2018-05-01 PPS School Board Public Hearing
District | Portland Public Schools |
---|---|
Date | 2018-05-01 |
Time | missing |
Venue | missing |
Meeting Type | town-hall |
Directors Present | missing |
Documents / Media
Notices/Agendas
Materials
Minutes
05-01-18 Budget PH Minutes (5da28a990c0c8bbe).pdf Informal Minutes
Transcripts
Event 1: 2017-2018 Budget Public Hearing - May 1, 2018
00h 00m 00s
we're gonna go ahead and get started I
know director Bailey's in the building
and they'll be here shortly
I'd like to call the public hearing for
May 1st 2018 to order and convene the
board as the budget committee thank you
all for being here the board is set
aside this evening to hear comments on
the superintendent's proposed 2018-2019
budget we currently have I think 10
people signed up to testify and I think
we had originally said two minutes for
testimony if we stay at ten or even go a
little bit above that we'll go ahead and
go to if you want to go to three that's
fine we were just anticipating a longer
list so we can provide some flexibility
the board acting is about it Budget
Committee will take everything into
consideration before approving the
budget which our vote on to approve the
budget is scheduled for June 12th we'll
also have a budget listening session on
May 15th I am the time and location will
be determined it'll be posted on the PBS
website childcare is available this
evening and we also have interpreters
with us tonight I'd like to ask them to
come forward introduce themselves and
indicate where they'll be located in the
room
Tim knows about that Jana is solution
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Provost irani Boompa market the proposal
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favor levanta la mano y mo percent our
circle of days gracias
watching mom was it so soon when finally
Johnny upon me watching man was over two
men Tanika you wanna see you learn how
upon me like a puppet good evening my
name is da da am badami translator for
tonight Tsingtao no kuvakin Gupta of a
normal teen vegetable I'm captain al
quie of home come on thank you and have
public comment tonight and have our
public hearing I'm going to ask Ryan
Dutch you're the interim budget manager
to provide some background on the
proposed twenty eighteen and nineteen
budget and I'll note that the finance
odd audit an operation committee has had
discussions about this year's budget
we've also had extensive discussions in
the last couple months about staffing
that's included in the budget and we
just came out of a to our work session
on the budget and we'll have this as an
agenda item for the next several
meetings
so with that mr. doctor if you want to
provide an overview my name is Ryan
d'etre with me tonight I have Molly
Bradley who's been helping out with the
budget process as well so really what we
had plans will go through the same
message it was delivered to the board
just to give people people that are
interested to give them some context and
however think about the budget this year
okay so the most of this focus is on our
00h 05m 00s
general fund our general fund is our
largest fund by far and the fund that
funds most of our teachers most of our
personnel and operating expenses so most
of the discussion tonight is on the
general fund it's
a little bit less than half of our total
spending at PBS though generally
speaking what you're gonna see tonight
is how we balanced the budget so just
for context were the second year the
biennium for next year the organ
department of education appropriated 8.2
billion for the biennium and that was
split about 50/50 to 20 years that there
was a quality education model that was
developed a few years ago and the
estimate was that that's about two
billion dollars short relative to what
the state needs for k-12 education and
if we were to convert that into what
that would mean for PBS that's about 180
million dollars over two years so about
ninety million dollars a year is what
would be short from delivering that full
education model that would go to give us
a full level of services for our
students in that context we've worked
hard to prioritize staffing and services
that we believe will have the most
impact on our students and you should
see that reflected in the presentation
tonight and largely to balance the
budget really what we've done is we've
had increases not surprisingly for our
personnel expenses and our health care
expenses and we've made those made that
balance through largely reducing our
central office and then also squeezing
our budget reserve to a lower to a level
that's lower than what would be
optimally ideal for a district of this
size so just really quickly to give you
some context our general fund overview
you can see what our budget was last
year and I'll talk about the total
resources here it's gonna go from six
hundred seventeen million to we're
estimating about six hundred fifty
million because we have a balanced
budget you can see the requirements will
increase by that same amount and our
expenses then will increase serving
about five ninety seven and last year's
budget to about six hundred twenty seven
in this year's budget okay largely
what's driving the resource increases
you can see here our state school fund
is expect to increase a little bit this
is largely based on a little bit of an
enrollment increase over last year our
gap tax our local option tax these are
all tax revenues that are
relative to our local tax base and not
surprisingly that is appreciating so we
expect some increases there also call
out our high cost disability is also
increasing we had been under estimating
that in previous years so that's a more
accurate reflection of what it should be
other one is our investment earnings we
with a recent addition of a treasury
manager we put those dollars to work
we're seeing returns better than what
the district had seen in the past so
this district or this budget reflects
those investment earnings increases
you'll also see our ending fund balance
which is reflection of our spending this
current year we expect that our ending
fund balance will also deliver an
increase as well so the upshot of this
of this page is that we expect resources
will be about 33 million dollars higher
over last year's budget in the interest
of time I won't go through this in a lot
of detail this is an estimate of how we
expect to end the current year so 2017
18 and what we had budgeted for an
ending fund balance about 20 million and
then some ins and outs and how we expect
that amount to increase as we look
forward to the end of this year so this
is the end of June of 2018 and then our
expenditures are following that same
trajectory so you can see our school
site budget increasing pretty
substantially here over the last three
years our central office our central
office includes what we're calling the
centrally administered school resources
so these are resources are allocated
directly to schools special education
ESL transportation but are actually
budget in our central office makes that
number look quite large and then you can
see our budget reserve increasing by
about about five million dollars there
so before we go into spending in more
more detail and we are moving pretty
quickly here because I want to make sure
we can get to the to the public's
comments I'm gonna turn over to Molly
and she can talk about the about the
spending
so when we did the budget this year we
had a set of investment priorities
number one was in the schools we want to
make sure the schools were staffed
appropriately and that we had the
professional development for those
teachers we also are rolling out what we
call the equity to dotto which is really
about creating a community a culturally
responsive community partnerships so I'm
going out in the community and ensuring
that we are doing our doing our part
00h 10m 00s
bringing those those underserved or
other people into the fold of the
education system and of course planning
for the future because we all have to
look beyond just today we have to see
what's going on next year and the
following year so the school site
budgets this is just a quick graph to
show that over time we've have invested
more and more into school sites and
these dollars represent the faculty that
is in this actual schools not what we
carry in the central office as you can
see that the wage costs have gone up
along with the French Health and Welfare
etc feel free to ask any questions I
know I'm going kind of quickly I'm gonna
skip over this chart this is the
leadership organization chart that was
proposed at 4:23 the last week's meeting
I just shows how this all right so one
thing I really want to focus on and I
think it's great to bring to people
highlighting is the central office is
how the spend is kind of bifurcated
between what we call the central of
administered school resources and what's
the central office portion so when you
look at that huge number we just want to
bring to light that in that is the cost
is bused children to school back and for
the special education needs substitutes
there's a lot of different costs from
there this is not a holistic list and we
didn't we just pulled out the big
buckets so even though what we still say
it is still central office can be parsed
even further to say it's cost to support
the school that children in the schools
and then this is a breakdown by the
different teams and so again you can see
of the different teams who is considered
central middle administered school
resources how much is central and some
of it may be look a little bit this
evening but Human Resources has a huge
piece that's considered central
administered school resources this
causers the substitute spend we put it
under the HR umbrella so that they could
sort of spend can be understood and
we're making sure we're leveraging that
substitute spend as as well as possible
one of the pieces also that we have from
your two years are pers rate we just
wanted to call this out that it's flat
for last year and this year and then
with the changes in in the future years
we're gonna see about a triple of cost
increase which is something that we have
to look forward to in the future we are
planning to offset part of that by a
credit that we have sitting in another
fund to help reduce the impact in the
bank twenty nineteen twenty twenty
twenty year however it is still ahead
win that we're gonna have to face
looking forward so where as a team we're
very aware of we're not only looking at
this year but we're trying to look
forward also to understand what the
implications are
following this is our top 10 contracts
vendors again this just to speak out
this is money that we have currently in
the budget it does not commit us to
anything we're still evaluating these
vendors to ensure that the spend is what
we it's the amount of spend we're
spending the dollars right and getting
the right benefits from them but we just
wanted to give everyone an idea of when
you look at the dollars where some of
these dollars are going and Ryan touched
about the budgeted reserve which is are
the dollars that you know we have we set
aside the pool of money one portion for
school sites when portion for central
office and went portion for the budgeted
reserve and this dollars over time needs
to climb to equal five percent of our
overall general fund and so this year
we're making some strides to get closer
to that but in the out years again this
is going to be a piece of spend that is
gonna take a piece of that pie so just
again want to be aware of that
so as we put the budget together there
were some investments that came through
that we just want to be clear and
transparent that are included in the
numbers that we have proposed and
there's quite a few items here we have
high level estimates we would need to do
more due diligence to understand the
expects spend around them but it's again
a spirit of transparency to let people
know that these costs are still these
are still outstanding items when we talk
about the next year's project and like
any other thing a budget is not a
perfect item there are some risks to the
budget that we know of and we want to
call out we're still building out the
middle school with those transition
costs are going to be actual salaries
for hire for new teachers we do an
average when we look at the vacancies so
if the actuals come in higher that could
be a risk the Health and Welfare Trust
Board concerning the actual health and
welfare costs that will set for 2017
2018 2019 could impact our budget also
and of course with with the risks comes
we have to look for opportunities and
00h 15m 00s
what we can do so some of the pieces
that we know that we can look at and
possibly leverage is how do we reduce
reliance reliance on substitutes
evaluate a comprehensive transportation
plan what does that mean are we getting
the best bang for a buck reduce our
workers comp rate currently we have a
small surplus and that is to ensure that
we're aligned so we're not charging
ourselves too much we need to analyze
the likely pressure or changes from
federal grants so that we don't get
caught flat-footed in the future about
any changes coming down the pike for
that and then of course there's always
various processes data it's just
improvements that we can leverage that
will help again free up funds in the
future to support education ok so as we
think forward obviously this is for the
2018-19 budget we did want to look at
some of the pieces are coming down to
coming down the wire that we need to be
prepared for and as we look to the
future we've a couple things that we
think are gonna provide some financial
relief new biennium and the expectation
of funding levels will be higher at this
point it's really early so really hard
to tell exactly how the state's gonna
appropriate k-12 education funding 9
billion would represent about a 10
percent increase and then from
enrollment point of view we're expecting
just about flat as it has been for for
this current year was pretty close to
flat so we expect the same thing on the
pressure side there are a few pieces
that we that we know of today and if we
could make this list quite a bit longer
if we wanted to be more speculative but
we are pretty certain we'll have a purse
cost increase that could be about three
times and this will be experienced
across the state PPS is in far better
shape than most agencies of the same
size because of our other investments
but we will see an increase our Health
and Welfare cost will increase as well
and then the board has a goal of
increasing the budget reserves and I was
the chart that Molly referenced by 2021
and putting us on that track will
obviously take take cash out of the
budget it's the right thing to do from a
financial planning point of view but it
it were just expending in the short-term
so we did a quick revenue outlook rolled
this roll our revenue out over the next
couple of years 19 20 and 2021 under a
couple different scenarios one with a
baseline I'll kind of I'll focus on the
2021 number here at 681 million and then
if we have a moderate recession at 659
and then a more severe recession that
gets us down to 633 and we have a list
of assumptions behind that to understand
what might drive those and
the large kind of not surprising pieces
or how the state appropriates dollars to
k12 our property tax growth within the
district and then the assessed value
growth as well so the main there are
other pieces in here but those are the
main drivers and then if we were just to
compare the different revenue forecasts
from what we've identified as spending
pressures just gives us an idea of you
know some I won't go into a lot of
details here but just some some red
numbers if if you just take those
scenarios today and and we weren't to
manage them actively give you some red
numbers we need to be need to be aware
of so I think it just it's uh I think it
just a message for us to make sure that
we're really planning not just for the
next sixteen months but we're planning
for the next two or three years in
advance as well because if we not just
for PBS but it'll be difficult really
across the state okay and then just
really quickly just to give people an
idea on expectations for the future just
some key dates here for the budget
process the board will schedule to
approve the budget on June 12th and then
to adopt the budget on June 26th this
amount of time here between the proposed
budget and approve is largely to gather
input from numerous stakeholders okay
all right thanks very much one quick
question yeah so how severe is a severe
risk River recession like a 2008 or sort
was sort of close to that bad but not
really that bad actually yeah it'd be
close to that bad I'm doing sums from
memory close to that bad but not that
bad actually okay yeah so this is the of
our budget hearing which will hear
public comment we won't be making any
decisions tonight
but the public comment we hear this
evening should inform the board's
thinking about the budget and as I said
we have some follow-up meetings where
00h 20m 00s
there'll be additional opportunities for
comment also at our when we approve the
budget there'll be an opportunity there
as well so mrs. Hewson but let's say
before we start public comment I'm just
gonna provide an overview of our
guidelines we appreciate the public
engaging in our hearing tonight and we
value a public input as it informs our
work the board's job is to actively
listen board members and the
superintendent will not respond to
comments or questions during the public
comment guidelines for public comments
or public input
emphasize respect and consideration for
others presenters will have a total as I
said earlier tonight I think given how
many people we've have signed up you can
have three minutes
please start by stating your name
spelling your last name for the record
during the first two minutes the
testimony a green light will appear when
you have one minute remaining I'll you
get yellow light will go on and when the
red light goes on we'd ask you to wrap
up and since it's a little bit different
than a regular board meeting and we
don't have a limit on the slots please
please please feel free to sign up with
Miss Hewson during - during the board
meeting if you want to speak so with
that Miss Hewson do you want to call the
first two individuals signed up
for Samuels and Christy scatter Ella
tonight I'm Jennifer Samuels s am you
Els and I'm here to speak tonight on
behalf of the Portland Public Schools k3
read together initiative since the fall
of 2014 the PBS k3 read together
initiative has brought together the
district six nonprofit and community
partners including children's book Bank
Multnomah County library reading results
BPI the shadow project and smart and
five priority and focus schools to work
together to make improvements toward
third-grade reading outcomes for a PPS K
through third graders ultimately making
improvements toward high school
graduation rate the group of partners
provide a coordinated suite of
cost-effective wraparound services
designed to support each school in
building a culture of literacy the
services we provide are aligned with
PBS's equity based balanced literacy
initiative they support PBS's literacy
goals and racial equity goals and aim to
empower students to read in school after
school and at home
we also aligned with the equity 2.0
initiative bringing cultural responsive
services and student specific services
to historically underserved students at
the school's we serve in 2016 PPS is
data and evaluation team concluded that
the students served at the read together
schools made gains in reading at
statistically significant higher rates
as compared to students at similar
schools the read together initiative is
among the painful cuts slated for next
year annually the read together
initiative costs PPS a little less than
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
and the partners use that to leverage
another three hundred and thirty
thousand dollars back into the schools
and outside of the project the group of
partners bring nearly another million
dollars in services direct services
volunteerism and learning materials
directly into the school's we serve our
principal newsom at our partner school
Rosa Parks shared that losing the read
together initiative will be devastating
to her students and her school community
so a few words about who benefits from
maintaining the read together initiative
a hundred and thirty three first second
and third graders participate in more
than 6,000
30 minute reading intervention sessions
164 early grade students participate in
3,500 30-minute sessions reading with
adults 85 special ed identified students
have hours of one-on-one and small group
support and goal-setting over 2,000
students get to keep and bring home over
21,000 books including over 400
culturally specific titles and 500
parents have eleven black biracial
cultural literacy nights workshops and
fairs thank you for your time and I
request you consider reinstating their
read together initiative thank you for
your comments I'm Kristy scatter Ella
and that's SCA TTA ar e ll a long butt
phonetic first I want to thank you for
championing the read together initiative
last year and for your commitment to the
idea that when schools and families and
culturally responsive community-based
organizations come together we can
accomplish great things for our kids
because as we all know these kids are
not just the school's responsibility
these children are the communities
00h 25m 00s
they're everybody's responsibility and
that's why Portland Public Schools came
to us some years ago as part of a
long-range plan with the idea of
supporting schools in building and
strengthening a culture of literacy at
five Heinie's schools the partners
jumped in and we spent over a year
volunteering our time to create a very
specific and detailed action plan and a
strong coalition well thanks to you
we've had a fourth year and we and the
schools I know are very grateful for
that as well we appreciate how you put
our trust in our ability to follow
through and to really help move the dial
for our underserved populations I want
you to know that we take that commitment
very seriously so independently we
produced
I know it's kind of long but we produced
a report that details the activities the
outputs and the outcomes that have
resulted from this project in the last
year the red together partners are also
members of their founding members of a
coalition that has been advocating with
state leaders to really advocate for our
children and for the community-based
organizations that can really support
schools and we've had a lot of meetings
where we're hearing a lot of interest
actually just and read together as a
demonstration project the state has
expressed some interest in how we can
take we can continue to fund programs
like this how we concede future
partnerships and how we can have
partnerships like this work throughout
the state of Oregon and finally I just
would like to share with you a couple of
things that you made happen this past
year but you're not going to find in the
report one of them is the look of pride
on a child's face and I should say child
after child after child when he reads
his he's been struggling with a reading
and all of a sudden he's not just
reading a whole grade level but he has
increased an entire intervention level
in less than a year and the way a little
girl is finally for the first time being
transported into a culture of literacy
and literature because when she's
opening books now more and more she's
seen characters who look just like her
and for our special education students
who I have to tell you a lot of them
don't really see you so it's just like
one last thought and wrap up okay thank
you and I just want you to know that
these kids have now three of the five
schools these children participated in a
national reading contest using assistive
technology and they placed as high in
the top seven
percentile in the country so thank you
let's do it together
let's keep read together going Thanks
next we have Sarah Van Buskirk and Brian
Conley
hi I'm Sarah Van Buskirk it's VA n bu s
ki RK I'm a mother of five PBS students
including a current 7th grader and an
incoming sixth grader at da Vinci arts
middle school
I'm also Co PTSA president of da Vinci
I'm here today to advocate for PBS to
utilize decision making and
communication protocols with greater
transparency equity efficiency and the
inclusion of feedback from all
stakeholders this is particularly
relevant in light of the revelation of
this significant under budgeting of the
recent bond measure by 89 million so far
it seems clear that taxpayers are
funding this measure based on faulty
information another pertinent example of
the damage done by insufficient public
communication is the important effort to
find a new home for access which
continues to be in limbo which is caused
significant undue negative impact to all
involved the da vinci community fully
aligns itself with accesses demand for
an appropriate home for their students
not just at the expense just not at the
expense of da vinci which already runs
at capacity and does not have adequate
00h 30m 00s
available space to make this a feasible
reality we cannot understand why the
feedback of impacted school communities
is not solicited during this
decision-making process and instead
communities continue to be blindsided
with final plans for changes they have
no voice in shaping this lack of
communication or and respectful
inclusion breeds mistrust confusion and
as the press has documented a series of
rightfully panicked and enraged school
communities which all deserve a safe
suitable facility in which to thrive
just as access also deserves here's a
specific example of the lack of positive
consensus building communication last
Friday da Vinci families received an
email from Deputy Superintendent Curtis
on the possibility of Co housing access
at da Vinci the letter stated we ask
that everyone keep an open mind as we
explore a variety of possibilities
followed by once a decision is final we
will work with principals to schedule
meetings for newly co-located school
to meet each other and ask questions of
district officials
how can a school community be told to
have an open mind about their program
being altered without inviting welcoming
and listening to the feedback of those
communities the suggestion is that we
sit tight and keep quiet
while the final decision is bestowed on
us and that only at that point should
our questions and concerns be answered
after a few days of advocacy by many
davinci families it is clear that our
program won't be as significantly
altered as many feared however we're
still awaiting any more information
about how co-locating with access might
even work or even if that is a
possibility if that possibility is still
on the table
it's discouraging a deeply upsetting
that we were all kept in the dark as the
process was unfolding and that we
continue to be excluded from the process
thank you thank you hi my name is Brian
Conley that's Bri aan Co n lui I told
Karen that I wanted to I had a question
to clarify about busing costs because at
the time I had been told that the board
did not want to hear from access parents
because the access is not included
anywhere in the superintendent's budget
that's disturbing because that's exactly
why all of these people are here the
budgets not itemized we haven't seen an
itemized budget despite the same
presentation being given a week ago so
we don't know currently access students
we have a hundred between 161 and 215
students using buses we have eight buses
the bus need is likely to double when
you put us at two sites
mr. Vincent said that you would need to
double the transportation cost at 1.4
million I'm not sure where that's in the
budget you might be inclined to tell me
that 70% of transportation cost comes
from the state that's great but back in
February mr. Mundson told you the total
cost for facilities construction was at
35 million dollars yet PPS only budgeted
16.8
not upgrading sites for pioneer students
keeping them where they are and cutting
the $3,000,000 others only save seven
million dollars you're still quite over
dr. curtis has told axis families in
writing that our current level of
service will remain and I want to
believe her but I don't know how without
evidence I hear great things from the
district new district staff you know to
be frank like superintendent the
communication staff the new deputy
superintendent we we like what we hear
but what we see is the district moves
forward with plans that reduces options
for our children every student at access
all 326 have been told by PBS that their
needs can't be met anywhere else these
same students have heard our
superintendent say he believes in equity
and is the chief equity officer yet our
students continue to be picked last our
students were you know continue to be
told we have to wait space is tight we
know space is tight
our you know it's it's our children are
picked last many of them were picked
last before they came to access their
nerds their smart kids a lot of them we
know what that's like we deserve a spot
on the PBS team if you if you truly
value our kids if you believe in equity
it's time to show some courage and make
some enemies in the name of educational
justice history's not going to remember
you because you balance the budget
they're gonna remember you because you
showed leadership and explains the rest
of the district that our our chil name
needs and meeting their needs is the
right thing to do
00h 35m 00s
please don't pounce your budget at the
expense of our children and let us know
how you're gonna make up the difference
because you've already said that that
money is it's more than what was
budgeted and you've already promised to
keep our services that they are thank
you
[Applause]
so I just want to briefly address a
comment you raised there was a
miscommunication between myself and miss
Houston about the hearing tonight and
the public comment and the question was
was the hearing about da Vinci or about
access I said the hearing was about the
budget and that got translated into
people couldn't testify and that was a
miscommunication so I apologized that
was what was communicated to certainly
access da Vinci all our other schools
are in the budget it's so it was a
miscommunication so I apologize that it
got then translated into something else
sorry
[Applause]
I'm Judy Burke but I'm not feeling great
and so I've asked Cody to pinch-hit for
me
I'm Cody weathers see ody WEA th er s
echoing much of what Brian said with a
split a likely possibility the students
have access to serve a commitment in
this budget to preserve certain services
at both sites above and beyond what may
have been anticipated in the current
fiscal year these include but are not
limited to FTE and supportive walk to
math for elementary school students
requiring middle school math and also
middle school requiring high school math
transportation from all corners of pdx
special ed technology and language
you've asked for our patients and you've
asked for our faith and trust and we in
return ask that you champion this
program and commit to making it stronger
even as it wanders thank you thank you
I'm grace crumb gr oom since it's a
budget hearing I brought some numbers
sixty-one percent at beach
67% at bridger 72% at James John 75% at
Scott 81 percent at Martin Luther King
jr. 84 percent at Lent 85 percent at
Sitton 87 percent at Cesar Chavez those
are their percentages of the
historically underserved students and I
would are you currently underserved
students at those school buildings that
are isolated in single strand programs
without a focus option review or a
district-wide boundary of you budgeted
in the next budget those numbers those
students behind the numbers will
continue to be isolated and separated
and not allowed educational justice
access also needs a home
it needs a home in a climate in a budget
time where we don't have a lot of money
to spare it needs if it's gonna be split
it's gonna be more costly it needs a
home in locations that are close
together we don't have extra money to
spend on extra staffing when these
students don't have their core
requirements met at those schools it's
irresponsible to put off focus option
review any longer it's irresponsible to
put off district-wide with boundary of
you any longer we saw that pers cost is
going up quite a bit if we put it off
it's not going to happen again for
another five ten however many years I
know you guys care about our kids and I
know that our superintendent cares about
the education of our kids and we won't
be able to provide what all these
students deserve and need which is
educational justice without those two
pieces added into the budget focus
option review and boundary of you we
don't have to start from scratch we all
know we've got a lot of data already
collected we have a lot of people
willing to do the work we just got to
put it in the budget thank you thank you
[Applause]
00h 40m 00s
my name's Jian Peterson pers Oh n I'm in
my 12th year as an access parent I have
three more to go we're now in May and
our 338 I think that's the right number
children still have no home for next
year
it seems clear that it is the plan to
divide access between two sites we've
been assured by deputies Deputy
Superintendent Curtis that any split for
access will maintain the same level of
services and it will be temporary how
are we to believe those assurances
aren't merely empty promises where is
the evidence that PPS has done the work
to ensure that those promises become
reality we're in the budget are the
costs for moving access to two sites two
sites would mean not only additional
costs in the actual move but additional
and ongoing costs to duplicate the
services that are received by access
students now sped and 504 Services
counseling professional development for
the new staff and how to work with our
population those are all additional
costs our students need real electives
they need programmatic integrity in
maintaining our current walk to math
program where are these costs in the
budget
additionally maintaining the same level
of services also means supporting
accesses cohort community of learners
where is the budget for preserving our
else all school activities like spelling
bee and talent show and after-school
game Club in which students mix across
grades all these costs are not one-time
expenditures but continue for the
duration of a split the farther apart
any two sites are the greater the costs
where is the budget for ending a split
and reuniting the program where is the
budget for planning for completing a
real thorough dated driven focus option
and boundary review without this the
promise that any split will be temporary
is also doomed to be an empty one why is
this high-need population these 338
children with no home next year why are
they taking the hit for PBS is lack of
forethought and planning
and its failure to live up to its own
priorities why in this budget
environment are you making the one
program that works to serve highly
capable students more expensive access
needs a home
don't split the atoms my name is Steve
Buell be UEL be ism boy
the in the last two years Portland
Public Schools has moved to stabilize
their libraries and when I look at the
budget and when I call person after
person nobody can tell me for any money
as for the libraries for books and
materials nobody they don't have any
idea we're getting pretty late down in
the budget session they've already begun
to tack on libraries which starts
sometimes with people on this school
board but that attack on libraries to
begin with we've supposedly as I
understand it taking thirteen full-time
librarians and cut them to half time but
we're adding in the schools be
interesting and know who's more critical
out in our schools
other than core teachers than librarians
and libraries where is the money the
last two years we've spent about two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars on
library books and materials it's an
incredible inequitable system for years
and years and years ever since 1990 in
credit you got library books if you were
in a nice neighborhood with a lot of
people who would go to your little
fundraisers and they would then get
library books in your school but if you
were in a poorer neighborhood where
people weren't going to your fundraisers
and didn't have the money to contribute
necessarily to the same degree then you
had you didn't get as much as many
library books and materials just that's
the way it's worked for years so well
two years ago we started to stabilize
that so as the new superintendent now
library the anti library person you know
cut our librarians back
and not have any school any books for
the libraries is that where we're going
is that the new direction that the
school board is going doesn't make sense
to me it's the exact opposite of where
you go it's extremely critical in a
school particularly an elementary school
that you can get kids into good books
and that the good books are there and
for years and years they haven't been
there and I don't know where they are be
nice if somebody could tell me at least
okay how much money do we have for
library books and materials and where is
that going to come from we figured it
out two years ago where it came from but
evidently we don't know now or no one is
00h 45m 00s
able the answer I mean I've talked to
everybody I can possibly figure out so
there you go so if this is a school
board and I intellectualism and I
library we don't care about libraries we
don't care about the schools you guys
are doing a good job but if that's not
where you're going get your act together
figure it out let's quit cutting
librarians let's quit cutting library
books and materials I mean you're gonna
have to make up your mind I know you're
not educators basically most of you so
you don't understand the critical role
the library plays in the school but
there you go thank you mr. bule
[Applause]
yeah
hello thank you for allowing me the
opportunity to speak on behalf of
DaVinci arts middle school I'm going to
read from a letter that I submitted to
Yvonne Curtis this morning on behalf of
many many many dozens of DaVinci parents
and community members and students late
last Friday afternoon as our school was
preparing for the first of three
spectacular dance performances we
received a letter from Yvonne Curtis
notifying that the DaVinci community was
under consideration as a site for access
Academy's new home it sent shockwaves
through our schools world as this was
the first that we had even heard of the
possibility to our knowledge no one in
the PPS administration has performed an
impact study of how it this could affect
DaVinci's programs the staff and the
faculty the student body the school's
academic needs and capacity or its
mission to focus on the arts nor at that
time had there been any dialogue with
any members of The DaVinci community as
a community we empathize with the
situation that access Academy finds
itself in and we truly hope that the
board and the superintendent find the
program a permanent home when it suits
its mission and serves the needs of its
students a few years ago in the name of
equity PPS began the tough work of
school boundary review identifying the
schools that are overcrowded and the
ones that are under enrolled the
buildings that are working well over
their capacity and the ones with space
to spare with this well researched and
current knowledge it would seem to make
sense that PPS could find a home for
access Academy that does not compete
with or displace another program
especially one that is as successful and
as vibrant as da Vinci's program when
the sir one that serves the needs of so
many different students a few years ago
again in the name of equity PPS studied
the ways that lotteries have worked to
staying focus option schools as enclaves
of racial and socio-economic privilege
second I think that there were some
members here by rewetting the lottery
and broadcasting focus option programs
more widely more and more students of
color have been enrolled at da Vinci
along with more students who meet the
criteria for free and reduced lunch this
increasing cultural and economic
diversity has strengthened the school in
a great variety of ways especially in
expanding our dance vernacular making
cultural sensitivity more urgent and
concrete giving us new ways of talking
about immigration and the effects of our
political climate on different
populations all of this has naturally
led the school staff to reevaluate their
approaches to teaching can I have that
extra minute go ahead thank you
and so they too have become far more
effective and reflective but cuts to our
program will mean fewer students of
color or the need are able to gain
access to our program
these students discouraged by poor
chances of getting in may no longer even
consider applying through the lottery
and instead may choose other options for
themselves and there will be fewer
opportunities for all of us to learn
from each other our community has always
been highly welcoming to many other
marginalized populations as well in
particular da Vinci is warmly embracing
of LGBTQ students who in these complex
middle school years are just beginning
to articulate their gender and sexual
identities our sexually diverse and
gender-fluid students are openly
self-expressive fully accepted and
00h 50m 00s
participate in every artistic discipline
and medium of the school likewise the
arts focus of the school allows students
with IEP s and a great range of learning
styles to remain engaged in school for
many students the arts are the reason
they stay in school their tether to
academic classes and their strongest
motivation to succeed these do not have
to ask you to I'm sorry I thought it was
a short but oh you rap can you wrap up
oh wait just a furnace everybody else
sentence these students do not merely
want the arts they need the arts thank
you very much
[Applause]
evening Lord Pat Christensen chri sge
NECN I'm the current president of the
District Council of unions for those of
you who haven't been up on the board
very long I know some of you have been
there while and some of you are
returning and thank you for your service
I appreciate that I also like to thank
everybody who's given heartfelt
testimony tonight about how the changes
potentially can affect each and every
one of the students and parents within
the district and our goal of educating
the students there's very important and
I want to get out out there because I
want you to all continue to use the
process and I appreciate that you're
here and I hope you'll continue to use
the process but I'm going to switch the
conversation from a moment for a moment
from the students to the facilities I
represent the unions and the workers who
maintain your facilities those workers
that have been underfunded for decades
that allowed the facilities to become 2
billion dollars worth of
deferred maintenance which required the
eventual replacement so those of you
that are new to the board and those of
you that aren't I want to remind you of
the commitments that were made when the
bond was passed the Union supported the
need the council supported the need and
we supported it from the position that
we had assurances from the school board
at the time that if we started
rebuilding these buildings because it
was cost prohibitive to try and catch up
on the deferred maintenance that had
been happened through 20 years of not
properly funding your maintenance
department so you could actually do a
preventative maintenance program and
unfortunately we became emergency
services Department and rather than a
maintenance program we responded to
every day emergencies and unfortunately
today as we speak we're still doing the
same function we had a commitment from
the board that if we got some new
buildings going forward that we would
have additional staffing and actually
implement preventative maintenance to
take care of your taxpayers new
buildings unfortunately looking at the
proposal that's in front of us now that
I know that it's a work in process and
I'm hoping that you'll hear us and
actually engage the council in future
discussions because we do have
opportunities in ways that you can
perform your work and more efficient
faction
and what we currently see happening but
I see that there's major cuts for the
maintenance department this is a total
reversal of your commitment to the
people who supported your your bond to
build buildings that you would take care
of your new buildings and be responsible
to the taxpayers that are supporting
these new buildings to go forward and
not repeat the cycle of building new
letting it deteriorate so you can throw
it away and ask for another 750 million
Millett bond so please engage the
council and the unions that supported
you because we have ways to support the
work we're not being engaged at this
time and we're ready and available to do
so so thank you so short brief and I'm
saddened that we are in this budget
situation and that you all have to deal
with this I really want to encourage
putting money towards data collection oh
Jessica Colby sorry CEO lby and I really
want to put encourage putting money
towards focus operation option review
and data collection we are not going to
be able to help all our neighborhood
schools and keep them healthy if we
don't look at these things Vestal is
losing kids access has no home we're not
a focus option we are a school of need
although as many focus options therapy
kids there who do need them but sorry
Wow
I came up here a little so I would also
like to ask that you put money towards
data collection for the soft
neighborhood model and reviewing it I
really don't see how implementing the
soft neighborhood model could put us in
any worse position than we're in right
now with the boundary review but I think
we really need to take a look at it so
00h 55m 00s
please money towards data collection
towards reviews towards the soft
neighborhood model thank you thank you
we have one more speaker
Razi Basque around
thank you for this opportunity I wasn't
prepared to come up here but since I was
here I thought I should at least hear
like a few words I am Raji Baskaran for
the record bas ka Rin I am a parent of
two PPS kid including him this is Rahul
since this is budget I will focus on
budget related but just to give up idea
of why focus option needs to be reviewed
when we when we understood that my older
kid was now in access was not fitting in
in his local school mainly because he
was really changing his character quite
a bit to try to fit in and becoming
doing one tenth of his interest things
in order to be fitting into the clique
crowd we started looking for focus
option schools reviewed many of them
toward we are react the kind of parents
who really do our homework
my husband toward the high school before
we bought our home in Southeast
neighborhood where then the first kid
was two and a half so believe me we
really think about this and do our
numbers and when we did the thing the
reason why we did not apply to many
focus schools because number finally it
comes to a lottery and it don't feel
like the kids future the philosophy of
how one needs to be educated is purely
based on only a lottery at the end of
the day so we did not choose to do any
of the focus options and we still did
not even know about the existence of
access till about a year and a half
later - well into second grade when the
kid was and he's still not fitting in
and that's when we actually did our own
research and found out about access and
after eight years wait he got tested in
but just to let you know that you know I
think that access at least in a personal
story is a need not necessarily a luxury
that's the only place he is thrived we
were and
just to tell your another story when
this guy was tested and he qualified
it's not the same as having a need his
mouth it's not only about the mouth or
one particular thing it's it's about
fitting in he said his kindergarten
review says he barely meets math that
was he was just her 99.8% I'll that's
998 kids out of thousand he's better
than them but in in the local public
school he doesn't even meet the
requirement according to the report so
just to let you know if you had a kid
who is 998 out of thousand in height
will you find better chairs and tables
that fit that kid's height it's very
similar to that it's not necessarily an
option it's not a luxury it's a need so
please fund more data collection for
reviewing all the options and finding a
way to keep access together Thank You
Percy marrow
hello my name is Percy maro and they are
our owm there's a lot of people looking
at me okay so I'm a student at Madison
High School I'm here with some people
from my Boy Scout troop we're here to
get a merit badge and I don't know I
kind of Eagle Scout them I just wanted
to talk about the way that the budget is
split up based off of population and
less on student needs specifically like
an he's an example with my school
Madison we got seven dollars in
donations last year and I know there are
some schools that gives like hundreds of
thousands of dollars from their like
parents because their families can
afford it
and like other examples are our school
over 80% of the population requires free
and reduced lunch and like you know
there are other students at other
schools who get so much money for simply
in donations and it doesn't really seem
equitable you know it's I don't know I
don't really have much written down
because this is very last-minute I'm
sorry
um I don't know I just kind of want to
encourage as you look at the budget or
decide where the money goes just keep in
mind that there are students who don't
01h 00m 00s
have as much money as everybody else and
kind of need that
Thank You Susan is there anybody else
feels they want to say something
so the there's a budget hearing on May
15th May 15th there'll be a another
budget hearing on May 8th we have our
regulator school board meeting which is
another opportunity for people to sign
up for public comment will also have a
discussion about the budget at that
meeting then we have a meeting on may
May 22nd which is another one of our
regular board meetings that'll be
another opportunity in addition on June
12th we'll have our final consideration
discussion board discussion and approval
of the document in addition I think I
can speak for all of us that we get a
lot of email we read it so we'll take
the information that we've heard and as
I said this has been a several month
process that we've received information
and and discussed with the
superintendent staffing which is really
the majority of the budget and certainly
what some of the issues that were raised
this evening our issues that individual
board members have already raised as
part of the process so we expect
discussion potential amendments the sent
the superintendent makeup may make
adjustments to his budget as well so
that's generally the process and then we
vote have an approval on the 12th and
then we have a where's Miss Powell I
think we also have a tsp si te SCC which
is at TAC supervising Commission meeting
what's the date of that
and and then to find the final vote the
final adoption vote on June 26
so it it should have been noticed over a
month ago well I guess what I would say
is when people liked anybody's free to
come speak to us if you like right right
now that the floor is open
well May 15th we'll have one and we'll
make sure it's posted the location and
the time so I just want to acknowledge I
think we are having an issue getting
things posted on to the district
calendar and okay so we're going to fix
it who hasn't had a chance to speak
already tonight like to speak if you're
shy I'm sure you can buttonhole one of
us on the way yeah okay in addition you
can send comments to visit school board
at PBS net and that gets to all of us
anything else from individual board
members dr. Bailey just thanks to
everybody for coming out tonight
thanks everybody the meeting is
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)