2015-11-03 PPS School Board Regular Meeting
| District | Portland Public Schools |
|---|---|
| Date | 2015-11-03 |
| Time | missing |
| Venue | missing |
| Meeting Type | regular |
| Directors Present | missing |
Documents / Media
Notices/Agendas
Materials
11-03-15 Final Packet (e044643b0e675b04).pdf Meeting Materials
11-03-15 Meeting Overview (b18b566cdf478082).pdf Meeting Overview
Minutes
Transcripts
Event 1: Board of Education - Grotto, Festival of Lights Vote Excerpt - 11/03/15
00h 00m 00s
consider resolution number 5 16 2 which
is a resolution to allow PBS choir to
sing the grotto do I have a motion it's
been moved and by director rose and
seconded by director as far as a bound
to adopt the resolution 506 to masseuse
an attorney citizen comment yes we have
for our first two speakers Cheryl Colby
and Brian Harvey
mmm
welcome thank you thank you yeah please
state your name my name is Cheryl Cole e
KO lbe I am a Portland resident and
president of the Portland area chapter
of freedom from religion foundation an
organization committed to the protection
of the constitutional principle of
separation of church and state on
october twenty if i gave public comment
indicating why i believe the decision by
your legal counsel is a sound decision
tonight i would like to give you an
update and try to present the
information in a different light to
bring clarity my update is this i have
validated with FFRF national that in
fact the original complaint to national
came from portland from someone who
requested to remain anonymous clearly
this is a local issue FFRF is simply
responding to a concern expressed by a
person in portland the question before
you focuses on whether or not students
in public school course should be
allowed to sing a program of exclusively
sacred music that celebrates the true
meaning of Christmas in the religious
setting of the grotto a setting filled
with religious iconography statues
Stations of the Cross nativity scenes
etc further should these students be
essentially helping to raise funds for
the grotto by performing at an event
where admission is charged let's focus
for a moment on what you are not being
asked tonight you are not being asked to
evaluate which opinion is more popular
this is not a popularity contest you are
not being asked your personal opinion
that is might you personally be quite
happy to have your child saying or
unhappy to have them sing at the
festival of lights
you are not being asked how many years
students in PPS choirs have been singing
at the grotto if something should not be
happening it does not matter how long it
has been going on you are not being
asked to determine if some students
enjoy and may even benefit from the
chance to perform in a chapel with
exceptional acoustics good or bad
acoustics are not criteria for
evaluating compliance with the
Establishment Clause you are not being
asked to determine how many students in
these school choirs might be negatively
impacted by their choirs participation
in the festival of lights none of these
are the questions before you tonight it
is well settled that public schools may
not advance or endorse religion in order
to avoid the perception of school
endorsement of a religious message
schools must not participate in overtly
religious events such as the festival of
lights a common argument i hear is this
why don't those who are not comfortable
in the settings simply not participate i
have spoken to another number of people
recently who has children were in a
situation where they opted out of a
school event due to their beliefs and
everyone to this day recalls the
circumstance as a very negative
experience ports of summarily rejected
arguments that voluntariness excuses a
constitutional violation we cannot
require one of our students to forfeit
his or her rights and benefits as the
price of resisting conformist of school
sponsored event only if this is a
genuine student-led student-run non
curricular activity is volunteering as a
factor worth considering the question
tonight is should PBS school choirs be
allowed to sing at the festival or does
it violate the principle of separation
of church and state I encourage the PPS
board to back the decision made by your
legal counsel and that same decision
back by the ACLU of Oregon it was a
sound decision based on legal knowledge
and it protects the constitutional
principle of state
insurance thank you very much thank you
thank you thank you evers the bore of my
00h 05m 00s
name is Brian Harvey hrv ey and I am
here on behalf of the secular coalition
for Oregon it's a coalition of 16
nonprofit organizations from across the
state and while these organizations are
as far-flung as Klamath Falls and
Central Oregon nearly half of them are
headquartered within PPS and I am here
on behalf of hundreds are at least a
hundred PPS parents and their children
you know I want to echo many of the
sentiments that have already been made
and I think that PBS has done an
admirable job in making this a public
forum and a courteous one but I think
that we need to add somewhat of a human
element to this I think that it is it is
not just a question although legally it
is of whether or not PPS is violating
the United States or Oregon
constitutions in allowing choir students
to participate in the festival of lights
and that is nothing spoken to and it
will probably spoken to further but PBS
is the most religiously diverse school
district in the state and the separation
of churches date protects every PBS
family from religious coercion or
pressure and from feeling like they are
not a full-fledged member of the PPS
community and while many people have as
I've said spoken eloquently about the
unconstitutionality of the garage owes
making money off of the PPS the efforts
and talents of PBS students of the
garage acquiring all songs to be sacred
and promoting of the quote true meaning
of Christmas of the grottoes overtly
religious setting and the fact that this
event
is part of an accredited course I
believe strongly the inclusion of the
human element is also important many
many PPS students are sorry parents and
their their children are discomforted by
the idea that their children if they
wish to take choir as an elective are
being coerced to sing songs that are
exalting the Christian God and Jesus in
a Christian Chapel for an event that
uses their talents and participation to
raise money for a Christian organization
and I asked you to consider not only
whether you are violating these caught
the United States organ constitutions
and not only whether taxpayer funds
should be used to defend against a
future lawsuit but whether the inclusive
message that PBS strives for is
compromised by a decision to go against
the advice of the lawyer hired to inform
the board on such matters and instead
making a decision to alienate a minority
of your students and their families I
encourage you to follow and uphold the
advice of the district council and
discontinue the previous is choir
participation the festival of lights
thank you thank you thank you
our next two speakers Jennifer O'Leary
and mat dos Santos
welcome go ahead my name is Jennifer
O'Leary Oh ' le AR why I will keep it
brief as I know you are getting toward
the end of a long evening I do want to
start though by thanking you for the
opportunity to speak tonight I am a
grant high school graduate 1995 is when
I graduated I started a petition on
change.org when I first heard of the
decision to ban PPS choirs from singing
at the grotto as of tonight the petition
has 3550 signatures so you can see that
I am NOT alone in wanting to have the
band reversed according to news reports
you have spoken with an attorney who has
stated it is okay for PPS choirs to sing
at the grotto I ask that you listen to
that attorney and vote to reverse the
ban you're setting a precedent other
school districts are watching what you
do and following this story and your
decisions very closely so it's not
something that when II of us should be
taking lightly I ask that you let the
students continue the tradition of
singing at the grotto and use this
situation as an opportunity to start a
00h 10m 00s
dialogue about how we can work together
to ensure all are respected while
allowing current and future students
every opportunity to share their talents
thank you thank you hi thank you for
letting me be here my name is Matt dos
Santos and I'm the legal director of the
ACLU of war again
we urge PPS the board to vote against
the resolution proposed tonight this
resolution directs the superintendent to
allow PPS choirs to participate in the
Christmas Festival of Lights against the
good advice given by PPS council it's
our opinion that allowing PPS choirs to
participate in the Christmas Festival of
Lights is inappropriate and also likely
a constitutional violation both at the
state and federal level in any event
going forward may lead to unnecessary
costly and very time-consuming
litigation our federal and state
constitutions demand the separation of
church and state for good reason to
protect preserve and preserve all of our
rights to worship or not worship as we
see fit as you are considering this
issue we urge you to pay particular
attention to the impact this decision
has on those students who are in the
religious minority in particular think
about what it would mean of PPS were to
continue participation in the Christmas
Festival of Lights in the message that
it would send to those students a
message that PPS endorses and is
entangled with a Catholic institution if
the grotto allowed PPS choirs to perform
music of their choosing at a secular
event we think PPS could lawfully
participate as far as we know the grotto
has made no such offer and has made no
attempt to accommodate PPS acquires the
Christmas Festival of Lights is not a
secular event in a space is not just a
secular event in a space with good
acoustics we know this because this is a
celebration of Christmas a Christian
holiday and a Catholic shrine the event
is filled with exclusively and
explicitly Christian and
religious reading materials are
distributed the event is a major
fundraiser for the grotto a religious
institution inquires must agree to
perform sacred music it is inappropriate
and likely unconstitutional for PPS to
continue to send its choir classes to a
religious event to raise money for a
religious institution by singing
religious songs in an environment that
promotes a particular religion in
conclusion public schools themselves
should not be in the business of
promoting particular religious beliefs
or religious activities while is
permissible for public schools to teach
about religion it's not permissible to
promote particular religious beliefs
further public schools should protect
children from being coerced by others to
accept religious or anti religious
beliefs thank you thank you thank you
this who's is everybody else okay board
discussion before we take a vote
I'm not trying to persuade the other
board members what I'm trying to do is
explain my vote which I want to do I
spent a long time looking at both sides
of this issue i think i can do the
arguments from either side you want to
go be glad to argue either side i think
i can do him pretty well but when i came
down to the end of looking at all those
arguments going out to the grotto doing
talking to people researching reading
all sorts of legal things they came out
to the conclusion that really there
wasn't a really a smoking gun that says
this is legal or illegal since there
wasn't I couldn't find anything that
really came forward and said this is
spying for the children do this or this
is fun this is absolutely that they
should not I could not find something
that really said that and so the
conclusion that I came to was tonight
yank that out right away but to go ahead
and let them sing this year and then for
what we should do is to do a study of
this particular all of these church and
state issues around the schools because
we've got other ones that are hanging
00h 15m 00s
and we should look at them and come up
with a a policy that is clear to
everybody know we did a policy a long
time ago seven or eight years ago
evidently we did a statement but I think
we really needed to redo that again so
that was the position that I came to and
the reason I came to it was because we'd
have allowed it for 20 years and
sometimes when you go to legal issues
what you have is you have you can't go
either direction so you go to past
practice past practice was allowing
people the thing I'd be more than happy
if someone would like to find out and I
won't go into an hour of my back and
forth but be glad if you'd like to call
me up and find out why I made this
decision you feel free to call me up in
my home you can go to my Steve buell
comma Berlin school board member website
and it's got my phone number there your
walk
call me anytime and we'll go over but
that's the conclusion that I came to I
have not been able to get my friends on
the board to say that we should do a
study and look at this whole issue but
that's the brightest so off we go i'm
planning to vote to a for the resolution
to allow kids to sing under then because
i think if we did that i think we would
do this study thank you
oh thank you I do want to say again like
director Buell explaining my vote that
the board did get a very well reasoned
opinion from independent outside counsel
that was it thank you yes director
Knowles your right to him one of them
was that the initiation of chair curler
and I want to thank him for that it has
been a very interesting ride looking at
this issue because I've had to change my
mind now twice and I appreciate the
opportunity to learn and grow there has
been well the the opinion that we got it
seemed to me hinged on the intent of the
district and obviously our intent is not
to convert not the worst and the
conclusion was that we were it seemed
fine this is one opinion we got it was a
very compelling case and I had to think
about it for a very long time and
ultimately realized that whether that is
a compelling legal opinion or not
whether it would prevail in court or not
and regardless of how much money it
might take
the final reality is that we do have
students in Portland Public Schools who
feel coerced by having to participate in
this and I will not vote for a practice
that does that so I will be voting
against the resolution thank you thank
you for I just want to say thank you to
UM director Anthony because I was very
uh that you I appreciate your thinking
you're open mind and it was very
persuasive thank you but I also want to
talk a little bit about my own thoughts
about the grotto I can tell you that
it's beautiful a beautiful spiritual
place in the middle of our city I've
been there many times with my family
been dinner during the festival of
lights I've been there other times
during the year just for contemplation
and is a is a beautiful spiritual place
been to the festival lights many times
my mother loved it we used to go with my
children I think she loved it because
there's no mistaking what it's all about
it's a religious celebration of the
birth of Christ as a savior and as you
wind your way through the forest to the
chapel of Mary there's a light show
depicting Christian believes the
Christmas story the story of Mary Joseph
00h 20m 00s
and baby Jesus there's lights depicting
those things there's music there's void
there's a voice telling you the story as
you wind your way toward the Chapel of
Mary and it's beautiful there's no Santa
Claus no reindeer no snowmen
that kind of thing I've also been to the
grotto during the festival of lights to
hear our students sing because my son
Spencer was a royal blue and I went to
watch the Blues sing and I remember at
the time thinking I wonder if there are
families here who are not Christian or
whose students are singing here or whose
students are not singing here because
they couldn't come or they wouldn't come
so you know our city here's where it
comes down to me our city is really
homogeneous um many people don't
consider that there are many in our
community who are not Christians there
are Jewish families they're Muslims
their Native Americans Buddhists Hindus
those who celebrate Kwanzaa those who
are atheists and those are agnostic for
some it would be a violation of their
own beliefs and the culture to
participate in the festival of lights
celebrating the birth of Christ as our
Savior and then there's the issue of our
students providing the entertainment for
a Catholic fundraiser the charge have up
to nine dollars per person which for a
family with four could result in after
thirty-six dollars is steep and for many
of our families living paycheck to
paycheck and also trying to save money
for the holiday so they can provide for
their children that's a lot of money so
why should PPS take the position that
these people these families and their
children are students should have to
comply with the religious beliefs of the
majority why would we want to place the
burden of saying no on our children
perhaps stigmatizing them or alienating
them from other students because they
don't want to attend because of the
religious nature or the cost why would
we want to exclude families from being
able to have their children participate
or to participate themselves our choirs
have many opportunities to sing across
this city and in other cities and
actually around the world we all have
the opportunity to hear them at these
events and each other schools winter and
spring concerts
I've been to many I'm sure most of you
have been to many of them these are
inclusive events their celebrations of
our students and their talent where
everyone can feel welcome regardless of
their religious beliefs no one has to
make a choice about whether it's
appropriate for them or whether they can
afford to attend so as a district I
suggest that let's continue to celebrate
our very talented students as an entire
inclusive community at these events and
leave the outdated exclusionary event in
the past finally I know this event is
all right this matters really important
to others and we're considering an
action that I think is going to affect
for the choirs three to four hundred
students but at the same time it's
distracting I have to say to the board
from the important work that affects
almost 50,000 students that we work with
in Portland Public Schools I'm concerned
about our graduation rate at seventy two
percent that means we're failing twenty
eight percent of our children there are
achievement gaps across all racial
groups and close to fifty percent of our
students are living in poverty how we
provide opportunities for all these
children to be successful is where I
would like to see the board focus its
attention in the future and I hope that
our attentions for that are as vigorous
as they are for this topic
thank you
yeah I missed part of what i wanted to
say which was I think if I would say
should we do this and we had never done
it before i think i'd say probably not
it's not pretty a very good idea but
there are some mental aspects to this
that we should try to take into account
one is it is it okay for our requires
that go and ask and has some
universities do to go sing at chapel
because of the acoustics evidently
there's only two places in oregon maybe
we should don't run them all down to the
state capital that's the other place
with outstanding the acoustics as i
understand it but i would probably say
no it's not a good idea i just think
that the way that we kind of have gone
about it it was not the best way to do
it and we could take the years do the
whole thing the way that we should do it
and so that's another factor i wanted to
hit him thank you thanks so i want to
comment a little bit too and i think
00h 25m 00s
that it's really important that the
public understand that it was really as
ms patterson pointed out this totality
of circumstances of factors that caused
it so we're not saying blanket that
children can't ever sing at the grotto
for example but it was at the particular
time for the particular event you know
with payment for you know all of the
things that have been mentioned before
so it really is another case by case and
just because we've had tradition doesn't
mean that the tradition has been correct
in the past and i agree with director
knowles that I'm it really is time to
look carefully at what we are supporting
and that what we support is inclusive of
all
okay so I I would just want to be clear
that I am in supportive overturning the
resolution and in support of allowing
our students to sing at the grotto I do
want to say that i appreciate the
testimony that everyone's provided we've
gotten a lot of emails it's hard to say
at this point you know if there's a papa
greater population for against on this
issue I do think it's an important issue
because the community is interested in
it and I think to suggest that setting
policy on an issue that's important to
the community is not part of the work
that the board should be doing is is not
something I agree with I'd also say we
wouldn't be having this discussion now
if the board hadn't insisted that this
discussion happen as opposed to it being
a unilateral policy decision by the GPS
administrative staff I think one of the
things that disturbs me about this
discussion and I guess I would describe
myself generally a secular I was raised
to jew and not a Christian is the
perspective I think there's this
tendency to vilify and what I've heard
in the manner not only in the manner of
speech about the circumstances
surrounding what happens at the festival
of lights but especially in the legal
opinions whether it's what the Freedom
From Religion Foundation has to say
whether it's what the a so eat ACLU has
to say
whether it's what the district attorney
has to say or even the attorney the law
firm that we hired Miller Nash there's
there's a lot of rhetoric in the
discussion a lot of predisposition to
assume that there's some sort of
organized intent to you know overwhelm
whoever in 10 attends logrado with
christianity and specifically overwhelm
our students that might be performing
there so I do say that's all about
perspective I've been to the grotto for
the festival of lights I have never or I
didn't at least in my experience see
anything that suggested that all people
of all faiths are welcome are they
celebrating the Christmas holiday
absolutely but I don't think it's an
unwelcoming event I think it's an
opportunity for portlanders or anyone to
celebrate in the spirit of the season
and acknowledge you know one particular
religious religions approach to that I
do want to say that the legal opinion
the last legal opinion we got did come
from somebody who specializes in
constitutional law I think it was very
well written and very compelling to
suggest that the district in this
long-standing practice has not been in
violation of state or federal law the
last thing you wanted to say about the
perspective I mean I've read a lot of
emails about this but this one email I
thought really
epitomized what I think the experience
is and I when I think of the experience
in this way I think singing at the
00h 30m 00s
grotto or singing in any house of
worship is not a bad thing so it
basically says dear school board members
I hope that you will vote to let
Portland Public Schools sing at the
grotto my son sang in the Cleveland High
School Choir for several years I never
considered it a religious event when I
attended the winter performance there
there is no priest preacher or any
promoting anyone promoting a religious
viewpoint the kids sing a variety of
songs from all over the world some
religious but mostly not last year they
did a 50 style bebop not religious and
so I think that captures what happens at
the grotto and I think that's a good
thing which is why I'm supporting the
resolution to overturn the district's
decision
so thank you and I guess I would mean I
appreciate the issue and certainly
appreciate everybody's opinion on it and
it's not to be taken lightly I did I do
agree with forget the person that
rattled off all the things that we're
not considering and really we are what
we are considering in my view is is the
constitutionality of what up letting
kids sing at the grotto or not and after
doing the research and reading both
opinions it I came to the firm
conclusion that that
the framers of our Constitution did not
have this in mind when they talked about
the separation of church and state your
having our kids sing at the sense at the
grotto does not rise to that level that
it would be hurting more kids than them
not so and I think there's a there's an
overall tolerance that that I think we
need more of in in our society so I
don't I don't view as an exclusionary I
think what we need is more inclusionary
and more multicultural multi-religious
interactions and experiences and I think
singing at the grotto is helps in that
regard so i will i'll be voting for the
rest
and so all those in favor of resolution
5162 please indicate by saying aye aye
aye aye all those opposed same clothes
now no okay the resolution fails with
boa 324 with student represent high
voting Katie represent dates in the
voting aye all right thank you everybody
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)
