments like this that kind of give us a broad brush stroke of achievement patterns across groups so that would be helpful to me then when we if we could drill down a little further into the data this report that we reviewed a few minutes ago is also available for each School in the district and they're posted on our web page that we put the There's the link is on the bottom of this slide um and then right and I think I want a little more specifics that I had asked for to include things like stud uh English Learners uh proficiency English proficiency levels that'll help us really understand um more specifically as to the types of instructional needs that we have sure So and i' I've sent that list out so that can be shared yes great thank you I would add to what Julie said not just instructional needs but also instructional bright spots thoughts like for us to be able to identify within our own District who is doing really well with particular groups of students so that we can make sure that we share those practices um I did have a clarification I wanted to ask for though which was um so with the large number of high school juniors who didn't do Smarter Balance because they had the other two options to meet their essential skills um that doesn't um there's no waiver or anything from the our overall State participation levels for them though so they still that still counts as part of a decreased participation on that okay um I just wanted to say thank you for your evaluation that was extremely thorough um and clearly Lessons Learned um so great job on that appreciate it in this climate in particular Z right yeah Steve thank you Mary for that uh for this evaluation this is what I tried to get us to say we were going to do when we weren't did we uh the one group of people that I didn't hear you say that we talked to was and maybe I just misunderstood was regular classroom teachers did you interview regular classroom teachers or because we did the coordinators and you did principles did kids and you did there was another one so the third group were test administrators and the way for ad the way for me to reach that group of people was to email all people with all all teachers and there's other people other than teachers who had a a current Oaks portal account to administer the tests which also included teachers that didn't administer these tests but may have administered like the the elpa tests and so that email went out to um 1,650 people so did any of those people come back and say gez you put some pressure on kids that we shouldn't be putting pressure on yeah and and I'd be more than happy to share even more quotes than were included here but those were netive quotes were included and that was all Anonymous you could contact you could come back anonymously completely Anonymous okay good is do you have the do you could I see someplace the results the data from that Beyond what's provided here yeah sure we can make that be would be really helpful for me uh maybe uh it's not a secret to anybody probably in this room that I'm pretty opposed to the way that the testing works and I'd like to ask has anybody I I have a couple questions and I got a couple comments has anybody uh and I don't want to pick on anybody in our school district because our school district's doing what we're told to do and a lot of Administrators in our school district have said no I don't agree with this stuff either Steve and but uh I just don't want to come out and say it publicly really uh which is hard I've talked superintendent and all sort you know people who just say no this is pretty much a waste of our time and money and energy and so forth but I don't want to say it but I'll say it because I can't lose my job unless they recall me and that's tough to recall somebody in the scene uh but has have you ever seen this test Mr sugs have you ever seen the questions on
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the test I have seen the practice test in the practice test but not the actual test has anybody in our school district ever seen the actual test questions that we're actually doing for all this information has anybody ever seen that test administrators who are proctoring the test have exposure to the items but they are not supposed to be looking like our superintendent never seen this test right the questions on it sample questions sample questions but not the actual questions and the sample questions were pretty well panned across about whoever you talk to there was all sorts of panning of the sample questions and people were making fun of them and on and on and on and on so we have no idea the quality of this test so that would be one thing kti have you seen it no so we have no idea the and so uh so if if no one's seen the test we don't really have an idea of the quality or what it's testing on they can it says it's testing on reading but when it says it's testing on reading we're not sure it's actually testing on reading because we've never seen the test and this is not the big point my big point is this we've never seen the test we have no idea what it's testing on when it says it tests on reading but we get a score back like 2 467 and that score in Reading tells us I can't figure out anything I had a question I talked for about 45 minutes to Derek Brown who is the really the OD testing guy 45 minutes I said look we're spending millions and millions of dollars in the state of Oregon we're spending in in our school district a great deal of money on this testing we're we're also uh spending huge amounts of time and energy on this testing and we're also shutting down computer labs and shutting down our libraries and I said so what are we getting for that money and time and energy that we're spending what is it we're getting can you tell me one thing that a child that we get that can help us with one child specifically to help a child what are they weaken in reading or strong in in reading or anything same with mathematics do they not do do they know fractions or not no fractions same with uh writing can they are they doing paragraphing are they how are there conventions conventions is a big deal in the common Corp by the way we don't teach it but it's a big deal in the common Corp so the question is did I ask Derek Brown can you tell me one thing we're getting for this money and time and energy and Derek Brown's answer which he would not admit to he couldn't tell me anything except he finally said this he finally said well if you have an eighth grade student you can tell if he's College and Career ready that was his answer and I'm going you're kidding right this is a joke right and he was he didn't take it very well I don't think I can't speak for him but it didn't seem like he took it very well but we don't have any eighth grade kids hardly at all or College and Career ready that I know of for instance if an eighth grader is going to want to be an airplane pilot is he if he gets a higher score on uh on this is he doing better as an airplane pilot moving that direction or suppose he wants to be a plumber suppose he wants to be a teacher she wants to be a chef are they moving it doesn't tell us anything at all about career nothing zero z z zero can it tell us something about are they College ready generally it can tell us this tells us two things and we all but we already know these two things it tells us that kids who are in lower economic neighborhoods generally not always and certainly not individually but generally they score generally lower on achievement tests than kids who are in higher economic neighborhoods generally that's the case all the way across the country there are exceptions you can find here and here but generally that's the case so it tells us that except we already know that and the second thing it tells us is is this kid a pretty good student or not so if you're up in the top 30% level four you're probably a pretty good student if you're in level one you're probably not it doesn't tell us why you're a good student or not a good student or what you need work on or anything at all it just says well you're a pretty good student or not or uh or not a good student and so but we already know that any teacher who's taught a kid for a month can tell you what kind of student the kid is probably 100% of our students so I can't find anything anything not one thing that we actually get that will help if directly one student directly one teacher or directly one parent and I would hope that our administ ation and our school
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board would tell the state look you want to give us a test fine we'll take a test we'll do your test but give us a test that allows us to use it for something because this is nothing there's not a thing we can use it but look at what we've done I mean look at look question about done look what we've done here it's unbelievable how much time energy and stuff we're putting into this and getting we're not getting anything out of it that I can see and so I'm saying let's let's tell him let's call Derek Brown yourself and spend 45 minutes and tell him you don't know what you're talking about thank you I'd like to clarify a couple of things and one is that um the indicators say who's on track in grades uh prior to grade 11 and grade 11 I think it changes to who is who is College and Career ready the rest is the predictors for on track please tell you're right yeah which I just said um and um I want to respond to the purpose of these tests versus the other kinds so this is a a summative type of test versus the formative tests that we use every day in our schools that are built to guide practice so that is has never been the purpose of this type of test as a school board member and as an educator I think there is value um I'm I'm not going to speak to the actual test itself the smarter balance test but in the types of um summative tests like this that help us with the things that I was asking for more data on to help us really down drill down to look at programs and identify as you said earlier well let's find the bright spots that I know we have in our district that are showing excellent student performance even for our historically um underachieving subgroups so it's that kind of evaluation that will help guide us as leadership to determine what needs replication where we might fill in some gaps and then at the by the same token we are continually doing formative assessment in all of our schools that do help guide that daily instruction it can't be one or the other and they work in tandem but for the purpose of this helps us both you know systemwide and then down to the individual student just just before anybody else want to say anything just that I would say this um to to Julie's Point uh there's a conversation with superintendent and organ Department of Education on amount of time spent on a summative um a summative test and how do we devote the maximum amount of our resources to formative assessments and minimum amount necessary to get the summative um data that lets us evaluate the whole system so it's an active conversation between superintendant and OD at this moment can I just reinforce that I I totally um validate that piece is that I mean and we are all in agreement we shouldn't be spending more time testing than instructing and allowing kids for all of the kinds of elective options that they need and recess as well so it's not one or the other well I think it kind of is not one of the other but I'm formative testing I'm a 40-year school teacher kind of have a pretty good sense of the difference between the two and the the the uh this test does not even test the Common Core I mean I didn't even bring the Common Core into my argument it doesn't test the Common Core because the common core is so immense that you can't test it psychometricians that I've talked to I'll bet you Mr Suggs I might put you on the spot but I'll bet you if you sit down and talk to him and he'll tell you no there's no way you're testing the Common Core it's way way way way too broad it's like testing your knowledge of world history in a short test and you just and so we're not even testing whether our kids understand what we're teaching because you just it doesn't work it doesn't this test does not do that and it's it's just that it it's a waste of our time and our energy if we weren't shutting down our Labs if we were just giving this test to kids I wouldn't complain why would I care we give them the test a couple days okay but that we're shutting down our Labs we're shutting down our libraries we're to spending huge huge huge amounts of time and we're spending millions and millions millions of dollars of money to do this test and we're getting not really anything out of it you can say well we know that at this school maybe you have some kids who aren't very good students they already know that every teacher out there knows that every teacher can tell you all that information about students so that's how I feel about it and I just think it's crazy to defend it uh from me I'm not going to defend it okay uh any other comments or qu J yeah I I just want to thank you because I know that you're in a really
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difficult political climate and mik it goes back to something you said earlier about we don't I don't want to shoot the messenger so thank you for sharing with us um something that is not politically popular and we all issues with it but you've done a good job in I think trying to bring out multiple perspectives on it and and so that we learn get have those Lessons Learned thank app very appreciate thank you guys thank you um all right so second reading of the tax exempt Bond post issuance compliance uh first reading was held on the amended tax exempt Bond post issuance compliant policy on September 1 Steve excuse me after 21 days of being open for public comment the board is ready to vote on the proposed amendments uh board will now consider resolution 5150 uh revision of the tax exempt Bond post issuance compliance and continue and disclosure policy do I have a motion so moved second uh director constan moves and director Anthony second the motion to adopt resolution 5150 uh Miss poell is there any public comment no there isn't is there any board discussion on this issue seeing none the board will now vote on resolution 515 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed indicate by saying no there any abstentions uh resolution 5150 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative Davidson voting yes voting yes thank you um before we move to our business agenda Carol uh can you update us uh about the report we received our factus regarding the FTE um yes and actually there are copies in the on the back shelf as you came into the room um but we provided the board with an update on FTE that were allocated after the um last enrollment count on September 17th um both for kindergarten support specifically and then across grades 1 through 12 uh and it's broken out school by school so you can see exactly where the FTE went um the one thing that we are still looking at are some numbers with some special ed classrooms that we're still getting some feedback on but um otherwise enrollment FTE have been allocated so yes thank you uh I really want to thank District administration for this superintendent also assistant superintendent Lopez uh I know that in years past uh sometimes it has been mid to late OCT October or even early November before we've been able to have teachers in in the classrooms and uh I think this year it was all allocated before the end of the third week in September which makes a tremendous difference in the school year for an awful lot of children and that's absolutely wonderful um and I I was pushing on that very hard and and thank you very much for delivering that Main means a great deal uh and I um as one qualifier um uh like Mr lafar said uh earlier this evening uh still concerns around those life skills classes and that's those are the ones that we're still looking at uh Madison Franklin and Wilson I've heard about explicitly and that would be very important thank you and I think Robert Gray to add to that um and I think that part of the issue that I was hearing about special ed life skills in particular was something around reporting dates and maybe we need to um look again at the date that they needed to report numbers because for some reason with the transfers they felt that they weren't um they hadn't gotten enough time to get a full handle on the numbers so thank you thank you okay and and echo echo the thanks on the great work appreciate that yeah I I wna I wanted to say thanks to we got a fair amount I would say the most emails that I got so far were around the concerns about having enough teachers and um we started early this year so people were stressed out but I really appreciated Carol how the staff responded how quickly and how effectively which is in my mind measured by not getting any more of those emails and I'm sure the parents are good thing I'm sure the parents are appre too so thank you so and I'm going to say thank you to Antonio Lopez assistant superintendent and the senior directors of each cluster because they work
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directly with the principles on where we're experiencing the um either different enrollment than what was anticipated or bubbles in a in a grade level that require different attention so thank you for being Swift on this so great thanks okay the board will now consider the remainder of the business agenda having already voted on resolutions 5149 and 515 uh Miss poell there any changes to the business agenda no okay uh do I have a motion and a second to adopt the business agenda I'll second okay um director nolles moves and director conam seconds uh the adoption of the business agenda as pal are there any public comments yes we have one Kim sortal good evening my name is Kim sordell s o r d y l and I was watching uh the board meeting from home earlier and I think I'm going to piggyback on a theme that you spoke about which is is um parents who are being rushed through on decision making and PPS staff favoring public relations over transparency and accountability and positive outcomes tonight the board is about to approve a lot of spending on public contracts I was able to attend a PPS purchasing and Contracting meeting last week uh where the staff explained purchasing and Contracting and the rules and the two things that I took away from it is number one it doesn't appear that contractors are required to deliver on their promises once a contract is signed and the checks are cut that appears to be the end of it we owe it to our students to follow up and ensure that those promises are kept and that we're getting positive measurable outcomes for our students it also appears to be extremely difficult to get through the RFP process which screens out small business owners who might may have the best specialty to carry out those contracts yet there's almost no oversight of what we call Direct negotiation contracts where a PPS department head is able to propose a contract at any cost and it's approved without question and it reminds me of the uh the rubber stamping that we've talked about in the past the ray ly contract which is on the agenda tonight is being rushed through without questions being answered there are two major problems with it number one he doesn't appear to fit the definition of independent contractor Under Oregon law and number two it's an extremely expensive contract given the service and the subjective results on the first issue I asked PPS to have an employment attorney review this contract that was rejected instead a PPS administrator assured me that he that we are in legal compliance I'd like to see the missing facts applied to the law it's not enough to say we're in compliance it's not enough to say he told me ABC we need documentation and proof of legal compliance and members of the parent Coalition you'll remember being told PPS was in legal compliance with instruction hours repeatedly it's not enough we don't trust PPS administrators anymore under the second concern there are many unanswered questions how can a contractor hire four employees when he does doesn't even have an EIN number why are there $42,500 in supplies and indirect costs when the service appears to be weekly meetings with students and photos why is the business address of this contractor his home address and home email address why isn't the contractor paying PPS to use PPS property I know our Cub Scouts groups have to pay for PPS property he's not paying there are no repercussions if the contractor doesn't meet his goals why is PPS paying for July through September when the contract has not even been approved yet PPS is currently under investigation by the Oregon tax department I've been asked by two other agencies to file formal complaints I could also file a complaint with the IRS I prefer that we use this opportunity to get things right with the public and with legal compliance thank you thank you uh thanks Kim so I just wanted to say a
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few things the um the board did pull this contract at the last meeting and there has been a fair amount of um discussion about some of the issues that you've raised um some of them I think have been resolved but I I get the message that um you want more documentation I think a couple of things are happening um one is that the expectations and I've talked to you about this and people and P Administration the expectations for what our contracts look like are changing and I've um done a fair amount of discussion in the community specifically about the ly IM Academy contract and I think the um services that are being provided are good services is and we can document that there's a good return on the investment that said I I've heard you ask um for a few things and I think that that's information um that we ought to be able to provide so I just wanted to reiterate what I heard and you know let's get these questions answered and um so there's an issue about um Le compliance for um Mr ly being an independent contractor I have asked this question I've been assured that we're meeting those standards but what you want to see is you want to see um an itemization of how that's being met not just an assurance and I think that's something we can do um I have looked at the contract and I agree that Mr liry is employing I think four other people and as he has employees um implementing this work there may be specifications for for the EIN number and we need to verify that and I think that's also something we can do um you had a question about um it's a $200 or so thousand contract and and um let's see if I do my math right 20% of it is um for supplies and there is no itemization in the current contract for supplies and I think that ought to since Mr L's done this work before I think we ought to be able to provide that um there's a question about why he isn't paying for um he um why isn't he being being charged for U performing his work on PPS property and um you know and you use the analogy of the Boy Scouts and so we should be able to answer that and then finally um there's been this issue or the question of the contract provides you know the contract will start the upon signing which would be I don't know tomorrow um but it provides for renumeration of work performed in July and August and I've talked to some of the staff about that that apparently um and if I'm misspeaking I'm sure I'll be corrected apparently there is a challenge in The Way We Do Contracting in The District in terms of that end of the fiscal year in June and then the start of work a lot of work happens in the summer in programs like this and how do we account for those payments I haven't got an answer that to that question yet and I think we need to provide one um I think that's an example of um a perennial issue that I've heard um The District staff acknowledge and I think we have we have to find a solution for it so I what I wanted to say is I I hear those are the questions I hear I think they're important questions I don't um I also want to acknowledge though that there have been many other questions about this kind of Contracting that have been asked some of them many of them has been resolved and there are still more issues and so I just want to express that I feel like there's a commitment certainly there's a commitment um from the board and I feel from you know PPS staff to be clear about how this process works particularly for um no bid contracts and so we're going to continue to work on it and I appreciate your input so thanks so when will I expect follow goad question well I was going to ask chair kler if you um we could invite our Chief Financial Officer Yousef Awad to come forward and just talk generally not not specifically regarding any contract but
02h 15m 00s
generally about some improvements and changes that you are putting in place in our Contracting procedures good evening um some of the changes we have made for example contracts used to come to the board before we review them internally um and that's in term of practicality in ter to get the work to be a little bit more Nimble and get the work done um one of the changes we made um we will not bring the contracts to the board before we review them uh in our procurement office we are including the pro the contracts in the packages for the board and we'll continue to work on in term of the the term criteria and compliance whether it's the IRS code or the um Oregon Department um uh of Labor I believe we have checked by the way all the contracts um on all terms and conditions I did not include that in the package for you but we have gone through um itemized list if you to call it and we have done all that review um in term of um I think one of the questions is we need to have uh lawyers review the work um I mean that's a choice but if we to do something like that that's going to require time it's going to take time coordinating that effort getting them to lawyers um in addition to that cost and it can be a heavy cost because I mean imagine every specialized contract we have we have about a, five contracts that we had last year and I'm not just talking employment contracts I'm talking all our contracts because we can't just do it for one contract and the other uh so we're looking at a significant amount of money in spending um to do that kind of review that's not practical I haven't seen it done anywhere else if that's something we need to do we just need to know that there is a cost associated with it yeah and uh you you came to the business and operations committee and um I believe are are formulating other thoughts on how to continually improve our correct and we have it scheduled I believe uh for the next business uh and operation committee we have we will bring forward the the uh manual for procurement that govern the policy the procedures that we follow and we will have opportunity to discuss it further there and we can show more Improvement there yeah appreciate appreciate that Julie oh no it was just a very small piece earlier that I was trying to clarify I'm confused about the issue of um do do our PP PE you know the Personnel that that we have um used as contractors do we generally ask them to pay for space Civic it's different than Civic use of buildings yeah so because that was discussed earlier so um it depends on the contract regarding for example the ly contract and why we didn't ask him to pay for the space he was using so I'm confused Julie I can answer okay that and maybe just to help you youf because I did talk to um I because the space one example is the space is used in Franklin and so the reason the um the contractor meets with the the students the clients so to speak in school and so that's the most convenient space to me with the student so um so I think you know that makes sense and it's again I do think there obviously it's a distinction with the Civic use of space so I think that's the answer which I think shouldn't be confused which does happen um in Contracting situations shouldn't be confused with um a contractor um operating you know long term out of a facility and using a computer and electricity so um I think it's a practical um issue so anyway that's how I understand it but I I think you know we can answer those questions but I think that's a very um you know understandable and a good response um so that's what I learned because I asked about that I just had one more question um quick question for youf you've appeared before the board um several times since I've been on the school board every time and I've seen you at functions too every time you
02h 20m 00s
appear with a single lapel pin on your left lapel but tonight you have an additional pin and I was wondering if you could tell us what that is I think you probably can explain it more than I do okay well then we'll have to talk about it in private I'm disappointed that you can't explain what that is I believe it's the only superhero um Hispanic correct that's what it is very good thank you okay Steve comments more than questions a couple comments one we've got about a half a million dollars in two contracts one going to the education Northwest or really great PE people evidently when going to playworks or also really great people but we have a half a million dollars going out and my guess is we could live with I'm not I'm planning to vote for them because I certain wouldn't dropped us in the middle and then but we could probably live without what they have here the playworks we have people in our own District who could put that together for practically nothing and we also the other one is teams to help our principles figure out how to get achievement better assessment better probably if we gave them the time they could do that themselves without the money and so I just think that as we go to the next budget that it'd be great if we would look for these things and see if we could do them in alternative ways that were much less expensive than these are and then then I had a question to uh Mr kler uh The Architects for the grant so we we've got let's say we pay him $8 million now I think I asked this question before and should remember but with my rotten memory I don't we pay him $8 million does it come out of this the but Bond or does it come out of the next Bond was it that was in this bond is part of the current Bond current okay thank you but suppose the other Bond doesn't go so Grant so so we've wasted $8 million no Grant is Grant is part of this fond Grant was approved in I'm Sor I got yeah okay yes so okay that's a I'm sorry I apologize entirely I was thinking that I was thinking wrong thank you is this time for a comment sure um I just want one quick comment around um the discussions of of the contracts tonight particularly the ly contract to say that um just personally I'm really disappointed that we're focusing on a contract that helps um that's specifically to focus on our underserved and underachieving students and I think it's really hard to quantify a dollar for dooll um outcome for what we're spending on historically underserved kids um I think it's true that we can look at our policies and procedures it's just unfortunate in my eyes that it happens to be um focusing on our um really needy populations so that's that's all I have to say you know I and so I will comment on that because I think it's unfortunate that we can't um look at all our contracts in an equitable way and we're asking reasonable questions about reasonable services that are being provided and I don't think there's ever been any intent to um single out any type of contract I would say that the questions that we have well you're certainly entitled to your opinion Julie but I will tell you that the questions that I asked about the liry contract were the same questions I asked over a month before about the open Meadows contract and they still remain uned also serves underserved students and kids of college so I really what impresses me most is that you can ask these questions um months before still not get answers and then you know basically um beat up on the messenger so I don't really appreciate that so thank you all as I said I think you missed the point when I said it is important that we look at our policies and procedures and it's high time we do do that I was expressing an opinion that I'm disappointed personally that it's targeting the type of you mention open medals and the L contract which does indeed um provide services for underperforming and typically you know historically underserved kids and that was my opinion and I'm disappointed that you would put it in that context I think that's irresponsible thank you so let's go um and I you know as a I do think to uh I do think it is a policy it is a policy issue and that's where we ought to be on
02h 25m 00s
this of and that's certainly where my head is the um the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all oppos indicate saying no um any extensions the business agenda is approved by vote 7 to zero with student representative davidon voting yes yes uh the next meeting of the board will be held October 20th and this

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2015-2016, https://www.pps.net/Page/7356 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:52.304471Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2015-10-05 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Board of Education - Regular Meeting - October 5, 2015

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