2018-01-09 PPS School Board Regular Meeting
| District | Portland Public Schools |
|---|---|
| Date | 2018-01-09 |
| Time | missing |
| Venue | missing |
| Meeting Type | regular |
| Directors Present | missing |
Documents / Media
Notices/Agendas
REVISED AGENDA 01-09-18 (52dea40ed9530176).pdf REVISED Agenda
Materials
01-09-18 Final Packet (435d294153c23a2d).pdf Meeting Materials
01-09-18 Meeting Overview (e860c0eec94c65c6).pdf Meeting Overview
Minutes
Transcripts
Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - January 9, 2018
00h 00m 00s
this regular meeting of the Board of
Education for January 9th 2018 is called
to order welcomed everyone present and
to our television viewers this meeting
is being televised live and what we be
replayed throughout the next two weeks
please check the board's website for
replay times this meeting is also being
streamed live on our PBS TV Services
website as a reminder we now have our
PBS Ombudsman Judy Martin attending all
board meetings she should be in the back
somewhere at the front she's straight
ahead Judy will be here to listen to the
public comments and if appropriate
provides additional support to families
who need or wanna Judy can be reached at
five oh three nine one six thirty forty
five or Ombudsman at PBS net we also
have interpreters with us this evening
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 auditorium should someone
need their assistance Madeline I know
Georgia may illustrate
when I started Miami Lucia Cabrera's
interpreting espanol similar seaton voy
a estar el fondo gracias Tiago be in a
movie Contagion vivid lambs in movie
have a fearsome creature
simcha man GUI
ah sweetie yeah sabotage and espionage
upon my schnoz came as the keeper just
an ADT minier of prowl oh yeah but that
was possible
thank you before we get into our agenda
items I'd like to provide an overview of
the business the board will be conducted
tonight we'll start with the recognition
of Marysville mindfulness we'll have a
report from our superintendent public
comment we'll also consider a resolution
regards to ballot measure 101 a
statewide measure that we decided on the
January 23rd ballot the board will also
vote on a corrective action plan in
response to a PPS
it and will receive an update from the
2017 bond environment health and safety
and accessibility the facilities
improvements and lead and paint water
remediations our priority for the board
district leadership and staff and we are
having quarterly reports I've also have
a board leadership vote in a vote on the
Oregon School Boards Association
legislative policy committees position
number 19 for which one of our board
members Rita Moore is a candidate and
finally there'll be one appeal for the
board to consider I do want to announce
at the beginning of the board meaning
that we will not be mode voting on the
Franklin name complaint that was at a
level to the complaintants have agreed
to a postponement of the board's vote to
hear the appeal until May 31st so that
there's enough time for the full board
to consider potential revisions to the
naming policy and for legal counsel
determine if the current naming policy
already disallows the use of the Quaker
name I'm going to change the order of
the agenda briefly tonight we are going
to start with the Marysville group but
I'm going to move before we move to the
other agenda items move through all of
the items in which they require a vote I
have a personal family situation which I
have to leave the meeting and I will be
will be voting on the items and then
I'll turn the meeting over to vice chair
Moore and I will call in and listen to
the remainder of the meeting so with
that I'd like to ask director Anthony to
recognize maryville and they
mindfulness program thank you
mindfulness is the non-judgmental and
compassionate moment-to-moment awareness
and acceptance of one's thoughts
feelings and sensations
this is Marysville fifth year in using
mindfulness as a tool for school
transformation Marysville practice is
creating an ecosystem of care for its
entire community over the past five
years they have seen a significant
decrease in student referrals increase
in self-regulation and an increase in
staff and student happiness Marysville
teacher retention is up nearly every
month they are hosting people from other
schools who are interested in seeing
what is possible for our children
Marysville students practice mindfulness
daily and are teaching pro-social skills
bi-weekly mindfulness is integrated in
all that they do and now I'd like to
00h 05m 00s
introduce Lana Penley principle of
Marysville who will give us a
description of the program
[Applause]
thank you and I've invited Madeline our
teachers to be here with me today
thank you for this opportunity to
recognize our school Marysville is a
special place and I know several of the
board members today have visited us good
to see you again tonight we want to tell
you take a few minutes to tell you just
a little bit about us and we have a
little surprise for you at the end I've
been fortunate enough to be the
principal at Marysville for the past ten
years I think that some sort of Guinness
record huh
and the main reason that I've been able
to do this is through mindfulness as you
know our school had a major crisis in
2009 it was devastated and left us with
a collective trauma and that was before
we knew much about trauma and the
imprint it leaves on our brains and on
our minds and on our bodies we did not
know how to recover but we knew we
wanted to recover together with time
reflection and desire to do something
different we set out on a new path you
know when things go bad you can use that
as a reason for things that get even
worse and you have ever excuse to be
able to do that or you can use it as an
inspiration to choose a new way and that
is what we did we are now in our fifth
year practicing whole school mindfulness
and things are going great test scores
are up referrals way down and happiness
all around
we're not perfect we have struggles and
problems just like every other school
but now we have better tools to be able
to help us navigate what started as
something small the adoption of a mind
up curriculum five years ago began to
take hold we saw changes some small some
large that shifts began to take place
with the added attention and practice of
mindfulness I began to see
importance of nurturing myself as the
leader and when I began to feel more
nurtured I began to show up different
and nurture others better
what started as a moment has become a
movement the theory of change is that
when we nurture the adults the adults
show up in a different way and
downstream this does mean student
outcomes improve we are building a
community of care and with this over
time the entire ecosystem changes I want
our school to feel like a home a place
that feels different from the moment you
walk in and the building blocks of our
house is our amazing staff I would like
to turn and recognize the staff of
Marysville please stand up staff
[Applause]
this is the strongest staff I've ever
been a part of in over 20 years of
education we are positive happy
community of doers for we know that
connection must happen first in the
classroom and that does not come without
presence presence a sense of being with
and presence comes from mindfulness at
our school we study neuroscience we know
the parts of the brain the impact of
trauma self-regulation and why that
matters and we know how being excluded
can create divides that are hard to
reach across and we also know as adults
being a part of something meaningful
with others we care about gives our life
a sense of purpose in closing at
Marysville we want nothing more than to
00h 10m 00s
reimagine schooling yes reimagined what
is possible not just for title one
schools but what is possible for all
schools to think of schools as places of
art and to think as teachers as artists
to think of schools as places of healing
not places of harm where the general
equation is not compliance and
consequence but of care and compassion
and the primary focus is not on common
core but is on our common humanity
[Applause]
and most important to think of schools
not as test-taking factories of learning
but as soul touching places of love for
all staff students and Families thank
you my name is Madeline I currently am
in my fourth year teaching middle school
humanities at Marysville the year before
I came to Marysville I was a PPS
substitute subbing is quite a gig I am
grateful for the perspective would be a
guest teacher at 21 PBS schools time and
again I returned to Marysville on
various assignments even then right out
of grad school I could tell that Mary's
role was different from the schools I'd
been in the teachers were happy and it
was palpable
I took a point 6 FTE at Marysville over
other full-time opportunities because I
knew it was a school where I mattered
miss Penley outlined a lot of the things
that make Marysville a special place
there's one thing she left out and I
would like to take a moment to speak on
that now and that is teacher retention
the fact that Marysville is a school
practicing mindfulness and a school that
boasts nearly a hundred percent teacher
retention year after year is not a
coincidence
teachers will return to buildings where
they feel valued as people and
professionals teacher retention is an
equity issue for this district every
student in every one of our schools
deserves a staff that wants to come back
year after year our district
our district is certainly experiencing
some turbulent times right now in the
den of all the voices shocking to be
heard I want to say here that teacher
wellness is crucial we can have new
buildings new technology new scopes new
sequences new everything but if staff
well-being is an afterthought
we will always be fighting an uphill
battle I am grateful to work at
Marysville and I thank you for the
opportunity to address the board tonight
we have one more staff member that's
gonna come down for some gifts may we
introduce the famous mr. bee good
evening folks
we thought we got together as a staff
and decided what was the marysville way
to spread some of this mindfulness so
waddle Lupe we have a nice gift basket
for you spreading some mindfulness to
you you have a yoga mat in there a
stress spa you have a stress ball he was
showing mr. bee the stress ball you
might need to know how to use that
stress ball okay you can figure it out
there our staff has some gifts some
cards for all the board members show our
gratitude to you and then to spread a
little mindfulness to you as well so
these are our handwritten cards by our
students so we'd like to enjoy a round
of applause hey everybody and thank you
to the board for all that you do
10 2009 we had the school fire who the
biggest crisis that's ever happened to
Portland Public Schools 3500 students
and staff at Marysville school escaped
the massive flames at the time of the
fire
one openly was in her second year as
principal I'm surprised by I haven't had
a lot of motion about it in a long time
but what I feel right now is two things
there's the sadness of what happened and
there is such a gift that has brought
myself personally in the school to the
00h 15m 00s
place we are right now when Marysville
reopened in January of 2013 they decided
to try something different well the
truth is there was a lot of pain still
there and there was trauma still there
and we were coming back to the place
where the trauma happened from the ashes
they embraced mindfulness mindfulness is
all about showing up fully present with
a sense of kindness and imagine a school
where everybody is trying to do that and
she says what's evolved is a school-wide
ecosystem of care this is how students
and dedicated teachers and staff start
their day so let's show them how we do a
brain wave it makes me feel calm and
I'm ready to learn and we breathe in
towel she didn't sit again it middle
school students are very emotional and
they're very kind of all over the place
when they come in in the morning we all
want to get them in the right good place
and they recognize that they need it as
part of a curriculum called mind up
students learn how their brains work the
prefrontal cortex which is the front of
the brain the part up here that it's the
mindfulness the decisions that overcome
the non mindful which is like the MiG
doula because the big doula most of the
time wants you to start punching and
reacting extreme bring your other foot
this year the school is also
incorporating yoga so feel a little
easier to balance as students learn to
navigate things like stress and anxiety
with positive responses and an
optimistic outlook and the principal
says they're seeing results like fewer
kids sent to the office and higher
teacher retention and academically
Marysville is now the top performing
title one K through eight school in the
Portland School District for math and
reading they are my teachers every day
too I see them practicing it and it
reminds me oh I gotta check myself I
feel they are really special and the
world needs to learn
from them and what they're doing in
Southeast Portland
Amy Fraser point six news that was
awesome thank you for all coming tonight
and I'm gonna say as somebody as a
community member in 2009 who helped the
Marysville community move from there
they're building over to the Rose City
Park building and to see the entire
building all the classrooms moved in
five days all reset up it was an amazing
testament to leadership of all the staff
and sort of getting the kids start back
in the classroom as soon as possible and
I think this is great to see that you
took what was a really traumatic event
to your school community and made it as
a positive inflection point for all your
students so thanks to all of the staff
that are here tonight and those that
aren't and thank you for we can use
these over the next month so thank you
for all for coming and frankly we might
take a page out of their book and think
about how we start our meetings and I'm
serious is that superintendent Guerrero
starting with all yoga pose director
Raley you're gonna be on point for that
so thank you again for coming tonight a
great way to start the meeting so as I
said we're gonna start with our agenda
items that require board action and the
first item would be consideration
best board resolution on ballot measure
101 and I'm gonna ask director more to
introduce it and I also believe the
intergovernmental a legislative
committee may have discussed it today
and so director Const am if you want to
add in or provide committees thoughts on
it great go ahead so this is a
resolution in support of measure 101 if
you have received your ballots and
opened it it's on the ballot due by 8:00
p.m. on January 23rd and this is a
ballot measure that is intended to
support a legislative action taken at
00h 20m 00s
the last legislative session in response
to a budget shortfall that that appeared
unexpectedly and it's intended to
increase existing fees on insurance
providers and and the revenues will be
used to support art and health policy
the OHP which stands for Oregon Health
Plan thank you and this the the Oregon
Health Plan expanded almost doubled in
size the number of people covered by the
Oregon Health Plan almost doubled in
size after the passage of the ACA
Obamacare and this is a measure that
will produce revenue that will preserve
the Oregon Health Plan for over a
million Oregonians including almost
400,000 children so do you want me to
read the resolution or do you want to
say something else just we did not
consider we're not forwarding a
recommendation on this resolution we'll
just consider it all for the board as a
whole but we did discuss
as the legislative committee that we're
going to create a policy to forward to
the full board around the process of
endorsements on political measures I
think we've got it in our probably not
necessary so it's it's it's been posted
so everybody can read it maybe you
should read the final resolution so that
instead of the warehouses of the
recitals okay resolution number five
five five seven the Board of Education
of Portland Public Schools urges a yes
vote on ballot measure 101 thank you
the board will now consider a resolution
five five five seven supportive measure
101 the Medicaid funding package do I
have a motion second director Esparza
Brown moves and director constant
seconds the motion to adopt resolution
five five five seven miss yu-san is
there any public comment on resolution
five five five seven no any board
discussion I just think it's important
to know what this measure that this is a
tax on the healthcare providers and it
is almost universally supported by the
health care providers in this community
who know that not only is there a moral
imperative to cover these children and
families but if we didn't do it in this
responsible way through our state health
gram they'd show up in the emergency
rooms anyway they're issues they're not
gonna go away so it's a necessary fix
good for kids good for families better
cheaper health care and children who are
not healthy cannot learn we are plagued
with chronic absenteeism in the state
it's far above the national average we
need to fix that children are not in
school because they're sick they aren't
in school because they're in pain
this is going to go to a dresser and if
this measure does not pass this is going
to require a really difficult choice by
legislatures there's going to be a huge
budget shortfall that needs to be filled
and they are either going to have to cut
back on Oh H P or they're going to have
to reallocate money in this year's
budget that has already been allocated
in order to cover the shortfall k12
public education funding accounts for
about 39% of the state budget if there
is a budget shortfall it's highly likely
that the k-12 budget will be affected so
we have a vested interest in in passing
this measure not only to maintain the
health of our children and families but
also to maintain the health the fiscal
health of this school district there's
no other comments the board will not
vote on resolution five five five seven
all in favor please indicate by saying
yes yes yes I'll oppose a saying no
student rep trend yes
are there any abstentions resolution
five five five seven is approved by vote
of seven to zero with student
representative Tran voting YES now we're
going to move on to financial
accountability tonight we have
consideration of a corrective action
plan this item was heard by the board's
00h 25m 00s
finance audit and operations committee
and I'd like to ask that committee's
chair to introduce the item this is a
resolution that is in response to the
findings of the annual financial audits
that was completed in December this is
going to be accompanied by a letter to
the Secretary of State stipulating the
the measures that have been taken in
response to the findings
and the the resolution consists
essentially of a summary of the kinds of
actions that PPS is going to be taking
to ensure that the the issues that
emerge during the audit will not
reappear in future and and that these
are these are I think relatively minor
changes in some of the internal auditing
processes and if there's any discussion
I think may lead the chief operating to
financial officer is available to answer
any questions we covered this pretty
thoroughly at the finance audit and
Operations Committee we learned so what
I'm going to do is I'm going to work
we're now going to consider the
resolution I'm gonna ask for a motion
and then if people have any questions we
can go there so do I have a motion so
director Rosen moves and director
Anthony seconds the motion to adopt
resolution five five five eight miss
Houston is there any public comment on
resolution five five five eight is it
any more discussion or this would now be
the time if there's any questions for
our chief financial officer just to
comment that from our conversation in
our committee meeting there's really
clear from our chief financial officer
mainly that the sufficient responses
have been put in place that protocols
have been changed and that it's not just
a recognition that there needs to be a
response to those but that controls have
already been put in place so thank you
very much of course wait
neither comment I should probably say
that the the committee unanimously
recommended approval of this resolution
which is a majority of the sport so okay
any other comments or questions the
board will now vote on resolution 5 5 5
8 all in favor please indicate by saying
yes yes yes all opposed please indicate
by saying no student rep trend yes
any abstentions resolution 5 5 5 8 is
approved by 7 to 0 vote with student
representative Tran voting yes now we're
gonna have a board leadership vote board
policy leadership roles are voted on
twice annually at this time I'll ask for
nominations for a chair and vice-chair
representative Bailey director Bailey so
I would propose that we continue with
our current leadership structure Julia
Brent mentors as our chair and Julius
barsen Brown and Rita more as our Co
Vice Chair emotion do we have a second
and seconded by director Rosen we have a
resolution 5 5 5 9 is there any board
discussion
okay the board will now vote on
resolution five five five nine I love a
ver please indicate by saying yes yes
all opposed please indicate by saying no
no student representative yes
so resolution number five five five nine
is approved by a six to one vote with
student representative vote Tran voting
yes
and I'd just like to thank the co-chairs
I think we've it's been a little bit of
an experiment with a distributive
leadership model and I think you both
have bought brought your perspectives
and expertise and wisdom to the job and
I think it's made for a stronger
leadership team so next item on our
agenda is an Oregon School Boards
Association election vote November 14th
2017 the board the board cast his vote
for Oregon school board leader school
board legislative policy committee
position number 19 districts across
Oregon voted and a tie was declared for
a position number 19 the board will
00h 30m 00s
provide a voice vote for position 19 on
that Wes be a legislative policy
committee to have a motion to vote for
our own Vice Chair read a more or
johnhart heart stock from Gresham Barlow
to have a motion I move that we vote
freedom or it's been read amours name
has been advanced and it's been second
by a director Anthony it's been seconded
by director Esparza Brown all in favor
please indicate by saying yes yes yes
all opposed
student representative Tran yes the
motion passes by 7 to 0 vote was student
representative Tran voting yes to
advance
Rita more back into the ring
I'm going to excuse me Julia or Paul do
you know how many districts there are in
that region that we'll be voting on this
I think it's X which may be why we're
coming up with a tie so we're going to
move over for a moment cross over the
appeals to the board we'll come back to
that we have the we the remainder of the
business agenda we have it before us
tonight so the bet the board will now
consider those items we've already voted
on resolutions five five five seven
through five five six zero four members
are there any items you'd like to pull
for a separate discussion I vote miss
Hewson you've not oh I'm sorry that you
think correction thank you we've already
voted on resolutions five five five
seven through five five five nine miss
yu-san are there any changes to the
business agenda do I have a motion and a
second to adopt a business agenda so
moved
it's been moved by director Moore and
seconded by director Rosen for the
adoption of the business agenda miss
Houston is any public comment on the
business agenda there is none is there
any board discussion discussion on the
business agenda
okay the board will now vote on the
business agenda all in favor please
indicate by saying yes yes yes
I think we need to I think we need to
take out resolution 5 5 6 0 which is the
appeal oh we did you take that out of
the well Weaver now ok let's see I think
we have to take it out of the business
agenda right miss large it should not be
in the business agenda it's not clear
for my records actually right cuz we
sure do Bob Pisani it's a separate
matter so we were okay I never mind it
because we're gonna have separate okay
so I think I had already asked for the
eyes is there any anyone opposed student
representative Tran yes the business
agenda is adopted by 7 to 0 vote with
student representative Tran voting yes
and now I'm gonna just go back and see
we have a level 3 complaint and we
received a complaint so we had some
people who are gonna testify
are they here yet Miss Powell
pardon a call from Miss Katrina and see
if she's here miss Houston do you want
to call the for our record we had two
people wanting to provide public comment
for the step three complaint and that's
crank and Mia Katrina so they were a set
for a time certain later on the agenda
so we'll go ahead and leave it put it
back on the order so that they can
provide an opportunity a public comment
so we now we're going to go back to the
regular order of business which was
starting with a superintendents report
then public comment and the p80
president but at this point I am going
to I apologize I have to leave the
meeting I'm going to have vice chair
more run the meeting and I will call in
and listen to all the public comment and
00h 35m 00s
okay so we're going to restart with
student in public comments and before we
begin the public comment periods oops
scratch down superintendent's report I'm
superintendent Carrera would you like to
provide your report I'd love to good
evening directors given it is our first
meeting of 2018 I want to start by
wishing everyone a Happy New Year I also
want to extend the congratulations to
the Marysville school community for for
its commendable work
and speaking of recognitions I do want
to recognize that January is school
board recognition month so thank you
directors for your service and your
commitment to the students and families
of Portland's and speaking of central
leadership capacity we continue to
actively work towards identifying and
I'm very pleased to know that there are
highly qualified candidates who continue
to express an interest to join our work
here in PBS and you probably caught the
announcement very pleased to share our
latest addition in hiring Stephanie
Soudan as our new chief of staff I don't
think she's here this evening
Stephanie brings a wealth of relevant
experience she's been chief of staff and
policy advisor to Metro president Tom
Hughes for the last eight years before
that serving in the Department of
Justice and the governor's office and
with other elected officials she is a
PPS parent in addition to helping to
coordinate various district initiatives
she'll be leading the staff team that
includes communications government
relations strategic partnerships while
supporting the office of the
superintendent and the best part is she
starts officially tomorrow
[Music]
so some middle-school updates this
evening we will be receiving an update
from our chief operations officer
regarding our progress and actions and
that's being taken regarding some of the
environmental health and air quality
concerns a Harriet Tubman middle school
so we'll be hearing more details this
evening from mr.
Geri Vincent obviously were very curious
about the results of the testing giving
us the data that we need to learn about
to design any specific mitigation that
might be required at that school site
this morning we reconvened our senior
district department leaders involved
with the opening of these two specific
comprehensive middle schools as a status
check there really are a lot of moving
parts but we are committed to ensuring a
smooth and positive transition for
students staff and families school
visits I continue to spend time visiting
schools since returning from winter
break I've had the opportunity to visit
Jackson middle school
Whitman Elementary Vernon k2 eight
Franklin and Alliance high schools Thank
You principals and school teams for for
sharing your practices I continue to be
inspired by my talks with students
teachers and leaders and the work they
do on a daily basis we do have Martin
Luther King school holiday coming up
this coming Monday it is a school
holiday but it will be a busy day in
addition to any potential continued
bargaining sessions with p80 I will be
attending the annual scanner breakfast
as well as the annual Reverend Martin
Luther King jr. tribute at the Highland
Center in Northeast Portland where I've
been asked to to share a few words the
tribute that day will include and
feature performances by Bravo music from
Rosa Parks school and the Jefferson
dancers another opportunity to highlight
our students and I also want to
recognize that at this event rpps
athletics director mr. Marshall Haskins
he's going to be recognized and we'll be
receiving a well deserved Lifetime
Achievement Award at this event on
Monday congratulations Marshall this
week Thursday we have an all principals
leadership team meeting this will be an
opportunity to for me to for me and the
staff to share a mid-year update look
forward to sharing some reflections to
date and some of our work on deck for
the coming semester I also do want to
say a few words about our our bargaining
progress we continue to work closely and
in earnest with p80 leadership to try to
resolve and settle on a contract and
aside from you know
ongoing conversations our next steps
include being back at the table this
Thursday and Friday we've set aside the
weekend if necessary with the goal of
arriving at an agreement I'm cautiously
optimistic that we're getting close in a
way that honors our teachers and is
realistic given our financial
constraints but for those of us that
have been involved in these negotiations
00h 40m 00s
directly we do realize there are many
areas of shared interest one of these
areas is to work towards ensuring that
we have a systemic ability to support
our students who require more intensive
supports and to better ensure their
readiness to learn effectively meeting
the social emotional and behavioral
needs of our students is a topic that
school systems everywhere are challenged
with better understanding and having
solutions and strategies to address
those in fact I had the opportunity this
afternoon to join a small group of
superintendents in meeting with Governor
Brown and Salem today to speak on this
specific topic a couple school
highlights marysville it is on pace to
save twenty two thousand dollars this
year on energy costs showing it's been
recognized as a showcase project with
the US Department of Energy's Better
Buildings challenge so this KT aid is
one of thirteen campuses that's
undergone a bit of work on its energy
practices and equipment as part of a
government program and that's paying off
and also grant high school once again
grant magazine has been nominated for a
national gold crown award by the
Columbia scholastic Press Association if
they win it will mark an incredible
fifth year in a row that grant magazine
has won this prestigious prize the 22
journalism students and their teacher
have worked very hard to produce this
magazine would be traveling to New York
and March to participate in the national
conference being paid for through
subscriptions fundraising and donations
congratulations to both of these schools
students teachers and staff principals
from making it happen and finally I want
to call your attention to connect to
kindergarten there's a brochure out
there which many of you might have
already received our board has
at the dais here these events begin
later this month and continue through
February and March around the district
site-by-site we look forward to
welcoming new students and families to
the Portland Public Schools Thank You
directors Thank You superintendent okay
so now we turn to student in public
comments while she's dialing I'll read
the the guidelines the board thanks the
community for taking the time to attend
this meeting and provides your comments
to the board we value a public input as
it informs our work and we look forward
to hearing your thoughts reflections and
concerns our responsibility as a board
is to actively listen with our
electronic devices turned off one quick
reminder any oversized signs need to be
in the back foyer I don't see any board
members and the superintendent will not
respond to comments or questions during
public comment but our board office will
follow up on board related issues raised
during public testimony guidelines for
public input emphasize respecting
consideration of others complaints about
individual employees should be directed
to this 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 your 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 and when your
time is up
the red light will go on and a buzzer
will sound we respectfully ask that you
conclude your comments at that time we
appreciate your input and thank you for
your cooperation
miss Houston do we have any anybody
signed up for public comment and our
first two speakers are Ron Popkin and
Julia DeGraw
my name is Ron Pupkin P o p IM I am a
former chairman of the alternative
school McCoy Academy which is part of
our gang outreach Inc argh and outreach
has contracts with three other school
districts and McCoy is purely
fundraising and contributions the the
concern that I feel as field that has
not been addressed we have for many
years we had existed for thirty years we
are accredited by the same agency that
accredits PPS however we get almost zero
support for the 15 PPS eligible students
that we educated last year and all over
the past many many years I've made
testimony here before as have others and
00h 45m 00s
almost seems that these are throwaway
kids they are eligible for PPS support
they have not been other than a little
bit of Title one money the school has
come close to closing on several
occasions because that's the nature of
small nonprofits so what could possibly
happen here to to help these children
let me go back one step
quarrelin community has recognized the
work we do because we're now in
partnership with them in Northeast
Portland they provide classroom space
for us and also a professor free of
charge because some of these students
are taking college type courses so they
recognize the work we do and they
recognize the need of the students but
we have been unsuccessful for the last
three or four years in getting PPS to
really support these kids whether the
kids come from there dropouts from PPS
regular schools and they're also dropped
out from other alternative schools we do
not advertise why are they with us
because friends and family say
that's the place you can get educated
you're the needs that you have to obtain
an education so I think the best thing
that could happen is someone either
volunteer from the board or be appointed
from the board
to sit down with detail with our head
lady Becky black see what we do we do
have a website you can do some exploring
and see if there's any way that these
students last year we had 215 we had a
waiting list of 15 and as we all know
one says waiting lists people stop
signing up it was a great need out there
the PPS is not addressing with this
particular group if I have any time left
the doorbell ringing program we we did
one of the board members took an
interest
Becky Black was able to meet with
someone here from the system she was
told we don't have money to help you
because we hired bell ringers and here
we have already made kids ready to go
forward thank you
all right for the record for the record
my name is Julia de Gras last name de g
ra w i live in the southeast portland
neighborhood of Montavilla and I'm
running for Portland City Council
position - it's currently held by Nick
fish when I initially attended a
Portland Public School Board meeting
with the intent to give public testimony
regarding my concern about the Portland
teachers going so long without a
contract I was turned away it was at the
next month's meeting that I was informed
that you would need to sign up weeks in
advance to speak at some future meeting
that I that the date was uncertain the
whole process struck me as undemocratic
and shuts public voices out of timely
issues that the PPS board covers at its
monthly meetings I urge the board to
consider opening up the public comment
period and making the process published
and transparent some more members of the
public can testify on the important
timely issues being covered most
democratic institutions have this form
of public input as I mentioned in my
initial interest for testifying was my
concern that Portland teachers have been
so long without a contract and one of
the issues in regardless of what the
issues are surrounding the contract
negotiations it's unacceptable that it's
gone so long and I'm really glad to hear
that it looks like there's progress
being made there and I hope that a fair
contract is is eminent I attended public
schools K through 12 growing up here in
the Portland metro area and I was lucky
to have teachers who helped me believe
in myself and my own potential I can
honestly say that I'm the person I am
today because of the support I got at
key moments in my youth from special
teachers who believed in me it was
because of a high school teacher that I
went on to become an environmental and
social justice
organizer he made me realize that I
could make a living following my dreams
to make the world a better place and I
realize that sounds idealistic but it's
just the truth I know that Portland
teachers strive to be life changers like
my high school science teacher in their
students lives
how can they be expected to do this if
they can't even count on something as
stabilizing as a fair contract part
teachers are not asked to do or not
asking for too much and I urge you to
work with them to come up with a fair
contract that ensures teacher salaries
and benefits are competitive to help us
recruit and retain high-quality teachers
the reduces class sizes and offers
greater support for special special
education needs and access to services
which leads me to my final point I
signed on to the letter from teachers
urging Mary Pearson to protect the
Pioneer program pitting one quality
program against another is not
acceptable is not acceptable and to
split Piner services into two campuses
according to your own teachers who are
experts in this area would be more
detrimental to Piner students since
00h 50m 00s
fleeing the campus for the access
students both programs ultimately need
at their own building making it clear
there's no immediate perfect solution to
this problem however solving it at the
expense of the most vulnerable and
underrepresented students the PPS system
seems short-sighted and wrong
I urge you to consider the decision to
split up the herd you to reconsider the
decision to split up the Pioneer program
and thank you for your time
[Applause]
next we have Laramie Stabler and Kelly
Rundle
hello I'm Laramie babbit baby be ITT
good evening at PPS we create
environments as safety respect and
responsibility the move of Pioneer
represents none of these ideals this
decision is not safe the facilities at
rice and Applegate are not suitable to
meet our students needs
young-soon and Holliday have features
that rice and Applegate cannot replicate
the numerous areas for students to
de-escalate with dignity and privacy
will be stripped from them currently we
have multiple sensory faces various calm
down areas and safe places outdoors that
are utilized throughout the day rice and
Applegate do not have these spaces thus
triggering students leading to more
unsafe incidents and any to use the
de-escalation room this lack of space
will decrease the staffs ability no
matter how skilled to D de-escalate the
situation in a therapeutic way there's
no upper or lower campus in this plan we
will be at two completely different
sites there's a breezeway between our
buildings but that's not a barrier we
move fluidly to support each other in
order to keep staff and students safe
this move limit this move limits the
continuum of caring supportive and
consistent adults in our students lives
and reduces our staffs ability to create
a healthy environment this decision is
not responsible hundreds of thousands of
dollars have gone into making the
current pioneer building fit our
students needs you've talked about
putting money into gen ed schools to
increase training and staffing and the
responsible choice would be to start
there and not a brutus from the building
that works for our population it is
irresponsible and wrong to put our most
vulnerable students into buildings that
cannot and will never meet
needs this decision in the entire
process has been disrespectful in
inequitable to our students parents and
staff no one from our pioneer community
was consulted about this change and yet
our superintendent speaks of equity our
building is vital to our kids success to
deny it our most vulnerable students
access to a building that is customized
to fit their needs and ensures the
safety of both students and staff to
buildings that do not have cafeterias
playgrounds libraries or chess
ultimately a more restrictive
environment is the very least unethical
these sites fail to provide the
fundamental net areas necessary for
students to practice the skills they
need in order to move to a less
restrictive environment it is
inequitable disrespectful irresponsible
and unsafe to pushes from our building
to more restrictive less inclusive
buildings also these sites are not near
bus lines rice is 3/4 of a mile from the
nearest bus stop this is inequitable to
our parents and students and to say
Applegate would be k5 is a lie
truthfully we would be k-8 because the
middle school life skills class would be
housed too Applegate giving those
students no opportunity to be with
same-aged peers this would be
unthinkable eating
to move forward in a responsible
equitable and caring manner by leaving
pioneered intact in at our current site
and I have two questions for our
superintendent we've asked you how much
will this cost and yet we have yet to
receive an answer we've been told there
will be continuing conversations but
money has been spent in an app and an
administrative position has been posted
where's the communication and
transparency
[Applause]
I'm speaking on behalf of Kelly Rundle
I'm Gavin Rito RIE de L I'm the PE
teacher at pioneer for all of the k-12
students the Applegate campus is
completely lacking a gym and only
contains a 1,500 square foot
multi-purpose room rice as well only
contains a 2,500 square foot
multi-purpose room that is not a gym
the average regulation basketball court
is 4,200 square feet here at Pioneer we
are lacking a gym and we are making do
with our cafetorium that is 3,000 square
feet how am I supposed to give these
students an adequate physical education
in a 1,500 square foot room we literally
00h 55m 00s
have a classroom in our building that is
larger than that with the House bill
three one four one that is passed in
2007 it states that k5 students are
required 150 minutes a week of an
adequate physical education and five
through 12 grade students 225 this
little space provided at the new campus
will simply not allow for me to teach an
adequate physical education and to teach
many of the students the skills that
their peers will be getting at other
buildings and which I'm currently able
to teach here at pioneer and meeting the
time requirements will be physically
impossible with me now split between two
buildings on two opposite sides of town
not to mention we barely have enough
equipment for our pioneer program now
but split two ways between two separate
buildings our kids will barely have
anything and I will be forced to haul
equipment around town between two
locations so the students can try to
scrape by for some PE time in their new
multi-purpose room the gym condition is
also completely unsafe for our students
and staff our gym can get extremely
chaotic due to being various and large
and very large numbers of students and
we want to give them all a chance to run
around and we work extremely hard as
staff to make sure the safety of our
students is there in this atmosphere but
if you cut our gym size in half for a
rainy day recess there will either be
student or staff injuries every single
day or kids will be forced to sit in
their classrooms for recess which is
simply not OK even on non rainy days our
kids will not have anything to do at the
Applegate campus anyway with there being
a lack of a playground not only is the
lack of physical activity unjust and
unfair for our student population but it
will hinder their learning as well it
has been proven in countless studies
that students need brain breaks to be
active throughout the day for most
effective learning including one by the
CDC that states kids need moderate
physical activity for 60 minutes a day
such as running jumping or brisk walking
we were able to make that happen in the
Pioneer Building here with the use of a
playground and adequate size gym fenced
in yards and all sides and being in a
safe neighborhood that is simply not
possible with our app or be obligate or
ryskamp businesses
students are already dealt in the unfair
hand here when it comes to trying to
keep up with their peers with their
sandwich peers this is gonna make the
poor poor and the rich richer and
completely just blows my mind just how
unjust you are being to these poor
students I challenge you mr. Guerrero to
come to a rainy day recess at Pioneer
which you have already stated that you
are planning on however we are still
waiting I know my time is almost up so I
have just a quick closing comment mr.
Guerrero has claimed that the board
actually mandated that Applegate or that
access stay under one roof so what makes
it so you guys can't mandate that we
stay under one roof part of their
reasoning part of their reasoning I know
is because they have third grade
students that read at 8th grade math
levels however we have eighth grade
students that read at third grade levels
miss Laramie I know has student teachers
that come in her room that are eighth
graders that are scared to read in front
of their same age peers but they are
looked at as gods by the kids that when
they go and read it like a kindergarten
reading circle it's like some of the
only time that they get to boost their
self-esteem is by being with other age
peers so we need to stay together as a
cohesive community
[Applause]
[Music]
next we have Mia
pizanno and Jeff McNeil
hello friends my name is MIA pizanno P
is a and O and I'm here on behalf of the
many people who have spoken to the need
to retire the name of the Quaker
religious faith from use by Franklin
High School it is a great time for
Portland Public Schools to build
thoughtful progressive comprehensive
guidelines and procedures around naming
and renaming in our schools because
names matter think about it think about
the meaning and the power of the names
we use for ourselves and for each other
and against each other think about the
power of the names we use to bring us
closer together and to keep us apart and
to keep others away think about the
significance of the names we use for
those we love
those we hate and those we fear think
about the power of the names we use to
demean diminish and disempower think
about the strength of the names we use
01h 00m 00s
to respect dignify and honor think about
everything that we convey when we use
these names who has the right to take a
name from you who has the right to call
you by a name you do not choose or
accept who has the right to take the
name of another's faith and use it as
they fancy think about everything that
we teach our children through the names
that we use I know that I speak for many
when we say we will work with you to
move forward the way that we use names
in our schools thank you
my name is Jeff McNeil last name spelled
MC n ei L I'm a teacher at applicate
headstart and I've come here tonight to
speak out against the superintendent's
unilateral decision to relocate the
access Academy Pioneer program and
obligate headstart Antonio Lopez came to
applicate to tell us about this decision
while he was explaining the reasons as
to why the decision was made to move
pioneer to applicate he stated that many
of the staff at Pioneer requested the
move that the staff at Pioneer thought
their building was unsafe and not suited
for the type of behavior they
experienced on a daily basis and that
the Applegate site is such a more
equipped and building to handle the
signs of extreme behavior than the kids
at the current site I have no clue where
he received this information and because
every staff member I've communicated
with from Pioneer has told me the exact
opposite Applegate is a wonderful sight
but it is unsafe for the students from
Pioneer we have windows that we can't
open during rainy times because we fear
the frames will crumble because they
have so much dry rot we have absolutely
no fence that surrounds the school
making it unsafe for students who are
prone to running away from teachers we
don't have a functioning kitchen we
don't have a functioning library we
don't have a functioning cafeteria how
much money would it cost to upgrade
Applegate to make it suitable for the
students from Pioneer also there's only
one staff bathroom
currently at Applegate we teach 77
students from low-income families 100%
of our students that applica wait
qualify for free and reduced lunch
you've said at Pioneer you are dedicated
to prioritizing our most at-risk
students we are your most at-risk
students we represent a community of
people who have been failed by our
public school system and we had to prove
to the community that with our actions
and our compassion not just our words
because you have demonstrated
superintendent the words are easily
rescinded that we will not fail their
children the staff and family at
Applegate have been told that there are
other pre-k opportunities in the area
and many are just two or three miles
away that the district would make sure
that their child was guaranteed a place
in one I have taught many students on my
time at Applegate whose families don't
have access to a car I am currently
teaching students who are homeless I
want you to think about walking yourself
and your three-year-old son or daughter
to school
at 8 a.m. in January in the cold when
it's pouring down rain and still tell me
these other sites are an option I'm also
frustrated that I never hear anyone
talking about the tunia Native American
youth classrooms that are housed at
Applegate 1 as part of PBS headstart and
the other is currently residing in a
portable just outside of Applegate
they're currently 9 early childhood had
start students in that portable with
ages ranging from 6 months to 3 years
old and I feel like that information was
not shared intentionally to make your
decisions seemed like it wasn't
affecting as many people as it really is
there's been a history of distrust
between the teachers and the school
district and when I heard that we were
getting a new superintendent I was
hopeful that we could finally start
repairing that but your actions and the
first few months have shown me just the
opposite this is a poor decision for
many reasons Applegate is not a fit site
for pioneer the community around
Applegate has a history of being pushed
around dislocated and underserved and
this decision was made without the input
of those affected the most these are
only some of the reasons why I'm urging
you to change your mind and if you're
not willing to actually listen to the
individuals who need your attention then
I invite you into my classroom so you
can tell my students and their families
about your decisions so you have to look
at the faces of the ones that you are
affecting
[Applause]
lastly we have Jim Garcia
mi nombre es GM Garcia Hey ah
Arisa yah quisiera dar la bienvenida and
01h 05m 00s
Senor guerrero con todo respeto su éxito
Sara el éxito the noise roses to the
empties as someone who cares deeply
about student success I'd like to share
my vision of equity and excellence for
Portland Public Schools middle school
students when the next middle school is
opened I'm expecting that you hire a
principal with middle school teaching
and leadership experience who sucks a
principal who sets a tone where student
safety is a given staff is supported and
respected as professionals parents are
assured their children are safe learning
and happy for students who misbehave a
healthy school system has a venue
through which teachers can collaborate
with colleagues in an attempt to provide
additional or alternative methods of
support for struggling students schools
with a strengths-based approach are
places where misbehaving students are
not only held accountable but are taught
what they should be doing differently I
want to see a school where the color of
your skin does not determine that your
behavior must mean you belong in special
ed versus inquiry as to whether or not
you've been referred to tag and might be
bored in class I want our middle schools
who serve Dual Immersion especially in
Spanish to have critical mass of
students that means there's enough kids
so that the middle school has resources
to provide robust middle school dual
language experiences for us to continue
to add Spanish Dual Immersion sites to
the district is simplice sabotaging our
own efforts to hire excellent highly
qualified Multipla endorsed bilingual
teachers we are sending 44 students to
Rose Way Heights
there will be no program for 44 students
we cannot
continue to add Spanish Dual Immersion
middle school sites with under 150
students we need to use the gauge that
we use for Mandarin and Japanese
programs there is an equation that the
Dual Immersion Department created to
ensure there's enough students going to
middle school so that there is dual
language let's apply that same criteria
to Spanish considering past practice
with Portland Public Schools middle
school program development I'm going to
be honest I am pessimistic about my
districts will and/or skill in ensuring
racial and socio-economic equity in our
middle schools in anticipation of
Harriet Tubman a school slated to serve
a large population of diverse students I
can't help but ask what is going on at
aqua green the climate is described in
their December site council minutes the
safety issues are numerous you can find
more detail in a complaint that I will
be filing formally but until then I beg
you please go visit unannounced to aqua
green walk through those hallways sit
with those teachers and ask them if they
feel supported listen to the parents who
are begging for structure order safety
and instruction they began last year
with the principal who had no experience
in middle school and was removed
mid-year they now have an interim
principal they have five administrators
and not a single parent can get their
phone calls answered I beg you to
communicate with the Site Council of
aqua green and let them know what's
happening with the principal higher they
were told January they still don't know
what is happening so I beg you to please
go visit ugly green and I haven't you to
consider we will not tolerate this at
Harriet Tubman I will do whatever I can
to prevent replicating the institutional
racism I see at aqua green thank you
[Applause]
thank you all again for presenting your
views to the boards we take your
testimony seriously the next item on the
agenda is going to be the 2017 capital
bond health and safety
tonight the board will receive its
quarterly update on the 2017 bond
environmental health safety and
accessibility the board's health safety
and accessibility committee has been
working closely with the facilities and
bond staff jay rosen would you like to
introduce this item and jerry vincent
chief operating officer to provide the
update Thank You chair Moore the health
and safety and accessibility committee
has been meeting for several months now
01h 10m 00s
and essentially has been working with
facilities to keep track of all bond
specified health issues such as 88
compliance asbestos abatement lead in
drinking water and paint abatement and
many other health issues so I see
Jerry's up at the podium and he's our
chief operating officer and he'll give
us an overview of what's happening
tonight thanks Jerry thank you good
evening everyone we're here tonight to
cover two things I can give an update on
our tubman environment Health and Safety
right after our quarterly report here so
we continue to roll out the next steps
of our comprehensive health and safety
and accessibility work as it was stated
in the resolution of our bond language
as you may recall just because it was a
May bond which is unusual from November
we put immediate work into play which
was to take advantage of the summer and
the fall we're switching to our
intermediate work right now and we're
also coming up with prize a shion's
protocols procedures that start the
third phase which is futures we can have
our outreach and get some input in a lot
of these areas so if we can start to go
through presentation
we will I always like to start this one
just remind everyone what the categories
were for the health and safety part it's
150 million plus 8 million from from a
state rent that we got with matching
funds with passing the bond I'll walk
right through these in order the water
the water quality and our whole removing
lead in the water as our top priority we
started first so it has the most
detailed and the roll out so I'll cover
that and we'll look it on through the
rest this is just some of the completion
things that we've done so far you may
recall we have seven rounds of school
seven groups of schools there's 15 in
each I should say seven groups of
facilities six groups of schools seventh
one is the administration other type
facilities that we say to last so we
took the first 15 since this has never
been done before I put them in a pilot
project want to talk about some of our
lessons learned from the pilot now that
we are done with that and our group two
projects were job walk in December bid
awarded and they'll be starting I
believe next week and then in January
later this month we'll have our three
group three bids that we'll do job walks
and so we're moving right on through
these six categories are this exclusive
projects so you're sort of the forecast
and discovered some air group three is
what we're working on next those 15
schools will be walked by the
contractors bid awarded you switch into
February group four will start to a be
job walk and awarded marks is Group 5
April group six this is all pending on
enough contractors who walked the the
projects bid the work and then we are
targeting to be done in June and that
would be with the first phase of this
work we'd like to be done in total I'm
going to talk about that what happens if
the fixtures have to be replaced and
tested are still high and we'll talk
about that in a moment
so this is our path forward and all the
way up until this summer originally this
was pre pond looking at a three year
window right now like I said we are
working on our group two we're gonna try
to get this done in about twelve to
fourteen months every month
we can save our operational costs of all
of our bottled water that we have that's
directly coming out of a general fund
that we didn't plan for in year one but
plan for this year but we'd like to
return those monies to the general fund
this is a tough one from there to see
but you have in front of you just saying
that we met these we met these goals we
went to the first 15 schools we said
that we'd have them done by these dates
sampled by these dates tested results
back all this is on our website all 15
schools are back up the Astra's for
these couple they have some fountains
that after they our protocol is that
they don't come back up after our
testing and they're still high
wheat rate we try our flush protocol
again see if they come back whippin
numbers are acceptable range if not a
second time we cap those we don't bring
them online but we get the rest of
facility up as much as possible for the
drinking fixtures for the bottled water
I'll show you what we do with the ones
and we've only just now had a few that
don't come back after two rounds of
testing I'll take you through our
infographic and show you what we do with
those then so here it is right here
we've talked about this before all the
drinking fixtures not every faucet sinks
bathrooms whatever all the drinking
fixtures is we're above the water cost
is coming from we replace if they get
replaced on the test pot and they test
below the acceptable levels then we come
right in and their turn back on if not
they go over and we look into the wall
so we start seeing cameras we start
figuring out why is it in the pipe
01h 15m 00s
partial pipe replacement in the wall if
we find that replace it and test again
and the water is acceptable we come
online if not we start going the partial
pipe of the placement of the trenches
because now it's not in the walls
anymore we take it all the way out to
the street and then after that and we
test it it doesn't come back online we
literally have to go out to the backflow
preventor change all that out at the
street level test again if not it's not
us it's the city so that's our
commitment and how we take it from the
faucet all the way out to the road I am
happy to say then the 15 of their done
air
has largely been in this right here we
have three fountains the fountains if we
de t m-- with the principle that they
are not there are others in the area
it's not like if this one's taken out we
have to walk this distance that we take
that one out until phase two which is we
address drinking fountains in the
classrooms along with this sinks in the
classrooms I'll discuss that in a moment
so we've done this is on our website
we've sent these to the sites we've
handed these out for anybody who would
like to know we put him in our email
blast the this is kind of the overview
picture for folks like to follow the
infographic there's a lot more detail in
a second on the backside of this flyer
right here so lessons learned we started
the 15 tried to get in touch with
principals some of this was like at
night shut the water down get going
it was clunky and so and the principals
have been great to work with
so we notified of what we were doing
said we're figuring this out as part of
a pilot they work with this and as we
were wrapping things up we said what are
some of the feedback you're getting they
said well we don't like our Head Start
programs and and our k2s we don't like
them leaving the room to go get a drink
because a lot of the fountains that are
also non ADA compliant that are in the
classrooms that's part of our sink
replacement a DA compliant and which
will put a drinking fountain bubbler on
that sink we get it kind of a
two-for-one we have a sink that C D
compliant entity compliant bubbler and
so right now we have a sink and or in
some schools a separate drinking
fountains even at CDE compliant so
that's in the next round of the work
we're doing we're again turning the
drinking fixtures back on and for bottle
refills so we the feedback was rk2 we'd
like them not to leave the room we like
our Head Start not to leave our room any
of our special education programs and
classes we like them not to leave the
room so what we're doing we're running
into this we're leaving some bottled
water behind for these as we've turned
the others on and we'll be doing that
throughout the program until we get
everything up and running that is a
drinking fixture including the the sinks
and the in classroom drinking fountain
so it's reducing a lot of the
operational cost for bottled water but
it's not taking it all the way in all
the way down entirely yet so our pilot
project we didn't communicate as well as
you can imagine lost work as nights and
weekends and we hope you're back up and
it's ready to go when you come in next
morning but we've got some checklist we
have some protocols the principles we
have a big thank you to them they're
very helpful and now in our second round
when we meet with the principals we're
more proactive we have a toolkit we come
in we tell them what we're going to do
we tell them about the tech k2 or the
head start
we now have signs that we show them that
we put up if it's a non drinking fixture
if it's a drinking fixture and we have
more of a tool kit that we can hand out
and group two group three we'll even do
lessons learn from group two and we'll
get better at this as we go and it's the
communicating of a plan and then
communicating it to the Board of Ed into
the community the principals of the
second group we've met with 11 and 15
principals that happen kind of over the
winter break and so we're picking up on
the other four that we'll meet with this
week and just want to show that so the
first round we have that completed and
this is where we're looking at for the
group two in the group three that that
were shown earlier these are the
expected deadlines for the work and
again this is the turning of the
fixtures on if it turns out it's
something in the wall we roll it to the
next phase of that infographic and
there's groups for groups five and then
six and then seven is some of our other
facilities and we plan on doing that to
the bond measure says 28 million ninety
sites do them all so this lastly our
water quality as we leave the water I
just want to let the Board of Ed know
that our risk director Joe kraler and
director of government relations
courtney Wessling they participate in
stakeholder and advisory groups you know
for Senate bill 1062 which is the
healthy and Safe Schools that's setting
a lot of protocol for how the entire
state is going to do testing of water in
the future they're actually very
01h 20m 00s
interested a lot of our input because
can imagine for the ones going through
this right now and we have a lot of the
protocol in the detail and so the groups
working with Oregon Health Authority and
developing rules or frequency how often
in tests we're just saying that we're
staying in that room and in those
conversations the next thing that's in
our bond is our fire alarms so we've
talked about this before we had many
fire alarm systems that were failing
years ago to three years ago we enter
into an agreement with the city that
we're gonna replace them we started some
of these pre bond measure we're
continuing forward we're getting in what
group two is now of those are the fire
alarms that are not functioning the
emergent urgency here is that a lot of
the sites they weren't fully addressable
if you pull it in one area you might
hear it in most areas but not all and
then the equipment and the panels and
we're not even in operation anymore so
it works now but they don't make these
parts anymore so that's how we started
into this having this as a high priority
in the bond fire alarms are all set up
with their grouping and phasing right
there we're coming right on down through
Group one and getting ready to progress
into the group twos sprinklers we've
talked about this a lot of our sites
either were not fully sprinkled or
sprinkled at all they were sprinkled but
they weren't working correctly so a lot
of the same contractors do this kind of
work so in our future plan we go out and
we couple fire sprinkler and fire alarms
in the same package we get better bids
very economies of scale more schools in
the same bid for two items it just keeps
getting better on our savings and these
are being drawn up right now in our
interim phase immediate phase no interim
phase we are taking most of the schools
that were in our IP seventeen that did
not go forward and architects are
already on board everybody drawn some of
these things we've added the 2017 bond
scope they're already doing like an
elevator a roof what-have-you things
that are in this bond measure again may
threw that off on how you get anarchic
on board drawings city permit and hip
this spring bid window so we can start
something next summer so that's the ones
that are in our intermediate and we'll
talk about our future work and however
be ready for stakeholder input on all of
our future work and then here's the
schools right here that we walk through
so far and these are we've already have
there are maintenance operations
department rankings on the ones are in
our worst condition or zero they don't
have any at all and just no review on
asbestos and all the different recorded
incidents and applications that we have
throughout the district we've done a lot
of small-scale stuff shows work since
the bond passed things like asbestos
some security type cameras radon lead
paint these things that we will be doing
these things in small project large
project for future you know it's
imperative that we keep this work going
even though you get kana T's a scale
when you put it together we'd like nuts
are able to say we note that you have
asbestos and we'll be out in 2023 to do
something about that and so we can keep
the small-scale projects going and then
we have large scale and those are the
ones that we're kind of looking at right
now what requires scaffolding high-lift
so we're trying to break them out and
prioritize them and then break them out
in a small and large here's what we
completed and here's what we're wrapping
up right now and then our large
significant projects we're already
identifying here and getting those drawn
and prepared for next summer lead paint
done a lot of what we just said through
our our summer work and then our
interiors we've fully painted out to
schools and we're on our third one right
now and then just want to note again
that healthy and school and Safe Schools
rule that our rural culture the
stakeholder input here is our Joe and
his information at risk manager we have
a website right up above up there that
has everything that we have regarding a
LED paint it's very comprehensive it's
run on this link on our website right
here by sight by incident
and roofs so we've prioritized some
roofs this is some of the work that has
left to be done we it's hard because you
go priority one on roofs and so many are
deteriorated how you do priority one and
priority 0.75 and priority 0.5 that's
really we're looking at right now so
we're taking a hard look at them I can
tell you that most of the roofs and the
district are past their life expectancy
and they're in rough shape these folks
will tell you they have buckets all over
their classrooms I'm sure Eadie
accessibility we've completed our draft
of the a transition plan
01h 25m 00s
we have priorities on it we have it set
up where can be sorted by cluster by
school by activity as relates to the a
da Americans Disabilities Act the key
categories we plugged in the o9 of the
2009 assessment data that was escalated
cost wise through 2014 and we've - out
of this plan that all the work of
50-some million that was accomplished by
bringing Roosevelt and Franklin and
Fabien online and - out the work that
will be done on grant as well so we
already have a big lift 50 75 million
has been accomplished by doing the
large-scale projects we just want to
keep that in mind as we do Benson and
Lincoln and Madison and Kellogg the same
thing so we are removing that as well as
no let paint no asbestos no radon those
kind of things
fadila Cecilia's condition assessment so
this is really imperative as part of our
future we have a request for proposals
out we are gonna have teams open
literally every door in the district in
the next year take photos download we're
going to take all the FCA the facilities
condition assessment items put them
through a raking some of this with our
stakeholder input come up with an F CI
the f CI is our facilities condition
index that will tell us exactly why
we're going to the schools that we're
going to and what their condition is and
of course we need to update that because
a roof that was only a three yesterday
could be a two today it's worse than it
was last year so the FCI is our roadmap
and we
carry out facilities money bond money
and maintenance operations money but
also how you roadmap your path forward
to bond measure 3 okay so that's that
we're excited about the work we're glad
for the opportunity to get it done
I've worked in many school districts and
they always dream of having this done
this has been funded this is ready to
start the process of interviewing
selecting and start things off this
summer and it's it's nice to have a
roadmap then our roadmap wraps in with
what superintendent Grylls talked about
is the strategic plan for the district
and learning and all sudden we're
looking our facilities and how do you
bring these together right because
everything right now is just it's on its
own right now so this is our operations
side of meeting instruction curriculum
side and becoming a district strategic
plan so we're excited about it
radon is seasonal I will say that
January this month is radon Awareness
Month don't know if you knew that or did
not see it we're in good company you're
all you're all smarter than you were
when you got here
so OHA is also promoting their a radon
awareness month and we've been told that
they might highlight some of our
projects and procedures and things that
we've done so far in their promotional
materials and this is another website
right here you want to know everything
about what we have on radon and
documented police or anyone from the
community you go to our website you know
here a lot that we're not transparent
maybe we just have too much on the
website it's very difficult we actually
track how long it takes someone to go in
and how long it takes them to find
something we try to rotate things back
up on the front page of our web it's
difficult we track people 20 minutes on
our website trying to get somewhere and
it's like nobody should have to do that
so we're trying to pull things back out
and cycle them on the front first page
and our people in the cipa department
are very good at doing that for us and
security cameras we're just starting
this conversation or security so we I
would be talking to the principal's in a
couple days at the leadership being
principal leadership meeting and we're
trying to do is gather input from them
we have work orders we have repairs we
know what we think they're looking for
in a way of what's most important site
by site
cameras is it buzzers for lockdown front
door is it fencing we have five million
dollars that has to stretch as far as
that can stretch and so we want input so
we used the money wisely and so we're
just starting the we're gonna put a
survey out to them and stead of trying
to get to 90 sites and find out what are
your most important things and what do
you think provides the safety and
security at your site and then we'll
bring that back and we'll prioritize it
and then we'll operationalize it and
again we're not gonna wait until four
years from now before someone gets
cameras because it's saved us some money
while we're doing the roof while we're
doing the fire sprinkler I can see us
rolling these out on an ongoing basis
and that's it
so there's been a lot there I just want
to go over the the ear media which we're
leaving now we have all the background
right now so it's January February start
up some stakeholder meetings start
talking about this is what we're
thinking on doing with these priorities
at these sites what do you all think
that's already that's the future
engagement we're ready for right now
we've ended the immediate we're just
wrapping up the intermediate and so
we're excited about where it's going
01h 30m 00s
it's a lot of work and I know this is
the HSA update but our teams are doing
the same thing over on the other 640
million with Kellogg and in Madison
starts their design advisory group soon
and then we go to Lincoln and then
Benson and I'll just tell you for the
abatement and demolition of existing
Kellogg we got 21 contractors and
subcontractors on our job walk the other
day so generally it's about half of
those will actually bid to work which
are extremely excited about you
they're extremely excited about a quick
update on Tubman we have procured the
services for a design-build well mill
school overall for a design-build
architect contractor for Tubman a
design-build architect contractor for
the rest of the schools in the
conversion we have contracted with a
geotechnical company for Tubman to do
the stabilization of the building and to
the hillside we
formely and release right now we have
contracted with an environmental
consultant you recall we've had
presentations from one in California
we've had it didn't fit with either a
committee or a board meeting
presentation from PSU extremely
impressed with what we saw from PSU and
our local folks here and we have moved
forward and we have awarded the
environmental for Tubman to PSU complete
with wind tunnels complete with their
thereby by starting them now by February
1st first week in February we're gonna
have equipment up on Tubman and start to
do our monitoring so we get as much
monitoring done as soon as possible we
are doing fluid dynamic studies and what
is coming off the highway and what does
that look like we're doing the whole
thing so we had 11 items in your board
resolution as with everyone we spoke to
about four to six are really the key you
know if you really want to know what's
going on and so PSU is going to do six
activities and testing back again this
fall typically all your testing would be
up until you occupy but with the fact
that I'm assuming those are these
18-month projects that longer are going
to be eight months I'm assuming that we
aren't going to have everything buttoned
up on top until school begins you know
from the roof from the new HVAC from all
the other work in order to have that
sealed environment where you can test it
again so we've asked them to come back
and bring the equipment back out again
and remobilize and test again this fall
for a three month window and so we were
just very impressed but with what the
quality and among people had on staff
who know how to do this and getting some
graduate students to assist in the
process as well so you have a really
thorough conversation in our FAO meeting
about the testing protocols and
narrowing the scope so that we're really
just investing in the essential
information that we need
not spending too much money that
otherwise we could be spending on kids
or on mitigation measures that we know
we need to have to make the building
habitable so that was a really fruitful
discussion and thanks for the update on
the contracting process no you're
welcome near the original estimates were
in about a 1.3 million dollar range as I
recall we've got this enough 500 600 so
thousands so it's enough diligence you
know why you're doing what you're doing
but you're not doing all these things so
you know so the funds go go elsewhere
and where they needed to go I just
wanted to add there are contractors
within two weeks they rolled out and did
assessment over winter break and even
this week they're on site and they owe
me their schedule their path forward
how failure is not an option and how
we're going to hit August and they owe
me the information next two weeks don't
be sitting with them meeting and then
I'll be able to come back and put
everything up on the screen and show you
how we how we intend to do the crazy
questions please any questions from
board members Jerry thanks you want
great information a quick question
security cameras yes ballpark figure for
installing one of those you know that
that's difficult because is the
infrastructure already there is there
electrical is there wiring or you know
were you taking it back from this thing
that might be on the back corner of a
site but we need to be able to have a
monitor up in the you know in the
principal's office and then it gets
bigger at a middle school and bigger at
a high school so I'm sorry in okay but
if you how do you on average I think
around $15,000 something like it yeah I
just wanted a ballpark right
01h 35m 00s
okay thank you very much keep it up okay
um the next item is staff comments and
I'd like to invite Suzanne cohan good
evening I wanted to start by saying
thank you for the opportunity to speak
with you and I am the president of the
Portland Association of teachers
representing Ford at 4500 educators in
PBS and as I believe I've told you all
individually I am very eager to build a
productive working relationship with
district leaders and our union and I'm
very excited about the prospect of
working together to get PBS back on
track and we want a functioning district
and we want to support you in these
efforts but our partnership will not
compromise our values or ignore problems
and so since the new board took office
in July and since your arrival
superintendent Guerrero we have heard a
lot of promising statements about how we
will work together but I want to make it
clear tonight that the professional
educators in this district will be
judging you on your actions not on your
words and unfortunately one of the very
first actions we must judge this new
administration by is how you've handled
the shortage of facilities and in
particular how this affects the
situation at Pioneer lofty rhetoric
about a better program in a new location
brings pretty hollow when staff members
are being forced to beg for the bare
essentials like a gym or a library or a
cafeteria our pioneer community is not
engaged in a visioning process they are
fighting for the very basics of an
equitable educational opportunity for
our most vulnerable students
visioning and kind words will not meet
these students needs
they require space and resources there
is flawed math in the district's
calculations for the space and square
footage requirements for the pioneer
program because your formulas don't seem
to factor in all the equipment
additional adults and extra space
required in this type of setting and the
fact is you made this decision without
any input from the school staff and why
should the Pioneer community have any
confidence when we all see what's
happening at Franklin High School the
very first PPS building constructed
under the bond has resulted in an
incredibly inequitable physical space
for our special education students which
pretty much everyone recognizes but for
most of you I know that this was before
your time but I hope you can understand
the frustration that every one of us
feels when we see such a disconnect
between decision-makers and our school
communities it would have taken the
Franklin staff in special ed community
their about 10 minutes to point out the
problems of putting a specialized
classroom in the basement from
accessibility issues and the way it
isolates these students from the rest of
the school and yet nothing has been done
to mitigate the inequities at Franklin
despite agreement that it is a problem
and while the exact configuration of
Franklin might have been before your
time moving the Pioneer program is your
decision
and it feels like we're some sort of
educational version of The Hunger Games
where one group of vulnerable students
is being pitted against another why
should access a group of students with
very specific needs which is spot for
years to get their own space be forced
to compete with pioneer which serves
their students with some of the most
challenging of educational situations
and what kind of disruptions are in
store for the head start students
students that come from economically
disadvantaged homes
if Applegate has to move to make way for
pioneer what do these three schools have
in common they all serve vulnerable
student populations
and while it hasn't gotten much
attention I do want to point out that
this all started with your decision to
continue providing space in a public
building to Kairos a charter school a
building which is desperately needed by
PBS's own students it's why so many of
us have been pushing for more
transparency and accountability from PPS
and these problems will continue until
you recognize that involving teachers
and parents and students and real
decision making is not optional it's
essential I really do believe that you
have gotten a better sense of these
issues through the very meaningful
conversations we've had at the
bargaining table but as I've said before
educators are looking at what you do far
more than what you say and the reason
I'm here with so many of my colleagues
tonight is because we still haven't
translated those meaningful
conversations into a signed contract
settling our contract this weekend is a
critical way of showing the educators
across PBS that your words mean
something we've been working 556 days
without a contract we need a fair
01h 40m 00s
settlement this weekend
thank you for your time thank you
[Applause]
okay next item Oh is appeals to the
board do we have the step three
complaint complainants available is
Frank and Mia Castorena
go ahead really ready all right thank
you thank you for your attention tonight
and we trust your support of me as
opportunity to dance with Lincoln high
school dance late last spring me
ultimately chose to attend st. Mary's in
support of specific educational needs
she did so after confirming with Lincoln
and st. Mary's that she could try out
for the Lincoln dance team as st. Mary's
does not offer a team and after learning
that other st. Mary's girls before her
had participated with Lincoln dance she
tried out and made the team she's not a
star athlete trying to dupe the system
or seeking to be an exception in
September at the district athletic
office denied Mia's participation at
Lincoln citing the given current policy
language post the boundary change that
our our address directs us to Wilson and
that me as she danced there Wilson
athletics confirmed to us they do not
offer a dance program nor field a team
Lincoln is Mia's neighborhood school
that offers a dance program but more
importantly me applied to Lincoln as we
believe district policy already provides
her that choice we are a Portland public
school family with two children through
bright a mile and Sylvan and both
tracking toward Lincoln Ward resolution
5256 provides two limited number of
impacted families like ours for student
like Mia to choose her school Mia chose
Lincoln last year's an eighth grader she
forecasted for freshman classes at
Lincoln and was assigned a counselor at
Lincoln in she chose Lincoln to continue
with a friend classmate and peer
community that she's been a part of a
whole life and to continue with the
dance teammates and coach that she's
been building bonds with training
performing and competing with for three
years now in short if not for the
boundary change we actually wouldn't be
here tonight but because of it Mia's
choice to attend st. Mary's or her
address
shouldn't waive her right to participate
with Lincoln dance if they choose to
have her which they are there's really
no question here with the district if
she marries did not work out for me as
she could attend Lincoln she's made her
choice on Lincoln clear from the
beginning and the board resolution
provides for that for her in the end
were asking for the board to acknowledge
that the spirit intent of the same
resolution that provides for me to
choose Lincoln as her school would also
include something as foundational as the
athletic program that goes with that
school in this case dance for Lincoln
for me it's been very encouraging to
have so much support from the community
and district offices at all levels as
we've gone through this process we
appreciate that but we're also hopeful
that and it's gonna be gratifying to see
a young woman stand up for something
that she believes he's passionate about
believes his common sense and that's
reasonable and fair to ask for we're
hopeful that you agree as well we also
hope that Mia's opportunity to dance in
high school isn't sacrificed in order
for the board to clarify this policy at
a later date she's already effectively
lost most of her freshman year sitting
on the sidelines waiting tonight he's
asking for clarity from the one district
body that can be her advocate in this
moment at this point in time thank you
for listening and for considering her I
wanted to thank you so much for hearing
my case tonight I know it'd be easy to
see this as unimportant because I'm just
one girl but this means the world to me
last time I told you about my connection
to this team the friendships
thunderation in the relationships that
I've built over the last three years and
how important they are to me I look
around this room tonight and I'm
overwhelmed by the support of my
teammates and my coach Healey thank you
all for coming I'm sorry from repeating
01h 45m 00s
myself so I just want to state three
things I think are the most important
for you to know about my case the first
is that I struggled over my decision to
attend st. Mary's over Lincoln with all
my friends I still think of Lincoln as
my school on Friday nights and my
football games like everyone else before
I chose st. Mary's I asked my parents to
make sure I could still dance for
Lincoln if I attended st. Mary's we were
told I could if I made the team since
other girls from st. Mary's have danced
for Lincoln's dance team before I never
meant to ask for special treatment in
this the second thing is that dancing is
the only sport that I participate in is
a year-long commitment that I take very
seriously I love the sport for so many
reasons
it keeps me physically
if you just discipline commitment and
how to be a good team member it helps me
learn to be a team leader last year when
I was elected as one of the team
captains I've gained so much confidence
being on this team I honestly don't know
what I honestly don't think I'd be able
to stand up and speak at something like
this if I didn't have the experience of
competing in front of large audiences
this is the only chance I have to dance
like this st. Mary's does not offer a
dance team and neither does Wilson this
is it for me if you say no to me tonight
my dance team experience is over for me
I won't get to dance on a dance team I'm
asking for your help tonight I'm asking
for you to let me continue to to pursue
the sport that I love thank you
on December 5th 2017 the board voted in
favor of hearing a step3 complaint
appeal since that date the board has
received additional written information
on the complaint tonight the board will
decide whether to deny the appeal and
uphold the superintendent's decision or
approve the appeal in favor of the
complainant I'd like to begin to open
the public hearing for the step3
complaint and ask for discussion of the
board the board will not consider
resolution five five six zero board
members when making your motion please
indicate whether the motion is to deny
or approve the step three complaint do I
have a motion in a second to deny or
proof well we need a motion that
specifies whether to well okay so a
motion to approve would uphold the
superintendent's decision a motion to
deny to approve okay
director Rosen moves and director I
suppose a brown seconds the motion to
adopt resolution number five five six
zero to approve is that what you
intended superintendents to is that what
you intended - second okay didn't seem
like it okay we can have a discussion so
we have a motion on the table to approve
the superintendent's decision I don't
think the much more than the second it
hasn't been seconded yet okay do we have
a second
I'll second director Rosen moves and
director more seconds the motion to
adopt resolution number five five six
zero to approve the superintendent's
decision on the step three complaint do
we have board discussion
okay so when I read our superintendents
analysis I agree with his analysis and
that I think the the whole boundary
decision that was made previously by a
previous board left things up in the air
and considering this in this specific
case up in the air and given that I
think you arrived at a pretty good
reading of what was going on however I
think we should step in as a board and
rectify that situation yeah I mean I
think the as I read the OSA a a policy
its that regardless of where a student
01h 50m 00s
attends school they should have the
right to participate in a sport and if
we're when we look at this case the the
question is what is the school of record
and again looking at where the previous
board left at the school of record would
be Wilson but when we think of if she
was going to attend Portland Public
Schools it would be Lincoln so really
the language the usaa language is not
school of record it is the boundary the
school attendance boundary area where
the student lives and the students
school attendance boundary area is
Wilson although you're correct that her
school she was grandfathered into
attendance at Lincoln but the length osa
a language yep thank you for that you
know thank you for that clarification
but to me the the spirit of
what I think the spirit should be of
this whole boundary change
grandfathering thing is that you know
she has their right to attend Lincoln
and we should treat it that way welcome
and again that's up to us to clarify
well I think it's a difficult decision
but I think that Mia and her family have
made a choice to attend st. Mary's and
that we should leave the opportunity
open for student who's also competing to
be on the dance team that actually lives
in the district so that's why I'm
deciding it it's a competitive sport and
if Mia gets a place on the team than
another student that attends Lincoln
doesn't
okay could we could we ask this is a
board discussion so in order for us to
have a frank and honest' exchange of
views on the board we need to be able to
hear each other yeah so could we get
clarification on that because I've read
both things and heard both things I just
clarification on what are their limited
spots on this team there's the coach
please I I don't pick a team I don't
pick a size of a team before auditions
so there's there's not a limited spot I
could take up to 50 that's a no si a
rule 50 is the cap I could take six so I
picked the team based on who's at
auditions not the based on some random
number that I that I want to fill in
particular with Mia's case last year
there were girls that kind of made a
waitlist basically and I gave them the
opportunity to take a summer and work on
things and retry out they did not do
that so Mia did not take anyone's spot
and I just want to make that extremely
clear that she is not taking a spot away
from another Lincoln student so but so
are you saying that if Mia hadn't made
the team she would have been put on the
waitlist too
in other words in last year's particular
case Mia had the skill level to make the
team those who were wait-listed
basically I said here are the things
that I need you to work on and you have
this amount of time and we'll reevaluate
at the end of the summer and when I
contacted them
they said they had decided to to not
continue and so how many students are on
the team there are 31 not including Mia
so it would be 32 and what's the largest
team how long have you been the coach
this is my third year I've been coaching
the West Sylvan dance team for 12 years
and I was on Lincoln myself and West
01h 55m 00s
Sylvan okay thank you I guess I was just
making an obvious observation about the
conundrum here is family has brought
forth a formal requests at step one and
two staff should not be in the business
of interpreting or guessing the board's
intent we should be implementing board
policy and board policy as articulated
is a big gray in this area so I would
only ask that you know as you consider
this specific case that in this topic
area or many others where grandfathering
could be an issue I would invite the
board to sort of review those if you're
going to you know if we find ourselves
having a lot of cases like these so that
staff has specific clarity about how to
manage these requests this is on us not
on staff at all I mean I guess it's
heard that reason that I feel that it
isn't clear and this grandfathering it's
just has been so difficult that and that
there's room on the team and that in
fact she's not taking anybody's place
and knowing how important sports are you
know for students and I think a
particular growth that I would be in
favor of allowing her to be on the team
I just want to say that I think that the
advice of the district athletic director
is absolutely solid in the analysis of
the OS AAA guidelines is absolutely
solid and that's what informed the
superintendent's decision to deny this
however there is definitely some gray
area here and the difference between
what was clearly referred to as her
school of record and the OS a a
definition of the boundary area in which
she currently resides is where we have
this gray area and I think that the
benefit of the doubt should go with
compassion and with the student and then
we have a policy subcommittee that can
you know easily amend these resolutions
that have to do with grandfathering and
I mean we really should just refer to
the school of record because this is an
issue sometimes as well with families
that move into a boundary area thinking
that they are going to be assigned to a
particular school because all the other
students there go to that school but
there's been a change it's made
subsequently so I mean this is an
isolated unusual incident that you were
stuck in the middle of but it's it's
there are likely to be other situations
like it that can emerge so should we
choose to accept your your complaint or
to to reject the superintendent's action
we as a board will commit to reviewing
our own policies and cleaning them up
and I think with any policy I mean we're
here for students yeah and you made the
right call
but it is a gray area now that we do
need to fix
ultimately if it's in the students best
interest and it is not keeping anybody
else that is a Lincoln student from a
spot that it's game support that and I
just like to say that I agree with
director Bailey I think you put that
very well thank you
I don't think that we should be in the
business of denying opportunity to kids
I do hear that this is an ongoing issue
particularly in the Jefferson area with
its dual enrollment and that students
are being denied the opportunity to
participate there I would hope that that
would give us some urgency in coming up
with a appropriate policy
okay I'm just gonna say couple things um
and I might be an outlier here
I haven't delved into athletics at all
until this so this is all kind of new to
me and I spent some time this afternoon
reading up on OSA rules which is like
02h 00m 00s
watching paint dry and I have a question
I I have to wonder why we allow OSA a to
mandate an independent school district
to to subsidize athletic activities of
students who are not district students
and that may be a drag and I can't slay
but I just want to put it on the record
that choices are made choices have
consequences our responsibility as a
school district is to provide as many
opportunities to our students as we
possibly can
our job is not to subsidize private
schools secondly
I think this is yet another example of
why we need to take a very serious look
at our habits of grandfathering around
boundary issues we've been doing this
off and on for as long as I've been
paying attention and from what I can see
every single time we do it it wreaks
havoc with all kinds of things that
we're trying to plan as a district and
[Music]
it seems to me that grandfathering is a
way for the school board to punt that we
don't want to make a difficult decision
and make people angry and from where I
sit which is right here part of our job
is to make difficult decisions and
grandfathering is a weaselly way to make
a decision we're making boundary changes
because we have enrollment and balances
all over this district and we all know
it and we've been talking about it for a
very long time certainly for the last
four years I've been involved in these
boundary issues for at least nine years
it's getting old especially since we
really haven't solved any of the issues
that have been identified for at least a
decade or more and when we try to do
these boundaries and then say oh but
we're not gonna actually make anybody
comply with these by with boundary
decisions for as long as they stay in a
school you know until they reach the
highest grade of a school that means
that we're making a boundary decision in
order to change to rebalance enrollment
across schools but we're not actually
going to rebalance that enrollment for
sometimes as long as nine years out that
is frankly a
Ubud way to run a school district if we
have enrollment problems we need to deal
with the enrollment problems and we need
to deal with it now not nine years from
now not that now because nine years from
now there are going to be all kinds of
other enrollment imbalances people will
have moved kids will have grown up other
kids will have been born so I'm going on
record right now that I'm going to be
proposing in the enrollment and
forecasting committee that we talk about
grant the grandfathering policy we need
to make a decision one way or the other
we're either gonna have it or we're not
if we're gonna have it then we're gonna
have to deal with these kinds of issues
over and over and over again
I don't think it's okay because I know
kids who are stuck in schools that are
so under enrolled they have they have
been cheated out of educational
opportunities for more than a decade I
don't think that's fair we have other
schools that are so vastly overcrowded
kids are sitting on the floor we need to
deal with this so I'm gonna vote to to
approve superintendent Guerrero's
decision I fully expect that I will not
prevail and that's okay with me
I would like to I would ask that the
board put a little put some bumpers on
this decision and say that this is this
is a a situation of special
circumstances and cannot be used in
02h 05m 00s
future as a precedent and that we commit
we commit as a board to making a
decision about grandfathering up or down
we either do it or we don't if we're
going to continue to do it then we need
to make provisions for these kinds of
situations
I agree with director more that we
should address in policy our
grandfathering policy and have it apply
equally across the board also for the
record with the West Side boundaries
there was no grandfather in greater than
two years so this is no nine-year
solution this is children that were
already you know focused on a pathway
that they've been headed toward for the
other five years of their education and
at the time for good or for ill we
considered it the compassionate Student
Center choice to make with regard to the
boundary of changes okay so we have a
motion on the table to approve the
superintendent's decision to uphold
superintendent's decision to deny the
complaint can we take a vote all in
favor of upholding the super was a
decision please indicate indicate by
saying yes yes all opposed no are you
trying Julie are you on the phone oh I
am I'm supportive of the
superintendent's decision thank you
okay so the motion fails by a vote of
six to two five two five five okay
nobody ever said math was my subject
five to two and Student Representative
votes no okay
so so
the students complaint is accepted and
the the board I'm gonna ask that you
actually affirmatively vote to overturn
the superintendent's occasion okay so
can somebody propose a resolution to
overturn I move that we overturn the
superintendent's recommendation to
reject this the substance of this
complaint second okay motion proposed by
director constan and seconded by
director Anthony
all in favor vote yes yes opposed no no
okay the motion carries on a vote of
five to two do with the student
representative voting yes okay so I'd
like to ask for some high kicks for our
trouble
just kidding
okay are we okay so moving on to the
next item board committee and conference
reports and the superintendent's
students are us student representative
reports since our last board meeting on
December 19th following committees have
met the Charter Committee on December
28th December 20th finance audit and
operations on January 4th policy and
governance on January 6th and
legislative and intergovernmental
committee right before this meeting
director Anthony would you like to
provide a report on the Charter
Committee I would be very happy to do
that briefly the Charter Committee has
had its initial meeting this year the
board needs to consider a five-year
contract renewal for lamang French
immersion charter school and we will be
looking at one-year contract extensions
for the Portland village school Portland
Arthur Academy the Emerson School and
opal school we will have meetings coming
up very quickly here on February 7th
February 12th and potentially on
02h 10m 00s
February 21st the board will be
considering these renewals on March 6th
and voting on March 20th we have a
fairly strict schedule imposed on us by
the state also on that since there has
been material in the press I should
mention that the board will not be
considering trillium charter school this
year they are not up for renewal we are
however offering them Tecna
cholecystokinin
trillium and when we are within the
period that the Chartered is not coming
out for review and there are significant
issues that emerge such as the loss of
leadership and a significant loss of
student population what are the
provisions to intervene or address
issues other than offer technical
assistance primarily that's all that we
are empowered to do the only trigger
that I've been told so far applies is
failure to make any of the states
treatment guidelines they have done that
two years in a row if they do it third
then it's the state's responsibility
seems like a long time yes
hasit of charter schools okay
so Julia would you like to report on the
on the policy and governance committee
so thanks 3.4 sheriff more so what are
the policies of the board is if you call
in that you shouldn't be part of the
sensitive discussion so I will leave it
to either or somebody else at the table
or I can provide a update at the next
board meeting we could do it at the next
board meeting how's that great thank you
okay
and I could do a little a brief update
on the fao Committee we met on January
4th and you kind of heard the upshot of
it when Jerry Vincent's reported on the
on the Tubman environmental analysis the
environmental studies we had a very good
very very energetic discussion about how
to approach the environmental study we
got a lot of really good information and
and we also got some information about
plans that are underway from ODOT to
expand I five in the area just outside
Tubman and we're going to be getting
more information as time goes on based
on the plans that we're aware of this
would be the the expansion would
represent a significant incursion on the
Tubman property
so this is something that we need to be
aware of we need to be tracking and we
need to be talking to state and local
policymakers about how PBS can protect
its own property rights in the face of
these plans and that's going to be a
that's going to be a work in progress
and we also got we also got a report on
the on the audit which came forward
tonight with the resolution do we have
any any other committees that have met
we had the we had the legislative
committee meeting we focused on the
short session coming up in February we
have one item that we're working with
02h 15m 00s
legislative leadership on advancing it's
a technical fist fix that has to do with
the mechanism for the collection of
Local Option revenue we're hopeful that
we can address this in statute easily
we're also working with our partners at
OSP a cosa these those issues as well
had an update on the legal teams work on
our sexual harassment policy our title 9
policy as well and those will hopefully
be coming back to this committee in
February for review of the draft that we
can advance just as quickly as humanly
possible
back to the board for adoption is
something we've been working on for a
long time it has not stalled but we're
looking forward to getting that
enshrined in policy it's really
important work Thank You Liz large or
General Council we also
had brief conversation about just our
work plan for this committee and the
items that we have before us in the next
you know four to six months couple of
which I mentioned and then really
focusing in the latter part of the year
on proactively developing a legislative
agenda for the 2019 session so is there
anything you would like to add to any of
that just the other issues that we're
looking at and working on are improving
our intergovernmental coordination with
the city and the county and mes D on all
of the joint services we provide to
figure out how we can align better and
improve our services to kids by having
stronger working relationships a
slightly different subject but since I
started out by talking about the
mindfulness program at Marysville which
is absolutely wonderful I wanted to come
back to the subject at the end and why
it's so important you may recall that
two months ago we had the OSB a
convention and I talked briefly about a
presentation that lines for life our
local suicide prevention hotline gave
which was also excellent but they talked
about a particular book they encouraged
people to read it's by the substance
abuse and mental health services
administration which is part of the
Department of Human Services and it's on
suicide prevention in high schools I got
it I've read it 208 pages very
comprehensive very authoritative and
very very practical I think it would be
excellent if our senior administration
our directors our principals our
counselors and our school psych Council
would take a look at this and it is free
if you go to samhsa.gov and give them
your name and address they'll send it to
you that's fantastic and lines for life
some of you have heard me say this
before but as an update nine years ago
they started a youth suicide prevention
hotline nine years ago they took 500
calls 2016
they took over 10,000 last year they
broke 14,000 I have got a MBA and a
whole lot of experience with finance and
I can use that very expensive
fancy-pants education to tell you that's
a really big number for those of you who
are still lucky enough to have your hair
it should be on fire thank you
any other board members this enrollment
and casting will be meeting next Tuesday
and apparently again we're gonna talk
about grandfathering okay
among other things student
representative Tran do you have a report
next okay and teaching and learning I
had the flu it's postponed until the
seventeenth
02h 20m 00s
FAO will be meeting on the sixtieth HSAs
meeting tomorrow morning um okay so if I
if I've been keeping track I think we
have finished all our business correct
okay is there any other business that a
board member would like to discuss
before we adjourn okay I think we're
done we are adjourned thank you wait
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)
