2019-01-29 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-01-29
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - January 29, 2019

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the regular meeting of the board of education for January 29th 2019 is called to order welcome to everyone present and to our television viewers chair Moore and director Anthony are out of town attending the national school boards Association conference in Washington D.C and probably freezing and as part of the Oregon school boards association's advocacy team met with Oregon's Congressional Delegation to lobby for reauthorization and full funding of the individuals with disabilities Education Act they are watching the meeting on live stream and we will be calling in to vote on items later this evening okay for tonight's meeting any item that we'll be voting on this evening has been posted as required by state law the meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the Board website for replay times the meeting is also being streamed live on our PPS TV services website as a reminder we now have our PPS Ombudsman Judy Morton attending all regular board meetings Judy will you raise your hand there you are specifically Judy will be here to listen to the public comments and if appropriate provide additional support to families who need or want it Judy can be reached at 503-916-3045 or Ombudsman at pps.net [Applause] uh we also have interpreters with us this evening and I'd like them to come forward at this time introduce themselves in the language they will be interpreting and inform the audience where they will be located in the auditorium should someone need their assistance um come on up please use the standing microphone located by the board clerk to introduce yourselves gracias services foreign [Music] thank you all okay board members are there any items on our business agenda that you have questions on this does not include those individual actions listed on tonight's agenda there we go uh I'm Madam chair I'm going to have a couple questions um and comments on one of the contracts the black parent initiative contract okay it doesn't need to be pulled separate and I'm going to be supporting it but I want to just um as part of the record I think that for the resolution the discussion on resolution to suspend approval of an IGA between the city of Portland through the Portland Police Bureau and public Portland Public Schools will be time certain at 8 25. okay okay I would like to uh as we start our student in public comment I would like to review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments to the board we value your input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts Reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to be an active listener without distraction from our electronic devices or papers Okay so board members and superintendent as you know will not respond to comments or questions during public comment if you want to follow up from uh with the board office please contact Miss Houston or Roseanne Powell the board manager who is right there okay guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter if you have any additional materials or items that you would like to provide to the board or the superintendent we ask that you give them to Ms Houston to distribute to the board and superintendent request to make public comments should be made ahead of time by contacting the board office or checking with Miss Houston prior to the start of the board meeting to see if there are spots available once the board meeting has started we can no longer accept new requests for public comment presenters will have a total of three minutes to share your comments and please Begin by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record and during the first two minutes
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of your testimony a green light will appear when you have one minute remaining a yellow light will go on and when your time is up the red light will go on and a buzzer will sound we respectfully ask that you conclude your comments at that time okay okay so we appreciate your input thank you for your cooperation Ms Houston do we have anyone sign up for the student or public comment yes we have a total of six okay our first two speakers are Mika Xiao and Parker myris thank you welcome hello am I first my name is Parker myris that's m y r u s good evening I'm in the eighth grade at Sunnyside environmental school it is my belief and I believe yours as well that every student should have an equal opportunity to concentrate and learn to the best of their ability but this however can be a hard task when the very thing that they are sitting on is so uncomfortable that causes them back pain and a survey done at my home room in sunny at sorry at Sunnyside environmental School 51 percent so that it was painful to sit in their chairs for any duration of time and 29 percent of students said that it was quite uncomfortable although it is something that you may view as rather insignificant every large thing is made up of a great deal of small things and is something that is used every day for a large portion of the day I think that it is something that is rather important we would like to ask for a grant um which you can contact Amy Kleiner about um to order 36 shapes series Cavalier school chairs which have proven to be the best for lumbar support and there is Page Three um as well as durable as they have been implemented at Franklin High School um okay uh and if there is any any test of durability it is certainly at Portland Public School's largest High School there is another classroom at Sunnyside which has chairs similar to the ones which I am hoping to gain through this grant um they are seeing great success and they are also a favorite among students these chairs are a budget-friendly choice and will provide lumbar support they are constructed from a stainless steel frame durable floor slider floor sliders that eliminate the terrible noise made when they are pulled out and pushed in also as a safety bonus the design of the chairs discourage leaning back which can result in head injury again please contact Amy Kleiner if you have any questions and she will relay them to me thank you thank you very much sure if I could just request of our student to submit the specific chair model to our board manager thank you all right okay good evening my name is Miko skao Scout spelled s-c-h-o-w and I'm here to comment on school resource officers and Portland Public Schools I believe that's school resource officers should remain in in our Portland Public Schools for the safety of our students and to have a safe education while we have our school experience firstly the rising school shootings has spread fear throughout students at Portland Public Schools and I believe if we have officers stationed inside of our schools then we will feel much safer in the event of something happening like that I do recall that there was an event at Franklin where some student had a gun I'm not sure if it was true or not but I believe that if something like that can come this close to home we should have sros in our Portland Public Schools second drug exchange among School among students throughout the hallways and on campus is something that is very real in Portland Public Schools and with officers I hope that maybe that can be
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controlled and the drug use of students can decline also having SRS and schools Fosters a good relationship between students and the community and I think that having this relationship between officers and our schools is important because in the rise of student activism regarding police brutality the relationship between our police officers and our students has been damaged and by having officers in our schools then maybe that um that relationship can be mended and the trust can be restored also let it be known that sros are there to represent civic law and not to enforce School discipline as that misunderstanding can be heard very commonly among students I believe hearing all voices including Quiet Ones should be heard during the decision-making process for decisions like this thank you thank you next next we have Beth Kavanaugh and Nate query welcome my name is Beth Cavanaugh c-a-v-a-n-a-u-g-h I'm an Abernathy parent and a member of the racial common Unity district-wide parent group I'm here today to ask that the values guiding flow analytics work include adherence to the racial Equity policy to address the historical and ongoing impact of the current system to our communities of color and students in poverty additionally I'm requesting clear communication with the community about what guidance will be provided by District leadership on the status of focus option and immersion schools and the philosophy around co-located programs flow analytics is being asked to present program analysis but evaluating educational options is the job of District leaders these decisions require analysis of the education options review committee's work addressing the questions raised by sackett's recommendations and determining locations and structures of programs that align with the district's educational priorities and serve students equitably this is not a simple task but it needs to be completed in a transparent manner with input from impacted communities before flow analytics GIS Specialists can begin their work we continue to see the inequities that are exacerbated and co-located programs that result in single-strand neighborhood schools meaning there is only a single class at one or more grade levels in resolution 5534 from November of 2017 this board asked current District leadership to come up with proposals by December of 2018 that would increase enrollment at Martin Luther King Junior School to two robust neighborhood strands Dr Curtis had suggested that this issue will be resolved with the upcoming boundary review process the MLK Junior School Community along with others such as Scott and beach that were not named in the resolution need and deserve support now to solve the single strand issue they cannot wait until 2020. single neighborhood strands in PPS primarily serve high percentages of our historically underserved students and those in poverty my printed testimony includes a list of challenges caused by single strands that I don't have time to share now but this issue along with the lack of boundary change in neighborhood schools whose enrollment who has suffered due to a history of redlining gentrification in school closures creates a severe Equity issue that the district has a responsibility to address now not two years from now please be proactive in supporting these schools with single strands do not repeat the disruptive and chaotic Staffing schedule of last year where some FTE were allocated late in the hiring process or after the school year had started resulting in teachers being unassigned finding positions in other schools only to have their previous position reopened later these students deserve consistency and support not more disruption I ask the board to commit to funding two neighborhood strands at all schools serving High percentages of currently and historically underserved students when space is available modify the Staffing ratio so that these strands are guaranteed at the outset of the Staffing cycle to allow administrators equal opportunity in hiring high quality teachers this is about equity and Leadership now students at these schools cannot wait two more years for Equitable educational opportunities I'll close with a request for a follow-up from you to be informed when the board will have a work session focused on the issue of single strands and when the work session determining guidance for flow analytics will occur thank you hi um my name is Nate query I'm a parent at Beach Elementary and also a member of the racial common Unity district-wide parent group I'm here to also ask that you keep your promise to Dr King's School provide the resources and immediate enrollment changes necessary to empower them to survive and also in general to adhere to your Equity policy and fix some of the unintended impacts of co-locating programs I'd like to speak to racial inequities I see at beach that overlap with issues at Martin Luther King Jr Elementary we're having an immersion program in the same building in the neighborhood creates
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single classroom per grade the impacts of the single strand are well documented I'm including a letter a parent wrote to you about Scott in 2016. it's as if she were writing about Beach today students and teachers in the single strand have limited options to deal with challenges it's a very inefficient allocation of resources one marker of the difference between the two programs is the free and reduced lunch percentage beaches immersion program is 28 and a half percent but the neighborhood side is 54. at Dr King School the numbers are 28 and immersion and 63 on the neighborhood side another big difference at beach is that 90 percent of our black students are in one neighborhood strand this glaring segregation is symbolic of so much of Portland and pps's history of underserving the black community the immersion program benefits some students at the expense of others overall I want to say that it's infuriating that these inequities are allowed to linger year after year at beach these issues are at least a decade old a little ft here and there is just a Band-Aid adding a kindergarten teacher was welcome help at beach this year but it didn't happen until January the third grade neighborhood classroom at beach currently has 29 kids the two third grade immersion classrooms have a total of 43. some of these single cohorts have had years with cycles of substitutes and ill-equipped teachers which can contribute to a counterproductive classroom culture that's hard to shake with a single strand the complicated situation at beach has also contributed to a high turnover administrators staff and teachers we need leadership that has experience with a diverse Community experience working with the black community who is not new to PPS and who is willing to dig into a complicated situation I love the community at Beach and I do not feel our teachers or kids are getting the support they need from the administration or the district we need to be set up for success I realize there are plans for a new racial equity and social justice Plan and there's a plan for a boundary review but that doesn't excuse you all from intervening now or last year or three years ago to keep the promises that PPS has made both specifically to Martin Luther King Elementary or generally as you are not adhering to your own Equity policy North and Northeast Portland have been gentrifying an alarming rate I ask you to approach these issues with intention and urgency I feel the urgency and parents all over the city will be watching and raising our voices until we see changes made waiting for years to fix these inequities means that our kids will be halfway to high school and unprepared it's your responsibility and duty to find proactive and systemic Solutions as it says in the halls of Beach Elementary it's never too late to do the right thing thank you thank you lastly we have Mark Jackson and Kaylee self hello my name is Kaylee self s-e-l-f I am the fundraising and program Innovation manager at reap and this is my third year serving in a more amazing organization that works to ignite Elevate and engage in the next wave of leaders thank you for allowing me the space to speak before the board and share my experience in working to maintain our Vital Community Partnerships with our Portland Public Schools I am aware that an upgrade updated contract negotiation system for Community Partners in the PPS district is in the works and that will it will be unveiled soon and I am hopeful that Kim remedy some of the issues we've experienced in our recent partnership efforts with the district since summer of 2018 reap has been discouraged by a recent evaluation process under PPS District leadership that seems unique to our partnership where program success was regularly diminished and undervalued our journey starts at Boise Elliott where we are excited to build on our increased success working with Elementary level students in our restorative justice program reflections the district intended instead recommended we discontinue our services despite increased enrollment in the area and greater demand for services expressed by school leadership in order to focus our efforts on the other Partnerships in the district that made it all the more surprising when we experienced increased barriers to delivering services in the district of Madison at Madison High School reap visibility and engagement with students over the 17 and 18 school year was greatly increased but discounted by School staff and then co-signed by PPS Community partner staff without a full account of the demonstrated success at that site we provided reports and testimonials from students and parents that confirmed these efforts but we were unable to find a collaborator who was willing to see and value that work reaps ever increasing success at Harrison Park at feeder school of medicine as you may know was halted as a result of the scrutiny at the high school level and we also received unfair characterizations after our efforts to re-establish important connections with
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existing reap students and that were seen as undermining the community partner process and pps's collaborative process we are very fortunate to have remedied certain aspects of this situation with a collaborative help of the special advisor and superintendent on equity and at PPS get back on track with serving the reap students of the PPS District going forward we can be successful with the following help from PPS District leaders first a system where Community Partners are recognized and regarded for the history of work that they have demonstrated of clear and measurable success this has not been acknowledged in the current PPS system and is very important in determining who comes to the table to participate in future contract vetting processes I would hate to see a system that encourages successful culturally specific Community Partners to compete to serve the most marginalized students in the district we need a contract negotiation process that does not delay programming opportunities for our most who for our students who are most in need opportunities for Community Partners to re-establish routes where they have demonstrated measurable success in the past a clear and transparent process that not only when it comes to community partner allocation budget and placement but also in creating structures to evaluate the school admin with the school administration and Community partner leaders in order for the Community Partners to be successful in the long term these vital steps will create the lasting collaborative process that we've needed thank you thank you is Mark Jackson the executive director of reap I want to thank the board for the opportunity to share public comment this evening as I approach this moment I'm reminded of my freshman English teacher at the Madison High School in this District who addressed the entire class and express her frustration with black students and how we are not successful students because of our Behavior I was 14 years old at that time and had to resolve my growing mind if I would in fact believe this teacher's assessed with black students well I'm now 48. by God's grace I've grown from being a PPS student to a graduate of PSU the credentials in sociology English communication and also black studies I've been blessed to work for elected officials Business Leaders Community Advocates and also educators I've served as a co-founder of reap an organization has program history of serving our most vulnerable marginalized students for over 14 years in this District over the years rep has done programming at Grant Lincoln Jefferson Franklin Madison Harrison Park I've learned how to navigate the Waters of change leadership at the school level the district level and yes even the board level despite these leadership transitions reap leadership has never changed nor our mission and our commitment to serve students despite all my academic achievement and my established personal Integrity among this District and this community at Large several months ago District leaders characterized me as a hostile intimidating and misleading professional totally contrary of my tenure of service in this community in this District consequently reach contract was not renewed in fact canceled and students students Law Services our contract was not accountable not because of poor program outcomes not because of schools and students who are dissatisfied with our services our contract was canceled because someone who had power to make a decision based on the premise of how they perceive myself for the first part of this school year countless students have gone without services and at that have been provided uniquely by this reap organization had it not been for board involvement and the Stellar work of Danny ledinsma and the support of the superintendent up to this point I wouldn't have the optimism that I have today about the potential of continued services with this District as my staff and I continue to engage with District staff and meet with chair Moore it is my hope that the district intentionally recognizes the foundational commitment of Community Partners like reap that have contributed to the recent spike in graduation rates furthermore it is my hope that you as a board will reflect on my personal story both as a former PPS student and now a 14-year PPS Community partner asking yourselves a question is this the new District you all envisioned thank you for your time thank you
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thank you next that's it that's it okay thank you thank you everyone for your comments please feel free again to contact the board manager Roseanne Powell if you have something specifically you want to follow up with the board or Board office uh well next on a good note is Proclamation it is African American History Month so February is National African-American Black History Month which celebrates the contributions and achievement of African-American students and and individuals this month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures traditions and histories and to acknowledge the important contributes contributions of black people this is also an opportune time to educate the general public about the unique challenges that our students have faced both historically and in the present um so the board to read our resolution on resolution 505806 I asked I'd like to ask director Bailey to share the resolution with us please thank you and reiterating past and current so here's the uh a resolution whereas the origin of Black History Month began in 1915 it's over a hundred years ago half a century after the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States it was the creation of noted historian Carter G Woodson another prominent African African-Americans and whereas with the civil rights movement and a growing awareness blackened identity black history month is now an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans a time for recognizing the Central Central role of members of the African diaspora and U.S history and whereas the contributions of members of the African diaspora and their Endeavors to learn and Thrive throughout history and make Unforgettable marks in our nation as artists scientists Educators business people influential thinkers members of the faith community athletes and political and governmental leaders reflects the greatness of the United United States and whereas black history reflects the determined Spirit of perseverance and cultural pride in the struggle to equitably share in the opportunities of a Nation founded upon the principles of freedom and liberty for all people and whereas members of the African diaspora have participated in every American effort to secure protect and Advance the cause of freedom and civil rights and continue to resist white supremacy and whereas the local community has enriched the diversity of perspective and experience in our district and the Board of Education desires to recognize and honor the achievements and contributions of members of the African diaspora and whereas our history curriculum of community state region National and the world must reflect the lived experiences of people of different racial religious and ethnic groups and whereas the last one all students need an opportunity to understand the common Humanity underlying all people to develop pride in their own identity and Heritage and to respect and accept the identity and Heritage of others and now therefore be it resolve that the Board of Education of the Portland Public Schools hereby recognizes the month of February 2019 as Black History Month and encourages all Educators to commemorate this occasion with appropriate ceremonies instructional activities and programs a matter of week of action is February 4th through 8 and we encourage our students and staff to participate in the achievement activities of this as well the Portland Association of teachers is leading these activities and we thank them for their work on this and their leadership so do I have a motion and a second on resolution 5806 great director brim Edwards moves and director Rosen second see adoption and resolution 5806 is there any board discussion okay the board will now vote on resolution 5806 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes Rita yeah Paul yes from Paul okay great all opposed plea indicate please indicate by saying no any abstentions
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resolution 5806 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative paisler voting yes thank you great yes you were so quick I didn't have a chance it's not really a discussion point but I just wanted to recommend that later in the month that we have an opportunity maybe to hear from students or our staff during Black History Month that would be great thank you so we'll be hoping to have some activities or share some activities hear what's happening in our schools thank you okay superintendent Guerrero good evening directors students members of the public are viewing in our present audience I'm going to try something a little different here today thought we would put some visuals thank you as often as it we meet up here it doesn't seem like there's ever enough time to really sort of share all the interesting things that are happening across the district and so hopefully the pictures will help to substitute for a thousand words a piece so starting with uh this past week there were some big announcements and news across the state of Oregon including for here in Portland Public Schools related to just posted graduation rates for 17 18. you're going to hear a presentation uh in just a bit on that um you will hear about some of the impact we believe that measure 98 and our Career Tech education programming we believe is having on students persistence through high school and Beyond as well as engagement in school I think you see one of our outstanding students there so we're going to step back a little bit and take a slightly deeper dive into some of these victories so a little bit of a commercial on measure 98 some of our early evidence here I don't know that I could do that there but for those that don't have the visual we have two students sign a log together many students take classes in which they have an opportunity to design things build things get their hands dirty and we hear from them both anecdotally and in some evidence that they're staying engaged and that they're graduating in greater numbers uh and those are some of the best practices we believe that will help to keep our students on track towards walking across that graduation stage to give you uh some specifics around what measure 98 funding has uh allowed us to do here in PPS in the way of investment it includes 13 instructional coaches who lead our freshman success teams our freshman success teams play a vital role in connecting with our ninth graders to make sure that they have a strong Foundation as they start off their High School careers measure 98 funding also permits us to invest in 13 school-based student engagement coaches another important way that an adult can serve to bridge that relationship and relational trust with our high school students combining these teams and coaches they help to provide an array of interventions to over 500 students on matters of attendance Behavior getting through their coursework and making sure they're passing with the high expectations that we have for them this is the kind of student by student support that we believe is planting seeds for even bigger gains and graduation rates in the future measure 98 also allowed us to add some extensive professional development activities for our staff we have been able to add new CTE program strands at many of our smaller high schools and even some material Investments like over 700 Chromebooks or laptops for use by our students across the district another important activity that's really ramped up lately over the past few weeks we've been engaging hundreds and hundreds literally of students family members staff and other stakeholders in conversations around the aspiration that we hold in common for Portland Public Schools and for our students experience Pre-K 12. that's been one aspect of it our visioning initiative and the other is on the future of the Benson campus and all the stakeholders currently under the roof at the Benson campus and how we understand the important role that these programs play as well as some of the amenities and physical supports that
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will help continue to just value those programs but support our students who rely on that programming so at Benson we've continued to have engagement sessions with nearly every program of our historic comprehensive e-school I've had the opportunity to personally attend with many of our board directors thank you for being there and other senior staff engagement meetings with students staff and parents at the alliance at Benson program as well as the alliance at Meek campus we've also had an opportunity to meet with the dart and Clinton School professionals we met recently with a teen parents program reconnection Services we also had a chance to meet with some of our evening Scholars these are students who participate in night school as well as some summer Scholars I just want to appreciate the really robust turnout by our students and stakeholders in those programs and our Board of Directors for for getting personally involved in hearing their stories and their hopes for their future on Wednesday we're going to hold another session with Pisa which means we will have at that point heard from each of the multiple Pathway to graduation programs that are currently housed at Benson so thank you everyone for your participation and for sharing your very candid thoughts and in particular for sharing many of your personal Journeys and what these Alternatives have meant to you and your success so in addition to some active listening we're also spending time visiting the programs and getting to know the students in action including the Educators and the unique history of the school and its program so I think you have an example there of some of the spaces at Benson the other big effort has been our visioning process uh uh it's been an incredible past two weeks it's there have been more than 25 sessions held where families of special education students migrant education families families of students with dyslexia central office staff classified staff Educators and more I want to thank many central office staff but again also our board of directors they've been very busy they've been participating in many of our visioning sessions including this past Saturday and we're looking forward to another guiding Coalition meeting this Friday night and all day Saturday again when I say folks have been showing up this past Saturday had over 200 members of the public folks interested in helping to co-construct a vision for the future of PPS so my hat's off to everybody for continuing to be engaged in meaningful ways um just to give a little bit of a sense of sort of the variety and the cross-section of folks we've had sessions with other numerous community and PPS organizations that includes friends of Music we know that Arts education will play an important role in a holistic education of the future we've also met with some culturally specific student Affinity groups including black student unions gay straight Alliance Vos Latina Partners in diversity and unite organ among many others so thank you to those organizations for Lending their voice as well and I mentioned this past Saturday we've had our biggest community meeting to date 200 people coming to Madison High School to give their thoughts and help as we dream together that's our sort of our motto for these sessions about our city and our school it has been a massive undertaking I want to make sure and recognize the many people who have helped to make this possible that includes staff on our strategic Partnerships teams shout out to Jonathan Garcia Communications and public engagements team our board and board support staff and our visioning core team and many others who've put in the time sweat and heart into this effort thank you this past week we also held our annual classified connections Gathering every educator knows that our classified employees are the backbone of our schools and our school system without their support we couldn't teach in a uh ideal and optimal teaching and learning environment we couldn't function as a school district and our students just would not be able to be as successful as they are were it not for their day-to-day support and role in our school communities to give you a sense of what the classified connection Gathering included this is an event that focused and focused on a dozen or so core themes including some professional development and training for staff that included some de-escalation training that is helping to support our students who might be experiencing a behavior challenge we talked about mindfulness for school transformation we talked about our efforts to make sure that our students were maximizing their time in school and our efforts at increasing attendance rates in one of the workshops
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titled be the adult that kids need Empower School staff to respond to discrimination and embrace families of color these are the kinds of sort of topical themes that our classified staff engages in some some really important conversation these are the kinds of critical professional development opportunities we want to continue to to make available I wanted to share that uh this week marks an initial push for us to launch a successful School survey it's not uncommon that school districts and PPS in the past have queried the broader Community about how are we doing in particular on issues of school culture and climate this is our effort this year to get a baseline read on the views from students families and staff throughout the school system every student to get sort of a representative sense in grades 5 7 and 10 will be given an opportunity to take the survey every family in the district will be invited to take the survey for each of the schools that their students attend and all school-based staff will get a chance to take the survey as well so notifications have begun to go out to families and staff and I want to encourage everybody to to lend their input and their voice a little bit about the actual survey itself it's a nationally designed by nationally recognized group that uses research-based questions to give districts a way to compare among schools and among other districts we have some key dates I want us to keep in mind the survey for students starts on February 4th and will run through the 22nd of the month for families they will begin to receive the link for taking the survey starting on February 4th through the month through March 1st we hope to gather input and then staff staff will be invited to take the survey starting February 19th and we'll run through the middle of March so this is part of our effort to become data informed as a school system and certainly how our students families and staff are feeling about their schools and our work overall is going to be very important information so don't hesitate to remind your colleagues and families hashtag take the survey and um appropriate for this evening's resolution by our board PPS was well represented at the annual keep alive the dream event that honors the legacy of the great Dr Martin Luther King Jr you see an example here of students on stage but the event the all-day event featured performances by the Bravo music program from Cesar Chavez schools the American music program from Vernon and the Jefferson High School Dancers just to name a few folks who were there in that program and I see our principal from Benson back there if I could ask him to approach the bench please there was also a big moment during that program agenda where our very own Curtis Wilson the Great Tech man received a Lifetime Achievement Award for his years of service to students especially for his dedication to making sure our students of color in particular get the opportunities that they need to succeed Curtis is a native of North Portland and witnessed firsthand how students of color had to and still have to push through barriers to achieve the things so many of us take for granted normally at this point I would show a little video but we have principal Wilson here live and in person I would love to invite him up if he would please do us the honor and just share a few words uh with us good evening everyone um thank you for the opportunity to to come and basically just for me um it's been a lifelong achievement as far as supporting and working in PPS I've been a part of PPS my entire life um a product of Portsmouth Middle School Roosevelt High School and I even came back through my four years of college and worked in PPS as a painter and a custodian right and then when I had the opportunity to come back as a teacher and put in the first half of my career working at Harriet Tubman and Roosevelt and then decided to make the move to Administration I I knew that my journey is almost complete because it's just been a lifelong passion of mine to just work with kids that's I've known that since I was about 12 years old I was going to work with kids as a kid and so I've been following that path I feel great about what I'm doing over at Benson I have a great staff great kids a great admin team and I'm just blessed right now um it is a lot of work a lot of long
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days long hours but the administrators in this city I feel like we're doing our calling which is to support our staff and students and so you know yes it's an individual award but I have eight other nine other 10 other high school principals that are busting their bonds just like I am and then all the other administrators throughout the other Elementary Middle schools as well and alternative programs that are doing what's important to support our students so on behalf of all of the administrators in a city I like to say thank you for this opportunity congrats congratulations principal Wilson uh well deserved thank you for your continued dedication and Leadership if he looks familiar for those of you in the viewing audience you'll remember principal Wilson was just recognized this past school year as high school principal of the year in the state of Oregon so thank you for your continued work and accolades well deserved as I shared to our leadership Gathering last week thank you Vice chair Esparza Brown for being present as well we had a chance to share with our principals and recognize especially at mid-year here that uh it is a lot of hard work but you are making a difference so thank you for your leadership that concludes my report yeah so thank you all for your hard work it's been a bit of a busy time and I would like to take this opportunity to also acknowledge that the diligence the work of our staff in the visiting process it has been we're really Gathering wonderful information and feedback from the community that will be so important and leading us into our future hey next we have a presentation from students tonight and I'd like to ask director Bailey to introduce the topic so I'd like to invite up Aaron pressberg who's our senior manager of Energy Efficiency and sustainability hi everyone um thank you Scott thank you board for having us so as Scott said my name is Aaron pressberg I am the senior program manager of energy and sustainability for the district I work in the facilities Department I'm excited to be here this evening with students from Wilson High School who worked very hard producing a video that highlights some of the improvements we've made in our schools around water conservation and Energy Efficiency uh amaresco our partner for Energy Efficiency projects hired a professional videographer to work with these students and it was exciting to see the students engage about what career Fields they might pursue while they also learned about video production as well as the great Energy Efficiency work that PPS is doing in our facilities with ameresco so mresco made this commitment above and beyond their contract requirement because they wanted to help provide Hands-On learning opportunities for our students that would help leave a lasting impact across the district we are now in our ninth phase of work with amaresco and through Energy savings performance Contracting we've been able to make the following improvements to our schools water conservation projects at 81 schools Energy Efficiency projects at 16 schools we've been able to save over nine hundred thousand dollars annually from our utility budget we are able to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 2600 metric tons of carbon dioxide which is a 6.5 percent reduction over annual emissions and that is also equivalent of 2.8 million pounds of cold burn so we're making quite an impact there um so we have four of the five students here that worked on this video project um congrats to Julian Trumbo who graduated Wilson High School last year so he's off to college gives me a great pleasure to introduce to you these students from Wilson High School that worked with uh Zach Putnam who is our videographer so we have Reed Kelly Rachel Rodriguez Jacob Bell and Chloe here to introduce the video and we're gonna we're gonna play it back for you guys so thank you we need another chair am I doing okay good evening welcome the goal of the video you're about to watch was to introduce students to the job offerings in the energy industry through the lens of the work that mresco a leading Renewable Energy company and Energy Efficiency company has done for and with Portland Public Schools the project was produced over three months by a crew of Wilson students including
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myself Jacob Chloe and Rachel Rodriguez and Julian Trumbo however none of it would have been possible without the valuable input organization and advocacy that Zach Putnam who managed the whole project provided personally I found the contextualization of how this part of Portland Public Schools and the renewable energy business at large operates really interesting and it was amazing to be able to meet some of the people who that work in that industry additionally this project helped me solidify my goals in a career and visual media by providing Real World client-based experience I hope that PBS continues to engage with students in similar ways thank you again to the entire crew as well as everyone from ameresco and PBS who helped make this project happen thank you [Music] thank you Energy Efficiency is important because we have a growing population growing demand for energy and it is a finite resource ameresco is focused on delivering Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Solutions in the existing building Market PPS cares about Energy Efficiency for multiple reasons we want to be good stewards of the environment you know we want to reduce the resources that we consume as a district the overall vision and goal for our work with Portland Public Schools is to improve their facilities and save energy at the same time bottom line is energy so we want to save as much energy can and that's why we're doing these upgrades so we start by looking at the utility bills and by interviewing facilities and maintenance staff to identify schools that have a lot of problems Portland Public Schools is faced with a lot of Aging infrastructure I think the average school is about 75 years old and then what we'll do is walk through the schools to visually confirm that there are Energy Efficiency opportunities there we deploy data loggers on all the main equipment we take power measurements airflow measurements and spend a lot of time learning the buildings themselves through the information We Gather in the energy audit we're able to calculate savings after the audit is completed we move into Contracting for the actual construction work amaresco has guaranteed the savings for the project and so at the end of the project we come back and check all the equipment we installed to make sure it is performing well [Music] thank you foreign [Music] I recommend anybody that is into science you'd have to know science into electrical to get in this field be great for men and women it's open to everybody the Energy Efficiency sector is definitely growing there are administrators account Executives and project managers facilities directors Financial officers marketers construction managers electricians plumbers steam Fitters Sheet Metal Workers HVAC controls workers installation workers and resource conservation managers if you want to be part of the solution to the problems we face related to energy the Energy Efficiency field would be a great career path for you thank you [Music] [Applause] thank you another hand [Applause] thank you for your time I'd like to invite Jerry Glenn with amaresco just for some closing statements on his experience with the project thank you thank you Aaron and thank you superintendent Guerrero as well as the school board for having us uh very excited that over the last decade that we've been working with you to save close to 900 000 a year today we just got another contract for our for our
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ninth project so we're shooting to go over a million dollars a year in savings with the district and wanted to just thank you for the opportunity I've got four children here in the PPS District right now and so it's a personally gratifying to know that you know additional million dollars is going back into the budget every year from here here on forward so we're looking forward to working with you in the future as well as the students we really are enjoying the CTE work and work with Jay and Gene yerkovic there and see a a really great opportunity to not only make it a kind of Project based but also interacting with with the kids and one additional comment not only is it as you saw with the with the with the kids that worked on the project today is it's not just the science and the math and the engineering kids that need to get excited about clean energy there's tons of jobs from a liberal arts perspective and so we'd like to reach out to those students as well and just let them know there's great opportunity kind of in the new economy so thank you very much for your time thank you thank you thanks for the upgrades that thanks for the upgrades at Cleveland it's my home so love it yeah so just just kind of closing off this is you know our bond work for rebuilding our schools those contracts all include Provisions for student engagement I think we're we've made progress there I think there's a lot we can do even more going forward particularly around our Career and Technical education programs you know we're going to have a big project coming up when as we deal with boundaries um there I believe there are some opportunities there for student engagement in terms of learning facilitation skills for example communication skills with the community so I think there's this is something we're beginning to tap and something we can build on is engaging our students in the actual work of the district thanks thank you and wonderful work again hey so on to more celebrations I'd like to ask superintendent get Edder to introduce the next topic well I mentioned earlier and if you didn't catch it on almost every media Outlet last week graduation rates are out we're very pleased that Portland Public has posted for the third year in a row in a row a graduation rate that exceeds the state average so we're pleased but we're obviously still not satisfied we're especially happy about some accelerated outcomes for particular subgroups of students but to give the viewing public and our audience and directors more specifics we have a small team here who's been very involved in beginning to do the analysis so I'm going to invite our Deputy superintendent Dr Curtis to lead the way on this presentation shares the piece the priests say this is a moment of Celebration to have our three folks appear I one of the things I want um community and our board to know is that as we continue to transform and put together the work that we're doing in the district it's very important that the office of teaching and learning office of schools office of um are system performance are working really closely together working hand in hand and so the presentation we have tonight is intentionally being delivered by one person from each of the department they all play different roles but we really want you to know after this presentation not just the great celebration but the great work that's going on as well as our intention and why we know that our graduation rates and our Readiness of our students for college and careers will continue to improve okay thank you Dr Curtis good evening we are excited to share with you some information regarding our high school graduation rates and I'd just like to reiterate her comment about the way our three primary departments under Dr Curtis's guidance have come together to really coalesce in some common Vision to move this work forward I would begin by saying when we begin to examine graduation rates it's not an event in which that occurs because it is really a it is really several factors over the course of several years that bring successful graduation for our students and to that end I just wanted to say that that there's a lot of
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work that that we're now doing as a as a group to do that work together part of that comes in the form of our four-year plan that the high school has but also so much the work that we do with the office of school for the office of student services as well as office of teaching and learning is actually hand in hand just like the leadership meetings we had this last week were very much a combination of that work coming together tonight we'd just like to share some highlights with you and some some data about just where things are at in regards to our performances last year and also Identify some places that we still have work to do and some of our strategies for moving that work forward okay so this particular slide just shows a couple of highlights that our graduation rate has now climbed at 79.6 percent which is up nine points over the last five years and it continues to climb we're very proud of the fact that it's not actually slipped in any of those years we also saw a large jump in the performance of our black African-American students up nearly six points from where it was in 1617. a couple of other highlights here is we're celebrating what Alliance High School has been able to do for our graduation rates here they they increase their rates five percent Alliance High School is an alternative education setting in which we're able to re reconnect with some of our students and help them find a climate in which they can be successful and this is just more data to indicate that they are actually helping reconnect with students who may not find our Traditional High School settings a good place for them also for the fourth year in a row Jefferson High School has had their rate over 80 percent that we think that's also a great point of Celebration a couple a couple of key strategies for our success is um we there's a correlation between the fact that we went to double blocking in our master schedule a few years ago just about the same time as we started to see this trend in graduation rates increase and it double blocking does permit us an opportunity to use more time to go deeper with students as well as provide individual instruction and it also provides us an extra period in which we can also do some some deeper work with students who need some scaffolded supports and so that's one of the strategies that we feel is a key success factor for us this year and last year we implemented the Freshman success teams out of the measure 98 money and those have been very successful you can see in 1617 that our ninth grade on track rate was 85 percent we've increased it seven percent this year that freshman on track rate is one of the major indicators of Student Success in high school and so we're very pleased to see that that's moved so much just in one year additionally we've hired student engagement coaches in all of the high schools and they work directly with high school teams of counselors on sart teams they're called to to monitor student attendance and the result of that has also been increased attendance rates a few other strategies for success are our Advanced coursework and we spoke to this a little while ago with this group with you um our Advanced our Advanced coursework we've seen an increase in the number of students who are taking advanced placement um 450 more students almost 10 percent higher than last year the number of students recovered by the reconnection center is dramatic we had over 1200 contacts made this year a third of those students actually made it uh successfully through the program in their reconnection and and and stayed on through the entire school year the work done there in reconnection services and our alternative programs is really a significant impact in these graduation rates additionally Career and Technical education programs our CTE programs we've seen over a thousand more students enter those programs this year and there's dramatic evidence to show what the impact of students taking CTE programming is in high school Success we do have areas of focus I mentioned earlier that there's room for growth the two main uh that really surface in this data is in regards to special education 59.3 percent of our students graduated this last year that's a decline of 4.7 and it's that's still two percent above where it was a couple years ago but it's still not satisfactory that we're not settling for that and so I'll share with you some of our thinking is here in just a moment additionally our English language Learners went from 57 uh dropped to 57.5 percent which is a decline of six percentage points from the previous year still six percent six points above two years ago but again not satisfactory to our liking we are looking at some specific strategies to address these two subgroup populations the four the four-year cohort graduation race is what we've been discussing that's what the 79 point six the percentage point was thanks Joe uh and what that is basically is is it is a new definition that was shared by the state of Oregon in 2008 2009 and basically follows the cohort of students through four years of high school and measures the percentage that graduate on
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time it's a more rigorous method than we've used in the past um it does measure students earning regular or modified diplomas count as graduates inside that cohort students earning geds and extended diplomas do not count inside that group this chart actually displays what our rates have are have done since 2009 to date and you can see where the red PPS is the red bar here and the light green is the state of Oregon and you can see that we have had a significant upward trajectory for the last several years each year making another step in this direction I can't emphasize enough how this is not the accomplishments of any one school this is the accomplishments of of a team of people coming together with a common focus and Curtis's statements earlier about the power of the leadership that he works with it I think is indicative in these results as well um you can if I if you go don't mind going back for just one moment you can see also that our trajectory about four years ago we actually caught the state of Oregon and surpassed it as those starting in 2009 when we were 13 around 12 plus percent below their average we've now caught caught them and we we are still operating above them 79.6 is a wonderful number in regards to where we were last year but in in no way satisfies us okay we know that that means there's 21 of the students we still have got to reach and so that is at the core of our work this particular chart helps break down how we compare to some of the other Urban centers and what I think is most pronounced on this particular chart is as you examine it is when you look at Portland which is the second set of bars you can see that you know you've got that consecutive years of growth and as you look across some of the other Urban centers that we're comparing ourselves to there's certainly some that are outperforming this but very few have the growth that we have and have that same common trajectory of consistent growth and I think that's just important for us to recognize that we we have a pattern of of of performance here that is um that's very positive this particular chart breaks down some race and ethnicity gaps that we have in our in our graduation rates I shared some of those earlier by subgroup populations of special education and ESL but this actually breaks it down by race and ethnicity and you can see from this chart that there's some really significant gaps in regards to what we're doing to serve all students um I want to call out the American American Indian the Native American group at 40.6 percent um that's a that's a horrible number and totally unsatisfactory but I also want to call out that the number of students we're counting is is a very small number and that small number jumps radically when you have a few more students it's not an excuse I just want you to know that when we examine that number that's one that can fluctuate radically from one year to the next um I want to go back just a moment if I may you can see the white percentage at 83.4 is the indication that the Gap still exists you can see most of our subgroup populations are still not performing at that 83.4 percent and those are the gaps that we want to continue to close um the percentages that we had with our black population growing six percent this year was a really good example of how we've closed some of that Gap but again we're not settling on that it's just what we're able to accomplish so far this year I'm going to probably defer to Joe on some of this chart but basically the this again shows subgroup populations and it shows five years continual but the little Dash that you see that little red Dash shows state level rates in those subgroup populations for this year's data so like in the very first one we see all students and the purple bar you see 2017-18 and at the very top you see a dash and just a little little bit of purple above that bar that indicates that we're out we're out performing there by the slightest of margins but in the next category when you get to American Indian and uh Alaska native you can see that there's a significant gap between our performance versus what the state's average is that's the way you read that that particular chart so when you start going down the line you can see that we're still not quite meeting the Gap that we have in state performance versus our performance with our Hispanic and Latino populations as well Joe can you speak for a moment to the dot that's for multiracial please
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not disaggregate multi-racial students any further than just how they identify as more than one race within PPS we have been trying to break those students further down by those who identify as white and Asian only versus versus those who do not identify white or Asian you can see that there's a big difference between those groups we just want to be able to individualize that a little bit more to those students um this this chart here again is focusing on fight on the um the five years of graduation rates but it breaks down into some different subgroup populations that are not racially bound these are the uh the economically disadvantaged rates as well as special education and ell and you can see uh I'm going to start on the far right you can see how we are slightly above the state average in an ell performance but again I want to reiterate that we've dropped our performance there and that's not okay we know we can't do better and we'll continue to to raise that bar or that number um you can see also we're not meeting even the state's average in regards to the special education population again that's just not satisfactory and that's what we'll be focusing on that some of our work as we go forward um this particular slide I think is really very profound it really helps understand the blue bar is uh the four-year cohort and the and the red bar is the five-year cohort completers much of the success that we have with our five year cohort completers are coming from our alternative Ed programming reconnection Center Alliance mlc Trillium many of our schools our cbo's and this this chart really helps show just how high of numbers we get in five-year completers across the district with the alternative Ed program that we have it really is a robust program and serves as well Joe and just to clarify that the five-year completed rate also includes geds and extended diplomas in the in the success rate and this is the three-year Trend by schools um we I this just kind of highlights what the schools are doing in some regards I will say when you look at this chart you see some that have consistent upward trajectories going on that are mirroring our data some others that you know struggle a little bit when when you examine uh mlc I just want to call out the fact that again they have very small numbers so it just takes a few of those kids to set their data back a step but for the most part you can see that the schools all the way across the board are supporting this work as it's going forward and um and it's not it's not really on the back of any one school or any one community that we as a district and as a high school system as a K-12 system are are responsible for delivering the results that we're sharing with you tonight and with that I'll I just wanted to touch on the fact that we have some very specific next steps in mind for how we want to actually work on some of those subgroup populations that I mentioned to you earlier and and we're focusing on implementing some culturally relevant curriculum that we hope will get more specifically to the needs of the students who are struggling with some of our requirements we're also looking at our school climate and chronic absenteeism processes to make sure that we're doing something that's keeping the kids in school and and keeping up keeping kids comfortable in their schools which is really important I mean if if the student is uncomfortable in school they're not hearing a thing that's happening in class and so it's really critical that the climate of the school is conducive to the students we're also trying to prepare all students for post-secondary success and and that really does mean a marriage between the college readiness work as well as the Career technical work and not thinking of them as two separate things but as actually a robust program that can help ready students for either of those vocations we're also going to continue to implement grade level collaborative instructional teams this is a huge undertaking we've done this year and we've actually begun to embed this practice in schedules in a way so that we can protect the instructional time and make sure that these conversations that are so critical are taking place we can we're looking for ways to actually expand that work this next year and then and it's actually in that work that we can really drill down into the data of those students that need the additional support and make sure that we're serving them and then lastly we're going to enhance CTE quality Partnerships and sustain the successful programs we have that's not just a talking point that's a reality we are currently out visiting successful programs examining them trying to refine the work that we're going to continue to do in our district to make our CTE programming that's already very strong
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even stronger we know that when students are able to engage in that work they're more engaged in their High School with that I'll open it to questions thank you very much a lot to celebrate and of course as you indicated there's room for growth yes absolutely okay board members questions comments uh so I have a question specifically about our strategies with English language Learners because you know in some of these areas we want to double down on what we're doing and we know that and then that's particularly gratifying when we look at the Freshman success strategies and the teams and the time that our teachers have to spend with our ninth graders now with the measure 98 money and so that suggests that we'll only see those graduation and completion rates grow because of those Investments we're making now but specifically with our English language Learners and special education what are we doing to re-examine our fundamental strategies you bet so one of the things that we're doing today okay I can tell you that I had I was in four high schools today and held this conversation with four different principles was around their actual ell student population performance in Els and in their Ela class what kind of support they're getting in that class because uh the the office of teaching and learning informed us that we have about 27 of our Ela students or I'm sorry or El our English language Learners so are at 27 of them are getting a d or an F in their in their Ela class so um so that doesn't make any sense that that's where they should have the most support and they should have success so in those visits with schools we're unwrapping right now what that percentage is at the school who those students are we're examining why that's happening in those schools so that we can better strategize about what's happening so we can be better in in better support in one of those schools today I can tell you I know for a fact that uh that one of those classes had a long-term sub and so we're just concerned about what that impact was on that little group of students but that's the type of stuff that we're starting to uncover as we go deeper into who those four 400 students are in the high schools this is something a superintendent Guerrero that I would like to see specifically called out in the budget process what additional resources are we looking at targeting for our English language Learners and just so that it's easy for us to parse out in the whole budget where we're making Investments because frankly we've been stymied with these students for a long time and to point out that some of some what's important is resources yes of course but even more importantly having a coherent set of strategies around how we're going to tackle this Gap that that isn't acceptable some of it is curricular material some of it is research-based English language development material some of it is making sure that all of our Educators have the opportunity to learn uh you know a little deeper knowledge base and language acquisition Theory as well as strategies that will work more effectively for our English language Learners some of it is work even that we need to continue in conversation with other partners like higher ed education institutions and making sure that our entry-level teachers also have some understandings and abilities to also work with English language Learners Oregon unlike other states has a little uh thinner requirement on some of that being part of the syllabus or no requirement in many cases so we have the challenge of also making sure that we continue to provide that kind of professional learning as well and as far as what what the school experience might look like for some of our Ells you know what are those some of those practical supports need to include as well so that they're able to not just access content and demonstrate Mastery of those learnings but of course Reading Writing listening speaking all those sort of second language skill sets that we want them to have so we're just getting started in in this work we know what some important ingredients are going to be some of the strategies apply to all but we know that we need to get really specific about not just Els I would add to that we really need to do a deep dive into making sure we collectively understand what Universal Design for Learning looks like for our students with disabilities and just because they're good research-based practices for all of our students and so as we continue doing our multi-tiered work to support you know our students not just behaviorally and in their
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Readiness to learn but also what is our academic RTI look like so for that we've got to have a strong core and our core itself needs to make new knowledge accessible for Els and students for Disabilities so there's there's a an effort you know that we'll have to sort of undertake to really take on this topic and just gosh sort of what is a what is a Year's worth of you know goals look like for this coming year and there's a lot of knowledge here at the Deus as well as with our Educators and leaders to sort of begin to develop a blueprint for for that work and there's some promising practices already happening in some of our schools and so as we continue to disaggregate where did we see particular attraction for our Els or any other subgroup that we want to encourage a professional Learning Community around so I have some comments as well so we've talked about the four years that I've been on this board the need for a multi-tiered support system and I know that we have a team we're finally building that um I I just want to acknowledge I've seen some issues that I hope that we can resolve is it still looks to me that it's not as foundational and overarching as it needs to be and it's really connecting just like you are all here as a team it's connecting all of the Departments so we're not just worried about building up the core but they're systems for who we support and those kids can't wait so it's a matter of what are we also doing in curriculum at the same time as we're planning a roll out so what's the ask for us in the budget in terms of how do we then prepare to to have available to teachers the material materials that they'll need to support students because tier two the supports that we need is not just reteaching core right and we know that and that's another reason I think for the lower rates of graduation that we see with kids with disabilities that um 20 that have reading disabilities actually need something quite different um and I we're not very well um I think we haven't supported that well enough in this district and that's another budget ass that I'd like us to consider and really look at deeply this year it was the need to look specifically at that group of students I also had a question and a comment on the advanced coursework what I'd like to see it's great that we've increased the number of students but I also ask what color are we increasing those IB courses for and I know that we all have the same goal of you know really changing the color of our IB and advanced placement coursework but I think getting a report in that is it would be great so that we can see that traction yeah now I I know that um that even though we had a large number join we did not close the gap between the number of students with different race participation it was actually very similar it was like we the whole thing moved one one step up in participation and the Gap remain the same I I said I know that data because that is actually one of the three primary goals that we have in our four-year plan for high schools okay so after recognizing that data point this this fall all the high school teams came back together and said okay wait a minute how did that happen and why did we not make a difference with our other students our historically underserved student populations so we've then re-engaged that work with new strategies I don't want I don't know what that number is today but after recognizing we didn't make them the mo the move we wanted to we've gone deeper to see if we can address that differently now I think that's really helpful and I'd also like to see have we engaged the students too to see you know what is the barrier what is keeping those the students that we would really like to promote um those coursework to um from enrolling in those courses so from both ends because having that student voice that's how we can make this better I actually have um experience in doing that very recently in my last place we got to work with equal opportunity schools where they're really focused on um first generation kids and a specifically kids of color and there are some very specific strategies you you use with different groups of kids to get them interested then to support them we are taking a look at that to see if we're ready to do that and if not this year I mean there are pieces to it um what I know is when you do that we have to get ready in the budget to purchase more AP books right and the supports that go with them I also wanted to respond to your your comment about mtss just because there's so much going on in our joint work across our departments that we don't have time always to bring it to the board and I just want you to know that
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we are starting on a strategy that's coming right now in February to um have all of our leaders brought on board as well as our ptosas and our coaches in building consensus on our mtss model and we have Specialists coming to help us with that everybody will be in a two-day experience one of the things that we've noticed as we work closely together is that sometimes we talk about these Frameworks or these best practices but we don't know if we're all talking about really the same thing and so we are taking the time each time when we notice we're just sort of talking up here and we're not really sure what everyone's talking about and what it looks like sounds like feels like in the classroom we're slowing down taking time to do that at this level and sometimes people say oh that's taking us a long time to do it that way but it's not worth it to move forward if we're not going to make sure that we're in consensus it's aligned and that the way we're looking at it across every Department in every office for the different groups of kids as well as the different work and content areas we have to look at all of that at one time so we're really excited because this is the first time I think ever there's been a strategy where every single one of those leaders will be involved and will come out with a comment shared understanding of what our mtss model and RTI process looks like and then we'll have engaged then on how we start bringing school teams with administrators and teachers into that process so you will definitely see that in the budget great so I just wanted to provide a comment about your question about the AP and IB so back in the fall when we had the discussion about instructional hours we did get a lot of data that I think it would be great to marry now with this graduation data because we had data by school disaggregated of students who were taking CTE classes and also AP and IB classes and your point is an excellent one about looking at the connections between graduations and also whether they're getting the courses having access to the courses that will I think help them fulfill our other goals for students because we want them to graduate but we also want them to be ready for college and career and what the data shows is we had a long ways to go in some of our schools are providing access and I know this board previously I don't think I'm not sure if anybody was on the board when it passed but the AP and the IB Bill of Rights was designed to to sort of not only provide budgetary support but also to be really clear that we are going to be affirmatively um scheduling students in for those classes um so I think sort of the the next level of the present the the data that would be helpful is to marry all these pieces together so we could really go deep on not just the graduation but the College and Career readiness um and I think one thing in the data that is worth pulling out um is the high school that had the largest gain which was Cleveland um that they're a school that has adopted IB for all um for IB English and IB history so it shows that um exposing all students to rigorous coursework and providing them with the supports translates into um I think real progress for our students and the opportunity to do whatever they want when they leave our high schools us thank you for reminding us of that that is true the Cleveland saw some congratulations for the gains that they've seen and that's a good point one last thing that I wanted to address was the Gap that we have for English learner students I know that there are neighboring districts that are now requiring all new teachers to to come already with an ESL endorsement that's new in Oregon in other states like California where I come from that coursework is embedded in all initial School licenses so I don't know I mean if we want to see changes we might want to really be looking at the requirements that we have in this district for our teachers since we are such a diverse district and that's certainly a longer conversation but without you know teachers having the Knowledge and Skills it's going to be hard to really close those gaps so well I think you have to look at that but also we need to create Pathways and already Partnerships yes right so absolutely we are working on those as well great um comments Curtis did you use an acronym without explaining what it was yes mtss
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probably i o three quarters multi-tiered systems of support and could you just give a three bullet points on multi-tiered systems of support three bullets on that yeah just so it's ensuring that all students get level one which is core and that it's accessible to all kids and they have the support there then when you're looking at the data which is now you need to talk I'm I'm looking for a something in English I I for our viewing audience okay all the core the core content so it doesn't matter what class you're in all students should have access to that grade level core content if you're in math if you're in Reading whatever writing English language arts and that we need to be providing the supports for students to be successful we need to continually be looking at their progress throughout a semester and providing interventions and other supports some students the way it breaks out if you are fully implementing mtess your multi-tiered systems of support would be that hopefully no more than 20 percent eventually more than 10 percent would need more intensive interventions those might be classroom different kinds of classroom supports from the classroom teacher and then you you will probably also continue to have even when it's fully implemented you'll have some students that need even more intensive on top of all the core then the level two interventions um a couple of things one um I'd like to see a presentation on our strategies with Native American students uh uh secondly when we talk to students at Alliance in the transition program we hear a lot about I I was pushed out of my Comprehensive High School I'd like to see a push-out rate for our Comprehensive High Schools yeah for for each of the school because that's that's the other end that doesn't show the graduation like rates can look great at those schools uh because those kids that have been pushed out don't show up in those statistics so I'd like to kind of flip the telescope around and look at things from that end does that make sense yes you provide the data I also want to say as we all learn more about trauma-informed care practices and what we need to do in our environments um I what we'll do is try to break down data a little bit more around what the needs are and What needs are being able to address in other settings too because you know they're there's a benefit when kids find the right environment it doesn't necessarily mean that um that the school pushed them out it might be that there's just a lot of students at the school so I I want to be cautious about how we talk about what program students participate in I guess is what I'm saying yeah and and I just hear too many kids say I got pushed out of mind I raised my hand nobody would call on me we've heard that from to me even if it's a handful of students it's too many but it's more than a handful yes the ongoing Equity work occur with your comment director Bailey because we were there listening to all that testimony together from our students describe in whatever way the comprehensive wasn't serving their specific needs and so we can always do better and I think we should start by finding out um where where are they exiting from uh I think we're talking tonight and I know on Thursday in our leadership meeting we talked a lot about the rates a little bit generally about our comprehensives but as I shared with principal lerna past Buffalo recently we really have to give a shout out to our multiple Pathways programs and in particular Alliance because um it's sort of a relative rate you know when we compare and what's important to recognize is some pretty significant growth in the students that they're able to reconnect with and bring in and have them graduate with their diplomas I just want to make sure and give a shout out to all of the alliance Educators and leaders for for their work and making sure our rate is actually as good as it looks thanks and if we had a six year or
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a seven year rate up here it would be or we've heard some pretty um moving testimony from a 21 year old that's just what I was seeing the difference in those five-year rates and especially we didn't have the information contained here but when we look at the mobility of our students and how many of our students are coming in to high school at different points well below where they need to be and it just takes that time to to catch up um so I'm glad that as a state we have the space to invest in that for those kids now I appreciate the recommendation to bring back seven six and seven year rates as well because that helps us create a culture of saying to kids it might take you longer yeah but it doesn't matter but we're still looking to stay here and we're going to support you and you can graduate it doesn't matter how old you are thank you again for all of the hard work that's good real quickly the the graph with the history and the big jump way back when um you almost should drop that because what happened in 2010-11 was that there was a ton of data cleanup that happened and I believe an estimate was that two-thirds of that increase was due to cleaner data rather than anything improved output so you you might want to think about that I did I did want to say that the data you were asking for with regards to reconnection Center we have that data we pulled that data as high schools because we wanted to see that ourselves and we've begun unpacking that and examining that data as site by site to kind of better understand that ourselves yeah thank you question yeah so before I ask my question I'm just going to start with a definitive statement which is I want to thank the staff and the students and say job well done for um the the results that we saw um so I'm going to end that with an explanation point before I ask my question because I I know that's a lot of heart result of a lot of hard work Focus energy um and commitment so I have a question about um the the other side of the numbers which are the the students that we that don't graduate um the first is um the state I believe requires after 10 days the student doesn't show up at school that it's an automatic drop that's correct so I'd like to know what specifically we do because um in the past they just got dropped and then maybe they got caught a year later during a reconnection but um you know what happens on that 11th day when somebody removes a student from the um the roles so that's one of the jobs of our current student engagement coaches so at all of our high schools we have a dedicated person who is monitoring that data every day for and reaching out to students and reaching out to families at the three day the five-day the day doing home visit so our student engagement coaches they are carrying a caseload of 30 students so really targeting the The Chronic absence students and building relationships and working both with families with counselors so that's a strategy that we have been implementing the last two years so when they get to 10 days what happens that's first of all I should say that's great I'm glad I'm glad to hear that all that engagement is happening and encouraging students to come back to school but on that 10th day when we're required to drop them what what does the district do I think it's probably Case by case or school by school depending upon what the resources are but it's a really valid question that I'd like to go back and actually ask ask each of our sites okay be good to know so that was um one question but I'm glad to hear that with on the way up to the 10 10 days that um there's active engagement and then the second question I had is what sort of analysis we actually we actually have you can actually give me the answer yeah yeah actually Matt Edie who is here he's in charge of reconnection services here and he can answer your question oh like I said I want to make sure that it's the same answer at every school not just at some schools yeah so when the system is working as it is designed uh after a student is a 10-day dropped they're referred to reconnection services
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so then reconnection Services we have a team of seven Outreach coordinators they're all carrying a caseload of I'm in the 150s and they'll follow up with the school the family and the student to identify what was at the root of that disengagement and then help the family explore and access their educational options um now we recognize that the system doesn't always work like that so once a month our data analyst uh runs a report to identify all students who've uh withdrawn during that period have not been referred to reconnection services and have not re-enrolled in a public school district in Oregon we then take that list to school staff to see if we can get a little bit more detail and Nuance about what's happening with that family it is entirely possible that a counselor or student engagement coach is in the process of trying to re-engage that student when that isn't the case a reconnection services staff reaches out to the student and the family and then in the summer we run that report again and identify all students who were withdrawn during the school year were not referred to reconnection services and did not re-enroll in another District in the state of Oregon and we reach out to those families in the summer we then do that again at the beginning of the school year where we do our annual door knocking events so there are several redundant systems in place to ensure that no student falls through the cracks and it is sort of the the mission and the Mandate of our department to make sure that any student who disengages from education there is there's an adult who's a Portland Public School staff member who contacts them and says we notice you're not in school care and we want you back so for schools where we had like 15 percent of the students not graduating they all um if the system's working they all would have had those multiple touch points yes so just another question thank you for that answer I'm glad to hear that um our system is no longer once they're gone for 10 days they're gone um the the other question is whether we've looked at the data regarding when we lose students so we have the ninth grade on track but clearly and those numbers are improving but clearly something's happening between the ninth grade on track and the other years and so I'm just maybe a a longer discussion for another day but are we looking at that data are we seeing trends and are we Building Systems to respond to it or are we going to be building things into the budget so I would I would answer that question by saying yes and yes um most was probably the most important to understand is that the systems we're talking about with freshman success those systems aren't even two years old yet okay and um the growth that we displayed in our presentation that's from one year to the next we know that difference but one of the things we've discovered is that that's a very successful system in regards to tracking students and their needs and what we'd like to be able to do is replicate that for sophomores for juniors because when we've got that service that wraparound attention to the student and what their student needs are and what their successes are and their struggles are and we're able to actually identify them and and meet with them we're able to make a significant difference in our largest of high schools we're able to make a significant difference and so so this is some of the work that's come out of measure 98 for us and it's pretty new still but we're having some real success with it and we're very excited about it and we're trying to find ways to replicate that work to go forward one last thing in the past Portland Community College I think among other institutions has reported a what percent of our graduates are need remedial math or English um if we could have is there an update on those numbers um I can get that for you okay for tonight but okay I understand that to the board yeah guessing I'm not the only one um and also many years ago we had a cohort of graduates who were freshmen in college come back and tell us how what their experience was you know and in our in our visioning process we're asking people what what do you want to see in our graduates and it's not just a diploma it's skills and knowledge um I'd really love to have a I went to college I came back and I'm prepared or not prepared or somewhere in between and
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to hear firsthand from from some of our graduates we have we have group of students at that category through our gear up our mobilizing for college we have near peer mentors and those are students who have graduated from our high schools and they're either at PCC or PSU and they actually come back and Mentor students in the classroom in some of our high schools so they have a really interesting view as they went through our high schools they're in college and now they're coming back and working in our high schools it's a nice connection yeah that'd be great we used to see the upward Trend into you and our our mission is to prepare our graduates for a college career and so I think I would love to see Statewide more longitudinal data around College persistence I think you will find many of the higher ed institutions don't even come close to these kinds of outcomes but we certainly want to see where our students are gainfully employed and what sectors of Industry they're looking at we want to make sure that our students have been prepared adequately to be successful in their in their future and where it is working well what are the supports that are being put in place with them that maybe we should think about in the K-12 atmosphere as well and and I know there are issues with the links between you know coming right out of high school and going into an apprenticeship program I think the last I checked the average age of apprenticeships or apprentices were like 27 or something like that which is very contradictory to the European experience where you have you know students going right into that I I think that might be another Point uh data point that we might want to build into our dashboard um and again some some relationships to be built to help help our students one find find that goal early on in high school through a CTE experience and be able to make that jump at an earlier age to you know I think there's some construction companies who are really looking for employees right now the Myriad opportunities that students have in the ways that we're engaging them and for sharing some good news and continue the hard work thank you thank you thank you hey the next the next item is uh for this item the board will be acting in their capacity as the contract review board so superintendent get it or would you like to introduce this item please yes for for this agenda item I'd like to have Emily cortnich our director purchasing and Contracting come up thank you thank you looks like we have others playing a supporting role tonight thank you welcome so we're here tonight to talk about the district-wide security upgrades project which we call the secure Schools project we're staking an exemption from the standard low bid process that is usually required Under Oregon law for construction projects and permission to proceed with a fully competitive request for proposals procurement process a little bit about the secure Schools project and we have Darren Lee who is the project manager for osm office of school modernization and he can give more detail but this is a security upgrade that about 88 schools it includes door and access control public address speakers video monitors and Associated cables switches data recorders we intend to issue three separate requests for proposals with work divided into directly equal packages of schools the benefits of the RFP process here well the work scope includes design procurement installation programming and training so it's more than your typical construction project this is not well suited to a low bid process in which the work must be fully designed and scoped before it can be bid out as I said this work includes design as part of the scope through the RFP process we can procure highly qualified experienced contractors experiencing this kind of design and installation and then as always through the RFP process we can evaluate not only specialized experience and costs but also commitment to seeking subcontracts with certified businesses I just I would like to say thank you for all the Outreach that has gone on
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already with certified businesses and I know that this area of work is particularly ripe for helping to nurture some of those businesses with these opportunities because I believe the nature of some of this work is is small in terms of each individual project or how many projects might be packaged together so this is a great opportunity and it also allows us to be more Nimble in terms of getting the work done more quickly and getting our contractors out in the field and we know that our schools our communities are really anxious to get all this underway so thank you and I'm fully in support of this process and appreciative of all your efforts thank you Aiden other questions comments from the board um just bigger picture uh would ask that we've done this a couple of times for uh so just some feedback on the results of you using this process um because there's a number of benefits uh you say for for doing this in terms of quality and time and also ability to engage with uh minority and women-owned subcontractors so some feedback on that that says yeah this order it's working I know we did that a lot with the health and safety issues around the schools right right and we do get data back on that on our dashboard for the school modernization and the the bond funded work but I'm not sure that on a regular basis we get data back on the non-bond funded pieces of this work which I think some of this is some of this security work here is just falls under facilities maintenance correct and some of it is Bond funded no this is all about this is all this just pertains to the bond funding okay so we do see that data then on our dashboard that's been pretty positive very positive yeah so just to follow on that um so I think in the in the bond that it was earmarked as 5 million um initially and this this is a eight million dollar um package is that correct so it's been a three million dollar increase from what initially was put um earmarked in the bond for the security yeah a little bit of History originally in the uh the scope of work that went into the bond was majority for security was fencing and so um there's a lot of Staff turnover who created the scope of work the original Bond and once a bond passed the district had to go into kind of a redesign and reevaluation and fencing was the proper way and it came back that actually security and locking doors and cameras was the way to go so during that entire process starting back in summer 18. all departments got together and reevaluated what the scope truly should be and so that that's more of why the cost difference is it went from fencing to those front-end security upgrades across all schools great well it's glad I'm glad to see it just we're going to have another agenda item that potentially relates to security tonight so this is a pretty significant commitment by the district into a whole host of things that should make our schools generally more safe um and it looks like it's touches all 88 schools great and that's what's so great about this work even though it represents a larger investment that's not because the work itself is that expensive unlike some things we see in our bond program it really represents a lot of small projects at all of our schools that people are going to be able to see and that our families are already asking for so you know okay thank you did you have something okay I will now open the public hearing for the alternative Contracting method is there anyone who wishes to provide public comment thank you Susan okay great affordable now can you consider resolution 5801 secure Schools project exemption from competitive bidding and authorization for use of a request for proposals alternative Contracting method do I have a motion second moved by director brim Edwards and director constam's second motion okay is there any more for discussion on the resolution okay the board will now vote on resolution 5801 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes
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or Paul and Rita is still on the phone I heard a squeak director Moore maybe not okay it's a little late there yeah it's pretty late back East so um all opposed please indicate by saying no sorry sorry we were on mute sorry okay your vote uh all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes okay yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions Okay resolution 5801 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative paisler voting yes thank you uh the board will now return to its regular meeting hey and I'm watching for the clock because as I said we will stop what we're we may be in the middle of to hear the resolution to suspend approval of an iag A B between the city of Portland through the Portland Police Bureau and PPS at 8 25. okay um now the second reading of student represent representative policy the board held a first meeting of this policy on December 11 2018 and the policy has been posted for public comments since that time the board is now ready to vote on an amended policy so I'd like to ask director brim Edwards chair of the policy and government governance committee to provide an overview of this amended policy thank you chair Esparza Brown um so this has been before the board before um and last time it was before the board there was a discussion about the Preamble and how the what what how the role of the student rep how it was framed and so um it was sent back to the committee for a reframing um which we have done and I I want to say we've done but there's more work there's more work to do um so working with a student representative we changed the um the focus of the of the preamble to this policy and um so what you're seeing tonight is the amended um policy I will say there was a lot of discussion um with this student representative and other board members about going back and reviewing all of this and I think we have a commitment that you're going to come back with a sort of a fuller set of potential revisions sort of modernizing it and bringing some uh elevating student voice and student [Music] um such a student voice but student engagement into our policy making process so I don't know if you want to speak to that no I I'm really excited about this so I think I guess the best way I can describe it tonight is the Amendments is just a little change in the policy and we did give comment on that so I think it's gonna sound better in the beginning we're more focused on student engagement student voice in the beginning and the Preamble but this is a very small part of more of the work that's going to be coming forward in a couple months so I've been meeting very rigorously with my representation Council the district and the students and I are working on putting more meat for backup for lack of a letter better term into the policy for to get to engage students in a more effective and efficient way to get stronger representation from at least all the high schools and we might Branch out from there as well so a lot of additions and changes coming but all for the good and um yeah I'm excited for the work moving forward so yeah thank you great and I should say that this has always come out of the committee with a unanimous recommendation for approval and we since we revised it we haven't had any additional public comment so thank you before will not consider resolution 5799 amendment of Board of Education policy 1.20.010-p and student representative duties policy 1.20.012 Dash p do I have a motion so move a second director constant moves and director Bailey's second submission to adopt resolution 5799 Miss Houston is there any public comment on resolution 5799 and there is not okay thank you is there any board discussion further discussion on this resolution just that I think that uh we're getting a lot of information coming out of the visioning process about how students want to be engaged in decision making in the future and how we all want to see students come forward so I think that's going to be an important part of this
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evolving relationship and I know is a priority of the superintendents too so um thanks Nick for all your work on this thank you yeah really excited yeah so it is excited to see this football okay the board will now vote on resolution 5799 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes Rita Paul yes yeah thank you all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 5799 is approved by about f720 with student representative paisler fodin yes thank you okay uh next we're going to a first reading policy recessions hey look we're almost back we're ahead of time now uh we'll now have a first reading of five policy decisions and I'd like to ask that director brim Edwards introduce them please so um the board policy and governance committee is um been it's in a year-long process of updating our policies um and removing policies that are outdated duplicative or unneeded and so as people may have noticed if they've been watching our board meeting we have generally a handful to a dozen coming on a regular basis to the board and we have another group of those this evening I'm just going to move through them relatively quickly um because since this is the first reading um first we have a salary schedule 5.50.030 we're proposing this be rescinded because the policy has no content next um we have another policy on the recruitment selection and appointment um 5.70.010 and this policy is outdated unnecessary and it was last updated in 1983. um the third policy is a policy related to payroll deductions 5.70.053 this policy does not reflect current practice and is not needed for the district to administer payroll deductions it was last updated in 1992. we have a next a policy that is the permanent teacher status 5.20.090 policy is not needed as permanent teacher status is governed by Statute and it was last updated in 1978. before I graduated from high school just to note um then the last policy um which is going to matter just a slightly longer mention is the teacher and principal assignment select schools 5.20.051 and um this is relates to um sort of community engagement and parent involvement in principal assignment um which raised a question for me about our the recommendation to rescind it however I think it's important to note that this is uh we there is another policy that exists um that is a much more expansive and um the one that we're recommending the rescinded is dated and duplicative and the one the other one that we have is again much more current I believe Dr Bailey was involved in the development of this um 2001. um and it could um the one that's on the books so I just want to make sure that people don't think that we're eliminating um that as a policy because we have another one in the books um so all uh five of these policies um were discussed and reviewed in the policy and governance committee meeting um they were recommended by the committee for a first reading and if there's any public comment it'll be considered at our next um policing governance committee meeting just real quickly uh apropos the um parenting community and student engagement and principal selection that is on the books um let's just say we've heard of from a lot of people that it is not being authentically implemented over the years so that's something I think we need to look at the policy and also the implementation of that sometime in the near future any other comments questions all right the proposed policy recipients will be posted on the board website in
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the public comment period is 21 days with the last day to comment being February 19 2019. the board will hold a second reading of the policy rescissions at their February or next February 26th meeting it's on the agenda we're a little early resolution to rescind approval of an IGA between the city of Portland through the Portland Public Portland Police Bureau and Portland Public Schools at our last board meeting director brim Edwards indicated that she would be bringing a resolution tonight regarding our intergovernmental agreement with the Portland Police Bureau regarding the school resource officers or sros before we get to the resolution itself we want her to give an update on the status of the discussions with the city even though our efforts to solicit student input in December were cut short by an unrealistic deadline and inaccurate information we heard a great deal of consensus among students around a number of issues and we are now actively engaged with the city to address some of those concerns on January 14th chair Moore superintendent Guerrero and the mayor met and it was made clear that the IGA as approved in December was no longer acceptable to the board and would need substantial reconsideration so we emerge from that meeting with several tentative agreements about how to proceed we made it clear one that PPS is unwilling to use our limited resources to subsidize the police since Public Safety is an essential city of responsibility tonight's resolution memorializes the agreement to withdraw any Financial commitment from the school district two we heard many concerns from student and community members about having armed police officers and schools during our meeting we agreed to explore alternative methods to preserve student safety in ways that would contribute to a more welcoming School environment for all of our students and through staff from The District in the city are currently engaged in further discussions we anticipate having initial revisions to the IGA responding to the concerns that emerged in December available by the end of February for discussion staff are working with students to develop a process for Consulting with students in a meaningful way before we finalize anything with the city we understand that the SRO issue is a critically important concern for students and the community and in particular students of color and the board shares an interest in finding ways to preserve safety without sacrificing student civil rights or sense of comfort and community in their schools now that we have more time we intend to use this issue as a first step towards developing mechanisms to institutionalize regular meaningful student consultation and District decision making okay so I'd like to ask director Edwards to introduce the resolution thank you chair Esparza Brown Miss Houston do we have a resolution number we just had one passed out it's 5807-580 and is the one that's being passed the same as the one that was in the board packet we just got a new one that was passed I'm assuming it's the same yes it is is it the same okay thank you so resolution 5807 is chairs barza Brown noted um this was arrested decision that was based on a false deadline I had a conversation with the mayor in both mid-December after the vote and again in early January in which we spoke about the deadline and the impact it had on our community and it was clear at that time that we were going to have a lot more time to have a conversation so I think the question may be so why do we need to formally suspend the cost sharing and the other sections of this agreement um if we're having positive discussions with the city um I think it's a legitimate question so there's three reasons to that this resolution and its resolved portion would both suspend the proposed cost sharing but also suspend the approval of the other sections of the proposed you know government agreement and the three reasons are it formally provides the time for discussion with our students and it makes it clear that we're going to take the time that we're going to need second it'll formally signal to the city that the costs shift to the PPS is going to be reassessed and that um you know it's like I think in a conversation I had with the superintendent it's like uh when you buy a house and you put an offer in the table you don't just leave an offer on the table for an extended period of time
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so we need to formally withdraw they offer to cost share um I said at the time of the vote that I really believe that the public safety and the city is the city's responsibility and our core responsibility is educating students and the third reason why we would formally suspend um the approval of the IGA from the district standpoint is that if we don't suspend it it's still on the table and both our money and our Provisions are still sitting on the table and we need to pull them back so that we can have a fuller discussion and I think it will be important I know I learned a lot in the brief period of time that we had before the the December vote about the training the role of school resource officers you know what what our students felt about them and there was a variety a whole variety of opinions our principals had points of view but if we um spend this it will have give us formally an opportunity to have this broader discussion without I think what could be perceived by the community is a An approved agreement sort of hanging out there and that it's all a done deal and that we're not going to change anything so this will just formally suspend it so we can have that conversation thank you the board will now consider a resolution 5807 resolution to suspend approval of an intergovernmental agreement between the city of Portland through the Portland Police Bureau and Portland Public Schools do I have a motion and second on resolution 5807 okay director moved by director Bailey and seconded by director konstam for the adoption of resolution 5807 is there any board discussion I want to thank go ahead Nick I see to our student representative okay so just before we vote on this um suspension of the IGA I'd like to state that a little background real quick so I was given in late November I was given just under just about just under three weeks about two weeks to get student input on this IGA um time was of time time was of the essence um to my in my opinion of the sit on the city side and I don't think it was on our side so I'm really happy to be seeing the suspension tonight um I'd also like to add that just yesterday at 8am I found out that Cleveland High School my home school just lost or just lost our estro our SRO for our cohort um the SRO has been moved to the Wilson cohort um which I thought was a very interesting thing and at this point I'm a little confused what we're even paying for um uh as my own school just lost our SRO and our side of this our side of the city so I'm again really excited to see that we're going to take our time to get more student input and I've been working with a lot of board and elt staff to make sure we're going to get more student input on this and that it's actually going to count so thank you director I want to thank all of our students for coming forward when this vote was originally before the board especially given the short amount of time that Nick and others had to organize students and I want to say I think it's a black mark on our board that we did not delay at that time as director Bailey proposed I think it wasn't clear that we had to act by the end of the year and we there shouldn't be a time when expediency Trump's student voice in our decision making and so I'm glad that we appear to be on the road to doing the right thing now there's a lot of discussions that um we still need to have about the role of the sros we do hear a lot from our administrators and our students about the value that they have when they're really trained to work with students and I also think it's a good reminder that this whole conversation is not about cops or no cops in our schools because we do have many instances including serious crimes that take place in our buildings and on our grounds and they don't always involve students much of the time they're adult issues but they do involve the police so we want to make sure that those interactions are safe and are focused on our students well-being so I'm glad that we have the opportunity for more conversation and I'm glad that we have the opportunity to really have a deeper conversation with the city of Portland and with the police Bureau about if your role and responsibility is Public Safety then your role should be to do it in the most thoughtful way and if as a community we really believe leaving community
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policing then what does that look like when it comes to responding to incidents in our schools so I do think that we're going to end up at a much better resolution at the end and I thank all of our students for coming forward and for your activism and and all the administrators who've supported you too thank you other so just to expand a little bit if I depreciate the boards uh our stance on uh given given the false deadline to to look at this issue deeper and if the board pleases uh staff is prepared to share just a quick overview of student engagement plans that are emerging either before or after the vote if you like uh in the way that we would like to do and so um now with a heavy week of visioning activity and lots of Benson and multiple pathway meetings that have taken place and a request by students to wait till after finals we're prepared to to think about how we spend the next six to eight weeks you know really engaging our our students around issues of school safety and also the role of sros and what an agreement might look like to codify a relationship that that works for us so Vice chair as far as brown if you want to hear a little two-minute overview of what we think talking about some of that student engagement might include before or after your vote yes that would be fine now and then we'll continue to take comments from the board and then public testimony Okay so I'm going to ask our senior director Jonathan Garcia Chief of Staff Soden and potentially our advisor on Equity Danny Ledesma as well as our senior director of communications thank you superintendent and Jonathan Garcia senior director of strategic Partnerships introduce yourself good evening Stephanie Cameron senior director of communications and public engagement special advisor in racial equity and social justice 77 Chief of Staff thank you so it was clear to us as staff was really making sure that we outlined our values when it came to student voice so we have begun to draft a couple value statements about the importance of student voice in in this conversation uh we we know based on literature and research there are different ways to engage students and and so we want to be very intentional uh on with regards to this process to to ensure that that that students have uh decision making supports in place for the continued conversation and so what we've outlined as um uh and what we've drafted for for us to to begin thinking about uh we've broken it out into three phases phase one will be to engage all of our all of our high schools uh and introduce the student voice process regarding SRO so we will engage we'll work with our principals to identify student groups individual students who are interested in having this conversation and begin to uh you know to to create some clear outcomes and clear goals for the conversation uh as part of phase one again the goal is to to engage every uh School in the process as well as we are in conversation with advisors of ethnic student organizations such as bsus the Metro's native circles to really be intentional of how we target uh you know students of color in this conversation we have begun to talk about hosting a summit that will incorporate not only this conversation but the conversation of ensuring that students of color have uh intentional voice around our vision and around student voice generally and so in phase two once we've identified you know I've had a chance to have conversations with all of our students at all of our high schools we will be requesting of those students to identify two to three student leaders that can serve as representatives and ongoing conversations between the board staff and and really go line by line and really understanding the role of the IGA the understanding the the impact of the IGA and really go again line by line in really addressing student concern and student voice in that process our goal is to have three sessions again of these student groups so you're looking at 20 students in total engaging
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in in serious dialogue with with staff and the Board of Education to really address again the concern so we'll we'll do three sessions of those uh and and the hope is that in these three sessions we're able to come to an agreement on the IGA moving forward and prior to a vote for the board from the Board of Education uh in phase three uh once we've uh come to an agreement um you know with uh with student voice and student uh voice at the center uh we will uh mobilize uh our students and our staff to once again Engage The District uh engage students District wide and so again strategies to be determined but again we want to start uh really ensuring that all students have access to this this information uh and and have an uh an opportunity to share opinion and thought so again this is a draft working work plan uh for student engagement as it relates to to this conversation about sros our hope is that once we've uh you know have defined and and refine this process that we will continue to use again literature and other efforts uh to um to solidify our student voice process great thank you any other editions here I think what I would just add I think Jonathan has such a Clear Vision we we all have the a good good fortune to be able to to debrief some of the conversations and Dr Rosen was with us and what we heard from students is that they are really um passionate about their experiences they have lots of uh good ideas and we really want to see this opportunity as a way to think about how we can more strategically think about how not only to engage with students and to involve students but to really activate students so that they have not only voice and decision making an agency in the policies that are impacting them and so I think we're all really this team is really excited about thinking about how we can really sort of take this this this moment of learning and thinking about how we can engage in a strategic effort to really put student voice at the center great and I'm really happy to hear about the kinds of groups and engagement efforts that you'll make for our Community Partners to make sure that some of our students group who groups who may not necessarily um trust all adults you know but with those culturally specific groups that will help us get to authentic dialogue so Kudos that sounds like a great process other comments or questions for the group if I could just add I just want to say as the superintendent often says we're a learning organization and what occurred in December those student engagement sessions were a first step we don't really have a structure at PBS for engaging students wholeheartedly across the district in a really genuine and authentic way we're working on that Nick's a big part of that but we learned a lot from that and we learned a lot from the conversation just a week ago at Jefferson I wasn't there but this team was and I'm really fortunate to have a group that's helping me think through how we do this better this time so I'm really pleased to have this group helping me out one more question so beyond the just diverse student groups some kids with disabilities and on special needs so plans for engagement and how we Outreach to all kids definitely part of that great definitely I was gonna say I think this is a great opportunity for us to as a district Define what we mean by inclusive inclusion uh and so I think that we want to make sure that all of our efforts around engaging students are sort of really speak to that great okay so I just wanted to thank the team um I was at the Jefferson discussion and it was clear there was a lot of passion around students communicating on this issue so I really support the clear Direction you're taking I also think it's going to be really important to engage parents and staff and I hope that we're thinking about how to do that too we've gotten a lot of feedback over email and some discussions we've had at visioning sessions involve staff and students and I think they have staff and parents and I think they have a good perspective um so I'm going to vote for suspending the IGA for all the reasons Julia said one of the things I've been thinking about since we voted on it is really the issue of funding and whether this is a service that the city should be funding on its own or service of the district should be funding it's a large cost and it seems like it's been it must be a cost-effective program because it's keeping students out of the juvenile justice system so I'm just curious I feel like we don't
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really know yet what the motivation is of the city to shift the costs to the district so I want to learn more about that and I'm really leaning toward not shifting the cost to the district since it seems like this is a fundamental service that the city should be providing in the best way they know how to the district so I think um thank you by the way thank you looking forward to the discussions um so just on that point I think I sat at this board table 15 years ago when PPS did have its own sort of police force there was a PPS police force and at the time um I think we were the only District in the state that paid for its own and we you know it was pre is right after measure five and we had a lot fewer resources and there was a big discussion at the time about who should be paying and there was a discussion with the city about that and the decision was that this was more appropriately paid for by by the city in fact all the surrounding districts of Portland all had Municipal um service provided so I think it's a great discussion I will say we had it before and the city leadership at the time recognized that it was their responsibility to ensure that all citizens um including our students were safe and then I guess I've seen some comments online about why wouldn't the school district pay you know the Blazers when they get security they they have to pay for it and I would just say we're not a profit making Enterprise and that our our Enterprise mission is to educate students and we should devote every last dollar to that so I think we should resist mightily reopening that and it sounds like that's already underway I also would say just in terms of the funds that we've already voted tonight to dedicate 8.9 million dollars to infrastructure improvements for security and safety purposes for our facilities and I think that's a pretty significant commitment from the district on something that's appropriately appropriate for us to to pay um I want to say this is also an opportunity we heard tonight from in public testimony some questions raised about the provision of restorative justice and we know that the sros and our our provision of restorative justice Services need to go hand in hand I talked to some Madison students a couple of whom are here tonight who raised that issue Saturday at the big visioning session about what services are actually happening at Madison which is came up in the earlier testimony so uh and I began discussions with staff on that kind of immediate response so that's also I think something to be clarified as as we go forward um how those Services look on the ground in our high schools and to engage our students around that as well I think we continue to want to see officers who have not just an understanding about how to integrate restorative practices but also be culturally responsive be trauma-informed go down the list those are the kinds of folks that we want interacting with our youth in those ways so that'll be something we insist on but it's also our our staff on our end um when when we have a successful intervention and we're keeping a student out of the criminal justice system that there's appropriate support for that student including restorative justice at in our schools thought superintendent that the the irony to me there is that as a community you know we have had a lot of discussion around community policing and the information that came forward from the police Bureau in this process was about the training of these school resource officers and the their background in restorative justice and their personal histories and their inclination toward de-escalation and that they're they're different and they're trained in a different way than the rest of the police force and yet the police Bureau was saying um we have these tactics which we think are much more appropriate for working with our students we know how to do it it's reflective of Our Community Values around community policing and yet if we're going to provide that better service in the school environments you're going to have
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to pay extra that to me doesn't really make sense it's their responsibility to respond to the needs in our schools so why wouldn't they respond and the most evolves and appropriate way if I could just add Vice chair as far as a brown this topic was one that I added to the agenda of a meeting of superintendents of the Council of great City Schools this weekend and it was a very good discussion um folks from around the country handle some of these specifics a little differently but what we talked about is the need to carefully balance both standard operating protocols and agreements with their local police departments while ensuring they're fulfilling their obligation as Leaders of school systems to ensure school safety and so that that's a delicate balance and it's one that needs to involve the broader Community especially our students and the adults who work in our schools and so I'm hopeful that with an outlined process which I hope we learn from through this topic that we apply it to all future topics and we continue to refine what engagement and voice looks like but I'm hopeful that we'll find a balance of those needs ourselves here in in Portland I also know from conversations with some local colleagues superintendents that cost sharing is is really prohibitive and difficult for many of them although it's not uncommon in other districts in Oregon that they cost share so again we have to find sort of what what what's the right fit for us and we'll look forward to now that we know that we have time uh really diving into some of these issues the final note as part of the bigger issue and this is a self-criticism and you can join me in that if you want to but that's your choice when the city pulled out of supporting our kids with Trimet bus passes we grumbled and that's all when this proposal came down the pike we grumbled but we didn't push back the parking lot at Grant High School that we're rebuilding that's joint use that we're going to have to pay not only for the construction but the maintenance of we grumbled and approved it I I think that's it so yeah you have a chance to do something besides Grumble now so there it is right so let's uh let's vote well and I want to add that if there's bubble comment that's right one I want to add I want to appreciate all the students that have stayed here late tonight too I know some students that are in the audience tonight um have taken on some work regarding this topic um and the stale time between when we voted in December until now so I really want to appreciate that and I hope that all the directors up here will really truly listen to what the students have to say tonight thank you I too have a comment um and so while I will support this resolution I will ultimately not support a resolution for sros in our school because I think that there's some at the roots and problems with that um and that is when as we were talking earlier about that school resource officer of canby's trained Personnel who can be are trained in trauma-informed practices and culturally responsive practices but who better to be in our schools than educator who you know have really dedicated their careers for working with children and providing the right services for children I'm still concerned about bringing armed armed officers into schools the data doesn't bear out that schools are made any safer with with armed officers and I've really researched this and looked at the data that's my job I am trained to to look at research and data and to reach out and gather information and the information that I gather are from people that look like me who do not the students that do not feel safer in schools because of incidents that happen in their communities that have caused them trauma by the presence of police force um and and and police activities so um I think that that we can better support students in other ways and keep them safe um partnering with our school districts but not necessarily having armed policemen in our schools I know that there are incidences and there are many reports of great relationships with some sros in schools and I know that I've seen that myself and I've heard that in diverse communities but I think ultimately responding to how I see it as a person of color and how I look and know about our students backgrounds it's still going to be a no vote for me so with that um Miss Houston
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I I know that there's public comment so yes yes you have nine individuals and our first two speakers are Faisal Osman and Jamari senor welcome and when the light goes on please state your name spell your last name and um watch for the colors there all right thank you my name is Jamari signor s-i-g-n-o-r I come from Jefferson High School today I kind of wanted just to come to give my testimony about the experience that I have had as a student and somebody who has worked through this process of being a part of the SRO agreement and the safety in schools and looking out for other students and during this process I believe that we have not made any further progress than what we have when we started I don't think sros are performing any duties in high schools I heard at the beginning when we went over the agreement and talked about it they said that sros would have specific tasks and they would go throughout schools and they would teach students and there would be a resource for students in high schools and I have not seen a resource for students nor a I don't know like I haven't seen anybody put forward any um ideas of letting SRO teach or be really part of the community I believe relationships are good but um if we're going to give sros all this money I believe that they need to be doing a job I think that the agreement could have been done better I don't think we could we um should have been here I think that if we would have let students be a part of the process sooner and be part of the process the whole time it would have made this job a lot easier um I have experienced a lot of people come support students and through this process and I've learned that we are all here to work together and that we are all trying to move towards the future and I believe that we are going to make a lot better decisions if we all work together I've seen a lot of really good conversation between students and staff and throughout this world right now students have had to gain a stronger heart and for us to get out every day and fight gun violence you know what I'm saying and their own School Board won't listen to you when you're talking about gun violence I think is just showing you how much people really care about your voice so that's just what I have to say thank you thank you okay um hello my name is Faisal Osmond o-s-m-a-n I'm 17 years old a junior at Madison High School and also a member of the Multnomah youth Commission on the education youth voice committee I first want to start off with pointing out the inaccessibility of the scheduling of this agenda item at a time where most students find difficulty in attending when we want to hear students perspectives on issues that matter it's important to always remain intentional on how accessible everything is in order to receive optimal engagement I know many students who wanted to be here tonight but couldn't do to the time in the last year Madison lost our restorative justice coordinator due to a contract that pulled these coordinators out of our schools our coordinator built profile and relationships with every student at Madison and made sure everyone felt safe in our communities everyone knew who niangle was as his role in our school created a school environment that prioritized restorative healing and problem solving the IGA mentions to have school resource officers emphasize on restorative practices and trauma-informed care they have frustrates me to hear money being utilized for police to take this role in our schools when we can't fund RJ coordinators who can do just that what we truly need funding for is resources that combat the school-to-prison pipeline in the absence of an RJ coordinator in our school does the opposite as a member of The arja Club at our school our sole Mission has been to keep RJ alive
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but no access to restorative justice mentors has only made things more difficult and our capacity to make an impact in our school through the work we do has oftentimes felt challenged because of this think about how one million dollars per year could benefit students when it's allocated towards social emotional support from someone in the community students feel safe and comfortable around in a restorative justice Circle my criminal justice class we discussed our opinions on school resource officers in our community the same curiosity I have echoes in my peers as we wonder why funding for conflict prevention is pulled in the presence of sros is funded many black and brown students face trauma around police and policing and choosing to increase the presence of these officers feels as if decision makers could care less about my well-being in an environment I spend most of my time in and I hope the decision tonight doesn't reflect that I ask that the board were sins to approve this IGA and to include a thorough public Outreach plan that listens to student voice on this matter I also asked the board to increase funding for a sort of Justice in our high schools thank you next we have Ben Sneed and Leo badooam come on up welcome b-a-u-d-h-u-i-n and I'm a senior at Franklin High School I first just wanted to quickly respond to the need for sros especially as a student from Franklin where we had a student bring a gun to school last year and just say that I haven't noticed that students at my school have sentiments that are any different from students across the district um I would like to call attention to the lack of transparency regarding the initial vote on the IGA both within the two parties and on a broader scale the secrecy is shown by the fact that school board members were led to believe that they must approve the IGA before the end of the 2018 calendar year and that failure to do so would result in the termination of the existing services that sros provide to PPS it has since been indicated that this was not the case with the knowledge that both PPS and the police Bureau have historically struggled with transparency I find it disturbing that board members were misled in a matter of such importance I would also like to draw attention to the lack of communication with students prior to the vote although there were five student engagement sessions regarding the agreement they were all barely publicized a number of these sessions occurred during the day which meant that students would have to sacrifice lesson time to attend additionally these meetings only took place at four of the nine PPS high schools the combination of these factors made the sessions inaccessible to the majority of students of the students that they were designed for even now many students at Franklin and across PPS are unaware of what an SRO is and what their duties entail it is unreasonable to expect students to express their opinions on an agreement that they do not fully understand or even know of finally I would like to call out the PPS board and the police bureau's failure to take marginalized voices into account there is a deeply rooted distrust between the police and marginalized groups especially people of color a distrust perpetuated by a history of profiling and abuses data from the ACLU highlights this showing that black students are more than twice as likely than white students to be referred to law enforcement with many of these referrals being the result of subjective and Mild behaviors such as disrespect although selection or are those section 6G of the IGA briefly addresses the disproportional presence of minorities in the criminal justice system it proposes no definitive solution or method of accountability in the context of a recent audit which showed a notable discrepancy mpps between the academic achievements of people of color in their white peers this is especially troubling with no true way to prove that SRO presence is Equitable or effective I believe that the IGA should not be enacted I urge the PPS board to vote in favor of the resolution to suspend the IGA additionally I call on the PPS board to schedule student engagement sessions at each of the nine high schools these meetings should be at the time that makes them accessible to the majority of staff and the student body and promoted so that students are aware of the sessions and are encouraged to attend the board should also recognize the number of students are uncomfortable around officers and work to create a space for an open dialogue with students where the police officers are not in attendance we as students and teachers are most largely affected by the IGA and it only makes sense for our voices to be heard in a place where we can feel safe thank you thank you yes all right moving on all right
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um so my name is Ben Snead I'm from Grant High School that's Snead first of all I want to thank you guys for having me here tonight I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this discussion and I look forward to being a part of the conversation and hopefully you guys compare with me this is the first time I've done something like this yeah appreciate it um so after hearing so many Friday news stories related to school safety I think it's a good thing the district is considering having school research officers in our school to ensure the safety of all students in the classroom uh it's always good to see Portland leading the way and making sure every student can learn in an environment that is physically safe and protected uh I've also recently seen many saddening incidents of police citizens interactions turned violent in the news and I'm sure a lot of other people have heard about this uh having a trustworthy relationship between police officers and the community is a critical aspect of ensuring that we have a safe City so a good way of solving this problem is to make sure that our young people have positive interactions with police officers who are especially trained to work with youth which I believe is what sros have that training research suggests that if Sr programs are implemented uh correctly they can they can lead to reduced crime and they're uh is researched to prove that officers do make schools safer places many Educators also say that if sros aren't involved in school disciplinary actions which I believe this proposal includes they can be quite successful I also want to say I heard it said earlier there was a consensus among students and I would disagree with that I don't think I think to me the word consensus means that there's a 100 General agreement um I think I might have just a lot of disagreements with some other students I just wanted to point out that that's not necessarily correct and I would just say that just because uh some people have the louder voices doesn't mean they're the only ones with opinions um so I would discourage the idea of suspending this policy and I would uh because there's a little bit of controversy and I I would ask I hope you guys would correct me if I'm wrong with this but was it less than two months ago it was you guys voted 4-1 to advance this is that correct I I don't understand how just because there's some controversy around it we're on the cusp of totally changing our position on that that doesn't make very much sense to me and I would hope that public officials would be stronger in their convictions about what needs to happen um and so that frustrates me a little bit so thank you guys so much for your time and consideration thank you next we have Nora work Hearts Meyer and Bree Lee the Tita Aquino um I like to request to do my presentation with a partner of mine that we co-wrote this speech together and we will maintain the three-minute time slot we've timed it out together but we'd like to present it together if that's okay okay thank you okay we'll share the microphone um I can sit over here that's easier Oh either way it works whatever works okay um so um my name is Nora burkertzmeyer that's b-u-r-k-h-a-r-t-s-m-e-i-e-r my name is Lily rayor r-a-y-o-r so um we are both members of the Cleveland Alliance for racial Equity leadership class we appreciate the opportunity to speak on this resolution we specifically want to thank from Edwards for inviting us here um and extending the invitation to students before we begin we'd like to acknowledge that this resolution was brought to our attention on Sunday evening however there was no communication to the greater student body regarding the resolution we hope that a widespread effort will be made moving forward to connect with students and their families to be involved in these discussions we understand the potential benefits of sros but we want to ensure that they're implemented in an equitable and deliberate way in order for the impact of sros to be positive we believe more time is needed to consider the role they play in schools and in the Greater Community and whether the benefits of their present presence outweigh the 1.2 million dollars that their employment would cost annually on their website the National Organization of student resource officers outlines a Triad concept for sros basically in it they Define three main roles of sros as an educator an informal counselor and mentor and lastly as a law enforcement officer this was their purpose when they were first implemented in Flint Michigan during the 1950s to
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Foster relationships between local police and youth however a dramatic a change in policy occurred in the 1990s when the Department of Justice funded the implementation of law enforcement as a part of the tough on crime initiative because of this change SRO programs across the country became microcosms of a larger surge in police brutality and contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline we believe that PPS can and should be a leader in reclaiming the original purpose of student resource officers to be Educators and Role Models first during our time as high school students we have never seen these roles being fulfilled by student resource officers our resource officers have never introduced themselves we don't know their names through a Google search we couldn't find them out so to us they are strangers for sros to have a positive influence on the communities they serve interpersonal relationships built on the foundation of trust should exist without these relationships fully armed officers and schools can become imposing figures of authority that perpetuate a climate of fear and their power can be misused for disciplinary purposes we are concerned about the high cost of sros considering the limited budget of our district pre-existing concerns in the PPS Community such as overcrowding lack of funding for equity-based training and the budget deficit for school renovation should be weighed equally if not prioritized over the need for law enforcement the district hasn't funded sros for the past 20 years adding this considerable expense will undoubtedly impact funding for important resources we ask that the school board extend the amount of time dedicated to discussing this issue considering the gravity of the impact law enforcement can have on the experience of students of students of all ages and backgrounds we want this decision to be given the attention and deliberation it deserves thank you again for this opportunity and I wanted to say I know it's really hard to get up here and speak so thank you to all the other students who care yes you're all doing a wonderful job thank you so much for your courage um welcome hi my name is really boutita b-r-e-e-l-y last name b-u-t-t-i-t-t-a and I'm going to be presenting a collaborative piece that was made by myself and my fellow seniors Tosha and Gabe to represent Roosevelt High School to start with we just want to ask is this really the best way the school board could be spending its money at Roosevelt we have four counselors for the entire student body students need support not armed police patrolling the Halls like a war zone so many of the situations that would need to be diffused by sros could just as easily be prevented by providing adequate mental and emotional support to students besides this it needs to be said that if students come out wholeheartedly against a proposal it is your duty to hear us out and to take our voices into consideration when you make decisions that affect us students more than any other group if you don't you are knowingly and willingly betraying the needs and students you claim to stand for another question we find ourselves asking is how are sros different than cops honestly there seem to be more similarities than there are differences if both are allowed to use deadly forests and carry lethal weapons how does that make our school Community feel safer to be direct to the point we as students feel poses more of a threat in our school than anything else how is putting more guns in a school supposed to make us feel safe when guns are the root of the problem knowing that a Lethal Weapon could be drawn on us at any moment in the one place where we're supposed to feel protected does nothing but make a more stressful and anxious School environment resulting in a worse and student body when an armed man hopped the fence onto my middle school campus in sixth grade our armed SRO didn't even make it to him before he had run through our campus exiting to the street and began to fire shots my point being that if an armed SRO can't even stop a shooter what's even the purpose of having them when their one Duty goes from protect and serve to comply or die what are we to do if cops and sros allowed white men like Dylan roof and Nick Cruz to shoot up an entire body of people and come out alive but shoot and kill innocent black youth like Mike Brown and Tamir rice who is there to say that this isn't a school shooter issue but more of a tactic to control black and brown Youth and one of the nation's widest cities black and latinx students are suspended from schools at disproportionate rates when police with the authority to file the juvenile equivalent of criminal charges hiring more cops bring plenty unintended consequences including higher rates of suspensions expulsions and arrests that funnel black and brown students into the criminal justice system cops and schools lead to students being criminalized for behavior that should be handled inside the school students of color are especially vulnerable to push our Trends in discriminatory application of discipline guns were created to kill and created to be a threat no matter is whose hands they end up with they always pose as a technique of lethal intimidation to control those around them we believe that students should be educated not incarcerated we need to work together to disrupt the cycle of the school to prison pipeline thank you thank you very much
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[Applause] next we have Kamala ours and John Richardson thank you as there as they make their way up I want to mention to the audience that we invited a representative from every High School to speak tonight so thank you okay ready space t-o-r-r-e-s space g-o-i-t-i-a I'm a teacher at Madison High School and tonight I take issue with three things the lack of genuine attempts for student input on the IGA the idea that armed police officers could practice restorative justice and the presumption that police officers make students feel more safe and secure the Jefferson students who spoke last month put it best when they said that they were able to get more Community input in 24 hours and the board was able to in two months I am grateful for the board's decision to recognize this and to reopen the IGA for discussion but that issue will not be resolved in a 25-minute segment tonight or a few after school meetings it'll be solved when you come to our schools and genuinely listen without pushing an agenda go and meet with every student not the model students that administrators put in front of you on tours or AP and CTE classroom visits but the students in the hallway who have been pushed out of their classes for the third time that week the students who commune in Hidden stairwells or have standing meetings with attendance Specialists or Mental Health Counselors stretch thin from heavy case loads the students who started with us their freshman year and transferred to Alternative placements are moved to gentrification of our neighborhood the students who have jobs and outside of school responsibilities that keep them from attending last minute after school meetings or board votes almost an hour max right away or Saturday Saturday visioning sessions if you were to listen to those students you might understand their doubts about police officers you might hear from students whose fathers brothers sisters cousins have had negative interactions with the police students who I have seen stopped in Frisk without probable cause in our Kali neighborhood despite Portland's laws against racial profiling you might hear from immigrant students worried to interact with officers due to language barriers or their documentation status you might hear a student recalling an incident that occurred two years ago when sros came to Madison's forensic science classes and were asked about police brutality their answers were traumatizing when students invited those officers back for an RJ Circle they broke protocol by interrupting the facilitator and other students several times nowhere in the 5 million dollar fiscal breakdown for the IGA do I see RJ training for officers this may be one reason why the idea that sros understand restorative justice practices sounds improbable to us I have taught government and economics for five years at Madison and I have never seen students more engaged in class than I have during our Circle discussion about the IGA one student asked the group what would make you feel safer in schools I heard a wide range of answers make a greater effort to recruit teachers of color bring back our beloved restorative justice coordinator more Mental Health Counselors for administrators to be trained in restorative justice and how to handle sexual harassment not one of them said an armed police officer would make them feel safe and secure thank you [Applause] and our last speaker Frank Santos is he here Frank Santos okay um thank you all uh the board will now vote on resolution 5807 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes yes on the phone yes thank you all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 5807 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative paisler voting yes right um thank you all okay hey next we're going to have more discussion on our visioning process which we're excited to hear more about so superintendent Guerrero would you like to introduce this item thank you students by the way all of you that were nervous about being here you were amazing well back up to the stage here we have Jonathan Garcia who's going to give us a little bit of a status check on how things are coming along with our community visioning sessions so just to give everyone a little bit of a sense of some of the themes that are emerging in these group dialogues yeah thank you superintendent so
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um first of all thank you to the board of education for your leadership and your commitment to being in community uh as we journeyed up and down Portland participating in community meetings with PPS staff students and families uh I want to share a quick update uh to the board it's a preliminary status update on the inputs we've received from Guiding Coalition and the community meetings uh and I want to I just want to emphasize acknowledge that this is preliminary a preliminate data preliminary update that is happening in real time and is an iterative process so what you see tonight might look a little different tomorrow and the next day and so again it's an iterative process it's happening in real time and I'll get to the reasons why uh so just uh to give you kind of a sense of what uh what to expect in in this presentation uh we're gonna be having a quick conversation about the uh just a quick recap on where we are in the process overview of all the inputs uh some preliminary uh idea oh I guess I'm responsible for that too sorry um uh oh preliminary idea families from Guiding Coalition one and some of the early Community meetings that we've had identified next steps and give you a preview of what to expect this Friday and Saturday during our guiding Coalition number two uh at this point you might be familiar with this road map that we've been sharing with uh with our community uh to give folks real-time process progress on where we are uh in this visioning process so uh to to recap but we started this whole process off with a student Summit uh that was hosted uh by uh students across the district um that led to our guiding Coalition one uh in early December uh that was followed by uh Community sessions over the last few weeks um and and right now again we're getting ready for guiding Coalition number two uh and then the rest of the process is outlined here in this road map again this is a public document that you can find online and we've been sharing with our broader community so what were the uh the inputs that that we've seen uh thus far so so here's some stats just to give you a sense of of the work that we've done um uh to date um so between guiding Coalition one and two uh We've we hosted 26 Community meetings at which about 1100 people gave in-person input uh we also had an online survey which generated a little bit over 600 uh completed responses although about 1700 folks opened their survey uh we we based on the data we can see that about against over a little bit over 600 completed the survey is that closed now it is closed yes uh as part of uh our efforts with this visioning process we have uh we um conducted three learning Journeys one virtual Learning Journey uh which is covering what we're calling 70 quote unquote sites so uh that again will be available online for uh the public to to consume and really uh take uh take notice of some of the learning Journeys again that we're providing our guiding Coalition members um and then we we just completed two physical learning Journeys covering nine sites uh across Seattle and the Bay Area I was uh you know and again you'll hear a lot more uh during guiding Coalition one about uh some of the learnings there so as we get into the next session of this update uh we wanted to share with you some emerging ideas uh and themes that we have begun to find again and I will say it again just for emphasis we know that these are merging ideas which will continue to evolve in real time and shift as more data is included in the analysis so with you know 1100 in-person inputs and 625 completed surveys you can imagine that is a lot of Post-its a lot of data that we are again aggressively uh analyzing in real time and so we want to give you a flavor of how our team is approaching the analysis of all the inputs that have been generated we are focusing on capturing the broader essence of an emerging theme and sharing with you a first a few persistent representative ideas that speak to that theme and so as part of this process we are taking a constructivist approach to the work we're identifying emerging theme areas by group being individuals inputs into Affinity groups and these includes ideas that are persistent as well as innovative and so uh what you see here are some example of emerging ideas that are being generated from the initial inputs we have analyzed we know that all of our emerging ideas will continue to evolve
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but we wanted to share with you a sample size of some of what is being captured and so again I won't read these out loud but you can see some emerging ideas being generated and so what you'll see in the next few slides uh are again examples of some emerging themes that will continue to evolve as more data is incorporated the Inner Circle represents the emerging idea the emerging theme what the outer circles representing samples of the data that we're looking at some of these topics in the outer circles are the synthesis of multiple ideas being generated and some serve as individual ideas so in short we're providing you with examples of where these emerging themes are coming from so the first you know the first emerging idea was an equitable align system and structures to disrupt institutional inequal and inequitable practices Equity centered inclusive learning for students and adults mindful special educational practice that supports students and educators that's a great question I I actually don't know but maybe someone that's an academic these are we're going to keep working on the acronyms but the these are tools that we can use to assess and rubric schools capacities to implement a set of practices uh particularly for school Improvement for student behavior for climate for uh so it's just a framework that is used by many of our schools and again I want to emphasize the outer circles are at actual Post-its or or data points that capture the essence of uh the center theme so here's a few more so Readiness to learn developing critical talent to best serve our families redefining time in place for personal Pathways to learning life skills Global orientation and preparedness brought me the educational experience to prepare the whole child physical environments that reimagine spaces and places for community so again these are just general themes that are being generated and I don't want to go into them too specifically because these are still evolving and they start emerging so as you um you click through those slides pretty quick I'm wondering um are those going to be are those posted online somewhere the the the PowerPoint is online um agenda I think each one of those slides would be a great click down um yeah and so again I don't want to get into the weeds of it today because again that will continue to evolve um but this this presentation is online great so uh uh wanted to share a couple next steps on again what are we doing with this data uh so we will continue to integrate and analyze all that data from the community meetings and the survey again uh over 1100 in-person inputs and over 600 surveys so we'll continue to integrate and analyze in real time uh the themes identified in this update represent early ideas and may shift as we continue to analyze the data and The Guiding Coalition members will have a chance to refine and work with these ideas as part of the guiding Coalition number two this week at Franklin High School uh and so as we as we think about uh the next round of community sessions uh you know we uh our goal is to begin posting those dates uh by end of this week um this will include two PPS community-wide sessions uh in North Portland and uh in on the west side of Portland as well uh we will re-engage similar stakeholders that we'd identified in community sessions one and we will continue to refine our Outreach strategies to bring more communities into the conversation about the district's Vision these Community sessions for the second round will provide feedback to the priority areas identified within emerging theme areas we are designing these Community sessions now and we'll seek input from the Board of Education to ensure uh that they they are thoughtful and considerate of all of our communities and so the last uh item that I wanted to quickly share is a a quick preview of guiding Coalition 2 which again is
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taking place this Friday and Saturday at Franklin High School uh so on Friday evening uh we're going to be looking back and reflecting on everything that's transpired since guiding Coalition one including the learning Journeys Community sessions and Survey results uh on Saturday we'll be focusing on two main areas one is people uh in the morning so really diving into The Graduate Pro portrait and the adult portrait again if we think about uh we've been asking the community to think about you know what are the skills mindsets and knowledge that all of our students should have by the team they leave time to leave our school system so if that's what we're uh looking to to to create what are the uh Port what is the characteristics of adults whether they're teachers whether their staff whether they're family members the entire Community what are the characteristics that we should all hold true to make The Graduate profile a reality and in the afternoon we'll be focusing on the system implications so how might our school system need to change in order to support students and the adults that support our students so that that gives you again a quick rundown uh and a quick update of uh where we are with our visioning process open to questions or I know you all had a chance to visit a couple Community meetings uh if not more than a couple so any any feedback or any thoughts that you had as we went through that process well first I wanted to say thanks um you've um I mean there were enormous number of affinity group meetings last weekend I was at Several of them and you guys did a great job I was really I was really impressed with the turnout on Saturday at the community meeting I had a question about the data in terms of affinity groups will you be looking at the data in a disaggregated way and by that you mean well like will you this is um you're compiling these these specific ideas but it's been collected through Affinity groups are you separating it out at some point with the Finish definitely and one other thing are you also looking at because you're grouping answers are you looking at the volume of certain answers too but you're getting more responses yeah so uh to your first question um we are definitely uh we're going to be very intentional about uh you know knowing where that data came from so in the case of special education which we hosted two meetings uh we'll know that the data came specifically from there whether you know and so the list goes on so we're definitely capturing that uh in our data collection uh and we will analyze because part of the visioning process will also incorporate specific subgroups of areas that we want to focus on like special education like our African-American students Etc so we want to make sure to capture that that data effectively and then running your second question I was just wondering if you look at a number like if you have a comment that students should be more resilient right do you do you catalog like that you got a hundred responses on that or are they just grouped together I don't think we're looking at it from a you know how many times did we see something uh populate other than to say that that is a a prominent idea a prominent theme that we want to unpack more as we again develop these themes through that data okay thank you okay go ahead just okay just a quick question so I know you uh the vision visioning this video visit visited some like School leadership classes are there any are all like maybe high schools being visited or is there any more student uh meetings at the schools sure so uh as it relates to community session one uh process we are pretty much done uh again um that our last one was uh Sunday Sunday morning um for gutting Coalition number two I think we're definitely wanting to ensure that we we touch every High School uh we're definitely went into the middle schools in some elementary schools as well by Affinity groups uh and again we're thinking creatively about how to Target student groups student organizations like the bsus the metas ETC um the asbs and so definitely would consider you know you as a thought partner in ensuring that we have a robust and a comprehensive approach to to getting as much student voice into this conversation as possible cool okay thanks so do we have essentially a mailing list of everybody who's attended a session yeah that's outside of the open house that sure incorrect for next time
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definitely so uh as we uh approach the some of the smaller focus group meetings uh our our leadership took uh the initiative of reaching out so uh all of our sped parents uh that attended our session we have a check-in a sign-in sheet that will continue to to provide more information around these Community sessions again we want to ensure that even though they didn't participate in the first round of community meetings that folks are welcome to to participate in in conversations moving forward so so I uh if you haven't already and um to certainly I think you've sent out thank you notes for example for participating but here here's what we heard from your group and here's here's the emerging picture and and we need to to d uh educationally is it yeah um but to to hey we heard you let us know if we missed something and here's what we're hearing from the broader Community would be a good first feedback step that we'll need to I think repeat a couple of times in this process that we want to make sure people know they were heard and that we heard them accurately definitely and and so part of the process for Community session two is again taking a look at the comprehensive data from all of our community engagement sessions from uh number one but then obviously when we go back to our special education committee a community we want to bring the data that we we got from their first round as part of the uh the the the work in in those Community sessions I do go ahead I haven't been able to make a lot of the sessions my work schedule and all um so if I wanted to see specific groups and the data from those groups for those available to us yeah again as soon as we're able to we will provide all of that data the raw data uh to the board of education and to the general public as long as well as these emerging themes that keep being refined thanks sessions people have expressed a sense of appreciation about being asked and my feeling is that people have felt that it's been an authentic process so it's really on us to as we move into the phases of the distillation of the information that's come forward and what are we going to do with it we really need to make sure we do a good job of communicating back to people this is what we heard thank you so much this is where we're going because that's just the worry that people have they say this seems authentic this seems constructive this seems like it can make it really make a difference for our district but the proof will be in the pudding so I I'm sure we will follow through with good communication but um I've heard that pretty much at every session yeah that people are hopeful definitely we've been working with our community very intentionally about again making sure that communication is is an ongoing process um and and I think to your point uh folks have uh have also expressed to me uh the the Gratitude uh to to be uh part of this process um we were very intentional of targeting uh specific communities that have historically not been asked to to be part of a conversation um if I if I may you know the one that stands out to me uh was our conversation with Head Start families uh we had about 20 Head Start families uh very diverse and by Race by by language etc etc and the mere fact that someone from the central office uh uh a few folks from central office had a chance to to talk to them uh they were Beyond you know uh grateful and are really encouraged uh by the work and and actually some work has already just been generated even from that conversation so what we're telling folks as we're going to these Community meetings as we're looking at the data if there are areas in which we know we can implement with very with Fidelity very early on we will do that so as an example we've met with students from our community transition program there was about 30 or 35 students and uh one one thing was loud loud and clear that they want to be at the epicenter of of helping us make decisions uh you know as students in our in our organization and so we we've taken that back we've been having conversations with the superintendent about what that looks like as part of either the student advisory Council or other forms of of work so again we're taking that data in real time and really making changes as we see that we can you know I wonder if in about having some kind of Engagement
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strategy for even though we have Deans and people from our higher ed but with faculty from higher ed if we had a group that from some of our partners there that could really talk about how we I mean visioning with us would certainly help to create I think better Partnerships and more alignment yeah so that might be another group to in all the other groups that you're doing you know another constellation to consider yeah yeah I definitely welcome perhaps we can enlist Vice chair as far as a brown to help us yeah definitely we can really use your Bridge definitely welcome uh other input in terms of groups or specific communities that we definitely want to do to to be in touch with great thank you so just want to encourage members of the public we'll have a new round of sessions announced we'll begin to announce and uh announce those on our PPS website by end of week these sessions will take pay Place uh beginning late February into early March again we want to give folks plenty of time to to plan accordingly yeah and um so for those of you who haven't been part of it uh the exercises that we have people go through involve writing comments on little sticky Post-its and then we take pictures of those and catalog and how many of those Post-its do we have now you can imagine that on average folks are giving 10 ideas per per exercise and there's eleven hundred thousands uh folks that participate input and and those are cataloged by what which session they came from exactly that will allow that kind of so our team has been aggressively uh inputting all that data into an Excel sheet which explains why these uh conclusions are very much emerging because we're still trying to catch up exactly that's out there great I heard that uh 3M stock is trending because I want to just um join other board members in thanking the staff for all the work they've done it seems like um whenever I call Roseanne she's always running off to some to getting ready to host a meeting and I know that there's been lots of weekend meetings and this this weekend um this last weekend there was a meeting where there were lots of staff there and you know I think this is an indication of PPS trying to meet our community when it works for them and giving them lots of different opportunities if you can't make it on Monday there's something on Tuesday if there's not something you can't make it on Tuesdays or something on Wednesday so I just want to really acknowledge that the amount of time that's been spent whether it's you know for a really small group or a big group I think it's been a really important signal to the community so I want to thank people for that also I don't think I've been to one event that director Bailey's not there as well so I just want to thank you for your service on the core team and really sort of repping for us almost at every meeting except for when there's conflicts so thank you remind you that I will not be at the visioning session this week even though I would love to be there unfortunately it's my annual convention that's been scheduled you know five years in advance and I will be going to um the balmy Midwest where it is below three last time I looked so believe me I'd much rather be here we will miss you thank you I think all right that was really exciting okay so next we have quarterly reports and the board will receive two quarterly reports tonight wow look at the audience know okay the first one on the Whitehurst Implement implementation plan and the other financial report two really important reports what happened to our audience well thank you for being here you know who truly cares right because we're salsa really But Mighty all right superintendent Guerrero would you and like the team is gathering so the chief of the staff Stephanie Soden will uh we'll lead the team here on giving an important quarterly update on many of our student safety related um uh work thank you good evening Stephanie Soden Chief of Staff I'm here today with some colleagues to present the third quarterly report on the Whitehurst recommendation implementations there were as you recall There are 16 recommendations that were in the report you received last may we added a 17th which is to hire our Title IX director
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so that's why there are 17 listed but it mentioned 16. and as you go through the table as previous reports you'll see where we've updated it and we have made a lot of really good progress I'm going to turn it over to um my amazing teammates who are going to give you an update on trainings that we've been doing legislation and hiring and recruiting so I'll pass it on sure hi I'm Mary Kane senior legal counsel um we have provided you a training Matrix I hope you have a chance to look at it um as you're aware we've been rolling out two new training modules the sexual incidence response committee and the adult sexual misconduct response we started in August of this last year and with the assistance of our expert Dr Wilson Kenny and our Title IX coordinator Elisa Shore we've been making great progress in providing comprehensive training across the district our Focus initially was on training those staff members We Believe needed to be the designated resources at the building level and who would eventually be the ones training the rest of the staff so each building has a designated School compliance officer who has received the full training and who is now tasked with separating these processes within their buildings the ASMR training has been very successful the Circ training has been largely successful at the elementary and middle school levels but the particular complexities at the high school level have have caused this recently to meet with our high school administrators to get feedback on how we can modulate the process to better meet the needs of that student population um in January the beginning of the year we uploaded the Title IX webpage which offers information to students parents staff it contains for example um an information page about Circ to help parents understand what the process is and how it we're trying to support students who become involved in Circ um we it also has available supports for the uh that are in the community and within the school district we have also created an online training for parents and volunteers which can be found on the volunteer website we're working on developing a method to provide online confirmation that volunteers have view viewed this training it's mandatory for them but um but for now we are asking them to confirm in writing on the volunteer application that they submit to the security staff um we just recently as of this week paused our training to allow for the onboarding of our new Circ facilitator which I'm very excited about um so I'm going to let Brenda speak to that good evening we have just recently hired our Circ coordinator this person will start on Monday and so what we have done is we have paused the trainings for a couple of weeks in order for this person to receive training from Wilson Kenny as well as get updated on the process and the plan moving forward this person will fall within the Student Success and Health Department it will report currently to James Loveland who's the director of Student Success and health and as soon as we have a Title IX director hired that person will report to the Title IX director the reason we have chosen to put it under Student Success in health is because we have the current student threat assessment process and within Salem Kaiser and a number of other school districts in the state and in the country they they they put both of those under one department and then they really work collaboratively together so we um we are going to move forward with that specific plan yeah can we ask a quick question Mary what were you alluding to um regarding the challenges with the search training in the high schools um I think there are some complexities in the types of both in the types of complaints we get the the sources of information how how we investigate when sometimes I think you're aware of some instances where it's it's somebody's not coming forward either a friend is coming forward or we get some anonymous tip and trying to trying to move forward in that way um there are other instances where we have some students who
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have a for personal or family reasons don't want us to move forward immediately you know and so it's working with them tonight to make sure that it's safe for them as well so there are a lot of kind of permutations that we are working through to try to help make it a as I said a more modulated system for the for the high school cohort okay okay um on legislation on the report that you all had from Stephanie it details what um I think it's number 13 on on the sheet um it details what's currently happening at the legislative level so it's week two in Salem um we're making a lot of progress on this actually we're in good shape so far I feel feel good about it um so the we our bill Senate Bill 156 is one vehicle and then Senate Bill 155 which is the committee's senator roblin's Bill which has now become Senator Rob Wagner's bill because he's now the chair of the Senate education committee and this is moving first on the Senate side that bill is going to be the vehicle for one giant party on employee misconduct and it's not a party but that's my phrase for we're all coming together and we've had some really really good discussions and I think we're in a place where everybody's on the same page which is a good thing so we're gonna have a hearing next Monday the fourth um superintendent Guerrero and chair Moore will be there to testify um about kind of the history of the Whitehurst report the recommendations the need for these changes you'll recall that the report specifically called out two things that needed a legislative it affects one is the definition of misconduct and the Titan tighten the timelines that tspc investigations take the time that it takes to fully investigate so those two pieces are included in this one kind of Omnibus Bill that we're all discussing right now um our colleagues at osca and oea had some concerns around the definition that was initially thrown out which was going to make it easier to substantiate claims of sexual conduct we offered them I'm pretending it's compromised language but it's not it's actually what the recommendations asked of us which is to align with the tspc regulation that language was agreed upon so that will be in the amendment that's coming and and I have that here in front of me that I can hand out sorry I didn't do that beforehand um and so that was a sticking point early on I didn't I was not sure if we'd get there but I think we're there uh the other piece that's changed in the last couple of days originally the sort of Omnibus Big Bill was going to include a central registry for all complaints to go through tspc it looks like that may not be happening and part of that is that the tspc director is um maybe not going to be there a lot very long he's looking so I think there's concern from the legislature that they don't want to put this on that agency when they may be going through another transition so that conversation is still happening the piece that and I hope I don't think I dropped any bombs there it's been a little bit public but um the the uh the um the problem is that it's a lot of work and it costs a lot of money and so no whether or not there's um interest in the fiscal side of it is still up in the air so that part is still moving but the definition is in a good spot the timelines are in a good spot and then we're also doing some other cleanup around what students were talking about because before we were talking about K-12 in statute but we want to make sure that we have early Learners and our transition students included the other piece that we're going to add is a requirement to complete an investigation so that you can't just resign but that that investigation would continue um and that folks seemed in agreement with that too so all that to say we have a hearing next week public hearing is just the first step then they do a work session and then it has to move um to The Next Step which would I think right now it might go to Student Success it's unclear if that's going to happen or if I'll go to the house side for first so that's where things are at the moment and and I should backtrack there's no changes are being there's nothing happening at tspc yet there's just conversation of public it was made public that um that he is a finalist for another job so that's why I'm um I'm just I didn't want you to think that I was sharing news that wasn't mine
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to share there isn't any news yet thank you so any questions or comments lots of good progress yes yeah yeah so I just call out that the board went through I think everybody went through the circuit training or the sexual incident response committee training and it was really informative um and I think if if I just look at this training schedule if we've are just building that out across the system I think that's going to be really important because we'll have lots of people who have a lot more awareness and I think it just builds overall system capacity so thanks for giving up the board the opportunity to go through that question I have generally about the the training you talked about the volunteers that were still working out a system in which to actually be able to verify it for the staff when they go through um looks like there's a 30-minute training is there some sort of once they move through it some sort of independent sorry independent way that we we the district know that they've completed it or is it a self-report as well are you serious all tears the volunteers I'm sorry it sounds like the volunteers we still are working on a solve for something besides self-report I'm asking about the the 30-minute training for the staff um for so most the online training that staff's going through did they well we have through pepper right so by October 31st all PPS employees had to go through a series of online trainings that was one of them I don't know what happens to you if you don't go through it because I went through it so I'm assuming we have a mechanism in place and through HR perhaps just from a sustainability standpoint it'd be great to know that we have some way of catching that or yeah so for any staff that have not gone through uh then an email goes to their supervisor and then it's the responsibility of the supervisor to ensure that those things happen uh and then uh within the pepper PD you log in with your ID so then you take attendance and so we know which employees have taken it and which ones have not and what sort of rate are we at in terms of that I would have to ask I do not know yeah yeah proudly printed out his certificates of completion for every one of the modules that's what I was wondering if there were certificates that volunteers would have to show as part of their proof of we've brought in I.T to to help us as I said it's it's something that they're working on and I think eventually we will be able to get an online completion certification it's just because they don't have a PPS right we log in with our PPS email and so um we just have to find a different mechanism but there the the itcf has been great that we've been working on it with them and I think they're close to developing something for us great thank you any further questions all right moving thank you so much great uh and superintendent Guerra would you like to introduce the next item the financial report yes simply our Chief Financial Officer who's settling in here with her third quarter my seventh week PPS um Madame chair member of the board superintendent I would like to present to you the latest and greatest in my shop it is the second quarter of fiscal year um 2018-19 so as you see in your package there will be six topics that I will be going through tonight very quickly so it's painless a comparison report for the current fiscal year 18 19 that will give you the budget to actuals and also the projected and income balance for this year to a high level projection for 2019-20 that will include the projected ending fund balance three the two enrollment reports that provide a comparison by grade and by school for the quarterly investment report providing insight into our cash on hand and investment Holdings five the purse rate stabilization fund multi-year Revenue review and six is the quarterly real estate report providing a listing of all leases and the appendix um one showing the a comparison for the financial report at
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the same time this year in comparison to last year and and last is the listing of the real estate investment information listing by category moving along to the general fund quarterly summary I'm comparing the second quarter of night 2018-19 fiscal year to the last year at the same quarter the revenue collections are basically flat with the year-to-date revenue of 8.3 million dollars higher this year than last the expenditures are training to budget but higher than the quarter last year and that is due to the escalating increase in pay and employee count and the higher contracted services analyzing the 2018-19 we expected the year slightly better than fiscal year um 1819 when we budgeted the revenue is expected to be approximately 2.2 million dollars higher and the spending is forecasting to be 3.2 million dollars under budget so the net Savings of this is uh really based on the vacancy um Savings in salaries and benefits and so the net expected result will be about an increase of 5.3 million dollars to the ending fund balance resulting in the projected about 4.6 percent of expenditures to date and again this is as of December 31st 2018. the actual enrollment um for as of October one is slightly higher than last year of 24 students but actually is 385 students below the enrollment projection when we did the budget for 2018-19 in May and of this year in 2019 the ode will give us the um the state school fund reconciliation for fiscal year 2017-18 and at that time I will come back to the board to give the board an updated weighted student count and the impact of that student count as of December 31st operating cash and Investment Portfolio total 874.8 million dollars in Book value cash and cash equivalent balances were 170.8 million dollars with a 22.8 million of this amount is a per restrictive account and again this is the first stabilization account we're talking about so looking at the first report uh 2018-19 budget to actuals um you will see that the year the year-to-day activities compared to the adopted budget is presented in the table that you have in front of you and do you have the table in front of you the report that is Page four of the package I just want to make sure we're on the same page and next time I will have a presentation um a PowerPoint so it's easier for um you all and the audience to follow so I am on Page four of the report thank you great so great thank you for the feedback so um in the nutshell um the forecast for this year um is um it is projected to um have a greater ending fund balance and we are also expected to end the year slightly better than we budgeted the revenue is expected to again be approximately 2.2 million dollars greater than expected and in spending we are forecasting to be 3.2 million dollars um to be under budget that is a good news because the net effect will give you about 5.3 million dollars to be in the ending fund balance that we can carry forward into 2019 20 as the beginning fund balance yes sir um but with our enrollment less than projected right does that come around to bite us next year when the state does its record possibly when the state does its reconciliation about how much money we do right here thank you very much for uh the the question actually I was going to go into the enrollment and um in a couple of five but I'm going to answer your questions now it's very um it's a very good question so ode allows a
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district with a decreasing in enrollment to uh to have a one-year using the higher student enrollment of the two years so in our case 1718 is lower 1819 is lower so our budget for 1920 is going to be based on the lower enrollment so next year we are going to see um a decrease in state um School fund based on the downturn of the enrollment yes well and then the same would hold true for our decrease in weighted yes students that is correct or um the most recent look at our enrollment um revealed that our ell students count has decreased as well as a poverty count has decreased so the weighted will have an effect on on our funding I as soon as we have the information from ode around and I call it a may surprise um we I will be coming back to the board with a um the impact of the decrease in the weighted enrollment yeah we'd have to see what the rest of the state is doing to know right yes I can tell you at Beaverton not that I'm always comparing us with Beaverton but they also have a downturn in in the poverty and so um so if I may have the permission I would like to move on to page um to the page with the 2019-20 financial projection so that should be page four of your package [Applause] okay so this is a look at as of December because remember this is the um second quarter financial report and I'm using the governor's um recommended budget that was released on the November 28 2018 a very preliminary we are um sitting um uh possibly yes it should be page five there's no page but it's between page four and page six so it starts with fiscal year 2019 20 Financial projection it's the page after the general fund so it's a paid after the budget to actuals for 2018-19 you got it great thank you I apologize for I'm not sure what it looks like um in your package but there will be Improvement next time for sure you will see it on the on the screen continuous Improvement in the final yes yes increment Improvement thank you very much um so looking at this projection a very early very very early um as of the end of December um I am expecting to see a um a negative um our expenditures may be exceeding our revenues by 14 million 829 000 but we are still getting new data um there will be um an updated information uh from the state from the governor's office so I just want to the board to hang tight for a more updated information moving along to the enrollment comparison report chiefly I'm glad you clarified that I saw everybody's eyes get a little bigger when you said we were doing well this year but now that we're looking ahead right and we'll wait more clear information yes and um continue to fluctuate coming from Salem we are really trying to gauge where it is best for the district to make up projections in the next week or two I'm going to be participate with the 10K um a group so this is a group of employers in the state of Oregon representing 10 000 um students enrollment or more we will sit down we will hash things out and decide on how we go about crafting our budget based on the projected revenue and I will bring you the latest information that I have so again on the enrollment we have talked about it um we are Although our enrollment is not um it is is is is on the downturn trend uh weighted are we losing some weight
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um I am hopeful that maybe with the more revenue from the state um you know we can maintain our level of Revenue but that is yet to be um seen so I just am asking for everybody to um to be optimistic along with me and find ways and we are working hard to find ways to be able to um to balance the budget as we are entering into this budget season okay if I have the permission moving along to um the enroll the enrollment report is the same as last time as of October 1st so there's no changes here the next time I present to you there will be um some some changes to the enrollment report moving along to the investment report on page supposedly um 10. or 11 investment reports so in summary we are having a total of 874.8 million dollars in Book value an increase of 301.8 million dollars over last quarter report and this increase is in line of the expectations of the property taxes that we received in November that we we were at the spike in November December time frame when it comes to property tax receivable and the market value of this investment is 869.8 million dollars and um and and this is really um a reflection of the market um as we gather the information as of December of 2031. well mind you if um you know if we are to um to to and to close everything let's just say PPS uh close the shop then the market value is the at the column but the the district will collect the money so it is important for me to present to you the information in three separate um definition par value market value and Book value okay it may be too much information but I'm sure for somebody out there with a financial mind we understand great moving along to the next graph on page 11 which is a bar showing the um the percentage um that we invest um for a PPS question so far for me close things down 870 million eight ways [Laughter] laughs we're trying to stay out of trouble director maybe I was the instigator I apologize it's late in the night and I thought you just you know can appreciate some humor um fund 225 this is The Purge the Public Employees Retirement System rate stabilization fund um as of um December 31st we have we are expecting an ending fund balance for the year of 17.6 million dollars by the time that we finished the year in 2018-19 so on average 254 dollars thousand two hundred fifty four thousand per year growth is from the property tax and the remaining 113 000 is from the Investments and this is based on the um board policy but the board um approved um several years back I believe it was in 2011 Maybe excuse me will you forgive me if this information is embedded here under fund 25 225 but um what is the relationship between the growth in that stabilization fund and the projected growth of our pers obligations in the same period sure so the policy Paula says that we are to um to move point so to answer your question directly there is no um correlation between um what we have here in this Fund in comparison to our purse um liability account um some years ago the board has decided um and and I believe when I read the board policy it was based on the um discussions with the gfoa as well as our Auditors but it is best for the district to carve out Point 11 of the property taxes and put in this fund to say for
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when we really need the money um to um to fund the um the rate the the because we don't know what the purse rate of increase is going to be so that's part of that is the reason so um so every time I do the board presentation I will bring this up because I believe that in the near future um we may have to um move some of the money from this fund back into the general fund to um to um uh to put in the situation where when we have to avoid Cuts right yeah and what is our projected um purse increase for the next biennium um the last time I looked at it it was two percent increase from 1819 and I don't have the exact rate online great so I'm remembering from previous presentations that the estimate was something like if the legislature just funded us at a current service levels we have about I think 11 million dollar deficit due to pers so I think that's okay to ask that question I I will clarified next time I don't have the numbers on top of me yeah it is large yeah great great but I know for a fact the a purse rate increase for PPS is going to be like a two percent increase in 1920 in comparison to 1819. all right so the very last report here I have has to do with the quarterly real estate report summary and for your interest if you go to the very last page of the report you should have um a very long sheet of names of our entities um the the monthly amount that we receive and the um if you keep going there should be a separate do you not okay I will make sure the board get that um it was on a separate um yeah we'll make sure you have that so on this list you have the name of the um entities that we um do business with and um including the terms of the lease and the amount of the lease I would make sure I send it um over to um to Roseanne and and yeah excellent so um last but not least you should see a table of information of when I bring reports to the board it looks like a spreadsheet with the X yeah so um in the third quarter I will be coming back with the budget to actuals the ending fund balance forecast the 1920 projections um the investment report and the summary of changes and um and remember in March it's going to we're going to be deep in doing budgets so that you will be I'm seeing more of of me um in the month of March um do you have any questions for me oh thanks you know I know when we revised our investment policy to having instead of having to pass the policy every year we're going to substitute with quarterly reports and I think this is much more valuable for us to have um than to have a annual review of our policy I think so really appreciate you getting us into cycle and uh excellent information to us excellent I'm working really hard on making sure we have firm um month and close quarterly enclosed we should be able to produce reports to you um frequently and so if you have any desire for any information please don't do not hesitate to let me know thank you for your attention and thank you for having so much positive energy this late at night time about this thank you very much thank you chiefly for so ably jumping into the role and responsibility and for I know that there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes with the broader team so thank them for their quarterly report directors just a classroom observation you'll notice the deputy superintendent Claire hurts never even got out of her seat back there distributed leadership all right now on to the business agenda the board will now vote on the remaining items in its business agenda already have been voted on resolutions 5799-5800-5801-5806 and 5807 Miss Houston are there any changes to the business agenda no do I have a motion and second to adopt
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the business agenda second okay director Rosen moves and director con Sam's seconds the adoption of the business agenda thank you Miss Houston is there any public comment there's uh or discussion on the business agenda one item I wanted to raise um because this was an issue a contract that was um carried over from a couple weeks ago or I guess maybe from last month or last year it is resolution or it's the contract for the black parent initiative and um one of the things that came out of the most recent estate audit was um a finding that the board um and finding a recommendation that the board should um be having a public discussion and reviewing and more details those contracts that um have sort of a direct student Nexus and so um and this was an it's a multi-year contract correct that's good so we're just approving this year's portion of a multi-year contract and this was a contract that um had a fair number of issues um that came out of a it was a governance issue and then a leadership issue at the organization and um I want to thank the staff for um really stepping up and providing a lot of information to the board and responding to the board's questions about the the contract because I think one of the in in the discussion that Deputy Hertz and I had with the Auditors um they um so their observation was that regardless of whether a contract was below above or below the the 150 threshold that they really recommended we give additional the board provide additional oversight and scrutiny and I think this is one of those cases that it was warranted and um so it's more of a thank you to staff and for community members who had questions about it um all the information there's a q a there's the quarterly reports there's an annual reports um and I think there's a degree of transparency that outlines some of the issues that were raised and the steps that the organization has taken to address that and I think that's um based on my understanding um point to be sort of the the philosophy of how the contracts are managed that they'll be as they come to the board that will have a lot more information but I wanted I don't have a quite I don't really have a question but I just want to acknowledge um the really significant amount of work that the staff went through to address some I think very legitimate issues that were raised by the Community about some some specific aspects of the contract not the value of the services or the need for it but just some contract Administration issues that were pretty important thank you thank you I also would like to thank BPI for coming forward with the information that I agree with Julia was warranted and necessary given the degree of change that they have had as an organization and Mr Posey for being here for four hours tonight waiting for this uh moment and then also to our school administrators who really provided a lot of information about the value of these services in their buildings and how they didn't feel that they could be met or certainly didn't feel that they were being met in any other way or through any other contractors so that's all important part of this process too correct I also want to thank Iris Bell and Sean Brennan for being here from BPI too okay um so they're they've been sitting through in the back and they've been very responsive um and they have owned the the past issues and we together are moving forward to provide services for our students yeah great and I'm really pleased to see that thank you I also will note that um just from a year ago the templates for the contracts um on sort of the the end of cycle or the renewal cycle um that there has been a significant change in them and just I think they're much more substantive we have a lot more information and um I know this is an issue also that was raised overall in the in the audit so I think we're on the path just in the spirit of continuous Improvement that
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our community there'll be a lot more transparency and information on results especially as it relates to students so thanks to the purchasing and Contracting team the the student support team and also our external partners for really I think providing a lot of transparency and accountability as we move forward thank you thank you sometimes staff doesn't know what to expect when they come up to the podium but thank you for coming forward Chief martnik to accept the positive the positive feedback and compliments I was prepared but and thank you to our partners BPI for your work yes Nick representative paisler okay [Laughter] okay we will now vote on the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes I'll opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions businesses you have to oh director Moore and Anthony are you still there yes oh my goodness and you vote your vote is oh sorry okay no that was a yes they were there is that a yes for your vote she's on mute again are you asking about our votes yes yes both yeses thank you okay the business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative pays a routine yes thank you chair Esparza Brown yes could I get clarification on resolution 5804-5804 on page 10 of the business agenda it's asking if it's affirming or rejecting oh it is uh uh uh in support of the superintendent's recommendations so that would be affirming thank you okay so do you want to as part of this agendas and we just voted yes so we're good yes you don't need a roll call no okay yes the last sentence under resolution firms so that's why I wasn't wondering if we should vote I think we should clarify that that's the resolution you're voting on and re-vote okay yes so let's vote on resolution 5804 um so all in favor of affirming the resolution so say yes yes director's Moore and director Moore are you still on the phone to um vote on resolution was that to affirm it yes okay so that uh with a vote of seven to zero to affirm resolution 5804. yes we today we didn't actually have a motion and a second 804 independently I thought we were taking a different path so we could actually pull it off like me to um yes I moved the amended resolution number five 804. second okay amended resolution 5804 was moved by director burm Edwards seconded by director konstam any discussion okay so now all those uh that affirm the resolution please say yes yes those opposed no the Do Not affirm they know extensions you can't vote on this okay so the motion passed did we hear oh Rita director Moore and Anthony um we couldn't really hear any of that discussion so um I'm probably going to abstain because I okay we couldn't follow the discussion generally our policy is if you're present you should be voting um so we're if you have in front of you resolution 5804 we're affirming the superintendent's recommendation
04h 10m 00s
with it with a yes Vote or not affirming with a no vote okay um we're really not able to hear that um we're going to have to abstain I can hear you're saying a number but I cannot understand what number you're saying what resolution are you considering resolution five eight oh four five five eight oh four okay yeah right okay it's very bad um so how about we do it this way we are following the recommendation of the staff we are affirming the recommended there we go yes thank you for the passes okay yes yes okay thank you were there vote of seven zero okay uh now we have are there any committee reports once I have two committee reports sorry okay sorry okay we've had the audit committee met last week and the week before last and we had a couple items report we set up a but the template for the state audit with all the findings and the recommendations we're populating the the template and we'll be working closely um both with the deputy superintendent for business and operations but also on the other side of the district as well since there's a number of recommendations that sort of span the larger organization and so we have that emotion we also had present we have a Community member who's serving on the audit committee an addition the audit committee is in the midst of the hiring process for our internal auditors so um that's the audit committee report and then on the policy and governance committee meeting we're going to be meeting this Thursday we'll have again a number of policy recommendations that we'll be considering including the uh the public comment relating to the field trips travel and off-campus activities which has been amended recently and we're in the middle of the public comment period I also should report that based on a recommendation from board members and the student representative that there was a communication that went out to all the principals in the principles connection or whatever the communication is that goes out every Tuesday so to share the policy changes with school communities and we already had a comment today from a a teacher at one of our middle schools based on that communication so I want to thank Roseanne from the board office and the communication staff for getting that out and for the principals to share with your school community so I think this might be the start of a more robust mechanism by which we get feedback from our school communities on policies there's going to be changes so the the agenda for the policy and governance committee meeting will be if it wasn't sound today it'll go out first thing in the morning and that's it thank you student rep uh just real quick I'm looking forward to meeting with community members and students going forward on the SRO uh suspension um we're also working the District student council is working on our policy going forward and hope to add some more substantive additions to that and I want to congratulate quite a few PPS Schools Franklin Cleveland Lincoln and Grant for being out of the five like out of the out of the top five um like placement pla placing um at the Constitution state competition just this past Saturday so PBS schools are at the PBS high schools are at the very top of the bar so a lot of fun to be there and students our students are doing a great job and Grant will go to the National We the People this championship in April and DC yeah congratulations
04h 15m 00s
uh just early warning um every for the past a number of years we've had a number of uh of our schools participate in the Jazz in the schools program where volunteers from PDX Jazz come to school classrooms and uh play jazz music talk about the historical and cultural context of jazz and students then paint or create Arts based on music that they're hearing and then there's uh so on February 19th students work will be on display at the Portland Art Museum I get to be a judge again I don't know if if you're in I know you went uh went last year it's it's a great program and really fun to see the kids where the students work so I hope we can get something out like in the pulse um I'll send this on to uh our comms team there's just one other item from the audit committee that I want to share is that there was a decision made because of the Secretary of State's recommendations that we um that looked at contracts that were below the 150 threshold which we traditionally don't have on our business agenda so our threshold is 150 000 and everything else there's a delegation to the superintendent and staff and um because half the contracts that were actually reviewed through the state audit process were under 150 000 and their recommendation was that there should be sort of some sort of board oversight and review we're going to be starting a process and I want to just get people a heads up that we're not going to be approving contracts that are less than 150 but we're going to start having visibility to them and we're going to start looking at what sort of criteria we should develop for contracts that are under that threshold and we'll have a discussion with the Secretary of State's office in the audit division about what criteria we've established I just want to let people know that that may be an adjustment that you'll see is a new list but we won't be actually asking the board for contract approval how many of those are there in a year I think there's a thousand um in total so we had this discussion with the artist division about the number of them because I think there's a little bit over a hundred that we actually approve that are above the threshold and when we queried whether the they were recommending that we actually lower the threshold that was not their recommendation necessarily but they thought we should be looking at those contracts that have student impacts um perhaps ones that are direct negotiation contracts so I think we're gonna we're gonna beginning the list we're not going to be approving them and I think we'll be looking for Trends and trying to come up with a set of recommendations that is a reasonable it provides a reasonable level of accountability and review of the of the contracts where needed but that does not get us into a full-time Contracting board all right the next meeting of the board will be a work session on February 5th 2019 the next regular meeting of the board will be held on February 12 2019. this meeting is adjourned here

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)

2019-01-29 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - January 29, 2019

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