2017-09-19 PPS School Board Special Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2017-09-19
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Meeting Type special
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Event 1: Board of Education Special Meeting - September 19, 2017

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19:20 17th is called to order welcome to everyone president to our television viewers any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted Azraq this afternoon will be will be posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be pretty played throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times this meeting is being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website so we're working Spyke working was that cause I'm talking louder okay we're here today to consider resolution number 55 10 the Mitch Whitehurst case represents a systemic failure to protect students a new board took office in July and a new superintendents joining PBS soon when the extent of the Whitehurst case became evident the board as a whole committed that we conduct a thorough and independent investigation stretching back the the decades that Mitch Whitehurst was a PPS employee and multiple schools across the city when we for this investigation we knew that we wanted to hire a senior and experienced team and we had some criteria that we were looking for we wanted the investigators to have the following experience capabilities and attributes deep experience in conducting investigations preferably ones involving possible claims of inappropriate conduct with children understanding of the culture of Portland Public Schools Portland its policies procedures and labor agreements no prior connection with PPS or PPS personnel that could be construed as causing the investigator to be biased in favor of finding no misconduct by district personnel and a strong reputation in the Portland community for integrity board leadership working with outside counsel reviewed many potential candidates and investigators and settled on a team of senior experienced investigators who are familiar with law enforcement and school law and have led investigations into complex cases one of the things we discussed with investigators that we wanted to have no stone left unturned we wanted them to follow every lead and get the bottom what happened how it happened who was involved and to make a series of recommendations to the board so today the board will consider a resolution authorizing the following that the board will approve the engagement of amy joseph peterson with the law firm of Stoll Reeves to supervise the investigation and to retain the following investigators first person in leading the investigation would be Bob Weaver he's a highly respected partner at the law firm of Garvey Schubert and bear in Portland Bob's a former assistant US attorney and was chief of the Criminal Division there in both his capacity well his private capacity and with the US Attorney's Office he has conducted many complex investigations and both involving both criminal and civil matters in addition Bob would be assisted by his partner joy Ellis joy would bring 20 years of experience as an employment lawyer as well as experience working with schools she has broad experience working with all of the state and federal laws that relate to educational institutions and finally rounding out the team of investigators as norm Frank who's the retired multum account chief deputy district attorney having served in that capacity for 30 years it should go without saying that norms been responsible for hundreds of investigations including those those involving sex crimes he has a strong reputation in the Portland community for both being an aggressive but fair prosecutor so that's the the team that we're proposing to be part of the investigation and ultimately to be supervised by external counsel it's important that this is not just an investigation about what happened or who to hold accountable but we also are have a commitment to the students Portland Public Schools that our policies our practices our actions on every level whether it's the school board schools school building staff central office staff our external partners who provide services our students that all of those individuals keep our students especially our most vulnerable ones safe we expect from the investigation that there'll be recommendations for changes in both our
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policies and practices and to bring forward to the board for consideration into the the district central office staff I'm gonna in a moment cover the scope of the investigation but I wanted to open up the forum to my board colleagues - maybe I should first ask for a motion so moved second motion in a second before we start discussion so we that resolution number 55 10 is been moved by director Bailey seconded by director cons damn so is there any any discussion I think this investigation is consistent with the work that we have undertaken with our complaint policy to really try to build new systems within this organization that encourage people to bring concerns forward and show the public that this is how we grow and improve as an organization and that we welcome an airing of of concerns and complaints and particularly in a matters such as this where it has to do with the well-being of children so I think this is an important piece of that overall work and I hope and intend that as a board and a district we take the recommendations that come forth from this and really make sure that we have a way of systematically allowing them to inform our ongoing practices that we we address everything that comes forward in this in this report in a systematic way before director more speaks I just want to thank her and director Esparza Brown who both spent a fair amount of time with me interviewing and reviewing the just various potential investigators before identifying this lineup it it saddens me that this is one of the first actions that the new board has to take because it is deeply troubling that we have had we've had a case that has gone on for so long and jeopardized the lives and well-being of so many children but at the same time I'm also pretty proud that this is one of the first actions this new board is taking and I want to thank Julia for really making this happen so quickly I am I'm very impressed with the investigative team that we have managed to to employ for this I have we have been very frank with them about the the seriousness with which we take this investigation and the the scope of activities that the scope of the investigation that we expect them to conduct and and we expect them to provide us with some really serious recommendations for how we can change our policies procedures and practices to make sure that this kind of thing never ever happens again in PPS as a former child advocate who has spent a good bit of my professional career advocating for children who have been abused this is a this is probably one of the most important things we can do so I'm looking forward to getting the results and and addressing the issues that produce this lamentable situation I would just like to mention that like Rita I am very pleased with the people we have been able to recruit to pursue this investigation and also I would like to thank Julia because she has been very open very willing to expand the scope of the investigation in ways that I think are going to be very helpful going forward yeah thanks to Julie and Rita and especially Julia it's important as an organization that we hold ourselves
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accountable it's important that we make sure this never happens again board members have any questions so I want to just take a moment to just outline this this should be available publicly at some point on our website but just want to outline the general scope that we've given to the investigators and ask that it serve as a guide notice it's it's a guide we expect they're there all they bring decades of experience and we expect them to utilize that experience and expertise and if they feel that we're we're looking too broad or too narrow at a particular issue we hope that they would recommend Reece coping so that we really get to the essence of what we're trying to discover here and we think we've got a great team to make those that those recommendations so the critical questions or scope that we've laid out include the following what notice of possible concerns about mr. Whitehurst did the district receive who received those notices from whom did they receive them and when did they receive them what response did the district make to each notice it received and what was the timeline for that response was each of those responses adequate and if not why not what policies directives and procedures were in place at that time that would have been applicable to the complaints or concerns that were raised were there systems failures and/or employee performance failures and if so what were those failures were there performance failures by external agents or representatives of Portland Public Schools did any PPS employee or employees fail to comply with mandatory reporting quirements or violate any policies laws or ethics rules if so who and when were there any consequences for those failures did any of those failures have licensure implications is there any evidence that any person or group of people protected mr. Whitehurst who initiated and approved mr. Whitehurst transfers is there any indication that district personnel used transfers as a way to avoid taking disciplinary action was there any follow-up by the administration following settlement of the Rory Thompson matter is directed by the board and if not why not well complaint and investigation procedures to the district adopt to ensure complaints regarding personnel and agents working on behalf of PPS are received and acted upon promptly and appropriately do the district's record-keeping or other procedures allow for consideration of all prior complaints related employee misconduct related to students such as that the district can identify any pattern of related issues if not what should be done to change that are there provisions in the union contract that impact the district's ability to adequately address complaints do PPS employees receive adequate training and recognizing possible predatory behavior and how to respond appropriately are there other complaints about sexual misconduct by a other employees that have not been addressed so again this is a outline of a scope but we anticipate once we have authorized the engagement that there'll be a further conversation with the investigative team on many of these points and also look to them for recommendations and you know I guess before we vote I'll just say that every parent since their children to school everyday expecting them to be safe and as a parent who had a child who had mr. Whitehurst as a teacher I think that was my expectation so I know the district can do better and wants to do better and so I think this investigation and the right and most importantly the recommendations will set PBS on a path so that when parents send their kids to school in the morning they can feel confident that their kids will be safe which i think is why we're all here that and to get a great education so with that I'd like to vote on resolution number 55 ten so I have a question so what is the expected budget for this work and/or have we laid out a cap so currently we have as I mentioned we need to further have a furthering scoping session with the with the firm I think right now I'd say 125 to 1 to 150 and I think we'll have a better sense once we have more time to talk through through the scope the list I mean that one that one of the complications and I think why this will be a higher cost is that mr.
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Whitehurst was in schools all over our district and administrators and other school staff there's a lot of people who had interactions with him over the past 20 years so I say the list of individuals who you know at some Pointer time both both within PBS but also who represented provided representation to the district is quite long and what was the span of years from the first for the complaints and this okay I'm going to go by memory but it I want to say see the late 1990s or the early 2000s I mean for sure I know the Marine Sloan memo I think was 2001 and what is the anticipated timeline so great question we've had quite a discussion about that this morning there was a sense that they felt that by year's end they could complete it but I also don't want to be caught in a we're guaranteeing it's gonna be done by a certain date because I'm given what we've asked them to look at and that we've also said you know the question that question naturally came up of what if we find something else and what we what we said and this is being mindful of taxpayers resources was you know you're not authorized to go open a whole new separate investigation but we absolutely want you to come to us with it so we can just determine whether that's appropriate to the scope of this investigation or if it should be dealt with another another way and and so I you know I think ideally by the ears end or no later than year's end we'd have a recommendation but it also may depend on the complexity and what that they find and I mean I think we also have to realize that while there's a long list of people that have collectively been identified as potentially people who somehow had some interaction within the system with mr. Whitehurst is that you know not not everybody there'll be you know a variety of reactions to a request to be interviewed I'm just asking because it's a lot of money at this point we haven't passed a resolution but at this point we're not talking about a cap it's about twice what we spent for the stole burn report and I'm assuming that Amy Joseph Peterson is overseeing the scope of this work in monitoring the costs incurred and not our own General Counsel yes and we I'm happy to put a cap in to the resolution if people would like that with the caveat that you know depending on the scope and I think it would be in up to obviously if we can do it for less I guess the one thing I would say just visa vie the stole burn report I think this is much more complicated it involves children it involves people who are dispersed across you know different different states I mean in some ways if you look at the history he was more likely to prey on children who didn't have advocates and I mean I just think it's a much more difficult investigation potentially and I would hate to say we did it on the cheap to get the price down so maybe the best thing to do is we could put a cap and have it be a not more than with a we can review progress made and certainly review the bills on a monthly basis I think that would be a good idea and again with the ability to review I don't we don't want to stop short of getting the result that we need my my only concern and I trust the team that we've assembled here is that it the investigation really has an orientation toward the systemic failures because in terms of the criminal aspect of this that has already been settled in terms of the personal accountability for employees within this district there are not very many of them who are still employed by this district you know doesn't mean we don't want to look at those pieces but what we really want to
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understand was what allowed those repeated complaints to go unheard and enacted upon and so I just want to make sure that that's really clear in in the directive to the investigators so I think this is is going to be a balance because I do think you know parents in the community are going to want answers I also believe that we we have maybe one or two perspectives of what happened in some of the instances and I actually think for you know many of the people involved there will be there there could be findings that there were systemic barriers to people more effectively dealing with you know in this case you know an employee who had you know to basically serial misconduct as what appears but that I mean we we were really clear that's why I also that we think that the team approach was to try and identify the policies practices and actions that sort of make up our collective systems or in creating the environment in which this could right continue yeah we talked about that a great deal in the interviews that we had with the the candidates and and I think we were very clear that this is not intended to be a witch-hunt this is not intended to to you know assign blame necessarily but if there is blame if there was it misconduct or failure to comply with either PPS policy or state law or ethical standards then we need to know about that and they have been authorized to pursue that but the the ultimate goal is to come up with an analysis of what factors allowed this situation to persist for as long as it did and it's somewhere between 20 and 30 years that's all those are oh that's a lot of email to go through it's a lot of Records it's a lot of interviews so I want to make sure that you know I don't want to burn money but I also want to make sure that this is a thorough investigation that that parents and students can can have faith in that that we've we've fully investigated this and that we know what we need to what this organization needs to do going forward to prevent this from happening again did you want to amend the resolution I think it's probably prudent to start with a cap and it doesn't prevent us from adding to that should it be necessary $100,000 can we we get a horse you want we get a horse trade well I just say are you making a formal recommendation I would ask for 125 just how about up to or not to exceed sure okay with the understanding that if we have to raise it then we have the option we have the option to reason do you have the resolution in front of you yes so can I just add a sentence at the end the contract shall not shall not exceed 125,000 maybe the board approves expenditures of two but not to exceed 125,000 that would be full and I do want to point out one thing to to clarify what's stated here today I believe that when the board is talking about this
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item that they not being attorneys they are referring to alleged instant instant incidents I'm sorry and possibilities that nothing has been determined at this point that's what the purpose of the investigation is for Thank You mr. Harris very helpful this is one of the first few times and 20-something years I think there hasn't been an attorney on the board so the board approves expenditures not to exceed 125,000 you well that would just be another board action ok so the last sentence when I read the board a board approves expenditures not to exceed 120,000 in this matter okay the board will now vote on resolution number 55 10 as amended with the okay we can just vote on it as amended it says as amended with the amendments including the names of the investigators which would be Bob Weaver joy Ellis and norm Frank so all in favor aye yes any opposed any abstentions the motion passes the resolution resolution 55 10 passes 5 to 0 no nose and no abstentions and that's it thanks to the board the


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