2018-03-23 PPS School Board Special Meeting
| District | Portland Public Schools |
|---|---|
| Date | 2018-03-23 |
| Time | missing |
| Venue | missing |
| Meeting Type | special |
| Directors Present | missing |
Documents / Media
Notices/Agendas
03-23-18 Special Meeting Notice (1162db350d54052b).pdf Public Notice
Materials
None
Minutes
Transcripts
Event 1: PPS Board of Education-Special Meeting March 23, 2018
00h 00m 00s
you guys already
a special session of the Board of
Education for March 23rd 2018 is called
to order welcome to everyone present and
to our television viewers this meeting
is being televised live and will be
replayed throughout the next two weeks
please check the board website for
replay times this meeting is also being
streamed live on our PBS TV Services
website so this afternoon we have a
special session for a special meeting of
the board to consider resolution 5 6 to
1 I'd like a motion to put this on the
table so moved second it's been moved by
director as far as a brown and seconded
by director Anthony miss Hewson is there
any comment public comment ok so before
we have a board discussion I'm just
going to provide some historical context
for this contract amendment and first I
want to say that we're missing two board
members who are who are out of town I
believe and the meeting was called was
short notice but given that spring break
is right around the corner we wanted to
take action before the start of spring
break and many people in school Damini
are gone so to provide some historical
background the previous board the
2016-17 board had asked the district
leadership to review the Whitehurst
matter the review didn't happen in the
summer and fall of 2017 a new board and
superintendent were in place and new
information about Mitch Whitehurst who
was a district employee was reported the
new board identified and interviewed a
potential team of experienced
experienced legal team to undertake an
independent investigation of the
Whitehurst matter on September 19th the
board met in a special meeting to
Commission the independent investigation
at the time the scope was comprehensive
we not only wanted to understand what
happened over a lengthy period of time
and the district's response or lack of
it but we also want to
asked for recommendations for how we
could better protect our students what
policies practices trainings and
procedures needed to be assessed changed
or revised so we had a pretty at the
time a pretty extensive set of scoping
questions for the investigation that we
sent to the investigation team I'm gonna
ask director as far as a brown to review
those and then we'll also talk about a
subsequent subsequent reeve referral we
made okay so those are what notice if
possible concerns about mr. Whitehurst
did the district receive who received
those notices from whom did they receive
them and when did they receive them what
response did the district make to each
notice that received and what was the
timeline for that response was each of
those responses adequate and if not why
not what policies directives and
procedures were in place at that time
that would have been political to the
complaints or concerns that were raised
were there system failures and our
employee performance failures and if so
what were those failures were there
performance failures by external agents
are representative of Portland Public
Schools did any PPS employee or
employees failed to comply with
mandatory reporting requirements or
violate any policies laws or ethics
rules if so who and when were there any
consequences for those failures did any
of those failures have licensure
implications is there evidence that any
person or group of people protected by a
protected mr. Whitehurst who initiated
and approved mr. Whitehurst's transfers
is there any indication that district
personnel used transfers as a way to
avoid taking disciplinary action was
there any follow-up by the
administration following statement of
Rory Thompson matter as directed by the
board and if not why not
what complaint and investigation
procedures should the district adopt to
sure that complaints regarding personnel
and agents working on behalf of PPS are
received and acted upon promptly and
appropriately did the district's
record-keeping or other procedures allow
for consideration of all prior
complaints related to employee
00h 05m 00s
misconduct involving students such as
such that the district can identify any
patterns of related issues if not what
should be done to change that are there
provisions in the union contract that
impact the district's ability to
adequately address complaints do PPS
employees receive adequate training and
recognize the impossible predatory
behavior and how to respond
appropriately
are there other complaints about sexual
misconduct by other employees or agents
of the district that have not been
adequately addressed Thank You director
Esparza Brown I think just listening to
that list again it was based on it was
formulated based on our sort of our what
we knew at that at the time and we also
discussed at the time that the approved
contract might need to be adjusted we
there was a question about if in the
course of their investigation if
something else came up or some serious
allegation was made whether we wanted
them to pursue it or put it aside and I
think we not think we told them that we
wanted them if it was something serious
incredible that we would want them to
sort of chase it down and see if it
warranted further review we did say that
we wanted them to if they thought it
wasn't credible or serious not to pursue
it but not to ignore you know potential
new things that got raised during the
investigation
one thing that was on that list if I can
just was that
we said are there other complaints about
sexual misconduct by other employees or
agents of the district they have not
been adequately addressed so in February
on February 2nd we board leadership
director Esparza Braun and director
Moore and myself sent a referral to the
investigative team and I'm just gonna
read a portion of it as you were
overseeing the Whitehurst investigation
and analysis support and Public Schools
practices concerning handling of
allegations of employee sexual
misconduct we'd like the investigation
to be informed by the district's
response to allegations raised about
inappropriate conduct a former PBS
teacher norm Scott including the
agreements entered into between the
district and Scott and the employment
references provided by PBS to other
districts upon review of the district's
practices and actions we have concerns
with how Scott's employment termination
was handled we instruct the PPS interim
general counsel to provide all relevant
documents and information to you in the
district's possession so that
conversation did happen between the
interim general counsel and we've
provide documents to them as well so we
provided an additional referral as part
of the original investigation so at the
let's skipped one thing but so the
December 19th board meeting we did
approve a contract extension based on
the work that they done to date and then
we had the February 2nd referral as well
so the team has continued their
interviews and the leads that have come
in from the community we do expect the
report to they're closing in on sort of
I think the last the last laps but of
course of the finishing the
investigation they have bumped up to
against the contract the last contract
extension that we provided them so we're
here today to consider a contracting
exempt extension amendment and I'm going
to ask our interim general counsel to
describe what the amendment is and also
provide
their rationale or what they've conveyed
is their rationale for the need for a
further extension happy to do that the
the proposed amendment is for an
additional $50,000 on the contract in a
in a flat fee for full completion of the
process which is completion of the
interviews the drafting and delivery of
the report consultation with the board
and all of the sundry follow-up pieces
that may happen as those as those
investigations are wrapped up I think
there's still quite a bit of work left
they've also reported that in the fairly
broad scope of work that was assigned to
them the number of interviews the number
of documents the number of locations of
00h 10m 00s
documents the age and different media in
which the documents are in I think at
every turn this has been more complex
than was anticipated both in terms of
volume and in some cases difficulty
certainly there's also I think the
public records overlay there are the
numerous public records requests and if
documents have been unearthed there has
been additional work and coordinating
the processing of those new documents
that other witnesses may have had that
the district didn't have but now the
district has so there's additional work
on that front
certainly the norm Scott work was
incremental but not insignificant that
was the referral the board made which I
think was the right thing to do and had
come up also somewhat organically in
there their process but that was
additional work that was not originally
contemplated or contemplated at this the
first amendment so I think that gives
you a flavor of of the work it will be
my understanding is it's anticipated to
be a lengthy and as you would expect for
this investigation and what you've asked
them to do a very comprehensive report
my impression is it has been approached
at all times with much seriousness
and professionalism its but it's been a
big job questions from board members so
I just want to clarify um this is a
substantial amount of money it isn't and
so do we have assurances that with this
additional $50,000 amendment we will we
will get a all of the work completed and
and delivered to us on time and those
those are the the terms under which the
amendment is being entered into okay any
other questions any comments I guess I
just just for the record when we get the
report it will be we'll get a chance to
look at it and it will become public
information and I I think it's important
to remind everybody that this was a
really egregious episode of abuse of
students allegedly that that represented
a really significant lapse of safety
measures within PPS and warranted this
kind of really thorough and
comprehensive investigation so it's a
lot of money but we need to make sure
that this kind of thing never ever
happens again and hopefully with this
report we're going to get
recommendations that will allow us to to
reform or create systems that are going
to protect student safety
director Moore that's a excellent point
because I think it would be simplistic
to look at this as we're looking at what
happened with this one individual I
think the real value so of course we're
interested in what happened and why and
who I think the real value of this is
what do we what needs to be changed in
PBS so that this doesn't happen again
and that you know our fundamental job
the superintendent the district staff
the board is to make sure that everybody
every parent who sends their child to
school every day knows that they'll be
safe and protected so really that it's
if we think about it like that's a lot
of money to spend for an investigation
on one person let's now more than that
but really it's to inform us going
forward in the future not just what
happened with one person those mandatory
training on mandatory reporting for
educational professionals with licenses
they you have to review that training
yearly and I think making sure that all
our employees understand that we take
that seriously that there there are no
reasons not to follow the process it's
so again that we ensure that nothing
00h 15m 00s
like this happens again there's no room
for error here
any closing thoughts it's larger
superintendant Guerrero okay
the board will now vote on resolution
five six two one all in favor please
indicate by saying yes yes all opposed
please indicate by saying no are there
any abstentions resolution five six two
one is approved by a five to zero vote
will be a journey to the next regular
meeting of the board which will be held
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)
