2017-10-03 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2017-10-03
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Board of Education Regular Meeting - October 3, 2017

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this regular meeting of the Board of Education for October 3rd 2017 is called to order Mike's not on is it now yep there we go thank you this this regular meeting of the Board of Education for October 3rd 2017 is called to order welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers so it's the people in the back as everyone may have noticed we have a new leader to welcome you tonight and we're gonna do that shortly after we dispense with some announcements and a welcome from our students from Bravo let's get started first any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and we replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live for our PBS TV services website director Rosen is joining the meeting tonight by phone and director Bailey is on his way here I believe he was out at a PTA meeting our PBS Ombudsman Judy Martin is absent this evening but I wanted to make everyone aware that she is available to provide additional support to families who need or want it Judy can be reached at five oh three nine one six three zero four five or at Ombudsman at PBS net we also have interpreters with us this evening and I'd like to ask them to come forward introduce themselves and the language they will be interpreting and inform the audience where they'll be located in the auditorium should someone need their assistance each other if in every vacant on the building of it Lamson quick very few saw okay a hotel the rights in come on move it great thank you so if you arrived early you had a chance to hear the student students from the Bravo Orchestra and we thought as we're welcoming our new superintendent who also started his music career as a on the violin that would be appropriate to have the Bravo Orchestra perform tonight before the meeting we're gonna ask them in a moment to play an additional number I'd like to just introduce the some of the people with the Bravo programs first we have Chris worst who's a PPS teacher
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[Applause] [Music] in addition we have tonight with us Bravo instructors mark Woodward will Gibbs and Gabriela Jimenez I'm gonna ask Seth Truby who's the executive director to come up and say a few words and then after that we're going to have I think one more number from the students at Bravo so everybody has a chance to hear them if you arrive late go ahead and Seth thank you very much superintendent Guerrero school board members and all of our friends here at Portland Public Schools it's a tremendous honor for Bravo to help mark this important day most of you already know a bit about Bravo we've been trying to get in all of your faces but for those of you who are new let me recap very briefly Bravo is part of El Sistema it's a worldwide movement of social change through music that started in Venezuela in 1975 there are now over 60 countries with el sistema inspired programs and here in the United States they're about 120 programs Bravo was the first in Oregon although we're working on a second one in Newberg in partnership there with the bold leadership of principal Tamela Newsome we launched our first program at Rosa Parks School where there are over 18 languages spoken and children from around the world now Rosa Parks had never had a music teacher since it was built in 2007 when we started at Rosa Parks we had an after-school program for about 40 kids and an in-school program teaching introductory violin to all of the kids in k1 so about 140 kids and that was our first year five years later a lot has happened we're now in five schools all in the Roosevelt cluster up there in North Portland we're serving eight hundred students in pre-k all the way up through seventh grade with our new program at Clarendon we're now doing early childhood as well I need to point out that everything we do is in daily partnership with our friends in the schools that we serve the principal's that teachers the custodians the cafeteria staff the parents we could not do it without a daily act of partnership with the schools we have a lot of friends in this building here too so thank you for making our work possible some highlights of the last few years we were invited to perform at governor Kate brown inauguration in Salem in January of this year our students have performed on stage at the schnitz with black violin and hypnotic grass for thousands of cheering fans we've performed several times with the Oregon Symphony both at the schnitz with Carlos comer and also in outreach concerts in North Portland where the symphony comes to us and plays alongside our kids and this last March our student luis chan hernandez was profiled on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt it was amazing to have national media coverage for the program at George middle school but it was also really exciting when Joey Harrington did his local news feature so we've been getting really good media coverage I want to talk very briefly about impact music is good for kids it's good for our brains have you ever heard that before ever heard that music is good for us okay yes it's not a surprise we actually now have numbers to show the impact of Bravo in these schools we have data to back this up thanks to a partnership with Joe Suggs in our evaluation Corner Elizabeth audio we've been looking at numbers that you guys have been providing in this partnership model and so I've asked Karen to share our evaluation results this is for the 2015-16 school year we've just got the data from this last school year so within the next two or three weeks we should be able to extend this study to include last year's information we've been looking at three primary areas we look at the demographics of course but we're looking at attendance test scores and then behavior referrals and it's good news across the board so when we look at Bravo students compared to other schools in the same schools other kids in the same schools we serve their attendance is higher their test scores are higher and their behavior referrals are lower I just want to highlight each one of those areas with attendance 91% of Bravo kids in our after-school program are getting 90% or better attendance that's one of the key benchmarks and it's 13 percentage points higher than other kids in those same grades in schools test scores those kids in Bravo their test scores went up as if you had given them an extra year of language instruction it made that much of a difference their math scores they went from 30th percentile to 40th percentile so it's having a major impact in these students of school performance and then finally on behavior referrals in the grades and schools we served in 2015-16 there were 36 suspensions only one was a Bravo student so these kind of statistics really back up that claim that music is good for kids it's good for communities it's good for schools and we want to make sure that music is available to all of the kids in Portland Public Schools so again this is only
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possible through your partnership with us I want to say that this vision has been possible partly because we've had a strong advocate here in Kristen Bryson who's the district arts core we need her she probably needs more funding and staff but I'll let you guys work that out and I want to say now that we have a violinist sitting in the superintendent's chair I'm expecting fabulous things for our partnership in the years to come you don't have any excuses okay we're going to be coming back to you guys this spring for a request for continued funding of our partnership so we can serve all of the schools in the Roosevelt cluster by about 2022 that's really just the first step is we can go as far as you guys want to go and so we're counting on you to say yes now let's listen to it again spicy music [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] thank you and to all the students really thank you for helping us start the meeting this way I wish I could tell our new superintendent is how they all started but they don't so thank you for the students tonight for joining us I think everybody here and the board and the audience would agree agree we have some pretty outstanding students and musicians here thank you so yesterday was an exciting day for Portland Public Schools as it was the first official day of for our new superintendent and I know he spent it along with Suzanne Cohen visiting a couple schools so we're glad to see an early start out in our schools and you've said that's something you're gonna do on a regular basis so from the board's perspective one of our most important responsibilities of an elected school board is to hire oversee and evaluate the superintendent who's responsible for the day-to-day leadership and management of our schools when the newly consultative constituted Board took its seat on July 1st hiring a superintendent was the top of our agenda we said as a board and that we heard
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pretty clearly from the community that people wanted us to hire an educator so that was clearly our top priority and we found somebody who had been a teacher a principal a leader and someone who had served students and a community in large complex large complex and diverse districts so I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that we're really excited about this new chapter we've got many challenges ahead but this is a great city we have great teachers we have great school staff we have strong principles we have parents who are committed and passionate about our schools we're gonna all want to work with you so we're we know it we have challenges but together we think we can really make progress for our students now there are some people who thought yesterday yesterday was not your first day because you've been around a lot so as you were wrapping up your duties in San Francisco I know you had an opportunity to be here for the first day of school also be with us when we had the openings of Fabien Franklin Roosevelt yet the grand opening at Roosevelt yesterday so we really appreciate even though you hadn't yet wrapped up your duties in San Francisco that you were willing to come up here get an early start and now we know that you're ready to hit the ground running the board is looking forward to working with you building a strategic plan and working with you to support all the work that's happening in schools I wanted to ask as we welcome you I wanted to ask a student rep Moses Tran to extend a welcome from the students of PBS well as a student of PBS for the past 12 years in the sphere of Representative it's my honor to welcome you on the behalf of the student body of Portland Public Schools I can say that we're excited to see the new and fresh ideas that you have to bring to Portland Public Schools to change the betterment of our future so welcome would you like to say a few words our Board of Education directors and to the broader PBS community it's a pleasure to sit here tonight at the dais and my first VPS board meeting as your new superintendent I appreciate the opportunity thank you for indulging me to share a few thoughts this evening I'll start by letting you know how humbled how excited I am to to have the opportunity to serve in this important leadership role it is with much eagerness that I have already begun to dive in to the work here in PBS it's a privilege to work with the talented educators leaders the support staff in the broader community to ensure that each and every student experiences success in our schools here are a few thoughts about my own approach and my core beliefs as an educational leader I see my role as superintendent as the key instructional leader of the system the work in the classroom school central office and policymaking level should always be in service of our students it is critically important that we have clarity about what we expect students to know and be able to do across the grade levels and that we support the diverse learners we serve in meeting those high expectations our ultimate deliverable is that every student walks across the graduation stage college and or caught career ready this means we work at articulating a clear instructional framework clear pedagogical approaches and our practices clear ways to assess learning and provide interventions and most importantly that we build our student's own sense of agency regarding their own learning I believe public education should afford all students a well-rounded experience one that identifies and cultivates students gifts and talents and provides a range of opportunities to explore other dimensions of learning thank you to the Bravo Youth Orchestra for performing here this evening it warms my heart to see our young students growing and sharing their artistic talents as someone who learned to play a musical instrument as part of my own public education experience I know firsthand how critical it is that we offer a wide array of visual and performing arts opportunities for students and beyond the rigorous academics and the importance of the Arts and schools we also have a responsibility to ensure our students healthy social-emotional development which leads me to my next topic which is so timely right now I want to recognize that we have many many communities that have been affected by recent events some are natural disasters others are man-made thanks to all of you to our corporate partners who generously
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contributed to project giving hope our effort to lend a hand to those students and families that were affected by the Hurricanes and storms in Houston and Miami will have an important impact I also want to acknowledge that even as we were collecting school supplies for students in those two communities another storm hit this time in Puerto Rico our thoughts are with our fellow Americans effect by this storm and I want to encourage everyone to once again find a way to graciously lend support to people on the island we also have evidence of other events not natural disasters that are initiated and rooted in a climate of fear and hate from Charlottesville and to the many other recent examples of intolerance to the unfortunate tragedy that just unfolded in Las Vegas I know that we are all reflecting with our families on how we can begin to make sense of this horrific event my thoughts go out to all the families who lives have been so unnecessarily impacted forever by this senseless violence and then there is the sense of safety and security that is being compromised by the recent actions against our dreamers please know we stand with you that public education this cherished store of promise and opportunity remains open to you as well estamos aqui con ustedes esperamos que nuestra escuelas Bodrum primero poco de seguridad para que pueden and for Carson su and producer our schools must remain safe and supportive places for learning as you can see [Applause] as you can see we have to be more than educators who are focused on just academics we have to be the practitioners who help our students make sense of these current events so that they might develop their own informed opinions about the world and build the self-reliance and agency to craft the kind of life they desire as educators we have to be experts in our professional craft and grow while maintaining a sound approach to students healthy social-emotional development with a culturally competent and trauma-informed lens I want to acknowledge that I am joining the effort at Portland Public Schools to address some deep challenges some historical some contemporary I'm joining a community that embraces its neighborhood schools and that is willing to support a bond measure that will begin to resolve health and safety concerns and build the kind of 21st century facilities that our students and our educators deserve all of this work must be accomplished and transparent and accountable ways I am joining the large group conversations around how to best balance the enrollment of our schools and ensure that all students have access to a comprehensive experience in the middle grades how do we simultaneously preserve promising practices and programs that equitably serves groups of students we have a responsibility to serve I look forward to partnering with this board and collaborating with staff to propose solutions to these foundational challenges I was attracted to this leadership role because I understood that there would be a commitment to being student-centered an equity focused in our decision-making and that we would undertake in a thoughtful and educationally sound manner in the way that we proceeded I spent my first day at two schools that reinforce my belief that Portland Public Schools while it is facing present challenges can become a school system of which we can all be proud knowing with confidence that it is serving all of our students in their ultimate success I am pleased have dedicated my entire career to public education and it is an honor to be able to continue that service as PBS's superintendent I know that there are a lot of eyes on PBS watching this new board and a new superintendent as there should be there's nothing more important in the education and well-being of our children I want to especially call out the critical role that our teachers play I know that we are in the midst of negotiations to settle a contract we are all interested in arriving at an agreement as soon as possible that is both fair and reasonable and that recognizes the important role of our educators we are ready to work hard to make that happen [Music] [Applause] while I'm only on day two of the job I wanted to offer these thoughts about my views on the role of public schools urban school districts have their own distinct culture but they share a lot of the same characteristics and challenges no school system in America has yet closed the achievement gap between those with privilege and those without but many are actively engaged in narrowing these margins by having the courage to
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eliminate institutional inequities and break down systemic barriers I will continue to focus on getting to know our schools our students educators and the many wonderful aspects of our communities so that I may hear firsthand about the assets and challenges on the ground already I have had the opportunity to visit a number of campuses and meet with a variety of people who work in our schools and in our departments thank you to the many of you who have already shared your thoughts with me in the school hallways out on the front sidewalks and in the school yards it is my hope that in all of these conversations and insights that it will help me in gaining a clear assessment of our organization and how best to collaborate on solutions our ultimate goal will be to co-construct a vision for the Portland Public Schools one accompanied by a strategic plan for executing and operationally operationalizing this aspiration we have a lot of work in front of us but I start this job with optimism an open mind and a deep appreciation for what PBS has already accomplished I'm excited about being part of building the district's future I would be remiss at this time if I didn't acknowledge the support of my family and friends for their patience for their understanding thank you also to mentors and professional colleagues for your support along this continued professional journey of mine directors thank you for your incredible this incredible leadership opportunity to make an exponential difference in our students lives and in our community I want to thank everybody in advance for their support and partnership with persistence and determination we will work collectively to serve the needs and to foster the success of all of our students thank you [Applause] thank you we're looking forward to working with you we did notice that your office is awfully bare so we're gonna start a new tradition that there's going to be rotating student art that either on your office walls or outside your office and to start with in the back of the room tonight if people haven't had a chance there is art from our students and it's in partnership with the city of Portland as an exhibit celebrating the hundredth centennial celebration of the Rose Garden and the student work reflects their lens of Portland its iconic and unique cultural identity this piece that we're going to give you to start the rotating exhibit is from Henry mulch who is a fifth grader at Richmond Japanese immersion and I guess appropriate for your start I didn't have anything to do with picking it but it is keep Portland weird is the thing so your first piece of art it will really take [Applause] so before we get into the main part of our meeting we have one more student recognition to do and I'd like to ask director comm stam to introduce that one so we have some real action heroes here some students who volunteer with Multnomah County Search and Rescue which is a really rigorous training program and during the Eagle Creek fire that threatened communities in the gorge last month these students participated in some of the activities with the Sheriff's Department they're never in harm's way but part of the effort supporting those communities so I'm not sure who's here but do you want to come forward students who are part of Multnomah County search and rescue [Applause] [Music] [Applause] come on up come on up [Applause] for for those of you who are interested you can see in the last edition of the PPS pulse magazine an article talking about what their activities were and what their training is and I can attest to the fact that it is very rigorous and intense training one of my own sons as part of maluma County search and rescue so I know about those long soggy weekends when you're out there on the trails for 10 or 15 miles and sleeping under a tarp and it's really an
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incredible community service opportunity both for your leadership but also a real service to our community so as as one of you said in the article in the pulse we're not doing this for college applications we really believe in helping and in keeping people safe so thank you all so much that's amazing [Music] um would any of you like to sit down at the microphone there and just share anything about your experience recently sure I'm gonna introduce so as a county search and rescue we are the primary search and rescue resource for Multnomah County we are youth based meaning our leadership is youth than the majority of our membership is youth and we are leaders on calls from which range from lost hiker in the woods to evidence searches to body recoveries and we're on call all the time for whatever may happen fantastic thank you so much Thank You Colin I'd now like to introduce our Vice President laning year who's going to talk about what we did the fire hi I'm Laney I am a senior at Cleveland High School and so with the fire this year and the Columbia River Gorge we got to call out maybe on a Sunday I believe and we were called out to go do evacuation notices in areas in the gorge different neighborhoods around there and it started as a level 1 evacuation and it quickly escalated to a level 2 or level 3 evacuation within the next couple days and one thing for us about the Columbia River Gorge is that it means a lot to every single one of us and it's something that we all care a lot about and so something that's really personal to every single one of us and we just yeah I mean the gorge is an important part of every one of our lives and the fire there was something that we all really really cared about and then we all were very passionate about so a lot of us would miss quite a few days of school just to be there and sorry to all our teachers who are here tonight thank you on that note I'd like to speak for all of us when I say thank you to our administration and our teachers for understanding that in times of emergency our priority is not on school and helping us through that process so thank you to all of you guys you guys make what we do possible thank you thank you [Applause] this is just a small sample of how amazing our students are so at the start of the school year we had the really big public grand openings for both Fabien and Franklin and Roosevelt asked to have theirs delayed a little bit so last the 29th they had their official grand opening and I'm going to ask director Moore who's the school board member from from that zone in North Portland to just speak briefly about it and superintendent guerrero if you have comments I know you were there as well you want to add them you can so Roosevelt had its grand opening last Friday and it coincided with homecoming this year and this was one of the largest crowds for homecoming in recent memory estimates are between eight hundred and a thousand attendees from not only from the Roosevelt community but also from the surrounding neighborhoods and the feeder schools the Roosevelt community has been made hello there we go they've made a real effort in in the last couple of years to to solidify relationships between Roosevelt and and the surrounding
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community and it's obviously paying off the building is now visible it's been covered by portables with construction crews for the last couple of years and it is now totally visible it has a front door and it is a beautiful building I encourage everybody to come out and see it and to top off the festivities the Roosevelt football team won let's go Rough Riders and superintendent Godot was there for the for the twin costs and the coin coin toss I am NOT a football fan so you started off the festivities and I think we have a I think we have a video as well coming up so we are here for Roosevelt's homecoming on September 29th and tour of schools we're excited about our brand new faces I'm here with one of our football players what's your name my name is Anthony Thompson I'm a receiver for Roseville High School and begin this w today so please put your hands together and welcome on you superintended good evening everybody hopefully you are as impressed as all of us are by the school facility a fantastic place for future generations of students we do have a parade of future riders including full of preschool kids that we know amateurs know one day Wilson this is one Lupe he's the superintendent here easy to toss the coin let's have a good game gentlemen it is tails Roosevelt's won the toss Roosevelt all the way I'm with the riders I'm not gonna tell the Wilson people about that I love them all equally [Laughter] till next Friday I would just underline director Moore's comments it really was a fantastic opportunity to interact with the community heard some wonderful stories from alumni many who showed up wearing vintage letterman jackets and sweaters who have some other artifacts I think we're gonna try to include in some of the new trophy cases but like many of our other modernized buildings it really is an incredible place for teaching and learning and we're really proud that our students are going to continue to enjoy that experience for many for many generations so thank you so I'm in a next change that order slightly we were to have public comment I think I'm going to go ahead and just ask Susanne Cohen who that president of the Portland Association of teachers to go out of order and go ahead and come on up and you've asked to speak tonight welcome welcome and welcome to all our teachers here [Applause] well I don't mind cutting in line this one time Thank You school board directors not only for time on the agenda tonight but also for your dedication and for volunteering in service of our students in our schools thank you very much tonight I did want to address and welcome our new thank you our new superintendent quater Lupe Guerrero welcome welcome welcome and though we haven't though we've met and had a chance I didn't haven't like introduced who we are and so I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce who we are and our vision for four public schools so I am Suzanne Cohen I'm a middle school math and science teacher representing about 4,500 educators in Portland Public Schools we are our certified classroom teachers elementary middle school high school as well as our substitutes or librarians or school counselors our speech and language pathologists our school psychologists
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and we worked about five years ago on a visioning process with our educators in our community it's not a concern [Laughter] asking the question like what do we want for our schools and and from this process came out of visioning document called the schools Portland students deserve and you'll see it on our shirts and in our so you'll see it around and so I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the the aspects of that vision one thing I know already from your email today you are right there with us with with equity and and for us really that means that every child regardless of their zip code choice which makes now every child regardless of their zip code has all the support the tools and and the time necessary for them to learn and that also involves a lot of other aspects that you've you've addressed a little bit like we want inviting buildings for all our students we believe in community support for nutrition and health we also really want to see a full continuum of services we believe in manageable caseloads so that our students can be well served in the least restrictive environment we believe in the power of the IEP or that team meeting really determining what's in the best interest of the child we know that every child deserves a well-rounded curriculum that of course includes the basics but also art and music and PE and we don't think that these should be standalone or after-school programs for some we believes that these should be embedded in the school day taught by a certified and we know that of all the things we teach the most important thing we teach is a love of learning we are trusted and trained professionals we are the ones best equipped to make decisions about what it takes to ensure student success and that's why we're fighting for class sizes that enable educators to connect one-on-one in San Francisco the school district you come from in the contract for kindergarten through third grade there's a class size of 22 and they jumped the gun on it but uh we believe Portland students deserve that same meaningful time and attention we absolutely believe in Portland Public Schools and we believe in our students and as an educator yourself I know you know this like we know it this isn't a job and it's a calling and we work hard every day to connect with every child and discover their passions and unlock their potential and what we're asking of you our new superintendent and our new ish school board is to ensure that every educator has the resources the mentoring and the support that all professionals need to grow and develop and so we we are asking for quality professional development and adequate time to plan and collaborate with our colleagues we have been working without a contract almost as long as we've been working without a permanent superintendent employee and so we know that you did not create the situation that we are all in but we also know that you can make it better and we hope that you share our vision for the schools our Portland students deserve and we are asking today that you get informed and get involved and get us back on track and it starts by settling our contract thank you very thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause]
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[Applause] [Applause] okay before we begin our public comment period I'd like to review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community for taking in time to attend the meeting and provide your comments to the board we value public import but as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen with our electronic devices turned off board members will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office or the super super intendent whichever is appropriate will follow up on issues raised during public testimony guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration for others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter people will have a total of three minutes to share comments begin by stating your name spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes the testimony a green light will appear when you have one minute remaining a yellow light will go on and when your time is up the red light will go on and a buzzer will sound at that point we ask you to respectfully conclude your comments so with that I'm going to ask miss Houston to have first call any students who have signed up for public comment are there any students no students so we'll go to the general public comments and Miss Houston please call the first name George Walker junior and Vanessa Rentschler this has been much more exciting than the ball Noma County Board all here Portland City they don't have student council board meetings yes good evening superintendent Gary arrow bow chair directors I'm George Hawker the public advocate for Commissioner Loretta Smith on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners I'm here this evening representing and speaking on behalf of Commissioner Smith Commissioner Smith strongly supports Kairos PDX charter school remaining in the Humboldt school building in North Portland commissioner Smith who represents district 2 North and Northeast Portland on the Multnomah County Board has a long attachment to North Portland her son attended kindergarten at Multnomah I mean at Humboldt this school board has an obligation to be leaders in equity and take advantage of this opportunity to let carros PDX remain in its present location showing the black community and others that there can be fair and just treatment we all hear a lot about the importance of transparency well if you as a board decide to move Kairos in favor of relocating access Academy it will be transparent to everyone that the wishes of the access Academy officials and parents who have indicated that they don't want to make a move to Humboldt and the Kairos faculty and parents who have also indicated that they don't wish to move their wishes will in essence be meaningless to this board and there is no equity commissioner smith adds her voice to those of man Ted wheeler and Speaker of the Oregon House tena koe tech and urges you to do the right thing and find a way to leave Kairos PDX in the Humboldt building thank you for your time and welcome again
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superintendent Garrow I hope you stay in Portland there's a wonderful one thank you okay hi my name is Vanessa Rentschler I'm supposed to spell my last name right r e NT SCH fer I have two sons in VPS one of which is on an IEP for autism and for the past two years our family has enjoyed professional collaboration with our private ABA providers within the school setting a be a meaning applied behavior analysis which is the strongest evidence based support for autism this has allowed our son to learn in the gen ed setting the least restrictive environment in other words successful inclusion the ABA s therapist the ABA therapists guidance in real time has allowed teachers and parents to implement effective strategies specific to my son's needs individualized the ABA supports are essentially a prosthetic in the sense that like glasses or hearing aids this approach allows my son to overcome challenges related to his disability ABA is what gives my son appropriate access to his education equity I would like to add that the school staff reported that the outside ABA support was exceedingly helpful to them PBS's recent policy and procedure update concerning this beneficial dynamic has put an abrupt and arbitrary restriction on aba supports essentially truncating collaboration and effective support why the PBS special ed department cites several reasons the most glaring examples being that ABA is not a right PBS is not obligated to provide ABA and that this was somehow not providing faith free appropriate public education my husband and I are teaming up with other parents in the same predicament including palter Dahl whom I'm thinking some of you already know of we would argue that by blocking ABA provider access that PBS is blocking student access to their individualized and appropriate education ABA in school is a right when it plays a vital role in a student's educational plan when the school just district broadly limits ABA as a matter of policy the district is not taking into account of students individual needs doesn't this appear to violate disability discrimination statutes thank you so much so just note that that's a policy that's or a practice from the staff level versus a board policy so we would ask the superintendent and staff to follow up with that go ahead miss a few things Sarah Dumont and Joshua to Christa my name is Sarah Dumont I am a long-term resident of Northeast Portland I attended Sabin Elementary in the 80s and it's feeder school at that time Beaumont middle school I currently have two biracial PPS students in 1st and 3rd grades at Alameda I'm going to discuss several issues regarding the proposed boundary changes one the lack of adherence to PBS policy two the failure to provide a strategic plan to address low capture rates and three the fact that this boundary changes is unnecessarily pitting communities against each other first policies exist because they provide the framework for action and sure fair decisions are made the opposite is occurring right now the student assignment review and school boundary changes administrative directive suggest six options to consider in addressing enrollment issues one of those is changing school boundaries others include changing transfer numbers expanding moving or closing focus options alternative grade configurations or facility changes this proposal places a heavy emphasis on boundary changes to the exclusion of other factors which would more effectively boost and stabilize enrollment such as limiting out neighborhood transfers to focus options further PPS proposed boundary changes on the western side of Alameda ignore nearly every single boundary change consideration listed in its own policy directive number one promoting safer school routes PPS records reflect the MS planning principle Brenda Fox expressed serious concerns at Tubman has poor sight lines for supervision and unsafe areas PBOT safe routes the school manager was completely unaware of the
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current proposal to minimizing transportation times and distance the proposal would make the distance to middle school more than six times what it is currently now three minimizing the assignment of students away from schools and close proximity to the residents PPS records show that the proposal was edited to quote omit most references to distance to school walkability or in another case quote remove references to school walkers not really one of our goals for maximized conservation of natural resources five minimize expenses for transportation very rough estimates of transportation costs exceed half a million dollars and six avoid separating small numbers of students from their classmates would and they moved to schools at the next level these considerations have not been addressed by the board second boundary changes planned nothing to draw slow capture rates at schools in other words what is the board proposing to do about schools where the parents in the community aren't sending their children to that school I'm an address King because that's the school that's driving the boundary changes to save in an Alameda a king only 52 percent of the neighborhood kids attend the school according to PBS profile for King there are 359 neighborhood students I spoke to the King school administrator today and there are currently 137 students in the Mandarin program if King increases capture rate it would have more than enough students for robust offerings what we need is a strategic plan to address a low capture rate at the school which this proposal does nothing about finally this plan has resulted in pinning parents against each other in June 1st D brac meeting members of the committee referred to people in Alameda and Beverly Cleary as untouched rich gorillas then in paperwork I provided the board and would like to make part of the record a co-chair of D brac committee engaged in unprofessional communications because you record your comments please thank you these communications show an animus towards certain communities and are reflective of how this process has pitted neighborhoods against each other unfortunately that animus appears to be driving the decision to change boundaries Thank You superintendent at the helm this is now about the third time I've had an opportunity to speak to the board doing this is a little bit like the testimony version of sending a tweet we get three I'm sorry could you ever start with your name Joshua de cristo de CRI sto three minutes is not adequate we've had no opportunity I'm also a resident of Northeast Portland with kids who would be subject to boundary changes as part of this proposal this process has not been fair it has not been transparent and to follow up on what miss Dumont was just describing to the board I have here something that was prepared in connection with the last boundary change pages and pages of evaluations of the boundary factors that are supposed to be considered when PPS develops a boundary change where is this time around this document does not exist in connection with the boundary change that is being proposed now and I encourage the board to follow up and ask PPS staff what the heck they're doing now I am a bit hostile today because this process has completely ignored every board policy and superintendent I'm going to address this remark directly to you do you believe that PPS has an obligation to follow its policies when recommending boundary changes do you believe that and if you do believe that what are you going to do about the fact that they did not do this the staff at bps did not follow the policies in this case does that matter to you and what are you going to do about it we care about equity I have a lot of ideas about how we could realign public schools in Northeast Portland Tubman is about the worst idea for opening a public middle school in Northeast Portland that you could come up with is this the best you can do I encourage the board to review the materials the doctor say sacct just sent around regarding the environmental and health hazards associated with opening Tubman school he's a medical doctor and provided valuable information that indicates that school should not be opened as a middle school for anyone but I know and director Moore you've commented yourself that kids in inner North and Northeast Portland have been subjugated to a second-class education because of the color of their skin for too long and delaying work to correct that may not be acceptable at this point it may be necessary to open Tubman the boundary changes proposed as part of this plan are not necessary to do that you can open Tubman if you feel you need to do that but take some time to look at these boundary changes and only do it in connection with a plan that addresses Vernon Alameda Beaumont Sabin Irvington
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all of these schools together have your comments please thank thank you thank you our last two speakers Samantha Lana and Dan gearsley [Music] hi everyone thank you I'm actually a PPS school counselor and I love working and serving our children my name is Samantha Lanham and I do sit before you with a heavy and discouraged heart upon entering Madison High School on my way to attend my first listening session I was flooded with memories when I served as the Sun site manager schools uniting neighborhoods about 12 years ago that's when they converted the k5 to K eights 8th graders from a couple schools were sent to Madison because their schools couldn't fit all the students I couldn't believe they created a plan and got the numbers of students wrong and had to bust them to the local high school to receive their eighth grade education I remember that and I filed that in my memory bank and I feel like something similar is happening today I heard about the most recent proposal boundary changes that were very different from the one I saw in June from a text message from a neighbor I am a mother of a four-year-old boy and a 14 month old boy my son will be it's entering kindergarten next fall a month ago my son was assigned to Alameda elementary and is now assigned to Scott Elementary my initial response although frustrated I received no information from my son's school or district I had a sense of excitement I attended PS 95 in the Bronx New York when I was a kid and I look forward to my son being among a more diverse student body like I was then I got into the details of this change and what it meant for my son the proposed boundary changes from North East 53rd to 57th which doesn't feel like a natural boundary take some k5 to Rose City a couple to Scott and the remainder are grandfathered in this went dead I hit the pavement looking for other kindergartners with no siblings where am I though okay I lost my spot do I get another second who are also be attending Scott I have found to date five other kindergarten age children and I'm a good advocate I'm a school counselor this boundary change does not seem to account or excuse me accomplish what it's set out to do and makes my son an outsider in his community I feel like my son in another another a couple of kids or collateral damage that people can feel good about creating some change this boundary change does not create a movement I feel fear it will not create the change that is needed I want the middle schools to open everybody does presenting concerns is just that and there should be room instead excuse me I feel a storyline has been written about Alameda that I have never helped write disagreeing with parts of a plan is not the same as disagreeing with making schools equitable for all children the application of this sliver of the proposal feels arbitrary and it's not well thought-out create a movement create a comprehensive plan I can get behind thank you my name is Dan here's Li ke AR s lui I'm a parent of three students at Alameda and I believe that the public schools are best when they are neighborhood schools when parents are eager to enroll their children at neighborhood schools everyone wins my question for the board members tonight is whether you believe in neighborhood schools because the current proposal does not reflect neighborhood school focus the conversion of Rose Way Heights to a middle school fed by k5 school sounds like a terrific move for the kids within the current boundary the increase in electives for grades six through eight will no doubt benefit dozens of students however the boundary change to Alameda are not needed to solve the enrollment problems that PPS itself has created BPS is focus options and transfer policies have resulted in low enrollment at many school neighborhood schools including Rose Way Heights feeder school to our and King elementary to our West the boundary change you propose as a solution of under enrollment is a band-aid fix when real solutions are needed to PPS should focus on increasing
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capture rates within existing boundaries rather than pulling students from neighborhoods where they live to fill another neighborhood schools empty classroom board policy provides six factors to adjust to consider when adjusting enrollment issues changing one factor is not enough show us that you've considered the other five hundreds of families are hoping that you realize that adding more water won't fill a leaky bucket PPS justifies pulling students from both ends of Alameda by stating that ala Mena is overcrowded in fact Alameda Zinn Ruhlman has been steadily decreasing since 2012 spanned reach Ainge and PPS forecasts Alameda is 2020 enrollment to be its smallest since 20 2007 without any boundary changes we see that decreasing number in this year's kindergarten class which is the smallest in the last 13 years I applaud the efforts of the board to consider changes that will increase the retention of students within their current boundaries last year 869 students from Vestal Lea Scott and Rosalie Heights opted not to attend their neighborhood school applying that current capture and transfer rate to the rezone Alameda boundary will create sixty to seventy more students choosing not to participate in their neighborhood school convert Rose Y Heights to a middle school with students from Lee Scott and Vestal focus on increasing the capture rate in those neighborhood schools and when those eight hundred and sixty nine students returned to their neighborhood school you won't need a boundary change to fill the desks [Applause] thank you everybody who came and commented tonight next we have an item that was heard in the board's finance audit and operations committee and I'd like to ask the chair of that committee director more for a brief report and she may be calling up finance team yeah we just we discussed the budget amendments okay there we go and the the committee members voted unanimously to to recommend adoption of the of the budget amendment it is the document you have has some has line items it's pretty it spells out exactly what this budget amendment is about and I would ask Ryan or whoever wants to come up we'll do it together okay so if anybody has any questions I'm sorry I'm just gonna excuse myself for a moment to find our next presenter and so I'm gonna go ahead the general context for the budget amendment process sure sure yes and a good evening and welcome Superintendent Garrow nice to have you here and with me here is Meili who's our chief financial officer my name is Ryan d'etre we'll go through the budget amendment and you can tell us if we if you'd like to see more detail or less detail we have a few people here in the audience too that can give us more specific information on some of the programmatic pieces as well for some of the additional spending pieces but but really there are a couple things the budget amendment does one it by amending the budget it forced us to have this conversation just to introduce more transparency the board passed the budget back in June and this is our first amendment to the budget there are a couple things in this one first is to true up some of our ending fund balances or some of our grant funds and the second piece is some additional spending items that we will introduce into our into our general fund so I will I'll probably start if you go to the second page we can get into the next level detail there for a new addition to the budget I'm about a third way down on the page we have about 1.9 million dollars which are new additions these are all detailed on the larger page you have as well we have a budget increase of about 1.3 million dollars and then we have budget development Corrections these are largely mistakes we make in the budget development process so these are spreadsheets of about $600,000 so that's the the 3.8 million dollars is the increase in spending for the general fund those dollars come directly out of our contingency fund to support all these all these decisions all these trade-offs
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during the budget amendment process do we also have a transfer of ending fund balance into the contingency fund so we're working both ways so there were there was none into the contingency fund for the general fund but would what it does do is it truths up the ending fund balance mainly for our capital funds and you'll see referenced around the 400 funds so that truths up the unspent balances for our capital funds that were remain in those remain those funds and those are for specified capital projects the only the piece I'd call out there were two if you look at the list there are two you know the amount there's a million dollars for grant to really transfer some some activities that were previously funded by grant funds to the general fund these are both bridge funding they both add up to a million dollars that's a substantial amount of money dr. Trang can be is here to answer questions and also Jeanne your kovitch can answer questions as well if you have any specific I know the FAO it asks for more detail and we have they're both here and they can sure answer those can I just say um we kind of grilled Ryan at the committee so we vetted this pretty carefully was it unanimously recommended out of committee yes can I ask a question drum so these additional funds are coming out of the contingency reserves so what does that leave us in reserves that leaves us from memory I believe is 20 20 million 21 million and what percentage is it that will get us down to about that takes about a half percentage away we budget four percent so now we'll be at right around 3.5% okay of our general fund budget okay just just to clarify the the board passed a a resolution last spring with goal of having contingency of 5% correct so we're going in the wrong direction that's correct so we may have to do that but I think that should be noted and I think the board needs to be aware of this as as we start thinking about other activities so they only that are coming down the pike we really don't have enough in reserves to be using it for operating funds so and the the piece I'll add on this and we talked about FAO as well when we we did when our bond rating agencies visit us for the to rate our our debt rating for the current obligation there were there were two points they were concerned about and one was the turnover in earth and our staff and the second piece was our ending fund balance or our reserves so those were the two pieces otherwise they had great things to say about PPS but those are the two pieces they expressed in concern on it so just to make a reference to the other school districts you know they the other school districts in our area generally have about 10 percent reserve on the books we have a much lower rate so that's something that I'm sure the the board have talked about in the past and that's why we raised the reserve and and the other thing to remember is the projected outlook for two years from now seems to have gotten even worse just to provide some context for people since we're comparing ourselves to other districts so in 2001 PBS had $200,000 in reserves and our community very generously passed a local income tax and have supported local options after that and I think one of the things that while our reserve may be lower I think PBS was one of the few school districts that did not furlough have furlough days following 2008 so while it's admirable to have a ten percent goal I think it's you know some kids you only have a lien third grade once or an eighth grader so I think the use of the password to preserve instructional days is important so it's there's some trade-offs any other superintendent for our listening public to clarify why it was necessary
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to make a contribution of 379 thousand to support youth bass sure yes so the the city of Portland who we win a partnership between TriMet the city of Portland and PBS to cover our youth passes for our students the city of Portland chose not to fund as much for PBS and chose to bring other districts into the mix this happened after we had passed our budget so it forces us in order to provide this valuable service for our students it forces us forces our hand really to cough up the money ourselves and cover that gap and I'm guessing this decision came later than our budget was approved exactly yes the discussions happen before but the decision happened after we passed our budget yes so something to add to director constants for committee played about our discussions with their local partners maybe to get creative with our local partners about how we're gonna continue this benefit for our kids and share the burden excellent thank you any other questions if not the board will now consider resolution five five to one amendment number one to the 2017-18 budget for the school district number one J Mullen my County Oregon do I have a motion do have a second second director Anthony has moved and director Moore has seconded a motion to adopt resolution 55:21 miss Houston is there any public comment on resolution 50-50 521 there's not any further board discussion on this resolution the board will now vote on resolution 5 5 to 1 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no student representative resolution 5 5 to 1 is approved by a vote of 7 to 1 with student representative Tran voting YES great thank you very much for your work and for the committee's work [Music] so one of the most the most important issues on the board's agenda this fall is the addressing the inequities in our middle grades and we have a proposal currently before us from staff that attempts to address the enrollment imbalance the lack of robust middle school programming in some schools the staff plan is intended to address those inequities we've had a host of community meetings and I know the board has received lots of emails and outreach from various members of the communities this is a potential puzzle it affects lots of students it's a complicated and complex situation given the number of students involved and just then historic inequities that have been in place over the last decade before we start tonight's discussion and I introduce dr. Parker and mr. esta I'm going to just ask that we when we have a discussion about one component of it which is Kairos Act and access that we D link the two programs because they've been linked by a building and I think they're they're both PBS students one in an alternative program and one in a charter school a public charter school and I think the hitting or the the juxtaposing of the two schools just because they potentially could have been in the same building is something that we should trying to avoid and really try and address both student populations in those schools versus it's one or the other so with that I'm going to dr. Bailey do you want to kick things off or would you like staff to so I think I think you just kick things off which is fine and you're from stem plan and I didn't know if you wanted me to say that now or after this segment or during our conference report I think you should do it now great like well we had just reviewed over the middle middle grades plans and so I'm gonna start with the positives that they saw in the plan so they felt very strongly about including the language CTE programs and then delivering grade-level content to teach
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respect for cultural studies and diversity and to include multi-perspective multiple perspectives of history they also felt very strongly about teaching positive self concepts because they did not feel that that was something new they were taught and that to have to better inform students of school counseling because students felt like the school counselors in middle school they necessarily know what their job was and what resources their school counselors could provide so one of that and then the care teams they felt we're really good and that those that that's something that should definitely be incorporated in the middle middle grades plan and so to move on to what they weren't sure about in the middle grades plan is they saw a tag and they felt that tag was very alienating to students who did not qualify for tag and because it was not clear of what it was many students who are not in it thought that they were not as good or as smart and for those who were offered it they were not offered any modified curriculums or any other services but felt more that it was just a label they were giving but there are also positive things for students who did receive tag services and they felt that the dip modified curriculums that they got in reading and things like that did benefit them and benefit them benefit their learning so for me it's I don't know if it's because one school had more tag students who qualified or not but if a students are qualifying for tagged I believe they should receive those services no matter this of having students qualify for time tagging at school and then on one last note there was courageous conversations in which they felt was a bit vague and so they were asking how would this be incorporating curriculum and where will it be implemented on and that it seems like help go hand in hand with other team equity groups in the place so that's what the Superstock Committee had felt about the middle grades implementation thank you can I yield my time to knows I was writing as quickly as possible I go back to you I know it's come through our planning principle team so I appreciate that but I'm glad I got to hear a first-hand as well thank you yeah it would be great if you could if you had a write-up that you wouldn't just yeah all right so our update this evening is primarily around the community engagement efforts that continue and I'm gonna let Harry um summarize this good evening directors superintendent hairiest of director of strategic communication and outreach for PBS I'm gonna give you an update on community engagement work regarding opening our two new middle schools as a report last week we are well underway in reaching out to affected communities and getting their input into our proposal today we have held two listening sessions in front of you all from the board we've one was at Madison High School and one was here at the ESC both were heavily attended more than 70 people spoke others gave written comments and provided other types of testimony which we have collected last night we held a community forum at Madison High School was attended by about a hundred people good turnout and I don't think it was just for the pizza that we offer it was a little bit of a different format helped that kind of made the evening go by a little better and it was a different format that included some interactive opportunities to comment on specific questions and issues that you guys are dealing with right now and from my observations participants took that very seriously they spent time giving very earnest comments both in writing and later in talking and they spent time just talking amongst themselves which I think in my opinion anyway adds a desirable new dimension to this engagement process the event was facilitated by coraggio group which is now in process of gathering all the data that was delivered because a lot of it was on post-it notes that were you know stuck on to questions other writings and that sort of thing that you can't just you know take note of immediately but they're going to give us a nice summing you know summary of what that was as well as all the raw materials and the meeting also include an opportunity for participants to make just public comments and 22 people took that advantage and then we have a second similar community forum scheduled
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beginning at 6:30 p.m. this Thursday October 5 at saven school we're gonna utilize the same format and we're expecting a similar turnout and it's helping for one and we're also receiving comments online from our website 266 when I checked earlier today I provided you with some of those I haven't giving an update but I will and we're also getting emails on a daily basis as I have heard that you are as well and finally we have a number of culturally specific meetings scheduled for next week Monday October 9th 6:30 p.m. we have a spanish-language presentation at Scott school Tuesday October 10th start at 6:30 we'll have separate buts simultaneous Vietnamese and Somali language presentations at Rose way Heights one in the cafeteria and one in the library on Wednesday October 11th starting at 5:30 p.m. we'll have a session aimed at african-american families and these sessions are all of these sessions are meant to seek out voices that we might not have heard in our previous sessions and maybe I shouldn't commit to this but I'm hoping by Friday October 13th to deliver you a complete packet that summarizes and memorializes our community engagement to date as you work toward your resolution on feeder patterns for the two new middle schools and keep in mind this is only part of the community engagement work that's going on our planning principles have been actively meeting with PTA site councils principals and other groups and we continue to engage the community as our work to open the middle school we will continue to engage the community as we move forward on the effort to open these schools and I'm happy to answer any questions you have or sixteenth so it would be I think it would be really important to have those synopsis by then so that we can have digested that information before we really get into it on Monday in Quito and also add that this evening we had at school and talked to those parents and here many questions there were many individuals who have been following this and there are many individuals for whom this is all brand new so it was really a wonderful opportunity and thank you for your support on that likewise I'd also add that we've actually posted a new online tool on our PBS dotnet forward slash middle schools this online tool allows for families to enter in their address and see what feeder pattern they would now fall into per the proposed changes in the proposal so I like to think that we've gone above and beyond of what our commitments were because not only can you identify what the feeder pattern is for your address but you can then pick which grade level your child is currently in and see how you might be impacted if you have a seventh grader and a third grader and a kindergartner for example and so this should provide absolute clarity to families that are impacted by the proposed boundary changes and thus have their feeder pattern changes or by families who are in one of these K eights that are now converting to K fives middle schools and then of course the high school theater thinking as I've got gotten a lot of letters confused about does this mean this or that or the other so good so if the online tool was actually in the end of the day the most direct way to do this so that folks didn't have to follow and crosswalk too many charts and graphs that's something that we would I know we previously mailed postcards and letters to different communities to tell them about different listening sessions but I'm wondering if I don't think most people get up in the morning and go look at our website there's some way that we could communicate that effectively out in multiple languages so that people who aren't watching the meeting tonight knows about it and/or who do not have web access readily available I would also like to note and provide clarity that there are two changes to the proposal that are now reflected in this new online tool these are two changes that have been discussed through enrollment and forecasting through some of the questions here at the board but I
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wanted to be clear that we had updated the information visa vie these two particular changes change number one the boundary changed to Beverly Cleary I'm sorry I'm echoing a lot the boundary changed to Beverly Cleary to both Rose City Park and Irvington is drafted in the proposal to apply for incoming k5 students so all current k4 students we've now amended that to draft that the boundary change would impact incoming K for students so all current k5 students and this is this change reflects some creative problem-solving from the Beverly Cleary staff with respect to use of space and flexibilities so this would still allow for beverly cleary to fit and you the two facilities of Fernwood and Holyrood so again that clarification is instead of the boundary change impacting in the first year all incoming k5 so current k4 it would actually just impact current k3 incoming k4 and so that clarity has been updated and when we get to a final draft proposal before the work session on the 16th that language will be obviously well articulated and that was because those are those fourth graders or the kids who have been in a different building every single correct so listening to really the most common theme coming from the Beverly Cleary community and again reflecting some creative problem-solving around capacity with building leadership there is how we're able to make that update the second change has also been discussed believe was first announced at the board meeting at Madison and that is around when high school peter-patter or when a high school assignment would take effect and a new high school assignment would take effect for students impacted by boundary changes in the year 2019 twenty instead of twenty eighteen nineteen so what that translates to is current eighth graders at Beaumont and beverly cleary who are impacted by a boundary change would continue on to their currently assigned high school of grant grant or grant Jefferson and that the new assignment for Madison grant Jefferson would take an impact starting with current seventh graders so when they become freshman in 2019 2020 and that again as something that I know was he it out in a couple of format the forums but we wanted to formalize that in our new tool and again we'll be formalizing that in a newly drafted proposal so those are the two updates with regard to how community engagement and questions and questions for clarification have impacted and shaped clarification within the proposal and updates of course the last meeting you were asked to sort of model a couple different options I don't know if you want to speak to that so as stating the last board meeting we continue to examine options for the access program that would not require Kairos to leave the Humboldt facility so stated in the last board meeting we're modeling options for the access program and we continue to work on those solutions so right now what we're looking for a timeline is that's like it's our board meeting on the 17th which is not yet on our calendar is actually currently scheduled to be a work session it might need to be converted to a board meeting because if we're going to have an introduction of a resolution that we're gonna then vote on on that the 24th so is that Monday the 16th yes it's currently that's the date okay so Monday the 16th would be a board meeting where 2.0 version of our staffs
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plan would be introduced for us to work on with the goal of passing some de plan in some form on the 24th so I guess I'm just going to want to call the question because I think that waiting till the 16th is too late to get to point O if it's too late if we are going to be voting on it on October 24th so I think if they're if the fundamental plan is going to be changed right now we have on the table a proposal from staff that we've had lots of comment on from the community and sort of the two things we're I think when we get to the sixteenth we're either going to have the proposal with the two clarifying items that Miss Parker just outlined or we could have looked at the three options we could be considering that or we could be considering a revised staff proposal or the board provide a an amendment and so I I guess I'm looking for the staff with a superintendent if you want if there's things obviously that we want to include in the next iteration say it seems to me as I take that sort of the sense of just discussions that that probably sound likely that Kairos is going to move that should that be sort of incorporated into the into a new proposal but I think waiting until the 16th and then expecting the board to vote on it is probably gonna it's too short at the timeframe so I don't know if other board members have points of view or its you want to say something super text week and the board has already scheduled community meetings on Monday the 9th as well as Tuesday the 10th and the the staff is actively working on updating a more comprehensive plan that addresses some of these outstanding questions and we're looking forward to bringing those to you is there a date that's being proposed by which you would want a sense of that information yeah and this is just more the mechanics of if there were following those meetings going to be a revision in the staff proposal then it would make sense to have it providing an advance of the so that button for the Friday before in advance of the meeting on the 16th and then we should probably draft have a drafted a resolution which would be a place to start a resolution that reflects the staff proposal and then the board would have something to discuss on the 16th I think a staff we could be prepared to include that as usual on the Friday board packet before the Tuesday so a sense of other board members of how you want to proceed is that I I've just worried that that is a short time line to really looking at the options but I don't know if it's if it's possible to get it any sooner I mean you have a lot of work on your plate so I want to be reasonable but also when is it earliest possible we can have that so part of using this time and having a regular scheduled update was to keep the board and community informed of what areas of the proposal were being investigated for the purposes of strengthening it and I think we've been pretty clear about that where we've been investigating so we were asked through the enrollment forecasting committee to present data at their last meeting around some of the details for implementation and the different impacts of grandfathering versus not grandfathering so we've made updates and recommendations around that area we've been asked in multiple settings to look into other options for the access program so we're currently doing that and we've been asked to alter the proposal where it is currently written that the Kairos program would be relooked relocated from the Humboldt school so we will be altering the
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proposal in a final version to remove that relocation of Kairos so those are the three areas that we have been asked to investigate other options and we've been actively pursuing and I think that those have been pretty clearly communicated so that there aren't other areas of unanticipated changes at this stage I guess that is the last question for me that is is that access and looking to see what your proposal is and if it meets really the needs for growth and fourth the students having the ability to walk I mean if it's a middle school program then walked to a high school program so just really anxious to see that understood and for a thoughtful design around what is best for all students requires an actively engaged and large group of leaders who have been actively engaged and researched based and thoughtful decision making which I know you appreciate and that is how we're going about determining a good solution that is the purpose of it into what are the few areas that need a little tweaking dig into what any new recommendations might be and really have discussion around the community input that we've received on those great ok we recognize the board's anxiousness to to hear our thoughts and we also need the opportunity to continue vetting the possibilities particularly with the affected school communities leaders director Anthony or more give anything you as members of the committee wanna add I've already said what I had to say yeah this is complicated this is really complicated and it's there are no great solutions here and I think we're going for good solutions and hopefully a couple of years from now we get a new middle school and at Kellogg to open it it you know that'll open up a lot of things and we can do some point we're going to get to a great solution right now we're going for good but I think it's important also for the public to know that you know our focus on equity and serving all kids with the continuum of needs is at the heart of the said we we are fully behind our equity policy so we've gotten a lot of public discourse around you know their leaders and their perceptions of you know what should happen particularly with a Kairos issue but again be reassured that those equity issues are at the center of our decision-making can I be a little blunter Mitch we are trying to undo inequities that have been persistent for more than a decade well I mean that the current brand of inequity and we need to do that and we need to be able to do that and we need everybody in this city to recognize that's what we're doing and we need support and the families in these schools need support and we need all our elected officials to engage with this district in ways that are productive for our schools and our families and our students and I look forward to working with all of them going forward in partnerships so a couple of things just coming from vessel I would be remiss not to bring up one of the criticisms of the current proposed on the board is that Vestal is left under enrolled and it's nuts
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a situation that can be fixed well through adjusting boundaries it's a catchment rate issue because they are so close to so many focus options programs and our current policy allows unlimited leakage from a school in to focus options and that is something we need to change and secondly in the interim and this might be true not only for vestal but for some other schools as well and it's true for the K eights that are gonna continue to be caves for the coming years we need to address staffing issues there so that those kids are getting equitable resources and so we really feel like we are on the hook for that for Vesta loan for the K eights and perhaps some other schools as we again this is going to be a multi-year process and it's again my intention as when we're done with this one to look at that policy change in our lottery and second to forge ahead with shifting boundaries and finishing the reconfiguration to K eights on the east side Scott since you bring up festival I really do have to say something because I am getting very tired of the choice between catchment and boundaries because we know perfectly well that a school that's sitting half empty and that has the programming that a half empty school can offer is never going to improve its catchment we have to get the kids there we it's a chicken and egg it's a trick in the neck that's all there is to it and I do want to ask have you been looking at vestal there was one idea floated that from my knowledge of the two schools makes some sense have you looked at moving the neighborhood side from Bridger to Vestal since the DOI program at Vestal or I'm sorry at Bridger can't actually expand to its natural potential in the building as it is so the question have we looked at is one a question of numbers and modeling and forecasting and the analysis around it and capacity so yes from that perspective we looked at that option and model lots of other ideas but the other half of have we looked at is really discussing the programmatic realities the preparations of the staff the school communities all the other things that would make that transition successful and I know that at least from the dly programmatic side that has been discussed I'm not entirely sure of the level of detail and the history but I'm quite confident that our teaching and learning teams could provide that information the only thing I would say about that is so in the last 15 years neighborhood programs have been closed in a whole host of South East and North East school programs Wilcox Richmond Winter Haven whatever the k-member the neighborhoods Brooklyn the neighborhood program the school steeple you know this right next to holiday Center young son they've had ed words Edwards well I'm thinking of the concentration of closure of neighborhood programs through this sort of band of sort of South East and North East in a pretty narrow corridor I've just be concerned that Bridger would be sort of part another one in that whole band and you really are eliminating a lot of neighborhood programming in a pretty big swath of sort of the north east south east so that that's one thing I'd have a concern about that program I also Montavilla I think if you look at the
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demographics is pretty rapidly changing so I I would just be concerned that that become a solution that creates other issues well that's why we need a comprehensive look and it has to be coupled with a focus option policy and colocation or a really close look at colocation superintendent Grail you wanted to say something if I'm late to the party on this one so I'm obviously still learning a lot of the details a lot of the history a lot of this work that has just become institutionalized what I do understand and I Meserve observing already is a lot of program placement has put some serious constraints on school communities abilities to to really serve all the students under their roof you see it in the master schedules you see it in the access to a variety of programming etc and and some of the programs have been successful and we should celebrate and find ways to enhance and expand on those and and ultimately and it's always been my belief you know we can tinker with the boundaries and that's part of the equation but ultimately it boils down to school quality so how do we ensure every single neighborhood school is an excellent choice and so I think what you'll see coming forth and I want to applaud the staff for a vigorous courageous conversation this morning to try to get it you know a solution that may not be a great one and I think this is going to be iterative but that I think tries to as a Rubik's Cube to try to resolve for many questions that brought up and all the variables that are there and it might not sort of be a complete resolution but I don't think and how do we find the win-win-win in all of it I and with one that doesn't necessarily eliminate some of the valued programs that serve subgroups of students in different ways and actually how do we actually preserve and maybe learn from and enhance and expand on them is it possible to do that if we look at the entire school portfolio and actually it isn't just about placing programs the conversation we really need to be having is how do we serve diverse learners in every one of our classrooms second language learner students with IEP the gifted etc how do we be more Universal Design in our learning approach how do we be project-based and personalized and use technology as a backbone to do that so and and and I want to be at a point where we can say with confidence we're prepared to do that that we have an articulated instructional framework so in the meantime we need to bridge that work that we need to do so hopefully you will see in and what comes to be proposed and attempt at doing all of that well I think all the staff for their work on this just in terms of the timing so I think will expect a draft resolution of any changes in the base proposal from staff board members be prepared for a work session and you know I think if it appears that we're pretty close we should be in good shape for the 24th if we're if we don't appear to be close I don't think we can for sure commit to a vote on the 24th but I think we that the board I'll speaking for myself really want to hit the 24th because families have been waiting for a long time so but I think we should just be clear that if we're not we're not close on the 16th it will be hard to have a vote on the 24th refer back to the critical path from the very beginning of this conversation about even Rudi's 168 point chart about the logistical visible coordination efforts that need to get rolling for the opening of those two schools it's we have to hit that mark Thank You director Kanzi right so we hope we're close on the 16th thank you thank you so much as a tena work on both sides for you guys thanks internal and external so the next agenda item was a health and safety and accessibility improvements I don't know if German since years we have not held any of those meetings have been canceled right but as we've asked for staff to provide a presentation pardon
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no update okay so it we can talk about that at the agenda-setting meeting next week later this week so board committee and conference reports this is it let me tell you I have very high hopes for this year I we've had more schools coming in new schools coming that where the students I feel like feel passionate will stay throughout the entire year and they feel engaged in the meetings I feel excited to be solidifying the student representative policy and updating that or giving recommendations to update it and really still solidifying a student Avenue and organizing Superstock again at the working with activity directors across the district and already having a position for Superstock held up so that we're not at the beginning of the year of searching for new people but that's already been implemented in the schools so that we have to do a voice president at the central office or district level and really diversifying Super sack because I know in previous years there's been complaints that it's been very undiversified is elkins and bringing a new perspective because I feel like ESL kids are often left out of the equation or feel that they cannot come because English is our second language so it'll be interesting to provide and add that new perspective to Superstock that we haven't had before so today we finalized our tired Arty's of what we want to work on and our committee would maybe we've decided on student and working with student and staff equity teams that you to the high school high schools and then sex education ability inclusion I think and then immigrant and undocumented students which I know the board has worked a lot on and in perspective to super sac they want to work on student services so one thing that came up is that they felt like right now so for example if a student's parents happen to be um taken into custody or deported that student we need more than just a here update your your emergency contact information so we looked into like the student homelessness policy because we're like - for a student to be living with their aunt or uncle relative is a big addition to a family and a household and that it that we don't want students to feel like their financial burden to whoever they're staying with so we want to look at and how teachers identify student homelessness and how they're identifying students in that they know about the student homelessness for farol form and that they there's actually a lot of resources on there that a lot of students that don't know that they can receive because they're couchsurfing around what they're doing so that's why I just felt like it was important that we add that to addition into the addition that all the work the board has done for immigrant and undocumented students so those are the four priorities we plan on working this year working on this year and then finally hopefully uh the superintendent and myself I've been talking about working together we're Superstock to plan a PPS leadership summit sometime in the second semester and hopefully this will be all the student government's and steel leadership's in order to collaborate and work better for our students at the high school level and maybe if as we start to work with our middle schools on student leadership that we can to involve them in this planning process incorporate their voice here at central office can you email a good list of your priorities I think it would be great with our new leadership with superintendent Guerrero and with Moses's leadership you know we can benefit from the different models that you've seen in other school districts about how to really use student voice more effectively and and amplify it because I think as Moses is discovering as he's trying to sort of resuscitate super sac for lack of a better word you know it hasn't always been our strengths and so I think you probably come with some new ideas from other places where students are more integral to decision making so it's a great opportunity if I could share a little bit about some of our conversations that we've had already in order to be able to do that and to encourage and coordinated cross schools and and provide supports to do that there's some tangible ways we may be
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coming back to the board for being able to do that for example a student advisor that serves district-wide our students putting on a student Leadership Conference takes take some planning even with partners who want to help us with that but it's very difficult and I want to empathize with our student leader to ask him to take all that time but it takes to really go around and cultivate student leadership and connect with student government so that's something we have sort of in the works that we're looking at and we are looking at examples and models of how other districts do that so that you know we want to make sure we establish a legacy after this year for creating a foundation for doing that work and encouraging student voice on a range of topics any other committees represents Julie not exactly committee but does on I wanted to give a brief update on the work that director Mora and I have been doing along with some staff on the working with sei on the looking at the potential of a perhaps a preference transfer policy that would align with the city's policy of preference for housing in the North East or Albina area so we have been meeting at least monthly to just look at some options and we will continue to do that and provide you more information as it develops I'll just say briefly we had our first legislative and policy committee meetings so we spent a lot of time just going through the results of the legislative session and what successful bills have an impact on our school district what's still in the process of being being turned into administrative policy through OD E and that's still some sausage-making even though the intent was was made clear by the legislature on several things but there's one issue we're going to continue to advocate on for the likely short session starting in February has to do with the Oh AB insurance issue which could make a big difference financially for this school district and there's no commitment that that will be taken up in the short session but we want to use our voice to try to advocate for that to be so because it makes a big difference to PPS and a couple of other districts in the state we again haven't begun conversations but a big priority of this committee is to look at the benefits of the transit pass for our students and have real conversations like I said about you know shared responsibility among several jurisdictions for why this matters for our kids I mean we know that incredible importance of attendance and one of the main reasons why kids don't come to schools because they don't have an easy way to get there so this is sort of an easy fix that we know makes a big difference to our kids so we need to make that case with with TriMet and with the county and maybe with the city at least resume conversations and get a little more creative and you know we just want to use this committee as a forum for better coordination with our city and county partners on the many ways that our work intersects part of that is Kortney Wessling is doing an inventory really putting together some a comprehensive list of these are the shared programs that we have this is who's accountable this is what the communication is around these issues because I think it's been a little catches catch can and we haven't want to have a little bit more of a global approach to that other things is just like I said monitoring things that came out of the last session staff is working on implementation of measure 98 so the CTE and the college graduation interventions and that's in Antonio's shop really figuring out how much money is likely to come into the district to support those activities and how we're going to apportion it in accordance with the parameters that the legislature put on that we had a great ceremony at Fabian that was a ceremonial bill signing for several education bills including the see II build of outdoor school a teacher effectiveness spill an african-american student success bill so those are all some interesting things that came out of the last session that we'll start to to put into practice and then you know another thing we talked about briefly
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two other things for this committee one is that we want to create time and space to talk about proactive advocacy agendas that PBS wants to pursue both in terms of reaching out to legislators to try to initiate legislation that we think could be beneficial for our students and other students in the state just at least start talking that way and talking with other school districts about how we might collaborate on that and then the other big piece of work which I'm pretty passionate about is really having a much more coordinated relationship with the city particularly around our bond work when we think about having already done close to a half a billion dollars worth of work in this community and looking at you know another almost 800 million to come we want to have a coordinated embedded approach on you know everything from design review to permitting to construction mitigation to you know arts how do our CTE programs serve you know workforce needs in this community and how do we have coordinated conversations about that so again at least my impression nopal if you share this is that our experience has been pretty transactional on that stuff with the city and we feel like the city of proton has a vested interest in the future of our students and which is the future of our city so that's another big piece that we're working on it's something that deputy CEO Awad and and Jerry Vincent head of the office of school modernization our CEO Oh Jerry Vincent also have a vision for so we'll keep talking about that and meet roughly monthly Paul do you have any thoughts on any other things for that committee so an item that I think would be a great discussion with the city because there's something that they can completely control that could I think be helpful to many of our schools in the outer Eastside which is the streets that are surrounding our schools some of them are in horrible condition so if you're if you're a young parent and you're driving up to the neighborhood school to see where you're gonna send your five-year-old and you're driving through potholes and you know really poorly maintained Street to get to our schools it's not very appealing and sends totally the wrong message and that's the city's responsibility my sense is that's probably also an issue in South West which has a similar issue but you know that that's something that city really could do that could make a big difference just in terms of our students getting to schools and also I think improving what people's impression is that what's what's happening inside the schools there are a lot of safety issues that we can jointly address around our schools that with PBOT sidewalks would be good yeah there's good for kids there actually I was on a legislative bike right that had Peapod folks along and there's a number of projects that are in the works for example along on number of improvements are coming for a 90-second around where Lee school is that was one thing I asked about particular because a parent was struck by a car there a couple of years ago trying to get sidewalks at least one side of the street in southwest because two sides there's just not enough room one but one side would be a huge safety improvement so there's a bunch of those in the works and it would be I think it'd be good to have a little summary of that from a PBOT staff at a board meeting I think would be useful I think tomorrow is walking back the school day is that right so maybe a very timely time for you to raise that director constant with the city any other community reports meeting reports okay thank you committee Cheers what's tomorrow morning walk rock n roll tomorrow morning Safe Routes international walk and roll to school day those of you who are interested in taking a walk to school tomorrow you can meet me at 84th and Russell at 7 a.m. nice Russell yeah they told me Broadway so oh I'll be there as I say or you can pick your neighborhood school you can bring your phone along as we're walking okay so I'm going to move on to the next
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agenda item it's our business agenda we've already voted on resolution 5521 board members are there any items you'd like to pull for a separate discussion and vote miss yu-san are there any changes to the business agenda do have a motion and a second to adopt a business agenda second the director Esparza Brown moves and director Bayley seconds the adoption of the business agenda miss Hewson is there any public comment any board discussion on the business agenda so the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes close please indicate by saying no student representative Tran no abstentions the business agenda is proved by a seven to zero vote with student representative Tran voting yes anything else any other business before we adjourn I'm just sending my old boss a text to let him know that we're wrapping it up at 8:15 I have a feeling the sixteenth may be a little bit longer than 24th this is a welcoming present so with that the meeting is adjourned

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2017-2018, https://www.pps.net/Page/12568 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:51.006202Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2017-10-03 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Board of Education Regular Meeting - October 3, 2017

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