2017-05-23 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2017-05-23
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education-Regular Meeting-May 23, 2017

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warm welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers okay I'm jumping the gun here people so we're going to wait two minutes till we get TV live sorry Steve keeps coming late must be the water Mike [Applause] not doing all right why don't we go on live here we only have a standard thank goodness Gabrielle okay thank you so much we're going to try that again the formal meeting of the Board of Education for May 23rd 2017 is called to order I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone present in 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 please check the board website for replay time this meeting is also being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website chair curler will be arriving late this evening we have two revisions to the agenda the superintendent's report and the first reading of the real estate policy will be scheduled for a later date so we would like to warmly welcome all of the valedictorians here tonight and your families and fans we are honored to welcome our students who've achieved such excellence in academics tonight we will meet our 2017 valedictorians from every High School in the district each valedictorian will come forward and state his or her name and the last student from each High School has been selected by the group to answer the question what in your years at Portland Public Schools has prepared you for your next step superintendent McCain would you like to say a few words yes I would it's a tremendous honor to have the opportunity to thank our valedictorians and their parents because it's not just the students who do the work if the parents behind the scene that raise the kids again recognizing our valedictorians is a highlight of our year it takes an incredible amount of hard work and dedication to achieve and maintain such high academic standards I am very pleased to acknowledge your commitment to excellence as you head off to college and career remember the world needs your talents your grip your determination in your passion for excellence to make the world a better place thanks for all you've done for yourselves in your schools and larger community best of luck to you all invested lucky you continue on into your into your very bright futures and now I'm pleased to introduce Oscar Gilson senior director of college and career-readiness who will provide the details of becoming valedictorian and then we'll introduce each high school valedictorian good evening good evening status affiliate must have is okay so cheesy valedictorian status a student must have a 4.0 grade point average or have the highest GPAs in their senior class this year we're pleased to have 111 graduates who have met this high standard achieving valedictorian status is a result of hard work and commitment commitment on the part of these students
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on behalf of Assistant Superintendent Antonio Lopez in our high school administrators I commend you for your success now and I wish you continued success for the years ahead I also want to thank the teachers counselors friends mentors and especially the families all of them have contributed to the achievement that we are recognizing you for the valedictorians are led by their school counselors or administrator each school has selected one student to speak on their behalf and we are going to start with Alliance at Benson good evening my name is Abigail tonight the relationships I've built at Alliance at Benson or what prepared me for my next steps into my future the teachers aren't just teachers they're your coaches mentors and friends and your counselor isn't just your counselor she's your motivator biggest fan and best friend because of these relationships I'm more confident about going to college and I am positive that when I do fall back they're the ones who are going to catch me and push me back up I want to take the wonderful staff at Alliance and my dad was the reason why I'm here today thank you I lieth up meek hi everyone my name is Gary Davis and before going to meek I was kind of lost I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life or myself either you know through college or career and something to meek I kind of know what I want to be now it's really just all thanks to my teachers and you know when you're there it's since it's a smaller school you feel a really close relationship to them it's more like they're their mentor and it kind of almost a friend to you and I really would just like to thank all of the staff there and my parents for you know helping me get here I'm really proud of myself and I'm really thankful Benson high school oMG Angela and I draw through Benson high school Dexter CUNY Benson high school Kinlan Benson high school hello everyone I'm Rosa Luanne and I'm Benson I'm from Benson high school my name is Marcie Tran and I'm from Benson high school hello everyone my name is JC Tran and I'm also from Benson high school [Applause] hello my name is copper to bow I'm from Benson high school and I stand before all of you today and God completely humbled as a person of color in America I'm aware that I had to constantly fight a system which worked against me and my peers PPS has taught me to withstand hardships and difficulties that may come my way from from lead air pipes to falling ceiling tiles Benson high school was never your typical high school because of our majors like medical professions and dental and construction and our increasing diversity with each and every year however there I learned to persevere and endure what may come my way we learned and Apted who from our low budgets and oppression from outside sources but like a wildflower up to the pavement we persisted if a lesson was imparted to me in my cell about the teens this year I mean these past four years it is that we must keep going no matter how large the mountains are before us so I thank you I think my fellow value torian's my teachers the staff at Benson high school and PPS for this great honor Thanks
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libel in high school I'm Kate Calum from Cleveland High School my name is Derrick Chen and I'm from Cleveland High School in high school I'm Lizzy Edwards from Cleveland High School I didn't win from Cleveland High School I'm Lukas Kelly from Cleveland High School Bobby call [Applause] I'm not win from Cleveland High School I'm Hannah Proctor from Cleveland High School I'm Zach Stevens from Cleveland High School I'm Jessica van from Cleveland High School Daphne Williams Cleveland High School I'm Alisha Estes from Cleveland High School and one of the most important things that I have learned from my years at PPS would be that of passion from the teachers and passion and everything you do whether you are doing something that you want to teach or if you're doing something that the state is mandating you to teach as long as you have passion and as long as you want and try to give your message with all of your heart to everyone then that message will be received and using that knowledge I will take that into my life in order to help others and help myself Franklin high school my name is Jasmine Calderon Leola and I am from Franklin High School party Geiger Franklin High School I'm a Harbison Franklin high school Delaney Hartman Franklin High School Emma Kepler Franklin High School Nicole Perkins Franklin High School Logan a wreck Franklin High School [Applause] that's a Caillou Franklin High School I'm Tucker coconut and if you haven't guessed the pattern yet I'm from Franklin High School it's a big problem that they asked you for tonight it's how is PBS over the past 13 years encouraged you to lead a better life later on and so the first thing that popped in my head was a quote from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus he said no man steps in the same river twice for it is not the same river and he is not the same man for the past 13 years PPS has provided us with a river of opportunity and as we carry on in our tributaries of Destiny in the future we must remember where we came from Turkey where we're going as long as PBS is able to feed the endless thirst for knowledge with a generous stream of Education only success can be found for the students and for the staff the finally I just wanted I just wants a one last quote it's also water themed a rising tide lifts all boats and so I encourage you to be better people so that our society can be better as a whole and that we can all become better as one thank you grant high school max Terry Grant High School I wish appear Oh Grand High School Francis Carnival Grant High School the M Dube Grant High School
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Rebecca France Grant High School in Holt Grant High School Julie I can't Gold Grant High School you're a petty Grand High School wait up Toledo wrong road to Kuhn and Grant High School person Rydell Grant High School Alden Davis Grant High School so I don't have any a really cool quote for you guys but instead I'd like to tell you just a little bit about my experience in PBS so for those of you who do know me you'd know that I have a little bit of a mantra happiness is a mindset and that you basically get to choose the experiences that you get to have in this life so high school is a time when life is easy and the only real job that we really have its expand our minds and taste the world around us so that one day we can kind of decide what it is that we love in this world and want to chase it as growing teenagers still trying to figure out what all that means how we can spend a lifetime pursuing something it's of the utmost importance to express yourself and PBS kind of loud me to do that in the darkroom where as a science minded person I was able to create and capture memories with my hands something that I wasn't able to do in my biology and chemistry classes and that was very refreshing for me so quick little story about why even though you know school kind of feels like a lot of busy work that we're getting through and you know reading a long book that doesn't make a lot of sense by the time that sort of it all it all clicked for me was last year my philosophy class my teacher mr gabot said one day when half the class of 15 is asleep that you know like school you can kind of go to school and you can get AIDS and you know it's really cool but you can leave and even if you got those grades you don't necessarily have really gained any knowledge you didn't necessarily learn anything and that's wrong but that's on you that's you can't that's that's on you so you choose to learn you choose to be passionate about something and you take that since you told that to me I was like whoa man maybe I should listen that he's he kind of knows what he's talking about so like I said science find a person variant of biology chemistry the natural world blows my mind I love to ski and hike all that stuff so this year after keeping that in my mind I'm like I should put those together where can I go with that so I've been volunteering researching rescue this year been a really cool way to combine my hiking every week camping every other weekend but also learning wilderness first-aid all that stuff back to that first day that mr gabot said that and i really took that upon myself where it's it won't be given to me like i can't just go to college thinking that oh it's a really cool school I got into like I'll become a great thinker because of that but yeah from there I want to send everyone off with that just take it into your own hands and to the seniors like we made it choose alright on Jefferson High School McKenna Erikson Jefferson High School now may Jefferson High School Maris Lyman Jefferson High School hi my name is Joe tell mark and I'm from Jefferson High School and I actually transferred into PPS my sophomore year of high school I was drawn in by the opportunity to earn college credits at PCC and what really kept me in the Portland Public School System was and at Jefferson was the family I found a family at Jefferson and a home and and I learned about critical thinking in more than just an academic setting but in a life setting and thinking about like how I can influence my my environment and how how my environment influences me and the US and others around me and I just want to say thank you to all the Jefferson high school administration everyone else who's made that possible because it's an incredible experience to come into high school and and to learn to be a human not just an education subject but to be someone whose grows and become something so thank you and congratulations to everyone you
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Lincoln High School Ruby Bell booth are you Chema David Cheriton Spencer Daigle David Denman still been Pagano Oliver risk Brad Subramanyam let's do it NZ unit an serenity Wade or a person that's like a Joe hi my name is Kate LeBlanc as valedictorians we've helped PBS in numerous ways from running school bond campaigns to starting clubs to captaining sports teams but PBS has also helped us in immeasurable ways PBS has given us so many opportunities not only academically but in terms of extra extracurricular activities we are so lucky to be in a district that cares so passionately about its students it is becoming clearer and clearer that one of the most important predictors of future success is grit or the ability to overcome failure and continue to persevere researchers at the University of Pennsylvania actually found that the best predictor of academic success was grit rather than IQ by challenging us PBS teachers and administrators have given us opportunities to fail and by supporting us when we don't achieve our goals they have helped us to develop grit which will allow us to succeed in whatever future endeavors we undertake in my physics class my teacher would always tell to use the tools in our toolbox of course what she meant was to use the equations and skills we had already had to solve new problems but I think this metaphor is very applicable to life as well PBS teachers and administrators have given us tools such as leadership confidence and knowledge but it's up to us to use these not only when we succeed but also when we don't we will all likely face many new challenges as we move on into our next adventures and we will likely occasionally fail during those challenges but thanks to the great teachers administrators parents and friends we have had at our PBS high schools we have the tools to face failures learn from them and then get back up to try again thank you [Applause] Madison High School my name is Jimmy and I'm from Madison hi my name is Anthony Nguyen in all of my years with PBS I've had the opportunity to learn a lot of different lessons whether it be about science math English and more but I think that the most important lessons I learned was in building relationships and so that's what I feel has prepared me the most for my future because ten years from now science will change technology would change but what won't change is the need to communicate with other people and so that's what I'm grateful for and that's what PBS has given me thank you [Applause] MLC metropolitan Learning Center [Applause] hi I'm Asma Cottingham I am the only valedictorian at mlc so here's my speech hello fellow graduates PPS administration it's nice to see all of you here tonight I didn't think there'd be so many of you it's here that all the guides and templates told me to quote a famous author or celebrity but I can't do that for you because I have nothing left to say there's no snappy quote or cheesy
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one-liner that can prop up my speech for you I have spent the last week trying to decide what to say when standing up here in front of you but I just don't have anything thank you first of all high school my name is Kamaria Watson and I go to Roosevelt name is Elsa King and I go to Roosevelt hi my name is Daniel Roxanna and I go to Roosevelt and through all my years with PBS I think I've learned a very important lesson more than anything is that sometimes you just need to sit down be humble and then remember that in the end it's going to be alright school hi my name is Gabrielle Cohen and I go to Wilson hi I'm Sam Nathanson and I go to Wilson hi my name is Sophie Ruben and I go to Wilson hi I'm Eleanor and I go to Wilson hello I'm Madison Kunkel I'm sagen Jim all right so the prompt of PBS what they what kind of opportunities they've given you so this year I think one of the most one of the best things I think PBS has given me is the opportunity to be in leadership and help the school in that way this year we got to host an event called West fest which brought a bunch of different schools we had Grant and Lincoln all come together and we hosted a nice event and all the proceeds went to wines for life which is a suicide prevention hotline that helps students and teens help cope with anything that they're dealing with and PBS has given us the opportunity to host events like that and have events and grow as a community together and that's something I'm really grateful for from Wilson and PBS and I also want to thank our principal mr. Chatard and our staff at Wilson not only for having such a great program in the first place but also for being flexible in working with students needs I'm very fortunate is here to take part in a brand new math class in a brand new Spanish class I've learned a lot from those classes I'm very fortunate that the schools are being able to support me and help me further my education superintendent and board this our valedictorian for the class of 2016 17 school year give it up well done well done everyone we're going to take a two-minute break before we resume the rest of our meeting thank you all for coming tonight and congratulations to our valedictorian thank you thank you thank you you having you
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[Music] [Music] you you no I don't think I do everything all right thank you very much thank you everyone for being here at this time we will have student testimony and I'd like to remind all speakers tonight of our guidelines which emphasize respect and consideration of others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter you will have a total of three minutes to share your comments miss Houston are there any students signed up for student testimony all right welcome all right thank you hello I'm Sam a sprain that is PR eh n I'm honestly surprised you have given me a spot to seek today recently the PBS staff has been shown a trend of literally and figuratively shoving students out of ministry of spaces despite claiming that used value students voices and safety above all else yesterday a small group of students parents and community members marched to this building and we were completely left we were met with locked doors aggressive PBS staff literally laughing at our attempts to get laughing in our faces for attempts to get your attention some students were allowed in the building to get obtain water for everyone outside in the nearly 90 degree weather and instead they were met with unnecessary force and shoved out of the building by staff while they were complying to leave the police on the scene reportedly saw nothing and I believe that part of this has to do with some of the aggression that come from police during their partnership with PPS though that day they didn't attack any students perhaps because of the large amount of cameras on them it's not unheard of to see attacks on students both by Portland partland public funded Aceros and their colleagues one of the leaders of the March spoke about going to protest and seeing some of the same officers who pepper sprayed their friends within their own school the next day I admit myself that one this morning when I entered my school I was overcome with worried that would come face to face with one of the uncaring officers I had seen the day before many other students within this district have had similar fears as me according to the survey done by the Portland Student Action Network the majority of students have no positive interactions with an SRO but
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can speak to having seen or having heard of in-class arrests classes are not the place for police you stay on your website so your biggest concern is student safety and education but you were getting in the way of both of these when you bring armed police into schools you claim they bring the brain safety and connections to the police in the community but so far there's been no evidence the arrows have achieved any of these goals but there's plenty to support the contrary PBS discipline myth says have blood - hostility and endangering students the exact opposite of what you promised to us in eighth grade I was given a concussion by another student while an officer was in the building now the Estero did nothing to help me and later I was I would didn't get medical attention for half an hour and you may think I'm speaking of this because I don't believe there's a way to stop it or that what you're doing to stop it and right but in fact it's in the conscience area this needs to be soft and there were many stages I believe that my concussion could have been prevented a week before I was punched a confirmed student of the parent of the person who punched me called in to the school to talk about a dispute I was not aware of this I there was no intervention and then the same day I started crying in class because I was scared of confrontation no one talked to me and I went on with my day in that class the kids who punch me was laughing with his friend and mocking me I would still punch that day that day I stood face to face with this person a minute before they hit me and still no one stopped it if there was proper training then it could have been prevented thank you thank you for your testimony Thank You Houston do we have anyone signed up for public testimony we do we have six and our first two speakers are Dana heifer and makeup Kohlberg's good evening my name is Danna Hepper and I'm the parent of a children who received special education services in Portland Public Schools and earlier today submitted three additional letters from parents via email to the school board email and just wanted to provide a couple food for thoughts as you prepare to finalize the budget for 2017-18 school year and one is just remembering a focus on relationships your role is obviously to make a budget for the whole entire district and that inherently requires you to look at ratios and formulas and calculate how much FTE is allocated to each building but the work that happens every day in schools is about the teacher and the child and that personal relationship that they developed over time and sometimes those two things come in conflict and the ratio and formula results in disruption of staffing levels which results in removing teachers and staff that have personal relationships with children that are making a huge difference and I think this is particularly true for many of our priority populations of students so especially kids with learning disabilities kids in special ed and kids with greater need for social social emotional support who are leaning on people like counselors and assistant principals who are often special ed teachers counselors assistant principals are great examples of folks who sometimes you get your school is up one year down the next year up when you're down the next year and those are the folks working with the most challenging students who need those deep relationships who often get shuffled around so just a few ideas to consider I'm sure you're thinking of all of these things but we wanted to put them on the table anyway one idea is to maybe have a later timeline for special education staffing for example the February numbers for special ed art is relevant a lot of special ed eligibility happens in March April May because that's just the timeline for how long it takes to identify a problem get a kid assessed and get the eligibility done so that timeline may need to be tweaked for that specific population population another consideration may be to look at a range so right now if you have 32 kids you get one FTE for special ed if you 33 you get 1.5 but what if there were like if you're between 30 and 35 you get what you had last year so you can maintain that consistency I don't you know something along those lines and then third of course that doesn't fix the relationship problem but we have a bunch more kids qualifying the spring we need to make sure we have adequate set aside so that September October we can hire back folks that we've cut in the spring so some ideas for consideration thanks so much thank you very much hi my name is Mika Kohlberg I'm from Dunaway I just also wanted to speak a little bit about special ed first of all I wanted to just extend a huge thank you
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to Ryan Dutcher and Mary from special education who were so gracious to meet with us today we're just so appreciative of their time and their willingness to answer questions and to enlighten us about the process of Education which frankly is so incredibly complicated that I don't know how they do it some of the things that came out of that that we really feel like our priorities and that we would hope the board would seriously consider moving forward on especially around the ideas of those supports around student services and special education departments working together and I can speak to that especially at our school where behavioral issues are one of our main priorities and it's really special education is as we've talked about pretty much our only intervention but those counselors who have been so key at our schools over the past three years have made a huge difference and we worry that for kids who maybe are not necessarily fully special ed are getting pushed into those programs because their parents know they need something and that is the only option to them however counselors could work alongside the special ed Department to provide interventions for all kids when I work with kids and reading results I often see that sometimes the kids that are not learning it really was just that they weren't behaving well enough maybe on the day that they were getting the instruction they needed maybe they were having a hard day because their little kids and they missed something imperative and you have too many of those bad days you've too many days where you're sick you have too many days where things are chaotic and then suddenly you're way behind and maybe people think that there's something you have a learning disability or there's something wrong with you in terms of you need all this extra intervention when really maybe you just needed someone to listen to you and to help you work through how to handle challenges in your own life so we would really encourage especially as we're looking at lower resources to think about how we can work smarter with the resources we have I was so impressed by Mary and how willing she is to collaborate with other departments she's not just asking for more resources she's asking for people to work together to serve the best interests of kids and when you have people like that who are solution oriented whose hands are being tied by the fact that everyone's working in a silo you're not only going to lose kids you're going to lose good staff who are trying their best to serve them so I would really encourage the district to look at that and how we can all move forward as a priority - and I know that this is under consideration it's already something the district is talking about which i think is wonderful but from a parent perspective and a community member perspective I would really encourage that that is the direction that we continue to move how can we let go of our own kingdoms and do the right thing for kids Thanks thank you very much superintendent McCain I can hear you special education and the siloing that is a matter that I'm looking into as I continue to restructure the district and I'll be coming out with a restructuring plan which will change how they are positioned in the hierarchy or the organization so that their voices at the at the direct report table which is the table that we're all of you know the top people meet that to me is a glaring absence at this point so uh and I've had some conversations with Mary and others about this matter so just so you know thank you so much thank you next we have Lydia gray Holyfield and Shirley Paul Pruitt welcome go ahead okay my name is Shirley Paul Pruitt and I'm here to talk about how PP has failed my son we filed an appeal with the superintendent about repeated physical bullying of my son he was choked hit in the face slammed down seven times in the appeal decision letter the superintendent sent us he admitted that our son was targeted and the bullying escalated somehow that's still not enough for them to take a meaningful action the district offered us the same option to the entire process the same option that already felled my
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son and he's being forced to leave school no option is viable when he ends in my son getting attack again or leaving his school the superintendent used the entire 30 days to respond to our appeal and then mailed us the letter the date on the letter showed that he made his decision days earlier he even actually emailed my husband between the time he made the decision and mailed of the letter and he said it just in time for the bun vote to be passed this is not fair or an ethical process he gave us no real solution and says there's nothing he can do about it do you need a child to die like that eight-year-old in her eye ohayo before you do something about bullying in portland public school we have kept out son out of school for 60 days because he's terrified of that child he actually still have nightmares about him every night and what can I say more he got hit seven bloody times my son is having nightmare about him my son is the victim and the victim should never have to to ask you to leave school because he's being victimized by another child there is no law in the United States that says that a child has a developmental disability gets to get away with beating another child I see a lot of people here see in there last time I was here the superintendent who's sitting there to the left shook his head and say oh he was so troubled about this whole situation well the decision that he made does not show me that he was troubled about what happened to my son the school board needs to stop start doing his job and supervise the superintendent's and make sure that they do their job because my son is being hurt other children are being hurt when I tried to meet with Antonio Lopez he told me he could not talk about it because the principal of my son's school is his wife so if this is on if he thinks that's a conflict of interest why is it in her chain of command if you feel like you cannot supervise your wife to do her job properly why are you supervising her supervisor he told us we could not record him where he's led white parents record him he's led Asian parents recording for some reason black parents cannot record him he left us in the room was rude to us kept sending somebody else to tell us what he was going to do was not going to do K excuse me we can't take public testimony on individual employees but so continue please if you have anything left here testimony I can tell you what he does but her sister superintendent told us he would not see us even though he had already had an appointment with us all right so I want you two guys to look my son in the eye and tell him why he cannot be safe in his school because I pay my taxes like anybody else here and when I came here as an immigrant they told me my children will be safe here I can have children here there will be safe here my son should not be hit his fingers has been bent backward he's been hit in the face he's been choked several times and that's with one president in the classroom which is the same decision that you're giving me okay so you have four weeks left and it means nothing to you but my child deserves to be safe in school somebody told me well if you don't like it take him out of school why should I do that that's why I pay my place thank you for your testimony superintendent McCain would you like to say anything about the process regarding this complaint yes there is an appeal process and you're certainly welcome to appeal to the board that's the proper venue for this this is not the proper venue area yeah all the time yes you did answer us for it all right wait you know peg did anything about it you guys are unethical your cowardly about this you need to do your bloody job my son there is no law that says that my son should go back to school and get hit by that other child thank you what are you are you parent do you understand what that does to a mother do you understand this is my child and now it's fate okay crap he's been choked thank you there is no right you just have no right to do that to my child that's not true Lydia gray Hollifield are you here powers and you love you when smiling in my face any calling sense and there's nothing funny about what happened it's not funny I was smiling at your son I was smiling at your son oh thank you next Bob you have a question it's very disconcerting and upsetting there's a plate process event a group of a process it takes about 30 days or their guides write the complaint processes it should be settled up to in some way tomorrow in my opinion I don't know how it should be settled up because
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I'm not there but it should be settled up quickly so that little boy can get back and give us a recap of where we are with the process you rendered oh they they went through an initial process I looked at the results of the process and they were given some options and they have the right to appeal it to you as the board person who was there when you got shook okay listen do we have more public testimony yes we have two Matt Purvis and Gabrielle Mercedes Boulevard [Music] get away okay I was just going to ask his everyone I assume a knowledgeable of what happened at Grant High School a couple weeks ago with Dean okay well before I start I just want to let everyone know that I'm speaking with all respect to the issues that were involved in everything and I just want to announce that first patriarchy privilege mansplaining rape culture by now you're probably aware of most of these terms in today's society and from a glance these terms spread awareness equality fairness and truth but if these ideas are in fact true shouldn't they hold up to criticism and debate shouldn't they welcome it shouldn't they at least allow it well they should but they don't these philosophies demand our utmost support and unquestioned loyalty in fact these philosophies resemble more of a religion than a science they claim to know things that they cannot know they claim things that cannot be proven or unproven and they do this all while promoting sexism racism bigotry and hate at least oftentimes these these ideologies values people more on their superficial characteristics than their qualities their actions and good deeds and they use shame guilt fear and often hatred as weapons and demand that we submit - there will like an authoritarian dictator so when a class at Grant High School was taught rape culture most people didn't think much of it and one teachers stood up and did he's a history teacher he wrote a three-page essay questioning rape culture and he was quickly made an enemy of the state his arguments were not addressed although they were carefully and respectfully written and he asked he was not asked to speak to the class on his opinions he was not given his day in court so to say he was made a villain to the media by the school that he taught at he was forced to apologize and you know he he's called a lot of bad names as well the school stated that they were for free speech but only free speech that was in the spirit of the school and I asked what does that mean counselors were sent in to help students that were traumatized victims feared for their safety it cocked up did they really feel all these things I mean if they did find that they valid if it's valid fine but it's a letter and it's just questioning certain things that are being taught in the school that may need to be questioned this teacher never had a chance and I fear that we're setting a very scary and troubling precedent when we censor and condemn a teacher for asking unpopular questions to students this teacher did something brave and I think that if we don't stand up for teachers like this for promoting groupthink promoting propaganda and it doesn't really matter whether you're for rape culture teachings or not the point is is that people get to speak their minds and they don't have to do it in fear that's what America is all about so this teacher stood up to that injustice and did something incredibly heroic and I'm just asking the school board do the same and stand up for the students so that they get a fair and equal opportunity at the facts and that's two teachers you know don't live in fear and and can express unpopular views without being condemned for thank you for your testimony my name is gravidarum else a disbeliever good evening dr. McCain PPS Board of
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Education and student rep miss Bradley I'm sure you're tired of seeing me here every month I want to clear up a few misperception sparkly green middle school well it is true that the implementation was a disaster our school is not a disaster with the placement of senior director Carl Logan is the interim principal systems and structures are finally being implemented that support students and staff mr. Logan keeps an open door for students and Families he collaborates with students families and staff to mediate conflict and listens to multiple perspectives due to mr. Logan's position straddling to serve both as a senior director and interim principal he is not always able to be President Oh GMs I believe of mr. Logan was in her school full time he would have an even greater impact in improving our school culture and strengthening our academic and support teams what has become evident after our own family's experience and hearing from other students and families and some teachers but your logan us at the bar for the essential key characteristics knowledge skills abilities and experience that we need in our permanent principal while we continue to struggle to undo the harm that resulted from an inexperienced admin team place at OU GMS i remain hopeful because mr. Logan has exemplified when an effective middle school leader is I am also here this evening to discuss alliance high school a PPS alternative program under PPS as multiple pathways to graduation 79% of Alliant students are combined underserved 32% of Alliance students receive special education services 56% of Alliance students are students of color the mission of PPS every student by name prepared for college career and participation as an active community member regardless of race income or zip code the mission of Alliance promi Tech is to provide academic and professional technical opportunities that motivate students to remain in school to learn the knowledge skills and attitudes needed to become a contributing member of society here's the thing though students need to belong it has been made clear to Alliance students their PPS board action that they do not belong at Benson there meet campus originally built as a small elementary does not have the program space for students to meet graduation requirements including physical education and science the PPS multiple pathways to graduation mission is to provide educational options for all youth that empower engage and prepare them for college work training in global citizenship while serving as a vanguard for systemic educational change the district is committed to providing an appropriate learning environment for all students it is challenging for PBS to meet this commitment Alliance students when their program does not have an appropriate and right size facility to serve all students in need I encourage PPF staff to explore placing Alliance at Jefferson High School Jefferson is geographically located six blocks from the Macs next door to the North Portland Killingsworth library across the street from PCC one block from unite Oregon firmly Center for intercultural cultural organizing and approximately ten blocks from sei and many more programs Jefferson students benefit from the sei wraparound program at pcc partnership that could serve alliance students additionally alliance would have the capacity to serve more students at risk of not graduating or have already dropped out and are working with the PPS reconnections program Jeffers has occurred enrollment of 590 students it could be worth considering the potential for Alliance to have a permanent and appropriate facility for all current and future Alliance students providing them with a place they belong and that is located in an area where many programs exist that would benefit students at Alliance to achieve their full academic potential and I also included the data from PBS on this and I'm not an alliance parent but I just feel that it's our responsibility as community members when we see opportunities and we also see displacement that we work together to come up with collaborative solutions for students do we have your testimony yeah I handed it okay yes thank you thank you okay I really appreciate your testimony uh as far as placement that's hanging in the air right now but your advocacy for alliances well warranted sometimes we don't hear as much about programs that are highly successful but are a little further under the radar and we saw Alliance graduate tonight that was a wonderful person I actually met him in the foyer area so I just took just so you know that's that's on on my mind I'm not saying that we have a great solution at this moment but we are looking at it and thank you for your advocacy for Alliance Houston is that off thank you yes that's it alright alright I would like to invite Suzanne cone president of PAP to the testimonial table for your comment welcome Thank You chair constan and for directors for time of this agenda Thank You superintendent McCain for your time and thank you for that great ceremony to honor all our valedictorians and all the educators here really it was a great experience for us to you to see that and you're a mutual interest that can give us so much pride in the education we're offering however I'm here to talk about the budget that you're going to vote on
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tonight and that budget does not honor our contract and does not honor our agreements and this is troubling for many reasons and I believe Steve you were on the board when we agreed to this contract and Pam this is your signature and so not following the contract is troubling for many reasons one is we've been working for years now to rebuild trust honoring a contract is a key part of that we've been an interest-based bargaining where we're supposed to be talking about our mutual interests and this is not meeting that and the bigger pieces are around accountability and from the top to the classroom educators let's be accountable to the decisions we're making so as a result of the budget that you're about voting on tonight we are going to be filing what is called an unfair labor practice and our intent is to file that on Thursday and there's four areas that the unfair labor practice is going to cover those are workload appendix F prohibitive subjects of bargaining and snow days and so basically what's taking place is you and your bargaining team are doing what is called bad faith bargaining so I want to start by talking about the the workload and that is in article 5 and so the the pair freeze beginning in the 2014-2015 school year the district at its discretion may extend the standard work year by up to two days which shall be paid at a per diem basis provided that extended days would have to be cut prior to a reduction in staffing levels we want more instructional days the campaign for measure 97 has been going on for years with a build-up with that action in the fall being our culminating effort so that we might extend the school year and I want to thank Steve fuel and Mike Rosen and Tom curler and Paul Anthony and Julie Esparza Brown for your support in that and it's a tragedy that it didn't pass and it's a tragedy that we're underfunding our school and that's the mutual interest that we share and we want to work with you on that but so when I'm here as the president talking about you LPS and workload maybe it's a blaze over we're not connecting to the issues while you serve in this volunteer position and why I serve and I kind of want to bring it back to Who I am what I've been doing my life how I ended up in this position and what I want to do when I'm done being president and that's teach students I brought you these things that is almost every class photo I took once missing because it's from Whitaker middle school Enix Pacific couldn't scan that nicely and you'll see a variety of my teaching career starting as a fifth grade teacher and then teaching two years as a special education teacher and if you look through the packet you'll see what my class size was then and or to give my students one-on-one attention and then you'll kind of see where I found my niche which was teaching middle school particularly seventh grade and so I loved teaching seventh graders just about anything I really really thrived in teaching mathematics and I loved it and teaching middle school math present itself with its challenges because students come to you for whatever reason really believing that they're bad at math and they don't like math and it's not their great subject and basically by the end of the year I would have all these students that would say I do like math I want to be a math teacher you know I'm good at math and then one year I got this very special unique opportunity to teach a very small class size of students who had never passed their their math Oakes text now I'm not protesting or anything like that in fact this is a reason not to be Pro it because because they had never passed they arrived with their self-esteem even worse than the typical medical student around this and really just defeated around the area with a lot of blocks up around you know even being in a math class and with that one-on-one attention almost all those students ended up casting and who cares about that because even better they took on leadership positions in the School District they came back they went on saying math is my best subject math is my favorite subject I'm good at math and I was able to do that not because I'm a miracle worker some miracle curriculum it was because I had a small class size let's just be clear about that so when your bargaining team says things like well we're not the worst in class size or we're not as bad
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as Beaverton that pains me I didn't run for president to be like not as bad as Beaverton or not the worst of the metro area I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume that none of you Ryan on that campaign plan like don't worry we won't be as bad as Beaverton and in case anyone's worried that I like throwing Beaverton under the bus here I did call the president first and even the president of Beaverton agrees that we don't want to be like Beaverton that's a very low bar so I want to work for a district that strives for excellence not a march to the bottom I want a district that empowers educators like many educators like us to make a real difference in the lives of our students and so if you are serious about every child's future let's get serious about doing what works staff our schools so our students have the support they need which means one attention and now you've made some great steps I believe tonight's budget has some restoring of the councilor positions the media specialist PE and that is a fantastic great stuff and I thank you for that but we need to restore all our staffing levels so that students can have the one-on-one attention they deserve then and only then when we've adequately staffed our schools should we be adding days and that's the way you honor your contract and honor the agreement the next area is appendix F and I'll read the last paragraph to you should the district maintain an eighth period day or a six of eight schedule at district high schools the district shall have until the 2016-17 school year to reestablish the student load levels at the 2010-2011 levels required by article 5 section be provided progress is made each year towards achieving such student loads and I'll admit that we were where EES that we were going to reach that and we did and I thank you for that we followed that this year but with this budget that you're approving you're now violating our contract you did not have to offer a 6 of 8 schedule your bargaining team says that the board wanted a 6 of a schedule and so if you want it then you have a duty to honor your obligations in this agreement now we have shown some willingness to compromise around this but to compromise your bargaining team needs to show some movement they need to come to us with some proposals because once again you're taking away one-on-one attention from students in exchange for what the next subject of the unfair labor practice is around prohibitive subjects of bargaining and so what that means is that your team is making contract proposals that are offering less than what the state law requires and so that's not okay so for example the state law says that if you are a temporary teacher and you are fired in the middle of your position you have the right to a board hearing as a board you hire and fire shouldn't you listen to an appeal from a temporary teacher that a mid-level manager suggested should be fired your team system offering less than the state law is happening for both bargaining units that I represent so it's also happening for our substitutes under Oregon law substitutes are entitled to the same sick leave as regular classroom teachers and yet the district doesn't want to honor what the law says so not only are we now following or struggling to follow the contract we're struggling with following state law and bargaining and the final issue of our unfair labor practice is around snow days and this one pains me so greatly because it was really one of our first opportunities me in this role as president my first year new team new leadership we really thought things were going to be different and we spent so many days so many hours negotiating what we were going to do about snow makeup days now as soon as we find that agreement it immediately began being violated and we could no longer blame previous leadership past lack of accountability because this was in a microcosm event you had principals mandating but teachers did report cards despite the agreement where's the accountability there but furthermore after hours and hours days of our team
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negotiating all the other things figuring out snow days your team is now saying that it was status quote at all the snow days at the end of the year and so that's changing the rules right as we play and that is not the old PPS and that's not the new opportunities we were hoping for in the in the rebuild so that is our unfair labor practice that we plan on styling Thursday and so I'm here with all these educators and thank you everyone for coming tonight because bargaining has really changed in its tone and I am very fearful that we are headed towards battle lines which is not in any of our interests and it's certainly not in our students interest so PPS has been in the news a lot lately lack of transparency lack of accountability lack of a superintendent actually thank you Tom for getting that search committee up and running right away um because we really want an educational leader our district really needs an educational leader and we are really looking forward to that partnership and we hope that leader will be a trusted partner who will honor the agreements that are made so our bargaining team is also offering a reset of outstanding grievances a chance to resolve these grievances and the topics are things that have been in the news administrative leave evaluations we need some talk back around these proposals we need to we need a reset we need to settle a contract that allows a new superintendent to the new board to have you know a strong working relationship where we can just start building our team has actually offered a lot of proposals really creative ideas to our mutual solutions that all started around interest based bargaining but your team needs to respond to them and they need to bargain in good faith so when we trained I think almost all of us were in the training together around IBB there was like a trust balloon and we talked about you know you can pop it or you can you know inflate it slowly and deflate it slowly and we have really been trying to put some air into that balloon and build some trust and the direction that we're going in now is really eroding trust not honoring the very first agreement we made was problematic and changing the rules while we bargain adding new things that's eroding all our trust is deflating the balloon and it's leaving us in the situation we are here so this isn't this isn't it does it have to be this way it's Tuesday we're bargaining tomorrow and our plan is to file the ULP on Thursday we don't have to file it on Thursday but that is certainly our intent if these practices continue so I'm asking you as a board to get involved in the bargain find out what our proposals are see what your team has actually offered us back bargain and good face with us and let's get this contract settled now all right all right Lima this your last meeting here and so awesome to work with yeah just really very special presence on this board and thank you very much for everything you've done thank you guys I'm really sad tonight is my last meeting but I got an internship this summer and stuff so the best the best time to go um I guess I want to start by introducing Moses trans next year's student representative not next year he's starting next meeting but um he's incredible and you guys are going to love him and we've already started to work together towards some of the things that I and Moses share and concern about you know Superstock in my position so he'll continue to work with you guys on that stuff but I guess I'll start by saying that I had an incredible opportunity last week to talk to a group of eighth graders who really picked my brain about student voice and really asked me some really tough questions that I couldn't answer all of them and I want to share with you I guess part of
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why it was hard for me to answer some of their questions I think one their their their overall overarching question was does Portland Lobby schools value student voice at all because as eighth graders at Boise elementary or Boise middle elementary school they did not feel like we do and I explained to them that you know my position and that you know yeah I don't talk very much I know but uh I really do get to give my input and I told them that hey I should really get involved in super sac it's a great opportunity to voice your opinion if you choose to make it that but I guess I guess one of my recommendations to them was when you run for my position when you're a sophomore in high school after Moses I want you guys to talk to the board about having more student voice on our committees I want you guys to talk to the board about how super sac is ran and whether it is best used as solely a Advisory Committee to the superintendent or whether this board needs a student advisory committee that gets information when the student rep does so that they can actually talk about and really give you guys their opinion before the decisions are made in these board meetings and they all got really excited about and said okay we're going to do it so I really hope they do and I know that Moses and I have talked about what next year is going to look like and he will do a better job than I did so um I hope that that happens but I also think you know my parting thought that moving forward in our equity work I talked a little bit with this dimension about this that student voice really needs to be if not centered very close to Center in that conversation because I think students of color and Portland Public Schools cannot inform you better than anybody else about what students of color in Portland Public Schools need and I being a student of color and having friends who are students of color and having these conversations because they directly affect this and it's everyday all of us have really great practical ideas about what could be different and even if we can't articulate exactly what it is in amazing educational language you can really give you a gist about okay what is it that everyday we feel like needs to be changed about our educational environment so I hope that moving forward as a board we publicly continue to commit to equity and in practice really have authentic student engagement in that arena so there anything else I wanted to say trying to look at my notes um yeah well and I and I also think moving forward in our superintendent search it was really great the way that we included me and other students in the committee's and I hope that continues and I hope that they're I mean maybe even becomes to students on the committee but I really think that that was great and that moving forward that shape continue so thank you guys for the incredible opportunities I learned so much being here even though you know I didn't talk a lot of these meetings people have brought that up to me and I've had to explain myself with it I really have learned a lot and I also hope that moving forward as a board I don't know how to say this but I think you guys really do set a tone and example for the district and it really is important that we all up here I guess I'm part of it hold each other accountable for the things that we say and the way we interact with people in the way we talk to people and I have I've told other people that it's been slightly disheartening the things that I've seen happen up here and as a student I get asked about it and I think that it's important that as adults one you know we own that okay I mean that we've owned that and I think that also acknowledging that that really does set a tone and set an example for what everybody else does so thank you guys
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again I've had a lot of fun and learned a lot so you know as we all know by charter the student representative is not included in personnel matters if we have executive decision but unanimously as a group we said we can't begin to discuss this important issue or deliberate on this important issue without Alima right not just because you bring forward the student voice but because you as an individual provided such insight and such wisdom and just very valuable perspective that you know I the the process would have been considerably worse without you so that was I thought that was a great statement from our whole board that solutely not we don't do this without you so you just added so much to everything and we wish you all the best very much and we love your demo pride my people well and I the other thing I'd say you mentioned not speaking a lot but effectiveness isn't measured by the amount of words and when people when he spoke it was to the point and and well done so yeah very much I think you tweak you have a small token of our appreciation on next to you oh yeah I do rate here you can take that home and thank you very much five books when you go school you'll need that student loans man yeah all right okay we're going to go to the second rainy to bring your own device first reading was held April 25th after 21 days of being open for the public comment the board's ready to vote on the proposed amendments staff is available for any questions are there any questions from the board our new interim CIO [Music] the board I yeah yes go ahead okay the board will now consider resolution five four five nine two dot policy eight six zero zero four two P bring your own device policy do I have a motion move by director Knowles their second by director as far as a brown any public comment yeah okay any discussion guys did great work on this I appreciate it thank ya yep this is our new intern our Parker welcome thank you Miss Rolle thank you very much yeah alright um yeah is across some of our school to communities that asked us to technology and I'm just wanting to ensure that as we think about budgeted in the future of providing those devices for schools that kids wouldn't have a lot of them individually on them no absolutely it's um you know perhaps it's critical that we examined the digital divide and the inequities that absolutely do exist and that is the highest priority and our first step moving forward as we monitor and support our schools and our learners in using and using devices and implementing the BYOD policy we are very excited about it and you know feel like this is a critical step to our ability to enable students to use those personal devices that are supportive of engagement that enable collaborative learning that provide that anytime anywhere access and we thought alone critically about how to support our schools and our learners and our families in ensuring that there are equities and access and use across the board and that will be like I said our first findings in our first phase of implementation have you had any thoughts
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about what that might look like in terms of PPS stepping forward absolutely and of course you know everything comes with some hopeful commitments of resources but in our first phases you know we'll certainly be looking at wireless access we'll be looking at the ability for students to access the type of digital content that's being deployed potentially through these devices we'll be looking at how well students are able to engage in the four C's or what are now being called the five Cs of collaboration with peers and teachers communication with peers and teachers creativity critical thinking and citizenship and so that those are best practices that have come forward and those blended learning and 21st century skill development and will formulate the types of student outcomes that we're driving towards with this policy so that's how we'll be measuring the learning and the impact of the policy moving forward okay and that might result in a commitment and an ask of course of the district and the board and we hope that you'll step up when we come forward with that when we look at closing the divide and wireless access of structured devices themselves so we'll be taking data I take it them to see you know like percentage of students at schools that bring their own devices and the schools that you know have a low percentage of students at on those devices and what the appropriate devices to provide us in that kind of a severity so in my background they're actually 21 different indicators that you can look at to determine how well you're providing accessibility to digital learning and those are 21 different factors around access the classroom the environment and the systems and structures and so we'll be developing employing those well researched factors to develop the research methodology that will help us monitor implementation great Thank You Julie comes in now and thank you her all your great work and if I could just briefly although of course with devices there's a great deal more we need to do bringing them on but 10 and 12 years ago the inequities among our buildings in terms of networking and access or just horrific and our staff has really done a fabulous job in the last three four years and we're able to take steps like these because of that work and thank you very much it's meant a lot thank you okay the board will now vote on resolution five four five nine all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes opposing to keep aside no any abstentions resolutions passed by vote of seven to zero student representing Bradley voting YES OD yes great she can text it in extra will now have a first reading of the proposed your collaborating and creating checking on my homework plan always the student great first and forever okay uh superintendent McCain you want to talk about the exemption from competitive bidding for it one of your fine staff people ready yeah hi Emily good evening good evening name's Emily Courtney is director of purchasing and contracting and with me is Justin dollar the property management project manager Gong Xue so you have in your board packet tonight draft findings and a recommendation to approve use of an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity I'll call it an IDIQ for short alternative contracting method for the district-wide cold water fixture and partial pipe replacement so that project is potentially about a three year project it's meant to replace fixtures in ninety buildings and approximately fifteen hundred fixtures you're one of the project includes fixture replacements and then retesting and then years two and three potential partial pipe replacement we're retesting of water shows that are still higher love
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levels so in order to proceed with this alternative contracting method we must obtain from you and exemption from the traditional design-bid-build low bid procurement method that that is ordinarily required for public improvement projects in the low bid method biddings takes place after design completion and the project is then awarded to the lowest bidder this traditional method is not practical here where staff cannot specify in advance the precise scope of work involved in replacing like I said approximately 1500 fixtures across 90 buildings as well as the partial pipe replacement where indicated after post fixture replacement water testing the IDIQ contracting process begins with issuance of a publicly advertised fully competitive request for proposals for RFP the RFP procurement method allows us to evaluate the proposers based on past experience and performance expertise a detailed plan for outreach - and utilization of certified small business subcontractors and other qualitative factors through the RFP process the districts will select and contract with several qualified and available contractors who will then be able to compete for specific fixture or pipes replacement work packages after qualified IDIQ contractors are selected and under contract staff will issue a series of requests for job order proposals organized by the eight high school clusters IDIQ contractors will be able to submit bids on one or more job order proposals based on a time and materials not to exceed basis meaning the invoicing will be based on actual time and materials required and total invoices capped at the not to exceed amount the district will issue a work authorization to the lowest bidder on each job order proposal so that's a plan and under our public contracting rules the board acting if the contract Review Board may grant exemptions and approve alternative contracting methods only after a properly noticed public hearing we publish notice of this hearing on May 9th and the Portland Tribune and made the draft findings that are in your packet available to the public and we are here to answer your questions thank you I want to make a statement just quickly I want to take this opportunity to thank our voters and our community for supporting our bond and that was a huge success and we really appreciate our community support this one is timely because this is the work that we promise the community we will do and as you see we have been working and planning as if the bond would pass and and we predicted it and hopefully happen so we're not wasting any time so that's why bringing you this contract today thank you but you didn't guarantee it did it with that any other questions I guarantee any answer layman's terms I mean while I'll take specific we were fine I was having trouble hearing some agree and and I was trying to follow best that I could but it basically was okay we can do this and we're going to split it up I mean while we're not going out for a bid because of I'm happy to take that to our control can I just add to Steve's question my question is is it either or both that it's more expedient to do it this way or that we can dictate the methodology based on what our assessment recommended to us both so let me explain this I'll break it down for you so an IDIQ gives us the ability actually to create then a pool of pre-qualified contractors who demonstrate the actual capacity to do the work so 1500 struck fixtures across multiple sites over 90 sites is a lot of work to do and this command this particular environment the work itself is actually very complicated so to actually create a qualified pool of contractors who has demonstrate to us that if we say go and do this work you can do it we can then that means that they can do it under a low bid design-bid-build process the lowest bidder doesn't necessarily have to demonstrate capacity or qualification to do it which means I can get the lowest bidder was yeah we can do that and they show up for the work and then they don't do it so then we're stuck right so the purpose of the IDIQ is then to create a pool of equally qualified contractors with capacity to do the fixture replacement work to work in coordination with an independent third-party testing water test water quality testing vendor who can actually go out and do the workforce in a timely manner that we dictate but it remains
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competitive because they're all competing under job order proposals so we're going to break it up into packages based on high school cluster and we'll say here is X number of fixtures that need to be replaced for these specifications tell us what you think it will cost and then they have to actually explain what will cost and we'll know their hourly rates because they given the hourly labor rates ahead of time in order to be under this IDIQ contract so now we're actually having them compete for the work itself so it remains competitive that way but then we get to control then the timeline of the work but we also get price discovery for the work ahead of time under the ID ID ID IQ contract so it's particularly advantageous because this is the first project under the bond out of the gate that as you know dates back to almost a year ago which became a public concern for LED in the water so this is expedient it actually is gives us due diligence we get price discovery we actually then can manage the process in a way that's useful for the district in terms of there's a sense of understanding that the people we're going to have do the work are actually qualified in cable to do the work there will be any surprises does that answer the question we will divide it into high school clusters and the reason we're doing that is I'm a Cleveland question let's say the Cleveland requester yes okay I'm Cleveland cluster we have a certain amount of work yes that we want done in a certain amount of times correct and the price and we're going to ask more than one could people bid on that that's correct more than at that pool of people that are qualified under the IDIQ can actually bid on that scope of work but we want them to be qualified that we have assurances that they have the capacity to actually do carry the work out in a timely manner whatever they bid on that's correct now why is that that why is that different than just a regular bidding sharp so in a low bid so in a bid a design-bid-build I would actually have to hire a mechanical engineer to actually come up and do drawings for approximately 1500 fixtures that's going to take me a year to draw them every single site will have to has own set of drawings now put on the street and so a little bit on it well the contractor actually has expertise in managing multiple sites under one contract under one client we won't know it won't matter at that point because under low bidding we don't have to actually get that assurance so we still get a competitive environment but we get people that are actually qualified to do the work and I don't have to actually have a mechanical engineer spend a whole year drying up 1,500 separate fixture replacement drawings and can I if I let's say kadai add the Buell contract or plumbing contractor business sure and I could demonstrate that I could do a thing could I come in and bid on yes because you'll leave move on and maybe then the Jefferson wand definitely you would actually be able to do that that answer my question that's I really appreciate you welcome question you're going to get in there the day after school gets out right straight on that event okay you have a motion to consider resolution five four six seven district wide cold water fix your impartial pipe replacement project exemption from competitive bidding authorization to use indefinite delivery indefinite quantity alternative contract method 59 move second okay moved by director Anthony seconded by director con stam this who seen in public comment no okay Ford will now vote on resolution all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes I'll pose indicate by saying no the any abstentions resolution five four six zero is approved by vote of seven to zero student represent and Bradley voting yes yes perfect all right now we're going to do transportation oh okay okay okay want me to wouldn't invite him down get it okay Courtney Walton is going to come down and do this part and as Courtney comes down I would like to comment that this is about his last day here Courtney has been one heck of a veteran and deserves I think a lot of officier ssin for the work that he's done on a variety of things but in a personal level most especially around the snow days where we were all on the phone together at 5:30 in the morning anyway Courtney's been a great addition to the team
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yeah thanks I absolutely enjoyed it and it's been a interesting and challenging year but it's had an happy ending too right I mean the bond was kind of everything that we were working towards and you know and we didn't know but to have it pass and also passing such as isolators is great news and you know so pretty still lots of challenges I mean just a tough environment we work in and and I you know I also really admire the work that you do I you know you guys are volunteering and you just deal with so many tough issues and so I just had a lot of empathy both for the work and the environment that the board works within and in your commitment and and I feel the same way for staff you know staff staff has a tough job and it was easier for me because I came in for a year and you know as an interim and and and so I just I always felt kind of lucky to have had this opportunity so thanks for that so thank you anyway uh you want to talk about translation a bit I want to talk about you oh sure I do when I Iike what Bob have said about Courtney and I really appreciate all the work that he has done for the district and and helped us tremendously during a difficult time you know as I told Courtney he still can stay you know we have an open invitation for them so Wow you've got a lot of position we can put him in and I'm sure he'll do great work for us so thank you for now really appreciate you and a new leadership my foursome tomorrow because I guess 922 it there you go there you go our next item is the transportation assessment and this is probably an item that's overdue we have had quite a bit of challenges last year and probably previously and would intended to do something about it and this item is about doing an assessment and and bring some support and help to streamline the operation and transportation and and get us in hopefully a much better position next fiscal year so with that I'm going to have Courtney kind of go over the dis item and introduce it to you thank you sure you know we are struggling with in our transportation operation there's just no question about it and there's many reasons for it and some of it is a bit beyond our control the driver shortage has absolutely played into that and that's a national phenomenon not just a Portland phenomena you know traffic congestion is worse but but it is bigger than that and you know our system has evolved over time and actually gotten to a point where it just isn't operating as well as it should and you know and so we can kind of sit back and tinker and you know make incremental improvements which you know would help and yet we felt like we needed to kind of make a bigger change and I think we're pretty optimistic about where we're headed under this plan and where we're headed is kind of twofold one we went and what you're kind of voting on tonight is kind of the first stages of the RFP and I want to recognize director Rosen for working with us on this helping us develop the scope and then also evaluating the proposals with us it was myself Terry and and Mike and there are three people that responded to this and essentially what we're asking for is for an independent third party with expertise about transportation come in and take a fresh look at our operation and and basically independently assess it and then come up with essentially what we're calling a improvement plan and you know identify those areas where we're just fundamentally not operating as well as we should and we're full of you know we're fully expecting that there will be some of those so that's kind of the first two stages of this and that's what you'll be essentially voting on tonight and the cost of that I take is around sixty or sixty-five thousand now what we also did is you know what happens often with audits is they're you know they're really good resources they're well-intentioned but what often happens is you get them people intend to implement them but they're really really busy and you know sometimes they're conflicted too because they're kind of part of the prior operation and so sometimes what happens is they Spacek elyse it on the shelf and we don't get the follow-up and improvement we needed so that's another kind of key aspect of this is we want to be able to have the person who has this expertise and is recommending change to be able to come back and help us do this and that's the third stage of this proposal that's not
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something that we're going to decide on tonight and as I was talking to director Knowles about this you rightly said you know that's kind of an operational decision and she's right about that and so what we will do is we again assuming the board is supportive of this we'll enter into this first stage get the assessment going and then schedule a follow-up with our committee to talk about this third stage I'm excited about I think it's actually the right approach I think we're going to get some support what we're doing also concurrently with this again if the board approves is where we're making some staff changes in transportation a current director has voluntarily agreed to step in to the assistant director role she's a really good resource she'll chill to provide really good support there and then what we'll be able to do is allow this contractor to essentially not drive the bus but provide the overall direction there so I like that because the Independent Party will I mean they'll be reporting to us and yet they'll be dictating a an improvement plan hopefully and hopefully you know we we think we're going to get results you know they'll be if this all goes to plan or goes as according to plan we'll complete this assessment and identify the improvement plan by around the end of June and then that's going to roll into Phase three and we'll actually start working on the improvement plan during the summer what you need to do given the routing happens in and so I'm really really hopeful that when school starts you know in late August you're going to see some difference it's not it's not going to be everything right I mean this is going to take some time to dig out of but I I think there's a you know I don't know we feel fairly optimistic about it that's a long-winded explanation but that's kind of how it works it and again thanks to Mike for helping us with this thanks Mike it seems like a pretty tight timeline from the conclusion of the first two phases to the implementation window in the start of the school year and so if we're looking at this from the perspective of students and families who need improved service next year over what we saw this year I'm a little nervous yep I understand that I'll tell I'll tell you a secret we've had them come in early at their liability and you know basically we said you know you've tentatively been selected we don't have a contract it's not guaranteed but we'd love to have you start coming in early and assessing information and they've done that and I've been impressed with them and so they're gathering information already we're going to roll into a contracting phase you know probably early next week to formalize it but they're there on the ground running basically yeah I want to add them and when we met with them we did explain that we need results so we need to improve next year so they understand that they need and the urgent need for that so there will be coming up as they do the assessment coming up with quick fixes that can help us short term fixes while the development long term fixes so you know again we're not going to fix it all overnight but I'm really hopeful we will see some significant improvement I've used this model before in another organization and it worked really well in the other organization so it's not our first time trying something like that at least speaking to myself you know and we will I shouldn't say we because it won't be me but staff will be presenting that improvement plan to you again probably early July and you'll get a sense of the scope of it I mean it's you know they'll be essentially a long laundry list and then they'll be recommendations in terms of you know of this which we think you can work on here's where we think you can you know probably get the most bang for the buck in the shortest amount of time in other words here's where we think we want to start and you'll have feedback on that and so you know you may want to reorient 8 it at that based on the feedback you've got but you will have that choice to provide feedback and help direct kind of where we start on this great obviously our biggest problem it appears to me tell me if I'm wrong is that we didn't have enough drivers I mean we can figure out the route almost to pay from pencil you know we need they get more drivers no caught across it in their truth in that I don't think is the only problem and then I'll let Courtney said no but I wasn't in a huge portion of the problem we didn't we didn't have you get to Thursday morning and he didn't have enough drivers yeah I mean we didn't have guys who were getting lost in their routes after the first week you know I mean well we started out yeah well we
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short buses to our just right not so much drivers I mean it so I agree with you that was a number one problem now along with that we have a contract which doesn't give us much leverage over the vendor and that's something we're going to work on next year through our fee process at con twins that contract up so up at the end of next year and so we'll be here so over so well can we recruit drivers into that contract I talked earlier about trying to recruit drivers from colleges you and I talked about it today we've got a lot of colleges I mean it's an ideal situation for a person who's going to college you can drive in the morning go to class afternoon or vice versa I mean it's a great part-time job for college students graduate college students picking up coming in it's a fair amount of money you really do and it seems and the problem there is training them but TriMet trains and has a training thing they might talk to them to let us piggyback on their stuff but it seems to me like we'd want to almost begin recruiting drivers right away regardless of the people who came in a man am I is that no I think that's right and we are I mean we we are working on it and to the extent we can I mean we struggled with having enough drivers as well not to the same degree as a contractor but we we struggled as well and if we were able to you know quote-unquote over higher we could take some routes back and we would be open to that and that's at our discretion so anyway to answer your question I agree I think the driver shortage was the number one problem and it caused all sorts of other problems there's other issues as well our communication is really poor I mean our communication with parents part of that as technology part of that is just probably not having enough people in the office to answer the phones when when things are happening and and it kills us you know we have buses that are late and parents have no idea and they sit around for you know and they're late for work or the kids are out there on their own so it's it's a not a good situation and we we got to get a handle on if you had more drivers you wouldn't have you would have less routes that weren't covered and you would need less communication yeah that's absolutely true it seems to me do we have a Yusef do we have a recruitment budget to recruit drivers we do yeah I mean it's money is not the reason we are not being successful we but we need to think of other ways to recruit and you know to your point there may be some other alternatives we have that we haven't pursued in the past that could help and we should be open to that okay great thank you very much good luck that was though my neighbors were going to meet me in the head if the other bus didn't get out there so tell them we're willing oh it wasn't me I don't drive them you know you could we hire retirees for bus drivers you know discipline on us you may have some free time coming up in July I heard well I was just I'm glad to hear you talk about the communication piece because we've seen other districts who have the real-time apps where parents can see where the bus is and their cheat so something like that that might be cheap would be yeah it'll you mean it honestly it won't be next year but it's something we can work next year and maybe have it in by the following year and people are used to that you know they used to Boober and lift and kind of seen when the vehicle is coming and it's the technology is out there all right thank you thank you Cortney doing this we're gonna there's a it's in our business until I want to just say something I want to thank corny again because the one thing that really was great about working with you is when I asked a question you gave me a real answer not an evasive one an answer out and that is exactly that's a model for all our employees and I personally really appreciate it and appreciate from people saying the front row and from you septic getting real answers and that's really great okay great yeah amen thank you thank you enjoy the rivers well maybe I might see you on one all right so Brian pardon me did you vote on be a stranger no we're not going to oh you wanted then submerge and yes in the business agenda yeah all right so we're going to do a budget amendment Brian Laurie you want to
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all right so we have got in front of you amendment number three for the current year budget so this is the 2016-17 budget and under Oregon budget law were required to assure that our expenditures are less than our budget and so this is just one technical correction to our budget in our claims are self-insured claims reserve area so we had 1.5 million dollars in contingency in that area and we're moving that one fight 1.5 million dollars out of contingency and moving it into claims expense and this is to allow us to address some accruals that we are going to need to make by the end of the year for self-insured claims okay any any questions from the board she it it will now consider that amendment resolution five four six one amendment number three to two 1617 budget for school district number 1 Jayda loan the county worker grab a motion move move by director Anthony second by director Knowles any other discussion board will now vote on five four six one all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes I'll close indicate by saying no no abstentions resolution five four six one is approved by I vote a seven to zero student representing badly voting yes all right okay we now the will recess the board from its regular meeting and convene as the budget committee the board as the Budget Committee has held three public hearings on proposed to 1718 budget Superintendent McCain we'd like to make any comments just a few up you know there's been a lot of work that has gone into the budget most especially Yousef and his team everybody actually all the administrative team has been involved as well as the board in that you had a chance to see the preliminary budget a week or so ago we designed a budget around student learning equity and health and health and safety of our students it's always difficult when you're in a cut budget you heard words to that earlier tonight and you know the only thing I can say is that I think this budget represents a really good faith effort to do the right thing for kids and with that I turn this over to others Thank You mr. Branton in this budget obviously you have seen a lot of the material that we have presented in the proposed and during the work session and this is more of us somebody just kind of recap some of the stuff that we've done and and also make the modification based on the work session and the significant number of questions we've got from board members and the really good questions and we really appreciate all the efforts that each and every one if you put into this process in terms of asking us their questions and help us in the in the process of coming up with a budget I'm really surprised we don't have a lot of audience we must have done a good work with the budget yes beautiful day out there so the agent that we're going to go over the guiding principles for the budget and staffing the budget summary we're going to go over how we balance the budget we'll show you additional investments that we have made certain office and non school budget reductions and the reduction we made in staffing schools then what are the next steps I mean I can repeat the budget priorities that we have put forward it's I'm going to just read them repeat info I'm not going to go through a lot of the stuff because you've seen it many times the three priorities is educational equity learn achievement and Student Health and Safety in terms of equity continue to receive equity adjustment staffing allocations in terms of learning and achievement protecting core programs Duke eight staff and ratio maintain that that funding and we actually did the additional investment for some Kaede schools supporting focus and priority
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schools and maintaining funding for special ed that was our initial thought however during the work session we're proposing an investment of about a million bucks roughly towards special ed in additional investments term student health and safety we have done restructuring and our goal is to enhance funding for environmental projects and maintain transportation funding and ensure that specifically new schools that were maintained or renovated with the 2012 bond receive additional support in custodians in maintenance support so the next slide so we're proposing a budget of about six hundred seventeen million dollar budget something to keep in mind this budget is making we're making an assumption that the revenue at the state level is 8.1 billion for k-12 education that's the number that cosa and other school districts in the state agreed to use as not necessarily appropriate level to maintain funding but that's probably more realistic number that we're hoping legislators will come up with in order to maintain funding we really need eight point four billion dollar so our assumption is eight point one with four percent contingency most recently we have seen the rejected revenue at the state level and it shows improvement it's now the shortfall is down to about 1.4 billion however that improvement does not change our assumptions because we're assuming at a higher level than what the state proposed anyway so we're going to go over the the reductions we have made some reduction at the school level initially and we have made adjustment to that to reduce the impact on classroom and certain functions and we did reinvestments in several areas and we'll cap that the what I want to just show here is the the bottom line in this slide is about 74 percent of our resources are from state school fund and local taxes I have what did you win through that that's the state budget and it really doesn't make a difference in where we are where we're going with our budget in terms of our reserve thank you for passing the reserve policy I know the CPR sea have worked really hard to come up with really good good reserve policy based on best practices from the GFO a and we're going in the right direction and then this budget will will interest closer to where we need to go in terms of what we proposed in and was the only thing I want to highlight here you've seen this slide many times is again our resource is growing at 2% while your expenditures are growing at 6% and that's just a mismatch and huge difference that our legislators unfortunately are not realizing in their proposal of the budget this one is an important slide and that's where we highlight the the reduction we've made and where we have reinvested or restore some cuts the equity formula initially we proposed a reduction for k5 middle inkaid of 1% reducing it from 8 percent to 7 percent we're proposing and this a request to approve the budget to restore that to 8 percent that's 1.8 million dollars were putting back then the one of the contracts I am Academy with restoring the cut we proposed initially which is about $80,000 that's coming back again the peace in schools Vala hundred and thirty-eight were proposing to restore that as well and the Portland Workforce Alliance there was a proposal reduction we're restoring the reduction to the current level in addition to that we have had a bunch of contracts that amounted about 300 point three million dollars which some of these contracts are part of that in terms of that's in the equity on term of learning and achievement and it's worth about 8.2 million dollars reinvestments during the work sessions we get consensus or my read on it that restoring the PE librarian counselor's positions in schools so we're putting these back to the same level that we had this year that's three point six million dollars in addition to that we have added an investment in special education of about a million dollars point nine million that's an add above and beyond last year current level of funding and
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we're also in that budget we there is a proposal to add about two hundred fifty thousand roughly for literacy contracts you know what reading results collaborative that's that's that's the assessment right oh this is smart children oh okay yeah these are the five contracts that you the smart okay investments that we have made in addition to that in curriculum development point nine million twenty nine million for coaches literacy assessment it's about four hundred thousand dollars and Kate's staffing that's an added support specific to k-8 schools and the risk static allocation to schools of point eight million dollars in terms of health and safety we add we have done restructuring within operation and we shovel the resources and we focus them on health and safety in specific to maintenance and then content custodians about four point three million dollars we also added a million dollars for new schools new build schools using the twenty twelve bond money emergencies would setting aside $400,000 to deal with emergencies nine uh obviously but hopefully we won't need it but we're mark that much for them how we came up with the money is these are the resources we have we have received more information that show our mes de revenue we'd have with the increase by about a million dollars we also will have we realized some saving in health benefit worth about six million we're using about four point eight million of that this year how much we were really realize we will not know till toward the end there will be after we improve the budget so I think we're safe to use that much money for this this year this is a one-time thing and we'll probably realloc at that next year then we have other cost savings in operation of about 2.9 million in this particular slide will show you where we have done the cut you've seen this before and what's the net impact on the the central office after we have restored some cut and redirected some investments to schools and in other areas within the district in terms of school staff and then it impact is about 7.3 million down from about fourteen something million initially that we proposed on term staffing we showed you in our proposed budget back in March if I remember correctly March 14 about one hundred and twenty four point seven total ft we would have reduced from schools that's down to about 71 we don't know exactly how many of them are teachers we will not know till principals finish their work with the schools and then figure out where they allocated their resources in terms of teachers my gifts will be reduced significantly and we probably would have I probably can say with great confidence that many of the folks that if they are teachers they'll have probably an opportunity to apply for a job because we lose about 200 to 300 teachers roughly a year about 125 roughly for retirement another move outside the state or big different career etc so I don't anticipate we'll see significant reduction in our teachers probably none well we'll see how that play out when when we finish that staffing the last piece is 250,000 last year we have had about 500,000 for library books taken from the consolidated budget from schools this year arm the proposal or the consensus we got from the board is about 250,000 cut that in half towards library books and we did ask our instructional force to work with the schools to come up with the ideal model that this model that help our schools and reduce as much as possible burden on their consolidated budget to come up with how and what the formula to take this money back toward library books and with that we're asking you to approve the budget or we'll answer any questions that is so the stuff you've seen it I'm not going to go through it can you just reiterate for us if the state budget comes in at less than eight point one what is our plan B will
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they've been the reserve I mean that's them with the station budget has four percent yes the other questions speak well I just want to make a comment about thank you for pulling out the information on the literacy adoption as we are moving into a phase two I we have requested early on with it when the pilot began in the fall for literacy adoption to have a program evaluation of it and to look closely at student data just to make sure that we're on track with the right materials that are equating to student success and that data isn't available yet so we'll you know that budget I would be approving with the caveat that we'll look at the data in June in a teaching and learning meeting and make some decisions about really moving on the pilot for the next cycle of schools so both outside evaluation that we had asked for and then looking at the data for those ten schools in terms of their reading benchmarks yeah so that's been slow in coming so any comments I certainly support what director as far as a brown said but really first I do want to thank all of you so much this is so much really been it's been an enormous amount of work and it's very very solid and it has been a real joy in spite of the cuts in spite of the problems to work on this with you and very specifically to the very real issues that MS heifer raised earlier mister Dutcher and a team of people from across the district school principals representatives from HR have been working very hard putting in heroic efforts through this year to move up our budget process going forward so that we do not get into these terrible situations where we are harming our school communities the four months before we are able to pass a budget and I think next year it's going to be night and day and I'm really looking forward to that thank you I appreciate your persistence on that because you know staffing is not just FTE as you have brought to our attention continuously staffing as human beings with relationships with kids and we need to do everything we can systemic ly to nurture those relationships and support them and not look at them as replaceable for our kids I just wanted to make one comment with regards to some of the partnerships so this is something that we talked about in our work session so the the literacy collaborative and work systems and peace in schools I mean this is something that I would like to see more of partnerships with these nonprofit entities that are bringing two or three times the value of what we're investing into our schools so they're doing private fundraising they're leveraging our investments and it doesn't make sense for us to you know lose the whole programming by removing our small portion of investment when they're really bringing a lot more to the table for our kids so I appreciate the recognition of of how important that is and how much we want to grow those kind of partnerships seconds out you know plus I think in the budget process what I did find is we really I'm proud of us we came together at looking at what was the best for students and keeping as many services for the students and in keeping teachers and I'm just really glad that we were able to I think this process was so much better this year for us and that working together thank you all it's we've come to a good solution as good as we could forgiving the circumstances now and we've restored a lot of services thank you and I'm you know appreciative of of the fact that we really took a hard look at central
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administration and made some made some adjustments they're consistent with some restructuring you know there may be some more down the line to be done but that was a big part of what what we plan to do as well and that was definitely reflected in the budget yep I guess one more thing I just want to say thank you Bob I really appreciate your leadership and I appreciate the board I mean the work session was really great there for it in a great collaboration and a lot of good work and a lot of good question helped us get to this point where we can get a budget and move really smoothly in my view the one thing I want to point out is you know this is a difficult year but I hate to be the one who talked about the future in not as hopeful way because the state budget does not look good and even even at eight point one if they get there is not going to be great the following biennium is going to be much more difficult to maintain workloads that we have had in 2010 2011 be quite honestly it's going to be very difficult not that we don't want to do that but that's one thing to keep in mind going forward we can't get stuck in the past and the best is going to change things will change if we're going to improve and transform this organization and get more efficient we're going to have to do things differently and we can't be stuck in the past to do things the way we've done it for years it's not going to change the outcome we would look for in order to improve we have to change and certain things will have to change it can't stay the way it is it's just that's reality so you can have to keep that in mind as we forward and as we adopt Nixie a budget and the following biennium because things will look different if we're really serious about change thank you Mike Nancy I just wanted to thank Lori and Youssef and Ryan it was a much better process this year and I felt like we asked you guys tough questions and you really respond to really specific and it's made the thing a lot easier even in this tough time so thank you all thank you when the three of you sitting at that table have given me so much good information without any hassle and I got basically what I really needed and it was great to have that because it hasn't always been that way around here and it was terrific and I really appreciated it and I think this is really a very good budget Wow looking for fat or something it's pretty darn hard still things I think that we could be doing slightly differently but they're they're not they're not huge things with one exception but the and I want to comment about that at the end but we got the work to go through the things a little bit that the teachers talked about when they came today workload I mean isn't it we did say in our contract that we take two days off if we cut teachers and we use that to put teachers back that's the contract isn't it I mean that's the contract but we're not were bargaining around that at this point is that what we're doing because we can't put the two days on and not cut teachers and stay within the contract unless weary bargain that contract that's my understanding of it and I think it's I think in that clear I mean I think the workload language is specifically the that reads in the contract out we cannot change the work from 2010-2011 school year but there's also some of the more critical piece then the the the one hundred ninety two versus one hundred ninety days we are in bargaining we ought to work in with in good faith we're trying to do the best we can under the circumstances but as I said earlier things have got to change we can't do business the way we have done in 2010-2011 and expect different outcome yes correct but isn't it isn't it correct that we need to take two days if we don't change the contract from where it is now we need to take to school days off and put that into teachers that's what the contract now says it's being bargained as we speak yeah but we can bargain that but that I'm correct on I what that's what the current language says yeah for that particular one make sure we all everybody in the room is in the same place we know that uh I think the other two things I can take
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up with a superintendent that I have here about the workload stopping them dealing their snow days and prohibited subjects I think they're probably accurate on the prohibited subjects would be my guess but the one comment I have and this has nothing to do with really budgeting it's we never have went after and gone after as a school district really the what I think is a single worst problem in the school system for educating children and that's the fact that we still are continuing to take children who can't speak English and put them in high school and middle school classrooms with no English skills at all and expect them to be able to be successful which there's no way on this earth that they can be successful when they enter that late when in the k5 and even six if it's self-contained they can be successful and they can work through a good teacher can work them through there's things you need to do and we need more Skills around that but yeah well when you dumping those kids into those ninth grade and tenth grade classrooms with no English and you're putting them into a biology classroom good luck they can't be successful and it's the one thing that I really feel like failure for not getting that done and I hope the future Borg coming we'll get it done it needs to be done we need to be teaching those children English and we need to be teaching English before we dump them into a classroom where it's all English I mean it's it's just common sense all the vase eveness that I put up with for a couple three years around it is pretty much gone in the district nobody's buying the invasiveness anymore like oh well if you if you do certain things in the classroom no you can't do certain things in the classroom to make that work I'm sorry what anybody does is baloney and we need to look at that this next year I hope the new the new people coming on the board will put right it's the number one problem in the school district that that is still out there that we haven't addressed at all and it's not the budget people I just took this opportunity to say that as I'm going out the door and Jesus makes me feel that and I hope and we're starting to work on that foundational idea well we have a foundation across and then we layer the layer the special programs and on top according to need and I and I hope everybody will continue to work on that who comes in in a new board it's terrific we've done some great work so far it's very important that we get to that at least to the point where we know what that would cost and we're not there but we're on the way and I hope the people on the school board who are going to still be on the school board will continue to push for that and hopefully they'll even get those kids who come in we all talked about that you know the ice and it's so worried about the ice coming in and taking and how terrible and how we want to pick this a school district that supports all these children and then when their children come we toss them in a classroom when all they speak is English and they don't speak Farsi at all and we have not trained them and we have not given them what they need to learn English so they can be successful and have a chance or shove in a minute and it's it's terribly hypocritical for us to talk all about that and then for our school system to not do it and I hope next year is the very least we will do it whoever is still on the board and maybe even get started in your tenure starting on July 4th of July first and maybe even bobkid starts it now that'd be great let's get let's get going let's get it organized and started thank you very much and thanks for the wonderful work really this is really good good budget process we're not up at midnight oh thanks goodness Stevie would have loved it today at Albina rotary they had they honored four scholars from PPS one of whom was a young woman from Roosevelt who grew up in a refugee camp she was from the Congo grew up in a refugee camp in Rwanda came here when she was about 12 and is graduating with a three seven and gone to college a lot of children who can do it so I also wanted to comment Steve I really appreciate your passion that topic and for those particular students and we will continue to focus and look look specifically at their success I disagree respectfully with that model because I know from looking at those models across the country and working with some of the systems that they haven't really had a good academic impact but I do agree that we need to do
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something to boost the achievement of our English learners and so I think that will be another one of our goals hopefully the new board will see that as a priority as well putting it's important that at the same time as they're learning English that we can't negate the content so it's really a two-fold piece but I do agree with you that every teacher really should be trained on how to construct English learners and that's the way that we're going to make a difference they don't exist and we need to be doing what I'm talking about in order to have those children become successful and if the model I'm talking about is where you take children and you have to do it voluntarily and you put them in a school you teach them English for a period of time and it's intensive English language instruction for a period of time which then allows them to grad school but it's not a LinkedIn it's not two years or it's not that's what a lot of the models are and they're not successful a lot of those models a little bit newcomer schools in there it's not the nucleus it's not the newcomer school that I'm talking about really they're what I'm talking about is darn successful models across the country because hey it's against them it's against federal law to do it unless people volunteer to do it you have to get volunteers you have to set it up in a certain way and there are there are incredibly successful successful models of doing that where you're going from English to other languages all you got to do is go down there to Provo Utah where they train they take thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of killed up high school people freshman and college people and they train them in a certain language and they're able to go out into the community in an 8 week after 8 weeks go out into the community and access the language and begin to get going and after a little while they're very good at all right so there are that model exist because that on anybody else or Lima do you have any comments or any kind one left on that group which is that it is really huge that we were able to restore all of the proposed cuts to spend and when we first started going through that with a fine-toothed comb trying to figure how we're going to get along without each of these Scrolls that are so important that was really awesome and I think you know with clear intention that that was a huge priority for for all of us so I'm really grateful that that remains whole I just want to confirm it's not just restoring we're actually investing a million dollars in yeah with the addition of the two rooms yes yeah thank you and then I'd like to appoint a clarification in terms of the media specialists and library assistants so essentially we're restoring those positions that were initially cut yeah we're going with both of those yeah we're going back in what we had okay perfect um will now vote on the budget as a budget committee resolution five four six - do I have a motion so moved second okay move by director spider brand expecting by Anthony Anthony mr. Kaneko the comment any other board discussion Steve I'm voting yes but I'm going to vote with a idea just that we will follow the contract unless we get the contract changed in the end we're going to follow the contract because we have had times when we haven't follow the contract on this board with these seven people here and I don't want to do that again and I'm voting based on that all right board will now vote on resolution five four six two all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes I'll posed in the abstentions resolution five four six two is proved by voted 7-0 student representing yes voting yes okay will now adjourn the board as the Budget Committee and called a normal board back to order well I'll consider the remainder to business agenda having voted on resolutions five four five nine three five four six two Susan each changes to the business okay drive the motion to adopt the business agenda moved by director Knowles their second second second by director Anthony any public comment on this yep okay will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed indicate by saying no any
02h 30m 00s
abstentions the business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student represented Bradley voting yes voting yes all right your last vote the next meeting would help June 13th this

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)

2017-05-23 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

Documents / Media

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Event 1: Board of Education-Regular Meeting-May 23, 2017

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