2019-01-08 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-01-08
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - January 8, 2019

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okay okay the two regular meeting of the Board of Education for January 8 2019 is called to order welcome to everyone present in to our television viewers for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website as a reminder we now have our PBS Ombudsman Judy mountain attending all regular board meetings in the back Judy will be here to listen to the public comments and if appropriate provide additional support to families who need or want it was all of that unheard Judy can be reached at five oh three nine one six three zero four five or Ombudsman at PBS net we also have interpreters with us this evening and I'd like to ask them to come forward at this time introduce themselves in the language into which they'll be interpreting and inform the audience will they be located in the auditorium should someone need their assistance good evening and Happy New Year when I started this lasagna maeyamada Nellie way star interpret Ando en espanol today's Pony play la parte rhetta's por SI alguien the necesita lima muchas gracias my name is down [Music] my former special interpreter Suzanne Lee and I speak Mandarin Cantonese anti sign language you gonna yell so you find ikebana what I call what you call something union workers I won't intervene and Onishi our makeup and either hi hi MA you go so you found her whatever you found her name thank you board members are there any items in the business agenda that you have questions on this does not include individual action items listed on tonight's agenda yes I have a question about one of the con contracts the prospects to do kind of contract next we have student in public comments miss Houston do we have anyone signed up for as you make your way to the table I'd like to review guidelines for public comments the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments to the board we value 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 without distraction from electronic devices or papers board members and the superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment if you want to follow up from the board office please contact miss Houston or Roseann Powell the board manager guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you'd like to provide to the boarder superintendent we ask that you given them to Miss Houston to distribute a request to make public comment should be made ahead of time by contacting the board office or checking with Miss Houston prior to the start of the board meeting to see if there are spots available once the board meeting has started we can no longer accept new requests for public comment okay presenters will be you'll 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
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appreciate your input and thank you for your cooperation hi my name is Ellie Thomas th o mas and I'm here to discuss the Jefferson dancer trip to France which is under consideration by the board I'm a senior and I attend Jefferson High School and this is my third year with the company my sophomore year on the company I had the opportunity to tour with the Jefferson dancers and Exxon Provence we had an amazing time there were no complications we walked to and from our venues and around the city easily the protests happening at the moment are located in the north of France around Paris and are already dying down X's in the south along with that the violence along with that last month president Mac Hall addressed the people of France to come together and put the violence aside yes the protests looked bad but at the same level as the riots we saw in 2016 in our own country plus our trip isn't planned till March so everything should be de-escalated by then another fact is that a lot of these protests are happening in Paris and though it would be wonderful if we could still go to Paris I understand that caution should be taken I wouldn't want to be in a situation where my peers and chaperones were put in harm's way there have been no protest annex and it is a very small city where it's very unlikely to happen we also have a letter from a member of the City Council and X saying that it is safe to travel there we are not only here to share these facts with you but we also want you to hear from us the dancers that are going on this trip we have worked so hard to prepare for this and raise money this is my last year on the company and I have been dancing my whole life to get an opportunity like this I hope you consider our words when making your decision hello my name is Zoe Rochelle our idge ll and I'm in my second year of being a Jefferson dancer company member I understand is the administration's job to protect us against international travels this being said I would like to share some statistics that may put those risks into perspective as an American citizen I have a 1 in 315 chance of being killed by every day gun violence according to a study done by the Cato Institute I have a 1 in roughly 5 million chance of dying in France due to terrorism in 2018 the number of children ages 12 to 17 killed or injured by gun violence in the United States was 2664 in this past year while in 2018 three US citizens died in France one of them was the suicide according to these statistics I'm roughly 16,000 times more likely to be killed in every day gun violence than by terrorism in France I can't express how important this trip is as a cultural exchange to our community and our company we will work tirelessly to achieve this goal we have not been handed this but have earned this opportunity we as students take on the pressures of school along with the rigorous training and hard work and dedication it takes on multiple ends to make this dream a reality I can't I can assure you that this has not come without great sacrifice from both students and families this being said I believe this experience outweighs any small risks we face while traveling in X thank you good evening my name is James Posey POS a why I'm typically here on other matters related to construction and business but here tonight I'm here as the new board chair of BPI and quite honestly I'm shocked that I'm actually sitting here before you because up until a couple hours ago we were told that our contract for VP I was coming before you board and that it had been pulled and I was already on the agenda and I understand that you were going to reconsider it in a couple of weeks after several questions were would be answered and I got the the questions to be answered about four o'clock this afternoon and frankly I'm pretty disturbed by that there's the new board chair I think most of you all read the newspapers and you know the trauma in the situation with BPI and what we've been going through for the last several
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months and our new interim director of iris Vale has it been in contact with Julia and people who we thought would be representing our issues to this body answering all the questions that will allow us to get our contract signed and we could move on to dealing with the ongoing issues of BPI and providing those services that we've been providing for quite some time so I guess I'm a little frustrated though I even have to be here to talk to you guys and I've got one of your questions right in front of me it says would you share the governance training your new board has been provided the including including the training and if all have been trained well heck we only been we only been aboard for a month or two months and a half and so that's an inappropriate question and it just feels like we're being attacked and I know you all have stewardship over these programs and you have to assure that you're getting everything out of those programs in there we're all accountable but come on please give us a break we're we're I'm a retired person and I've had a many sleepless nights trying to pull BPI back around this new board I think Amy talked to me earlier with we've reconfigured the board we've done everything what bothers me most about this is that we've been in contact with you all for over a month about what our a situation what a status is and now we get up right up to the point where the contract comes before you and you all pull it I don't understand I don't get it listen we've been keeping those lights on and on that in that organization basically on a shoestring we've gotten I think our people have provided you with a more stable and much more stable organization financially the board the whole nine yards so what are you guys trying to do to us why are you trying to help us we have we're dealing with one of the most vulnerable populations in the city it doesn't appear so yeah I'll get that so I don't have too much to say is that I think today tonight you ought to reconsider get our contract sign it and let's get on with the business of saving our kids and working with them to feel what we have to be able to lastly we have Amy Sutton okay thank you for everybody's comments please feel free to connect with our board manager Roseann Powell if you have something specifically you want to followup with a board or a board office okay superintendents report good evening directors and audience I hope and trust everybody had a restful holiday break at happy 2019 hope our students had a chance to and our educators to to relax and rejuvenate a little bit we have a very busy second semester and working very hard to make sure it is a productive year so we're we're continuing to hit the ground running in a few areas so I'm going to add live a little bit of what I've outlined I was hoping to talk about tonight particularly as they relate to our core educational mission we know that to accelerate and improve on student outcomes there's a few elements that are a foundation that are very critical that includes core curriculum a focus on instructional strategies a thoughtful use of assessments to engage in continuous improvement so I just wanted to say a few words on each of those topics just as an update as our board knows our educators have not had the benefit of provided for scope and sequence across grade levels and content areas to help provide some guidance to ensure that our students regardless of school they attend are working towards meeting some grade level expectations that we all can agree are important to have some mastery around so this year has really represented our first year effort at
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iterating some units of study we've had many teachers participating in that work we continue to receive feedback on trying out those lessons this is sort of an open source curriculum because we know our teachers have a variety of instructional materials and resources available to them or not and and some favorite material that they enjoy integrating so we want to make sure that they're able to make professional judgments about the resources they use to try to make sure our students are working on some particular standards and concepts month to month so that work continues in earnest I know that our high school teacher science teachers are also kicking off a similar body of work our goal is that by the end of the school year that we have some some more solid first versions of units of study in English language arts math and science and a lot more work will remain to iterate those as well as tackle other content areas all of that work requires not just producing guidance but also giving our educators sufficient planning and collaboration time so they can have thoughtful conversations about how students are experiencing the learning and to make sure they have supports and coaching where possible and our principals themselves to serve as effective instructional leaders so kudos to our team teaching and learning and our school performance team for prioritizing monthly opportunity monthly all-day opportunities for all of our school leaders to familiarize themselves as well with this core curriculum curriculum is not enough we also have to have effective instructional strategies particularly to meet the needs of students who require additional supports to access content whether you're a second language learner or your subgroup of student who's not we we have not yet ensured experienced success and so instructional strategies are also another important part of conversation to make sure all of our students are progressing in meeting grade-level expectations now you can have curriculum and you can have a repertoire of strategies as an educator but you have to have assessment built in to actually query to see if students are learning and as a big proponent of authentic assessment the most valuable assessments will always be in the classroom with what students demonstrate in their learning whether it's in public presentation or portfolio or any number of ways that teachers in their daily moves are assessing students learning we also want to make some formatives or some diagnostic assessments available to our teachers so they can be really concrete about the next set of skills or reading behaviors that our students may need support with beyond the classroom it's also important to have some district-wide benchmark assessments so that we're getting a snapshot of how our students are doing across schools and so that we can also deploy some supports and interventions additional planning time and coaching where possible so that we're meeting our own performance targets for student learning and growth now there's been a lot of questions and also I think a lot of assumptions about the role of summative assessments in the state of Oregon our State Board of Education spent a year reviewing what should be the state test here in Oregon they landed on the smarter balanced assessment the s back school districts are accountable for making sure they have a 95% participation rate on the s back we're not proponents of investing a lot of valuable instructional time on test prep I think our students should know the format of the test but we are confident if they've learned something they've they'll do well on it so we we don't want to over emphasize the s back tests per se but it does give us a snapshot I'll be looking a little bit backwards in the information it provides around some of the systemic work that we need to do to make sure we're serving all of our students I also understand that there's a history in Oregon a families feeling like perhaps that's not the most valuable way to have my students spending their school time so there exists the option and the right to opt out of that test so I just want to make it clear that that option is still there and ironically we're also accountable for making sure as a school system that we have a sufficient participation rate so I just wanted to clarify that sort of unscripted way some some more explicit opinion on curriculum instruction and assessment because
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without those theory it's very difficult to engage continuous improvement conversations or to maximize instructional time if we don't know how our students are doing and assessments are a critically important way that we get information about how our students are learning so I wanted to also speak a little bit about another important topic and that's student safety and more specifically school resource officers student safety has to be our number one priority always not just physical safety but also emotional safety of our students positive culture school cultures and climates so that students can thrive and focus on learning those those are always going to be very important to us recently we have taken up the topic of the role of school resource officers and this is this is sort of a tool in the tool belt that on occasion over 5,000 occasions to be exact where our principals felt there was a sufficient safety concern to call on the Police Bureau to deploy a specially trained school resource officer student discipline remains an issue at the school level primarily with our school leaders and our counselors and we will always be proponents of a continuum of support for our students but there are instances where a police officer needs to be in place so that our school staff and our students are not put in a predicament to intervene with a danger on campus so we on a kind of accelerated timeline agree that we haven't we need to continue listening to our students we will be continuing to work with our student leaders to make sure we publish a series of meetings where we continue to hear our students concerns about student safety do you think there are many suggestions and recommendations and concerns that are within our sphere of influence to improve on and we are interested in doing that we also want the opportunity in these discussions to clarify what has been the role of school resource officers and to capture concerns and questions from our students we will be sure to synthesize our learnings and we'll make sure our board of directors know when those meetings will be having happening so that you can participate if you would like I just want to make sure that because we understood the timeline was in fact not what it truly is at this point it seems that the city will not be hearing this item for at least a number of weeks we may have shortchanged some engagement that we would have preferred to have engaged in but we're going to continue to have them so I just wanted to spend a moment speaking to that topic the other ways that we want to continue to be transparent hold ourselves accountable to not just student achievement not just in student safety but also in just being fiscally healthy and sound we just heard about our annual comprehensive audit known as the kafir' which is available for anyone who would like to review no shortage of pages of spreadsheets which we learned came back very clean so congrats to deputy super sand our new CFO Cynthia Leigh for and the team's really hard work in making sure that all of our public dollars were well accounted for and I think we were all very impressed with and I think the auditors were impressed that fiscally were very sound in our bookkeeping and that matters partly because for us as as public as as folks who are interested in being a good public Stuart stewards of above dollars it's important that we be accountable to making sure the investments are high leverage there's been another audit that's been going on in the school system many of you may be familiar that with Secretary of State Dennis Richardson calling on a series of audits looking at agencies across the state of Oregon one of those involves the Oregon Department of Education as well as Portland Public Schools as sort of a case study of public education dollars in the state of Oregon the release of that I think it's been 10 to 12 months now report as an is anticipated to be published tomorrow and so we will be sure that the public is able to sort of see that report as well as the school districts response to some of their recommendations and
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findings what we can say at this point knowing that this report is a embargoed at the moment is that this new administration and board leadership is well aware of some historical areas that required correction and many of those practices have already been in the spotlight for us as practices that have already been remedied or corrected for and our work remains very focused on building out best practice evidence-based work in the school system so stay tuned for more on that and I'll leave it at that because tonight you're gonna hear many more details about some of the work that has continued to happen internally with both our audit committee and our business and operations team so just wanted to make a commercial plug there I'm going to end with other achievements that are not so academic of the athletic nature because we're in the midst of the winter season and was able to spend my Saturday night at three basketball games I got to see Lincoln play I got to see the Benson girls playing the highly ranked grant grant high school team Benson came out on top there and then I was able to stay for an action-packed always electric boys basketball game between Jefferson and Grant boys it was down to the wire in the last few seconds but grant managed to beat their opponents by a point and we want to continue to encourage our scholar athletes to excel that also includes our female students so we have a little video clip to share with you that really wants aims to promote girls empowerment [Music] [Applause] [Music] in 20 years in working education and working with young people I've never been disappointed with what I have seen and found and learned from young people so it's a great opportunity and I'm humble at the chance today to sit down and talk with you about what some of my experiences have been to hear from you about what some of your experiences are and then to hear from the amazing people in this room so we're Franklin High School part of our Pacific office automation Holiday Classic behind me is our first young women's empowerment breakfast and the 10th of that is to expose young women to successful women if you look for opportunities you don't have to have a path but you are opening doors and leaving doors open to you that you can walk through where you want to and this is the women's empowerment breakfast where we get there hear from all types of different amazing women who've had some type of athletic career or have worked with in sports and how that's kind of been a vehicle for them to succeed in the future and they're kind of talking to us about their careers and stuff that they're doing now I could do something with what was this natural skill that I have the opportunity to evolve into the talent that it could be and it could take me to where it is I wanted to go so we have very very successful people in the room so girls have a chance to talk to them and talk about their dreams and ambitions and here's some of the pitfalls that they went through that they can perhaps help them avoid like my piece of advice for like my 16 year old self would be like to just stay focused and not pay so much attention to like what other people think walk in a room if you're a total baller walk into the room like you are that and you own that room and you be that and use that as your entry point so what are the things we can give to them besides just playing in a tournament that to help them later on in their lives so we're excited to be able to provide them that opportunity the first kind of key to everything that I was able to accomplish is this basketball is just a vehicle it's just a vehicle and what I mean by that is it's the tool you're going to use to get you wherever you'd like to go but it's not the destination it's not who you are I'm not super sure what I want to do in my future career wise but hearing how a lot of these women didn't know what they were going to do yet and while they were in high school and all the incredible things they're doing now just shows me that I can do something really incredible in the future even though I may not be sure of what my path
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is right now thank you to everyone for was involved supporting our young women's event and continuing to encourage their empowerment and leadership the past few days I've continued to do my regular school visits I want to thank the students and the teachers at lent Chapman and Bridger for sharing with me a lot of their wonderful work the last few days and this coming week will be focused on the art so we'll see you at the Jefferson dancer recital as well as I think the first district like middle and high school band gathering so I'm looking forward to that that concludes my report thank you the next agenda item is division 22 report to the community and superintendent Guerrero would you like to introduce this thing yeah we have dr. Yvonne Curtis we will share with you cheering board members superintendent Guerrero so I said before you to present the division 22 report which is required by OTE that we present to you and and have an inner our minutes and our agenda to give to OD e on February 1st what's different about this year is that last year I sat in front of you and gave you the same report and that is because typically in the past OD e has asked us to report on the current year and now they're asking us to report on the prior here so this is the second report on 2017-18 however we have noted in here everything that we're doing to become compliant on each of the items raised I'll just very quickly say in terms of the prevention education programs and drugs and alcohol we're implementing a plan district-wide that puts us in compliance for this year human sexuality we're currently implementing the plan as well district-wide which will put us in compliance for the 1819 school year so you'll hear that on next year's report in terms of the media programs we I I want to say that Portland Public Schools has done an amazing job at investing more in library support than many of the districts around us we have committed to making sure that libraries are open full time and that we have at least a half time certified media specialist in K 5 K through 8 and 6/8 and full time media specialists in schools that are 80% or more historically underserved and in our high schools we're also working towards an integrated service delivery delivery plan for library services that will ensure comprehensive equitable library programming in all of our schools we also have some project goals which is to align all of our library standards and the learning goals that will happen in all of our schools so that they line up with our core curriculum the GVC instructional materials adoption for math science health and PE we are working to develop a guaranteed and viable curriculum but we are at a sequence in terms of the materials adoptions much like many other districts by June 2019 our scope and sequence and all of those areas will be complete except for PE PE we will complete that process when we're meeting the full state pe instructional minutes requirement secondary ESL adoptions we are currently in compliance with the adoption the Elementary adoptions are not in compliance but were included in our whole literacy the the equity based balanced literacy program or materials we have requested an extension for this school year and if we need to do that going forward where while we align things we'll continue to do that and and to determine if we need to submit a k5 independent adoption or whether what we currently have will suffice in terms of complaint procedures we had on January 1st 2018 we had one outstanding item which was to complete the ad which is now posted on our website for our talented and gifted programs we have we we were out of compliance last year and at the beginning of the year weren't yet
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in compliance but we will have completed our first round of professional belt developed by the end of this month so that will put us in compliance in terms of making sure all teachers are trained at how to provide students service on great and level which is what our state requires for all students that are identified as talented and gifted and then we're continuing to work with the tag AK group and I believe it is our next work session when our district tag director and others involved in that work we'll be sharing with the board with that work looks like are there any questions to explicitly call out some of these 22 requirements that are unmet in the budget process to show us the Delta to compliance so for the adoption of materials the PE mandate but just to make that direct connection in the budget process so we could see it and consider it we will work together on that you said about the Elementary ESL materials he said something about this part of the Elementary and the balanced literacy adoption or can you clarify what you were saying I'm gonna refer to the sentences here to make sure that I don't confuse you again so in 2004 we adopted avenues as as many people in the state did that and then due to budget restrictions PPS was granted a waiver in 2014 that enabled us to continue using current materials and then we're requesting another extension for this school year in the summer after our instructional framework and scope and sequence is completely completed then we'll determine whether to submit for a k5 independent adoption or move forward on a state approved adoption so the reason we're waiting is because it's content-based to make sure that we have all our standards identified and the priority standards identified for each of those other content areas to make sure that we're looking at everything instead of just literacy for now the literacy adoption part of the resources in the literacy adoption are some of the resources they're using for ll services so I would be interested because in my experience most of the time you know it would be stronger to use material that's specifically created to improve English proficiency so we're looking at kind of our own adoption similar to the evidence space or the balanced literacy adoption that would be more maybe a bundle of our choice rather than going on what the state has approved for curriculum for ESL so I know that the field continues to shift there hasn't been total consensus in the field about whether you take a specific program and you do forms and functions versus doing a content based approach but at this point we feel like the first right step is to make sure we've got all of our standards and our curriculum identified we've prioritized standards in all of the content areas before we consider what step we would take next yeah and the missing piece that we know is the data piece and having you know somebody that's able to really help us look at what the progress has been the trajectory of proficiency can change in proficiency certainly so when we bring somebody on board it would be really helpful to kind of get a baseline of what that's looked like so the good news is I've been working more closely with our system planning and performance team and realizing we actually have a plethora of data in PPS what we haven't had was an easy way to bring it forward look at it analyze it and we are working on a plan right now and I hope to bring you some information next week about how we're gonna move forward on data to becoming a data-driven district in the next six months we'll be developing a plan that will be ready to provide the professional development beginning in June and over the summer and we're all along with that is the Refresh of our dashboard and we also have an RFP out right now for the tracking of the whole
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MT SS or early warning pieces that we will identify so a lot of work is happening in the next month to get clear about where we're moving forward so I think we'll have a lot to share with you by the end of this school year and certainly over the summer next fall great so again waiting for that and making sure that our decisions are informed by data and that we're looking at what is our core curriculum and that we have all of that set and teachers have been engaged and are a part of that work will help us make sure that whatever we determine is the right step to go 4ll students and where we want to go with the program in the future we'll be doing it sort of what needs to come first will come first instead of lately it feels like we've been playing catch-up with a lot of things so we're hoping that give us a little space to put some of these things in place and do it right I also knew that I think that there was some issues with OD and the compliance with ESL so I just want to keep track of that that we really like Oh de oh there was you know more about the ESL peace compliance we I mean so I know that I think that the progress has not been as rapid in in language acquisition yeah so just again it's I'm gonna keep an eye on that so thanks effing Utley will really you're concerned director as far as a brown and also to dr. Constance point there has been a focus on making sure that those Supplemental materials help to provide our English learners access and we have a lot of work to do to make sure all our educators are supported with strategies to for language development but he will be a good exercise for us to really cost out what it would take to not just do integrated e LD but really provide the specially designed material that's going to be most helpful to our Els so stay tuned right yeah and another piece was and the preparation of teachers to know the instructional strategies so yeah that's another really good budget so once again lots of conversations to be had with our higher ed to to continue who are preparing these teachers to work in our classrooms any other questions yeah so when the data work that you're talking about you said you're gonna bring that to the board so what I'll be sharing is plan a plan that we're developing on how to get started on the work to develop a comprehensive plan so that we can start professional development so it's like a plan for getting the plan then and who all gets included in that and how we identify what are the data protocols and so forth so I just want you to know that's happening in the next few weeks to get our head wrapped around that piece I will share that information with the board when when we have that together and then in by June we'll have the multi-year plan for how we become data-driven and data smart and data literate as an entire system okay yeah would that be like a work session we haven't even had a chance to talk about yeah so I'm thinking I think we're also the CSS assessment framework yes that's would be useful to get us more grounded in that yes the work session probably is the best format and and there was the complaint procedure just reminding the public that's the one thing we're out of compliance on was not having an administrative directive and now that we do that's ad it's the shorthand yes thank you for sorry question about the tag portion you said that this year that by the end of January by the end of January is our compliance does that equate compliance or would compliance be that students actually get instruction at rating level so the compliance part is making sure we're doing our part as a district to provide the professional development get plans in place and and support teachers in implementing the strategies to address rate and level so it's actually it's not just that they've had the PD but that's actually being implemented and yes that in will that so our
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expectation is we provide the PD is that that's happening as we develop tag plans so I know that for example we've just finished and in fact I was just talking to our assessment person today so we've finished the screening for the second grade coke ad and now the referrals are happening and looking at other data within the schools then those kids get referred we do other assessment as soon as they're identified then our tag facilitators will cycle back around to the schools to assess teachers with new students who are identified and be checking in we have tag ptosis who are making the rounds of schools all the time to be working with teachers checking in on how is that going with strategies you around using rate and level supporting principles who might ask them to come in what we don't have completed yet like in many things we're doing we don't have a really tight accountability process yet because we simply don't have enough people to implement that so the first step is making sure you offer the professional development make sure every school has a plan and that those things are aligned along with the strategies that you're teaching teachers to use and that you have support for the teachers and keep coming back around to check to see that they're getting the support they need to help students so all of that is in the works how it's happening in school by school I couldn't report that to you yet I guess I'm sorry just to keep belaboring the point but so you're a parent of a fifth grader who has identified several years ago and how do how do we know as a system versus a savvy parent you know knowing that my students get any it's been not only identified but it's getting appropriate reading level how are we systematically so right now how we're systematically doing that is having the ptosis check in with teachers and with the students to see what is happening for the students we don't have an accountability sort of checkoff matrix kind of accountability system happening yet because we just got our new tag director who's just putting some of these things in place and I think we have three tagged doses and her to do all of our schools so it should be the same structure that supports differentiated instruction for IEP students on IEP s and British language learners and the same accountability framework well in our same type frankly the strategies that we are hoping to provide teachers all the PD they need to keep developing those strategies that require you to teach in the way that the shifts of the common core standards help you get kids to that knowledge and skills we want them to acquire should meet all of the kids needs because that is the way those standards are written is to help you with that differentiation but it's a lot to do at one time right and it all falls on that classroom teacher so right now our process is a support process we're here we'll come in and train you will come back and help you call on us parents call on us that's where we're at with the process I think the director brim Edwards question and I think the point the director constant was making in the same way that students with disabilities have IEP our tag identified students should have an articulated plan and our schools and our teachers know who those students are we ensure to our families that you know the rate level and the differentiation that they're entitled to that they're being provided that experience and so you know we're gonna continue to work on that and they're getting some ptosis support but we want a systematize and institutionalize that a lot more I mean that's our work and we will have the stuff we do that work at the board work session so I will pass on these questions and make sure that they're ready to respond to those and give you some examples well as we think about our parent engagement we're going forward this is one more training education unit we could have for parents too to help be a piece of that accountability and just as a comment off of director Graham Edwards questions I don't know if you've seen that there's been a very active
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debate in Education Week prompted by James Dolezal about how the kind of classroom differentiation you're talking about our teachers giving simply doesn't work there is no time it's not humanly possible to give the level of differentiation that our enormous ly diverse classrooms need and I commend that your attention it's very disturbing in the likelihood of our being able to achieve what what we want to with the resources we've got it's it's big work I know that on average there may be studies that show that but I certainly have been in classrooms where teachers are very adept at doing that and so I I'm gonna be optimistic that all of us working together as a team committed to providing what our students need we will get there so this is just a commentary and I think a question I know when the Oregon Department of Education or the State Board of Education made the switch to do the look back there was questions raised about sort of how useful it is to be looking I mean we're frankly looking at something we looked at a year ago I would encourage the district to keep the the framework that we had previously which is where we right now not where were we last year because that's really to backwards looking exercise and I think we need to be forward-looking so regardless of what the state decision was as I say it doesn't really do us any good like we were so we were out of compliance in six areas but the question is and I think the value from the old system that they had when we were reporting on the current year is that you actually were able to make adjustments real-time adjustments that could move the dial in terms of not just compliance but moving things forward so I would hope that we not just viewed this as sort of a compliance related exercise to check the box and get it done because like that was last year but really how are we doing in our current year and a director of comm stands point what types of things can we do or what leverage do we have to move us forward and I think our our system a constructional improvement work it's not guided by division 22 I think it is a compliance exercise that hopefully we won't have issue you know articulating that we're in compliance with we want to go a whole lot deeper than that I mean we've just talked about a few areas they're big categories of work even when you look at tag I mean a lot of states gate is not a compulsory mandated program they they're increasingly moving towards personalized learning planning because it says that all kids you know have gifts and talents that at some point in their work week there there's opportunity for them to work on those the other categories are not just in the subject areas that we assess for they're also in leadership and arts and creativity and so we're not identifying students in those areas here as well so and at the same time there are some really bright students who need that kind of rating level rigor as well so how do we do it all how do we make sure a classroom learning provides open-ended and tasks enough to allow them to flourish like that too any other questions yeah do you know if and which other metro area school districts are out of compliance in one form or another so a brief survey I did last year most districts have some areas that they're out of compliance and we're required unless this got changed as well so the habit posted on our website but you can go to another district and just pop it in and you should be able to see where other districts are in or out of compliance and also what I found when I did that research is standards vary on whether districts consider themselves in or out of compliance it would be interesting to do a survey like that especially in areas like we just talked about in ESL or eld how others are supporting meals in their district because as the data shows those are
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areas that probably every district in the state is struggling with as well as well as textbook adoptions or materials adoptions and some of those others that are closely tied to resource are we doing any materials adoptions right now that process no not currently because we need to finish the GBC core work and we'll be finished with all the content areas however as asked we had already thought about bringing information to the board on what those costs might be along with here would be a possible plan and approach to start and and start to make progress what we know is right now we don't have the time to do a full process in order to have the materials and be ready to go in the fall but we certainly could think of budgeting in this budget cycle to move forward on an adoption and then to make sure we do the appropriate work next year so that we're purchasing for examples teacher materials before the end of the year and then ready for the following year so we're gonna bring some information through this budget process on you know what we might do if we wanted to start to take the steps in that direction I think we all want to get into the rhythm and ritual of a refresh cycle for our curriculum materials I know dr. Valentino RCA oh they're salivates at the thought of making sure that our students have experience so that they're not learning from 22 year old math textbooks in high school and then everybody knows just like with technology that you have a refresh cycle as part of that I'd like to see what the actual process is for the adoption particularly around public participation that's and they did is part of it which we definitely bring to the board what that process would be before we would start that process at least that's been my practice in the past is to to have all that guidance on public transparent and also definitely have specific ways to engage parents okay any other questions thank you the next item on the agenda is related to performance auditing and audit committee work I'm going to ask director Broome Edwards and deputy superintendent Claire Hertz to lead the discussion we're looking for slides on the screen please is that all it takes apparently so this evening we're going to be providing an update on auditing the auditing function that we have here at PPS and really auditing for excellence and equitable outcomes for students and this is really a collaborative endeavor between the audit committee and district staff led by deputy superintendent Claire Hertz and sort of the first thing we've done is outlined what our priorities for our for auditing and really I think we all know that if we maximize and use our resources effectively that means more money in the classroom and to support our students so we've established an audit committee I'm chairing it director Rosen and director Anthony serve on it we have two positions for community members we currently have one of those positions filled and we'll be filling the other ones we also a major priority this year in terms of auditing relates to our comprehensive annual financial report and you superintendent even so we concluded our 1718 report comprehensive comprehensive annual financial report and it was presented first to the Audit Committee and then to the board this year and that as you if you were here and in our meeting in December you know that we had our lead auditor report to us from tkw that we had a clean on it with no findings so it was a big celebration in the finance department who put in months and months of work to
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get that clean on it and it's just it's a turning of the tides of hope in our department in getting things on track and really everyone leaning in to excellence in that part of our district and we continue we are implementing even the higher standards in 1819 as we've formed you know having chief financial officer cynthia lei join us as well as having tracy Pinder our Director of Finance and soon we will be hiring our director of Budget and so that that team all together we with having a full permanent stat staffed permanent staff fully staffed team will be just an amazing it just warms my heart is all I can say a mechanic and hardly went but we will be working with the Audit Committee for 2018-19 again - we the auditors will come for a pre audit in May we'll make sure that we connect with the Audit Committee during during their visit so in addition as board members might recall in May and June when we were going through the budget cycle included in the board office budget was funding for two new internal performance auditor positions it's best practice to have more than one especially you have a entity of this size we posted it we have a pool of candidates tomorrow we have the interviews so hopefully we will be coming to with a recommendation to the board on the candidates for the - auditor positions and then we have also started with we've contracted performing a performance auditor firm for doing the analysis of the budget gap for the 2017 bond they're actually doing by March 31st they'll be reporting to the board on that that budget gap for 2017 but they will also be continuing on and we will have them on an annual basis giving us an annual performance audit of our bond program each year so by June 30th we'll have a the full performance audit report on our aunt part of our annual basis and then we have a contract with them for multiple years to continue that on an annual basis so in addition once we hire our internal performance auditors the Audit Committee will be creating our 2019 performance audit plan and I'll show you in a minute sort of how we have it sketched out over the next six months how we're gonna undertake the work and we one of the things that the Audit Committee will do is review both our funding limitations as well as our spending pattern with our local option levy to confirm where with in what was approved by the voters as well as within the statutory limitation local option movies so we'll bring that back to the Audit Committee during the year so in just wrapping up we before we get to the state audit division audit will also we've also already updated the board policy on our internal performance auditing so we will be in good shape as we hire and on board our new auditors that they have a framework and a clear sort of connect into the district staff and also understand the expectations and their relationship with the board so this is just a quick snapshot of the work over the next six months so you take the priorities and we've scheduled out between now and June the each month the work plan and for those things that require board action following committee action will be sending things to the full board for either review presentation or action so next step as referenced earlier by the superintendent tomorrow we're expecting the release of the audit from the state audit division it's gonna be we've confirmed 10:45 tomorrow morning I think it's important to note that PPS has a long track record of supporting performance and financial
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auditing as best practice going back to 2004 PPS had internal performance auditing function and we're one of the few districts in the state that have had an internal performance audit on staff and probably will be the first one to actually have to in addition so as the Secretary of State's audit comes out not only will we be sort of embracing the the recommendations as a way for Kasota continuous improvement I think it's important to note that this audit was request requested by the Secretary of State's Audit Office and we were the first district and the state to have one of these from the Secretary of State's office so it was a request from the head of the Secretary of State's office it also when the audits released people will see that it's actually an odd of PPS and the Oregon Department of Education R which is sort of an unusual thing to do because two entities that have separate governing body separate leadership but we're sort of smashed together with OD e so they'll be responding to the findings and recommendations relating to OD and ours are a completely separate set of recommendations I think it's important to note that the auditors have been here at the district for almost a year and I know that staff provided full cooperation lots of materials the board provided information to them and it was a continuous set of requests and I think we entered into it with the spirit of we were transparent and accountable and we want to share the information whatever information the auditors would want tomorrow when the audit is released will be providing respond response from from the district's not only of our responses to their specific recommendations but also providing some context from our point of view and I think it's important to note that many of the observations that will likely be made tomorrow are going to be no surprise to the school community if you think about this is a snapshot back to 2016 that's generally what we have we have a lot of work underway and many of the issues that were raised were already have actions in response to what we self-identified as areas and needing an improvement or whether that we could strengthen and then we also will be indicating that will be implementing the recommendations as well so some of the things that are already underway we the board's successfully brought in a new educational leader and a superintendent who has recruited a very diverse senior leadership team that comes with urban experience from across the country and we've had a work plan in place not only last year but we've had it for four years okay and for and we are in a visioning process this year that will lead then to our strategic plan and we are using all that work to as we're building our budget this spring animal can continue on into the fall until multi-year finance plan educationally there we've had for over a thousand students to new middle schools opened for better better middle school educational opportunities for our students and we have a standards-based instructional system that where it's coherent then aligned from PK to twelfth grade and and is embedded in with our guaranteed by bill viable curriculum that we were talking about earlier this evening as well as professional development for our teachers and principals and then just want to highlight that tomorrow morning on our main page there'll be a link where you can get the the our response our detailed response to all the recommendations
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from the Secretary of State so next steps between the Audit Committee and the deputy superintendent Hertz and district staff will be building an audit action plan staff will report to the Audit Committee and the board on a quarterly basis on progress towards completion of any of the recommendations that weren't already completed since many of them are and in addition the way that the audit is set up is there so it's bifurcated there are some very specific staff recommend a recommendation relating to staff work and then there's some very specific recommendations for the board and the board some some of those recommendations fall into the category of developing policy or providing specific types of oversight so in addition to staff developing and reporting the Audit Committee on their work the board board will develop responsive policies and implement our boards specific recommendations I think we've got a great roadmap put together and I think a commitment that to get that work done I'm gonna ask if any members of the board wanna ask questions about the planning for the audit or many reflections on the Secretary of State's audit that's going to be shared tomorrow there's one thing I would like to add and that is that this really is about our core value of values and our echo equitable outcomes for all students looking for excellence rise into that excellence bar the internal continuous internal auditing and continuous improvement is all about our students and the focus on students so you know while this may cause a lot of things for us to produce internally to get the word out on what all the great practices we're doing in the improvements we're making what's important is it is to lead the charge of that focus on our student in that go to outcomes it is kind of ironic that this gives us the opportunity to fully talk about the work that we have underway across the system in terms of transformation which we've been communicating to the public in bits and pieces and through the superintendent's reports and various work streams but it's actually in response to this audit I think we'll be able to communicate a lot more fully about work that is already underway some of which has already started to take root and make a difference for our students so it's a positive opportunity in that respect we encourage the public to take a close read of the district's response which I think does a pretty good job of objectively trying to articulate what all those efforts have been and acknowledged the areas where we still have a lot of work to do good point and I also want to just acknowledge the hard work that has gone into this and we do have a lot to show of progress so beginning with I think a great hire that we did with our with our leader and the team that we have now that are working their tails off and we see differences so I want to really make sure that you know we acknowledge that hard work and appreciate it making a difference for our students and it will only continue just to hit the volleyball over the net let's recall that the audit also makes requests and reflection from the boards of leadership as well so thank you for your collaboration and shared ownership and accountability there so we should probably warn you all their PPS response is 32 pages grab a cup of coffee before you open them you know open the web page and I just want to reiterate a lot of what's already been said I think the I think our board response is is actually a really excellent summary of a lot of the work that's going on and and has been going on for for a while now probably well how long you been here 15 months and and I think it will my hope is that it will reassure parents and educators and the public that PBS is changing I don't think you will hear
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anybody suggest that there isn't more room for improvement but for anybody who's been paying attention to PBS for a while it's been evident that there was a great deal of room for improvement and we are we are improving things are changing processes are now in place that didn't exist before we have we have whole departments that we're missing that now exist and there's been a tremendous amount of movements in a very short time if you look at people's faces we all look a little tired but we've earned it and and I think I'm hoping that this audit will provide the the public with an opportunity to really get get into some weeds about how PBS is being transformed and where we're headed and and we'll you know go some way to restoring faith in PBS as a system that we would all like our own children to attend just one thing I want to add that's been on my mind this evening since earlier is that I want to make clear that we understand the value of community partnerships - and that were not in this business or thinking that we can do all of this alone without without our community partners so just technology that we are about a community and building community and will continue to release strengthen partnerships that we have it's important to us and to our kids so I want to just close by I think it's noted the 32 pages we have a very comprehensive audit and I think our response I think part of that is just the amount of work that has occurred over the last year and a half on a whole host of areas both the staff level at the board level and I'm gonna just note that I'm disappointed that many that we actually had to put that in our response and that it was not acknowledged by the Secretary of State's audit division even though that information was provided to them I think we were told early on this would not be a gotcha audit it wasn't political purposes and when I read that the tone and the description of PPS this isn't the PPS that I think exists today I think it's a backwards look at the district and does not acknowledge and I want to just call out to staff about who have done really really hard work and then board members we've whether it was opening the middle schools or sort of giving up our summers to be able to hire the superintendent in 42 days there was a lot of hard work that's done and I feel like the I don't feel like it's through the the audit does not acknowledge that and I think it in some ways will provide a misleading perception of what has happened and the current state of the district but again I think if you're a parent in this district or someone who has been watching what's happening at the district that it would be hard not to acknowledge that very significant work has happened over the last year and a half and we're proud of that we're going to embrace the recommendations for increased accountability and transparency because we've always welcomed that but it should be noted that it's disappointing that this has become more of a political sort of weapon against the district in some ways than an actual tool designed to help us get better yeah I'm gonna agree with the director brim Edwards that the the audit findings are old news in a lot of way and it's disappointing that you know I I don't want to get into a defensive posture here because it's it's not like that old news wasn't true it's just the failure to recognize what we are doing and have been doing and that's what we're going to do we've been doing it that's what we're going to do anyway because we're making this district better day by day for our kids so yeah I don't want to be too defensive about this but I understand how disappointing it is at the same time I
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do think on that point though students parents teachers families people who are engaging with our district day-to-day community partners see it people who are having anything to do with PBS do see that that's moving and that's what matters because that's who we're serving yeah so just a as an example of that the work around middle middle grades equity warrants a passing reference and we all know how much time that was spent by not only by the board on that topic over months last year but the staff work that went involved was involved in that the financial commitment from the district to spend twenty million dollars on both capital operational improvements you know a thousand students from nine nine schools it was a huge lift and I say it's warrants only a passing sort of side reference of the work and I think director constant to your point those students at those schools and their families know it's different but it's just unfortunate that that's not recognized or was not recognized fully by the audit team so tomorrow morning things will be posted including the PPS response and we encourage everyone to read it I think it will be illuminating work an illuminating document for everybody okay thank you the next item first reading policy recisions and we will now have a first reading of several policy recisions and I'd like to ask director broom Edwards to introduce Thank You More so the board policy and governance committee has reviewed these recommended recisions and we're recommending them to the full board for a first reading and assuming after our first reading there'll be a 21-day comment period and then for consideration as board members know we are in the process of reviewing all our existing policies and administrative directives to make sure that our policies are updated and that relevant informations more is more easily accept accessible to users so the first readings we're having this evening is educators Council which is policy 5.4 0.030 this policy has no content in it so there's no need to have it next we have professional compensation which is policy five point five zero point zero one zero this policy also no has no content in it it's just a show then we have professional growth incentive which is policy five point five zero point zero four three again this is another policy that has no content is just a show then we have the maternity and paternity leave which is policy five point five zero point zero six five leaves are governed by state and federal law and the relevant collective bargaining agreements this policy is outdated and not needed and then finally is teachers promotion which is policy five point six zero point zero one one this is another shell policy with no content in it so these are all policies that came out of the committee with a recommendation for a first reading the it will be posted if people want to comment on the policies that have no content you can and 21 days the next board meeting after 21 days if we don't have any significant reason not to move forward we'll have a vote on final adoption so those are the policy researchers coming out of the committee in addition we have spent a fair amount of time on a policy relating to off to off-campus activities and this was a policy that the committee has been looking at for basically two reasons one we had a recommendation from the Mitch Whitehurst report that this was a policy that needed to be updated but in addition there have been some long-standing concerns from members of the parent community about sort of equity and how the district approaches off-campus activities and that could be
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anything from a field trip to a an overseas trip or a you know week in Washington DC and so we did have a first reading of that policy about six weeks ago and it's been open for public comment we have received public comment it's still in the committee and we do have an amendment that we will be tonight first reading so that we can start the public comment period because it's a substantive change to our current sort of off-campus field trip policy do you want me to go ahead and read it so the amendment which will be posting and it'll be available for comment is off-campus activities of more than five days during plans school days on the board approved school year calendar shall not shall not be authorized to site despite planning for continuity of curriculum off-campus activities that create excessive student and/or teacher absences do not fully meet board approved educational objectives and planned instructional days so this is an issue that has been the subject of pass complaints from parents to to the district and so this amendment would be added to the revised policy that's currently in committee and I don't know if anybody on the committee you want to speak to it or when is this proposed amendments supposed to be supposed to take place supposed to be implemented as of when so we we have so this Thursday we have a policy and Governance Committee meeting we will have had this posted for public comment the conversation and the discussion and the committee has been that this would be applicable to the following school year 1920 so it would not so for any current you know activities they would go ahead I mean the assumption is they're sort of in flight under the current rules and then it would not be fair to change the rules this year but that a clean break would be at 7:00 next year that's assuming them we have a process and there may be you know people from the community you may want to comment on it or we may further modify it well that's what I'm wondering up what are the unintended consequences for example the group that was here earlier looking at a competition that would be a really great opportunity for some students they may not have that opportunity to travel otherwise would we be then putting up barriers to our students being able to partake and some really interesting and I think learning activity so because of shell not I mean it doesn't give a lot of room yeah so I think it's important to note that this is for school year activities and that there are a variety of things that happen not during the school year or doing spring break but the to capture some of the discussion that's occurred is that in some of the programs when you have large numbers of students out of the school the result that one of the results is a negative impact on students who are still in back in school there's not the continuity of curriculum they don't have the damp substance of teachers and things kind of grind to the halt until everybody comes back I'm just concerned about having a blanket policy it's for example like he mentions for in terms so some competitions or opportunities who might be over that but nobody has the consistent spring term across the country so I I think it just pertains to language immersion programs for five days during the school year I don't know I don't think that the policy so do it those are the only ones now that have five day or more off-campus activities I mean who knows so it I would like to see a list of those schools and trips that are occurring this year and some of them have a long tradition and certainly would want to have some direct
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notification of those schools like now if this is on the table comment on the policy yeah and I think think we should proceed carefully I'm gonna agree with that too because also I'm thinking if this is I mean I'm gonna be at that point because it's straight up says you know shall not be authorized but could this mean consecutive days is this five days in a row you know what I mean it doesn't say whether it's school days but the work school they serve it's just you know with this amendment I can already think of quite a few trips that go on at Cleveland that might already be affected by this and with the company with the outside companies that teachers use I mean I don't even think those companies would change their plan you know what I mean so yeah I mean it's worth noting that we're talking about district sponsored activities we're not talking about activities that would be organized outside that are not sponsored by the district itself is that stealing like is that still under just student and teacher absences in general well I I mean I would argue in particular if you're if you're talking about a program that is not district sponsored and it is an it and is an enrichment program it's I don't think it is optimal for for the students either the students participating or the ones who are left behind to have to have teachers and a large number of students gone for more than a week of school I mean if we're talking about you know a two week program a three week program during the regular school year that's a huge chunk of time and activities can be planned around spring break winter break summer they shouldn't that's not not everything has to happen during the school year well I'm I'm not even worried about two weeks or three weeks I'm worried about maybe even just six days or seven days I mean there's I mean there's countless trips I can already think of that even go to Washington DC for government trips that might be just six days well we're talking about weekdays I mean when you add weekends on either side you're talking about nine days which although the language here is not aware needs to be clear yeah it says more than five days during plan to school days so that could be within the school calendar but not necessarily school days anyway okay we need it we can fix and also I think Roseanne already took note of an inventory of things planned this year that exceed that amount of time during the school year which is just a handful of immersion trips it should be noted that there's also other immersion programs that don't take staff yes out of this out of the school at all right it doesn't I think we just have to be really careful with the language and I don't want to be too restrictive because it sounds like it might be more on a case-by-case basis I think it's worth noting that the public comment at the beginning of the meeting was not around and them being out of class but that we have an administrative directive that relates to risk I'm not trying to comfy on the two but I am saying I still think that we need to be careful because I'm those unintended consequences of what might we miss if we have a too restrictive of a rule I think there should be some guidelines so these are the issues that I know directors will continue to talk about it tries to answer a dilemma that lots of school districts are facing I just had a call from a colleague in another state because these kinds of issues are resulting in uniform formal uniform complaints meaning what do we do part of the educational program and therefore students have equitable access to and what is a supplemental or an optional enrichment that's not school or district sponsored well if it's a school day and teachers are on the payroll and they're out then by nature that's a district sponsored activity so I think it's important to power excursions if they're off-campus an essential part of the learning that we want to encourage in PPS and and what is the right sort of margin for permissive activity in those
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in those areas and how are we sensitive to some unintended consequences about who can and who can't participate whether it's for economics or religious or documentation or any slew of reasons why a student might not be able to participate in something we say is essential yeah in the past we've heard about the Left Behind that weren't part of that program but how it affected with with a substantial number of teachers away on the trip and how that disrupted that so I think I I'm glad we're taking this on and looking at it there's there's some good reasons to look at it I want to make sure that we get good communication out and that's so that we're not surprising anybody as soon as we have consensus and clarity then we'll be sure to do the same so yes some some clarity around what what specifically do we mean as a district authorized trip would be good so talk a little bit about the process so we have a meeting this Thursday where this will be introduced so tonight we're having that formal first reading we probably will have two policy and governance committee meetings during the time period before this board before we we probably would incorporate it into the revised policy that's already had a first reading and then bring the whole thing the whole policy back for a final as a final second reading and approval what I would suggest is that people take a look at this if you're on the committee obviously come to the committee ready to have a discussion if you're not on the committee you're more than welcome to participate in the discussion to make suggestions what I what I would suggest we not do is wait till we bring the amended policy back to the board for second reading and then be making edits at the board table I think we have plenty we have plenty of time to try and get it right so let's try and do the work because if we do it at the board table or last minute I think sometimes we may have an unintended consequence and then people might not have an opportunity to comment on sort of the last-minute change so I really recommend people you know well this pressure tested this might need a third reading and I've been and that's I'm perfectly okay with that if if it if it bounces back and forth to because I think realistically the public coming to a committee meeting during the day versus testifying the board at night there's a big difference between that and that kind of availability for a lot of people so I think we need to be sensitive to that so we will have to committee meetings and we could think about how to structure it I guess I would be concerned about having a third reading because we don't do that for other other thing so let's think about ways in which we can provide opportunities for people who want to comment on it right but you know we didn't need to do a third reading for the cash management policy okay there's that this one is is going to attract a lot of attention now and that's that's a good thing and we want to make sure that people get that we're informed and that people have a chance to weigh in and so that might if not a third reading at least have some some kind of venue whether it's a formal board meeting or not we've had other policies over the last 18 months that were pretty nice visibility and and a lot of people were interested in and we got a fair number of comments through emails through you know phone calls there are lots of lots of ways that people can indicate their their concerns or ask questions so I mean that's why we're that's why we have the 21 day comment period and and and just to build on that I think two really significant policies we had was the complaint policy and the public records policy you know which were six or seven months processes but I would say that every most people who provided public comment the committee
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had a discussion about it and in most in many cases it informed the final outcome now at some point people are gonna be yes or no but when people had good suggestions when they emailed it you know comments in or communicated in some other way I think we always had a time period during the committee's dearest deliberation that we discussed what had what public comment read received and whether there was an inclination on the part of the committee to include that and the 21-day is the minimum it doesn't mean on day 22 you know we're done if we continue to get commentary I mean we had policy discussions six seven eight months well it's not trying to repeat that record well you know I've got to ask my fun question though so with those comments that were received those that were received were those mainly parents and adults from that comment period so I mean I guess one thing I'm thinking of is this specific amendment I mean I would send this any personally I would send this straight to schools to have administrators and students look over because I mean you know parents voice is extremely important as well but this is something that's gonna be directly affecting students and their trips and like their plans so I I just want to be mindful of that because I don't think that happened so so I think we'll hear from I think we'll hear from people and what yes we will communicate it I also think we need to be mindful of the people we don't hear from can you help facilitate that no I counsel yeah got to work turns to getting this out that would be just for point of reference I and I think part of our conversation that we had in the committee because we had we have spent a significant amount of time talking about this concept is that you know the vast majority of students don't have passports so for example any trip out of the country by nature excludes it and most of these trips there's a database you can look at and you look at the cost and we likely have students who aren't participating because of the of the cost of the trip and so again I think it's important to listen to students who might be impacted but also to recognize that we may not hear from those students who are impacted as well in a negative way by the current policy so it isn't that a separate part of what you're suggesting for a medical college well the policy does also have a no student can be students can't be prevented from participating because of a financial cost administrators addresses directly so it looks like some a great discussion Nick anything you can do to be helpful but will want to circulate it broadly and welcome and impact I think our work always gets better by hearing from a diverse set of individuals so board members if you have any issues with anything the first readings we had please let me know or let the committee know and we'll have a discussion that our next committee meeting policy recisions will be posted on the board website and the public comment period is 21 days with the last day to comment the January 29 2019 the board will hold a second reading of the policy recisions at their January 29th meeting ok the next set of policies will be a second reading we have three policies that had a first reading on December 11th 2018 our policies have been posted for public comments since that time the board is now ready to vote on the amended policies again I'd like to direct ask director burne Edwards to provide an overview of each amended policy and then we'll vote on each policy separately thank you more so the first policy we have before us is we're going to be amended amending the cash management
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policy which is eight point two zero point zero one zero and there's it's a quite a lengthy policy that's 13 pages we're making one small change which is we're currently under the current policy we have to approve the policy every year which is not what we do with any other policy so there's two changes that have been first read which is we're striking the requirement that every year the board has to approve this that's on page 13 and then we are adding language that the report the cash management report shall be provided to the board on a quarterly basis and now that we have a full finance team we know that's possible so very small changes and we received no public comment on this policy and it was recommended out of the committee on a unanimous vote would you like a motion second word seconds the motion to adopt resolution 5 786 miss yu-san is there any public comment no ok any board discussion okay the board wouldn't a vote on resolution five seven eight six on favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please seem to keep by saying no any abstentions represented Paisley yes resolution five seven eight six is approved by approved by a vote of 7 to 1 with student representative payslip voting yes next policy the board will now consider well yeah let me put it on the table ok board well now I consider resolution number five seven eight seven amendment of reimbursement of expenses Board of Directors policy one point four zero point zero eight zero do I have a motion so moved second director bailey moves director konstanz seconds the motion to adopt resolution 577 would you like to explain what the resolution is sure so this is another policy amendment that came out of the policy and Governance Committee on a unanimous vote or nanos recommendations has first reading we did not receive any public comment on it and so the original revisions that we made are still in place essentially this is a policy that speaks to reimbursements there were two methods provided for reimbursement expenses for the board of directors when we were going through our budget process last year we flagged that we need to make a change so that we're in compliance with state law so we're what the rescissions do are actually require that the reimbursement option is by reimbursement of actual expenses so it's a technical fix so that we're in compliance is there any board discussion okay the board will now vote on resolution 5 7 8 7 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed say no any abstentions student representative P slur yes our resolution 577 is approved by voters 7 to 0 with student peace representative pacer voting yes I have a question which I should have raised before which is the timeline from for implementation is retroactive back to July of 2018 which obviously isn't practicable in terms of reimbursable expenses but that's gonna be addressed from an operational standpoint I think there was a message that was sent to the board members about about that so so we'll also I'll send you the communication but it's a good point to raise and I'll share with you what we sent out okay the board will now consider resolution number five 788 amendment of Board of Education Policy 1.2 zero point zero one zero and Student Representative duties policy one point two zero point zero one two do I have a motion a second director Anthony moves director rows in seconds the motion to adopt resolution
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five seven eight eight would you like to explain them yes this was another I would describe it as a technical fix and some compliance related changes that we have to policies and effectively what we've done is taken the student representative duties and from the board of directors policy and put them in the student representative duties policy and this is really a cleanup and I want to acknowledge that there was significant discussion with our previous student rep Moses Tran and then their current student rep also an interest in making changes to this policy and bringing them forward to the board for consideration and by just amending this policy for these cleanups does not at all preclude in fact we'll be anticipating that further changes will be coming but this is a sort of technical compliance cleanup so you should have a fresh fresh slate for your work ahead and again this came out of the committee unanimously there's been no public comment and we recommend the board's final approval is Houston is there any public comment yes one steep view Steve you'll be nice to have this little comment before I make the comment about this thing would be nice to have child children driven school district instead of data-driven school district there's things you have to do to put those two things together I don't see it happening the way that we're going while you're all patting yourself on the back please keep in mind that you've done way backwards on some very important initiatives that were the board before you that you have dumped which were very child oriented and I'm not sure your transparency has gotten any better I haven't seen that I'm still struggling trying excuse me are you speaking to these to this person yes I am and that success exactly what I'm talking about the this resolution well is not just a little clean up this changes the status of the student represented and the student representative has always been seen as a equal member with the board except in two areas area one is not is there he's only allowed or she's only allowed to come to executive sessions with the approval of the board and two is that he or she cannot vote and in the original policy it says every other thing that a board member has he or she has that power now basically what you've done you've taken that away now if I was a student rep I'd be screaming bloody murder here because basically what you've done is taken away student voice because in this case the student voice is there at solid as a rock the new policy changes makes him a kind of a like he's out shadowing the school board not an actual member of the school board now a couple weeks ago you this board took a look at student voice and said we don't really want undo student voice me you just did it again tonight where they asked can you take care of this neck which was a good question but there was no answer there was no yes we'll take this out actually go to the schools and that and the kids in the schools and let them as your student rep suggested so this is a real destructive thing per student voice I'm a big proponent of student voice I think it's critical to listen to your students in your school system and I and this goes the exact opposite direction I suggest everybody vote no and you go back to the drawing board keep the things in there and the mr. Paisley himself goes wait a minute this is not working for me this is wrong you guys have a nice evening I think I do anticipate with the work that the student representative is doing with the superintendent and the hiring of a new liaison within the district to support a much stronger infrastructure for a bringing student voice forward I do anticipate probably substantial changes to this policy and Nick before you before you leave and one of the things you know we had the opportunity to to meet with the panel of students at the Council of great city schools we had a really great discussion about whether or not student representatives should be full voting members and there are some districts that have that precedent and there's
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still some exceptions around labor agreements and personnel matters and all that but but that was something that really progressive school districts are are doing so I look forward to seeing some you know substantive new ideas coming forward from both of you on this whole area because I think it's right for a lot of change in my experience on the board we have not done a good job of honoring student voice and having structures and mechanisms for integrating kids into our decision-making process and I think we just we just saw that with the SRO issue and we're getting better all the time but but just like everything else that we're working on we need systems in place so that it's not just an ad-hoc occurrence so we recognized that early on and when one part of our district reorganization is as you know we created a new Department for Student Support Services and we were getting ready to launch sort of one wing of that and that was to be deliberate about having central capacity to promote support student leadership and student engagement student voice and I know that chief Martinek has been working with our student rep a slur so that our students are actually helping as a part of the selection process and being clear about what kind of person can really help fill that role to support student leadership activity across all of our high schools now this team will be focused not just on student government and leadership but also supporting student leadership activities like with our Black Student Union's our Metra groups and other requests and solicitations from school at the school level for central office support in those areas and so PBS hasn't been organized that way in the past and so we wanted to make sure and create a capacity that you might find in some of the larger urban districts and so stay tuned for I know a couple personnel that will be going up for recommendin higher to to help lead that effort I had one comment about the language or the text here specifically and I just wanted to check with mr. Paisley it references the superintendent Student Advisory Council super sac and I know that our students you know I wanted to have ownership over the nomenclature of that group like a district level Student Leadership Council and I just wanted to double check how you wanted the language to be reflected there yeah so we have so far changed the name of the council to the district student council so that's how we're gonna be moving forward and so I mean I think backing up on that those changes are what I'm looking for there's lots of changes and I think additions to come through this school year that I hopefully will work on and get done before my term is up so yeah I'm looking forward to that and so I think I mean as long as moving forward as long as this I I agree with this clean up because I think this policy policies have been messy over the past couple years and nothing's really been done so I agree that if the cleanup is necessary and that it makes things more clear for the tient representative currently that makes sense but that doesn't mean I'm leaving it here so there will be work done and we are I my goal is to put all of our new edited items and additions into this especially that work with the new students student support position for next year so yeah great well after we modify that this this evening if you have a package of amendments spring to the policy and governance committee and we can consider them maybe it's worth clarifying that these this recommended cleanup was part of a pretty extensive review of the policies done by outside counsel and was recommended as sort of a technical change and was not met at all as a diminishment of the student representatives voice in this process and we welcome your your suggestions and bringing forth changes to the policy ask you a question straight up and it's in reference to what mr. bule said if you look at what's in the crossed out here is the first two sentences state directly what the responsibilities are and the new language starts off with student represented to learn about the board by and then lists a bunch of activities and I think I'm and I see nodding I think that's what mr. Beal is
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talking about in terms of whether intended or not there's a little bit of nuance in the original recommendations from outside council that had to do with and Liz you could help me out here that had to do with my ability in the way that the they were they were done and made in the summer of 2017 and they were really focused on comply technical compliance I don't know that the language that you identified director Bailey was really at the heart of those concerns again I think trying to create not only a compliant a technically compliant structure but also making sense of these two policies and having content about the student representative in the student representative policy and the elected board in the other policy was also part of the intent to make it clearer so you had technical compliance and you had clarity so those sentences that you just read I think we're more subsumed in the intent intent to clarify not the technical fix if that's helpful look like it wasn't so let me know yeah I mean just as it reads though it's you're an apprentice or or an intern in that sense Wells and is that what that's what the language with directly state is that is that what we want - am I missing something here in terms of what you were just saying well I mean the cleanup from what I remember is that it's to clarify that I'm that the student representative isn't a board member am I correct that I mean that's that's one of the that was a part of the cleanup was to clarify that it's yes okay right so to clarify that yeah okay so maybe also director Whelan just look at that it's a super long paragraph with lots of semi parents but it does say that it's talking about the duties representing the views of students on matters of concern to students it also has being an articulate voice to the public on matters of concerns of students so I think you still even though that it's not it doesn't lead with it it is one of the many clauses listed in that very long yeah I'm looking at the main sentence which is the student representative is expected to learn about the board and that's that's that to me feels like a pat on the head I think I would concur with director Bailey because I think in the attempt to offer clarification when you read the paragraph as is and it wouldn't take a lot to sort of create more affirmative language besides may not will not can't versus starting off with our student representative plays an important role and yeah amplifying student voice to policy make elected policy makers of them you know and then elaborate on what those parameters are I think has a different tone cuz I think what we're getting that yeah so can I offer a potential path forward maybe we table this or we said maybe we said we send it back to the committee that we have a meeting on Thursday we can capture the I think what we think is the intent but maybe not artfully expressed and then bring it back for a second reading does that work yeah no I think that's I mean yeah no I mean I think timewise just for this section I think that would be a good idea because I think there's a little more I think yeah we don't need to wordsmith it here man we have a medium and we can I don't think there's any disagreement on the intent it's just not captured artfully worded so we can correct that we can then send it back out and I unless miss large tells us differently we probably can then just have another second reading on the language this is the sound like we're in it be changing the substantively of the intent rather just how its expressed yeah I agree with that I mean in with my plan this year too I mean I don't think this isn't the first time these isn't the only time this policy is gonna be adjusted so I mean there will be more to come so with that in mind yeah that yeah there will be more time to go through this so and I
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think you know you and I have talked about this yes a fair bit it's gonna get through finals we just kind of define I'm like I will work on this in two weeks but now and and my expectation is that your suggestions for change are going to be very substantive yeah and insignificant mm-hmm in the direction of not only clarifying a student rule but actually enhancing it no yeah I mean it I think events budgets involved the position involved there's I think there's there's all gonna be a lot more coming to this as well as I think we can you know craft it a little bit more to be student voice boom okay so we have a motion there's a motion on the table though and so this large do we can we amend that motion to send it to the policy and governance committee so I would we need a motion to table we just refer it to a committee okay do we need I think I need some legal guidance here sorry how about I move to table the motion or we can just for just or we could just vote we could just vote it down and come back I think I do either path will work I think it's clear what the board is trying to do so we can pick one path or the other but there's the the point of our governance is to make clear on the decisions we're making and I think it's the intent is clear procedurally we can withdraw the motion you can that would probably be the cleanest okay right okay so do I need to vote to withdraw or can we no I think we're ready to made the motion is Anthony right so I withdraw the motion okay all right resolution 5 7 8 H is withdrawn and will be reconsidered at the policy and governance committee okay okay the the next item is board leadership votes per board policy leadership roles are voted upon twice annually at this time I'll ask for note nominations for chair and vice-chair but let's take nominations for chair do we have any nominations I nominate Rita Moore do we have any other nominations okay do we have any nominations for Vice Chair are we gonna have just discussion and vote okay let's do we have any discussion on so resolution number 5 7 8 9 election of board chairperson with director Moore nominated for chair do I have a motion in a second director Anthony a director Bailey move director Anthony seconds the motion to adopt resolution number 5 7 8 9 is there any board discussion so yes gonna be supportive I just want to share a concern I have that we retain our sense of urgency and focus on our core responsibilities of the board I'm concerned that we're halfway through our school year and we have not yet completed that goals for the superintendent we have a facilitated discussion with the Pioneer community that's about six months overdue and I'm also concerned about a host of things that we had were sort of in driving with great urgency and we have not yet completed or put it on our agenda and one of those would be the and or the continuation of the middle school work we haven't had on our agenda for the last six months so yes I would with my vote asked that we really keep
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focused on what we need to accomplish as our core role as the board and the things that we need to accomplish for our students the second thing would be also that there be frequent regular conversations with board colleagues about our our work so that we have open lines of communications as we move into the second half of the year I would like to say I'm gonna be supportive of chair more to continue in the role and I just like to say that with regard to our activities and our agendas what we have arrived at in the last six months which is very different from the preceding year is a joint work plan with the senior staff that clearly prioritizes all of our activities and it's there is a lot of work to be done as we all know and it's there are no priorities unless they unless we really strategize about what we're capable of delivering what the board's appropriate role is and what is what is reasonable to to ask and to jointly plan with staff and so as far as that really should be our guiding light and I think we still need one more iteration of of codifying exactly what that work plan is and we're gonna attach it to metrics and how we're going to attach it to our board calendars but we pretty much completed the unified work plan that tells us where we're going to prioritize our efforts and that was work that was collectively done so for me that is really energizing because we're not scratching our heads thinking what are we gonna respond to next or what's coming out of the blue we've really said this is the constellation of pressing issues this is how we're gonna go about addressing them and we're all on board or to the extent that we might not be we've had really robust discussions about it and we've prioritized together so I I just want to reinforce that that is it should be our guiding light and and in the coming year or let's say in the coming six months I want to see that very pragmatically applied to our meeting agendas I think that's the next step my primary point was that we have worked that's the board's work that needs to be scheduled and the staff has nothing to do with the superintendent's goals and we need to do that because that's one of our primary responsibilities and it's just disappointing that we're at this stage in the year and we don't have that completed I appreciate what you're saying and when I look at my calendar I don't know something else would have been shipped off I mean we've been working so just leave it there it's a call the question okay the board will now vote on resolution number five seven eight nine all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes opposed please need to keep my saying no any abstentions student representative Paisley yes resolution number five seven eight nine is approved by those seven to zero if student representative use their voting yes can I ask a Miss Lodge question so we have the the posted resolution number five seven eight nine was for both a chair vote and a vice chair i but i it's what's posted is the second resolution five seven nine zero for the vice chair okay okay when I consider resolution number five seven nine zero election of vice chair I nominate director Esparza Brown exactly okay director Brynn Edwards nominates director as far as a brown and director Anthony directed Bailey the other one director Bailey seconds is there any board discussion okay the board will now vote on
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resolution number five seven nine zero all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed say no any abstentions student representative Paisley yes resolution number five seven nine zero is approved by a vote of seven zero which student representative yes okay thank you I guess we should say something just move on to the next thing I want to thank everybody for the vote of confidence it's theirs as everyone has said there's a great deal of work to be done and the work is is hugely important for all of our students so we can't lose sight of the real essence of the work which is improving the way we deliver education that is appropriate and engaging and and useful for students and and we're trying to where we're still in the stage of developing governance processes and we have made some real process progress I think in identifying the joint work between the board and the staff and there's still pieces that need to be finalized but I think it feels to me at least like we have a more solid footing on knowing who's doing what when and how and and I think it gives us a path forward to to make real progress in the kind of transformation that we all want to have happen to PBS Thank You colleagues friends also for the vote of confidence I'll continue we have done a lot of work and we are exhausted as we can all look at her faces but it's important work there's been a lot of progress that's been made I'll just reiterate that my areas of focus that I want to continue to really laser focus on are our community partnerships when I'm closing that historic achievement gap or the resource gap making sure that we're providing equitable opportunities but we're doing that in community because we can't do it also looking to the progress of programs for kids with disabilities special needs and they'll continue to be really interested in our literacy work with the new dyslexia law that's coming down the pipe that will be enacted in September in the fall looking at you know how we can better identify and serve kids that struggle with with the literacy with reading which we know is about 20% of a population so kind of those are my areas of focus that I will continue to bring a lot of energy to is what was everything else on our work plan so thank you looking forward to a productive next six months okay is the business agenda the board will now vote on the remaining items and its business agenda having already voted on resolutions five seven eightt six through five seven nine zero miss Houston are there any changes to the business agenda the black parent initiative contract has been pulled I wasn't aware of that until right before the meeting how that happened or who pulled it and more information about it because I think also mr. Posey referenced a series of questions which the board has not seen seen the questions or the answers questions that pull all the questions and the answers so they were questions generator by the board I'm asking the same question okay I think it was so there were there were there was an email that was sent with some of the answers and is there normal practice when the contracts are sent out to board members that board members have a chance to review them ask questions and I think that's what should be noted in the audit that all direct negotiation contracts we were contracts for services students that the recommendation is that
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the board provide oversight questions that were asked by a number of people and so I spoke with interim executive director yesterday got the questions answered that I had excuse me that I had been asked of after I said that out there were additional questions that were asked and based on discussion through either text email or phone calls a variety of people including legal counsel we made a decision to pull the BPA contract I did call mr. Posey at that time and I sent an email to all of you that I was pulling the contract at that time and spoke with mr. Posey I told him that there were a number of other questions and so I told him that I would email him those additional questions which I did this afternoon and then asked to set up a time to meet with him and with iris Bell the interim executive director in order to go through more of those do more of our due diligence in order to provide the board with additional information so that you can make a decision I guess I'm concerned about process so how long and we've had the business agenda in our packet now for a while I'm just concerned about holding up but just you know kind of financial issues with some of our community partners and maybe because we've looked at our packets late and haven't asked the questions in a timely manner I don't know I'm just feeling really bothered I know it's it's a partner that has experienced a lot of turmoil and I think they're really working hard to rebuild and we our students benefit from services I'm just concerned about putting them in a bag position by having to wait so I'll address some of this so but almost a year ago the exact date so there were a number of issues that were raised one of them was that the was there was not a board a governing board for almost nine months which is out of compliance with the law which is a significant issue and I had asked some questions a long time ago that were were not answered and then I believe we got the not to get the contract and then we got the overview memo on Friday afternoon and further questions were asked I asked a series of questions and they weren't all answered I don't know what what other questions were asked but I personally I I do think one of the issues that the Secretary of State's audit raised that they asked the question about what our process for oversight and we provided a description I think we've made a lot of progress on how we provide transparency to for our contracting for those contracts that have a student-focused outcome there was a specific recommendation that we make sure that we that the board not just staff provide adequate review so I I asked a number of questions about governance if you might recall the story there was also an issue with staff and the question whether there had been training related to harassment and conduct staff so that they were that we knew that our partners were starting out with the training both in terms of governance and appropriate staffing training that they would have had that and we would feel confident that an organization that has interaction with our students and Families that we felt comfortable that they had met those standards and at least from my standpoint that's and it wasn't the
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content of what they're offering I think they offer a value of valuable curriculum but I also think it was an organization that had a very significant issue that I think we needed transparently transparently address it and what we looked at what sort of remediation what remediation the organization took and I think they've taken some well it's not there's a new board a new interim CEO I think they have taken steps I say that they were out of compliance with the law for nine months and we and we didn't know that so I think that's why those has been reconstituted I agree that oversight is crucial hmm but I'm not sure how to move ahead and really help support some of our organizations when they're going through their own drama and then how that that probably impacts their community to me the bottom line is the justification for the value of the services in the first place what are our schools saying in terms of requesting these school-based services and what is our Chiefs estimation of the value of continuing contracting with an organization is this bringing value to our students is it meeting the is it you know have we set clear goals and metrics and that's the recommendation that we ask for from our team in this case you yes so I think it's it's this is a complicated matter as I have taken on the Community Partnership responsibility just over the past four weeks it might be five weeks with the Christmas break there are contracts that I have started looking at and getting into the process of reviewing contracts I agree with the secretary of state's recommendation that we have had we have had some issues with monitoring our contracts and doing due diligence and having a clear process now that I am starting to oversee those contracts I am going to be meeting with our contracts person emily cordage in addition to Clair and a number of other people in order for us to get a clear process down so that we can do our due diligence while at the same time providing needed services for our students with our community partners who are vital to the success and support of our students in faith I believe that after I have a meeting with mr. Posey and iris that I will be able to provide you with information that will hopefully support the decision that we need to move forward with a BPI contract that that is my hope I also want to do it in a timely manner because I don't believe that giving you a cover letter two days before the board meeting is timely and so I need to fix our processes with our community partnership area our contracts and so there's a lot of work to do in that area and so I'm not gonna provide excuses or or anything like that I just believe that that I I need to do these things and I will provide you with a report only in fairness to chief Martinek here because this is part of our ongoing reorganization senior leadership shares the goal that the board has we don't need an audit to tell us we should be responsible public stewards particularly when we contract with valued partners we know I've worked hard to solidify sort of their own operations and there were a number of questions so I'm came in a little bit late but we want to have full confidence that your questions are answered and that we've reviewed and we've had a chance to communicate with our partners so that one that appears on the agenda for vote that we can feel confident about it it's also recomment and BPI is not the only organization right now where this is the exact same scenario we're asking for an additional level of of rationale and documentation and it's merely a bridge for partners who are currently engaged in multi-year partnerships with the school system that
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is separate from the fact that we really want to move towards having a very transparent RFP process we need to tie the supports and interventions that specific school communities are requesting and matching those up working with all of our especially culturally specific organizations so we're not looking to limit business in fact we want to be much more strategic about where we apply those partnerships because there's more than enough work for everyone but this this was an attempt to try to bring some second-semester support to a few named schools we just want to make sure that we're all good with with the specifics but the the notion of having contractual decisions or recommendations not being made unilaterally in any one department is why I think what deputies who Hertz came up to the panels to describe how we want to go about a multi department panel to really make thoughtful decisions like that and after an opportunity to check in with all of our partners around the kinds of services that they can provide in targeted ways to request from chair more if we couldn't make if we can get the questions resolved this week and then make an action item on our work session for next week okay I feel better about that I mean I think my concern is just process that you know we made sure to get our questions answer so we're not holding up a contract that where they might really be relying on our contract in order to continue to deliver the services so I would appreciate that if we could get the logistics and the metrics and all taken care of and then perhaps have a vote next week we this unusual period of time we don't we normally have board meeting essentially every other week and we have an unusual period now where we're gonna have three weeks intervening before the next but we do have work sessions in those three weeks we could certainly take some time and reconvene as a board as a regular board meeting and and take a boat if if we have all of the information we need because there's been mention of a number of different suit services that this is for parent engagement of three schools so it's it's not a student student outcome directly as a metric was that correct it is specifically for the three schools and its record a heron engagement you're saying there's no students involved I don't have any sense I think that the the contracts and I don't have it in front of me but I believe the contract states is a round parent engagement then is it's different from last year because last year's metrics were there was a parent piece but there was there was also a also student pieces as well and that what I want to do next week is talk about it because the timeline has been so shortened yeah I really want to have a conversation to see what's gonna be successful for BPI to do within a five month period of time right yes so one thing just for the rest of the board just in terms of contract process in our discussion of the Secretary of State they're not providing us with a set protocol for how they expect us to review contracts certainly there is an expectation that there be more vote board oversight over any contracts related to students that are the student services to students and that our direct negotiation and I should note that hard really careful that the contracts that they audited it's important to note that about half of them were below the Krait the $150,000 threshold that is for board review and as part of our dialogue with the auditors they are recommending a more that we outline what our specific process is so that it's a little bit by what this staff would like to recommend to the board is that we align more of an academic return on investment approach to our investments in these types of
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contracts and in our budget process we'll be bringing forward that whole framework and structure for this is like the next steps towards aligning resources two years to our strategic plan this is something that we've been making a little bit of progress on but asking for for the last several years and one of the key components there is for us to be able to compare like services and what the value really is so that the templates are similar the metrics are similar so that we can really make choices around where we want to invest resources based on what they're doing for kids and families and I think another piece that we've asked about several times is looking at the performance measures on an annual basis the annual and quarterly reporting and doing an assessment on the effectiveness of the work with our partners and determining whether subsequent contract need to be adjusted or changed or stay the same but based on those metrics see developmentally we agree we want to be student-centered and data-driven and that requires performance metrics and those indicators in some areas haven't existed historically in the organization so we want to be equitable and fair in how we are gauging positive impact certainly there are many ways they're valued partners describe that and we want to give assurance that regardless of of community-based partner for instance that we can document clearly that their work is in fact playing a role in raising student outcomes and certainly the board has been clear to me as one of our financial leaders of the district that it's something that you've brought up probably the first board meeting I attended and I've gotten lots of feedback from this and we are implementing the system working with our Disko partners on the other side of the house so thank you okay I'm going to we will return to this you'll be getting us more information and then when we have when board members feel like we have enough information then we'll take the opportunity to to have a vote in a boards some upcoming board session yet to be determined so what I want to essentially ensure for timeliness is that we have received several rounds of questions and that by tomorrow that we receive any remaining questions so we can bring closure to the issue thank you okay I will send an email to everybody just outlining again the questions and answers that I have received so that you can review those one more time ask any final questions so that when I have the chance to meet with BPI that we can go through and and be complete okay thank you okay thank you very briefly that we've been under a tremendous amount of scrutiny you're not the only funder or entity in our community that we've had to respond to relative to our condition this one let you know that we've had lawyers in we've had a whole bunch of people scrutinized our organization and my opinions and in many cases unfairly based upon something that happened to an individual why should our kids be jeopardized based upon the action of one or two individuals I just wanna let you know we're responsible we've gone back over and over this issue that we've had and I think you're right you can't do it alone you do need community partners you do need the community to be on board and we know the fundamental issue with our kids oftentimes is their parents they are products of previous education board members we're working with those parents I just want to suggest to you the state has provided funding for us other organizations have bright informant they'd seen this material your folk a month ago I don't want to cast any aspersions on anybody we've been in contact with Julia for a month these questions have not just come up if you all really had questions and concerns talk to us we're a small community everybody knows everybody we're your family
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talk to us that's all we asked fair point so just to just to clarify there there's a staff role in contracting there's a board role in contracting they're related but different and in order for the board to perform due diligence that people expect from us and demand of us we need to have the information and the information we got on Friday didn't answer all of the questions that we had so this is a it's an unfortunate circumstance that we're probably looking at a matter of a couple of days where we will probably be able to assemble more information but right now board members we aren't responsible for being good stewards of public funds we are under at least as much scrutiny as you have been and that's probably going to get even more so so we have to we have to do our job and my expectation is that we'll be looking at this probably within I would I would assume within the next two weeks when we can assemble all of the information so that board member questions can be satisfied so okay is there any is there any public comment on the business agenda no okay do I have a motion and a second to adopt the business agenda so moved director Anthony moves director sposa Brown seconds the adoption of the business agenda is there any board discussion yeah a couple questions about the prospects studio that I contract that I sent earlier so we this is the contract the Phase two contract the first phase was a no-bid contract and the second was by RFP and we're adding an additional increment on to this and I just so everybody knows I've sent these questions earlier so we're now at about two hundred twenty-nine thousand for the overall contract and that will get us through to all the deliverables that were stated in the RFP and then add an additional set of questions that I had sent through regarding other so two parts to this other items that will be cumulative to the vision process which was related to potential travel and how much that was and then any other expenditures that would finish out the vision divisions phase of the contract please identify yourself senior director of strategic partnerships and we do this process so I was able to respond to your email earlier this afternoon we are looking to allocate about ten thousand dollars for what we're calling learning journeys these learning journeys will be taking place in three different ways - the first will be a trip to the Bay Area the South Bay the peninsula and San Francisco this will take place over the course of a day and a half we look to have about a dozen or so folks from our guiding coalition join us for that trip the second trip that we are looking to embark on is here in the Pacific Northwest we will be making our way up north to Vancouver and Seattle area and we expect to have about 25 folks from the guiding coalition as we will be renting a school bus to make our way up there and then the last way that we're going to be doing this is a hundred percent participation of the guiding coalition to participate in a virtual learning journey we will be providing videos and excerpts from different areas in across the country that are showing innovative and transformational work for student outcomes in in so so again $10,000 for learning journeys the other two major items in this project are the
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guiding coalition gatherings as you know there are six in total over the course of obviously last December one in February and one in March we are looking allocating well so far we've allocated about 30 we doubt we're going to use the 30,000 that is just there for for now and I'm happy to provide a more detailed budget item by end of week to the entire board as I shared in the email and the last piece which is kicking into gear next week is our community meetings so thus far for the month of January we have 25 scheduled community meetings are about 25 community meetings and these are large tent gatherings with hundreds of folks and we have small focus groups as an example with team parents in our in our community and again that list will be made available to the public and to the board tomorrow and so again with with the community meetings we're looking again about 20,000 or so and that is looking at purchasing meals for certain communities like students when we're engaging students after school or during lunch and maybe you know want to do something outside of or the lunch lunch so those are the items and again by end of week ima happy to provide a detailed budget that accounts all of this for the board to to consume and again ask any questions great thank you for the information and I late-arriving me emails I don't often have a chance to review so with all that you won't be coming back to the board with another contract extension we should be we should have a finished vision yes and then I'm curious superintendent Guerrero just the follow on that the strategic plan is that a separate RFP or are we gonna do that in interviews internal capacity to build that out which is sort of the next phase of the process it is gonna be a combination I think we had set aside some initial funds and obviously this is going to build off the Northstar that this vision mean process articulates as a deliverable at the end but also builds off of a lot of interim work plans that each chief has begun to develop for for their department so I looking at a mid summer you know as soon as this starts to come into focus our our vision staff will come underneath that and hopefully what we'll see is sort of a multi-year strategic plan that builds towards that aspiration we did set aside resources for the strategic plan so I don't know that you know will be requiring that level of resource you know in this fiscal year beyond some late spring early summer activities so that might roll over to support that kind of activity and ultimately publication of some communication collateral I just want to know the community meetings I've also sent an email to all of you so you can start seeing an initial list of the community meetings that we or have scheduled can I just also point out that they the level of community meetings that we're now talking about it represents an expansion of the scope of work from the original yes happy to I think that was the punchline that there was a desire for more robust activity that the board really advocated for which I think has has been great it's really helped to allow the kinds of experiences that were trying to build in here I'm excited about you know being able to see what some very futuristic thinking is out there in areas like the role of Technology moving forward I think we're lining up if I can reveal visit to the Apple world headquarters so districts some schools in Silicon Valley doing some fascinating things a stem focused comprehensive middle school that's opened recently on top of some trips here in the northwest that are doing some interesting things that are all intended to just kind of provoke our thinking about what's possible and we're talking about what could be but some schools are actually doing some of these things and have been already so hopefully I think this will make for some good dialogue and I will just one-one-nine I'm on January 29th we are scheduled to come to the board to share raw and synthesize data that we've gathered over the course of again
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guiding coalition one and over the course of the last week so so we will be prepared and to share high-level themes and what we're hearing again all that raw data and all those presentations will be made available to the public as we want this process to be very transparent and for everybody to consume see that compilation of the posted wall yeah so when's the next work session the next board work session is that is that I guess the question is is the next port work section kind of have this on the agenda or right so the next board work session I've been working with the board office to schedule January 29th which I believe is a Tuesday right 29th it's a board meeting board we apologize so we will come to the board and a board meeting to present that data so I have just based on this dialogue just a request of the superintendent when we reach that sort of inflection point when we shift from the completion of the vision to this should you plan that we have a very deliberate sort of start of the process with the board and staff together so that we can again look at our sort of respective roles in that in that work and that we are deliberate and the launch of it I don't think it would surprise the board to know that probably sort of year 1/2 of any strategic plan is going to continue to fortify some foundational work that we've been doing so we don't have to wait for the conclusion of the vision to already start to speak about so big areas we talked we started the meeting talking about some of those core curriculum assessment Gate yells you know what does it look like to operationalize you know to the next level our work as a school system you know which will then build upon towards some of these attributes we want to see in our graduate profile definitely so by end of February early March we should have a real clear understanding of what community is thinking around the future of public education here in the city so again we won't have a finalized glossy you know thing to share with the broader community as they're ongoing conversations but we will get a sense you know of what the community is saying about again the Graduate profile the adult portraits the the shifts that we have to make as a system etc which have been outlined in the RFP and I think I said what I said because it won't may not feel like today's the day that we're launching the start of our strategic plan it there will be a time when we make that conscious sort of pivot but some of the groundwork that will go into it is the work that we've been doing so we're gonna look forward to sort of more formally sort of engaging the board and sort of a work plan for for how we articulate that strategic plan I also know that senior leadership will be spending some time as an invited guest at the public education leadership project at the Harvard Business School so we do have a formal invitation to send a small team my hope is that we do some continued polishing in residence there with the benefit of some critical thought partners which is a great place to do that in a place where I've been able to do that with other teams in the past any other questions thank you thank you any other questions about the rest of the board agenda a business agenda okay the board will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed say no any abstentions student representative paper yes the business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative pace of running yes okay are there any board committee or conference reports or student representative report yeah so just a few things last night I had the great opportunity to go to volunteer with Cleveland High School that partnered with the Blazers last night at their blazer game and so my sister and I actually she's a freshman at Cleveland er a couple of her friends spent the first about first half of the Blazers game walking around and trying to get money for get money to collect raffle tickets for people to go into a raffle and so half of the money that was raised will go to Cleveland High School and half of the money of the race will go to the person who won but I think in total the teams made just shy of $6,500 I think my team with my sister we made
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like eight hundred dollars out of the whole thing so it was a lot of fun and I'm really got glad to be seeing those partnerships take place in our community and yeah just a really great time to be involved with Cleveland last night after finals are over I am looking forward I am looking forward to schedule some more meetings like the superintendent talked about earlier tonight about the security resource officers vote I really want to take more time to get student input on that I know the vote took place on PBS's end but as my position I feel like it's my duty to get more student input on that so I'm really forward to that as well and then just to make sure that we really do a lot of outreach for those community students of color and those affinity groups sure I'm sure you have that know definitely and I already have some of the clubs and organizations in my mind organizations and my mind ready to go so looking forward to that as well as I know we talked a little bit about the student representative policy tonight but February beginning - meeting with my council again and some senior leadership team of PBS to get working on that and make our amendments and edits to that as well so a lot coming in the next month everybody actually stressed out good luck to all the seen are all the high school kids anybody else have a report on anything Thursday we have a policy and governance committee meeting we will be having another review of the purchasing and contracting rules which is a continuation from the last meeting will also be reviewing any potential Secretary of State action items there was a couple of recommendations for some policies so we'll be looking at sort of scheduling that under calendars in addition we will potentially have a discussion about student assignment to neighborhood schools and legacy the legacy policy although that probably won't be acted upon but there may be a discussion we will discuss the student rep policy language change we will also have four or five policies for new policies for first reading for rescissions and let's see what else we'll have we also have the the issues we just had first reading well in public comment in addition so that's policy and governance committee meeting and then the Audit Committee will meet on the sixth the 16th from 5:00 to 7:00 and we'll be covering a variety of topic I'm sure the Secretary of State audits will be one of them but also between now and then we'll have two days of interviews of our an internal audit internal performance auditors and I guess I'm just notify or leadership that we likely will need some sort of resolution authorizing the committee to make a recommendation and a higher since this is one of the few positions other than a superintendent that the board will hire and will look for guidance from you miss large on how to how to do that correctly I continue to take part in the with the central office staff on the sort of the core group around the vision process and Jonathan talked a lot about the what the work that we're doing and if you remember a couple of months ago when I said yeah I think we need to do about 40 years so these outreach meetings and there was I think there was some stun disposal disbelief yeah and there's I think that has turned into enthusiasm every single one while Jonathan scared shared out the initial schedule so there's there's a lot of meetings out there with a lot of different students constituencies so it's pretty exciting to see that mix of you know a big tent meeting but also a lot of targeted meetings to make sure that we really connect with full diversity of our community it's pretty good work and I guess one last announcement on Friday the legislative and intergovernmental
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relations committee will be meeting at 10:30 and will be meeting on basically what the name of the committee is mostly legislative affairs at this point okay anything else any other business for the good of the order okay thank you everybody the next the next regular board meeting is January 29th the next meeting of the board will be a work session on January 15th and this meeting is adjourned

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2018-2019, https://www.pps.net/Page/14001 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:50.174924Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2019-01-08 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - January 8, 2019

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