2017-11-28 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2017-11-28
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - November 28, 2017

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the regular meeting of the Board of Education for November 28 is called order welcome to everyone who's present this evening we're holding our board meeting at Jefferson High School as part of the new board's commitment to hold a portion of our meetings out in the community versus at the school districts administrative headquarters so we're here at Jefferson also known as the school of Champions I was opened in 1908 and for the past 109 years its students and alums have added richness and diversity to our schools to our school systems and our city's life so I want to thank you to the Jefferson community for welcoming the board superintendent Guerrero and the broader community into your school this evening for tonight's meeting any item that's been voted on that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times the meeting is also being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website as a reminder we have our PPS Ombudsman Judy Martin attending all our regular board meetings Judy is in the back there with their hand raised specifically Judy will be here to listen to the public comments and if appropriate provide additional support to families who want or need it Judy can be reached at five oh three nine one six three oh four five or Ombudsman at PBS net in addition tonight joining us at the more table is Elisabeth large this evenings Council miss large welcome to PBS we also have interpreters with us this evening and I'd like to ask them to come forward at this time introduce themselves in the language they'll be interpreting and inform the audience where they'll be located in the auditorium should anyone need their assistance they're here they still winding their way through this school should we um should we just go ahead and when they arrived themselves on this right okay I wasn't saying or they could have taken in 15 minutes to walk through the building like I did so when they arrived we'll ask them to come forward introducing themselves if somebody needs that service this evening so moving on to there's the kickoff hour meeting I'd like to introduce Jefferson High School Principal Margaret Calvert principal Calvert has been at Jefferson for the past six years as the principal and in 2016 she was selected as the Oregon high school principal of the Year by the organ Association of secondary school administrators and the Confederated Oregon School Administrators this annual award honors personal excellence collaborative leadership and a principals proven ability to ensure high success high levels of instruction as a PPS alum and a board member I want to thank you principal Calvert for your service both to our students and to the Jefferson community so we'd like you and I think you have some students here as well to kick off tonight's board meeting thank you very much good evening everyone oh my goodness okay one more time good evening everyone welcome to Jefferson so there are a couple things I just want to share very briefly and then I'm going to invite two of our students up to seniors outstanding seniors that will share some of their experiences and what is unique about Jefferson there are a couple of things I just want to touch base and I want to thank the school board for coming out to sites and bringing the meetings back into the community we were reminiscing about the last time a regular school board meeting was here at Jefferson and it's been a while there have been many listening sessions but not necessarily a formal board meeting so thank you for bringing the the meetings back out to the public and I also want to welcome superintendent Guerrero that I think this is his third official time in the building so welcome and and keep coming back we appreciate it and then also to all the board directors and for coming out and listening and being part and getting feeling what what's happening in the buildings it is truly a privilege and an honor to work closely with students and with staff the inspiration daily is palpable we just had us we were finishing up a staff meeting prior to the start of the board meeting and people were expressing gratitude and really ultimately the sense of community what it means to bring people together inclusiveness the challenges that we face how vigilant we have to be and how we bring community together and how we reach across was echo multiple times throughout our meeting but also it is demonstrated by
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our students on a regular basis and what I know is that our students will lead if we let them and so this evening I'm happy to have two of our fantastic leaders who have been active at Jefferson over a number of years they're both seniors if I could introduce Jordan Mejia and Javon dray Cole who and come up to the Diaz here and they'll share some of their thoughts as I said when we look at what is hopeful and challenging times is the voice in the face and the inspiration and the vision of our youth that lead the way so please give them your undivided attention so hello I'm Jordan Mejia and I'm a senior and so my overall experience that jeff has been very good you know in high school no matter what you go through things you bro you go through things you don't like and that type of stuff but I'm glad I went through all those things here at Jeff because I've had this amazing support system from all my friends here and staff teachers of that sort and just the diversity here and the feel here is way different from any other schools I don't know it's like we're one big family especially since we're smaller I feel like I can talk to my teachers more and they're more open I get more academic support and I'm really grateful for that and I don't know that's all I have to really say thank you okay so my name is Javon Draco and I am a senior here at Jefferson High School my except the Otis high school in Portland as well my experience Jefferson has been very remarkable I like to say but before I get into it I just want to thank you guys for seeing fit to have Jefferson High School Host you guys meeting today and we're very thankful for you guys being here the school of Champions really resides near and dear in my heart because our history was very rich before I even got here you know in the 80s and 90s we had wrestling teams that were state champs and state placers led by tevonn able we had a basketball program that was being dominant over the 5a led by Terrence Jones and Terrence Ross we have lots of other athletics here at Jefferson in the in history just goes beyond us you know our football team our men's football team in 2009 that went all the way to state after starting all four so there's just rich history showing that we are a school of Champions before I even got here you know people before us like Silas Nelson and Terrence Johnson Terrence Ross like I previously mentioned but even in the moment now it's a lot that we still are continuing that rich history that we once possessed and we're just trying to get that back just speaking on our athletics for a quick second we've had multiple people that are state champions the state players come out of here Josiah Williams graduated two years ago a state champion Larry Brewster our boys basketball team was recently from being crowned the 6a state champion so our history is rich and it seems that we just can't continue to live that live up to our names of school of champions but it's not always about athletics something that I mentioned a few weeks ago is that our students here at Jefferson we like to use our athletics for ounce for assets outlets so we have student athletes is student first so just to name a few of the people that I've been here since I've been here in my four years we have jail engage Morehouse men he committed to Morehouse my freshman year send me Gregory who has gone to MIT do Jeanette Koli who has now at Howard University Saleem Yarborough at Portland State kinesia Burley at Park Atlanta was our Rose Festival princess wrestler and did it all Amari Kazi she's going to Tuskegee University right now play basketball and they were quarterback soccer players cheerleaders and all that but it's they use like I said the Athletics weren't that important because right now in college they aren't even doing sports they're doing school so that it was it's really important to know that this is just something that we do for fun and for commitment and to get to know each other that go to our school so the athletics isn't that big part but it really lives up to who we are in the sense and even most recently we've had people such as Komaki HIPAA committed to Texas Geno West Idaho Tiana TRN Juliana Isle and Central Washington doing rugby so they're just a list of names I mean Terrell West Jeff reward Omari Stafford Malik Parker I mean all these people who have within my four years have been my role models and people that I look up to because you're the same people that I walk the halls with you know shared shared the same
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football locker room with we were wrestling team a shared headgear and it's really amazing and it's inspiring to see the legacy that they have built and they're really trying they're building something inside of me that's giving me something to look forward to for my for the people that are coming up and coming their freshmen and sophomores so the influence that they put on me is what's really making me want to do better and be a good role model for the freshman and sophomores that I've been coming some of the changes I've seen a death is of course our demographic it's really it's interesting because people take advantage of our program across the PCC I mean a program that will I believe anybody should take advantage of that so the demographic change has has been something that's a big change that I've seen but something that I do hope to see is how we can maintain this culture of community that we have been having since Jefferson was first open you know everybody knows everybody our student body isn't one of the biggest in 6a but like I said we're together and I can go down the hallway and name probably half of the student body at least just because that's what Jefferson is about and we know each other for I'll give Jordan a chance to after this but future goals planning on attending Hampton University in Virginia and that's what studying marketing or sports management haven't decided but that's what my future looks like in I hope to study pre-med I've applied to 12 colleges so far um I have three more I want to submit those are almost done but my number one is Georgetown and I'm just waiting on them so yeah that's my future of course so between the two of us my chief she already pointed out but we have 18 scholarship applied to eight acceptances we're very involved in our school you know with Black Student Union and student government cheerleading football National Honor Society a whole list of things that we're involved in and we're just glad to be representative of what our student body is and where once again thankful that you guys saw fit to have the meeting here and as a gift for you guys for being here for us we want to present you with these jefferson high school water bottles so you guys can be official when you guys are walking around the community and let these people know who we are so once again thank you thank you so much thank you good luck to you guys with all your future plans they're just a couple of things that they won't necessarily brag about themselves so as there is they're handing things out here both students are part of our health science biotech program they actually run a field trip up up to OHSU today as part of our partnership with OHSU they both are have been active in taking classes at PCC they are part of our senior inquiry class so all of our seniors take a camp stone project and class with in partnership with Portland State University and they are working on legacy projects as well and as you as you're hearing about how a big commitment from our students and our alumni is to come back into the community and give back and to it's an ethic that has been maintained over well over a hundred years at this point so we see it in the faculty that come back we have a number of teachers that were students here we have generations of families that have come through Jefferson and then there are always students that come back and find ways to give back and we expect that to vondre and Jordan will do that as well that if you walk down senator hallway at Jefferson there is a large painting on the wall it says what is your legacy and there and then there's some pretty prominent people that are on the wall up there so it's something to aspire to but though as part of what happens with our senior inquiry projects and our senior inquiry class this year is that they're working in teams to determine some legacy projects of what what do they want to leave in the building so we heard presentations today from a group about wanting to create some rooms where students can decompress and re-engage in two classes we are hearing students wanting to start clothing closets and fragrant ways to do pieces with artwork and displaying student artwork and and being their curators themselves so the rise of student voice and hearing how they come together is really a powerful statement the Javan Dre talked about various student groups there are a number of groups that worked collaboratively on a regular basis so we have a nito's group that is our Latino students and our president is right here I'm Mauricio so manana and then we have BSU our Black Student Union we have a women's empowerment group a straight
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it's not GSA it's Saiga which is a I'm not going to forget what that it's a sexuality and gender Alliance group and then there are a number there's a multicultural Club there we have mock-trial there are a number of groups but what is different I would say about how many of our groups interact is that they co-sponsored many many events so they they will reach across and BSU will do something and then women's empowerment and sagger will support and Unidos will come together for various things and it's this ethic of inclusivity and trying to figure out how to reach across and understand each other is just it is the students and I just will say this again the kids are in a different spot than the adults and we often operate from an adult vantage point and it's just humbling to step back and watch what the kids say and do and you know these are these are two examples of students that just really step to the floor so I'm deeply grateful to Jeff Andre Jordan for their contributions here at Jefferson and just the opportunity to work in this community this is a place that is like no other place really in Oregon and there's lots of things that happen in this in this neighborhood and in the community and part of what I'm really excited to hear tonight is that as part of the middle school work so this is work that has happened for many many years in this cluster in particular I think I've been part of those discussions for at least a decade literally in various forms and so it's exciting to think about how do we come and come together and really lift the voices of both the community and students and come back to having conversations again and again about how do we create highly desirable programs of all students across the system so I appreciate that the dialogue that will happen tonight and again welcome and thank you for coming to Jefferson do you have any staff or your leadership team that you want to absolutely introduce absolutely so with us here tonight I have Ricky Allen is our one of our vice principals we have we have actually we're entering our tenth year here together we entered well he was here before and came back but for the last ten years we've been working here together Neil Barrett is our athletic director Michelle Aten is our school psychologist I'm going to miss someone Lord Miss belinskiy over here at lore bilinski is our health science biotechnology coordinator as an icon as well if there's any other miss Thompson came in back here miss Thompson is our health teacher and she has gone through a variety of things and worked here Jefferson worked at the young women's Academy came back and worked at Jefferson so a number of years here as well I'm looking to see if I miss someone somehow so you have to wave at me if I miss you I think I got everybody okay great thank you very much and a way to represent I have no doubt that five 10 20 years from now when people are listing the names of illustrious alums your names will be on that list as alums of the school of champions so good luck this next year and in your way to college thank you in addition before we anybody else from the board wanna say anything in addition we also want to recognize before we get started with our board meeting tonight I'm gonna call on director Esparza Brown to recognize a student from Madison yes we're very proud tonight to have a young scientist from Madison Cynthia we is here to tell us about her award as she was one of four high school students pretty impressive that was invited to participate in a three-minute fastpitch presentation to a group of entrepreneurs and researchers so I think she's going to come up and tell us a little bit about her project and then she has a video to share with us so come on up oh I'm sorry and also I'd like to introduce her teacher David Valenzuela from Madison so and I'm sorry and your principal Petra Callan I know it's late at night for me it's been early start today Petra Callan is here to support our students yeah take it away i okay I'd just like to say that I'm really grateful for to be here
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and I'm really excited to share like my passion with you which is definitely science our project has a really long title but essentially the gist of it is that we designed a biological sensor to monitor water contamination and water quality here in Portland and of course as all things I like to do are they're very locally based but our project can be extended and applied to most certainly very many different situations here in the United States and even globally so our project is it's designed to really like address the issue of E coli contamination specifically because our project was conceived for a the PSU Innovation Challenge which is an engineering competition hosted by Portland State and so this project was conceived two years ago when we decided to focus on the theme which was water contamination and water quality and so one of the things that we chose to do was take a special twist on the prompt if you will because of the resources that we have at Madison with our biomedical program and just the leadership that mr. V had showed in our program and so we chose to do we chose to genetically engineer and modify ecoli a safe strain of course so that we don't perpetrate the problem and we elected to do this so that we could inspire passion in the local community because science is something that I really care about and I think it's really important that we of eight kids and like have just our community realized that there's so much that we can do now as it is and this is where we're going in the future and so I wouldn't really excited to be here to share that part of my life with you all thank you thank you for having us again again a mr. Valenzuela part of the biomedical program at Madison I just want you all to recognize that Cynthia boobies project was one of the few that were selected among doctoral students postdoctoral students medical students masters level students all over Orion what Cynthia conducted was cutting-edge molecular research that I did like when I was at Brown like literally the molecular logic and trying to engineer bacteria and I was just pretty darn fortunate of having the students and having students at Madison that are just so engaged and she kind of just spearheaded this project and it's pretty amazing what she accomplished I've applied to a few colleges right now hopefully I'll be studying molecular biology and biochemistry at either brown or University of Washington and I hope to pursue a PhD in pharmacology eventually she's going to Yale we will be looking forward to hearing from what you do after your studies thank you thank you for having us tonight okay so our project is titled a genetic approach to designing a novel biological sensors to monitor water communication which is a really really long way of saying we're designing a water sensor to detect coliform and other contaminants in water using ecoli as a sensor today is the bio sciences conference it's an it's specifically for Oregon and there's a really cool event called fast pitch which is from five to six and it's where applicants who got selected pitch their idea on overcoming a problem and we were lucky enough to have one of our students get selected to compete with literally PhD students graduate students masters level students and so that's the challenge for us to convey our ideas to convey our concepts in a timely fashion so that it's understandable but not overwhelming however in Portland we do have an issue with the way we test for coliform in the way we test for contaminants it takes about three days and so in order to remedy that process we elected to use the problem itself we have a really amazing biomedical science program that I'm not really sure the entire Portland community understands exists Dave Valenzuela has he's built it from the ground up and he has really pushed students to engage in some graduate level work that students in high school don't often have the opportunity to take part in I hope that the audience and maybe even beyond that they really understand like this is the world that we live in now we can do these things in public schools with public funding on it and that I I want on my audience to understand that we live in the future this is these are all things that we can do now and it's only going to advance from here I think I think for Madison especially for a biomedical students
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it's seeing how much you can accomplish at the high school level before we move on to student of public comment I think we have to it are two of our interpreters here this evening if you come up and just introduce yourself the normal practice the provisional sergey melnik eos Qureshi piri watch you kiss Takamoto nose now with Hamish able to comment azalea when I start this Miami Lucia Cabrera so interpret and espanol c- s Eden voiced on geography no query can Tom Dick be in Vietnam sin query sang may have been died Sakura Tom between Chico me come on moving thank you before we begin our public comment period I'd like to review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend the meeting and provide comments to the board we value public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing from everybody a quick reminder that signs in the audience should be no larger than eight and a half by eleven and should not be held in a way that obstructs the views of others and during the public comment the board members and superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on any board related issues that are raised during public testimony guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration for others complaints about individual employees should be directed at the superintendent's office as a personnel matter presenters will have a total of three minutes to share your comments please begin by stating your name and spelling a last name for the record during the first two minutes of your testimony a green light will appear when you have one minute remaining a yellow light will go on I mean your time's up overnight will go on we respectfully ask that you conclude your comments at the time so we appreciate your input and with that I'd like to ask miss Hewson to call up the first two members of the community who signed up hi my name is Mariama clay last name mcc la whaai I was at the last board meeting to talk about how we got rid of the historically underserved designation for special education students and I'm here to follow up I we're not gonna forget it's not going away I don't know if anything has changed we know that there has been some communication to parents so that's good but we'd like to know what else is going on with this decision and we want to know that there's there's help coming to our students because they need more so we're still here we're still listening still waiting thank you thank you hi my name is Jimmy Ellis singleton Munson and first I just want to express gratitude to the Jefferson scholars who brought so many names of folks from the community who to be honest I heard a lot of kids who I know their parents and it's just nice to have those voices in the space so I've come tonight as a concerned community member a resident in the zone for region a former Gregory Heights student a 97 grant in high school um I do not have children however I'm an educator and an advocate for act equity and my professional life with Teach for America I step forward tonight because frankly it's uncomfortable it's uncomfortable because I'm not confident that racism is currently being challenged in this district I know in order to encourage change though we have to lean into discomfort so here I am what's being done to dissenter the voices of dominant culture in this district at the decision-making
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table historically disadvantaged people have few entry points to turn towards in PBS the system was not created to serve us well I know from personal experience at Grant High School in the 90s the PBS has a history of structural racism we went through a PBS when our graduation and success was valued and resource less than those of their white affluent peers with the efforts of leaders and nonprofits like sei PBS has made strides in technology in the needs of diverse learners and yet the disparate outcomes persist look here at our board at the teacher and administrator demographics the dominant culture voices here are the majority my second question white exceptionalism which is a value of white supremacy culture is deeply ingrained in the DNA of this community what is being done to question your own understanding of how dominant culture manifests in our American public schools what is being done on this very very white school board to challenge your own understanding and socialization superintendent yet oh hello I joined the mini that welcome you to Portland it is incredible to see a person of color sit and lead our district and as you sit in this historical building I hope that you seek to win the hearts and minds of the demo alumni across the city as you have the access parents and other families who have come forward in the last several weeks as I watched the well orchestrated meeting from a predominantly vocal white community as access Academy was under threat of being closed I wonder what similar type of advocacy could look like from families at Roosevelt or George where the classrooms are overcrowded where textbooks don't meet the language acquisition needs of students or how there's excessive discipline problems for those students of color as well I challenge you today as principal can you rather your last comments thinks that you have a legacy to put fourth and I hope that you build a legacy of inclusion so as you sit here tied in this building I hope you leave here thinking what is your legacy gonna be thank you next we have Kim Wilson and Tim my name is Kim Wilson WI LSO N and I'm a proud teacher at Scott school I'm here with two asks regarding the decision to cut 0.5 special education staffing at Scott as well as three other schools a total of 2 FTE in late October we were informed that one of our two learning center teachers was being moved halftime to res way heights to cover a need there after hours of aggravating digging we were finally informed in an email from the director of special education the due to budget constraints and I quote we were forced to drop the consideration of historically underserved populations in order to properly balance staffing into quote this refers to the additional point 5 FTE that we used to receive because a high percentage of our students meet one or more of the following criteria special education eligibility limited English proficiency free meal eligibility identification as african-american Latino Native American or Pacific Islander many of our students at Scott qualify under multiple if not all of these criteria to clarify this decision was to cut specific staffing earmarked for students that have been historically underserved I would love to speak to how blatantly this decision fails our students from an equity standpoint and how it is polar opposite of our districts frequently touted equity policy but I can't due to the I shouldn't need to speak to them because they are glaringly obvious simply said this decision was bad and I asked it be fixed immediately every day it continues hundreds of students and teachers are negatively impacted my second ask is about open and honest communication from the day that we were informed of this decision I've witnessed dishonesty none of the details were shared until my colleagues and I investigated and pushed for answers we were left to inform students and parents we came up against half-truths and in one case a plain old lie here's my ask seek input from teachers when students
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will be directly impacted I'm not talking just toeses and administrators but classroom teachers who spend hours with the humans that will be affected when a decision is made honestly and openly communicate it to the stakeholders including students parents and teachers go to them and tell them the truth if that seems too difficult it's probably a bad decision respond when students teachers and parents reach out to you I forwarded to each of the board members the previously referenced email from the director of special education on October 27th I received one response and it's been a month thank you Paul Anthony some may say that I'm asking for too much and we can't possibly afford that the resources that my asks would cost but our districts recent history can show that when we don't do the right thing the first time the cost is great we must do better [Applause] good evening my name is Tim sits ma that's s's and Sam whitey yes ma I'm a second year Portland Public School driver in this special needs Department this is my fifth year overall as a school bus driver we've been operating without a contract since last June June 30th this tonight is in a effort to continue the conversation you heard from my compatriot Beth last school board meeting we are not only at a standstill but we're literally frozen we've had four or five negotiating sessions and basically we are appreciative of the dollar sixty-seven across the board that was given last summer to help bring in new drivers and to compensate drivers that are there currently employed but it's expensive here in Portland and we have drivers that are single parents we have the drivers that are doing their best to survive we've come up with proposals on wages on type ten drivers on other issues some of which does not cost any money at all and we've basically been told repeatedly the DAR 67 that's what's available there is no more we're doing what and operating at the behest of the school board and basically other than some minor language changes it's the same contract we had the last contract with the exception of the dollar sixty-seven our wage and benefits are not at the level of some local and national school districts and communities of the same size we will be here in this meeting and every meeting along with our contingent of transportation drivers over in the corner to help foster the communication but to be honest the negotiating team is operated in good faith we want to increase instructional time and less than the amount of time that kids are on the bus we're here with our teachers and they do excellent work if you've ever seen a special needs student suddenly begin to get it students that are behaviorally challenged and suddenly the light goes on there's there's nothing like it our senior drivers need longitude and wage consideration some of them were driving when I was in high school and I'm middle-aged and yet they're not the old burnout drivers they're the ones that are tutoring mentoring helping our type 10 drivers need consideration step increases and at least some sort of benefits because they save the district hundreds thousands of dollars in taxis I'm just asking to have your negotiating team operate in I'll conclude my bet with this to fair bargaining they basically said our hands are tied this is all that the board allows us to do and I implore you to communicate with them because right now we're waiting for arbitration and that's no place to be thank you [Applause] lastly we have Walter Hollins and Leslie
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Waldo do I go first you decide between yourselves okay all right I'm Walt Hollins that's hol la NDS teacher at Grant High School I did my student teaching in this building in 1990 and I've been at Grant since 94 and I've taught virtually every science class there I'm here to talk today about the new freshman physics class that has been essentially imposed on all of great Portland's high school students so ninth graders are now all taking physics and I'm not opposed to that I've taught freshman physics in the past and that's okay but I want to talk about the curriculum that was adopted this curriculum was essentially it was free it's developed by one teacher at Beaverton high school there's no book it is however constructivist learning which is a good thing and it's aligned with the next generation of science Tanner's which I think must have been appealing in adopting this curriculum and it comes with a couple of good ideas and tools I will also say on the positive end that the equipment purchased for it was more than adequate as well done by the district on the negative side I don't have to put these more plainly but there really isn't a curriculum the curriculum is for each of the units is essentially a on slide PowerPoint show that's given to the teachers there's a concluding test at the end and a couple of quizzes in the slides are identified some labs we should do but there are no written instructions for students and no written instructions for teachers there's not even a website to particularly go to well that's really fast ok so quickly and mental last so hidden even the slides are poorly written and full of misspellings there are not enough hands-on activities there's no support for differentiation among students my special ed students a few of them have actually had panic attacks in class when they see what's going on and my tag students are reported to be extremely bored we need help there's very little physics in this class I have a longer list but I'm a slow talker so I implore you please speak to the teaching and learning people this was not rolled out with much thought even the next unit that are the unit that I started this last week before Thanksgiving was not even available online the materials until two days before we started I can't even look at it so please ask them to support this this new course or get rid of it one or the other but right now it's untenable thank you very much Roseanna and Karen I'd like to ask the board office to ask staff for an explanation of the shift from foundations of physics and chemistry to this patterns physics curriculum so that we can better understand the reasons for the adoption and address some of your concerns about the curriculum I as a parent had I almost had a panic attack on back-to-school night with patterns physics appreciate my name is Leslie Waldo wal DOW and I actually came to the board tonight to exercise my right to talk to you about special education I've appreciated the comments already by presenters to lean into equity to lean into inclusion and to lean into privilege as a person of the dominant culture this has not been a place that I have had to go but I am being asked to go there now to advocate for my nephew who is 5 years old in this little picture here who has disabilities he is a sped kid he has been denied blatantly denied transportation by this district this district has told him his disabilities don't matter he can get to school like everybody else he's 5 he has cerebral palsy he utilizes an AFO to walk and ambulate every day he utilizes a special car seat at five years old he weighs enough to be in no car seat but because of his CP and his disabilities he utilizes a car seat every day in every car he has epilepsy he has had epilepsy for three years and has uncontrolled seizures he is in a seizure
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activity every day 24 hours a day he has a paraeducator assigned to him when he's able to make it to school because he can have a seizure and his seizure has a protocol that demands monitoring and timing to administer a medication to him in 3 minutes or less 3 minutes that's the time we're allowed to talk tonight three minutes once his symptoms start to watch him to document and to be able to administer that that takes a trained person so to say my child and my nephew is not unique and that his disabilities don't matter is offensive and disgusting to me as a co-parent we've asked for transportation and they say he can get there the way other children can last I checked my neighborhood parents are not all trained in his seizure protocol they do not carry a go-bag with them they do not have car seats in their car with which to transport a disabled child couple all of this with his new diagnosis of an autoimmune disorder that's going to require monthly infusions of immuno gamma globulin to support him in being able to be safe he is not immunized against any disease that we all are we take it for granted in this culture that vaccines protect us they didn't protect him so placing him even in this environment jeopardizes his house and his well-being so we hope this treatment will help him he's also asthmatic and with a lung disease he doesn't embolize her every day he is five years old I have never as a dominant culture person had to lean into this much discomfort to advocate for the equity inclusion of people in a minority group a minority group of the dominant culture I can only imagine what my counterparts of different races and ethnicities start experiencing thank you for your comments I might also ask if Judy Martin the Ombudsman maybe can assist you she's in the back of the room we've reached out to a lot of places I think thank you [Applause] so thank you everybody for coming tonight and offering your comments and a really diverse set of topics next I'd like to ask superintendent Guerrero for a superintendent report well good evening everybody want us thought of this and thank you also for the Jefferson team hosting us this evening it's good to be out at schools well we thought it'd be a great idea if we had a chance to hear what the superintendent's been up to for a few minutes at every regular board meeting so I wanted to share a few thoughts and I want to start off by saying I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday I did send out a message I hope most of you had a chance to receive I'll just extrapolate a sentence there around what I'm grateful for and that's to have landed in a school district and in a city that cares deeply and passionately and I think we've heard that tonight about its public schools and the education of all its children and my message goes on to thank our educators and support staff and Families for that we take this responsibility seriously our families and trust us and place their faith on us to teach their children and we're thankful for the opportunity to do that kind of work I hope everybody had the opportunity to spend time with family and friends and get a little rest we know everybody's been working very hard so there's a few topic areas I was hoping to speak to briefly I want to start off with some of our health and safety work I want to share out that we're up to about eight schools at this point with safe and working drinking fountains and probably another three by the end of the week once we have our first 15 schools up and running we'll will assess what other further changes we need to make as we bring on and start work the next 15 schools we're gonna maintain our aggressive goal of making sure all of our school facilities have safe water drinking fixtures by the last day of school this is in addition to all of the ongoing bond funded work to remediate the radon asbestos and the lead-based paint which also continues in earnest the health and safety of our students is our foremost concern this is why I was deeply concerned as probably many of you were reading the newspaper this weekend we had a case where we had a
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five-year-old student with special needs who unfortunately was not safely delivered home very concerning it's it's definitely provoking us to look at our policies and our practices one time is one time too many for something like that to happen I want to thank mother for welcomed me into her home over the holiday weekend to have an opportunity to talk about this incident and what happened and how we might be able to avoid that for other families in the future inclusive practices one of the things that that I heard clearly resonating as Portland Public Schools sought a leader was that it had a commitment to equity that they wanted to work towards providing the most inclusive experience possible for all of his students and that's going to be a journey and we have a lot of work that that remains to happen there I want to acknowledge that we've had speakers at the last several meetings and I have received messages that I want to make sure we're very transparent in a response to around things like making sure that we have adequate staffing levels for caseloads of students had a very good conversation today with PAE leadership today about that topic and have authorized a little bit more staffing to see where we can alleviate that load so stay tuned for more there I also wanted to take the occasion to share plan for another significant change to one of our programs that serve some of our most severe special needs students and that's the pioneer per Grahame earlier today I joined our special education staff and had the opportunity to address along with our principal there the faculty to announce a plan to take the the number of students that are there and to seek out a more supportive facility we have about 55 elementary students in a building that houses potentially up to 400 and we have a nearby campus that makes for a better setting so we're going to be continuing to communicate with our families and make sure that our students end up in a situation where all those supports and interventions that they deserve are made available to them at the same time we have a small number of secondary students at the middle and high school level at the Pioneer program who we want to ensure that they also have equitable opportunities to engage and interact with their gen ed peers and that they also have all the safety net supports and interventions in their neighborhood schools so we're going to be working with families there as well the idea is that all of the support staff will follow our students and that as we've gone into our conversation about around middle school redesigned that one thing that's clear is our secondary schools need to do a better job of providing a fuller continuum of services and interventions for all of our students this is going to afford us the opportunity to enhance the staffing and many of our campuses and to think about what further capacities we need to improve on there as well I want to share that the elementary students from the Pioneer program will we'll be moving over to the Applegate school we're gonna work with our families who are presently situated there in the headstart program around where we intend to open up more seats in surrounding areas as well so stay tuned for more details there I want to mention a little bit about the leadership organization structure and PPS there's been a lot of conjecture in the media around some of the changes that I've initiated in senior leadership and there's been a lot of conjecture about that and I just want to say the only constant that folks expect this transformation these changes are intended to build a team that I feel is going to allow PPS to get to the next level in our work and so stay tuned you know we're going to continue to make some shifts as appropriate over the course of time it's a stay tuned a word on some of the internal and external work as I think I share and if you're following my Twitter account I try to get try to get out to as many schools as possible during the course of any given week to interact with students teachers administrators and families and continue to get as acquainted as possible with the district I have intended to try to put a focus on our historically underserved schools as a priority had an opportunity to do that again just the week before the break and it's obvious we have a lot of work to do to ensure that equitable opportunities are being provided to all of our students no matter which which campus they they walk aboard own our key our key core mission to ensure that educational mission is our charge and so I can I intend and plan to continue to work with our senior leadership team to help ensure that all of our schools have the equitable supports they need to offer the kind of
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programming that we all want to see and that we want to be proud of last night I had another occasion to be at Roosevelt High School this time in support of House Speaker Kotex meeting with the community around safe routes to school and a 1.5 million grant that she's directing to try to make an area that has suffered some fatalities an accident some involving our students to see how we might brainstorm safer routes to school and I want to thank her for for that effort yesterday morning had an opportunity to meet with the various portland community college presidents to talk about how we continue to strengthen our working relationship especially as we think about and dream about expanding our CTE programming in connection with pcc our board chair and i had a chance to meet with the mayor yesterday i think we had a pretty productive conversation in a number of areas one of those is that we're certainly hoping for the city's cooperation and help as we work on permitting you know a revitalized Tubman and other buildings that require renovations and where we want to see smooth and efficient permitting happening and we're really happy with the response that we got there I also had a chance to to speak briefly in front of the Portland Business Association I had a chance to share a little bit about my own vision for Portland Public Schools and our commitment to preparing our graduates to enter the workforce that many of them represent and I look forward to continuing to build on that relationship and creating new partnerships I also had a chance to introduce them to my first new hire a director of strategic partnerships his name is Jonathan Garcia he's not present in the room because as we see as we as we're sitting here he's receiving Forbes 30 under 30 award in education so I just want to congratulate Jonathan on that award and then some further good Portland public school news I want to end by reminding all of us that PBS turns out some pretty remarkable graduates and one of them in particular is a gentleman named JT flowers JT was raised in Albina went to high school at Lincoln he would say he maybe wasn't the best student and yet he was accepted to Yale he got a chance to work for u.s. representative Earl bloomin tower and just this month was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship he begins his studies at Oxford this coming fall my hat's off to JT and everyone at PPS all the educators teachers that had a chance to work with JT for making this journey and this dream possible for him so directors that concludes my report this evening Thank You superintendent Guerrero having seen your schedule I know that that's just the highlights you've been busy I know the school community really appreciates seeing you out in the schools and being able to hear first-hand from parents teachers and staff members because it makes all of our work better so thank you thank you for your hard work next on the agenda I'm just going to briefly summarize some work that's been underway at the board level I think it's fair to say that the board since we the the doing board sort of was installed on July 1st we've been in a sprint mode hiring a superintendent supporting the opening of new schools health and safety work underway establishing new ways of working as a board and it's kind of time I think probably for us to shift from the Sprint to more of a middle distance pace so on November 17th and I don't know Brian do you have the PowerPoint that's okay so on November 17th the board and the superintendent I think for the first time since we have been sort of a leadership unit it's been a fair amount of time working together on on our talking about our work and our governance and our shared leadership and not only what we wanted to accomplish this year but also how we wanted to do it there we go so we spent some time talking about the work over the last three to four months that we've done a little bit about the sprint and then we talked about our work ahead we covered
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not only what are sort of our thinking and with the board with the superintendent about the superintendent's goals sort of the metrics for the work and we also talked about the board's work for this year and how we're going to work together as a board because how we move the work is really going to be as a team not just the board as a team but also with the superintendent by extension all the senior staff so we had a great discussion we it's a little bit of delay here what one of the key topics that we covered is one of the most important roles of the school board is to hire a superintendent and to engage in sort of the ongoing sort of procreation of the goal setting for the superintendent and this evaluation so in concert with superintendent Guerrero we talked about the goals for superintendent Guerrero this year 2017 is going to be a little bit different since it's going to be just a partial year I think we're being realistic about what can be accomplished in sort of being hired on boarded and then starting the work but we talked about you know early on really creating a clear template of sort of expectations around the key work of the superintendent and we used a template that the Oregon School Boards Association and that organ and the American Association of administrators recommends as really around 11 standards and they're up on the PowerPoint up here of what sort of are the key roles of the superintendent so you know at the end of the year well throughout the year and at the end of the year looking at you know how the superintendent's worked matched up against these eleven standards we also are in an ongoing discussion about sort of four focus goal areas for the superintendent and then one sort of career development goal that the superintendent will identify that he's going to work on this year so we have a we have a framework for the superintendent's goals and evaluations and on December 5th next week after our board meeting we'll have a work session where we sort of further refine this so what's good for the superintendent is also good for the board so is the elected leadership of Portland Public Schools the board also should engage in sort of goal-setting and an evaluation of its work both what it's doing and how we're going to work so at our last work session it was recommended by the chief HR officer that we undertake an evaluation of the board so where we are right now get a get a benchmark for our work ahead so just like the superintendent we are also going to be utilizing a tool and a template from the Oregon School Boards Association to do a self-evaluation so we get a benchmark again there's 11 standards they're different obviously the the board's work is different from the superintendent's work so we'll be focusing on the 11 standard sort of best practices of what school boards should be doing and we will be taking our work and sort of aligning it with the superintendent's work so that we have a combined integrated in the lined leadership team but we're both identified what our appropriate roles are and how we're going to measure that at the end of the year so to set up a scorecard for this sort of first year of work so in addition to the superintendent's and the board's our self-evaluation and goals we also know that one of the things that we've identified as as a as a district leadership is that we need a strategic plan the reality is that that is a sort of a longer-term project and we need you know we've got work underway right now so we're going to be developing work plans all the committees the board committees are hard at work and we need to sort of align those work plans between the board and the staff and the superintendent in addition another piece of the work that the board is going to undertake so first piece that the work plans is kind of the what of the work and the other piece is the house so one of the things that I think the board is committed to is that we're going to be
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operating in the appropriate governance role that is assigned to the board which is different from the superintendent the staff there's currently a set of board operating protocols that were created a couple years ago there was another one that was sort of further developed off that we're going to take those as sort of the baseline and create it's said in operating protocols about how we work both with with each other as a board but also with the superintendent and the staff so that we have our operating really at high high level and the governance and as a team and so that's the work that we started on the 17th and we'll be as a board continuing over the next month and a half to further refine both the superintendent's goals and evaluations but also our own as a board and also our work plan so just so the community knows we are kind of shifting out of the sprint mode and now into sort of the you know a different pace of the work to focus on sort of our longer term longer term plans and you know keeping in mind all the while that the students are at the center of our work and that we need to be aligning behind that so that's sort of a preview of what we are going to be doing as a board probably in terms of our governance over the next couple months the superintendent so next we're gonna continue on a topic that's been sort of the center of our agendas for the last several months and that's the prioritized work of both the board the superintendent and the school district on the opening of two new Middle School's next fall to recap the board has voted to open Rose Way Heights and Harriet Tubman middle schools next fall providing more than a thousand students with an opportunity to have an enhanced and equitable middle grades experience based on a recommendation from the supernet and the staff we have designated feeder patterns and some boundary adjustments for these new middle schools tonight we'll be continuing through those items requiring board that require board action that are needed actions to support the opening of the two schools and with that I'd like to ask superintendent Guerrero to introduce the next couple items that we have tonight related to middle schools Thank You Bart chair well middle schools have been a big topic certainly board committees have been diving into the details and this is an opportunity for us for the broader public's benefit to to also summarize some of those as well one of the big areas is around the resourcing of how we're going to budget for these two schools that were launched to be able to do that successfully and our plans for implementing that and for resourcing it so I want to invite up our chief financial officer mainly to come up and begin to and any other staff team that are that are going to be filling in the details as well to begin to walk us through our best thinking good evening so I just wanted to kind of give the board an update in terms of the middle school middle schools implementation project cost estimate the last time the budget that we looked at was quite a few months ago and since then we have put together and more up to date in from budget in terms of what we need to open up those middle schools and the among actually has actually doubled and we were fortunately we were able to find existing resources to fund this project and most of the funding will be coming from the construction excise tax fund and and the about twelve point six million is coming from that fund and another five point four five is Bandcamp and borne compensable among that will be coming from the 2017 bond and the rest is actually based on our existing budget amount for current year and next year as well so I wanted to give that provide that update to the board and see if there's any questions all the cranes that we have been able to build up a pretty good kitty in our construction excise tax is a result of all the local development and this is exactly what those funds
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are intended for capital investments and in particular capital investments on new buildings and in major improvements so we're in a lucky spot yes be able to go to that and it also to the taxpayers for funding the bond which takes some pressure off other projects that might have had to go to that fund sort of question how much annually are we bringing in from the construction excise tax and how much will this be what will we have left over once once we've these funds so we actually have planned out in terms of exactly what we need for the next couple years and annually we receive about six point five five million related to this CET fund so and currently the balance of the fund is actually about 18 million so we have more than sufficient to fund the middle school project it's been doubling over the last like three years or something is expected to continue to grow for at least the next two to three yes significantly right assuming our growth continues in the in the area and the construction also continue so director Bailey's your question so is now the time to dig into the details red sheet I think we can I think just for general public just in summary we came to the board with a revised figure this is about twenty and a half million dollars and resources that are going to get dedicated to this you know about seven million really to address bringing Tubman roof HVAC etc fire safety sprinkler some contingency funds and then the cost of relocating programs programs that are being displaced other school buildings that need to be renovated in this and so our board and I think they posted is a more itemized budget list and I think this is what director Bailey wants to start to dive into so we have staff available dive in and we also have gone through the file the detail file with our FAO committee members last week and we also had some follow-up questions and we answered I believe we answer all of them I don't want to speak on the entire staff and I wanted to make also make sure that when we put our estimate together we are putting in we are using the best estimate desk we know at that on at that point so as you know in any type of veneration or reconstruction projects sometimes you find out more information or in terms of what is needed so we will continue to update the project costs and make sure that we have sufficient funding for the project okay I'll just start you start with a couple jump in start with what I hope is an easier one first there's no money to help with the formation of the to new middle schools informing site councils and student engagement and so on is Rose City Park as a new school also included in in that for receiving us assistance yes okay if they weren't called out specifically so I wanted to make sure that they were that was part of the planning yes okay good things keep going and so there's different references to access how much is anticipated in terms of actually moving access to a new location so we actually have put together an estimate about three million dollars altogether in terms of the the move and the reopening of rocd Park okay okay so a lot of that is retrofitting rose city park like for accessibility and some safety issues how much is actually moving access so we are looking at at different locations right now so the estimate right now is about a
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million dollars in terms of we configurating all the classrooms okay so just to clarify a director Bailey you're right it's about three million to cover a number of associated costs for access specifically given we were exploring possibilities look like we may be situating the program on a relatively ready-to-go campus with some some modifications so there's half a million to a million set aside to be able to do that and work with the school community meeting its programming needs there okay the new science labs are roughly a quarter million per lab come on I actually think I think that cost has gone up to closer to about 330,000 per yeah so the numbers we're using for the science labs are the and mesas estimate to you and I don't say estimate because we have no architect we haven't drawn anything it's a budget estimate because when we can actually have something we can estimate off of so it's the budget and we use for this science budget is the dollar we use per square foot for all the science lab conversion as we did for the 2012 bond we thought that was a solid as we add plus a little bit of escalation factor on it so that's where the 300 thousand number comes from some of these are not going to be as intense as ones we didn't have on but some are so that was an on average figure so and I apologize I should have started by saying thank you to all the staff putting together a very detailed budget and and I appreciate that it's best figures going and we'll we'll get refinements going down so I understood what exactly are we getting in those science labs of some of the feedback from the 2012 bond science labs where well we got a sink and a couple extra sets of plugs sorry Jerry what's what's that actually going to look like at middle school level what will those labs be a good plan so so every room got like 40 or 50 thousand dollars of furniture and each one we redid some of the countertops if they were laminate before they got switched out to epoxy countertop some of the ventilation systems and hood systems and the intake and the vents were changed out we put in some of them either isolated grounds or GFCI or dedicated circuits more to it but okay you know and 88 compliant on the science sink and I believe we also added the emergency eyewash station as well but okay the hazmat consulting and abatement at both middle schools is that just going in and giving out kind of a once-over in terms of possible risks there sorry white suits maybe and maybe so what you have to do is we look at a couple of things when you put in conceptual budget together we'll look at what we know is already removed from the site what may be left what might be disturbed through a scope of work that hasn't been fully determined yet and what a rough dollar per square foot is to go and do that work if it's hot and then a part of it if it's not hot and that's how you come together with that number please so just looking through here I'm it looks like there's a lot of things being added to the middle schools I guess I have a more sort of like larger overarching question is you know one of the reasons why we're reconfiguring is so that there's equitable offerings and sounds like they'll have real science labs but are we also looking at the type of electives that might be offered and making sure that so for example if we're gonna have music that we have actually had band instruments or you know all the things that would that we're wanting students to have because it will be equitable - what other well resource middle schools have just in terms of the sort of the richness and diversity of offerings are we are we providing that is that built into this lump sum for curricular resources and programming resources and professional development resources I believe it's $200,000 for each school
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just for the kind of program resources plus another $200,000 for each school for the PD sorry I was looking for our leader our interim senior director for instruction and curriculum so I'm speaking a little bit off the cuff but in addition to that I know that there's allocation for some of the special program offering around if we happen to implement the IB program if we happen to do additional resources around media and library there's significant resources around digital learning being allocated for as well but I don't know specifically about band instruments I'll confess and science lab equipment and say band uniform bands and instruments and other things that might be necessary for electives that the board would much rather know know now that like and we and resource it now versus down the road saying well we made a trade-off and we bought the textbooks and not the other things so we I think we want to make sure that we are resourcing these schools in a way that kids are going to get what I think they believe has been promised to them what we think we're giving them but just I want to make sure that that's all in here reading with that guiding question in mind is to make sure that we offer as full a complement even in year one in each of these schools and again these are our best estimates as we work with our planning principles we're getting much more detailed about what it's going to actually take and our senior director Brenda Fox can speak a little bit about how that process is coming along to make sure that we're not having to make those kinds of hard trade-offs and not affording our students all of those kinds of offerings so as far as the band instruments go our first our first glance of that was what did we already have in the district that might not be used in other schools are we do we have a continuum of music classes that support band and if the instruments are in the elementary schools is that the right place for them so that's where we started looking and that is also informing some of the scope and sequence worth in the arts that will occur this summer so a shorter answer to you is no band instruments are not in the current budget but they are in the budget that our arts Tosa is putting forward for this next year so separate from the middle school budget but in our budgeting process process it's underway is the sort of evaluation of the alignment between the offerings and theater schools through the to the middle schools into the high schools to which they feed to make sure that they all articulate correct our planning principles have been meeting with the feeder principals from each of the schools that will become part of their school population and they've talked about what programs are in place that they will need to continue into middle school and not just the academic programs but also other traditions and things that go with the elementary schools are part of their planning process and then they're talking with the high school principals that they will eventually feed to to make sure that our course offerings are in alignment with what's offered at the high school and also that we don't offer courses that the high school is going to offer and that might might jeopardize the high school program because they won't have kids that will forecast into those because we've offered them at the middle school so we're really trying to get that and pre-k through 12 glimpse at where the middle school program should fit so I think going forward for sustainable budgets I think it would be a good idea to have a line item for instrument replenishment I see also there's maker spaces being created at each school we know at the high schools now that teachers are scrambling for scraps to use in those kind of classes is there will there be a sustainable budget item for supplying you know just the throughput that's needed for those classes again I don't expect answers like that but looking ahead to our budgets coming this year we have to think about that I want our teachers teaching and not been you know going through scrap yards I'm glad to hear that director Bailey is thinking like some of our teachers might
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be not just you know do I have the core curriculum materials I need but also the annual consumable material that you know has to be part of the problem I think we heard public testimony earlier we have work to do and a lot of our content air is to ensure you know that core curriculum is available in a scope and sequence is available but we certainly want to launch these schools with with what they need to get started and I agree part of our annual budgeting process should account for those kinds of consumables and other materials across all of our middle schools for sure and high school CTE as well in high school CTE as well and like director Moore who raised the issue in an email and looking forward to further clarification on the community involvement budget and what what would that one fall again that's not something you need to know tonight but going forward unless you want to question but I'm gonna I'm gonna go down this end to the board and we can always come back MS Lee I did want to ask you had sent a memo to the board earlier today $500,000 each spent on two different sites can you tell us what the sites are that was not real clear you're referring to the email I replied yes XS move work 1 million dollars classroom rework at site X 500 thousand classroom we work at site Y 500 thousand I think maybe last month or the month before when we had the board meeting we were talking about accessed and in the location and we were we haven't decided the location yet so when we did the budget we were looking at potentially two locations that's why we have five hundred thousand twice that was one alternative I was wondering about okay thank you but that's not so I'm assuming if we don't need that five hundred thousand that it'll just be wrapped into something else I think I was trying to get at that earlier when I said you know initially there was the million budgeted but we know at this point that the site we're looking at what would be one side right and it would be somewhere between the 500 and the million once we get in there and and look at what kind of work needs needs to be done and sorry to dance around the not naming the site specifically but honestly I'm just trying to be sensitive to the impacted school communities and families that we want an opportunity to continue to work through our communications with but an announcement will be pending shortly for access just a just a couple things I asked the great many questions at the committee so most of my questions have already been answered so first of all thank you for this there is this is a this is a pretty big spreadsheet and I know underneath this there are many many more spreadsheets so this is really this is really helpful so thank you for pulling it all together I I do have two lingering questions and one is about the community outreach and I I don't I don't need to get it tonight but I do want to get some I do want to get clarity about what we're going to be doing and how we're going to be doing it and if you can answer tonight that would be great if you can't then sorry right when you were asking the question I was getting another question asked this is about the community engagement budget the hundred ninety one thousand yeah okay so approximately half of that has already been encumbered through the work that we did with education Northwest that involved you know considerable research
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writing and other things that produce that volume that we used and and several iterations of that that were also translated and the combined total of that was close to ninety thousand dollars there remains what what document are we talking about detailed feeder patterns and so it was during that the dis initial discussions yeah about feeder patterns yeah okay that and all the material went into that translations at cetera printing you know and so forth okay so that's what a large amount of that is for we're anticipating you know a number of community engagement sessions going forward and those each cost somewhere $2,000 or upwards and there could be dozens on depending on you know what the needs are we've basically kind of pledged to help the planning principles do everything they can to incorporate community feedback into that work and to make sure that the community is engaged we're also holding out the possibility of I think this was discussed before uh potentially a campaign manager to just oversee the whole strategic oversight of this the communications and making sure that deadlines are met and and so forth whether that happens or not remains to be seen but it is it is something that some are advocating for and were you know kind of keeping our our options open there just to give a little example for instance with the Tubman school community I was out there with staff a week or two ago meeting with the community around what is the best way that you might suggest that we engage with you as we go about this planning and and what way do you want to be engaged and they were very clear in all aspects and very specifically and so we're coming but we're circling back to the community they are around here the various committees and here's how often we intend to sit down and kind of share our progress along the way but every one of those gatherings require support heard from parents there clearly they want translations so they can be fully and engaged and have access to the conversation so that's an intention of ours to be able to do that but we want it we want to do the program design as thoughtfully as possible with their input and you know that's going to take some time and effort and certainly resources to support it when do the materials need to be ordered so when do the decisions made in terms of what the curriculum will look like what's the timeline February to March in that timeframe the decisions will be made if they need to do so that we can order the materials we have them delivered in plenty of time that should there even be any chance of error in the materials that we have time to rectify that before teachers need them for their students so that gives us basically January February to have those community meetings in order to determine what that curriculum is going to look like in each of the schools correct okay gives me a much better sense and we and we have plans for doing that each of the directors in curriculum and instruction are on deck to go out and provide information set sessions to the families at Harriet Tubman Rose Way Heights and at aqua green to talk about what our curriculum is and where they see their students as learners within that curriculum okay great thank you director Bailey just a footnote on the CET fund there was sort of a campaign promise made in the 2012 bond for the our friends and the business community raised the point of hey you've got to build these new schools and are you gonna have maintained them like you do everything else and the pledge was made that the CET fund would be a source of ensuring that as our new schools came online they were well maintained it's so as as we think about that going forward how are we budgeted for that fund in terms of maintaining our new schools as they come online so we actually have I already have a budget put together in terms of the CET fund and in terms of providing the improvement of the facilities at our
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schools there's a subset of our funds that come in from the construction excise tax that's set aside for our called capital asset renewal fund which is only dedicated to the terms you just described which is new facilities or facilities that have had significant capital improvements so that's those are those are segregated funds do you know how much that is the capital asset renewal fun now Jerry yeah do you know what does anybody know what proportion of the CET revenue coming in is dedicated to the capital what is it the capital asset renewal so the restricted portion of the CET fund is actually funding the capital assets fun renewable plan so the question that you were asking in the fao committee is that related to their restrictions is related for this calf plan yeah I don't know what the percentage of that is but Saudi beginning balance of the restricted portion of the CET fund is about ten million dollars all of the team holds an athenian yeah okay so they remain going forward we will continue to use that use those funds to support the maintenance yes and is there there was a resolution back in 2012 that set up the 20-year plan of the the CAF plan for that purpose in read it may be something that we want to revisit in FAO in terms of the proportion of that money that we want to put into that because of course the eligible expenses for the capital asset renewal fund are growing as we bring our new schools online right I think these are great points that our directors are raising I mean oftentimes school systems when they find themselves with constrained resources will tighten the belt on deferred maintenance for example right knowing we have a fund available where our educators and our principals bring it up all the time and I've seen it myself there are areas that we need to sort of remedy and I know nothing would make facilities happier than to hear the board say let's dedicate X amount circling back to that work list because there is a punch list out there things that we want to make sure our buildings are not just safe but attractive environments for our teachers and our students we also have new technology to take care of and different types of environments the director comes down I found my information here so about the six million of CET that comes in four point five is unrestricted and one point five is restricted for the very things that director Bailey was talking about and just to clarify so these restrictions were placed on this money by us correct that's correct I don't have any further questions I just wanted to say thanks for all the information not only at the facilities Aden Operations Committee but also through all the emails we were getting as follow-up can I just one more question um and I don't know that anybody's sitting there now can answer this but I'll ask it on the list here is a budget item for a son site and do we have any any updated information about the status of that request on the site with Moldova County and they need the final pieces from us by just well next month so we're working on that to get it to them so the expectation is that it's going to be just one Rosalee Heights was already a son school so Harriet Tubman would be the one that we need to initiate okay so this is a possibility yes it is why don't we give Miss Jeanine Fukuda a chance at the mic here to talk about our partnership with Sun and what role they might play in these two schools we actually as a placeholder put in a request for two Sun sites and I believe assistant superintendent Lopez and the planning principles are gonna start very quickly this month engaging with the community to first understand what the needs are from the feeder schools and the services that they have at those schools because the majority of those
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feeder schools are son sites already so we believe that there is probably going to be an expectation that both our son sites so we are waiting we're going to go through that process and each of the son sites will cost if we fully fund it 120,000 approximately if we are able to get the county to chip in it'll be half of that but all of that needs to be done quickly so that we can engage with the county they start their budget process in January so they need a commitment or an intent from us to start going through that process in addition miss Fukuda would you mind talking about perhaps some of the culturally specific support that we may want to explore making available there as well yes so along with the before and after school programming we also want to ensure that we have some culturally specific supports available for historically underserved students and families so for example some of the mentoring tutoring or other wraparound supports family engagement that we provide through our providers like sei Nia Latino Network Berko etc so we are going to be exploring those as well and we should know by the end of this month what those services are we can come up with a estimate and that would be for both yes yes so I just have a final question I think this is for mr. Vincent so really appreciate the detailed spreadsheet and break down both of sort of classroom supports curricular supports but also the facilities work in it I'm just looking through the facilities I guess I would ask if if the board approves this will have this is back to the hotel health and safety issue full remediation of any radon asbestos let paint let in the water will have a functioning at a million dollars of functioning and hopefully state-of-the-art sprinkler system or fire sprinkler and two million dollars for HVAC so just want to make sure that when we move people and this is the this will cover all the costs to have a safe school this is the finishing off the 25% fire sprinkler and fire alarm net and wasn't done when we did the workup before Fabi went in all those other things have had a series of patching and band-aiding and duct taping and all that's taken care of it's all removed it's all new so be fully remediated and then the two million dollars that we have allocated here for the HVAC system for the air in interior air quality I'm assuming that state of the art it's that's what we need inside the building yeah no it's a it's the latest HEPA type systems and filter systems my what makes that a budget number is we have a there's the HVAC for the roof and then the roof at system itself what we'll do is we'll camera all the ductwork and see if the ductwork is clean and there's there's a possibility around sections of the ductwork that need to be removed too I mean why put a new system on the roof and have ductwork either doesn't close and damper itself off where you can section it off and and provide different amounts and flow of air but also why would we want to you know where we go and use dirty ductwork so we'll have the whole thing blown out where we'll have to take part of it or all about replace that as well so that that's the part that it's we're gonna try to do it in those resources all right thank you any other final questions or we can maybe move to consider both both both items at one time both the the budget and the construction excise tax resolution any other questions this was in the finance audit an Operations Committee director more--it the chair of that committee was there a recommendation on the two resolutions one relating to the excise excise fund and the other relating to the budget yes so the first resolution 5542 is authorizing usage of the construction excise fund and the committee committee recommended approving the resolution second resolution 55:43 is asking for exemption from competitive bidding in order to do the middle-school conversion projects and given the tight timeline we're going to have to forego
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competitive bidding in order to get this sabrina's bring all this home in time for next school year and the in the committee recommended approving that resolution as well so unless there's as we had our discussion before we moved it but I I would ask that we now consider a resolution number 55 42 with which authorizes the use of the construction excise fund to have a motion director Bailey moves and the motion and director Const am ii set miss Hewson is there any public comment on resolution 55 42 is there any further board discussion this is again this is the construction excise fund if not the board will now vote on resolution 5542 own favor please indicate by saying yes by saying no any abstentions yes resolution 55 42 is approved by a vote of 7 to 0 with student representing Tran voting YES let's see vote on the budget budget 25543 is the only other one correct so at this point the board is is going to continue its work as the local contract review board so as background for the community the board has approved the opening of the two middle schools Harriet Tubman middle school particular needs substantial improvements in health and safety upgrades in order for the school building to be a suitable learning environment for students and staff Oregon law authorizes the board to exempt certain public improvement contracts from the traditional design-bid-build competitive procurement process staff requests that the Board of Education acting as a contract review board approve an exemption from the middle school facility conversion project as director Moore indicated this exemption will allow PPS to expedite the facilities improvement work so that schools will be ready by August 2018 and it's my understanding that if we don't do this it's very unlikely that we'd have the schools ready for students in the fall of 2018 staff has submitted a very extensive report with the findings about why it's necessary for the board acting as the local contracting board to move ahead with an exemption from the competitive bidding process superintendent Guerrero do you have anything you want to add to this particular item just that the board support is appreciated on both these items so that the staff can continue at work great well we want to remove ourselves as an impediment so let's see so now I have to open a public hearing on the on the competitive the conversion middle school conversion project exemption from competitive bidding miss Houston do we have anyone signed up for public testimony no one has signed up for public testimony so I will now close the public hearing on the exemption from competitive bidding and ask the board to consider resolution number five five four three the middle-school conversion project exemption from competitive bidding do I have a motion director as far as a brown moves and director more seconds the motion to adopt resolution five five four three is there any additional board discussion on this resolution we've already heard that the finance side an operation committee recommended board approval discussion to address all the criteria for the exemption so it it makes it easy for us to see that it is in fact justified so thank you and the taxpayers to know that we will be competitive in quotes in any process that we can its the competitive bid process that takes 90 to 120 days that we're forgoing we're not just asking someone what would you do it for and they throw a number out we say sounds good to me so we still will get quotes and bids and that for the work being done it's the process we don't have 120 days to do a process right now and we also have the benefit of having done a lot of similar
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work that we current compare these incoming bids to correct it's okay the board will now vote on resolution 55:43 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed okay by saying no any abstentions student representative trans yes resolution 5 5 4 3 is approved by a 7 to 0 vote with student representative Tran voting yes so that board will now reconvene back into its regular meeting thank you all for all the work to bring this forward thank you all very much and for all the work they're gonna do going forward appreciate it we're now to shift to board committee and conference reports and I think I'm director Moore has a finance audit operations committee we kind of just did it I said we spent most of our time at the last meeting talking about learning enrollment and forecasting will be meeting next Monday at six o'clock at the ESC I'm not sure which room absolutely will be December 12th any other board business so the board will now consider the remainder of its business agenda having already voted on resolution five five four two and five five four three was there a report from our student rep I already asked him he said no sorry board members are there any items you like to pull off or a separate discussion on vote miss Hewson are there any changes to the business agenda [Music] it was a what item was that missin yes thank you for raising that so you don't sing in your packet because it was never included but I want to let board members know that at the next board meeting we will have under consideration a temporary waiver of a policy relating to sales on school property just at the high level and so that will come to the board this next meeting and we need to do that because we need to we need to waive the policy temporarily because we need the time to put in place some procedures so that our schools can actually a comply with our policy so fundraising like it's the mattress sales the the farmers market at by rekey so it's we had a question from staff about compliance with the the policy and it appears that we need to get from staff a recommendation of some policies or some just practical frameworks and so that schools couldn't and school communities comply with that comply with that so it wasn't actually in your packet but it's coming our way do I have a motion a second to adopt the business agenda moved by director Cranston seconded by director Bailey and Susan is there any public comment on the business agenda is there any board discussion on the business agenda okay the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes kate by saying no any abstentions senior representative Tran yes is approved by a vote of seven to zero a student representative Tran voting yes and with that I want to just close the meeting by once again thanking the Jefferson community for hosting us this evening and having two students really
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kick off the meeting with a very inspiring and energizing welcome to us so thank you again to the Jefferson community the meeting is now adjourned our next meeting is December 5th thank you which is a really really long way of saying we're designing a water sensor to detect coliform and other contaminants in and we were lucky enough to get selected

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)

2017-11-28 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - November 28, 2017

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