2017-02-06 PPS School Board Regular Meeting, Public Hearing

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2017-02-06
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular, town-hall
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board Public Hearing on Bond Options 2/06/17

00h 00m 00s
all right I'd like to call this public hearing for februari 6 to order thank you all for being here we've set aside time this evening to hear your comments on the proposed bond and I think we have seven folks lined up this season we'd like to call the first speaker we have Christine Barton and Bobby steam welcome and you can introduce yourself and start speaking and when the light goes red is time to wrap it up okay yeah my name is Christine Barton and i am the parent of a child at meek and i just want to say thank you for giving you the opportunity to share our experience my daughter started high school at our regular neighborhood school which is a very great school they have a lot of great programs but for her the school was just so large and the classroom size were just much larger than what she was used to and she was just a little bit intimidating without being for help and she kind of felt like she was getting falling under the radar a little bit just because she wasn't getting the personalized attention that she was used to in middle school so because of that she started falling behind a bit she was getting discouraged she started skipping class which led her grades to decline and by the end of her freshman year her GPA was at one point 30 she was really struggling we went through a couple of different programs different options and one of her counselor suggested the week program so she started week for the sophomore year and during that time her attendance increased dramatically she was getting a lot of the individualized attention that she really just needed just to kind of give her that extra motivation to stay in school and know that she had people that were really looking for her and wanting her to be successful I'm so her antenna the creases increased dramatically she was very engaged she has now a 3.5 GPA and it's very exciting she's on her way to college she is a senior now and she's got plans in place to start at PSU next year in the fall and I just know that that would have happened if it wasn't for the carrying an inclusive environment at me like there's no way you know if you're ready to wrap it up DJ I just wanted to say that the experience there has been really amazing for her and I just hope that you consider nique when you are thinking about your bond because that program really saved her academic teachers workshop thank you very much thank you thank you for sharing us good good evening barely not hi good evening superintendent and members of the board my name is Bobby Steen and I'm a senior at Alliance at me not to speak to you this evening about the fact that Alliance school is not on the maid bond and there was no plans at my school is equal is equal to every other public school I understand that Alliance was originally on the bond but the boardroom is this I transferred to Alliance last year after looking at a number of schools and my family and I decided that this was our best option the small class sizes and tight-knit community have helped me feel to feel safer and have to say first to feel safer at school and helped me to stay on track to graduate this June if I had needed to go to another PBS school I don't know if it works out for me when I do graduate it will be with the PBS diploma luckily i came to alliance with PE credit on my transcript because Alliance does not have a gym and PE is required we have a cafeteria and a small covered basketball area outside but there are limited that these are limited and there are no dressing rooms or showers this year I have volunteered to help monitor the radon levels and a school cafeteria every day these levels are higher than the EPA action level on most days I understand that part of the bond is also directed towards health and welfare of PBS students this and the
00h 05m 00s
fact that we like most other PPS schools have led in our pipes another reason to not forget about alliances may I am determined to graduate from high school this year and attend a four year college next year so the bond will not directly impact me but I know that there are other students who need support and consideration and equity among other PBS students thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak with you thank you thank you for coming and I just would like to clarify that our current plans for the bond for the rebuild events in high school don't include having the Alliance Program with in Benson's but there has not been any discussion that the program would be discontinued that's very much top priority of the district to figure out what will be the eventual home for Alliance both both campuses and it's a very valued program thank you thank you thank you next we have Rob Jones and Mark Van Hamas's alright well thank you my name is Rob Jones I am chair of the Benson Tech Alumni Association and president of the Benson tech foundation tonight I just wish to speak that the Benson community is grateful that the consideration is to have medicine rebuilt in one bond and not to as we were looking at before we also believe that that to come from whether the prior speaker was that moving these alternative programs is important moving the programs of alliance pisa and the drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment programs is an important process that having SAT through one of the last meetings it didn't appear that that was moving very rapidly at this point we as a community I think believe very strongly that the night and summer school is a really positive for Benson it's a school that has worked 11 months of the year 12 hours a day that's that's more than most of the schools work so it's it's really part of the community we also are excited about the possibilities for the auditorium which can hold almost 1400 people that is a beautiful piece for important to enjoy so we believe that will be strongly supporting the bond in the business associations and the council's we we believe that the Benson will be a creative opportunity to create partnerships on swinging the students meaning leaving them on campus and moving them but we believe that it will requite create an opportunity for creative partnerships and true partnering that PPS perhaps needs to work on and we invite that participation for what will probably be some off-site needs in businesses and labor unions to continue those career-tech programs off site during the swing lastly for the managed lottery is booked all right go ahead and allow in the manage lottery more than the exact number of students be accepted upon the lottery that there be anticipated attrition that PBS is calculated I'm sure is so if you have 300 accepting at X sub 320 knowing that there'll be an average of say twenty kids that will not show up in the fall it's just a much better process and waiting till the very end in August the chase kids down thank you very much very true good evening superintendent McCain and members of the board my name is Mark van Thomason and I'm the principal for the portland art school here in PBS and dart stands for a day and residential treatment I supervise eight school programs across the district where we serve children and adolescents receiving a day mental health care treatment as well as residential mental health care treatment one of the programs that I've supervises the Clinton school which is currently located on the Benson campus and it's currently slated to move ahead of any renovations that would happen on the campus as far as I'm aware at this time no facility has been identified as the new school location for the Clinton school you know or its students with the passage of the bond and further planning my request is that an appropriate PPS facility is identified way ahead of time of when the move would occur my concern is that with so many moving parts associated with the bond measure of this size with swing sites and renovations and rebuilds etc that what might seem like small details from a district level could actually have and those being overlooked you have a very negative effect on the Clinton school students having quality classrooms for the
00h 10m 00s
students in our program you know isn't isn't a small detail so I just want to make sure that that's something that we're focused on is the bond goes forward and I just want to make sure that the the needs of all the students are given sufficient attention during this entire process and then if there's anything that I can do to help with the process just please let me know great thank you thank you next we have Taylor Merrill and Hayden Brunel welcome good evening thank you guys for listening to me tonight I urge you to put forward this bond measure to the people in May as co-chair of the Madison master planning committee I can attest to the thoughtful inform the rational approach our committee took into this master planning tasks or remodel Madison when we looked at remodeling we went by your board specs we took into account that this is going to have to be something that the public is going to community have to share and so we understand that we need to be frugal with the public's money but we also understand what this is going to mean as I've said before to our community right I mean Madison south is the community in transition I was really excited that the mayor is understanding this and came out to my son's elementary school I'm really excited the work that goes on Italy and that when the protesters were there and one of the little girls got scared my son was scared that the first thing they did my son's teacher was offer them to go a week later to a homeless shelter to go volunteer there and this is what the commitment we have in our community to our kids into our kids success but I also want the board to realize that a lot of our students that are could go to Mass and choose to go to Benson and I think we know the numbers we have the quantitative numbers of what of the numbers that go there but we need to know why we need that qualitative data what is the reason going there and I urge you to do some sort of survey to find out why there are students that are leaving madison i would suspect that it's because there's a perception this is a perception that I was witness to when I first bought a house and the first thing I did was call up Petra and say what are you going to do for my kids and she invited me out for lunch and I've had an awesome relationship with her and my child is thriving there but I don't think many people my neighborhood have that cultural capital to go in a approached the principal of the school and feel though they can be an advocate for our children so I think a lot of this is perception and I really urge the board to find out what the reasons are people are leaving and really did do some outreach to change how people view Madison High School's if it is a very great place for learning and it really is providing an awesome opportunity where my child is driving thank you very much thank you tell my teachers though I probably were your work on the MPC to thank you my name is Hayden Brunell I'm I am an alumni of Roosevelt High School class of 2015 and I'm currently a junior at Pacific Lutheran University I just want to come down and say I think the idea of modernizing the three high schools in addition the Kellogg is a great idea and it as well as the health and safety this for other schools the only concerns I have is having the 2012 and the 2017 bond say if it passes having the to stack in terms of the tax during the time and lori's why I'm concerned just because I know there's there's plenty of students out there with parents who are low-income who could be hurt by the taxes stacking for three years to remember correctly the 2012 bond tax ends in 2020 and so what I'm concerned is more specifically maybe students of free reduced lunch their parents may have a more financially constrained the time and have may have a difficulty of paying for this and so the ones he has urged considers the I know the health and safety of our students is good and I like that if I'm upon tough it's possible to have the tax possibly be over until the 2012 bonds is finished and going from the Franklin Pierce school district near pacific ocean university they wait for the school's old bonds to expire so they didn't have to increase the tax why emerging is to lower the tax that way these schools can start seeing health and safety improvements it was a next three years and beyond but if possible to wait for the link in Madison and Benton I'm just not to not have their attacks until after the 2012 bond on tax and complain 20 that's why I come to pretend that to you or at least take into consideration or if there's something that can be considered for the next three years for students to have parents what the free reduced lunch program thank you very much very much and lastly I have David Crandall
00h 15m 00s
good evening ladies and gentlemen I didn't plan on speaking tonight and I'm not speaking about the bond directly but your responsibilities are crucial in the future you're facing an important decision and we in this country are facing a crisis public education is threatened under the Trump administration and the nomination of Betsy DeVos I'm joining more than 60,000 teachers nationwide or morning the possible death of public education and I'm urging you to assume a leadership position as the future unfolds regardless of the outcome of tomorrow's vote at high noon on her nomination it will require strong leadership from us here in Portland as our senators in Washington have shown in Washington in the area of education we're facing an onslaught of a corporate driven reform that is diverting money from instruction to testing away from the needs of children and toward the interests of big corporations fortunately they don't appear to yet control Salem as they do washington DC the State Board and the Department of Education have an opportunity to join with our senators in Washington and reject the Trump agenda for education reject the corporate reform agenda that is embodied in the S back tests there's a version of money and that are together among those things that will threaten publication public education in our country and here thanks very much [Applause] all right any other oh okay you Betty elefante speak on the bond come on down good evening my name is Nicole Accardi and i am the drama teacher at davinci arts middle school i am speaking on behalf of the drama teachers of Portland Public Schools and that there was a line item originally saying that we were going to renovate to the auditorium in our district and as that has been taken out of this bond measure we're all very concerned as we have been working with stage craft industries to solidify whether or not our auditoriums are safe and for myself personally I do shows every year with just about half of the student body of da Vinci and then we also have the dance program but uses the auditorium and we have the music program and stagecraft standard industries came in and told us that the rigging system in our auditorium is one of the top priorities for dangerous hazards to students because it hasn't been renovated in over 80 years and it is holding enormous weight above the heads of students it could if it broke immediately kill a child if they were standing on the stage and when you have upwards of hundred kids in an area if something like that were to happen the fact that there is an imminent fear that there could be damage or a life taken from our children is too much for us to look at and think that it is an okay thing for us to push this back and that renovation that lack of renovation in our auditoriums is something across the district they get pushed back and I and I know that there are other concerns but I do not believe that we can say that the lives of some are more important than the lives of others so I just wanted to say that on behalf of our drama teacher and students thank you thank you thank you very much all right there are three fond town hall meetings this week tomorrow night they're all 6 30 tomorrow night at Benson wednesday night at
00h 20m 00s
lincoln and thursday night at roosevelt and there's an optional 530 tour to see the modernization worker Roosevelt for those who would like to do that all right with that I think we'll adjourn the public hearing to start cardboard me

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2016-2017, https://www.pps.net/Page/10970 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:51.375732Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2017-02-06 PPS School Board Regular Meeting, Public Hearing

Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: Board Public Hearing on Bond Options 2/06/17

Sources