2017-11-14 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2017-11-14
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - November 14, 2017

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this regular meeting of the Board of Education for November 14th 2017 is called to order welcomed everyone present and to the television viewers any item that's going to be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website as a reminder we have a PBS Ombudsman Judy Martin attending all our regular board meetings where's Judy there she is with their hand up over there specifically Judy will be here to listen to the public comments and if appropriate 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 buds Minh at PBS net also this evening our general counsel is out we do have interpreters with us this evening and I'd like to ask them to come forward introduce themselves in the language they'll be interpreting and inform the audience whether it be standing in the auditorium should anyone need their assistance okay well I love when I started as me I'm gonna [Music] it's a query nobody can come between the Lambs equipment very few saw Hotel second coat Avenger Kobe come on Kobe welcome pal are you going to show your fake Abajo I hope you win don't walk thank you doradito sergey melnik Yaga very perusquia Sakamoto national boot Puma shoe shoe scheme is a commercial design chassis at the la la pasión great thank you we were gonna kick off this evening with recognizing our outstanding biology teacher but she is not was not able to make it tonight hopefully we're gonna have her at a future board meeting in addition our agenda item on Marysville mindfulness will now be at our December 5th board meeting they would like to have more of their staff here so that moves us right on to this is national school psychology Awareness Week the board would like to acknowledge November 13th the 17th is national school psychology awareness week school psychologists provide a range of services to support students academic achievement and social emotional well-being the goal of the week is to eliminate the many ways that thoughtful action leads to positive outcomes for students staff and the school community at large and we want to thank all of our school psychologists for all the work and very appropriate tonight I'm going to ask Vice Chair Esparza Brown to speak briefly she has a special connection to this topic yes I do want to think personally thank all of our school psychologists and that I am a special ed teacher or was and a school psychologist so I know how multifaceted that role is and school psychologists play a role in really for the whole child they are mental health experts they're experts in teaching and learning and they're experts in assessment they do more than just test and that's kind of been what they've been known for for decades but the role is much much greater than that and I know particularly in our districts all of the wonderful programs that many of our school psychologists have taken the lead on and the extra training that they have so please make this a special a week to thank your school psychologist and I'm sure that many of you have had experiences where they've helped support your children your neighbors children and again I want to really express gratitude for all of the wonderful ones that we have within our district thanks Thank You director as far as a brown we are now going to start our general public comments I just want to explain tonight we have our general public comment this part of our regular meeting we also there is a separate set of public comment that's connected to the vote on the middle school resolution so if you signed up for that one it will happen during the time of the board meeting in which we are going to be voting on the the middle school
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resolution before we get begin the public comment period I'd like to review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to come here this evening and provide comments to the board we value public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing the community's thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen with our electronic devices turned off board members do not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on the 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 those speaking tonight will have a total of three minutes to share your comments please start by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes of testimony a green light will appear then when there's a minute remaining the yellow light will appear and then when the red light appears we ask that you wrap up your comments again we appreciate your input and thank you for your cooperation and with that I'd like to ask miss Hewson to go ahead and call the first two individuals on our list tonight Liliana Edie and Joseph Clyde [Music] EEE and I'm an eighth grader at ugly green and the dual language immersion program I'm here to talk to you about the issues we have an ugly green and ways to try to improve the school system for ask them for students after us they say that everyone should stand up for their rights that's why I'm here when I was in sixth grade at Beech we are told that middle schools from four different schools were combined into one middle school ugly green everyone said it would be better there a fresh start less crowded and some of us actually believed them but from the moment we arrived at ugly green we were surrounded by chaos our schedules are so mixed up that few students could claim the schedules they got the first week or the same they got the second you think that things will only get better after that it was just the predictable amount of chaos for the first week of a brand-new school but it didn't stop there our classes were still overcrowded with my science class having more than 45 students in it making it so that we had to borrow chairs from other classes for the first couple of months of school we didn't have a compactor math teacher in addition to these school-wide problems they were also problem specific to the Spanish immersion program the teacher we had for Spanish language arts Spanish social studies and English language arts quit leaving us as subs for half of our classes after a series of subs we were given one substitute who stayed until the end of the year she subbed for our three classes two of them being entirely in Spanish but her substitute didn't speak Spanish that year seventh grade we missed a whole year Spanish pinang behind other children our age that left us feeling isolated and green disappointed we tried to keep an open mind despite these enormous setbacks but he couldn't help feeling abandoned without a permanent feature we felt like we were being punished for something we didn't even do we hope this year we'd be better we have permanent teachers for every class a full-time principal and fresh promises from the district saying this year will be different more organized the district said they believe teachers are more most influential to student learning and then it happened again the teachers we have been assigned to for English language arts was actually a social studies teacher a decision was made to move all of the Spanish immersion students two classes due to overcrowding we have been without a permanent English teacher for six weeks now my worry is that we will go into high school unprepared it isn't even our fault it feels like our voices aren't being heard but we were yelling loud enough how would you feel if your child's needs are being compromised nobody likes feeling ignored or like someone has given up on him if the goal in creating aqua green was to reduce overcrowding and give middle schoolers the education they deserve that hasn't happened last year the district sent in Atossa after months and months of having no long-term substitute no permanent teacher no one who even spoke Spanish this year will be it would help improve our education if we had another Tosa since we still have no permanent feature there are other things the district could do like thinking ahead about scheduling and staffing problems but my biggest recommendation is just to look before you leap you can go ahead and finish go ahead and finish if you're not done and you're done okay thank you for speaking up
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[Applause] my name is Joseph Clyde CL yde I'm a bus driver GT bus driver for first student contracted to PPS I'm requesting two new policies from the board when unn handheld electronic devices and went on wearing of spraying or spraying of strong scents or fragrances on the school bus for student drivers and PPS drivers share the same interests the safety of your children while being transported by us we can only deliver your precious cargo if they behave in a way that doesn't distract us from our primary primary Punk functions to drive the bus consistent with our safety training protecting them and the public many of us have have students who can carry devices with their attention on the screen while crossing streets and up and down the bus stairs we are very concerned with the safety of the children and must help in keeping them safe you can do that with a defined policy on carrying electronic devices around the buses students won't be kept safe if they're not paying attention to where they are walking crossing streets and climbing up and down bus stairs schools require students to turn off and stow their cell phones when they get out of school they turn on those devices when waiting at the school bus stops the devices are on and in their hands they approach the buses with devices and their attention is directed at the screens we greet the students onto the bus and unlike a stationary classroom where the teacher faces the children we turn our backs to them and focus our primary job of safely driving the bus delivering them to their destinations Oregon and Washington recently implemented a new handheld device law based on distracted driving that anyone driving is impaired as much as driving under the influence while using a handheld device I have seen the distraction of a handheld device for pedestrians and students while walking and crossing the streets the other safety issue has to do with scents and fragrances strong scents are being used by some students even as young as elementary school in the last several years more than one driver has had to pull the bus over transfer students to another bus have nine-one-one called after a scent was sprayed on their bus or being warned by a student and the driver had trouble breathing if the driver has trouble breathing what of a child who might have asthma these incidences have been reported to Central Dispatch and and are well documented at the time of occurrences the school administrators say that can't interfere with a scent issue hence we need a policy from the school board in in conclusion I have presented two safety issues we would like to see considered for policies that can be used to keep children we transport safe handheld electronic devices and sense worn or sprayed on our school buses thank you [Applause] okay I'm John Besh Oh GRU II SCA show W with the war resisters League Portland chapter the Oregon Department of Education is determined to raise the state's graduation rate which is currently at seventy-five percent and among the lowest in the nation at the same time the US Armed Forces are under pressure from President Trump to meet elevated recruiting goals and the the pesky requirements that all military recruits have a high school diploma or GED is a major implement of a major impediment to that goal the Oregon do E's recent endorsement of the org Oregon National Guard's credit proficiency program is aimed at solving both of these dilemmas the credit proficiency program also called the Oregon plan works like this a senior in high school who lacks the credits to graduate can enlist in the Oregon a tional Guard complete basic training and advanced individual training or AIT and his or her graduation requirements are then satisfied juniors in high school can enlist in a split training program by completing basic training in the summer and AIT following their senior year the Oregon do II now encourages all school districts in Oregon to grant high school credits under this program if all that sounds pretty good to you I encourage you to think again the Oregon plan is just a way to fudge the numbers in terms of
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Oregon's high school graduation rate and it also makes the National Guard recruiters job a lot easier to accept military enlistment and training as the equivalent of high school coursework is to shortchange our our most needy students and compromise the value of a high school diploma there is nothing remotely academic about basic training and the purpose of AIT is to prepare service members to do one specific job in the military that job could could easily be in the motor pool or in the laundry or in cape KP the fact is the majority of military jobs do not lead to solid post military careers and the majority of civilian bosses view military training as too limited and not readily transferable to the workplace the point is that military training is no substitute for high school classroom instruction students who are having difficulty completing their credits toward graduation need to be supported and encouraged and given extra help not funneled into the military and if any of you think that the National Guard is not really the Armed Forces check out the number of recent Oregon National Guard deployments to Afghanistan and other battlefields around the globe in closing I'm requesting that the board and the superintendent visor principals counselors and other staff to steer clear of the Oregon Plan and to be more creative in supporting and encouraging our struggling high school students thank you I'm Beth bloom Klotz my last name is spelled BL um KL otz I am a school bus driver I'm beginning or in the beginning of our six my six year with Portland Public Schools we need your help and we're in these jobs of driving the school bus for our students who have special needs because we care about these students and their families and we're seeing that our students are being neglected we recognize the district is going through some major changes however in our opinion PBS is not engaging a meaningful conversation to move our complaints as drivers into action and yes we are currently in contract negotiations no bargaining is not going well with PBS we are continuing to me and show up in good faith however PBS is continuing to show up unprepared we're sharing all kinds of different stories and examples of why we feel that our needs should be heard and where we need help and we get pleasant and profession nods our senior drivers who've been here 2025 years their earnings the same or similar to nutrition service drivers and please hear me it takes 25 years for our drivers to earn what a nutrition service driver earns within a year Portland has become one of the most expensive cities in the United States traffic is getting worse Portland is becoming more and more expensive and traffic is continuing to become worse however we have a wage freeze that's what we've been told and we make less than your average garbage hauler and the students we transport are more valuable so why are we making such a low wage we would like to open up a conversation with you where you can actually hear our concerns directly we would like to work with you we are highly competent drivers who enjoy working with our children in our community we're service focus and hard-working with hard-working attitudes we perform based on what our administration what our supervisors are expecting and what our students and families need we go above and beyond day in and day out you see that in the winter when we had the snow and ice not one driver got off the bus not one driver told the parents come get your child we stayed with our drunk with our students until the end we had drivers we didn't get home until 9 or 10 o'clock at night and still showed up at the next working day so with the current traffic conditions people are there's more cars on the road ok I think thank you thank you mm-hmm you could have finished that last sentence if you'd like okay we're just saying that with all the cars in the road and the amount of accidents the pedestrians you've already heard other speakers share about that it is a challenge in navigating and there is
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value in that and we believe that our value deserves to be increase in monetary and we have a just handout for you just thank you next we have Maria McClay and Ken Thrasher I'll go ahead and start and say cherry Madrid's school board members superintendent Guerrero my name is Ken Thrasher th Ras h ER and I'm a 1967 graduate of Franklin High School and a very proud Quaker for over a hundred years and fifty-four years since I entered as a freshman at Franklin and first attended there the Quaker name has been in place Benjamin Franklin while not a Quaker had certain beliefs including integrity equality simplicity communities community stewardship of the earth and peace which were also values shared by the Quaker community they are as relevant today I believe as they were when the school was opened and not in a religious manner but in the secular manner having just celebrated my 50th class reunion at Franklin and seeing the opening of the beautifully remodeled school which I want to thank you all the district for making happened we have a today for the Franklin Quakers a really great place to learn until only about 18 months ago was the Quaker name an issue but recently in that period we've started to hear people challenge the name Quaker at Franklin High School and I appreciate the district really looking at your overall policies and naming policies around nicknames logos etc but overall I think history tradition and discussions with the alumni should be really necessary when you review changes like this which I don't think happened in the first round of review and I can understand deathly demeaning names and characterizations and other possible reasons for nickname and mascot logo changes but I don't see any relevance in changing the Quaker name in fact Seattle's Franklin High School as you may know went through this same process a few years ago and changed their name to the earthquakes from the Quakers quite ironic that we're thinking about the big one and you would change your name to earthquakes I think but soon after that changed they changed their name back to Quakers and I think part of that was input from alumni who were very concerned about the change which are also probably impacted their donations and their time spent at the school based on alumni who are very active in the Franklin community not only a Seattle but here in Portland we have a great organization so the question is why do you even think about changing a name like that I think it's time for us to really focus on what's important we need to increase attendance and graduation rates can you close the achievement gap and work on helping our students with their cognitive and non-cognitive skills development thank you thank you [Applause] hello I am Maruyama clay MCC LA why I work as a Learning Center teacher at Scott ka in Northeast Portland just recently two full-time sped positions were reassigned from four schools that serve a majority of historically underserved students for historically underserved schools each lost a half-time special educator because it was decided that the missing budget for central office staff could be found by removing the historically underserved special education designation just to be clear the additional point for special education staff for schools that serve a majority of historically underserved
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students was a way of band-aiding some major inequities students at these schools who receive special education services need more services than most of their counterparts at schools with small populations of underserved students a student who is learning English as a second language and comes from a low-income family is more likely to need more learning goals and more minutes per goal than a monolingual English speaking student from a middle-class family with the same diagnosis many students in these schools also need wraparound services more goals more minutes per goal and more services equal more time per student on the part of staff the historically underserved designation was a tiny band-aid that was in place while we wait for the right time to wait assignment of a special education staff to the number of service minutes on the IEP instead of the number of students we are not seeing most students for the number of minutes outlined in their IEP s it is difficult to coordinate with teachers to ensure accommodations are happening in classrooms when teachers are overworked already especially in a dual immersion school where teachers are translating many of their own materials let me state that equity is about ensuring that students have what they need to succeed equity is a big topic at PBS but this issue this decision furthers in we may be in a budget crisis but we are always in a budget crisis and our students have been waiting for us to wait special education FTE by service minutes instead of my number of students this decision was handed down to schools with one week to make the transition happen and zero communication to parents as far as I know there has still been zero official communication to parents there should be communication from the district and it should explain clearly the reasoning for the lessening of their children's federally mandated IEP services I demand that this issue be put on the board's agenda for the next board meeting and fo meeting you need to be held publicly accountable for following the district's budget and bylaws and you need to be held publicly accountable for supporting staff to implement federally mandated individual education plans thank you thank you [Applause] okay what she just said all that I'm Vanessa Rentschler re and T SCH lar I was here back in October I testified regarding my son who's a PPS student in special ed he's autistic and has done remarkably well with the outside ABA support that has now been taken away because it was so effective that's it was just abruptly taken away at sarcasm so I won't go into the details again but I do have this awesome letter for you and you are written by Paul turtle and a several of us dozens in fact dozens of signatures from not just families but lots of stakeholders ABA providers advocacy organization representatives the real the reason why I'm sitting here is because when I wrapped up I believe there was a comment when I was walking back to my seat that this was more of a issue first said admin sources you all and it occurred to me that maybe you don't realize what it's like to navigate that system in your school in your district we of course have gone to the higher-ups the highest up instead and honestly the conversation becomes so circular it could easily be a who's on first bit you know if we continue to allow outside providers and then we are admitting we are not providing fate okay so my son is currently not receiving faith at all it's like glorified babysitting this year because of this policy change so PBS won't provide fate because someone might accuse the district of not providing faith so who's on first I don't know in all seriousness please read this letter please please consider suspending this policy change please work with us families we want to work with you all we don't want this to be a fight please consider re revising this policy for next year thank you thank you I'd
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like to ask follow-up explaining to the board the impetus for this policy change because we have heard a lot of compelling testimony not just from parents but from other advocacy organizations and other advocates for students with autism about how effective it was so we don't have much background on what spurred this change my name is you the same about the previous go ahead my name is Rebecca Jacobson J a co B Sen and I'm here because my family had a bad experience when we first moved to PPS five years ago I'm pleased to tell you that this story has a happy ending but also pain and lost opportunities along the way my son Zander is on the autism spectrum when we first arrived in Portland Zander was in the end of seventh grade he already had an IEP but he but it took two weeks for someone to figure out where he should be placed during those two weeks he could have been learning adjusting to his new environment and getting to know his teachers but instead he sat at home playing video games quick action is important lost time for a kid on the spectrum can never be regained and since they start with deficits they mustn't lose any precious time the timing was the timing was bad and placement was bad without ever meeting Zander someone placed him in a B room a B room is inappropriate for a student with autism there was no way for his school for his new school there was there was no one at his new school who knew how to help him they did what they were trained to do modify behavior with carrots and sticks this did not work and was in fact disastrous my son was suspended many times during eighth grade once for being desperate to enter a room he felt safe in and being unable to explain to an uninformed teacher in the hallway why he was pounding on the door after many suspensions for reasons all relating to his autism the IEP team called a meeting a decision had clearly already been made the team took a vote note that I was way outnumbered and for the final four weeks of the school year they decided to put him in pioneer school it turned out that pioneer was actually a really good and better situation for Xander but it was another inappropriate placement now here's the happy ending Xander is a senior at Cleveland High School and he's doing really well once he moved to high school everything got better we love his teachers and he has great special ed teachers who really understand autism and are able to help him I cannot give enough thanks and praise to Judy champion Keith early and Dominic LaFave they they couldn't why couldn't the school district do this for him when he was in middle school it's incredibly important to get the placement right immediately when a student enters the district Xander Xander's eighth grade year was a lost year education he should have gotten but didn't for the sake of other students please please make sure your you place your students appropriately right away [Applause] thank you everybody for sharing your stories and your concerns next I'd like to ask Laird Cusack director of Labor Relations to present two contracts tonight you can have somebody joining you yes [Music]
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welcome thank you I'll let them self introduce James Dean co-chair of 503 SEIU I'm Mike brave Bible 3 organizer SEIU so today you're going to vote on the two-year contract SEIU has got about 545 employees working in custodial and nutritional services their contract expired in July 1st of this year we met in bargaining well I didn't we met at bargaining eight times and came off with an agreement which is a two-year agreement which corresponds with the state's biennium budgeting process so that we will be able to see what the funding is for the following years when we bargain again we have a raise of three percent which is retroactive to July of this year and two percent race next year there will not be any step increases during the course of the contract that allowed the raises to go to all members of the unit not just those who had step step increases in front of them there's no change in the benefits contribution cap for this bargaining unit they're they're part of the Oh web group and so we did not change their their cap and there were some minor changes the language which I'm not going to really go through which were agreed from both sides that we needed some improvements to the language if you'd like to say anything just a couple notes and one wanted to think which neglected to do thank board member Anthony and board member Bailey for coming to our meeting getting to know some of the unit for local 140 that was during negotiations we wanted to make sure that put some faces to names and also get some of our concerns out there for y'all to hear the bargain in general I think went pretty well I do want to highlight that there that this is a step in the right direction we've seen some some small pay increases that have been a long time coming but we did have to go for go step increases in the custodial Department which is always a sting getting positions added this year I think was was huge when working towards getting the Department custodial department where it needs to be we're still chronically understaffed I think you guys hear that quite a bit Nutrition Services the same way for those of you that don't know local 140 it also encompasses nutrition services there's just a lot of work to do and not a lot of staff there's a lot of difficulty in recruitment right now we're hearing from management of both departments the job fair that's that's happening right now is not attracting a lot of candidates so those are concerns going forward again steps in the right direction but just think that wages haven't been keeping pace that's for sure wages have not been keeping pace and it's going to continue to be a problem Jamis do you incinerate uh well I'm just glad to be under contract for another two years we're glad to anything else questions to the board members director Anthony where are we with getting new janitorial staff in our new buildings those staffing those I know has been a real problem it's a work in progress I think they're still trying to figure that out I mean we we have a lot of absences and uh and we're low staff so it's a struggle but trying to work on it okay where are we on a new policy on snow days I know that was wrong for you I have seen no new policy on snow days we haven't figured that one out yet perhaps director Anthony we could also have the HR team or the labor relations team provides you with some follow-up
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information that's helpful I may be jumping topics here but the next FAO meeting is going to be it's going to have an agenda item on winter preparations so other questions superintendent other questions it's settled and the retroactive pay checks before the holidays just want us to thank you for your work that you the custodians and kitchen staff do for us every day well and I know there were a number of not specifically contract issues but things that you were encountering on the job and want to follow up with that to see how those are being handled we appreciate that will for sure content great thank you to both both sides for coming to an agreement it's nice to head into the year the board is now going to vote on we're changing orders everybody so we're starting with resolution 55 32 all in favor sorry it was wrong on the script we don't want to root for the wrong thing I'm going to make sure that we get this ratified the board will now vote on resolution 53:33 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions student rep yes a resolution 5333 is approved by a 7 to 0 vote with representative Tran voting YES congratulations and thank you to both both of you both sides so next we would like we're gonna consider the DCU contract it's a nice night to have two contracts before us are you packed Christensen yes I am Pat Christensen welcome to the DCU the District Council of unions is has hundred members who work in the trades their contract is set to expire this this coming December 31st 2017 Pat approached us and with the idea of having a rollover with no contract language changes we met once had a good conversation and and came to our rollover agreement which will provide for a 3% increase next July and it maintains the current medical benefits for all of his members and takes and allows the district to pay the rate which the trust is charging for those benefits and not incur additional costs it must have been quite a meeting it was three hours of good conversation absolutely we held him to lunch so I'm Pat Kristensen I represent the plumbers and steamfitters for you a local 290 and they happen to work for you the DCU I'm also the president of the DCU I'd like to take a minute to introduce some of the other council members that have come in today if you'd be so kind this is Jean Blackburn he represents the Teamsters that work in your warehouse he's the vice president of the council Thank You Jean Larry Warren he's the machinist rep he represents the machinists that work in your maintenance department he's also our secretary treasurer we have Donna Hammond up here she she is the business agent for the electricians stand up bin we have been Guzman he's a representative for LIUNA the laborers that work in your labor department thank you all for showing up tonight so I wanted to thank you all and not just the school board but your HR department and your upper administration for seeing the value in not opening up a long-standing agreement to bargain for a year-plus which seems to be the model we saw that there was some real win-win possible the
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district got some language that preserves our members benefits and and gives them the opportunity to not pay access to the Health and Welfare Fund so we have a maintenance of benefits with language which is going to be good for everyone going forward and quite frankly the 3% pay increase and the stability of having a contract in place is going to bring the district close to end market still behind market according to our studies considerably actually but it's going to help you with your recruitment and I want to applaud that because then it's been a dozen years since the district has actually tried to onboard maintenance workers to take care of your buildings but you're currently hiring throughout the trades maybe onesies and twosies but it's growth and it's going to put you in a better position to take care of not only your new buildings but the old ones that need to stay functioning until you get them taken care of so thank you for recognizing the win-win and one roll over any questions from board members thank you do your members for taking care of our buildings with that the board will now consider resolution 55 32 the extension for the District Council of unions 2015 17 contract do I have a motion director of spars of ground moves second and director Bailey seconds the motion to adopt resolution 55 32 any further board discussion I'm a big fan of win-win thank you thank you all right the board will now vote all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed indicate by saying no student representative Tran yes resolution 55 32 is approved by a 7 to 0 vote with student representative Tran voting yes it's Matt congratulations thank you [Applause] so our next item is middle-school implementation one of the most important priorities of the new board is the success the hope for a successful opening of tuned middle new middle schools so that more than a thousand students in Northeast Portland have an opportunity for an equitable middle school experience with a robust curriculum and electives at a previous board meeting we committed to opening the two middle schools and designated feeder patterns and made a number of other decisions at the time we deferred on some boundary decisions tonight will receive three updates and also consider some additional changes to that resolution we'll begin with an update on the Harriet Tubman health and safety issues in a moment I'm going to invite Jerry Vincent the chief operating officer to provide an update prior to mr. Vincent's comments I'd like to provide some context for the board's discussion about health and safety issues related to Tubman so over the last several months we've had several community meetings in which various community members raised different issues about the work that we were undertaking and some of the decisions were making and some of those questions related to the health and safety of Harriet Tubman and so given that at the board meeting on October 16th the board shared language that we planned on that we planned on voting on for the October 24th meeting that we were going to ask for a comprehensive environmental impact study just wanting to make sure that if we were going to have students in that building that we were we had assess any health and safety issues and had an opportunity to remediate them at that time we were told that there weren't any concerns about interior air quality issues then October 24th when we got ready right before we got ready to vote there were some really significant concerns that were raised by staff about the environmental issues and so it was recommended that we developed concurrently a concurrent to the environmental assessment that we also had a secondary plan just in case we weren't able to remediate the issues the board's passed that resolution which contained both of those items the environmental assessment and the concurrent planning for an alternative location following that meeting the board members requested to have the
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information of the testing that had been done to date it's applied to the board and also publicly posted and I want to thank superintendent and the facility staff for providing that on November 7th there was a finance audit and operations committee meeting where that information was presented and I think we have a much clearer picture it's not complete it's not completely clear but we have we have a lot more information than we had at that first board meeting when we were told there weren't any concerns and then sort of the we're very concerned I think we have a much better sense of at least the snapshot of where we are and where we're heading and so with that context I'm going to actually turn let director Moore who's the chair of that committee sort of facilitate the next part of the meeting I think and Jerry if Vincent if you'd like to come down and so Jerry and his team including dr. John Burnham from OHSU gave a presentation on kind of the current state of knowledge based on I think a pretty thorough vetting of old emails and files and archived info and presented it to the finance audit and operations committee last week and walked us through what we know what we don't know how we're gonna find out answers to what we don't know and I think the bottom line was what director broom Edwards said which is that based on the preliminary information we have we're feeling much more confidence than we were a couple of weeks ago that Tubman is going to be an appropriate environment for students so so if you could so yes and what you're both you know alluding to is we there's been a lot of change in staff there's a lot of things that we didn't know went through back over myself over three thousand three thousand six hundred emails found some things a lot of them are repetitive but it's the basic three issues regarding outdoor and quality indoor air quality and is there anything going on with the hillside that PPS owns and so what we've done since that time and with the direction is we've we have a meeting set up with EPA and the EQ this Friday we will find out what role they want to play its to put an action plan together by December 1st we'll find out what role each one of them plays or doesn't play and then what part we need to play so if we need consultants above and beyond what we know to do our work right now from the air testing or do the scoping of it we will get those consultants one of the things we were working on yesterday and today and it just came to fruition this afternoon is we've moved forward with with with findings and exemption for us to bring on for the board approval comb thing comes coming through the FAO committee to bring on architects engineers contractors in order to get this done by August at these schools and through the normal process right now if we follow the normal process being being a school district and public sector to be another 90 days maybe 120 and as that's time that we need to get in finish analysis find out what we know what we don't know as director Graham Edwards said and to get a game plan formulated move through so we push that through hard with purchasing contracts we have many meetings yesterday today they got it to our lawyers it came back it's approved it is on the website and is advertised out in the Tribune right now so there still is a 14-day period for findings that needs to be a public posting but we're not waiting we met three hours yesterday with our planning principles for Tubman real sway Heights that educational specifications planning tomorrow I'm out there with our project managers in Tubman climbing looking through everywhere and we'll have the meeting on Friday we'll get things put together by December 1st and I've dedicated to project managers from facilities strictly for this now because of the time crunch and we're ready to go we're ready to do this so that's one project manager for each of the schools or two for technically it's two for everything I might need a third and so it's whatever it takes I mean at this point I mean truly I mean we're all in on this trust that it's a pretend career you'll
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let us know if whatever resources are needed to I think that's something further conversation I think what you're hearing tonight here however is we did the forensics and and looked into everything that we possibly know there aren't any indications that the building can't be habitated by our students or the adults who work there but of course we're going to go a deeper level and bring into EQ and EPA and make sure it meets standard for what a school should should meet aside from that we know that the facility needs some some pretty aggressive work namely the roof and as we reviewed this morning and a very long leadership team meeting you know we got a new nickname for for Jerry Vincent you know nothing's insurmountable here is what he's he's pledging to us I'm gonna do my best um can I just say a couple of words um I I want to thank the staff for pulling out all the stops on this this has been a very tight timeline I mean it was a tight timeline to begin with and the last couple weeks I know everybody's been working I'm guessing 20-hour days so I wanted to thank everybody I'm I'm impressed by the amount of information you were able to pull together and I know I'm feeling a lot better but I also want I think it's important to to just say out loud that every conversation I've had with everybody in the district we are full-on committed to opening these two middle schools I mean we're going to do whatever it takes whatever we can part of that is a pledge to the students and families that we're not going to put students in a situation that's going to be hazardous in any way and if we find down the road that conditions are not going to be fixable in Tubman we have pledged to each other that we are going to say it out loud and we are going to pull the plug if we don't pull the plug that means we're good to go so I just want to make sure that everybody knows we're not just you know going full steam ahead because we've got a political issue on our hands this is not about politics this is about providing an education for kids who've been denied a real middle school education for way too long and this board is going to stop it so we're good to go and I'm I'm thrilled with the commitment that I've seen superintendent guerrero and jerry vincent and everybody in facilities thank you this has been this has been great I appreciate it your honor so just want clarify we have currently all the materials that you all produce that are relevant are on the website correct so it's well you know so again you take a snapshot of 3600 email a lot of its repetitive you they all come back to the three big things there's the outdoor and quality the indoor air quality what's happening with the hill there's a fourth one I haven't found it great and I would just sort of repeats what director Moore said just thank you to you mr. Vincent and all the facility staff we hope that as we move forward with the testing and the other aspects of it that will also be transparent and provide that information to the community I think that that builds trust and confidence in the work just as a note to the broader community we received yesterday an outline of a proposed budget and some funding for some projects from district staff and some identified ways to resource those improvements that might be needed and so I think we're going to send that to the finance audit Operations Committee and I expect that our next board meeting which is going to be held at Jefferson High School that we will be considering that at that board meeting and appreciate that you've are accelerating the public contracting process so that we can shoot for that August conclusion in any other comments from board members on on this particular topic yeah thank you thank you so just to put a fine point on
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it when we consider our the resolution and in a little bit the resolution we've changed the resolution relating to Harriet Tubman that we had in the resolution that everybody has before them the resolution number 55 34 section K let's see it's 4 k on Tubman we have removed the language that requires the superintendent and staff to do the concurrent planning we've also removed language that talks about an alternative site and also change some of the language to really I think indicate to the community that the preliminary information that we've received from staff and their assessment is that the issues that might be a concern can be remediated but we're sure going to check director Bailey do something you want to say so that that will be a fairly significant change to the resolution so next just as we you're ready to consider this resolution 55:34 as various board members have said at different times opening the two middle schools next year is a high priority we realize that that this resolution and the work we're doing is not solving all of the problems that exists in all the challenges we've tried to build in some providing pathways to get to solving some of the challenges that we have with some of the elementary schools that need sort of more robust enrollments and we will be continuing to work on that and there's some language also in the resolution that director Bailey shortly will talk about but I did want to specifically just briefly raise wriggler and Scott and I wanted to ask Oscar Gilson and Judi Brennan to just provide a brief update on that so just a quick update we have gone through this committee staff into the wrigglers cattitude to ask them about what they think about moving into this direction and we're going to the communities on the 29th and 30th of this month to ask the parents what they think about and right now we're asking them three questions what questions do they have what struggles do they see that we need to be looking into and what opportunities do they see and so the team with Michael bacon the director of Dual Immersion and Alma Velasquez were answering all the questions and making sure that we answer all the questions that they have before we come to you with the proposal in December so let me provide a little bit of context so as you may know the wrigglers Spanish immersion program has been growing for some time and that growth is natural meaning these are it's a neighborhood only program these are neighborhood students who are opting into it and because of the demographics of that neighborhood there are enough Spanish speakers along with English and speakers of other languages to form the program that it can continue to grow and meet those goals of dual language so having enough native Spanish speakers is a really important part of it and the regular community is one where that it's a it's a natural fit and so that program has been growing substantially what that means as a result is that the program that's available for the kids who don't opt into the program or who move into the school in later years don't have the native language ability and can't enter the program has become smaller and smaller this year in grades K through 2 across those three grades there are only 29 students in what we call the English only program and we know that it's an important goal for Dual Language it's an important goal for the district to make sure that all kids have access to a robust program and that's not meeting or the needs of those kids so we've been looking for some time
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the dual language program brought updates to the teaching and learning committee on this last year as well as this fall already explaining that it's a priority not to continue expanding the program as much as to make sure that there's an adequate appropriate and great home for the English only part of the program so I've been part of a team that's been looking for awhile at different options we looked at all the nearby schools we have some information that we can share with you on why we thought others weren't a good fit but that's Scott we believe is the best fit so the proposal that will be coming to you in December will be to merge the regular English only program with the Scott English only program and by doing that we believe that will ensure that all of the kids who are at Scott who aren't in Spanish immersion because that school too has Spanish immersion but the kids who aren't in Spanish immersion will have a great program that's large enough that allows kids to move around and make new friends between grade levels and so as I said there'll be a lot more information on why Scott and not other choices a lot more information about how we would implement and what the effects are but we really want to continue I'm working with the community finishing up that work before we come to you with that full proposal believe that we'll be back to you in December michael bacon who couldn't be here tonight he's at a conference will probably be leading that with Oscar I'm a poor replacement for him tonight but the one piece that we did think was really important and we appreciate the opportunity to be here at this moment is that when we crunch the numbers we think that if we do all the boundary changes that we had proposed for Scott and we bring in the regular English only students there may not be enough room and in a couple years Scott school which has seen overcrowding in the last year's we could be right back in that overcrowded state so as a result we recommend that at this moment you hold off on particularly on the boundary change that was proposed between Alameda and Scott the resolution that's before you doesn't include that boundary change and that's well aligned with with our thinking in our work so far I apologize that you haven't seen the full regular analysis but these are kind of parallel tracks and they're close to being lined up so if you're wondering what the IMP the immediate impact of the middle school recommendation would be on this change the one thing we would say is please help us make sure that there's enough space for English only students at regular if we get there and we still find there's more room I'm sorry at Scott we can go back and look at other changes in the future but that's really the alignment between the two if you have any specific questions about that proposal you want to make sure we're going to bring back please let us know we'll get them to Michael and then that'll be coming back in December I think one thing I would ask is that well in advance of whatever time you're going to bring it back that it's provided to board members so we can ask questions and also so that I'm glad to hear that you're going to have some community meetings not everybody can always attend those meetings so that we provide the information in multiple languages in a variety of different formats and ways so that we reach all of the community to make sure that we really understand what the various community members think about the idea for the last year in terms of when we have a single strand of English program alongside Dual Immersion programs and we just struggle to provide quality programming so I think we'll continue to look at that as a matter of policy across the district because we know that it just doesn't really work for kids and so I'm glad to see a solution in the near term first cotton wriggler yeah that's been a topic of conversation for a couple of years and when they're community meetings that two years ago I don't think there were any parents there from the regular neighborhood side I think it was mostly immersion parents who were there so again agreeing with director prime Edwards that outreach to parents is really paramount thank you thank you thanks one other issue that is outstanding well actually I'm gonna first X before we start two other outstanding issues I think we're gonna officially move into the section where
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we're gonna consider resolution number 55 34 which modifies resolution 55:28 feeder pattern and tendons area changes for Harriet Tubman and Rosa way Heights middle schools do I have a motion so moved it'll just be a minute we won't miss that to have a second it's been moved by director condemn and seconded by director Esparza Brown now Miss Hewson is there any public comment yes we have six our first two speakers are Phoebe Perez and and jolly we're a singer that's W EE Ras ing H E I'm in seventh grade at Beverly Cleary school and I live on North East 57th Avenue middle school is pretty tough and from what I've heard high school is - there's a lot of stress and pressure with homework and extracurricular activities and with all your friends and your classmates are always there for you to support you and taking apart a cohort like this would disrupt the lives of the children that are taken out and that's the situation right now for the middle schoolers that Beverly Cleary that will now be sent to Madison that live in the Northeast 47 to 57th neighborhood I'm asking for you to make an amendment to the current resolution so that these middle schoolers will be grandfathered to Grant High School this would let peer groups stay together and prevent families from having a possibly longer commute because of Madison's renovation being able to stay with our friends and continue on to high school together instead of being introduced to a completely different school and community would mean everything to us since we were younger we've always had a grant future promised and being taken apart from this group would not would excuse me um be taken apart from the script would be really hard for us and we like to go into high school with the rest of us thank you for your consideration and we hope you keep this in mind as you vote tonight so I feel that often people forget that this is about the children and it's our future and we'd like to have a scene so thank you for your time thank you I mean Phoebe Perez's my daughter I'm Shawn Nikki she thought she had the spoons to be here but unfortunately her father had to take her out so I'll keep it brief but yeah this is Phoebe's fifth school she's at access Academy and this resolution assigns Oh city park to become a k5 school and assigns no actual specific building or school to access Academy it only states that there will be some sort of bridge and it'll be for 350 kids I've provided an email that includes a proposal access parents spent a lot of time on that allows Rose City Park to continue to be there for access and if the entire building is provided then they can serve everybody that's on the waiting list it didn't disappear those kids are still out there they still need the school I'm in there every single day and there is just absolutely no way these kids are going to be able to function the way they should if they don't think they have a home they ask they know they lose sleep over it my daughter has had periods when she's not slept for five days this is not how these kids should be treated access has never had a permanent home since 2003 when it was established and one thing I love about the access parent community is they don't sit on their laurels and say my kid got into access that's good enough no they want enough spaces for all the kids they need access they're constantly talking about what kind of impact it's going to have on historically underserved populations to put us in this building or that building but you know what that's not going to give us a home the cold fact is if you don't identify a building and you vote for the resolution the way it is our chances of getting someplace that's even big enough to hold the kids that are there now much less accommodate the ones whose parents are probably forced to home-school them it doesn't do what it needs to do so I'm asking you not to vote on this boundary change and I can tell you that I and any other access parent
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who has the ability to spend time will work with you if this proposal isn't good enough because it's been a year and a half since we gave it to you please I appreciate your dedication to keeping us together but it's only going to actually work if we identify a building and it shouldn't be a religious institution as a lover of the First Amendment it was one of my favorite topics in law school we shouldn't be doing that to any of our children it's simply not appropriate please please keep to the goal give us a home and please name it before you vote on the boundary changes thank you thank you next we have Shamika Owens and Maria Cordero died just golden solidarity I can see my seat to Jason good evening i'm jason blum Klotz um I want to give a little shout-out to my baby sister I'm this may be the first time in history two siblings have spoken before the board on the consecutive nights consecutive orders my name is spelled BL um KL o TZ my name is Jason bloom plots from the Tubman community I'm an Irvine tton and Sunnyside parent and I'm also a proud Harriet Tubman middle school alum we're at a precipice of a great moment in the city's history after many years of dysfunction and delay we are reopening the middle school in north Northeast Portland the community believes that it could become a beacon of change and excellence for the entire metropolitan area we want a school run by a great principal check with a diverse and culturally responsive teaching core that looks like our diverse feeder schools we want a cutting-edge curriculum that engages our kids and gives them the tools they require to live out their promise we know that we need social support systems that ensure all students and their families can succeed we need a building that allows for a dynamic program and is safe for our staff and students and we can achieve all of this save for one glaring problem we have simply failed to plan for success and failure to plan is a plan to fail and appreciate that everyone is having a good feeling good tonight because we've made some progress but I have some other thoughts if we ask to see the plan to hire the right teachers for Harriet Tubman middle school there would be stone silence in fact when we asked about this very topic at the last board meeting by student represented Moses Tran the district's response was that we have adequate budget and we're hiring much earlier that is not a plan for teaching excellence at Harriet Tubman middle school if we ask you to guarantee the safety and adequacy of the facilities you cannot affirm that even tonight you said we may have to close this down later because we're still doing testing testing that's not even planned to start until December 1st and we'll go forth and the the the seismic testing will go on probably for two more years so how can you assure the community site is safe if we ask the community about the underlying substance behind the enrollment projections we would get a blank stare we haven't seen them yet and they haven't been explained much as mr. director Bailey asked last time so it's not clear anymore have you the school board really vetted those supposition so that we know the best of our ability that our enrollment numbers are accurate I don't think we need any reminder after the students testimony tonight was a disaster missing by a hundred students at aqua green was we should be chastened and not celebrating tonight because we have not done our work when s just please let me finish when asked directly my topic when asked directly by Tubman community the district when we asked directly as Tubman community for the district to show willingness or understanding of how to partner with us to bring all the resources inside necessary to open our dream school we were not engaged yet one that lives certainty so we asked a commitment that lives up to the achievements of the namesake of our school a woman of incredible courage and vision and we demand a seat at the table to answer all of these questions and these decision-making points you need to wrap up your testimony please yeah for these important tasks we know that greatness is within our grasp but we are failing
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still we call on you to come together and partner with us directly on this matter and lastly this is not a comment of unity but understand that in our side of our community while we were split on this issue there are those of us who believe you should delay not because we want we want to but because you really need to finish your comments it's not fair to other people do not have the same excuse me I apologize but that the in good conscience the plan has to be clear so thank you for your time and we look forward to partnering with you thank you buddy up with it all and they are a and then Co Rd ero I just wanted to remind us how we started this whole meeting in the first place was this Jang student that came from aqua green that shared her testimony of what it's like for her and to me what I heard was everything to come for all the middle schools that you decide to open in the state that they're in so three minutes to share leadership reasonings and solution is not a formula for success in fact the whole reason I'm speaking tonight is because PPS and the board which is everyone here sitting in front of me have repeatedly continued political stunts if you want to talk about politics like these that build in structure to make sure that we are not following any formula for success there's no doubt in this community that Harriet Tubman middle school should open it should open it should be the school that benefits our children teachers parents community members with culturally relevant and empowering education adequate resources and staffing all that comes from the paperwork that the board has on the PPS website I'm asking for nothing that hasn't been asked for year after year after year in fact why can't harriet tubman be the first PPS school to openly and proudly commit to centering blackness in all forms every time the PPS board and staff put at or a tow towards equity the white privileged voices scream back with discomfort and inconvenience and we're right back here where we started in the first place our most privileged schools are not being asked to make sacrifices and you are actively considering giving a school with an unreliable foundation that says two years to figure out what's happening okay with an unreliable foundation a falling down building be it the roof or whatever else has been patched up and has been housing students all this time to the black community and calling it equity if any community was due a new building a new school it would be Portland's black community and why can't we name that beautiful Harriet Tubman in honor of our black Portland history a plan for success includes answers to the questions parents have been raising time and time again how are you going to engage teachers of color and incentivize staff to commit to this project so that our students see themselves represented and this opportunity needs to be central to contract negotiations that are taking place right now which no one's been talking about and you have another opportunity tomorrow and the 16th because it says so on the website when people are having these conversations so it needs to be brought up then and you can't put off hiring for Tubman to the last minute because that's not a plan for success currently the way it stands the opening of Tubman benefits the school board it gives the superintendent of goal to accomplish by his bosses and gives PBS district staff something to get paid to work on and all the burden of this choice that is being made um cuz you're up with your comments please I understand you but I'm gonna finish open in less than 9 months during rain winter and then over the summer when the staff is off and it will be placed at the feet of our children of children who have been burdened every day with our current middle year's program and their lack of funding for way too long teachers will be burdened burden to open a new school with the demand that it thrives when they don't even have adequate resources themselves we will demand that it does thrive as parents and community members and teachers just the answer to these two simple questions who benefits and who is burdened tells us that this is not a formula for success where is Plan B where is Plan C when we find out that plan a isn't at all a plan and who will carry out the budget now that this position is also vacant and the moment this moment is the critical
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choice point we demand access to this decision that has been made in the name of racial equity where are the elected oh you are the elected problem solvers and you work for us the superintendent works for us we're the bosses can you wrap up all of us we have a please wrap up your comments up all the time we can talk about time or you could just listen because I'm not gonna stop until I'm done don't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a band-aid when our middle school they're students staff and teachers needed that money yesterday give us specifics on detail be transparent and have us at the table during all the formations of this process anything less reinforces white supremacy culture in our schools that we live with every day thank you [Applause] are our last two speakers Nick mappin and Claire dennerlein jeribai Madrid's director is superintendent Guerrero thank you my name is Nick matheran ma th PRN and before I make my statement I'll say that given the amendments to the resolution I don't know if everything I have to say tonight is still necessary but in the interests of sprinting through the finish line I want to make sure I say it now so we don't have to come back and say it next time thank you for your time and on behalf of my children who attend Martin Luther King jr. school I thank you for your service I'm immensely grateful to you for dedicating your time and energy to what are certainly the most thankless volunteer positions available in our weird City and with that I'm here to ask you to do what you signed up for my children their classmates and our community needs you to make a difficult decision despite the best efforts of many teachers parents and administrators k-8 schools have failed thousands of middle school students in North and Northeast Portland the thousands of hours poured into the D brac process and the analysis by district staff has all led to the conclusion that a comprehensive middle school is needed to adequately and equitably meet the needs of our children while multiple proposals considered during the past two years have varied on some details the overwhelming trajectory has clearly been toward reopening Harriet Tubman middle school to serve the community it was built to serve is Tubman a perfect building know we're all too well aware of the significant facilities problems facing many PBS buildings I would also prefer if the building did not overlook i-5 but unless you have another building in a quiet neighborhood you've been secretly constructing this is the building that we have and we cannot let another class of six seventh or eighth graders be deprived of an adequate education or equitable preparation for high school because the site is not ideal Tubman effectively served the students of fabien for the past two years carrying them to their beautiful new building and now we need Tubman to carry our students to high school prepared and equipped for success I understand that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't there is no solution that makes everyone happy the difference is that in this case if you don't hundreds and perhaps thousands of students are damned as well damned to another year or more of lost opportunities for an enriching middle school variance if in fact environmental concerns do prove to be an issue for Tubman we should ameliorate them or find in the long term a suitable alternative site however in the interim please do not let though do not allow those concerns to prevent our most under-resourced students from attending a well resourced middle school you can make this happen you have the power and responsibility to ensure that Tubman is open for our students in fall 2018 and you can also in act to ensure that the school sending students to Tubman have adequate enrolment boundaries to keep them thriving and full these are the difficult decisions that we elected you to make and we are counting on you to make these decisions as part of our work together to transform PPS into the district that is truly equitable and functional for the entire community thank you my name is Claire Darlene Manson DNN ERL ein ma Ann som and I'm here with iodine Earl n Manson who is a
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fifth grader at Martin Luther King jr. k-8 school hopefully soon to be a k5 I'm wish that I could have rewritten my testimony in real time during tonight I heard a lot of things that encouraged me and a lot of things that discouraged me but what I want you hear most is from my daughter I want you to hear from a member of Martin Luther King junior elementary school who has been a community member for six years and wouldn't trade it for the world wouldn't trade it for a quote better education for a more elite in a different place but she needs a middle school she and every single one of her community members she has looked her parents in the eye and said I will not go elsewhere I will not be separated from my community that is what we are raising our children for that is what dr. Martin Luther King wanted that is probably what Harriet Tubman wanted as she ushered countless people bravely in the night to freedom we have a white child we have the last white child in fifth grade they leave every single year middle class privileged families particularly white families bail on Martin Luther King Elementary they bail on Sabin they bail on Boise Elliot it is important first and foremost not for my child but for an underserved and historically burdened and abused community of black and brown Portland to be given a proper middle school in a proper building that has functional systems but more than air quality more than a roof and more than a sloping hillside to be given a black centered proud and robust middle school education that will lead them to high school success and success in our world and I can tell you while my daughter is second in that and I firmly believe that she will only be a better person than already the amazing person she has become by being surrounded in greatness in blackness and brownness please bring that to Portland again as Harriet Tubman has been in the past show the white community of Portland what black excellent looks like and what they're missing and show the black and brown community of Portland that they matter finally and really and give them a school that we all deserve thank you very much thank you [Applause] thank you everybody and that's all the public testimony you have tonight so now we're going to consider the resolution it's on the table and I'm going to ask director Bailey to walk through some of the changes especially the boundary ones are some of the additions from the version of the resolution that we had last time just trying to take a deep breath here thanks to everybody you testified that's kind of says it all so what we're trying to do here again is to get to middle schools opened we passed a resolution ok passed a resolution three weeks ago that deferred some things and so we're trying to take another couple of steps down the road so what the resolution and we'll have some amendments to it to clean up some things because when I ran for office I never said I was detail-oriented there you go yep speak up okay it's is this on it's working okay I just need to be right here okay what we're trying to do is confirm that our goal is to open to middle schools in the fall of 2018 confirm and establish boundaries for the feeder schools for each middle school specify that the Vietnamese dual language immersion program will be moved to Rose City Park address the overcrowding at beverly cleary and specify specifically how various students who were affected by boundary changes where they will end up in the coming years the resolution recognizes that access still needs a home that's a work in progress and we're going to have a comment by that from staff and that tag services need to be bolstered across the district and we are asking the superintendent to address those issues it's important to recognize that this resolution is not primarily an enrollment balancing resolution some boundaries have had to
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be changed due to the reconfiguration and resume Heights and the overcrowding at beverly cleary but there are still substantial enrollment imbalances within these two clusters and across the Eastside that need to be addressed and again the last Clause of the resolution remains that we're asking for a plan at a timeline for doing the whole east side for addressing educational options review and for changing the focus option lottery process to address these imbalances specifically not included in this plan was what we heard from earlier about shifting neighborhood students from regular to Scott what okay and there's some other things that we've called that specifically in this plan for example the clauses still in there for coming up with a plan to shift Verna to a k5 and to articulate Verna to a middle school we recognize that vestal will be under enrolled that that issue is not a boundary issue there's plenty of kids within the vestal catchment area that needs to be addressed around our focus option Lottery and around our educational option review our men focus options we recognize that Martin Luther King jr. k5 would only have a single strand of neighborhood students and there is a new amendment I'm proposing that we again come up with a plan to address that sooner rather than later since the the original proposal had a one year at a time starting with kindergarten impact to me that's too slow and again really we really need to finish the job of drawing new boundaries on the east side and balancing enrollment with respect to Tubman again our initial staff assessment this time indicates that there are no insurmountable health and safety impediments to opening the school and again we will monitor that closely we'll go ahead with the testing but at this point our planning process is to proceed ahead without them and if something happens and there are health and safety risks that we cannot remediate then we pledge to we will ask the superintendent to come up with an alternative planning process and we pledge to work with the Tubman community very closely from day one on that process but right now we're just gonna hope that the testing doesn't find anything that we can't address that's my summary great thanks and I think the Sprint tonight bro did you want to speak briefly about your tour of all the facilities looking for the home for access or do you want me to speak briefly about it I know you've been working really hard yeah yeah I'd really like to speak to that just because I want to acknowledge that again axes families and I saw students earlier we're here again tonight and you've been very patient thank you for that we committed with the goal of finding a campus where access Academy can make it its home I just want to let you know staff has continued to be very active and exploring those options we have the portfolio that we have of schools obviously that requires us to take a pretty deep look at where we might have facilities that are under enrolled or they have programs that families have elected other choices and what are some of those options and why you may have why you might be experiencing a little bit of a quiet period here is because we want to be very sensitive to those families or programs that might see themselves relocated and we want to be very careful with that I expect that we probably need another five to seven working days to circle back to access and share with you a more specific location that then we can begin talking about but this is a decision that is likely to impact on several school communities and and their school leaders and we want to make sure to continue working through those conversations but I just want to assure you that staff
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continues to be very proactive about that thank you and I think just sort of circle back about the resources needed to really carry out the intent of that the many different moving parts in these resolutions that we should be considering that at our next board meeting and appreciate again our CFO and the finance team for putting together the sort of package for consideration we wanted these right and I think it's probably important to acknowledge that while the facilities issues have been challenging given we have many older facilities and there's imbalances in the enrollment really the hard work is going to happen when the board finishes this because setting the schools up for success which will be a big job for the staff and the superintendent that's I think enemy the what's what's going to make all the difference next fall for students the buildings are important but more than half more important what's happening in the classroom any other comments or questions from board members director Anthony yes thank you I have several the first is that I would like to propose an amendment to item K where it enumerates the things that will be tested for in Tubman I would like that to include heavy metals including cadmium zinc copper and iron oxide cadmium left over from you Boris glass and the other three I understand are given off in brick dust it's very fine it is potentially very destructive and we need to know if it's there and act accordingly miss Hughson did you get that list I did did you are you formally offering that money yes I yeah is there a second so it's been first and seconded miss yu-san we you would you just repeat it so everybody and I think that should probably should go at the end of the first sentence maybe before and carcinogens spend first and seconded any any discussion and guessing staff is gonna do this anyway but to you know is there anything else out there that we should be worried about so I think it should be you know did that so it with some appropriate university partners to make sure that we're covering all our bases I think we've indicated it's gonna be a comprehensive health and safety assessment and that we'll leave it to the discretion we've already listed I think probably what are the primary concerns and there's ones to be added they'll be added by staff so all in favor of the amendment aye aye any opposed soon right yep the vote is seven to zero in favor with student representative Tran voting YES other discussion director Anthony I know I do have a the start of a couple of questions I simply do not understand why we are delaying on MLK we we've seen a proposal for more students that would make it as mr. Mather and said thriving and full what is it that needs to happen over the coming year that will create a situation of a question for us that's any different than what we are looking
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at now and maybe that's more appropriate for setup but for 15 years I have been living next to the MLK community and they've been breaking my eardrums this whole time because they are so desperately under enrolled for me addressing last priority what why are we waiting and do we have a process outline so what I would say direct director Anthony is there is a committee that you're on and I think the full board would welcome and entertain a proposal from the committee to make changes and I think how we've approached this amendment or the middle school opening is our primary focus has been first to get the middle schools Oakland there's a lot of timelines that are driven by the board action but there's no reason why the enrollment and forecasting committee can't make a recommendation to the full board and we'll put it on the agenda as I think I told staff at the very beginning of the year middle schools and enrollment and balancing is probably going to be on every single board agenda for the entire year so while we're not considering it tonight please bring a proposal forth and we can consider it okay thank you on that basis I'm happy to defer but I am expecting that enrollment and forecasting is going to have to discuss this very soon I have a list of such items thank you oh sorry there's just a lot those being discussed tonight self I had a question so voting on this resolution tonight would mean that Harriet Tubman is on schedule to open next year but then seismic testing will be happening for like the next two years so I just want to be clear like because it's confusing to me you cover like next year when I go to college and I hear like Harriet Tubman slide down the hill into the freeway like that will be on my conscience so I like I don't want to vote on a school that's good you know like it's not secure for the students because you know I want this best safety for students yeah I think that's what we're all Arif I the hill side issue because I think there's a fair amount of misunderstanding about what's exactly at risk here or I have heard from a number of experts in the community if you'd like me to speak to it briefly well I wonder you dumbest mr. Benson is here I can make an attempt to summarize what we know I think student delegate Tran it'll be on my conscience and I think a lot of ours if there is an issue and I think what our chief operating officer Vincent can can elaborate on is the site is actually midway through a two year seismic study a geologic study there's nothing that the probes have indicated regarding movement but of course we're awaiting sort of the final results of it do you want to elaborate on that Jerry yes so you're right on you know from the last time we talked there's been a budget revised and what I've taken a look at is why would we want someone to come back to here yet Tubman on opening day and say hey great they solved the alto or air quality it's not me it's wherever this is so miss yu-san or so since our last time here there's a budget revised I'm part of the budget revise is not only to add a high-end HEPA system for a brand new HVAC system across the entire site from any outdoor particulates which will help the other is exactly what you're talking about there's a two-year study I looked at how long it would take to to stabilize any part of our hillside and why would someone want to come back to Tubman on day one and say great news the outdoor air quality is great and the indoor air quality is great and am i sliding into the hillside who wants to come back to that in addition the work that we need to do would take more than the 62 days of summer so if we are bold and if we are going for this I decided to go for it and increases yeah we increased it by a couple million dollars to do all the stabilization right now while we're doing the other work a Harriet Tubman and be able to open it with the with with the trifecta in place when we go so that's it because if you go by last board it did read that way and then the
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budget read that way and since then I was driving home and thinking the same thing you were I don't want to solve two out of three you know for opening day I don't want to do that thank you so so what you're saying is what's going to come to us next week our next board meeting is a budget that has enhanced resources for that issue correct thank you for bringing it up so go ahead I'd like to offer a modest amendment for our discussions so this proposal still includes a slice of the alameda boundaries that is the sort of southeast corner that to to make the move there is actually in it defies several of our policies and values and I originally didn't think that I originally didn't have any problem with this proposal B and I certainly no thinks any school boundaries are sacrosanct but looking more closely at it one of the important policies and values that it is in violation of is our safe routes to schools guidelines because it puts students at a longer traveling distance and across a significant corridor high volume corridor considered by ODOT a high crash corridor so the safe routes to schools advocates have really advocated against making this change the second one that's really important and especially for consistency in our boundary work is that we do have a policy that tries to guide us against separating a small group of children from a cohort and this definitely qualifies is that the assessment is that it's just about one kid per grade that would be moved into Rose City Park and then the third thing in terms of just the common sense test is that we're all ready we're looking at Rose City Park opening at 100% capacity and the potential of being over enrolled effective basically immediately so there aren't really any compelling reasons to make this shift and there are some some good reasons and some existing policy guidelines that compel us to remove this from this proposal and I guess the last one too is that Alameda school had boundary changes a few years ago and is still digesting the effects of those boundary changes so is not over capacity at this time so not necessarily looking for a relief valve so to me it's really a question of being consistent with our existing guidelines and having a kid centered lens and for those reasons I'd like to put forward that modest amendment to leave that Alameda boundary essentially as it was at 57th and Sandy it just said Mohnish the audience that please maintain a respectful environment so it's been first in seconded and some discussion maybe I'd asked the committee to members of the enrollment and forecasting committee if this is something that was there was discussion about or how many students would it be possible to get this superintendent Guerrero would it be possible to get the staff who helped develop this to come up and talk about the logic of that particular boundary change I think that would need to be the next step is to just look specifically at that area and kind of provide that background and if we want I mean I don't know if staff wants to do that now but if we want to move forward with this this amendment tonight as written and examine this issue and how it dives and or conflicts with our existing policies through the enrollment and transfer committee that would be fine with the potential of possibly making adjustments that that bring us into consistent adherence with our with our guidelines go ahead director of Arthur Brown what's
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compelling about this is really wanting to look at how many students the total number is and looking at the it the impact on Rose City Park which will be at capacity and and likely if it's a small number of students that may not bring a lot of relief so it may not really help that situation but I'm wondering also if within the other boundaries that we looked at those safe routes I know we've had some discussion of that but maybe they I think it has been part of most of the analysis that's why it's kind of this is a bit of an outlier except before I would just say if you're a student vestal on the other side of 80 seconds you're walking across I don't I don't want to diminish it I just think we we live in a very urban environment kids are crossing 84 on the overpasses so it is one factor that's outlined in our policies of things were to consider maybe director crunch damn you mentioned that we could go ahead and proceed with the resolution as it is and since the enrollment forecasting committee is going to be meeting in anyway to take up director Anthony's request that will add this to the list so because our general counsel he isn't here tonight and I'm not sure if it's allowable under a lot Robert's for those orders to withdraw so with Ron amendment you're gonna get wrong and I'm happy to have this happy to have it be discussed within enrollment and transfer to me it's really more the issue about you know separation of such a small group from a cohort which is something that we tried to pay a lot of attention to with the West Side work and you know all of our work and it never works out perfectly and but it's just it's worth examining sort of the cost-benefit analysis okay so we have two issues at least and I know that also I guess as long as we're giving it as long as I'm not on the committee and we're giving issues to that committee I really this issue of the Vernon and Beaumont and the facility space and whether we can't move those kids to into a functioning middle school so that they have that experience I guess I just want to know how hard is it it may be really hard and we're a couple years out but it I don't know that so I would ask the committee chair to entertain that as well I know we already have it in our resolution that's clearly this thing just is yes that's on our agenda dr. Parker we need to meet soon so what director Bailey you need to actually move the red line changes to the amendment because so we the resolution that was posted in our board packet you made some red line changes and you need to move those to be included in the resolution the amended amendment okay one at a time I think you can move the entire package well I that there's I'm not gonna move quite the entire package because I got a little overzealous and why okay so we have amended language to the which specifies street-by-street the boundary to Rose City Park do I need to read all that or I think God director Houston has it and that was available and posted and that's just correcting you know going and viewing the satellite map and actually getting the couple of streets corrected so that's in there secondly part a of that I just want to clip that to the first sentence the Vietnamese dual language immersion program will move to Rose City Park we'll just leave that there
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keep it simple deal with articulation later on the third amendment I'm sorry why are you dropping the articulation yeah because I took it all the way to high school and at this point we don't we don't have I should have checked with staff first my apologies I made a mistake can you be clear Scott what you're referring to right now no so this the second sentence talks about articulating into a Middle's into Rose way heights as the program ages up and I get really excited and through in Madison as a high school immersion program and apparently we don't have any real high school immersion articulation I appreciate the enthusiasm director Bailey for full immersion pre k12 pathways in the district at a minimum I would want to suggest that we would explore looking at what would it look like to and come back at a later date if we were interested in a 912 Vietnamese pathway at at a particular school like Madison that you've named here the language as is would commit us to it without a study about it so we're rural City Park and Rose way heights but you're stopping you're deleting the Matis the Madison yes miss Hewson did tracking that okay okay third piece deletes a paragraph that shouldn't have been there I think the wrong paragraph deleted and substitutes a paragraph that says what there we go okay thank you the new paragraph reads students currently enrolled in grades K 4 at Rose way heights who live in the new Scott boundary will have the guaranteed right to guarantee transfer to Scott and so that's to a new to be to be or not to be we've got a new to see this is by the way for those following at home this is e in the recital 's so everything he's been talking about is under E thank you and that's that's parallel to our language that was already in there for Leif and finally I just added a clarifying phrase that when we do come back with options for King they will come back to the board for the board to consider that's just more grammar than anything else just explain what's happening with King maybe just read that what the language you added so the prior to December 31st 2018 and sooner is finer with me PPS will develop options and here's the new language to be presented to the PPS board of directors for continued increasing enrollment at King K 5 in order to create two robust neighborhood non immersion strands so it's just saying come back to the board this is the language that was added so do we have a second second so it's moved the package of amendments is moved by director Bailey seconded by director Anthony any board discussion director frozen you have anything you wanna anybody else just again to encourage a lot of creative problem-solving around enrollment busi enrollment at Martin Luther King jr. I think it's high priority I think to reiterate the commitment that we have to wherever we're landing with enrollment right now that we're committing to the resources needed to have people programming that's dear so we have a any other discussion about the amendments all in favor aye aye any opposed student representative Tran yes the board approves the amendment seven to seven to zero with student representative voting Tran voting YES any other discussion or amendments
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director Anthony director Bailey I very much appreciate oh sorry all right yes we we see the problem I do appreciate you speaking up for MLK and saying earlier is better I would like to propose that we put a date on it item J which is MLK strikes prior to December 31st 2018 and insert to be implemented in fall 2018 I think I as it is now we'd be putting it off a few years can we move it up one so I'm just gonna remind the board that this is we're committing to a lot of things and we also I think we've been really clear with staffed that we want them laser focused on we we don't want another rough start to a new middle school so I I think that that you're gonna find support for your amendment but I just I don't want us to be realistic about what staff can accomplish and if we continue to prioritize the middle schools and yes if we can if we can accomplish the other pieces so if you want to move move your amendments okay so miss Houston did you get the amendment it's changing the date from December 2018 to December you know it would be to be implemented in the fall of 2018 okay to be implemented the fall of 2018 is there a second I'll second it any discussion yeah I'd like to offer something but I think Jeroboam Edwards beat me to the punch I also appreciate your enthusiasm dr. Anthony director Anthony and as much as we're also interested in making sure MLK is a robust and thriving school community we are operating at organizational capacity so we can revise our proposed costs to ramp up that capacity and we'll have to revise if we need to bring aboard a whole lot more staff who have expertise in this area to even begin to contemplate further actions on a completely another school site right now and I want to be able to do that in the thoughtful manner so I just hope that gets considered in discussion that's exactly why I put that date in there and and I I put it in in part as a placeholder but also too we would have the opportunity to ask Ben to staff and I'm gonna report on this later on in terms of the Panasonic foundation trip but our staff is way over capacity and that's the truth and we have to be really focused on getting a few things done really well this year and that's not where we want to be but that's where we are perhaps this is a good time to share a little reflection on how senior staff and myself spent yesterday evening meeting with members of the Tubman community as well as their proposed feeder parent leaders school leadership from each of the sites that are that are contemplating this move and you heard some some public comment tonight about the tall order in front of us much of that is not so much about the facility which itself is a task but it's about being very thoughtful about the programmatic design we're not doing this work in the middle schools to create more of the same but to actually start to incubate a design for the future and that's going to take all of our energy and we heard loud and clear they want a specific plan that they want to be included we'll have to launch entire sets of workgroups so that they can inform the process we have the critical factor of staffing staffing that's committed to working in the school community that's inclined to work serving the students in the neighborhood who have the background the skill set who were able to inform the curricular design of that school so I've heard very clearly from the very beginning that the and I share this that we want to we want to open to middle schools as
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successfully as possible and will continue to build from from the opening in year one but that's going to require Herculean effort and I just I it would be I need to be thoughtful about underlining that on behalf of the entire staff who is already working double-time on many of these components and I'll also remind us it isn't just about the two middle schools there's a lot of other displacement and shifting program placement and a lot of other considerations that come along with this pretty landmark resolution that you're considering tonight so I don't think many of us would disagree with a lot of the smaller finer points that you're raising its it but at some point it becomes a bit much to bite off and I just want to be realistic because I think it's important to manage the expectation we have talked in previous board meetings that we will resource the schools as we are working on boundaries to right-size programs so that's starting in the fall we're not going to be dealing with inequitable programs yes and a single-strand neighborhood program is even if you throw more resources at it is not where we want to be but given where we're at we can at least try to mitigate as much as we can to as a as we're moving forward to creating the right size school every and that again in the resolution and something when it comes to budget time yes we need to be vigilant about that I'm sure staff will also be vigilant about that we need to make sure that we engage with those school communities that we recognized are under n world right now to ensure that we are adequately stamping them adequately and equitably staffing discussion I guess yeah just one thing I think we all I don't know how to put this we are where we are I think we all know where we are which is not where we ought to be and where we want to be and we're trying to get to a place where every student gets the educational opportunities they deserve and it's been a long time that we haven't been doing that what we're trying to do now is to unwind some of the I'll just say bad decisions that have been made in the past it's going to take us a while to get to the point where we need to be so I just want to make sure I feel compelled to say this out loud everybody's going to have to sort of manage their expectations over the next year what you're seeing up here is us trying to come up with the best solution we can three minutes to speak and meanwhile the only things that I've heard that at all that's interesting to me is what Carol had talked about the having people that are impacted at the table there are no teachers here there are no students here they can tell you of course have account everything in all the middle schools in Portland and you guys are still having your own private conversations about things that you don't have roots in that's and we don't have any agency to give you any feedback it's like three minutes how much we get cut off so you wonder why people are upset yes don't even want to come to these people vote what are the differences where are the representation of the community in Portland because I don't see it in this room you bring with you what you bring with you period I hear classism and racism over and over and over and nobody in here says no this is not okay it's not okay I'm not saying it's okay and four months
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ago I was exactly where you are out there complaining and I'm up here complaining now what okay okay I'm sorry okay all I'm trying to add an opportunity to speak all I'm trying to say here is we're doing we're doing what we can part of what we need to do is to actually engage with communities in a meaningful way which we haven't been all that great at in the past and I think what you're seeing from superintendent Guerrero is a real commitment to do that and this is just the beginning this is going to have to be this is going to have to be all hands on deck to make this happen and happen well and that includes all of the staff that includes us it includes school communities working together to co-create these schools and to make sure that the remaining K fives are are thriving and fully staffed and regardless of enrollments we need to make this work so and the only way we're going to do it is if we work together so we haven't um we have an amendment on on the table and did you want to speak to his first round so we needed a dispense with the amendment so either so I'm gonna ask dr. Anson Anthony would you like us to proceed to vote to vote on it okay any other comments before we vote on the amendment all in favor say aye aye any opposed no this is Paul's amendment regarding the testing fall I think it was three disagree can you call that again please director Brimmer yes so I'm just gonna ask Miss Hewson did just call the roll call I it seemed to be three clear on the exact amendment language please director Anthony sir for item J deleting prior to December 31st 2018 and replacing with to be implemented in fall 2018 and that's options to be presented to the PPS board of directors for increasing enrollment at King K 5 so just to be clear you use the word implementation the language in here is to develop options so with exploring options for M okay by the fall of 18 spirit of what you're proposing when you say implementing I'm not so sure what we would be implementing I just need better direction I'm sorry it's not a clear sentence I was trying to make the change as simple as possible the idea is that MLK would open in the fall of 2018 with a healthy enrollment so I was leaving open when we would be considering those options before we have a roll call vote I'm just gonna explain why I'm gonna be a no vote I'm gonna be a no vote because I think a be because if staff has the capacity to do this earlier I'll be fully supportive but I'm hesitant to override the rest of the work so that's but it's but if it can be done earlier I think you probably would have the enthusiastic support well you'd have might enthusiastic support certainly an interest on the part of staff to explore what is the kind of programming that we can augment at the site but if the board is looking for to develop a plan that could be implemented in the coming fall that will guarantee increased enrollment that's that's a very nearly impossible task right now for my vantage point not without a whole lot of other resources miss Houston can
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you call the roll no no no motion fails on a six to one vote oh I'm sorry and student representative Tran No so the motion fails on a six to one vote with student representative Tran voting no are there any other amendments one last point of discussion before we leave this is just to remind ourselves and everyone that we are engaging in review of our focus option programs and part of the issues that we're looking at in terms of our under enrolled schools is all the students and families that live in those neighborhoods who aren't attending their neighborhood schools and so you know we're going to do everything that we can to make the programming in every neighborhood school compelling enough that if you live down the street you're gonna want to go there but same time we're gonna be looking at all those other relief valves that are there in the system that send kids away from their neighborhood schools and that then you know create this downward or this negative cycle that doesn't allow us to have the strong robust neighborhood schools that we need and Martin Luther King jr. is a good example of that and Vestal is a good example of that so I really look forward to all the strategies we can use to boost up enrollment from those neighborhood families any other discussion okay so I think at this time we have a we have resolution 55:34 as a as amended but somebody like to move it I already did thank you it was so long ago so at this time I'm gonna call for a vote all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed a student representative Tran yes the resolution 55:34 as amended passes 7 to 0 with the student representative voting YES so thank you everybody who came tonight and participated in in the discussion and this is going to be an ongoing work for the district both of the board and the staff level at this time we're going to shift gears and ask that we have Kevin Spellman who's with the bond accountability committee come forward and provide us with our quarterly reports Jeff Brohm Edwards members of the board superintendent I'm Kevin Spellman I'm chair of the board accountability committee and I'm joined today by Tom Peterson who served on the committee since the outset of the 2012 bond he's recently retired and from long services chief engineer at the Port of Portland your committee met on October 25th in the library of the new fobian school and it's really nice to be able to take advantage of these new facilities we've working with staff on slightly changing the format of the reporting since we now have the 2017 bond to address as well and that's kind of a work in progress but we're making some progress clear highlight of the quarter of course was the opening of the school's Franklin Roosevelt and Fabien we'll try to be brief you've had a long evening already at this time the the following work is being managed by PPS close out of phase two construction at Roosevelt High School and work on phases three and four close out of construction at Franklin also at fabien construction work and agreement on the guaranteed maximum price at Grant High School which I think is before you this evening
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construction still on improvement project IP 16 and that's just the elevator work remaining at shabbos plus of course the planning for Kellogg middle school and Madison Lincoln and Benson High School's plus the health and safety work covered by the 2017 we looked at of course as we always do looked at mm a 2012 budget the total program now stands at 586 million dollars of which almost 400 million had been spent as of October 1 68 this is a little bit of a broken record but remaining reserves and contingencies skinnier and skinnier but staff has been doing a pretty good job of trying to balance the clothes out of the schools minimizing costs obviously as well as dealing with Grant High School we talked a little more about that that budget has had to increase somewhat on the positive side the final bonds for 2012 was sold and they generated a bond premium of almost ten million dollars that obviously comes back in the program and it's very welcome closeout work continues on the completed schools and there are multiple cost issues still to be worked through and that always will take a while these projects are complicated final numbers clearly are not in but they current projections have the total cost for those three schools with a combined budget of 265 million dollars coming in within a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of that number the largest budget issue remaining in the 2012 bond but it has implications for 17 certainly is grant high school since our last meeting staff had continued to work on this and at our recommendation secured some third-party pricing and validation of the other costs project schedules we really now only dealing with Grant High School effectively and obviously work has started there and the schedule calls for that to that school to be done and open 2019-20 school year safety I just want to touch on that there were no accidents in your program in the last quarter once again that's pretty impressive we are continuing to work on the various audits we've had a couple of construction audits which is normal on cmgc work and we've also have the last summer's performance audit report and because of the increased workload of the 2017 bond with we're gonna deal with those in a subcommittee framework and we're trying to arrange some times with staff to do that so lots of good progress I'm sorry he'll be better okay so lots of good progress to date I've got project managers assigned they're getting geared up for all the safety programs we've got a preliminary plan for how they want to sequence things so so far they're off to a pretty good start we do have some concerns about the early schedules now we do realize that it's still very early in the planning stage but at first blush it looks like they may be a little overly conservative on the duration so particularly in the construction side and so we we would hope there's still some sense of urgency to kind of make sure we we get these schools delivered as quickly as we can understand and you know we had a lot of challenges in the first phase some of which were driven by some concurrent activities in the first phase that we aren't we've already completed so they should be less of an issue in my mind going forward so so I'm still thinking they should be able to come up with maybe a little better timeframes for the delivery of the high schools in particular but all in all they're off to a great start I think they've got too good good plan in place clearly based on her performance in the last four years they've been up with a challenge and I'm confident that they'll take all the lessons that they've learned in this last round and apply them in this next
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girl we'll have a successful program and I look forward to continue to monitor progress this this amazing undertaking that you guys are taking off I have a question of mr. Peterson so with the concerns that the BAC has raised about the proposed construction schedule for the 2017 bond has has staff looked at or has the BAC discussed what the escalation cost is associated with essentially an extra year of construction for each of those high schools I don't think we got into that level of detail so but yes time is money it works both ways you bill it too fast it cost you money you build a team it's too long a cost money so finding that sweet spot is what it's really all about and I think that's what we're going to be want to focus on it's finding that a duration that's reasonable but still gets them done in a timely manner and following up on that how hard is it to come up with a dollar estimate on that extra gear what I'd have to have staff they're the ones would have to pull those numbers together we're still I think they've they've established the budgets for for each of the schools but we haven't gone into great detail so that I understood extent where we understand okay this is how much escalation and how it affects the schedule I suspect that will be a topic for the next time we meet thank you let me appreciate what you're saying about that it does go both ways because we did pay some premiums for being crunched before and having a lot of overtime work and really feeling like that was too tight but we've added essentially an entire year even after master planning and presuming that there'll be no scope change like there was with the other projects so I do some concern about the proposed schedules that were not delivering value to our kids and our taxpayers as timely as we could I wouldn't want to give the impression though that stuff is has set to schedule in stone and we're pushing on it we are pushing on it but but stuff is open to suggestions and continuing to work on this and and that's the kind of pressure will bring to bear also so I guess one thing and it's just because you're here but I guess having gone through the whole conversation we just had that you sat through with a lot of these issues are you know we have the same staff in many ways that are managing or overseeing or leading some of these sort of facilities projects related to not the big big rebuilds but getting some of our schools that really need to get into shape and I guess I'm I'm concerned about how then we're stretching the staff I think we've had they've done a heroic job sort of keep things moving but I guess I'd be interested in so your perspective of just the the impact of if we were to accelerate things or you know change things just the impact on staff here what I think I think we have to remember that the the staffing of the major projects which is where our concern is dedicated and bond personnel so they're not distracted by other issues within the district now the the district has not fully staffed up yet with bond people for each of those schools and it's probably premature on couple of them but they have a pointed project manages they've got leadership in place so they'd make real progress in this last quarter and staffing so I think we're happy with that I guess I would just say like to hire staff and do all those things requires time on behalf of our leaders so I again I think we're just enough not a fragile state but we are not don't have a full team and I just want to be cognizant of what we're asking our staff and certainly if you see things that you think that from the board's perspective more support or resources we'd certainly expect that you raised it with superintendent Guerrero or with the board because we want to deliver on both but realize that we sort of the
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leadership rests with somewhat the same people can you hear me oh there we go there we go my concerns are not so much with what they're doing right now because I think they're doing everything and I'm more concerned about the expectations that they're setting for the contractors in the delivery which is not necessarily as much of a staffing issue is how you write your contracts and what your expectations are from delivery and those are yet those contracts have yet to be left so there's still plenty of time to sort out those details and really understand are there opportunities to improve the constructions that's really all I'm talking about I'm not talking about the upfront stuff and I agree having listened to the testimony later they are spread thin right now so I not our internal capacity and not just construction but a little room probably on the design side as well yes right yes any questions but board members but I don't it's temp question or not and maybe you're not the right guys to ask but we have a bond it's got things in it it's got money you get to the end and stuff has happened and you know the good part of that is that you're really budgeting tightly and the bad thing of that is that if you're the last school value engineering becomes you find out what that is is there any way this I mean we're going to be on this bond train for 30 years is there any way to smooth that out a bit I think we again you have no other districts do this is that how things what what I think in our experience what we've seen with the 2012 bond is not unusual and we have to remember that each bond program is independent so it's not like we can dip into 2017 to pay for shortages in 2012 I should have mentioned we did have some public comment at our meeting that's relevant so there's a little and it was concern about the deferred work for IP 17 yeah which is kind of off the table at this point and quite how that's going to be dealt with is there's something we need to pay attention to yeah any other questions I like the no see no accidents yes it's good to hear yes thank you thank you for the work you continue to do for effort about the school district and the students at this time we're also gonna get a quarterly update on capital bonds mr. Vincent good evening I have with me danyoung our senior director of office of school modernization and I wasn't going to do this but I think I need to especially after the Tubman conversation so we are trying to go cradle-to-grave on a bunch of schools and nine months there are people who can't get their home kitchen remodeled in sixth and eight months you just need to understand that because when we talk about taking these large schools and getting them done sooner you need to know what we know we know 24 months didn't work we know we paid a lot of overtime we know that Roosevelt was two hundred and sixty-five thousand square feet Franklin 284 Grant 293 we know Benson has 400,000 square feet before we even touch it that's on three hundred and sixty-five thousand square foot lot how does that even work we know Lincoln is going to be ten stories tall we know it's built over it's gonna be built over a landfill that has an active river running underneath it we know that when the city is done working us over on permitting the Goose Hollow Planning Commission which caused two portable buildings that cost a million dollars each wants to take a shot at us and if you don't think that that takes time and if that you know on the design and the construction we're just setting expectations that nobody can meet and if it's been 78 years on average since we had a school another year isn't going to change things but let's just say this if it's not 24 it's 36 are we prepared to do a mid-year opening do we know what that looks like I've done them in
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California they're ugly and transportation departments they're ugly so what does it matter if it's 30 or if it's 31 in Lincoln when once we get down at the tower we have to abate and demolish an entire high school I've got over 600 projects I've never done an entire high school abating demo demolish ever this is unprecedented and then we're done doing that we have to build fields and Sports Complex Pass what's the hurry and if we can get the contractor off the clock in 30 months great we don't do a meteor opening Edgar at a time for commissioning at a time for furniture move in actually do a dedication and ribbon cutting in the building during the April instead of trying to quickly throw something together in August and some people are back some people aren't legislators aren't in but it doesn't matter we get the contractor off the clock that's the escalation factor so unless some of these comments are because they need to be for political and constituents we know what we're doing and these projects are amazing there is no construction lay down area for Benson and Lincoln contractors and at the rent parking lot somewhere have the materials brought in just-in-time delivery system you have to rent another parking lot for their for their workers and cars so ramp the rental office building somewhere as their headquarters because you can't put trailers on these sites there's no room so I just I appreciate it I'm not acting like the whole sage on the stage but 30 years of K 1217 bombs over 600 projects I beseech you because it won't be me or anybody here might not be here seven years from now but Oh a sound there's gonna be how can me and get that thing open everybody else would be gone but we'll be here and so I just please think about what you're saying Tubman is going to be ridiculous if it doesn't work it's gonna be my name and I already got that I already know that but I'm up for the challenge so please be careful with these comments we're supposed to apply our lessons learn and that's what we're trying to do so with that I'd like to turn over to do the information provided in your packets tonight is corresponds to the information I provided to the bond accountability committee on October 25th what we do with that information that's pretty much current as of the right the first day of October or so some of that data is a little bit stale what we do it so when we report it's consistent day between the Pawnee County Committee and ourselves a couple could program items before I jump into the projects from a staffing perspective we fill the vacancy last month when we hired Jesse stager as the senior project manager for Madison High School Jesse comes from to us from Washington State University where she just completed a project at their ever campus so she has a very impressive background are very happy to have her on board I also want to take a quick moment to thank our long-standing program manager Ken Fisher as is likely his last board meeting I can will be leaving the program at the end December he has been with us since the bond passed in 2012 and he will be sorely missed for his leadership his knowledge has tact ain't his steady hand so I just want to personally say thank you to can and a lot of the successes that this program has had has been due to him so thank you Ken hear hear yeah fortunately can only be a phone call away he will still be remaining with Harry international and can Scott Bravo will be stepping into his shoes Scott as actually with the program very early on has been with OHSU the last few years and he'll be stepping back in so happy to have Scott back jumping into project information since we last met in late August fabien franklin roosevelt phase 2 and grant at marshall all opened on time a lot of great work by the project teams the support staff the schools the community the board everybody so we're very happy about that and very proud about that work regarding Franklin this project is nearing completion we're still finishing up the solar panels that are on the covered walkway those are all installed now we're just programming those so those should be done soon and then we've got a number of loose ends that were finishing up there about we hope to be pretty much out of there and all documents turn over to facilities by the end of the year Roosevelt Phase two is also progressing towards final completion most that punch list is done we've got a few outstanding items their HVAC commissioning is one of our bigger ones that we're still working on and then phase 3 the site work that will continue into winter so that's going on right now that's progressing well and last building is being demoed out there the old auto shop building is going down right now probably on the ground by the end of this week fabien we're finishing up punch list and for their outstanding items there as well we should have that project fully turned over by next month as well as oh that one's come along grant as we've heard a little bit earlier Bateman and
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demolition is going on out at the side at the moment as note in your packets we have completed the negotiations for the guaranteed maximum price with Andersen construction here's some the coolest construction a lot of hard work for really in over two years culminating in two that guaranteed maximum price that's into your packets for tonight and up for approval tonight and though there have been some pretty significant schedule challenges on the front end of this we're still looking a very good opening grant in fall of 2019 Kellogg programming is well underway with that team and that design team meeting with internal and external take holders stakeholders the team has been meeting for last couple months and has had to dag meetings already and we'll have a third one here next next week Thursday I think it is we have our master planning cost estimate in and that shows us just slightly over budget which we're happy to see we have we have plans on how we're going to get that back into budget so we will be back in front of you before too long with a master plan approval we're currently on schedule to open Kellogg well as a part of the agreed schedule in fall 2021 but we do have our canoeing efforts to complete that project early into some of the comments by Kevin and Tom we weren't actually conservative with the dates that we put out before but that said we are starting everything as quickly as we can to try and beat those times so we're out of the gate on Kellogg we're out of the gate on Madison as well I know I noted that Jessie stager has taken over the helm of that as the senior project manager we've recently finalized the contract with ops this architecture so they're doing kickoff and they're starting to meet with stakeholders as we speak and we're currently recruiting for dag members for that so we expect to have a dad sometime in December will be that first tag meeting so that project is out of the gates as quickly as we could get it we are comfortable with meeting the schedule degree of Madison and 2022 but our of course aggressively looking for ways to beat that schedule Lincoln similarly we have a target day of opening that and fall of 2023 we're effectively starting that project now as well or gonna be recruiting for the dag open by the end of this month we're going to have the design team under contract for the first phase in December and that project is going to be starting out of the gate as well so we want to start these as early as we can to give us the best opportunity to get them completed and open as early as we can Benson is is a little bit further out we did get the master planning committee back together here a couple weeks ago and gave them an update we're doing an industry outreach effort that's going to culminate this spring and then we'll move into design after that I think we're gonna have a health and safety update here so touch on health and safety just briefly work is proceeding on all fronts on health and safety design is underway for roof improvements fire alarm fire sprinkler upgrades accessibility improvements and asbestos abatement work a lot of the bigger work we're designing now with the intention of starting construction the beginning of summer but then that will just become rolling work throughout the school year and throughout the summers we will target the large stuff our roof replacements over the summer of course but any work that we can do during the school year we will continue to design and plan and complete over the school year I think that's that's it let's chair everything else dad any questions or just wanna see again looking back at the 2012 bond considering that you know it was our first bond there was a lot we didn't know because there was master planning that a year in we upped the high schools from 1500 to 1700 that we upped the square footage per student as well which just ate up a ton of our contingency in reserve not all of it given all that you guys have done a fantastic job thank you thank you thank you boxer and Gary petty though the whole it's very much team effort yeah there really is that we you know when I got here I was very nervous a couple years ago we have 13 people down an office of school modernization a little over 20 some with our Jiri folks and it's now over 1.4 1.5 billion we're doing with that it just is tight you know and what we needed to do that because of the margins because of what went out in the beginning of the bond right we needed to do that so we're also trying to look at that as lessons learned for the new bonds as well thank God for zero interest rates and I do want to commend just the lessons learned process both in terms of the ED specs like really
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revising the ED specs for the 2017 projects based on all the feedback from 2012 scheduled construction management issues I mean they you really have put in a concerted process to figure out what went right what went wrong first time around and improve upon things yep thank you and it continues we're actually bringing a design team on board to help us do some more lessons learn and update those documents right okay thank you we're next yes you are um so because this item came out of the finance audit and operations can me I'm gonna ask director more to introduce it and only if you need assistance from we're gonna make a try okay I'm gonna try so resolution number fifty five thirty six is authorization to move four million dollars of the program level bond reserve to the OSM school reserves okay so this is and we got a we got a very long and detailed and good presentation about this at the committee and correct me if I'm wrong but I think that basically what we're talking about is kind of an accounting this this is an accounting process we have we have reserves that that have been that are sitting in an account for the entire bond project so the 2012 bond program and this resolution allows that four million dollars to be moved to a Grant High School specific account that's correct yep we start to move what you have to your last project on the bond okay and this has occurred with every bond project at least the the major the high school the the big projects so happen with Roosevelt happen with Franklin it's now happening with with Grant and this will I believe essentially extinguish the the full bond reserves is that correct it at the program level and but Daniken talked to it so what you're adding you're bringing everything the last project which is grandpa thing rant has its design contingencies as construction committees and all those kind of things today so yes it's the way you would you would want to bond in unless you could end a bond with hundreds of millions of dollars of extra money you wouldn't want to bond to and your money and your finish line come together so yes so we're moving it from the savings account to the checking account that's good there you go I guess I should also say the committee approved recommended approving this resolution so the resolution has been moved by dr. Bailey seconded by director Anthony any discussion not call call for the call for a vote all in favor aye aye I'm in the opposed student representative Tran yes motion that resolution passes 7 to 0 with student representative Tran voting aye let's see thank you thank you unless you'd like to to the school board election the School Board Association collections yes you have to do so now we're going to move to there's a series of Oregon School Board Association elections and there is both elections for members of the board but also a resolution related to the Oregon School Boards Association or also OSB a as we call it so there's a lot of seats so I'm just gonna move through the process and I've asked because he's neither a candidate but he's not a candidate but he's on the board of OSPF I'm gonna ask
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director Anthony to make the motions to make motions and if he moves a candidate and a contested race that you'd like to vote for somebody else the procedure would be you would vote down you would vote against the candidate that he moves and then if that candidate is not it doesn't does not gain a majority then we'd move to the next candidate so for position 17 on the OSB a Board of Directors do have a motion to to support Mary Botkin from Multnomah ESD or Michelle veau from Corbett that we support Michelle vote from Corbin a second it's been moved by director Anthony seconded by director constan all in favor please say aye aye those opposed say no no director student rep trim aye Michelle veau in position 17 is approved going on - okay John Linden fall from Reynolds is running unopposed for position 17 on the OSB a legislative policy committee I'm just going to because since he said impose I'm gonna ask all in favor of John Linden Thal please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed no it's an uptrend yes the motion support John Linden Thal is adopted by a 7 to 0 vote was student representative Tran voting yes Chris Howard isn't running unopposed in position 18 and that was for the OSB a board of directors all in favor Chris how--it please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed a student room yes Chris how it is approved on a 7 to 0 vote Weston rep voting YES for a position 18 on the OSB a legislative policy committee to have a motion to support director con con stem or Dave Carter from Park Rose director Anthony I move that we support director Amy Kahn stem for position 18 it hasn't been second yet I'll second it it's been moved by director Anthony's seconded by director cons damn all in favor I'm sorry brem Edwards all in favor of director con Sam please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed say no I think I know the answer Moses yes okay director Constance name is move forward on a six to zero a six to zero vote with one abstention student rep voting YES for position 19 on the OSB a legislative policy committee do I have a motion to support director Rida more or johnhart stock from Gresham Barlow director Anthony I move that we support director Rida more for position 19 second we have a motion by director Anthony a second by director Cranston all in favor of Rida more for position 19 on the OSB a legislative policy community please indicate by say yes yes all opposed any abstentions please indicate student rep loosest ran the motion passes seven to zero and student rep voting yes our last vote is for the OSB a resolution to reorganize the Oregon School Boards Association is a non-profit corporation adopt the proposed 2017 bylaws is there a motion I move that we support the OSB a resolution to reorganize as a nonprofit corporation and adopt the proposed bylaw sir second second it's been moved by director at Anthony seconded by dr. Bailey any discussion all in favor please indicate by voting yes yes any knows student rep Tran yes that motion passes by a vote of 7 to 0 with student rep Tran voting yes next we're gonna go to board committee and conference reports and given that we're half an hour behind schedule I'm going to ask everybody who we have a number of people who are going to be reporting and I'm just and ask people to try and keep them to less than 5 minutes and just so people know what the lineup is or you know people decide to go first but directors Bailey and more attended the Panasonic Leadership Academy and I think director Bailey is going to be reporting I think most of us went to the OSB a conference this past weekend director
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Anthony is going to be reporting on that I think director Moore has a short report on the finance at an Operations Committee I have a short report from the policy and governance task force and director Rosen do you have a report for the health and safety and accessibility committee who wants to go first five minutes or less I can make it quick the Oregon School Boards Association 71st annual convention was in Portland this last weekend very successful had more than 800 attendees the primary focus was on addressing graduation rates and chronic absenteeism Portland Public Schools own Matthew bacon Brennus social studies teacher at Mount Tabor middle school was recognized as Oregon's 2018 Teacher of the Year and I think we should all be very very proud of him yeah [Applause] the superintendent Guerrero came and seemed to be very very warmly welcomed by he saw we were very happy that you were there thank you for coming and very significantly important public had at least six board members attend and for many years our participation in the OSB a and its convention have been very light this was seriously noticed by the rest of the state and if your ears were burning yes people were talking about you and it was it was very very warmly received in the best possible way one of the most frequent workshop topics was trauma-informed practices in the classroom I presided at two workshops on the topic in superintendent guerrero attended the first director more attended the second and I think that the work we've been doing in the Madison cluster and with mindfulness training with peace in schools in our high school stands up very well to other district successes I hope that we will have a strong presence presenting next year I also presided at workshops by lines for life on suicide prevention and by Carranza Cruz on teaching with purpose which again superintendent Guerrero attended and director Bailey also attended and thank you both very much for coming no a brief commercial here the board of the SBA met after the convention ballot measure 101 which is headed for a special election on January 23rd 2018 will ask voters whether they support a hospital provider tax that was passed in the 2017 legislative session the immediate implication for education if the measure fails is that the state will face at least a 320 million budget shortfall but because of federal matching funds the overall shortfall is anticipated to be in the billions of dollars how such a scenario could affect the state school fund is unclear but because about 39% of the general fund and lottery revenue dollars go to take k-12 education it's very important that the OS ba and Portland Public Schools make its voice heard in support of the measure the board of the OSB a voted unanimously to support the passage and I hope that our legislative policy committee will be considering this very soon thank you the board also voted unanimously formally recognize the school board members of color caucus which is very important for the state as a whole and a very old friend of mine bill grump who is a member of the North Marion school board and the mayor of Aurora is taking a lead on that he is the treasurer and I'm very very excited that that is in such good hands oh I'm sorry I did not realize Oh wonderful thank you for doing that and finally something that's very happy for me personally and this is an important resource going forward for public and its board Laurie sentence feel who has been a longtime employee of the OSB a was named head of their Legislative Services Department she's now their head lobbyist and it
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will be wonderful working with her Thank You director Rosen are you ready to to go so I'm gonna give a quick update kind of a broad brush of the health safety and accessibility committee we've had two meetings so far and we have a work plan basically our Charter is to provide support oversight and accountability for the 150 million dollar portion of the 2017 bond which was set aside for water quality so basically led in drinking water mitigation lead paint mitigation seismic which is really roof replacement radon mitigation accessibility which is a DA improvement security fire life safety witch's alarm and sprinklers improvement and asbestos mitigation and so our goal is to have a comprehensive plan for in place by the end of the year to cover these items so this is just some updates on the progress we've made so far and all of this is covered on the website under the health and safety schools page and there's also a special article on there now just about what's going on with water quality so for water quality we have a 15 school pilot project that's underway and so far we've turned the water on at five schools and we'll have an additional three schools water turned on by Thursday and then we should complete the remaining seven by the end of member so we're working in groups of 15 schools at a time and we're hoping that we will be completing groups about every eight weeks so we have five groups left the target is to finish everything by the end of the school year or early into the fall of the coming school year and we have a really nice infographic that the communications group and Gerry put together which explains how you go from replacing a fixture to testing water to turning water for fire alarm systems we're working with the city of Portland through an intergovernmental agreement and that defines the process and schedule for upgrades there's a lot of multiple sites are underway and we're working on the oldest systems first for fire sprinklers we don't have any work yet underway but buildings are being prioritized right now based on risk a specimen of speciose abatement we have some work underway and some completed pre 2017 bond we worked on small-scale projects like pipe insulation and tile flooring but next summer we'll be working on bigger bond projects and we have a draft plan and prioritization system hopefully by the end of the month for lead paint we've done surveys of all school surfaces that was completed in spring 2017 there's over 1 million square feet that needs encapsulation we've hired new painters and we have a plan and prioritization system that's in process but should be done soon for roof and seismic we are developing a plan and prioritization system right now for a DA accessibility we have a draft transition plan that should be completed by the end of member for radon we have to mitigation systems that have been completed and 16 more to be installed and completed by the spring of 2018 and we have a prioritization program underway and then for security finally we need to initiate a stakeholder engagement process which will begin soon so this is all being done by Gerry and his staff in addition to everything else he does so they're getting a lot done so far things significant issue that impacts us all our school's director Bailey how about the Panasonic conference yes the Panasonic foundation as a national foundation that the district has been working with for about two years now their focuses on working with a small number of school districts nationally their staff are former superintendents and other professional educators and
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it's all about technical assistance to help districts improve their functioning so we went to their latest conference which was actually we were very focused internally most the time was internal meetings director Morrow myself I was a superintendent Guerrero assistant superintendent Lopez Brenda Fox who's overseeing the planning for middle schools dr. Parker Carol Campbell's was there representing principals and I'm missing a couple but will a couple are missing the two and a half days of very intense discussions and very sobering discussions about where we were and it's at a major impact on my thinking about what's our capacity for getting work done this year and really doubled down on our focus is to middle schools and I think we've seen you know certainly adjustments in your role to get down on the weeds to make sure we have the staffing and support leadership to make that happen so it was good someone asks a superintendent career if there's anything you'd like to add I would echo I was I was pleased that we were able to have a pretty frank conversation between our board directors and and senior staff we had a nice cross-section of folks who are pretty intimately engaged in making sure we open to fabulous programs and so a lot of a lot of conversations around what that should look like how do we incorporate community feedback what are the elements that are going to make this a successful venture and what does it take to do that as an organization so there are some design features we certainly have to continue to iterate on but that was also this is a question that goes beyond opening two schools this is really about incubating a design that informs all of our middle grades wherever they are and what does it take as a school system to be poised to offer that kind of direction that kind of guidance what does the instructional framework need to look like how does it fit as part of a pre k12 continuum what kind of expertise do we need as a staff so I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to to get into the weeds with some of those conversations and I know that the staff felt that they could really kind of dive in deeply with that and glad you were there to be a part of that conversation and just to reiterate while we were focused on the two middle skills to be open we also were focused on Nakhla green before I turn to directing more I'll just provide a quick update from the policy and governance task force we met recently had quite a long discussion about the complaint policy we now have a draft model policy from the Oregon School Boards Association that complies with current law we're going to use a non-technical term kind of smooshed together some of the values that come out of our current complaint policy and then drop in what is the language that's recommended by the School Boards Association that would be compliant with state law we'll bring that to the board for discussion and then do that are processed by which we solicit public input on that process we've got lots of people who have experienced good and bad but probably mostly recently not not positive with our complaint policy so I know we'll get lots of positive lots of feedback from the community on ways that we can interact with the community in a way that provides better solutions for our families and our students and then last just a short update on the public records policy we are still waiting for there's discussions with Portland Association of teachers just as part of their of our policy development process they're entitled to have a discussion with us about our new policies so that's that's where that policy is director more how about a finance Aden operations committee update so just a little plug for the committee meetings for those of you who like weeds I have a committee for you we've got we've had I don't know I want to say six
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or seven committee meetings so far and we've had very full agendas for each committee and a lot of the stuff that we have talked about in those committee meetings have already come before the board and various resolutions so I'm gonna be pretty brief and just talk about a few of the a few of the details one is peach jar for current parents this has been a somewhat unhappy experience I believe for the most part we are no longer going to be doing peach jar for school communications so we're gonna go essentially back to the old policy of the principal will the school will approve communications and the school will be in charge of taking care of the communication flow to the school communities transportation at the last meeting on the seventh we got an update on the transportation situation and again for for those of you following from home you will remember that last year we that transportation situation was problematic we got we had some some real issues that emerged and the Jerry Vincent and his team have worked diligently over the last I guess eight months ish to address the kind of identify what the what the real problems are with the transportation system and addressed them in the process they hired an external consulting firm transpire that has been working very closely the staff with with the bus drivers the the PPS bus drivers and also with company first student that we contract with for most of the school buses and things are not perfect but they are clearly infinitely better than they have been in past years and I'm gonna say something that anybody who knows me would probably never predict I would say at the last meeting Jerry Vincent had a really good PowerPoint I am NOT a PowerPoint fan but this was actually really good and he had some kind of pithy factoids that are helpful in putting that transportation situation in context and I'll just give you one so PPS school buses drive approximately 18,000 miles every day they make thirty four hundred and seventy daily stops ninety four percent of which are on time so there has been huge progress we want to get that extra you know that additional six percent going but the things are vastly better and there are there are moves in place there are plans in place and we're going to be moving toward some real some additional improvements including eventually an app that will be available to parents so that they can you know track where the school buses are so anyway it was a it was a very positive report and again you know thank you to all the work that's gone into that I think it's been a huge improvement and also at the last meeting we heard a lot about the kind of situation report on Tubman and you've already heard a lot about that so I won't go into any more detail and then the last thing at the this most recent meeting but at the previous one we had a very long discussion about the legal department and the cost of external legal assistance and that's some of the work that went into that is going to be coming as part of the business agenda tonight so anybody else have anything to report it's just a very quick comment on transportation not just an enormous quantitative improvement in transportation over last year but the
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quality of people's interactions with transportation is going way way up I haven't had any complaints this year and this time last year I'd had hundreds so again Gerry thank you very very much Gerry you missed that okay is there any other any other business so the next item is the remainder of the business agenda we've already voted on resolutions five five three two through five five three six is that correct board members are any items you'd like to pull for a separate discussion and vote I am going to recommend a chain offer an amendment to resolution five five three one for the legal contract it's currently at two million dollars and we had this discussion earlier about diversifying our external legal services and transitioning part of this to in-house and I would I'm gonna be moving that we reduce the contract amount to two hundred thousand from two million and that we asked for a plan that's going to provide more diversity and our external legal services and how we're going to utilize our in-house legal team in a different way and in addition to the contract amount I would also offer that currently it says a term from eleven fifteen seventeen through twelve 31 19 and I'd like to change the first from November fifteenth set 2017 to eight - August 1st 2017 through 12 31 19 there's some currently some invoices that have been expended apparently there's been about 400,000 dollars that have been expended despite the fact that we had a resolution that had it capped at 200 so I'd like for the General Counsel's office to come back with a plan about how we're gonna diversify our legal team because this is a I'd like to second that motion thank you yeah it's been moved by a director from Edward is seconded by director Anthony any discussion so go ahead so we had this extensive discussion on this in the finance audit and operations committee meeting with a pretty extensive presentation from the legal team and the original request was for four million dollars so the recommendation from that committee to the board was to have it to two million and most of the cost represented there is for litigation that we are already engaged with under way so there was considerable discussion from the general counsel that cutting the request in half was potentially somewhat problematic just given our current obligations with pending litigation what I know of very few other items that we provide a two-year budget to so just first of all it seemed an odd request to have it be a two-year budget and then we also had a a discussion that a sense that we needed there's lots of other great law firms in town and that the district would be well-served to spread some of our work around and we have we do have new cases coming online as we've seen from our 36 pages of active litigation and I haven't seen a I'd liked the General Counsel's office to come back with a plan that it's going to get us into a position
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where we don't have an over reliance on you know one one law firm to do so much of our work also we've hired a lot of internal legal support and it'd be good to see a plan about how we're going to utilize those people to do some more of the day-to-day work versus sort of outsourcing so much of it so this this was the plan that the legal counsel brought forward to FAO with and Rosanna we probably still have all those documents that were posted for that so that show the variety of different firms that the new general counsel is using and distributing the work so I don't know director more do you want to speak to that presentation and discussion and how we landed where we landed I don't have the documents in front of me but as I recall we do have a fairly long list of legal firms that we have done some work with but Miller Nash accounts for the vast majority I want to say something upwards of 80 percent ish I'm looking at a document that was provided by the General Counsel's office that has in 2015-16 Miller Nash was 1.2 million out of 1.36 five million total expenditures there's a lot of firms but some of them don't eat you know we're all zeroed out and then in 2016 Miller Nash has 1.5 million dollars of business and out of 1.7 million and what I looked at just the recent batch of invoices that we receive today there was just another you know four hundred thousand dollars in the last three months that it's been expended and so this doesn't give me a plan and I think that sort of the robustness of having a discussion about how we utilize our insight and build internal capacity so we don't need to utilize really expensive external expertise which is probably the most important time to utilize external counsel but really start building the internal capacity with our new lawyers to handle day-to-day work so one of the other pieces of information we got was that since 2012 we have had a pretty substantial increase in the number of in-house attorneys within the legal department but even as that was happening our expenditures for outside counsel pretty dramatically increased and it's it was not clear to me and I think other members of the committee what the explanation was for the for such an overall increase in expenditures so we asked for we asked for some explanation we couldn't really get it because the current general counsel is relatively new so at this point it kind of is what it is but the committee I think was pretty clear and saying that these were trend lines that we wanted to reverse that we want to bulk up the in-house counsel capacity which would allow us to decrease external expenditures and I think the general counsel also I mean agreed and said that he had a strategy it's difficult to have this conversation without him here but that he had a strategy that he was starting to try to put in place to decrease overall external expenditures and diversify them but with regard specifically to this contract you know the nature of the presentation that was made by the general counsel to the fao committee was that this was almost exclusively for existing commitments for a litigation that were engaged in so if what we're talking about is switching horses in midstream that's a different conversation than just wanting to diversify so there's there's also some very significant expenditures around things that the board has indicated that
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we are ready to wrap it would like to wrap up and move on and some of the items that are sitting there have been you know basically the bills have been running for quite a while and we need an incentive to sort of clear clear the clear the books so that we have a reasonable level of litigation so that we can so that schools can and staff here can call the general counsel's office and get sort of in-house X legal advice and we need we need plan and I think just continuing to you know basically kick the can this would kick the can down the end of the next year you know - next year I think we are in serious need of change in how we support our schools and our families with legal advice clarifying questions to ask you wanted to essentially backdate this - August 1st 2017 and you're saying that since that period when we had authorized spending of two hundred thousand actually four hundred thousand was spent so when we authorized two hundred thousand there must have been already expenditures that had been made that hadn't been there hadn't been a contract extension provided for that so when I looked at the bills they are from August September and October so even though we had a September extension there were there were bills that preceded that best best practice would be you'd have a contract allocation and you'd be drawing off that versus retro actively so it so if we're going to include those bills in this resolution wouldn't we have to be about 200,000 well I guess I'd since today was the first time I saw that and it was somewhat surprising I'd like to hear from Jim and we can we could we can cure it and just make the gallic Asian next board meeting but it would be good to hear from Jim what what those were yeah that would be I mean personally I don't think it's responsible to take an action on amending this recommendation that came forward out of that committee without the benefit of the general counsel's input so we can take it off the agenda and have a discussion next time but I think the last time the board took it off the agenda that we did express an interest in getting a plan and that the plan that came back was just essentially having in the amount that had been asked for which isn't really a plan so I I'd be happy to with change my I think I'd be happy to withdraw my amendment and offer a different amendment which would be to take it off the agenda although I think that would I think it would be better to just adopt an increment and have a discussion if you if we adopt an increment that doesn't mean that Miller Nash can't charge well apparently it doesn't mean that you have because they have it just means that we're gonna have more control and send a message well I here's the thing is if we've the opposite can't pay bills for work that we have already asked them to do I didn't get the impression that it was two million dollars of ongoing work at all I get the impression that it was hey we spent two million dollars last year we're gonna spend four million dollars this year and I didn't even support the two million I wanted to see it go down to 1 million and I want to see some control and I want to see some incentive to reverse what I think are exorbitant costs and I do want to build in-house capacity and I think throwing out another two million dollars for years since the message you have to million dollars to spend so I want to vote on it tonight I like the amendment so if I could chime in now at this point I think we've gone down the row I and I think I share the goal as I do my own organizational
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assessment this is definitely a department that I want to look under the hood with I think what I can pledge to to the board to come back with a general analysis of our existing capacity a plan for how we move forward as a department so that this school system has the internal capacity to manage you know the diverse kinds of issues and and proper and effective case management that we experience there's three dozen pages of existing litigation to clear up and certainly we want to clear the table on those issues and and I think we share the goal of if we if we do need subject matter content expertise from the outside that you know we'd be modest about it and that we be diverse about who we use so all of those things are true and I think you know give me a month to do that because we just did bring on a couple new team members in the legal department and a couple more openings that I don't want to divert attention from making sure we identify that I think there's been a previous commitment to bring on board and and it's true we have some invoices now that you know folks have performed services for and I want to be a good partner to those organizations or firms who've done work for us so whatever the board deems appropriate to be able to make sure we're paying our bills on time I think is important but I think you've all raised a very important issue and I think this is a department that we should have clarity about sort of what what's our what's our plan for how this department provides the kind of foundational support that it should have so what if anything do we need to do tonight pay our bills and get us through another month so the concept that the reason I came up with 200,000 before was Jame dick our general counsel made a very compelling case that we had ongoing litigation and so what I said what's the increment for a month he said 200,000 so that's why we adapted 200,000 so it's sort of like a month by month payment plan but I say I didn't I was unaware that potentially there was actually four hundred thousand dollars to spend happening so what I did I think the right thing to do is just a two hundred thousand and that gives the superintendent and staff time to come back with a plan that there's certainly if they provided legal services that we asked for we'll pay them that's obviously the right the right thing to do it's just I put it in tonight except for Jim's not here and I don't know if that's the right thing to do so I'm I still have a motion on the table for two hundred thousand I think we can come back the next board meeting if we need to clear out the the four hundred thousand apparently was spent in addition to the two hundred thousand the board authorized we can do that and hopefully then we'll also have a plan going forward so not to belabor this but here's a question that was raised in the fao committee which is so if we put that cap on this right now then do we tell them to cease working on active cases like we have a lot of grievances from our union that they're actively working on so if we say here's our arbitrary cap then they're not then we're telling them that we don't we don't want them to continue working on so we're well within what they have appeared to have charged on a monthly basis for labor and employment related issues I mean frankly there's some pretty big expenditures about items which the board has indicated that we want to resolve so we can move forward and so it just appears more money is shifting there but I do think I mean two hundred thousand you know if you just look at the rate of spend for I mean two hundred thousand would be at a two point four million dollar clip which would be you know five hundred thousand more than looks like last year's entire legal budget so it doesn't seem like this is that's this isn't two hundred thousand as on reason I mean that's a lot of legal services yeah it's also worth noting that the budget for that department for this year is about nine hundred and fifty thousand right we are blowing through this budget yeah oh I'm sorry please go ahead the only budget for what is typically a month's work so what about the cases that are not going to be completed I mean we know the timeline of what things
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happen in the courts that's a great question and that's my and in four weeks we can extend but it looks like if you look at the monthly run rate so if you if you take out the that four hundred thousand but if you look at a monthly run rate two hundred thousand should be ample for so maybe we put in language about you know I want to make sure that we're getting through all the litigation I mean we wouldn't want to pull something midstream either if it's somebody else great yeah so I don't think this is an indication that it's not a suggestion of midstream changing horses that would be a bad strategy but it's also we have unfortunately new cases all the time and those can be shifted so it wouldn't be that we would be a go services and there really is there's ensuring that we just have a plan to let those come to completion so worst-case scenario we have a meeting in two weeks and if they spend more than two hundred thousand dollars in two weeks so a shame on all of us I think and we could just have it better I mean definitely the tenor of the conversation in the FAO meeting was that there was pretty clear direction from the board that we wanted to curtail spending we wanted to diversify our external council we wanted to have a better handle on you know what was discretionary here but what came to us from the general council was about existing commitments so I mean right so fine we can do this but we might you might have a bit of a pickle in terms of how do we meet our obligations so that is still meeting our goals of wanting to curtail this I just would like to offer a fuller analysis of course we actually resolve whatever is on the caseload now but I think I I'm hearing clearly is we want to make sure and find what the right level of capacity is for the school district so I just want to be able to have an informed conversation on that I'm very interested by that because clearly if you know if what we invest in that department isn't sufficient and we're paying it out in other ways then that's an important thing for us to think about and also what kind of well-rounded expertise do we need in that department is it employment law or is it in other areas and I think that's that's part of the analysis that I think we should do just to be thoughtful about it while we're continuing to work with the firms that are hopefully clearing some of the cases that we're already actively engaged in so we have a min amendment that's been moved and seconded like to call for a vote all those in favor yes yes yes I'm sorry I'm gonna I want to give director espresso Brown I'm sorry I didn't know that you want to say put that language do we need to put the language in just to kind of was there so it would be visited yes so I'm I'm gonna complete the vote and then we'll add it because I think that's the cleanest way to do it all those opposed student representative Tran yes the motion passed the amendment passes by seven to zero vote with student rep Tran voting yes and now I'd like to entertain some language that would say that we will have this on our board agenda report a meeting agenda either the next meeting if that's necessary or the following one so that we don't leave the district in the case in the situation where they ongoing cases aren't resourced and I mean we can keep going month to month until and to get a really clear accounting of what is being incurred from existing litigation and where we are with diversifying our do we need a resolution to that effect can we just say that's what we're gonna do I first I think we should okay so thank you director an Anthony the board will now vote on the business agenda as amended miss Houston is there any public comment on the business agenda yeah all those in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed yes student representative Tran yes about 7 0 to adopt the business agenda
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was student rep voting yes and we are now adjourned and I'm going to remind the board members we have an executive short very short executive session after

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)

2017-11-14 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - November 14, 2017

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