2019-01-15 PPS School Board Work Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-01-15
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	work
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education-Work Session, January 15, 2019

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okay the work session for January 15th 2019 is call to order first order of business do we have any student comment we do not okay okay so we're going to move right into the agenda items and the first item is a discussion of two proposed resolutions from the Portland Association of teachers one regarding black lives matter week of action and the other support for increasing Oregon public school funding so I'm asking Suzanne Cohen and Elizabeth teal of p80 to come up hi good evening thank you for this time on your agenda the the first resolution is regarding a week of action for black lives matter and so a little bit of the context or the history of this a two years ago our National Association the NEA called for action around black lives matter and so there's a movement called black lives matter in education and and that spawned Adan and the Assembly voted that we would value this and and so then in Portland members last year were wondering you know what are we doing around this and that was it came to us a little bit late and we invited many educators to come and discuss you know what did they think should be done and what would they like to see and from that they really talked about building out curriculum having you know diversity age-appropriate lessons and discussing other activities and and so a group of educators was able to do that but then really also knew that they wanted to build up towards something with more time for the following year in that time span the Oregon Education Association our state affiliate our assembly there voted that we this was something that we'd want to take on and so from there the Portland Association of teachers re-invited those educators asked more educators to come and participate in designing what a week of action would look like so they are currently still planning a series of events for this week including curriculum as well as you know I'm doing art camps and art builds and other activities that they could do to support this action and one of the things that we would ask is that the school board consider passing this resolution at their next regularly scheduled board meeting okay and the week in question would be February 4th to 8th right that is correct and it this appears that it'll be an annual event though the dates will change and we're you know for this year we're you know still kind of figuring out how to go but we're definitely very open and interested in and further partnership in future years to figure out how to make this a really valuable and meaningful event for everyone any questions so I guess one of the questions I would have well two things I would think that we want to do it just on a regular an annual basis versus like we do most other ones versus a sort of in perpetuity I was wondering see ya and we're very open to editing and that's why it's here in advance to working on it so it could be passed at annually and this could just be for this year would certainly be so the things that you described sound like something that would be a very worthwhile activities for our students to participate in I think I would want to know if the district is in be endorsing it with more specificity what that is be and again just this is more but not just a precedent-setting issue that you're going to be endorsing something especially in students are involved say if a school I did how we're gonna engage is we're gonna have a walkout you know would we endorse that so I guess I'd want to see what the what what it is we're actually endorsing that students participate in but maybe less concerned well even my teachers and administrators I'd want to make sure that it's in service to our educational mission so that I mean I know we're not voting out tonight so we
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have an opportunity to maybe get more definition around what that is well so we did pass I think an American day Hispanic and I don't think we've really had discussions on you know what if there was a walkout and all them so if you have maybe something that we want to have some guidance on and what you know what parameters are when we are supporting certain activities that are for social justice so I think that's a excellent point I don't know that we said we were going to endorse act actual activities versus we're recognizing the week when we recommend it I mean we said similar things that we want teachers to provide opportunities for calling out things in the curriculum and and aren't music and learning the history I guess the other thing I would say is this unlike the other ones were the other ones were initiated by the district mhm so I mean I'm assuming a certain level of knowledge of the district went into it or or their district general well so this is I think this is the first time that we've had at least in the last year and a half a resolution that came from an external party and I just think I think to that I think to your point too is that part of this endorsement is that endorses and encourages teachers and students to participate annually in the black Weisman black lives matter week of action in schools but we don't have a lot of information here about what those activities might be in our district it presumes that there is going to be a which is unlike the other ones so which kind of brings me to something that we were just discussing earlier which is what is that Black Heritage Month like this three months if if there if we see fans kind of broadly um in terms of Black History Month with you know Hispanic hist chair Heritage Month and then maybe here are some up some optional activities within those so maybe we're looking at a resolution that's talking about Black History Month recognize from both at the same time yeah and this is maybe something that would fall under Black History Month well the other piece of that too is that we are part of the Council of great city schools males of color initiative and we have we're getting more engaged in that work which is some common activities for different big school districts are wanting to recognize the the students the families the communities that we're in I think it's good practice that we recognize those times in the year but I think more importantly how do we make these educational in nature and certainly if it's the direction of the board we would want to make sure our teaching and learning department and our schools are afforded some direction and some guidance around resources and a great opportunity to collaborate with our teachers and leaders around you know here's some suggested lessons that are developmentally appropriate that address topics and objective ways that you know offer those varying perspectives this is a bit more specific to the black lives movement versus a traditional Black History Month per se so and I think that's what I hear everyone debating for sure we have urgency around making sure our underserved students which include our students of color you know that we have some deliberate strategies we're implementing and it is a big point of our conversations and something we want to wrap up our own initiative here in Portland like other urban districts are doing so I'm very interested in sort of which direction the board would like to provide on this topic because I there's I think there's a distinction there perhaps around you know as far as what our intent was originally we had a much longer resolution that kind of we were actually kind of hopeful that it would be something that that PBS did and housed curriculum and then and then we thought well maybe that's a big ask for the first year and so we would just you know this is really be in support of those who are ready and have those developmentally appropriate and are willing to do that we know that in some buildings you know there may be more members participating and more people ready to do that work than than others so we didn't really mean for this to be
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a mandate or you know you know by giving individual educators just like they do will will curate age-appropriate lessons it was more speaking in support solidarity of this happening and it nationally but we are certainly open and would love if there's if it can happen this year to to have curriculum shares or even places where our educators who are creating stuff could could share that with others or be more available I know not I don't know how much you know what can be accomplished in this timeframe but that it's absolutely our interest we actually kind of scaled that back well I like wondering too cuz we are talking you're talking about it's like this is kind of a work in progress as well so with you know we're talking about walkouts and everything I mean we can work with individual schools and educators to I mean you know if it's an assembly that wants to reflect this or certain classes or so I mean there's flexible this isn't asking I mean there's flexibility with where it could go within the school day right absolutely for the for the educator for the school and I don't I don't know why walkouts I mean that would be that's not something that we're organizing or asking for I mean that's that would be something else but but that's that's not what this is about yeah this is really about the language yeah and tying it to the movement and having a space where we can have these conversations agree through p80 is planning to do curriculum shares and activities during this week of action and we love to do it as partners with the district and we'd love to be able to tell teachers at the district supports bringing this this work about black lives into your classroom on this weekend letting their students participate knowing it's part of a national movement to really look at how our schools are supporting or could be better supporting our black students wondering just maybe a way to approach again partly because it's not something we generate him but I think this the spirit of enhancing the district's mission since we're not voting on it we have about two weeks maybe I don't know how much of a discussion there's been between PA T and the superintendent and staff about what those those are and the level of engagement so maybe that happens between the next two weeks and there's a we've had a discussion about what's happening and we think it dovetails and aligns with I would just want to manage expectations I think this pasture it was great that we acknowledged many communities of color and we want to have a fulsome resource and sharing going on and so if the board is gonna take up action on this on its next regular meeting the 29th and this is proposing the week of February 4th I think bringing attention to the matter and encouraging and giving our teachers sort of license an opportunity to to use their professional judgment is the first step to what would be sort of a more year-long scope and sequence where we could organize resources from a lot of educational places that do curate these lessons and I'll go back to my point that I think for consistency it would be helpful if we thought about it as you know Black History Month and then supporting that and then activities such as this within that for this year and then we absolutely our intent is to be to have more to offer next year and more support for teachers but I mean I think that that would be a way of that this it fits with even though it we didn't necessarily start this resolution our resolutions have been to support communities of color months do we have a resolution the drop being drafted or proposed relating to that well I was going to suggest how about would a board member be willing to take on the task of coordinating with p80 and with the superintendent and staff to to draft a resolution that would I think it would be similar to what we did for the other history months so director Prem Edwards director Esparza Brown will work with p80 and coordinate with the superintendent's office or his designee or is it nice and I say the office and and student representative hastler and ask that you bring back a draft resolution for board consideration next
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Thursday not this coming Thursday following Thursday okay so so we would have it that would be nine days from now so we would have it on it would be able to go out with the rake of the board packet in preparation for the meeting on the 29th right okay but in any case be they have something ready to go out in the packet so that we can consider it at the January 29th regular meeting equity committee is meeting Wednesday and then the the sub group that's been working on the black lives week of action is actually meeting this Thursday so if we could start that for their committee meeting that would be great tomorrow Thursday plenty of time yeah okay okay the next proposed resolution is on public school funding in Oregon that is right we are proud of the school board's adopted legislative agenda for this school year and absolutely funding is a top priority for us we realize repeatedly what a disservice lack of proper educational funding has been doing to our school systems throughout this state and definitely in this district this school board resolution is something that I that we're asking to again to be in partnership with I think it matches up pretty well with your legislative agenda and it is something else that we'd like to see the board consider to adopted their next business meeting we've other school districts in Oregon I believe have already adopted this or are on track to do a similar activity and again we're very open to adding I mean I was very long list one lack of funding is doing in our schools and we're also very open to working in partnership to define what a good resolution would be we never meant to dictate resolutions it was always meant to be a conversation as a partnership of wouldn't you know these are things that we all agree on and wouldn't it be nice so I think the same kind of process makes sense and my question is - director Brynn Edwards in direct response or brown would you people need to take this resolution on as well Shh yes speaking for myself speak for you although our adoption of our legislative agenda is pretty clear in this respect so I think this is gonna be a tough one to draft well I think I'll just say that one of the just when I looked at it initially and just wanted reference Julie's comments also as well that you know having some consistency in format so this isn't generally our styles of getting into our format I also think it would be more effective if we're not just talking about Oregon because we're not like necessarily like everybody else and I think it may be better to make it more specific to our district and more effective the other question I have for board members is so we lay out a number of things that could be funded and then we just have the reason the resolved that doesn't actually specify that we'd be spending it on the things that we're saying our areas were deficient so one of the things that I'd be interested in other board members if there's other warehouses that they think we should emphasize of things that aren't happening and it could be pick pick the areas where we have a deficiency of resources so are these the ones that we want to emphasize because I think almost by calling them out we then may need to be like and therefore if we get more money this is what we're gonna spend it on so that's just I'd be interested in that at board members so can I suggest that any board members who have suggestions forward them on to directors brimm Edwards and Esparza Brown for consideration when you when you all work together
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okay okay thank you very much thank you thank you guys okay next is the draft sorry okay so next item is the draft 2019-20 school calendar super Danny Carrera would you like to yes I forgot to say good evening directors as you know purport policy superintendent is to bring forth for the board's approval by May of each school year a school calendar I think we all agree that's probably a little late for letting our families know what our thoughts are last year we brought that forth to you at the last week of February and we're bringing forth to you this evening a draft calendar because we know we want to get input and feedback from our stakeholders especially our families so you have in front of you I believe a draft proposed 1920 school calendar and a memo from myself that outlines some of the criteria and constructing this recommendation you'll find a familiar list of variables that I think we tried to integrate and incorporate with last year's calendar so a lot of that criteria carries over but I think just to highlight some of the things that we heard were important and that was to try to preserve five full instructional days during the year to minimize short weeks to you know gather input from stakeholders around sort of that Thanksgiving week make sure that our semesters and our quarters are balanced in their instructional time of course that we observe our contractual agreements etc you'll notice some of our surrounding local districts have have identified in some cases different start dates some of them are waiting for us to sort of publish but I wanted to just let you know that this is this is sort of our draft proposal if you have any immediate sort of thought on what's there happy to take note of that but certainly forward to me any additional feedback you may have the intent is to quit all of our stakeholders including PTA and school leaders etc and bring it back to you for action at our next regular meeting January 29th I think the post labor day start will be warmly received by our families which is proposing the before Labor Day Wednesday before Labor Day what I was just looking at that case start I think right a lot of families will support the pre labor day they're getting used to it but it's not not all families are in summer vacation the argument is like wait till after the way you know people want to leave town for Labor Day and that's a luxury that not all of our families well have well we did hear a pretty strong preference from board last year that we move towards brief before Labor Day so we've honored that here I will say certainly in our initial conversations and with dat leadership one thing that we've been a little bit sort of could go either way on is whether a Monday August 26th star or the Wednesday star makes more sense knowing we would have to make it up at the end I guess that's like the one question I have because when we started all the school years start on different time dates sometimes but I guess the two days later on the Wednesday start is that for some specific reason or just how the day's work that's what we want to hear is their preference okay you know do we want to start with a full week the first week others are saying let's these ease into it on this question we're a little more agnostic I will say from on staffs behalf one preference is to it gives us two more days to engage in professional development activity that we confront load and support our educators and leaders with before students show up so what's the first day back for teachers it's the 22nd yeah that is correct so we'd have the 22nd and 23rd our district-wide professional development days for those in building to be determined but we have sort of a lot of language and our contract around how those days will get orchestrated hey I'm sorry if we were gonna start if we were
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gonna have that that week of the 26th be all all school which i think is what we did last week you'd basically move correct the people would be coming back on the 20th that's right from our teachers well we're working with our labor partners to gather you know sentiment in that regard I'm sure there's pros and cons to either it's already a pretty early end to the year but if you're a district that goes to June 20th it's it's a bummer there's the one you never known for snow makeup days - I mean that could always know with the snow makeup days so that we have the designated makeup days and then possible makeup days so those are if we've already used the other ones then you go to those I think we have language if you recall and our contractual agreement that if there's an indication we'll need a makeup day that we try to capture that Presidents Day Monday so that we don't have to tack it on to the end as an option it's a little problematic it says now the announced by January 18th and it's the same caveat we have after I think tomorrow or coming up days there's not a snowstorm then people can count on that three okay good I'm gonna inter interrupt here and I'm just gonna caution everyone against making any predictions one of the issues with the earlier opening is that some of many probably of our classrooms are incredibly hot yeah I'm comfortable sand that's that that affects teaching that affects learning there's that and you don't know I don't know if the month of June traditionally is a little cooler aside from professional development activity I am very sensitive to the fact that we need ample time to make sure our buildings are ready and clean and it's pretty aggressive activity all summer long especially when we have some swinging you know situations going on which will have less of this summer so there should be a better situation with programs not moving around quite as much the other question that I think it came up last year and it's a year ago I can't remember it was answered or not the assertion that ap scores it made a substantial difference in AP scores to start earlier I mean that's it's one of this sighted things here is is there any basis for that we'd have to look at some trend data and to see if there's a correlation there so that this is one of those we do things because somebody says it's so with yeah it was an assertion I'll just cuz I know that there was a group of parent high school parents involved in this that wasn't the assertion that in the scores but that it provides an opportunity for more instruction to occur before those tests which we don't have any control over when they happen so I don't think that the assertion was that there's some sort of set correlation rather what I heard from some high school teachers is they're just packing the curriculum in before the spring tests and then I know what happened I know what happens I had a student an Ivy student is like after they take the test there's not a lot of instruction happening because they needed to get it I mean they'd have their test which is sort of the summative expert yeah so once it's done it's done so instruction they're getting in June or in late May is for most students who are in IB and then ap to the extent as well you look at quote senioritis and that's again why why are we moving a couple of days back for the whole district for a subset that's and the material impact is zero as far as I can tell well you'll notice my memo didn't list because of state tests as a criteria for you know starting a little bit earlier I like to think our teachers are teaching every day they have
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students in front of them but again this is sort of this is where there's a little bit of leeway if the board or stakeholders feel strongly one way or the other this is where there's some room to to think about those days as a teacher I just want to put out that having three days at the last week of August and then a Monday holiday I mean that seems like you wouldn't get a whole lot constructively done at that time so wondering if please since we are early that maybe it would be best to begin that week on the Monday to have a full instructional week before a day off it's a way I would look at it see if there like one or the other you just start after the Labor Day or do a whole week yeah that's what I was making more sense that's what I was battling with a little bit of a few minutes ago because it's I agree with the whole getting more in in the first week but then it's that argument of like your first week back to school it's an entire week that's a lot for student yeah so I I'm struggling because it's like I go back and forth on that too because I have got I mean I do get a lot of that for my push but I got I mean some students too it's like I mean some students look at it like well why are we coming just for three days you know what I mean like it's but the converse is true too I mean kids and teachers appreciate that because it's just the opportunity to get into routines and to set expectations and then okay guys you're you're not you're out of practice a little bit so you're gonna get a little break and then choice we're gonna get down to business next week even more so have a question about the snow days so this isn't a prediction it's just a statement about the past so right there's no normally I'm I'm more to the Admiral because I think this is very much built to the normal so it basically has four days for snow days which may be for Portland's a little bit above normal but if you have a abnormal my Andrus I thought what we agreed we still have to meet the 990 so if if we had more than four days that we needed to make up in theory we might need to indicate that the 11th 12th and 15 instead of worst-case scenario if that's what got us to the 990 I'm just concerned because what what happens is somehow families look at this calendar they see the very last potential day whatever it is and a lot of people make plans and so if they're you know when this little arrow and the small box that says last day of school on the fifth I'm afraid people might start going somewhere this is a six so that somehow we just don't then get in the position that people are like you told us the calendar said X and yet we haven't still met the instructional minimal hours for the state yeah well as you know this was a topic in our bargaining sessions about how to make sure we both comply with required student time and sort of recognize it would be a conversation - we would find another place where we kind of build that in or the running assumption is we would have to go longer and if that happens early enough in the calendar year we would need to message that to everybody so they can plan accordingly what I'm hearing you say is by visually putting it on here it might signal to people just recognize that if there is storms we will have to perhaps take that Thursday Friday as well I agree that if we don't indicate the possibility in some way people get hoppin mad I'm responsible for the weather too I had just one more thing I think for the good of the order just as a student I like how I mean this might be compared with other years but I like how we've cleaned up November I know that this year that was a lot better for students because we had a lot less for day weeks or three weeks which means at least for high school we had more flex days to go in and meet with teachers and this gets because our semester carries over to January that allows more time before we leave for the winter great to get work done and all that so I think this is coming from me I think this is a good foundation for just November going forward just clean it up more you know more longer weeks and everything so yeah so there was was PBS off this year with
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the winter break compared to other districts I mean we had one constituent who wrote us they had a student in Beaverton and in Portland but they were different so I'm just waiting if there's something cuz that does seem to be just whether it's child care or I mean a whole host of activities if there's some sort of consistency Thanksgiving this year we were out yeah so and I think it but then we weren't out on the 14 but it through a lot of things off I think yeah this seems like this would be pretty conventional yeah I think the the way the holidays fall in the Cal year I didn't crosswalk to local districts our winter break I have Beaverton's in front of me which lines up exactly to the proposed calendar as well as PS use calendar one also because because of the way that it fell we had not just two full school weeks but then the additional two days for New Year's so it ended up being yeah well i'm it was our decision to end on the i think it was the 14th instead of the 21st captured well staff is continuing to continue working on in collaboration with our partners this speaks to the student days we want to try to serve have this document serve a little bit more as a master calendar for our employee groups so for example we have 30 designated tuesdays per contract when staff meetings are to occur so we want to indicate those on here so our teachers know when they'll be staying after school and similarly for our principals when they're expected back what days our leadership institute will take place at cetera so you can expect to see a little more detail in the final version okay okay great feedback great discussion it's the one similar to what we've been having internally and with stakeholders so let us know and you'll see it again in three weeks okay thank you alright so we're gonna move on to the psu enrollment projections and the Portland plan welcome thank you trying to introduce yourselves and and what your jobs are and why you're here and then you can then you can launch into great can I can I give it a little intro I'm very excited about this presentation so I'm really fortunate so thank you I'm Charles Ryerson about 30 or even school districts yes and I've got a powerpoint presentation here and I'm Jose ender I'm the chief planner with the city of Portland Bureau of planning and sustainability so you have the annual and sort of the near term forecast here in our forecasts and plans that I'm here to talk about tonight go out to 2035 so it's more of a long-range look at the number of households in the housing and how it might be distributed across the city okay can somebody help figure out how to so as I mentioned we've been doing these forecasts annually we actually have a history of going all the way back to the 1970s working with poor public schools we've done enrollment projections in the 70s the 80s and this is the 20th consecutive year that we've done long-range enrollment projections schools we typically do a low middle and high scenario at the district level and
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then the middle scenario is broken out into forecast for individual schools by also forecasts of the number of residents by high school plus were attending any PPS school number of residents by attendance area attending any PPS school so all of those are available on in our annual reports the in December of last December we deliver that one year forecast that C used in part partly for teacher allocation and then later in March will deliver the 15 year long-range forecast so when I I like to evaluate our past forecasts and the first thing I usually look at is the k12 total I like to see it stay within one percent of actual enrollment and I like to see the middle series be the the most reliable compared with the high and low and going back to the the year that enrollment started to rebound 2009 I'm gonna show quickly run through a series of of our low middle and high range forecasts the the middle range being that that line with red line and in the forecast that we did during the Oh nine ten school year the the middle forecast is still the most active it following year all of these forecasts the middle is within 1% of of the actual enrollment which is the black lines with the squares likewise 2011 school year middle forecast is still most reliable then the after 2015 the growth trajectory started to slow a bit so the forecast that we did during the 2013-14 school year actually the current year's enrollment which is the last square there on the right has fallen below the low forecast and likewise 2015 base year so you can see where we've adjusted our expectation and again this is just total k12 this is last year's forecast it is with actual enrollment was within one percent of the middle series however it's also below the low series so we've got a preliminary look at a long-range forecast you finalize it in March and again we're showing growth but at a lower pace than what we had been so excuse me one thing I'd like to request is that I like for these documents to be available to the general public but I think we need some context for document when I look at these documents there's no sort of definitional or what what we're seeing so I appreciate the oral commentary but to have these documents meaning anything to anybody who is not the meeting I think would be helpful that we have the commentary this is to your point director Bailey of having some narrative that describes what it is version we're saying we usually get a pretty thick annual report when the forecast is finalized that does just that goes goes through passage rate forecast and this this presentation has speaker notes on every slide and in fact some of them refer to past annual reports and and again this later this year there'll be a an annual report corresponding to the newest forecast I guess maybe it'd be useful had the speaker not be available again because if you're not watching it if you get this doesn't mean anything and I appreciate we'll be getting another report but I just think if we're gonna be using this as a base of discussion that would be helpful to the broader public to be able to talk about what this means so that'd be great yeah in fact that's why I'd rather than animating where I just ran through each one's a separate slide so if somebody wants to print a PDF of it with the notes pages you know the next line there you could layer them on top of each other but then you can't do that so so do you have a sense of why you were low what what assumptions didn't hold well we're gonna see a little more of that so
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that this these are the preliminary these charts appear in the in the annual report every year and we can see a new high middle and low the low being pretty flat in chart to really you know the it's the entry grades that really matter and this year is the sixth consecutive year of a declining kindergarten enrollment and we'll look even closer at that in a couple of slides so Elementary enrollment peaked in two years ago and it started to decline so we know a lot more about births now than we did a few years ago and amazing decline in number of births in the US the nation and particularly Multnomah County the number of babies born to women residing in Multnomah County in in 2017 was the lowest since 1978 when there were one-third fewer residents of the county what was the rate the reason what was the rate or the rate oh yeah total fertility rate 1.25 for the county and even a bit lower for public schools so but on the other hand a chart for shows that high school enrollment will continue to grow under all three scenarios low middle and high because of that momentum from we had six years of of kindergarten growth prior to 2012 so that's pushing on through to the upper grades so you know we can't know definitively why people are doing whatever they're doing or not doing but it's curious to me that the the kindergarten enrollment went up during the recession mmm-hmm that's counterintuitive I would have expected the opposite well I've got a couple of slides on that but no this is just quickly bullet points describing how we do the forecast one of the things I wanted to point out is well we we have birth data we look at residential development especially affordable housing and we look at the capacity and and the allocation of growth from the Portland plan we also collaborate closely with district staff you know they let us know what's going on in terms of changes boundary changes of course and even more detail number of lottery slots etc so that's important however we can't really anticipate things like suddenly a school gets more popular you know so we've got things built in like the capture rate of neighborhood children you know we we don't want to be too necessarily optimistic that things are going to improve if they're low so they're generally status quo so that can that can really make things change at the individual school level there's our kindergarten trend the bottom line the solid line and it does track pretty well with the birth trend these are births lagged by five years so that peak there that occurred in in fall of 2012 with the biggest kindergarten of over 4,200 students that actually aligns with the peak births of 2006 7 which was you know before the recession so birth started falling during the recession most people in my profession asserted that well it's it's due to the economy however they've continued even after the economy got better there's other long-term reasons for births to fall so we've seen we've measured births through 2017 probably a little optimistic about that rebound there on the on the top line so that may change before March but we're looking at a few more years of flat or declining so I I was looking at this chart and what are your assumptions that make you think it's there's gonna be a rebound population growth you know the the you're gonna hear about how much potential the city has to to add more housing and you know a lot of it is
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maybe not maybe most of it's not the kind of housing that family is gonna live in bed right some of it is and and there is you know continued migration into into the city and so we're especially with the affordable housing coming online you know with bigger units we're measuring that and we're seeing you know probably a change from what we've seen the last several years when almost everything I got built was market rate studios and one bedrooms so so looking at it another way this is a ratio of kindergarten enrollment to births and really hard to explain it did as kindergarten enrollment was was going up the ratio kindergarten enrollment went up faster than corresponding births that's the point of the the left side of the chart and it was pretty stable for all the way up until full day kindergarten was implemented in 2015 so that's that's where we thought we were in terms of migration between you know birth and age five in the last three years we've had this decline which you know that that part is hard to explain just maybe people people being able to move up into bigger housing outside the district hard to know so so that decline in the last year doesn't correlate with a commensurate did climb in commensurate decline in births however many years prior right so I said where that line is moving up you know kindergarten enrollment outpaced what we'd expect based on births where that line is going down the last three years kindergarten enrollment has has gone down and just more than the corresponding births hmm how has catchment rate what are what are the trends in the catchment rate I mean does that indicate that people are staying in town they're just not sending their kids to be yes or I'm moving out well it's it's probably so we've always got some out net outflow between birth and age five know this you know those ratios even at their highest swear point seven five so we think catchment rates between point eight oh and point eight two so that means a few more people there's lots of churn in in young families you know moving so a few more people moving out than in within you know given the district's boundaries being including the central city neighborhoods so so yeah it's it's a combination but we you know there's no evidence that there's a big increase in private school enrollment so it probably is mostly due to mobility rather than didn't capture so here's another more evidence of more people moving out than in this I like to look at elementary grades because people probably aren't making decisions between grade 2 and 5 about whether to you know enter or exit the public school system you know it's probably a balance of choice and and if there is a you know where the number differs from one the ratio of this year's enrollment to last year's enrollment that probably is all about mobility migration so in the years where there was you know growth the ratio was up to 0.99 and and we've had a couple of years where it's been close to 0.98 the forecast is is on the right expecting you know more long term but not you know we're not expecting to go beyond what we've seen in the past entering middle school on the other hand you know this has really been lower the last few years so this is a combination of mobility maybe similar to the elementary grades plus choice you know it does appear that that there you know would doubt that were the city the the district is losing 5% of its residents you know between age 12 and 13 or 11 and 12 whatever it is you know it probably is some loss to other options so we're not we're here we are with the long-term forecast that's not a whole lot more robust than than recent history I'm sorry can you just repeat what the assessment was on the middle school he said it wasn't likely that we've just lost 5% of the population between that age bracket so there's so they're choosing something besides like likely
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choosing something our middle grades sir yes exactly so somehow you know you compare this year's enrollment this year's sixth-grade enrollment everybody going to PPS schools 6% lower than last year's fifth-grade enrollment but here's here's the good news for a return to high school long long ago the the progression rate from eighth grade to ninth grade was was much higher like you know 12 percent higher than 8th grade back in a lot of people would go through eighth grade in private schools and come to public school at PPS about ten years ago that rate fell below one and it's been you know very low in in 2014 16 17 but this current year and you had highest ratio ninth grade eighth grade since 2009 so this appears to be rebounding people are you'd be happy with the rebuilt schools and eager to go there so what's the number of that jump number not the number of students oh well if there are 4,000 students per grade level a 1 1 % of that would be 40 so if it's 3 percent 4 percent higher than it had been you know that could be another 160 students or so so choosing to go to Portland High School's yeah so we got 150 student jump for Franklin and another 150 jump and for Roosevelt when they opened and my alma mater Grant High School I look for some increased Nicks next year so this was in the report a couple years ago people always want to know about you know how many kids live in certain types of housing they drive down the street and they see apartment buildings going up they assume that there's gonna be a lot of kids but we've kind of hard to read that this scale started about that but basically the majority of PBS students live in single-family homes that's what that chart eleven in the lower right shows and majority of those are living in homes that are more than thirty years old no surprise however that the student number of students per home is highest in the newest homes and that's what chart ten is showing the affordable apartments that includes all kinds of affordable apartments so it doesn't tell the whole story but the next slide which I believe is my last one this is drills down a little deeper this is from the report that we issued in 2017 I wanted to show the extreme because I'm always getting this question well if there's gonna be a hundred housing units how many kids are they gonna be sorry I can't tell you you know you got to tell me more about are these gonna be large units are there gonna be affordable are they gonna have amenities like playgrounds are they gonna be close to schools so this is the extreme studio and one-bedroom market rate departments one student per hundred units where as income restricted large units two three four bedroom units and these are actual measurements from actual developments and it ranges widely from one student per hundred units two more than 100 students per hundred units and that's forecaster that's based on what we've seen from like development yeah that's we met this is measured from student points and tax lot and multi-family information lining them up and comparing them and this is this is why you know if this is why we look closely at affordable housing and in that scene that's in the report every year too we try to do an inventory of how many units are they going to be in two plus bedroom affordable developments so hope left I'm for injured thank you
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and I think it's the right moment to acknowledge that you have been rather remarkably on the money in the last few years thank you what's next okay there I brought some slides as well but so Roseanne can you work your magic Roseanne's working a magic well and watch the other good sorry oh hey so oh there you go there you go okay so this is terribly interesting every time we have this comparison and what's interesting for me too is to reflect back on in the past during the Portland plan days especially and that's like 2010 2012 we worked very closely with PBS because that was the heart of what that plan was about part and since then we periodically cross paths in terms of these population forecasts what I'm about to show you is done a different way but tells the similar stories just that it's we don't have the the breakdown of births and the specific information that's more relevant to what the schools are going through if you're trying to design schools for program in for attendance but the big picture is that by hundred by 2035 which is the most recent comprehensive plan that we've completed and we just completed it last year you've got several hundred thousand more people moving to the in Portland both increase of population here and in migration driving that for the purposes of the planning that we do we really more often look at households because part of what we're doing is trying to figure out how the market and our programs are going to provide housing to meet this expected growth forecast this growth forecast starts by metro government forecasting it for the entire region its Anaconda metric model so it's driven by really the jobs part of the forecast first and then how much each of the different jurisdictions in the region can reasonably expect to attract in terms of that share of how of new households so we typically get 30 plus percent and have been over performing on what's expected the city to produce or attract over the coming years so by 2035 it's 123 thousand more households that's 30 plus percent growth for the city as a whole and where is it going to go the plan that we prepared just adopted by City Council is forecasting that it's going in these areas that we're calling these centers of three different sort of scales the Central City and Gateway those are the two big ones town centers which are more like Hollywood is the in lense are two big well-known examples of this tend to be bigger more more units per acre they're part of the regional system they're served by transit big transit and then these orange ones the smaller ones are the you you know very well if you live in the city are these what we're calling neighborhood scale centers that are very much emergent over the last decade and more the concentration of where folks are moving so I in our plan fifty percent of the growth that we expect between now and 2035 is being attracted to the town center and the smaller centers thirty percent in the central city which is doubling the number of units in the Central City and we're really on P we're on pace so far to see all of this honestly although we're heading into a business cycle and then twenty percent is in the the rest of the areas that are at a Center a quarter so geographically that's the scheme that seems to be operative and just I wanted to make the point of you know when you think of neighborhoods in Portland we have 94 different named geographic neighborhoods but really their market areas the neighborhood share centers neighborhood share a set of schools there's usually a few schools in each of these areas a commercial district or a couple of commercial districts and transit lines and it takes the total population and buying power that's contained in really not 94 but 24 of these market areas to support the development that we see take place in
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them and so it gave us a better sort of scale to work from the 94 is closer to the old days when the neighborhoods were defined by what schools were in their area this groups them together more gives us an economic basis because part of what we want to do in this plan is to use that forecast growth that's being attracted to or in the investment that it's going to take to be able to house that growth in the city to help improve different parts of town in very specific ways to increase their walkability to increase their access to goods and services to increase their access to amenities parks and schools to increase the supply of affordable housing that's in the higher opportunity areas that investment that's coming to meet this housing demand is part of what builds is the the largest part of what builds our city so questions like these 20 20 or 24 you know regions are they recognized by anybody else other than just as a planning tool you know they were invented as a planning tool so they're mostly planning okay I just director yeah we did them but across the city now in terms of a lot of the service planning and infrastructure planning we're using this collection of of market areas of because we can link growth in dollars and service and it corresponds to transit trips and the like think of it it's like a market shed and they roughly correspond to where the neighborhood coalitions are so politically there's some alliances as well yeah and in the big the big trick is that in the old days if it was in this neighborhood in that neighborhood who got to call the shot as to what happens that would be a lot of were debate was here it's five neighborhoods per Market area so you all have a collective interest in what happens on Hawthorne you have a collective interest and what happens and so this is just another representation of how this growth in households could play out across the city so here here is today yellow is greater concentration of households and you can see that when it actually plays out it looks like that centers and corridors diagram that we were talking about the part of this as I was listening to what Charles was saying the part of this that's really stymieing this expectation of how the development is going to take place is the economics of the housing market which I'll go into a minute and that may be part of what we're seeing play out in terms of who and what size households and how many houses can afford to live in different parts of town but these are the parts of town where we believe there's the greatest demand we're going to see that the most amount of that in capacity place where you can build the units and we'll see these units arising and that what size household piece is interesting if you could as you're going along speculate on how your sub positions might be different if we get legislative action that allows for multi-family housing in every corner in every community oh yeah I've got that coming that's a that's that's the other part of this it was occurring to me as well okay so that's and then here's this is just another representation of how it's going to be distributed so these are our coalition's that you're all are probably your neighborhood coalition's probably you're aware of there's seven of them and when we look at where the growth is in this particular forecast you know you're seeing a lot of it in southeast that's at what southeast uplift and East Portland and MPNs that's North Portland we're in the process now of planning a major new max line in southwest but that's really those units we would see that change we'll see outside this 2035 timeframe and this is an interesting part of the story that's always been hard to get a handle on visa V school we're doubling the number of residential units in the Central City and especially now that we have inclusionary housing we're proportionately increasing the number of affordable housing units in the central city so if it goes with what Charles is saying about that being a family unit very often that could dramatically or substantively change the demand or the presence of school-age children in the Central City and there's lots of different parts of the central city where we're likely between now 2035 to see those happen but really the concentration so far has been in the north part of the pearl we're seeing a big pop and expected growth in the Lloyd district and there's still a great deal of South waterfront to develop and then the whole Goose Hollow there's lots of
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the parts of the Central City with housing capacity okay so in terms of the types of units this forecast and this growth projection goes with increasing the number of multifamily units in no small part that's because of price and that's because of the land we have so much of our land is tied up in single-family zoning today that the place where we actually have the ability to provide units and the market will build them if the demand and the rents are there is in our multifamily Multi multi family in mixed-use corridor areas where I was talk about something at the end that could change that it will totally overthrow that model but increasingly it's going to be mixed-use or multifamily housing and Portland is somewhat new to the experience of the family families and multi-family housing across the economic spectrum and that's a coming thing that we're going to see more and more of or this population forecast is going to manifest totally differently like to a certain extent that has to happen we've seen it in other West Coast cities that have been at this type of development that include families longer so we can't just assume it's always studios and then based on this forecast this is once again just mining the metro data that we see a lower percentage households with children by 2035 but more household so I threw this in and I realize I don't know what the forecast was telling us about the number of children by 2035 which is more than 27% of 639 households just one hundred a hundred and twenty three thousand more households 19% of it'll be three hundred and fifty thousand households and what is it now right well it was eighty percent in the 2010 census I believe and so in what you're gonna see next is I just want to do this quickly you know because I think I'd rather be answering or having discussion a big part of what's going to shape this is and where these households with children land and where the lower income household lands is driven by the housing supply in the cost analysis we have new residences the gray the new housing units is the darker color bar this has been our story for a while where we're growing faster than we're producing units and that's driving up demand and up until recently that's been dramatic changes in rents it started to stabilize in terms of the growth of that rent but there's a long story here but a part of our trick is tricking the market to overbilled is is to say glibly but we need to wheat we traditionally are conservative market that doesn't over build in terms of more housing than the number of residents and so we have this constant price pressure but you're guns you're starting to see if moderate here's the vacancy rate goes down and rents are starting to flatten however when you leg to that for one second so sure to see it flattened win cuz not not yes well now it's compared to the rate it's just yeah it's these things are and Brent going back down well that's not typically what you're going to see in this situation but it's the rate of rate of increase rate of increases wasn't it can I just point out 1,400 bucks a month it's not a family-friendly rent a lot of people well for a lot of people yes yeah and well yeah and actually that's I didn't include all the affordability information but increasingly as Portland is growing in its population distribution just like the nation was at either end of the income spectrum a lot of that growth 123,000 households are going to expect to see in the forecast is a lower income household but if something does it moderate in this or in a production of housing supply that's really can't happen because you're not gonna be able to afford to be that household in the city or you're gonna double up or you're gonna live in substandard housing all these different tactics to make ends meet if it's another just sort of graphic representation of the rate and style
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this is single-family home sales blue is affordable to 100% medium family income and that was 2000 2001 you start to see a change and oh it's a time series I didn't realize that by the end well no by 2017 there's hardly any blue left and most of its not important in public school district it's only the river and these are single-family houses so that that part's coming next and this is a piece of analysis that we do this is a piece of analysis that we do around the question of gentrification and displacement but mostly it's looking at as we go through these market rate to market changes where our should we be paying attention to it having a disportionateately large income households with housing vulnerability where a rent increase doesn't just mean you move it means you could be out of housing and so this and we do this by comparing these two layers economic vulnerability which measures a number of different factors including income and race and education level to show different parts of town where you have higher concentration of households that have hot more of a vulnerability factors so the darker the color means the motor housing housing vulnerable a household is and we compare that with how the real estate market and in the land the housing value the housing costs and rents in those areas have been changing and you can see that areas that aren't colored in are already unaffordable and have been for a long time and as you've radiated up to the orange and the yellow these are places where up until this last year when we did this you weren't seeing the price pressure there you clearly are now so the price pressure on households goes to the full extent of the city is concentrated at least which used to be an area that was a receiving area for lower-income households so part of our tactic is to increase the supply of housing to these you know and getting the most housing that we can out of the land that we have and to do this all within a construct where it works with the ability of our different systems transit in schools and parts to accommodate that but it's trying to bring back the full range of housing types not just single-family houses and apartment blocks but that sort of scale of smaller of duplexes triplexes smaller apartment blocks garden apartments and up to your Central City kind of buildings that we actually have seen in the historic development of the city but our zoning now has long since kind of been a barrier tube so we're working on increasing that in those single-family neighborhoods as well and so yeah make one point you're you're the perfect person to be having this conversation with and I appreciate the opportunity very much and you're talking about your your going into the planning for the future part in terms of where are we gonna try to build all of this housing and how do we make it work with other systems including schools so presumably you're looking at the capacity of the our school infrastructure that we already have but one other thing that I wonder if you all consider in these assessments is looking at what we know to be the impact on educational outcomes of forced mobility and how do you how do we have a concentrated strategy on building housing specifically to address students being able to stay in their same schools so that as a factor yeah and actually that's been a topic of discussion the cost of housing is of course driven by a supply and demand kind of situation and so when I said earlier that we need to trick the market or just find a way to incentivize the market to build housing even though it may not make economic sense you're going to drive vacancy rates down for a while rents may stabilize you're not earning that sort of increasing return you can if we don't over build we're always going to be lagging behind the needed household that the housing that we need to accommodate our growth or that growth will stop but then if that does happen we run a real risk I believe of becoming even more sort of income separated where lower-income households can't even afford to be in the city so if you're in the city you have more resources and
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that changes not just if it absolutely affects the the student mobility you're talking about but it does it also at a sort of a big regional scale we're moving whole groups of population due to economic pressure that way so the tricks of the trick the the strategy that's built in here is to find ways acceptable to Portland that work with the kind of city that we're trying to succeed that increases the range of types of units and the number of units across the city to the extent maximum extent we can the market will build it we can't over build our systems that we absorb the externalities of that however if we keep the two in pace that helps with the overall housing pressure and then if we're providing affordable housing it has to be program housing we have to dedicate resources which we have as a city between the city's housing bond and the new regional housing bond and like this is a city that's stepping up to providing affordable housing but that's the housing that really creates stability and we're trying to locate that housing in neighborhoods where a lot of the amenities that just support the success of a household that lives there in that schools actually in parks and that sort of thing put housing in those neighborhoods to rather than just put them on places where we already have a stressed-out system and inadequate parts of those that's that's the overall strategy so the last thing is just in the single-family today in our neighborhoods you can build a house and you can build a house with an Adu and if you so basically even all of our single-family neighborhoods and you saw that so much of that housing is accounting for your students it's two units can be built I don't know eighty use and how much they're producing in terms of hopes I apologize for the scramble of the formatting of producing for PBS students but the proposal that's on the table that will all be discussing over the next year is to go back to a single-family a traditional single dwelling area where if you get the size of the building that stays within the context of the place we care less about how many units are in it and so what it does is it allows you to something that looks like a single-family house and put three units in it and what that allows you to do is to have a single-family kind of structure if not actual ownership which is a preferred thing often for households with children in a smaller size because typically today are single-family houses that get built when you tear down something are four five thousand square feet in this these are the 1,800 square feet this is like what a bungalow is it's a new step back to that the amount of those that will be produced is going to be driven by the market it's not going to be wholesale change in these neighborhoods but increasingly we're going to be putting neighbor putting units back into the inner neighborhoods especially that can be family sized lower cost cos are smaller and it may be affecting your student body so can you talk a little bit about the process for the city in terms of developing this plan for how we're gonna encourage growth in the ways we think that are beneficial for our citizens and our students well yeah the the you know there's a set of tools that we have in our planning and sustainability toolbox zoning and development entitlements and where transportation investments go and where transit investments go that we are happen in the process over the last few years of re writing re-engineering to accommodate this growth strategy that I just showed you so those kind of basic regulations are being put in place and with two big pieces coming this this winter this fall being should the change I just talked about for single dwellings and a change for how we do our multifamily that just squeezes more that improves the design of the buildings and mostly this is relevant out east in David Douglas and those districts but improves the design of the building crews the ability to get family-sized and more units out of them so that's once again let's get more units out in the land that we have and then the housing Bureau is stepping up to mobilize to start getting the dollars that we've all voted on for affordable housing out the door and spending that
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in ways that correspond with this strategy of tried to get in get a supply of affordable housing in some of those neighborhoods that if we don't do anything are going to see increasing gentrification pressure so get ahead of the market there and also continue to invest in its a higher cost land but to get units in these high amenity neighborhoods that are the inner neighborhoods just because at the end of the day we want to permanent supply of affordable housing in as many neighborhoods as we can get in as many of your schools as we can get so those two pieces are the main levers right now so can can you talk about how the city and school districts I mean especially PPS but I mean I'm interested in how other school districts as well how do we interact do we interact is there coordination and planning is there our school locations being taken into consideration during decisions about you know incentivizing development yes and no I mean it depends on what you really mean by the question so a certain extent well we work really well with Portland Public Schools and like to you see that our forecasts are sort of at two different scales but we share information with PSU that's part of the the data that they crunch and are very interested in supporting the the needs of PPS in these neighborhoods that are growing the and we have in the Comprehensive Plan and we should we we share I believe our forecast of where we think we're going to be in 225 the 25 years as the plan builds out and you all get an annual sort of check in on that anyway that is really valuable for us to sort of watch to see if these overall trends are happening the so there's the dilemma this is the first year that we've declared in this comprehensive plan school infrastructure and the adequacy of schools to be able to deliver if a structure to be a critical piece that can be considered a constraint on the ability to grow so we did that this time we had we hadn't done that before so what you come up with well we came up with the devil's bargain which is that David Douglas was the district that was that was not able to raise funds to be able to meet there they could have demonstrated deficiency across the board in classrooms so that we down zone in david douglas a bit and in a setting in a situation where the production of housing and serving that housing is key towards our overall ability to moderate the cost of housing and the ability of lower-income households and you know like the full range of households live in the city creating roadblocks to housing is has a very definite negative impact on the cost of housing so that was the dilemma we were struggling up with out there and so but because of that have it's almost a bit of an experiment I guess selectively done some down zoning in East Portland units in Northwest Portland in inner Northeast Portland and recognizing that our facilities that we have currently are basically at capacity is there any conversation around that or conversation around the sort of mythical school placeholder at the post office site or well yeah of course there is we keep seeing this growing population growing number of households in the Central City and we watch it pretty closely in terms of the birth rates amongst those households a child retention you know like are the households with the children staying there's a slow increase but a steady sort of rise of that and we know that Chapman and some of the other schools in that
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catchment area are certainly already at capacity so we've wondered and if and when additional school capacity that would catch that would serve these households fits into the overall you know capital system for the school system but yes but it's not it's you know it's it's it moves more slowly but it's a believe there is this sort of steady low geographically based rising heat it isn't there's that's supposed to be part of the planning process that when there's housing zoning for housing and units that there's also you know property available for you know in-world capture you know serving those kids that may or may not move in there I mean III think of course part 20-plus years ago and how there was a development out there that was planned and number of units and space reserved for a school to serve those kids isn't that what what our land use system is supposed to well you know the difference yeah no I understand director Bailey we're built out city so the Greenfield notion of identifying a piece of real estate for school expansion that's why we're always putting it could be the post office you know perspective approaches on the in these plans but we haven't that's when we would be working with PBS to see about the capital programming the capital planning for PBS and when it aligns with this expansion it's just that has not been reached a trigger point have been the priority for the last few years we've been working on this plan yeah yeah so how do we get there to where we're well we can anticipate in terms of our bonding program going forward so that were not caught behind the 8-ball that is you know there's a lot this is the other thing that please don't get the impression that any of the changes that we've made dramatically increase the development capacity in any of these areas like there's today a lot more housing that could be built in any one of these places or neighborhoods what we've done is we've tried to improve it in terms of the quality of design of the building we tried to add more where we need it we tried to settle some of the conflicts because one of the reasons it slows down housing production is that it the the shocking is it's disturbing in terms of how the building's arrived and look on the street in you end up with land use appeals and things that slow down the progress but we have had this development capacity on the books since the 80s now the market is finally showing up to deliver it which is an interesting sort of moment to be in and which is a good moment to be in and what we're finding is that we're not even though with that capacity not keeping up with the demand of people who want to live here and demand people who want to live here with money that's leading to the construction of housing yeah so I think I'm the one person up here that well on the school board at least that does it have a really long history in Portland and the states that I've come to before I know that like when developments went in there were certain costs that developers paid towards the school systems you know to help with the impact and I don't see that happening here so why isn't it that I mean I guess other questions we're asking so where the development is going how do we figure what the capacity will be in our buildings that some are which are already maxed out but another state so that's kind of figured into the planning with developers that you know you help pay the cost towards schools where you need them because of the families that you're bringing in with your development so that's a that's a that's a different yeah yeah that that's a different question for then is addressed in these plans as I said we well it's actually a statewide prohibition on including schools and systems development charges right it's necessary infrastructure we have our construction excise tax but it'll never build a school yeah it's nominal so director yeah that's what I was trying to say is you I do not know the answer to that terms of tax policy and the
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different ways to pay for these infrastructure yeah it's terrible yes so so my um I guess my concern looking ahead is is the flip side of all of this it's the it goes to your last slide where depending on what kind of development we do we're gonna have either a whole bunch of kids or we're gonna have no kids and I live in North Portland and the development that's happening in the area where I live it is not family-friendly I mean it's um it's studio apartments one-bedroom apartments very expensive and across the street from a middle school is a big complex of micro lofts which I find both puzzling and disturbing so I mean I worry about the flip side I worry about the kind of development that's that's going on there may be parts of town where where we're gonna see declining enrollment in future years you're gonna have other parts of town where you know schools are gonna be busting at the seams and others where you know we're gonna be trolling the streets for kids because then they're not gonna be in buildings I think that's that's on all our minds I really appreciate sort of PS use predictions and the Bureau of planning presentation it's timely not by accident because we're about to go into our own process for making our best predictions about how to best staff and think about these enrollment patterns with the permission of the chair if I could ask Deputy Superintendent Hertz and maybe with some backup support talk a little bit about sort of how this informs our next steps in how we plan for next school year because this is sort of our attempt to sort of bring information so I I did have one more question for presenters and for Joe and this this is probably this is probably a bit of off topic and maybe over over a beverage discussion so I was good so yeah so nationally 63 percent or something like that of households are owner-occupied Portland is with important public schools it's already in the low 50s which is probably believe similar to San Francisco's school districts Seattle as well if you look at the inner city school districts which surprised me and what we're owning for is increasing that down to 50% below 50% owner occupied why are we doing that well I don't think you can draw that conclusion that the end a the single dwelling the duplex three flat four four Plex model I was talking about there's no reason those will could not be owner-occupied there's no reason that even multi-dwelling multi-unit apartment what looked like multi-unit apartment buildings are not owner occupied it's just as different form of ownership and it may not be a form of ownership and it's it's a little bit goes back to the part of the story of the full range economic range of households were their rate where the families are living in a long term basis in a multi dwelling building that's new to us in Portland in terms of a broad phenomenon but it's not new up and down the rest of the west coast so I think the cost of housing and the desire to live in these great neighborhoods that we have is going to lead to a change in the format of these buildings and that's not an overnight thing and does not just assume that there'll be a loss of the opportunity to own where you live and have until they change the tax codes the wealth creation potential that that that brings it is an interesting moment of opportunity like our own Habitat for Humanity locally is
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starting to do multifamily so ownership for lower income families and all the positive benefits that come with home ownership including less mobility and all that so you're right I mean as the structure is changing it's not necessarily just pricing people how there are some strategies that are trying to Habitat for Humanity is building 10 units on these are multi-family lots and they're building them attached they're attached to that buildings now but they're for sale units because their model as a for sale unit model we're gonna see more of that and it's not gonna be as weird and we're gonna have the infrastructure that makes it like a typical thing you finance and that's part of our future it's not and it's not at the expense of homeownership rates and it's not at the expense of single-family news I think yeah still would I'd be surprised if it you know those are gonna go 6040 and and especially compared to all the other and another question again I can let it go is how much control does the city have over the actual type of multi-family housing that goes in very little ok so there's really no guarantee that any of that coming infill is going to be family-friendly you know 3-bedroom well you know but in developing that particular piece of code we worked closely with the home builders and so the feedback that and and that's part of what you just saw in this last sort of spate of development of apartment buildings especially the ones without parking never could happen no one's ever gonna live there oh we can build that make money people will live there and now the home builders and developers are believers in that they believe that they could build and sell all day these 1800 864 that are like duplex 33 flats because there's so much demand for it and there's more demand for and the ability to pay for that kind of housing than there is necessarily for the 6,000 square-foot single-family house which could be the alternative in some of these neighborhoods so it's it's market driven and they the market that seems to think it's out there so we just we want to give it a run to see if we can incentivize that civilized supply yeah mark market has done our friend a lot of times in terms of planning us you know before you leave I just have a question about the the city of Portland PowerPoint is it possible to get sort of course the city of Portland we're one of only five districts within the city of Portland I'm wondering if it's possible to get a further click down on just the I mean it's great trend data from the whole city but we know that PBS is not necessarily representative of the city especially the school districts on the eastern edge so I'm wondering if that's possible to get it and either further refinement on the trends in Portland but in Portland but that same data but just our district oh I believe it is yes so let me go back and talk with folks I know great that should be we should be able to do that thank you thank you really fascinating thank you it's great to have experts in the field come in to share their knowledge of this and so what what does this mean to us well I think we've spoken earlier this year in the fall and we told you that we're losing state school fund and it's because our poverty in our elo students are going down so extra weightings that we see for students so that will impact both general fund as well as our title funds so our luckily in our title funds we have some fund balance and the instructional program staff are being really deliberate and smart about stair-stepping that down over time so there isn't a quick drop in terms of school so we're they're being very strategic and making taking that drop over a more period a longer period of time rather than all at once and so in terms of general fund we don't have that same capacity we have been building our fund balance as you know and we do have the new board policy that does also that we're aspiring to get to that 10% over a certain amount of time so I don't know if Shawn if you have other demographic information you want to share with the board not particularly I just say that
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charles has also provided a 1 year forecast for us and we're in the process of working through what the the staffing impacts will be and and and and then the same information has also been incorporated into how we're gonna project revenue as well then of course we'll wait for 1st March 15th estimate from the state which will be well before we know what's really happening in the legislature but each step of the way we'll get closer and closer and refine our budget as we go good sorry this is a preliminary that we got from Charles I'd say he may make some revisions by March okay we'll get it specifically about kindergarten oh sorry yeah yeah okay can you give us a sense of how accurate the year-over-year projections are by school because I I mean I know historically that the district-wide enrollment projections have been pretty much spot-on how does it compare when you get down to the school level I it seems pretty close when I'd say kindergarten is always brand new kids that's always gonna be that the most challenging to project and I would also say that what Charles said is that he coming tends to use a more conservative status quo approach so some things so he didn't really factor in a whole lot of new kids coming in for for Franklin and and but maybe we ourselves need to think about some of those modifying his forecast track record yet to go on I mean when was the last time we bought the high school so yeah exactly was pretty right on with the exception really being the West Side where it was projected to be pretty high enrollment growth and we wasn't really to climb but it stayed flat so the that was really where we saw the differential but otherwise it's pretty right on yeah okay thank you very much thank you thank you thank you which is remarkable at the school yeah because there's there's really no way to do that with and people move okay thank you [Music] so the next item is Parks and Recreation intergovernmental agreements or grants and Hawking easements good luck studying there our student representative has to leave because he has a final time where we're expecting and we're no word on the final your finals hi good evening I'm Sara King Director of Planning and property management we want to talk to you about an easement before you an easement is a is a real estate document it's not something that normally goes to the board as you may know easements are often small pieces of property they're often something we grant for a particular purpose say for another agency or utility often others grant us easements but this one is before us because of the size of the easement and frankly the dollar value of the easement we haven't done an actual appraisal on that but we anticipate that it is of a significant amount significant enough that we wanted to bring this to you and talk to you about this for your approval Grant High School this easement let me just state but the reason for this easement is because of some city imposed requirements on the district regarding the or in result of the remodel at Grant High School grant highs close you know is right next to Grant Park we have a very close relationship with the parks Bureau about uses on each other's property and more than probably any of our other high schools there's actually facilities that we have jointly on each other's property not a typical in an urban situation but this is probably the most pronounced so we've had a driveway I think you're all
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aware of the driveway that goes off 36 northeast 36th Street we've had a driveway there at Grant High School for many many years and there has been some of that driveway it has been on city property we've had a revocable permit from the city to use that property for drive for driveway for many years as part of the remodel we have been required to put in storm management facilities next to that driveway make that driveway wider to meet fire safety requirements as well as put a turn around there at the end of the driveway and as you may know at the end of that driveway just to the norther that driveway is Grant pool which is a facility owned by Parks and Recreation so in the original driveway that we've had with the parks Bureau all these years it's been our driveway we use it for school but the parks Bureau has used it in the summer for public access both for the park and the pool and I think it's worked well for years in this new situation because of the requirements that were imposed on us from the city we've had to make that driveway wider we needed additional Park property and so the way parks and we worked it out is we have a reciprocal excuse me we have a shared Drive for both of our uses they we haven't have granted the parks Bureau an easement to use our property for access to the pool in the park they have granted the same to us on their property and as you've got in the back of your report there's an illustration here it shows you it's roughly the same amount of property that we're each dedicating to this what is becoming or what has been in in practice now in actuality it's sort of a joint parking facility so that's the purpose of this this easement it's pretty it's pretty substantial size and because of that we wanted to take this to the board for approval this is not really your I'm sorry this is not really your purview it's more than office of school modernization but do you know if there was any conversation around cost-sharing on the improvements themselves I do not know for sure but I would imagine just that a it's our project this is how it's been in our relationship with parks if it's our project we're initiating it and there are certain infrastructure that we need to put in place to meet those requirements for that we paid for it even if they're driving long term basis yes yes yes and what's interesting about this is we needed that property to meet our city imposed requirements so to some degree I know it's one part of the city versus another the system we have you know put parks in the driver's seat honestly we needed their permission and they did not offer to pay nor would they probably have agreed to it even if we asked them did we ask them so the answer is we didn't ask them I do not know if we've asked them specifically I can I know what the answer would have been because we've had these conversations on other things to ask about the parking I don't know offhand we have had other conversations at Grant about other improvements and they have found the way that that Sarah just explained if we are the one who is instigating the improvement and then we are affected the one who will be paying for that improvement we we apply for the improvement and then even if it benefits them we did ask about maintenance whether they were willing to share the maintenance and they said no so right now we've committed to for 15 years doing the maintenance now completely one way you know soccer field they get to they get to rent it out and keep all their land we're looking for a paradigm shift yeah yes I agree we're not looking for you to pull one out of your pocket yeah it's a largely complicated long and complicated history provided it says that it will grant PBS non-exclusive access and parking rights on the portion of the parking lot bailed on the Grant Park land exchange for the expanding use of the land PPR requires PBS to grant the city the same non-exclusive access on the portion of the parking lot built on the PBS property so during the school day do we have exclusive access to the parking lot or no I'm trying to understand what this yeah you don't we don't although in practicality and it's
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been like this actually in practice for four years don't anticipate to change in practicality as our staff is using that parking lot well before the public does in the morning so to my knowledge and we have had some discussions with with people that have been here longer than I have we have not had any of those issues now we could have some issues down the road in the summer if we chose to have say evening classes evening classes at Grant High School in the summer that might conflict with pool use for example so we might see some conflicts there if we did an evening Scholars program right exactly any other questions we get there were we meet our requirements imposed by the city for development developing the new school essential permits we approve all the conditional use in the building permit for Grant High School so so you brought it up because of the value of the property yes this is this per se costing us any money no nominal money no but no money is changing hands okay so do both parties have to agree to it yes so have they already agreed to this no this will go well it doesn't have to go it just goes to the oh it has they agree yes they've agreed to agree formally agreed to it knowing it will not it does not need to go to the City Council okay yeah so so it is in they will go shows great men don't have to we the board needs to approve it but under their rules they don't that's it doesn't meet their requirement record so so you're responding to board policy yes that's correct these twelve by five hundred feet approximately that's about three dozen parking spots that our staff and others will probably have use of the majority of the time yes yes it's yeah and I actually I can't remember with all the new requirements I think it's an increase of parking but I can't say that for sure it is a net increase from the standpoint of legal spaces I do believe I think there's some parking going on there that's not in the past so I think total spaces net it doesn't increase yeah okay any other questions so this is gonna come to us probably with the way we typically do these as we would ask since since we've discussed this we would send this over to the parks Bureau the parks Bureau would sign it and then it would come to you and I don't know if we can get that back from the parks Bureau in time to get it on the agenda for the 29th because I believe documents are due very soon so the only thing I would ask justice it's just a standard practice that we have the resolution we have one drafted good I'm sorry it'd be great to see it yes skiing thank you so much for bringing this forward I really appreciate this and given that these have the capacity to limit our use of the property going forward that frankly they always make me break out in a rash and I I appreciate all of the information you've brought and the map which is terrific I did just want to ask about the dogleg at the western end can you foresee opens I know can you foresee any circumstances when we would need to build on that property actually port for both of you my response would be it is so close to the parks property line that I don't see that happening unless we were to jointly build something with the parks Bureau that encroached much more heavily into the parks bureau property which would make the the issue academic then isn't that a required fire lane yes but you could replace I mean if we we could build over this if we replaced it thank you yeah access to the back of grant and was required by code so I don't get way at a minimum we don't
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get exclusive use during the day and just prevent any kind of issues downstream it seems like a pretty small thing to ask and why not just nail that down I actually think well it may benefit us to be very flexible if we ask for exclusive use at certain times as parts going to ask for exclusive use for types I think we have more to lose from exclusive use post or signage than parks does is that making sense yeah but only if we view this as a competition and not a cooperation well and then and that's that's speaking of the paradigm change I mean I actually think from a if in spirit of cooperation that we work together without signage I I think it's more workable without signage or without exclusive use during certain hours quite honestly our thought going into this is that we would see how this goes and if we have a problem then we will talk to them about it is that gonna be written into the agreement it probably would not well I would have to go back and look at the actual easement language which I don't have right in front of me there's two places it could go it could go in easement language it could also go in our collaborative agreement which is an agreement we have with the parks Bureau which we're going to be amending here in the next year and that is so it could go either place and we can we can state something like that will the addition of lights that the grant bowl potentially have an impact on that and the reason I ask is I talked to Commissioner of fish fishes the other day and this is something that they're wanting to work with the school district it on but I could see there being both increased usage by the district and this since there's not enough field time there anyway but also potentially increase use by the city and I'm just wondering of whether we should before we get ourselves locked in think about how we would want to if there's additional usage and therefore more people parking or additional parking later into the night how we want to handle that versus just isn't unknown yeah I think that's a good it's a good question and I on the one hand our folks yeah there'll be some additional evening use by the school district probably just thinking conceptually during the week and that's from what I understand generally probably not I I don't get the feeling that this is really parked up in the evening during the school year at least by park users it would probably remain parked for school use I think the bigger question is in general if we have more activity in the bowl not just here but in the whole area how are we going to accommodate parking and that will be an important part of the conditional use permit that will be required for us to put lights or any other improvements into Grant Bowl I think when grants when the park bureau would be using this parking is during the summer for pool use don't know if we would be using the lights at the bowl for school use as much in the summer that's yet to be determined and we haven't started to negotiate that so I guess another question for you is this easement needs to be recorded as part of our before we get a building permit and grant and we're I don't know when we're gonna be entering in the conversation the bigger conversation around grant bowl so I don't know if I'll have an answer specifically around how we're gonna park any improvements in grande pool in any immediate timeframe well I think we shouldn't lock ourselves in for 15 years without contemplating it I mean I can't imagine the city's not gonna give us the occupancy permit for the high school because we are trying to work something out on that parking it seems like we could think of something prospective that takes into account that there could be increased usage because it seems like there's increased usage at night for the neighborhoods I'm sure they'd much rather have if there's students driving parking that but they haven't parking in the parking lot then out on the neighborhood streets yeah I
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think that we're gonna as I said we're gonna have to well we will have to deal with those questions because they'll come up from the community as we discuss the bowl improvements we'll have to address it during conditional use permit and then I I think as we get into discussions of the bowl and when we use those improvements and when the parks Bureau uses those improvements we need to throw this in that negotiation as well I mean most of August the fields are used just because the start of daily Devils pregnant I said most of August those any high school field is pretty much fully utilized pretty much all day if again in August okay so I think I think what you're hearing in general is that board members would like us to be more assertive in negotiations with the city then then I think we have tended to be in the past so on us at the governance we're not just saying it and go work here man yeah the goal is paradigm shift so okay so any other questions okay so you'll come back to us with with a resolution sometime soon yes okay soon as we can okay thank you or potentially reflecting some of the things we discussed tonight just a question I don't know the answer I'll try I think we heard a lot of other considerations that we should try to aim for I think this is gonna result in some follow-ups and some that could be incorporated assuming there's cooperation then we'll do that absolutely okay all right thank you okay okay next step sure more do you mind if I give a little bit of intro oh please so for us newbies are those new to Portland Public Schools storied history of a lot of past community engagement efforts at the encouragement of a lot of individual board members and conversations with me and senior staff around it'll be really invaluable to gain a deep understanding of a lot of past initiatives and efforts and how those played out with the community and stakeholders and it's important to sort of understand that so we we went about commissioning what we've dubbed the Trombley report the packet this week was a little heavier than most our cabinet got a high-level preview which we all appreciated the hyperlinks and providing us a map of all these artifacts that you're gonna hear about but we'd love to invite Jason Trombley up familiar to I think everyone who was able to tie in his unique history and many of these initiatives so was able to bring that perspective in as well so the Trombley report good evening chairman members of the board and superintendent Ghaderi I think given the time I'm gonna give some very brief remarks and then open up the rest of the time for a board question and comment because you all got to report I think late last week both the full as well as the appendices so first for me the biggest context after doing all of this work are three things I think for me personally one as you'll see on the cover page of the report is a quote from a pair that testified during the deep breath process in 2015 that was a quote from and I think that stood through the entire enrollment balancing process and I think for me is a signal that through all of the 18 years of systemic change that community's time and time again stood up to both share their
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perspectives but also defend what communities have built during those changing times and years and so that's close to being the school that I went to middle school I thought it was one that just stood home for me time and time again second is the timeframe in which I was directed to take a look at and that time frame was important for me and two reasons one 2001 happened to be my senior year in high school so as a student so for me this doing this research was a very humbling exercise to really get a sense of basically what occurred after I graduated and number two but I think what is the most important part in this if our work both as as everyone who wears the badge whether you're elected contractor employee is to put this work Student Center and knowing that going into 2019 and that the start of this work started and looked back to 2001 that if we're gonna put this Student Center and that it's important to knowledge that this whole time period really occurred for the Graduate becoming graduating class of 2019 so that is Nick pays lers entire graduating cohort from birth to now so what this report really does in full context is the entire PBS experience of this graduating class since they were born so to really think about all of the change systemic but also imposed by state and federal mandates it's important to know intact with even all that change communities stood up time and time again and even with the graduation outcomes that will hopefully have the bonds we've passed the investments that communities have given we stood up and tried to fight back despite all of the things that were imposed on this system um so I want to cover a few highlights for you that I think are worth noting from the period of 2000 to 2007 in this district aside from the Multnomah County no temporary income tax that's a number of you advocate for despite all of that the district faced 848 plus million dollar shortfall over seven years at that same time the district from 2000 to 2007 also experienced an enrollment decline of 8,000 plus students in seven years you were also facing the full impact of No Child Left Behind which targeted a number of schools based on test scores were low performing and based on that outcome in recommendation communities were faced with an enrollment balancing process by board resolution to either talk about enrollment relief options to figure out long-term solutions some communities got an effort to envision future building designs themselves but in some communities were also forced to what I call you know basically forced to the precursor of The Hunger Games asked to assess what schools should close that communities were asked to say what schools should close and we're looking at board resolutions that had identifies which community got what impact directed from the top damn all of that occurred before 2007 just going into that two other things I think long-term are really important we're actually a few things heading into that first school year of 2007 eight over forty resolutions authorized by the board from 2005 to 2007 directed that level of system change additionally what's also important here is to note that at that time period we're also trying to figure out long-term funding solutions or at least stopgap measures to try to minimize that impact and so for me one lesson learned in this this is the importance of what was the called the local option levy that was started in 2001 and looking at those local option levies from that eighteen year time period coming into this school year this city through moma County of Washington and Clackamas counties the amount that we actually received was over six hundred and ninety million dollars that is greater than the operating budget for this district this school year so as community members over and over despite the change despite the dysfunction that communities claim that were imposed from the state in the city in the county community's invested six hundred ninety million dollars to us to try to minimize that gap in spite of everything and additionally with your modernization bonds that has offered an additional 1 billion plus dollars in investment in our schools so to me that says something that despite all of the change everything that has been reported communities have stepped up to try and preserve what we want to hope to offer for all of our kids the report I hope also acknowledges that even with that promise communities were impacted differently you made a promise but that praten promise was not either equally or equitably delivered for example in the case of the Jefferson cluster over a 10-year period that high school alone experienced seven different types of configuration changes sometimes on an average of one to two years you made a new change it's no wonder that in 2013 the Jefferson cluster community rightly pushed us to stop experimenting on that community and focused us to look at both system-wide and look at look at
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all those changes the racial equity impact and that was my first real engagement in the system and I have to say it over and over again that after the sack and boundary process I have to acknowledge what that community did after all that change they still stood up and fought back and so for this work I have to show my appreciation and gratitude towards them so it's important to acknowledge that even with all that change communities wanted to build and I think with this context now going into the visioning process that is this is your prime opportunity to not only reset what that vision is but it's everyone who wears the badge that has an obligation and that obligation is that you are building a new contract with families and children for the next generation and that contract it has to be one that the system can both deliver on its promise regardless of who is or who is not superintendent who is or who was not in leadership and who was or was not on the board that has to outlive everybody because it's clear through this work superintendent's changed four times there were multiple board changes but all of these impacts were compounded so part of that work in the next stretch has to be defined what that relationship is and has to really come to clear grips as about what you all are willing to deliver and hold a candle that the system will deliver for our kids and part of that is as you're taking on a lot of responsibilities and priorities you have to be willing to add by what it is you're trying to achieve and what you're gonna deliver and how that actually shows up for students because you make you can make at least from my research you can make a very large resolution it's long and detailed and thorough but if students don't experience what you've defined on paper and that paper doesn't mean anything so I think the other thing I'd want to acknowledge that in all of this work particularly in the last few processes that I personally participated in his chair they were really personal learning opportunities for me and in particularly the boundary process itself it showed that you can bring multiple stakeholders together even those who have a history of battling each other you can still find common ground and move forward so for example and actually want to acknowledge some individuals from that Commission one being Joe Center who testified before as well as Jane leo and as well as Matthew Shadbolt from the housing Bureau who learn about and Rowland balancing and how housing and stability you know really plays a role and to ensure that our children access the opportunities we say we value for our children to really build that regional conversation that language or and how do you actually align your work regionally because what you do here in Portland public impacts David Douglas Reynolds Gresham etc and vice versa and so we had started researching different ways on how to actually deal with that and I was also appreciative that in his final year in office Mayor Charlie Hales and particularly his policy advisor who really actually wanted to figure out how do you actually do this on a systems level I also had the good fortune to talk with a few superintendents outside of the state on their lessons learned particularly Stephen Morley from the Iowa City Community School District who used who in concert with his board used their racial educational equity policy to convene a regional conversation with planners and developers to figure out how to plan for long term because their growth experience in Iowa City was negatively impacting their students of color as well as their immigrant families both him as well as his their board members particularly Brian Kirsch lling will really open about multiple phone conversations with me about how they did it and made their documents and board presentations available and I know Stephen is always one of the chance to come to visit Portland so I hope you'll use him as a resource it is a smaller district but they dealt with similar issues that we did so I'd know he loved the opportunity to at least have a conversation from a learning perspective as well I've learned also that there were a number of you know companies in San Francisco for example and in the Bay Area that recognized that with you know enrollment growth and their ability to actually recruit employees that they were causing issues around housing affordability so for example Facebook had committed in 2016 a twenty million dollar grant for housing assistance the construction of affordable housing units to both Palo Alto as in Menlo Park as well so I think there are opportunities to engage your regional partners to figure all of the real systems to ensure that what you want for your children you children actually deliver on it and finally from a personal I think running the boundary process was a very difficult one to say the least but I think for me it wasn't so much about how do I help the system do better it was the fact that I was also serving as a coach of the Constitution team at the same time and one of the first things that came to mind knowing my lesson learned from running the enrollment and transfer process in 1415 was had actually ensured to keep my kids safe my students safe every single day because I was nervous that parents even with the changes proposed changes were likely to protest me on school grounds that I was nervous because as a person of color that I was really willing to
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make some bold statements that there would be a negative impact to the students who signed an agreement and enrolled in my program so from the top down I think the first person I really want to thank is Mayor Charlie Hales his wife Nancy who offered that if I needed personal security detail from me or my students that she would make it available to me personally looking at the central office level was starting off with George whether Roy who told me that when we're getting into the heat of community processes said if you need a badge let me know because he would walk me through in multiple cases the different ways to get the Commission where my committee into room safe in case there were protesters on-site or in cases where I was in a number of community meetings where testimony might be heated the quickest way to get students out of the so that they were safe additionally I also want to acknowledge the entire communications department during that time period who made sure though that process was transparent but also let me know if there are any comments directed towards me or my students so that we could respond to it very quickly and expediently additionally in particular I also wanted to know John Isaacs and Judy Brennan who helped build that infrastructure for me and at a local level I want to thank print Lincoln principal Payton Chapman her vice principals then Alfredo Quintero and Sean Meili who actually built a school level infrastructure from these particular that I would check in with them every Tuesday after school and that if they and that one administrator would be on site as well as campus monitors just in case someone showed up to protest me when I was teaching as well as the campus monitors Frank Acosta stand cables as well as Edwards Sims who were both campus monitors during the entire boundary process at school but also was at my community meetings and they were on multiple occasions for security you know at both meetings for me in particular I didn't really think that in serving our students particularly in public capacity that I would have to do something like that but personally I guess when you're really trying to tackle racial equity you have to ensure that your students are safe and knowing that going into this for me that is what I had to do aside from that one of the things that I learned over and over is that there were so many community members that I met over years who showed up time and time again regardless of how tough or how uncomfortable conversations god we always tried to find ways to move forward I just wanted to make sure that you know with the last official time then I'll have on record about these processes that those individuals that I've named deserve the acknowledgment with regard to ensuring either helping me learn along the way or ensuring that my students were safe the entire time so I just wanted to make sure that that got stated for the record so with that I know you all have gotten the presentation like I said I wanted to keep it brief to open it up for questions so for that chair Moore and the members of the board and I yield to you for questions questions I know it's I mean I gotta say this is like walking down memory lane most of it not pleasant memories I have to say so thank you for documenting all this if you had to so this is this is what I affectionately call the process Palooza z' we've all lived through if you had to kind of come up with three takeaway lessons from all of this what would it be the first is every process you initiate has to align with the vision you want for your system and has to be very clearly defined in terms of what you're trying to achieve by it and what I mean by that is how does this process actually help achieve the goals you've defined for your system if you can't define that then your community can't understand it and communities don't won't have a chance to understand how they can be empowered as builders to help achieve it too because what I learn first and foremost is communities have tried to build things for so long in this district despite you know all of the changing environments if you set a vision and say here's what I think the system can achieve how can you help us get there faster to is I think don't underestimate the power of what students can do the benefit of the deep rut Commission in particular is that we had student reps on it from the very start and they were very open about what they really thought I think back to example max Tuttle who's in the first years and he said I think one of the summary statements he'd shared with us was ok you can change the boundary between grant and Madison but it's not going to make a difference because parents are going to find a way to falsify an address to get their kids in the grant and they were a number of his peers and people who looked right across the
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street from him so for me this is why in one of my recommendations never underestimate that students understand the depth of the inequities that have been created over 20 years and they understand them much more nuanced Li and we'll get them a lot faster than the adults so I think the first part is really engage them and empower them to be candid but a path to say how do you solve it the second part of it is don't let a process run forever it has to have a clear start and end date for a student perspective I would say when I met with students from open OHS youth leadership group as well as students in a leadership class they wanted to know when the boundary boundary maps were going to be approved because they asked fought out if my sibling is going to be impacted let me know because I want to help them know that while this change may be uncomfortable that you'll still have the same access to opportunity at that school as the one that I have so students who want to help their older and younger siblings give them the time to do it and three is don't do a lot of processes at once and four is if you're going to do a process and look at bul change and this was the one of the fundamental elements in the boundary process that I think is a response to 2006 only vote for what you know you can ensure the system delivers money staffing HR the full gamut that all should be in place but well before you vote so you can't have time to scrutinize the numbers so if you're going to conduct an enrollment balancing process this fall ensure you have enough time to align it with your budget process to ensure that you ensured everything is in place otherwise the values you've said that are important you have yet again not delivered on a promise to communities especially based on this report have shown who've gone through 18 years of change especially communities who have had a number of changes imposed on them even without having the opportunity to weigh in on it from the start so I know that's a bit more than three but that's the best guidance I can offer in response to your question so I'm gonna just offer some context since while Nick may have been just born at the time of this report I was actually on the board and you know reading through the first part of it I it was a time when when I got on the board we had an ending fund balance of two hundred thousand dollars not whatever's five to six percent so two hundred thousand dollars and then we went in to immediately went into a recession where we had five special sessions of legislature and we also the other piece of context I think that's important to note is the the baby boom had moved through PBS where we had when I went was in PBS there were 70,000 students and fourteen high schools that were all fairly good-sized and except for the one I went to which is later closed good-sized and by the time I got on the board we were at less than down in the mid 40s and so you had to infrastructure in a footprint that had handled 70,000 students that now had 45 and we had some elementary schools that had 100 to 200 students in them mm-hmm and it was just there was no way we could sustain you had some schools that have a half-pint principal because we couldn't justify a full-time staff person just given the just the the reduction and the budget we had so there was a lot of really hard and I I actually I wouldn't describe it at all as the hunger games it was the worst possible thing to have to go through as a board member I mean I think way worse than boundary changes because you were closing something that was really it close to people yeah no it was it was worse than boundary changes but I wouldn't describe it at all as The Hunger Games it was a very thoughtful process but it ya know nobody wants their school to close I went to high school in my senior year that was consolidated with another high school and some of the schools I think there was a you know a thoughtful process that we went through to close though to close the schools there were in in the middle of the baby boom a whole bunch of schools that were built there were called overflow schools there were essentially one hallways with just classrooms on either side and a multi-purpose room and those are the ones that were closed the first because they had the lowest number of students and we weren't actually able to provide a very enriched program I think you actually missed two of the schools we closed just this worth I think it was
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young son and young son went into Bridger and then Wilcox went to Vestal yep but I think it's important to understand the the process by which we went through it and I do think it was a thought it was certainly hard but it was the thoughtful process I think the other thing is looking through this and thinking about change that's important context for PBS and I think it was a little bit of how we don't necessarily control external forces is it was the time right in the middle of No Child Left Behind and Marshall of Roosevelt's Jefferson were going through the sort of the years of escalating consequences so first there's their students got the right to transfer so they any school that had openings and of course Benson was all completely open enrollment so they could all go there so not only did they have the right to transfer out of those three schools but then they also the district was required to provide them with transportation based on No Child Left Behind and then as you got into the escalating years of No Child Left Behind the threat of what we called the nuclear option was a reconstitution of course Jefferson had already had that in the late 90s so one of the sort of reconfigurations was essentially to make them into smaller schools that's when those three schools went to smaller schools because essentially it got them a new school number which meant the class started over again which really avoided I think the options were reconstitution a state takeover or a charter school or reconfiguration which was one of the reasons the whole k-8 thing came out is because a number of those schools the clock was ticking that's certainly why Kellogg was closed they just pulled the plug on Kellogg it had because of transfers out had a pretty low enrollment and they just said yeah it's unfortunately no chocolate behind his gun or the bad parts of it but part of that was a real desire of the school community not to have their school taken over by the state or reconstituted which had happened at both Jefferson and Humboldt and had been very disrupted the school community so I think there's some lessons to be learned from all of that we fortunately we don't have 200,000 in our ending fund balance anymore well we have way to have more than 200,000 but there wasn't any latitude so I think as we look at sort of how we move ahead I do think there's some important lessons to be learned and also some understanding of what some things that we don't control right and how we work through that in a way that still keeps us focused on our students Sherman I may offer one additional comment in addition to a lesson learned at least from my observation is I think to your comment and director Bailey's comment but taking about like it's like you're reliving and not so comfortable history I think the part of it is the community communities and parents have lived lived through all of this and I think a lot of these processes that a person will still live very deeply as I think especially with all of you who haven't gone through I think different parts of it and personal ways whether it's on the board or as parents and I think part of this and this is for me just a guess with this visioning process you have an opportunity to really set like what the new kind of expectation contract is but I think part of that is also embedded in the system being able to fully acknowledge what has happened but also I think from a personal perspective giving community or allowing communities the chance to say that happened do I am I personally willing to give the permission to try to trust the system again given the whole history and knowing how complex and uncomfortable and tough a lot of those process at least from my limited scope I think everyone who's lived through it or has learned through it I think especially all of you have a chance to model how do you push forward into that next chapter for Portland Public because you won't live through this history yourselves in different forms that if I think you all especially can model how do we do that that might especially show communities who live through in different forms if this board is willing to try to do that as a community member I'd like to give them try that too so part of that as you're going through the visioning process and doing your learning journeys and learning from what communities are valuing keep that in the back yard thinking okay
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am I really really willing as a board member willing to say here's the new standard here's that new contract of expectations for everyone who wears the badge to ensure that our students access the opportunities communities have through this process that they value and if you can do that I think that really resets the road meant for how we forward so a couple of takeaways I took from this so combining the two present two big presentations we had tonight went on enrollment and population trends and the other this your report quite a bit of which revolves around enrollment not exclusively but a lot of it I think might take away among other things is I mean we've got we've got this long-term trends on enrollment where we get you know we started off way up here and then we plummeted and as soon as we started to react to the decline in enrollment we actually were already on the upswing and some of the actions we took at that low point or what we thought was a low point actually we didn't think it was the low point we thought it was a point on a continuing process of decline some of the actions we took were short-sighted I mean there there was some there were some operational issues that we had to deal with but but I think some of the responses didn't didn't leave us enough flexibility to deal with the changing future so just as a for instance you know a 30-year lease on Kenton at the time it made sense but you know four years later oh my god Annelise yeah yeah I mean it's so so we've made based on you know a short analysis of what turned out to be a short-term trend we made very long-term decisions that we have come to regret I deeply regret the the sale of Washington High School I deeply regret that and and there were some other some other choices that we made so I I mean for me as a board member I think I keep trying to remind myself whatever we're trying to do today we have to keep in mind 20 years down the road minimum five years down the road and and these these enrollment projections you know we could go up we could go down and we need to have enough flexibility to respond to whatever happens because I don't think we have any idea what's going to happen in terms of enrollment five ten years from now you know we could be busting at the seams everywhere we could be you know searching for property to open a new school or we could be looking at schools that you know where the children so whatever we end up doing that's sort of my takeaway from a lot of this I don't have any questions if I could but I just want to say as a newbie that I don't have this history it's just really amazing to have a place to go back to you and understand the context of how did we get here you know what are things they I've heard in the community and just the amount of work that went into it so I just want to thank you and thank you for having the foresight get commissioned it is a really helpful it's really great I think I can say with his few months here in residency we we had a whole nother group of people here for a year I'm not so sure their part was as informative as what I have for nightstand reading now thank you thank you very much Jason I really appreciate
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this I would have one comment before the board as a whole one of the things that leaps out of this to me at least is that the board really has to be aggressively asking questions about issues particularly issues that come up around austerity when when we are short of funds are we going to be making decisions that actually free up funds and from my personal experience the district hold closed Humboldt school because it was short of money and it seemed to be accepted just as a matter of faith that closing a school would save money the most that Portland public has ever saved in a year from closing Humboldt is sixty thousand dollars and in order to reconfigure the Boise Elliott building so that you could get the Humboldt students into it the district had to invest $600,000 that summer and of course that's less than 10 years later and we've again reconfigured Boise Eliot because we've opened Harriet Tubman we as a board have to be understanding what we're voting on and we have to be aggressively questioning received wisdom and I think that your report really helps to make that case so I am grateful thank you yeah there were a number of these processes where at times district staff did not act with integrity I was on a district-wide committee that looked at gee do we have too many schools how much are we gonna save by closing a school and district staff came up with an estimate well the principal there's trade-offs around trades the trade-offs around transportation cost you still have to maintain a building if you're not in it well I guess you don't Killick but that it wasn't much over a hundred thousand dollars and three years later when we're in a school closing process millions were going to be saved and the existing schools were going to have so much more in extras you know arts and PE and teacher planning time were promised which never I mean that's just one example I think and the backroom deal all around the Rose City Park triangle they're all just too many of those cases where and public trust was violated so I'm gonna just offer like one last observation this goes back from being a student mpps all the way through a lot of the decisions that were made at least while I was on the board beforehand and as I said I went to Glencoe and then I went to Washington High School and it was a school of declining enrollment that had about 800 students at the time somewhat similar to Roosevelt now and then they merged it with another declining roll enrollment school which was Monroe which was at the time girls Polytech which was the the pair to Benson Polytech and ultimately closed it and then they closed Adam which was Adams which was another low enrollment school but if I look at sort of the pattern across the district one commonality with many of those schools is they were low-performing schools often serving historically underserved students and the district it you couldn't change the boundaries so they you know the attempt to increase boundaries to increase enrollment that did not move the dial because people still had choice within the system some families or a lot of families still had that and so you know I think it's really gonna be important for us to look deeper because we can move the boundaries but if we don't change the quality of what's happening in the schools I don't I don't think you're going we're going to get the outcome we want or the vision that you can't just change the boundaries and therefore we're gonna have larger larger schools and I think
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this is why I continue to be concerned that we have these under enrolled K eights because they're just it's very hard to reverse reverse those trends and you can't we could redraw the boundaries and think that we're actually looking at a piece of paper that we've increased then potentially increase the numbers and therefore going to increase the the quality of the program but that's ultimately I don't think what's gonna change things that's gonna be what's happening in the classroom that's going to drive families and just to stay in a school and keep them there and so I think it's it's tempting to try and look at boundaries changes as the biggest lever we have which I think the biggest lever we have is school quality and I hope we keep that in mind and not sort of look at the boundary changes the Holy Grail because it's one lever but not the most important one well I'm very happy to hear that I think that's the philosophy with which our team operates it is about offering the highest quality educational program we can for our kids there is of course an economy of scale that comes with school enrollment but we shouldn't confuse size with quality of programming so the challenge for us is how do we kind of work all these lovers in tandem to get it to get it making sure every school that one of our students walks into is going to be guaranteed a certain level of offering but it does bring us back to our metrics and whether we have metrics that tell a story of equality school and this back anok's have never done that in fact they've you know Julia you said you know low performing low-income schools low-income certainly low quality we don't know that we don't we don't have a measure of that but that's the reputation you get if you just look at test scores and that that drives reputation that drives biases it well that's a good preview to next week's work session when we have a very school focused agenda and you're gonna get to hear from our school supervisors about some of the work they've been supporting our leaders and communities with and the way they think about what some of the conditions that need to be in place and how those are important to defining a high quality school so stay tuned for that conversation next week like I always said yeah thank you I really you just great volleyball you know it's not new news but but it really I think this report really highlights the importance of fidelity and implementation my good good analysis good planning making sure that you have the resources to you know whatever it is you say you're gonna do you've got to make sure that the resources are there upfront and and you've you've got to have we've got to have reliable data and be able to use it and I mean I was Mike and I were part of the southeast facilitated conversation and all kinds of promises were made who you know and we did it's quite the committee mostly because we said no because what we discovered was that the data that were being used to make decisions were remarkably squishy and I'm being little kind so I I think it I think it just reinforces the notion that we we really need to and and we're doing it so I mean it's it just sort of reminds me that it's you know it's about analysis and data and and in a plan and then fidelity to the plan and in thinking ahead all the time the other
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thing I sort of feel compelled to note Julia mentioned is but I'm gonna sort of put a fine point on it the instability of state school funding will kill us all and we have no more stability in state funding now than we did in 2001 and we are one recession away from more catastrophe which is why we we collectively desperately need major tax revenue reform we need to have some stability in funding levels so that so that we can avoid the you know the period the kind of volatility that we've experienced but even year to year when when we have when we don't have you know big recession we still don't have predictability for one year to the next we still don't have the ability to to do any any planning on anything more that you know for lucky it's a biennium and some sometimes not even that too you know if we're gonna if we're gonna really turn this district around we need to be able to make investments and know that they're gonna that we're gonna be able to sustain them over some reasonable period of time so that we can see some impact you know have you know create programs and then let them die two years later it is fate making us all crazy and B it is not serving students it is not a good use of taxpayer funds it is a stupid way to do business so vote early vote off and we need tax reform any other comments thank you Jason okay thank you this was okay thank you so I guess the last order of business is public comment do we have any we do not okay so anything else for the good of the order okay we are

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)

2019-01-15 PPS School Board Work Session

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education-Work Session, January 15, 2019

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