2019-08-27 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-08-27
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - August 27,2019

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good evening good back good evening on this back to school Eve the board meeting of the board of education for August 27 2019 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on this evening has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the Board website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PPS TV services website before we proceed board members are there any items you'd like to pull from the business agenda for a separate discussion and vote Madam chair yes I have two items um one I would like to pull the audit committee Charter for a discussion of the revisions and second there is also a contract the NV nvo Healthcare Associates contract that was added to the agenda today and um Miss Mark Nix is prepared to which is not under standard practice is prepared to just discuss why it was a added to the agenda today okay are there any other items anyone else would like to pull I would like to pull the item regarding the Mike Walsh field as we have received a revised resolution on that item Madam chair can I ask just another question of uh the board so the audit committee Charter assuming we're not going to have a vote this evening and that it may be late later in the later in the agenda um I would like to ask whether board members are going to have questions for our internal performance auditor or whether we should allow her to leave for the evening she's prepared to stay but if there aren't going to be board member questions for her she's prepared to stay I'm going to have some questions but I don't think they necessarily have to be answered by her I think well I mean I I they're sort of their questions about um essentially the difference between an audit function and an evaluation function and great um well I'm gonna then ask is more to stay okay thank you very much before we begin the public comment period I'd 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 public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts Reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen without distraction from electronic devices one quick reminder any oversized signs need to be in the back foyer and signs in the audience should not be held in a way that obstruct others viewing of the meeting board members and the superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our Board office will follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others complaints about individual employees should be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide the board or superintendent we ask that you give them to Ms Powell to distribute to us presenters will have a total of three minutes to share your comments please Begin by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record unfortunately our timer has walked away so we will uh the our board manager Cara will hold up a sign at 30 seconds uh so we'll we'll work our way through we'll give you some kind of indication when your time is winding down uh we appreciate your input and thank you for your cooperation uh Ms Bradshaw do we have anyone signed up for student or public comment yes chair are we calling them all together or two at a time I think we have that request from the students right so feel free to all approach the Deus together and Miss Bradshaw is going to just um combine uh the time for the five of you who have signed up so um thank you very much my name is Abby I go to Jefferson High School my name is Katya I go to Grant High School my name is Ella I also go to Grant my name is Jaden I go to Wilson High School
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my name is Elliot and I go to Franklin High School and we are all members of the climate strike Coalition and we are here today to talk to you about the strike and today we delivered a letter to superintendent Guerrero regarding the strike and we will be reading the letter today superintendent on September 20th youth from around Portland will be striking from school to demand climate action Portland's strike is part of a global movement calling for climate Justice and the end of the age of fossil fuels the movement has come out of Greta tunberg's Fridays for future strikes where students leave classes and take part in demonstrations to demand action to prevent future climate chaos the strikes have grown globally over the past year including widespread participation this past march by PPS students we will be marching again on September 20th to stand up for the future that we deserve it is clear that youth have a unique perspective on the issue of climate Justice which is why it is so important for us to be taking strong action we are youth who care about the future youth who want to work towards Solutions youth who are willing to make sacrifices and stand up for what we believe in that is why we are counting on Portland Public Schools to support us in this action in May 2016 the Portland School Board unanimously passed resolution 5272 in May 2019 in response to student leader demands for implementation of resolution 5272 superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero wrote quote I want to make clear our intent and commitment to following through on implementing the key elements of this resolution affirmed in 2016 end quote one of these key elements is that quote all Portland Public School students should develop confidence and passion when it comes to making a positive difference in society and come to see themselves as activists and leaders for social and environmental justice end quote we know that many students will want to join the global climate strike and we are concerned that this be a safe empowering and educational experience for us to that end it is important that the district take action to support student leadership and activism in the face of the climate crisis we respectfully demand the following from the district by September 5th make sure that all administrators teachers coaches and staff are aware of the September 20th strike all schools should be given clear consistent guidelines for how they should respond to students participating in the strike in ways that do not penalize or inhibit participation allow students to do Outreach in schools including but not limited to posters morning announcements speaking at assemblies or School social media sure that students will not be penalized for missing classroom time on September 20th that includes no tests that day and instructing teachers to provide opportunities for youth to make up Miss material without penalty ensure that participation in the strike does not impact student participation in athletics I.E no penalties for students missing school or practice that day Athletics should not be penalized in practice or competition for an unexcused abstinence relating to the strike provide less provide lessons about the strike for teachers to utilize in the day or all in all schools on the day leading up to or onto the day of the strike curriculum suggestions and resources can be can be provided by the PBS climate Justice committee in order to facilitate safe routes for youth traveling to City Hall we ask that you communicate with TriMet about the need for extra buses on routes from schools to downtown on the morning of the strike set a date for a climate Summit in Spring 2020. this is our agenda for the strike on September 20th students will be leaving school with plans to gather across this from City Hall at 10 30 a.m for a rally at Terry shrink Plaza Youth and adults will then walk to an open area just south of OMSI crossing the river on the Hawthorne bridge at the second location there will be a family-friendly climate mobilization festival with speakers workshops and tabling extending through the afternoon the youth organizers have obtained all necessary permits from the city for these locations and the March we've asked for the superintendent for a response to these demands by Tuesday September 3rd thank you Ms Bradshaw do we have any other students [Applause] no do we have any other student or public comment we have um public comment from Barb Macon
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okay it's pretty close to three minutes we'll see good evening my name is Barb Makin and I'm here the day before school starts to put three more minutes of attention onto our deficits of educating black youth and to urge you to prioritize fixing these District deficits I'm starting my 14th year at Roosevelt we've seen our graduation rates increase and we're seeing incremental growth in hiring staff of color our past principal put a lot of money into sending two cohorts of staff to the excellent Equity training at Center for equity and inclusion which I urge the district to do for all our schools yet as I looked over a new faculty for this year I thought about the nearly 10 African-American staff we've lost in the last several years most of these departures were not voluntary and race or racism played a role our black students and in fact all our students need to have black adults teaching and leading in our schools I'll start with two suggestions number one District creates a transparent system to report out on interviewing hiring and retention rates of Staff of color at each School each year let's hold ourselves accountable number two Guided by staff of color the district should create one or more mechanisms to check in with teachers of color multiple times each year to see what they need to feel safe valued and supported not by building admin but by a carefully selected team we can't keep losing great staff to other districts or worse to Medical leave-in lawsuits let's ask our staff of color what they need and let's hold ourselves accountable on a very related note Ron Herndon's opinion piece in The Oregonian shook me he said that whoever is writing the curriculum for PPS should have a 90 success rate of getting black kids on track I agree and let's check the record on who actually did write the GVC do you know Mr Herndon called us out on the shameful and embarrassing test score differences between black and white students and by embarrassing I mean I feel embarrassed as a tour in this system and to truly see the reality I urge the district to begin tracking data of African immigrants separately from native-born African-American students do you have any guess how much the numbers would drop I hope you are curious we need to get closer to the truth and stop hiding behind conflated data as a white teacher I am part of the problem but I strive to educate myself I've learned Spanish I go to trainings I read books I talk to people this week as I painted my garage I was listening to video speeches Dr Chris emden Dr Dr Jeff Duncan Andrade Dr zaretta Hammond they are so inspiring they have vision and they have specific specifics and when I hear them describe what's happening in other places I feel elated and I feel hopeful but when I go back to work I'm ready to engage my department to my colleagues and these takes of how to transform what we're doing there's no space for it we're talking about GBC we're dancing around how to change from these good lessons to these good lessons so instead of dancing around I will feel much better as a teacher if we sit down if we get grounded if we name and address what's happening in our schools all the ways that racism is happening and take some very basic Common Sense steps to start to eliminate thank you thank you superintendent would you like to provide your report I would good evening directors and to our audience here live and viewing at home uh good evening when I started this it's a big week for us tomorrow as you know marks the start of the 2019-20 school year we're excited about welcoming back students tomorrow kindergarten students begin their careers in PPS next Tuesday after Labor Day holiday what you see here in this cover shot for those who haven't had a chance to yet is the modern the new Grant High School library just to give you a little sneak peek there central office staff will be deployed out to schools uh tomorrow supporting our school communities personally my schedule will start out bright and early tomorrow at the beautiful modernized Grant there in front of you please tune in to KGW if you're up early at sunrise and certainly everyone is welcome to the
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grand opening of Grant on Saturday September 7th starting at 10 A.M uh later in the morning tomorrow I'll be introducing Governor Kate Brown as we welcome along with other board members and elected officials the incoming freshman class at Jefferson High School this will be another great opportunity for us to celebrate the huge passing of the Student Success act which we look forward to engaging in meaningful conversations with our broader Community about to plan for how these resources and investments will be allocated I'll also be visiting Scott and Rigler Elementary Schools I'm proud of the Improvement efforts underway at these schools both in the way the community has come together to support the students and in the way that strong leadership being exhibited to help lead the school transformation and as superintendent I look forward to welcoming regular students and families to their first day of school and remind all of our students that they belong and are welcomed in our cities and schools the opening of a modernized grant is yet another major milestone in our modernization work and illustrative of the broad menu of work that's gone on throughout the summer our school of modernization and contractors have had the most productive and busy summer I think in the history of PPS they've been working at a multitude of school campuses installing new Roofing accelerating seismic upgrades installing new elevators doing Ada improvements and other safety priorities Madison High School staff have also now moved on to the Marshall campus while we work on modernizing their facility this is a picture of some of the demolition work that's already underway Madison students please make sure you give yourself a little extra time tomorrow given the necessary and new commute time and we'll begin the modernization work at Lincoln in just a few months it's been a busy summer because just as we've been preparing our buildings our Educators have also been hard at work participating in a Range of professional development and training this summer around 180 School leaders spent four days at Franklin this month at our annual Leadership Institute our stronger together team participated in four days of workshops and sessions around many of our district initiatives and priorities uh so almost 500 teachers and administrators also participated in a subsequent two-day campus Leadership Institute along with teacher leaders and teams and over 100 teachers new to the profession and two addition 200 more additional teachers who are also new to the district attended new educator orientation we also had close to two dozen Educators over the summer get training and certification in supporting students with dyslexia and I look forward to doubling down on some of these very important efforts and there's more in addition the district and partnership hosted training for Portland Federation of school professional classified staff to grow our pipeline of educational assistance support staff with more than 20 different professional development offerings in August alone including Pre-K training and in the next two weeks more professional development trainings are scheduled in the areas of Technology International baccalaureate coursework collaboratives leveraging Title One funded instructional train technology training for our teachers on special assignment workshops and Early Education and much much more so we're a district that's going to continue to be committed to professional development and to supporting and growing The Talented members of the overall team PPS in addition the district hosted I just mentioned pfsp classified staff to grow our pipeline of educational assistance and support staff with an array of training and in the next two weeks more PD is scheduled to occur if you find a couple of our teammates there and speaking of Team PPS we're welcoming into the 1920 school year a number of new school leaders we're excited to have announced a couple dozen newly appointed School leaders we're pleased that we were able to fill many of our leadership positions from within the district many of our assistant principals will be leading School communities as the next stage in their leadership Journey we've also we also have some experienced principals who've agreed to take on a fresh leadership Post in a new school community so thank you to the those leaders these leaders for their commitment to students all across the district so we have a robust School Community engagement process as we identify and promote candidates to lead our schools something folks folks may not know is that I personally interview every new school leader as a final stage of the hiring process we all know how important it is we have dynamic knowledgeable leaders at the helm in our schools and I'm excited about the Cadre of school leaders both new and returning across the entire District
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I'm seem to be missing a slide okay might be a little late to do a refresh and in talking about how we've prepared the summer I'd like I'd be remiss not to mention a hugely successful project Community Care day this past Saturday at 70 schools across the district students teachers administrators families central office staff board directors neighbors Scouts and volunteers stepped up to help clean and beautify our campuses in advance of the start of the new school year thank you everyone who helped out project Community Care something that requires a bit of sweat and elbow grease but I know all of us get back far more energy than we expend I continue to be impressed by the community's investment in their local schools It's a Wonderful way for all of us to gather to do good work and celebrate public education in Portland and we have a short video for for those of you that weren't available on Saturday so you get a glimpse of what a great day it was foreign [Music] right now we're cleaning up the school of Community Care day is when the community gets to come in and help beautify the school ground so when all the students come back the parents and the kids get to see a nice little line and then we also need it so that it looks nice and we don't have people tripping over like rocks and stuff that are all over the place our volunteers have been pulling weeds putting down bark dust and also getting our playground ready we're proud to be out here again serving for yet another Community cares day this is an annual tradition you see here out at our schools students parents family members members of the community all pitching in lending a hand to make sure our schools are as beautiful as they can be to welcome our students next Wednesday for the first day of school [Music] thank you foreign I'm picking up the weeds with my mom I think our public schools are one of the last institutions where we really bring Community together and things like this where we do that we bring parents and kids and people who aren't attached to the school I'm not attached to the school together to work on something I think that goes a huge distance towards Bridging the gaps that we're seeing all around us well we just moved to Portland and we want to be part of the community and the best way to do it than to help help out the schools well it shows them that we actually care and respect their school I mean this is just like our home I come here every morning when I drop off my daughters My Hope Is that when my parents and my students arrive next Wednesday that they look at all the hard work that everybody came together to do and they join in efforts so that we can work together as a United whole at Capitol Hill to all our volunteers for making it a successful project Community Care day and as has been tradition I want to leave off my report tonight we like to introduce new team members particularly the senior leadership and I don't think everybody's had a chance to meet I'd like to have them come up and take a moment to introduce himself as our new chief of system performance Dr Russell Brown welcome thank you good evening my name is Dr Brown I'm pleased to be joining the Portland Community and it was a joy this weekend to spend time at Bridger Elementary School it was great watching the turnout for that and I did my part pulling weeds that morning something I felt very confident at it is a pleasure to be here this will be the third school system in which I've done metric worth third City that I've done this I have done metric work across a wide sort of variety of areas within those including work with the mayor in Cleveland as well as the Cleveland system which had a unique relationship with the state of Ohio and it had its own separate metric system went on to Baltimore County where we looked at a wider range of metrics to communicate our progress to the community as well as how we utilize schools and our our growth as a system over time and I'm really pleased to be coming into this community and seeing that the board has already laid I think a tremendous foundation for this work moving forward looking forward to talking a little bit about that this evening and carrying that ball forward
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with you in an iterative process to come up with a series of board commitments to the community that we can speak to over time so thank you we're glad to have you aboard Russ uh we he's coming running we're going to put him right to work so he'll be part of our discussion a little bit later in the agenda that concludes my report I'd like to call up please our director of Human Resources Sharon Reese and director of Labor Relations Carol Hawkins to introduce this next item regarding the ratification of two important contracts thank you chair and board members to my left is our senior director of uh Labor Relations and employee relations Carol Hawkins who led both of the bargaining teams for PPS so I'm going to have her introduce both of the agreements before you this evening thank you I'd like to speak briefly about both of the contracts and then allow our our Union Partners to also speak to a moment so if you don't if it if possible we'd like to do both of the items together starting off with the pfsp agreement this is a two-year agreement that provides for a three percent increase for this group of professionals who serve our students every day this contract covers our para Educators our school secretaries our otpts and and several other categories but to give you a flavor they're they're really an important group in our schools and and doing important work with our students a couple of the highlights in the contract that I'd like to call out specifically we included a study leave for those employees who are continuing their education and becoming professional Educators to grow our pop pipeline of Educators to PPS and so we're very we're very excited about that we also now have the opportunity to provide a bilingual stipend to our Educators who are called upon in the schools to provide those very helpful and very necessary language skills in serving our students additionally we made some changes to our classifications to bring us in line with Oregon Fair Pay Act we also increased the safety for our students by allowing individuals who directly work with students who have IEPs and other types of plans to have access to the pieces of those plans that they need in order to best perform their work this will be a two-year contract the membership finished stratification yesterday and so we're asking for board approval on this agreement any questions before I move on we can go into the second contract and then I'll call Belinda Reagan up to um provide some comment on the pfsp contract okay thank you The second contract that we have before us today is our ATU contract which covers our bus drivers our type 10 drivers who are not CDL holding drivers and are dispatchers who are transporting our students all over the district on a daily basis so this contract is a three-year contract we're very excited about some of the progress that we made with this team as well in both of these negotiations I'll say the the Spirit was very collaborative and cooperative and I'm really pleased with the way that the negotiations went with this group we've created a tuition reimbursement pool to provide an opportunity for these employees to access some additional courses that will assist them in their work and and in the long run benefit PPS with a more highly skilled group of employees we provided for a three percent increase for each of the three years of this contract with the addition of a market adjustment in year one for some of our hard to fill and hard to retain positions additionally we created a part-time medical benefit plan for these employees um recognizing how important it is how important Health Care is and wanting to provide them with some some ability to access that through some employer paid benefits I think that that's the kind of the high points I welcome questions for each of those and then we'll allow our Union Partners sometime as well
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I'd like to call up Belinda Regan from pfsp to provide your comments thanks foreign good evening superintendent and school board members I have not met all of you yet I welcome you to Portland schools it's delightful to see you this evening my name is Belinda Regan I am the President of pfsp I've been in that role for 10 years uh I have to say that and I've bargained longer than my 12 years with the Union I've done this for a fair amount of time and I want to start out by thanking Carol and I see Stacy Jung is up here as well and we also had Claire Skelly from Special Ed and Genevieve Rowe who's now home with a brand new little Sydney bargaining with us it was the best session we've ever had um Carol was very is very correct in her assessment that we were collaborative obviously there's things we didn't always agree on but we felt very very positive about the the way that we were able to work together uh I have never I've not seen this ever in my history with the district and in bargaining in the past and I do believe that a large part of it was due to the fact that we had in-house people working with us rather than bringing Outsiders in other attorneys and so forth it we all have a vested interest in the district and I think in order for our our different units to bargain successfully you need to have that that feeling of belonging and being a part of this we want the success for employees obviously I I have to say with also what Carol brought up today uh tonight and with what she just said is so salary of course is obviously important that three percent and the steps that are available to our folks is always something that they welcome but almost more importantly in many cases as the secondary language that we put in we changed our placement language so that people were valued for their educations and for their experience and were not limited at where they could be placed when they were hired we also changed our we allow we now allow for those who have earned degrees while working with the district to get a step for each degree that they've earned these are things that make our employees feel as if you appreciate them and while money obviously helps pay the bills it's it in order to maintain the staff and the the folks that we have from pfsp we really think that these things made them the happiest and she also mentioned the second language stipend you can't believe how delighted folks are for that we're really thrilled I also think there's a great advantage to the district to having the second language type and because you can now hire a school secretary for instance and require that a language be part of her skill or his skill so I think that that is a great advantage to you as well um we are thrilled with the outcome our members were thrilled our vote was 469 yes 3-0 and we know very well who those three were but I I have to say that it's also the biggest turnout we have we represent 1400 plus folks in the district uh in 50 different classifications um we are just delighted with the vote turnout um the best it's the best vote turnout we've ever had for any election uh and so I I do think it showed the enthusiasm of those that we represent and support for what the district has done to help put them to help them make make them feel better and um worth what we think they're worth I also want to take a moment to just thank my bargaining team because uh without them we could not have done this it's been it's months of of hard work that last night we made the district folks sit with us until 11 15 at night until we finally just that's it we're done and could walk out the door feeling like we were successful Michelle Batten is our field rep but she is here and next to her and and Michelle Works full-time at our Union John McDuffie is a halftime employee at our union he also works halftime at Oakley green as a library assistant we have Frank Acosta
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who is a campus security agent at Lincoln High School Tammy Adams is a sign language interpreter and she was really instrumental in making some major change to their language this year too Michelle Katina is a physical therapist Works half time for the district now and excuse me um was one of our our late stairs that last night Michael freed as para educator at Cleveland Glenn John doll is a para educator at Franklin High School Norma Lawson is a school secretary at Benson we also had the fabulous assistance of our office administrator Kathy Muir who retired from the district after nearly 30 years seven or eight years ago and we grabbed her up and brought her into our office and enjoy having her working with us as well as the assistance of Sarah Fitch who works in HR but I want to thank all of you and I encourage you to vote Yes on our contract we're most pleased with it Amy called me this week to chat and ask sort of what I wanted to talk about and I said to her I'm not going to come up and say nasty things like I usually do so don't worry I I'll P I'll speak kindly because it really did go well and I appreciate it appreciate all of you being here too thank you I wasn't worried the board will now vote on resolution number 5954 resolution to authorize 2019-21 agreement between Portland Federation of school professionals and School District number IJ Multnomah County Oregon do I have a motion so moved director brim Edwards moves and director Moore seconds the motion to adopt resolution 5954 Miss Bradshaw is there any citizen comment on resolution 5954 no is there any board discussion on this resolution I just have a comment and I know this is set in stone but it was about the tuition reimbursement and hoping that it could be tracked because I had a conversation yesterday at work about this we tend to see that people don't take advantage of the professional development opportunities if they have to come up with the money out of their pocket um so I'm just curious if we could track that over time and find out if that's being utilized and if not why why not every year it is absolutely effective day I had got about six to seven years so yes it is utilized every year thank you [Music] I just want to um I've sat up here during several contract ratifications and I think this is the best outcome ever um there's been a wide variety so I just want to thank both the district team and our partners in our schools for really coming together in a spirit of collaboration and setting us up for the start of a great school year so thanks for the time everybody took to make make a really good outcome for ultimately will be good for our students I want to comment too on um Belinda your comment about uh the the nature of the negotiations and dealing with an internal District team and I think this is just one more reflection of the stability that we're experiencing at PPS that has not been the case for the last many years and we're seeing it in a lot of different areas so so that was nice to hear and also just the fact that we now have an articulated career ladder for our pfsp employees so people can really start to map out where they want to see their careers go and how the district is going to support them and if I could just say in regard to that maybe 21 of the new teachers that came to the school district last year came out of Harvard so career louder is essential that's fantastic all right the board will now vote on resolution 5954 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 5954 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting all right fantastic [Applause]
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all right we have moving on to uh the contract with the Amalgamated Transit Union which uh Carol and Sharon introduced earlier um do you want any further opportunity to speak to this contract or we'll just move forward okay the vote uh the board will now vote on resolution number five nine oh I'm should we get it on the table before we call them up for comment either way let us we'll just we'll move the motion and then we'll invite you up how's that the board will now vote on resolution 5955 resolution to authorize the 2019-22 agreement between The Amalgamated Transit Union and School District number IJ Multnomah County Oregon do I have a motion so moved director Bailey moves and director brim Edwards seconds the motion to adapt adopt resolution 5955 Ms Bradshaw is there any citizen comment on resolution 5955 yes we have Jimmy Apple hands and Beth Bloom Club great please come forward thank you for having us hi superintendent school board thank you for having us tonight um I I'm going to Echo the same sentiments it was a stark contrast from the last negotiations um it was it was a breath of fresh air to have uh Carol and uh Lisa I don't see Dan here I don't know um and also from our management side Keith and Terry were there as well um and everybody felt this time around I felt heard our team felt heard we felt that uh it was more collaborative than last time um you know we're not always going to agree on everything we butted heads a little bit on a few things I think it shows a lot that last time we were here we told you that if things aren't going well we'll be back and uh we're back now because things went well and we wanted to thank you um uh yeah there was a lot of good things in here the the type 10 health benefits were very important um we have a lot of co-workers that now can have health benefits because of that and uh they're very grateful on that um seeing that and accepting a three-year contract was also really great it's something we pushed for last year and had a lot of pushback on that we didn't understand why and uh this year it came in on it and also a small thing but also kind of a big thing is uh changing all of the gendered language to neutral they them I really appreciate that it is a very more encompassing and accepting of everybody in our group so thank you for that hi I'm Beth blumklots and yes thank you we really appreciate this uh the support more this year it felt supportive in the meeting so much more so it felt more of a conversation and one of the things that we wanted to do with this particular contract was to add more entities that provide for a better quality of life and with the tuition reimbursement hopefully people will will take it up we have several drivers who when we talk about ahead of time going into the contract negotiation and the drivers put down what they would like to see and so we had several drivers ask for that and they were pleasantly surprised and and kind of school bus drivers have felt forgotten and ignored for so long it feels really good that you know for those of you who are able to do the the ride-alongs and and it's the invitation is always open please please wait till October maybe get through the beginning of the school year but I encourage you to to participate with that it really gives you a good flavor of what Portland Public Schools what we have in its entirety rather than just in the classroom and just on the playground we do support the teachers we do support the families and these parents are entrusting their children with us our most vulnerable students to people they barely know and we're driving while we have a classroom in the back of our bus and this year most of us we have more students than we've had before so the
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way the routing is we have all the seats are being filled or all the rows are and some of the roads have two students in in those rows and so that's that's a new thing that's a big deal for for us we want to have quality people driving those buses as quality drivers who know how to interact with students and who understand what their needs are and to be able to interact with them while driving the bus while interacting with our Portland traffic and getting to school on time safely so I just appreciate that there is a better understanding for the value of what we do that we have more and more drivers being able to walk around when they're talking about careers and they can say I'm a school bus driver and they have their heads up and they feel proud of it and I feel like that's something that Jimmy and I that we have brought to Portland Public Schools and as the city at large is let's be proud of it this this is a good thing this is something that we provide as an excellent service so thank you for getting on board with us thank you for listening and going back and forth with us you've actually made us better you know we've learned how to research and you know argue professionally and everything so we really we appreciate you as well um the three-year part is is Major I feel like there's one more something but thank you I also just wanted to say it speaks volumes that the last negotiations took I want to say about 20 months and this one took two and a half months and so I wanted to thank both your side and our side for coming together in the spirit of getting this done and and time for this school year to start there any board discussion on this resolution say to the new board members take them up on the bus ride it's eye-opening and we'll give you a really a good appreciation for the work that's being done every day with those before those kids are dropped off it's a great experience thank you Julia yeah I just um I just want to thank everybody for um I think PPS is finally turning a corner um and and we really are being collaborative and it's it's going to make us a better District it's going to make student experiences better across the board if we truly are all in this together and and I'm glad to see it reflected in labor negotiations and um I I do this all the time I want to thank Carol um because I think she has been uh I think you've been instrumental in changing the atmosphere around labor negotiations so I'm very I'm very happy that everybody's happy yes I would like to say that with Carol she would actually explain why something could not be done and that is huge because not everyone works in HR not everyone understands the HR lingo you know and so there were sometimes she would say well that's not really possible because and we're like oh okay we're not just being told no or being looked down upon or spoken to as though we don't know what we're doing we know what we're doing you Carol she knows what she's doing and she was able to go ahead and have a conversation where we still felt like we were people when we when we would leave the meetings there were many times the meetings ended with okay bye we'll see you and you know there was not this okay now let's talk it was great great it is it is in the best interest of our children to have PPS be a good employer and it's not just money money is important but it's not just money so thank you everybody thank you thank you all right the board will now vote on resolution 5955 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes I'll post please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 5955 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes thank you so much thank you very much have a great first day of school [Applause]
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all right Jenna Guerrero next we have a report from our bond accountability committee would you like to introduce that item laughs welcome to the new directors I'm Kevin Spellman with your bond accountability committee we are going to have a slightly different um report today I'm going to be unusually brief we have relatively little time but we are going to introduce a subject we haven't talked about so we want to save time for for that that's not to say what's contained in our report is not very important so I hope you'll ask questions if I skip over something too quickly as the superintendent said it was it's been a very busy summer work at Grant High School Roosevelt Kellogg Madison all the health and safety work and plus continuing planning and design work for Lincoln and Benson the other significant change in organization was the introduction of Marina Creswell who I understand is on vacation this week but we're looking forward to working with Marina the big again the superintendent talked about the opening of Grant High School um we're very pleased to see that happen happening and we want to stress that this is the last major project of the 2012 Bond that program is coming in Within budget and it is on the schedule that was established in 2012. each each project and that program has met its schedule which is a great tribute to the staff and the contractors and designers there is something we shouldn't forget about Grant High School it's even though the program has come in under budget Grant High School is significantly more expensive than was expected even at the time two years ago its cost has increased substantially and we hope that there'll be a a good debrief on what happened on the project so we can learn those lessons going forward it's also important to note that although the 2012 bond has come in within the uh within the budget it's some of the IP the summer work has been deferred and was not completed so we need to be upfront about that enough was completed to satisfy the promises made to the taxpayers for the bond but nevertheless the full scope was not and we need to be clear about that uh 2017 uh the the budget situation there has not improved the unfunded portion has increased since we were last here largely due to the um MPG building so scope has increased which causes that however we it's the unfunded portion right now is 270 million dollars and if you say that really quickly enough times it doesn't seem like too much of a problem um but again we need to be concerned about creep here or leaping in some cases one year ago almost to the day you were being told that the unfunded portion was 132 million dollars today it's 270. again there's a scope Factor there but we have to be We Believe have to be rigid more rigid at least on fiscal discipline which brings us to Madison Madison's Broken Ground unfortunately it's broken ground with an estimate that is slightly but nevertheless over the increased approved budget and we're very concerned
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about that we've seen the the situation that Franklin Roosevelt and and Grant I just mentioned what's happened there and we think it's a mistake to go into starting that project with a reduced contingency and even committing some program contingency to making up for shortfalls uh we think that there are other steps that could be taken we're also talking of cost we are still waiting for a study that has been long promised that would give us some indication of um uh the costs of high school and other school work in competing districts and that's been promised for a long time we and you actually I think there's a resolution asking for it even um so we really hope we get that we need that data and um if we're going to be held holding ourselves accountable we need to know what what we're competing with Kevin can I just ask a question on that since I wasn't on the board for that what what is that um you said that report is benchmarking against other school districts that have done similar construction right yeah we asked for this it was actually when when Grant the costs on Grant High School was starting to escalate we were asking simply the question that what do high schools cost other districts what do middle schools cost to other districts because it could be that we are building something that's greater than other districts and that's a legitimate policy decision but if we are we should know that it could be we're building less and it's costing more but we need that kind of benchmarking data yeah and I think my my I think it's it's great my question would be making sure that whoever's doing that analysis is is accurately benchmarking because it's really challenging it's easy to look at a high school in Salem and say oh they built it for X dollars without taking into account the urban built environment you know construction costs Etc so I would just want to make sure that that benchmarking which is important but extremely hard to do accurately is yes being done well so yeah but I just want to emphasize that this was a critical request in the context of looking at the budget Gap because it wasn't just the escalating construction costs but we it was very clear that our cost per square foot um for the 2017 projects was more than the difference between projects completed just three years prior or something so we'll hopefully get report back to the board about when we can expect to see that proceed thank you I'm going to pass over to Dick who'll introduce himself and thank you um chair constam director superintendent Guerrero thank you for this opportunity to address the board of directors my name is Richard steinbruggee I'm a member of your bond accountability committee and I'm here today representing the whole committee with a particular set of recommendations for you to consider most of you probably know something about my background as a professional background as a civil engineer when you appointed me to the committee what you may not know though is that I was also a one-time student at Fernwood at Dunaway and a 1967 graduate of Cleveland High School and before you do the math on that I'm going to move on quickly um a handout is Kevin just passed around is in bulletized and kind of an outline format of the presentation and because I'm giving that to you also in writing I'm not going to go over some of the things that are very obvious that you can pick up on your own as you go through it but I will and touch on some key points and then try to conserve time for questions that you may have and be respectful of the amount of time that you've allocated for this particular topic so the committee is aware that the board has been considering amending the bac's charter to include responsibilities regarding the future Bond program and with that in mind we took a leap forward and started to think about some things that are important we believe in laying the foundation for the development of the next Bond program and one of those is in particular we want to talk about tonight and that's about seismic and resilient standards that the board may want to consider um having said that we also feel and I
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think it was in in the report that Kevin just summarized that we're not saying that the 2012-2017 bond projects were designed in a substandard way with respect to seismic standards they they met code as far as we can tell and in some cases imagine in a creative way exceeded some code requirements and we think that that's really good what we think is still needed though is for the board to consider adopting a set of seismic and resilient standards that may well exceed on purpose code standards for the next Bond program why and so why is that important um schools are designed for risk all the time fire risks sadly active shooter risks all of those are really really important the the likelihood of one of those events happening is is pretty small just statistically but but all of that has to be done and it's essential the risk of a Cascadia major the big one major Cascadia subduction zone earthquake is 100 percent it is 100 we just don't know the date we don't know if it'll be tomorrow or in 100 years but it's a hundred percent it's important also to recognize that earthquake codes are by definition Life Safety codes and that sounds really good and it is really important what that means though is if a building performs as expected based on the code standards it shouldn't collapse that's really important people should be able to get out of it safely really important but the damage may be so significant that it may be uneconomical from a practical sense to repair and so the building is an entire economic loss which probably isn't good enough for a school district school districts are different than Developers nothing wrong with developers but their risk profile is the time they build it and they so they build it they sell it they're done school districts create buildings that maybe last 100 years long time and and the district will own them and operate them for a long long time so the the committee thinks the risk Horizon and Viewpoint needs to be much different than it would be for a developer and perhaps much different than just code requirements because of the community investment in in the buildings so some things about the risk the Oregon resilience plan which you may be familiar with was prepared in 2017 for the legislature at at the legislature's request and it contained a lot of very interesting information that that some of it was developed by the committee that put together the report some of it summarized research that had already been done and part of that research demonstrated that over the last 10 000 years there have been 41 earthquakes on the Cascadia subduction zone exceeding Richter 8 in magnitude and 19 that exceeded nine in magnitude the average interval for those major earthquakes calculates out to be 250 years the last one was January 26 9 pm the year 1700 pretty interesting story how they know that but that's a hundred years before Lewis and Clark 320 years ago about so something to ponder in terms of risk what does that tell us about when the next one will happen well not much we don't know we know some averages nobody really knows when the next one is going to happen I did notice an Oregonian article I think it was in June of this year where experts had revised some probability statistics and suggest that they now think at least this one expert did that there's a 30 30 percent chance of a 9.0 Richter earthquake within the next 50 years which is sobering thinking about a lifespan of these buildings and Facilities being 100 years a 9.0 earthquake's been characterized variously as probably the worst natural disaster that has ever hit North America ever the violent shaking will be four minutes or more I don't know how many of you may have experienced an earthquake I've been in two or three really minor ones and I can can remember one that probably lasted 10 or 15 seconds and it felt like forever I can hardly imagine what a strong shaking that knocks you down lasting four minutes must be like I cannot even imagine that in 2016 FEMA came up with a set of predictions of what the regional impacts will be and you see that on your sheet I
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won't repeat those I think it's important though also to recognize that the Oregon resilience plan using experts from our local area predicted service recovery times average service recovery time is for key utilities and and services to be as I've listed there and I'm going to read those electricity from one and this is in the Willamette Valley by the way if you're on the coast it's much worse but we're in the valley one to three months for electricity on average that means some places it will be much longer water sick water six to 12 months sewage one to three years Emergency Shelters 18 months what good is an emergency shelter if it's not going to be ready for 18 months after the event got to wonder that schools 18 months so changing these predictions the committee thinks will require multiple efforts at many levels of government and the private sector and we need to hope we have many decades to incrementally do what we can to get ready if it happens next week it's too late so opportunities we think the Board of Education should consider for the next Bond really focuses on the elements of the next Bond that will have new construction new additions new schools don't know I don't really know what will be in the next Bond and in that sense this school district can contribute to the community being more resilient when not if when that earthquake happens and these features can be selected strategically they can be included in new design with very very marginal cost impact very different than trying to retrofit an existing building with these kinds of features very expensive very difficult so you kind of have one time in a building's life new buildings life to do it right one time at the beginning schools are also unique and that's a special opportunity I think for school districts they're distributed throughout communities they're walkable when the transportation network isn't functioning at all for people who live in those communities they have these large common spaces as you all know cafeterias and gymnasiums and other spaces that can shelter people and they have large Open Spaces if the transportation network is down perhaps helicopter Drop Zones are possible to bring in supplies tent shelters perhaps the question then is is beyond the seismic strength of the building should the schools be designed with some resilient features to help the community and and there are a whole lot of things I've listed some examples of things to consider that are on your sheet I won't read through those the benefits the committee thinks from pursuing a strategy like this or at least four one is certainly enhanced safety for staff and students secondly it if you want to just look at the building investment it's a cheap we think insurance policy one-time cost that covers 100 Years of risk possibly support the community in an emergency as a benefit and finally being able to bring the buildings back online for their educational Mission much sooner than otherwise would be possible so our bottom line recommendation is that the board consider tasking the staff working with some expert Consultants because this requires a bit of support beyond what most of us no by ourselves but to develop a set of earthquake and resilient design standards and options options for those standards along with some relatively quantitative percent impact of cost and present that back to the board of education for a decision and to do it early during the planning phase for the next Bond program that concludes my remarks I'd be happy to address any questions you might have um in principle I think this is a great idea um I I used to run a Neighborhood emergency team so you know I saw the photos I yeah it's going to be horrifying when it happens um so what uh my question is you mentioned that we could perhaps do much of this for relatively marginal increasing cost and that is not what I have heard in the past what I have heard is that to to make these buildings really earthquake resilient
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um so that they will be not only habitable but usable by the community after the event um it would require a very substantial increase in cost so have things changed it's been a while since I was on a net member have things changed that much that we can now do some of these things for less than was the case 10 years ago or are you is the difference the the time Horizon that you're talking about great great question I think it it all gets into the strategy of what's selected and what's not selected for example one could select to strengthen just the common areas and not the whole building you could select to strengthen the structure of the entire building so that it will you'll guarantee that it's repairable even if there's some architectural damage and then provide other features specifically for the common areas and I think those are the kinds of choices that you would want the staff and the Consultants to develop with with the cost impacts so that you can make you know a strategic really a strategic decision about cost benefit so I think we're already building at least one area in every school to accountable category four standard um I think that's that's only the 2017 Bond and the 2017 project right although I I think some of the 2012 I think Franklin and Grant were upgraded to category four for the I think the cafeteria cafeteria gym something we can hold that thought for a moment till Dan Young comes up for his presentation when you're finished right thanks um I also I want to agree with director Moore I think this is a really important conversation I appreciate you putting it on the table and I think it's absolutely something we should be doing I think one of the distinctions here really is new construction versus retrofitting um and I think you're right retrofitting is extraordinarily expensive um and as an example uh and I'm not an engineer so I'm someone out of my depth but when the city of Portland was redoing the Portland Building um no matter how what you thought of that building 200 million dollars is a lot to retrofit it it is not going to be up to standards that you would expect in sort of an eight and a half or 9.0 earthquake to do that would have made the project closer to 300 or 400 million dollars so you really there is a cost benefit that needs to be taken into account for these projects and and the determination was we want the building to stand um whether it is inhabitable or not um is probably not worth doubling the cost for a school it might be but I really think that that second part I mean it's really easy for everyone to say okay why aren't we building these buildings so that they'll withstand a 9.0 earthquake it is possible that once you know we look at that it would take a 30-year um you know rebuild and modernization program and extend it to a 60-year and and that's a really hard question then to answer I'm at a minute and I have you touched on this at the beginning um there are different levels of you know all obviously all of our buildings should stand but the question isn't just do they stand and a lot of them right now won't and we know that um it's not just well that I stand but will they be inhabitable afterwards and sort of what are the gradations of a building so a long way of saying um thank you for putting this on the table it's absolutely something we should be talking about I want to make sure we we have the full cost benefit analysis when we consider these these projects you know if I could just add one more thing one strategic thing regarding resilience that um one can choose to do and I don't know if this was incorporated in the current Bond programs or not but if you think about the common areas and where people are going to be if that is wired that those parts of the building are wired independently of the classrooms and so forth the emergency generator that's there can power that area for longer and and it costs almost nothing to design the wiring that way Plumbing you can do the same thing so that there's water in the kitchen so there's water in the in the showers what you do about water supply is another problem but there are things you can do in one experience I had we designed the what the plumbing system in the common areas with outside connections to the building so if a tanker truck could get there it can pump water into the buildings just into those specific places we decided in our case that storing water on site was was too hard too expensive so there's and it costs almost nothing to design and build the plumbing that way if you think about it up front um I would also like us to um to be talking to our Community
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Partners out there especially the city in the county indeed um because I think some resiliency plans have been made using some assumptions about PPS facilities that are probably not accurate and it would be helpful if we could sort of collectively see these school buildings as a common benefit and get some assistance in paying for them from the city in the county and the state I think that would be enormously helpful it would it would certainly help us justify that any cost increases we get a little bit from the state but yeah very little and Partnerships are really important also just from the operational side because I don't think it's reasonable to assume a school district can operate the emergency shelter that's not what school districts are good at you need the Red Cross you need others to come in but they have to know that the capabilities are there and probably do some practices and drills and exercises thank you very much really important topic go ahead re-wrapping it up yeah sorry I wanted and so Scott had something too we were just waiting on um so I want to thank you for bringing this up it's very opportunistic time for us because as we get into the bond planning for next year I think this will be a central question and the issue for the school district I think that we are going to need to wrestle with early because I I felt we had a sort of unsatisfactory conclusion of it last time which for the um upon superintendent Advisory Group had a discussion quite a lengthy discussion about the trade-offs that were potentially involved of so if you were going to say five years from now going to be at Benson Madison Lincoln or Kellogg you were probably and your kids were going to be there um that was probably a good thing because you had a sort of 100 or a greater likelihood of um sort of surviving what is you know a very very challenging environment however if if your student it wasn't in one of those four buildings um it wasn't going to be a good thing and the discussion debate that we had which I think don't think we came to a conclusion and frankly we just needed a certain point to refer the the bond measure but I think it would be well worthwhile to have it on the this discussion at the front end I'm looking for Claire who Dan who are going to lead that discussion um but this philosophical discussion within the school Community because parents whose children were going to be in sort of our oldest most fragile buildings um certainly wanted us to make investments now because their kids were going to be in those buildings um and sort of like but we're investing in this you know putting all our eggs in you know four schools and the rest of the schools aren't going to have the um potential upgrades that they need and it we didn't resolve that how we resolved it we made the decision primarily to invest in the four schools but I think we need to have that conversation with the community early on versus at the last minute as we're putting together the bond package because um parents have very strong feelings about the schools that their students are in and if their perception is they're unsafe and not going to survive the big one they're going to want us to make the investment there and um we have a limited amount of dollars so how do we most effectively I think the question is going to be how do we most effectively protect the most students and continuing continuing our modernization um but I I felt the way that we left at the end was unsatisf probably unsatisfying because we didn't have the time to have that discussion so this is a great time to bring it up as we're in the front end of the bond planning um so I'm going to agree with you it's rehabbing that discussion we hash that over pretty well in 2012. and what we realized and and it was sort of a doing maintenance improvements as opposed to modernization and the seismic upgrades that we have done to some schools do not get us to that this school will remain standing everybody can leave safely standard they're an improvement because we might have a 5.0 earthquake that they would help in but the 9.0 they're depending on the fault lines and where the earthquake is and all that stuff I mean we we could have a serious earthquake and have some schools topple and some schools be relatively
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unscathed because of topography it's a it's a it's unpredictable but I I think it's important to have that discussion and in 2012 we decided to do minimal maintenance and maximum modernization I'm still there but yeah having that discussion is is important um a couple of other comments Uh Kevin your comment about uh the 2012 Bond you know basically you know landing on a dime uh it's nice to have a couple of million left over uh although there's still some things to be done Grant softball field um for one uh Roosevelt for another um uh uh but uh and you said we didn't do all this the summer projects that were listed as up to uh it's important to point out that the scope was enlarged substantially the 2012 Bond initially the school capacity was 1500 students just imagine Franklin right now Grant opening up tomorrow um with uh and yeah with with a 1500 limit it would be pretty crazy I think we've made that point several times I think we've just wanted the district has has produced 200 000 square feet more in high school that was promised so there was there there was a trade-off there I think it was a pretty good trade-off um so ditto was still waiting on the comparative study and echoing Andrew's comments uh on that uh and just you know trying to figure out why construction costs are so much higher I just did a cursory overview what's been happening with construction wages in the Tri-County area the average wage has been going up by about four percent each of the last three years that's not a huge amount and nowhere near close to the the escalation we know there's been materials increases certainly but it's not doesn't appear to be again that was just a cursory look it's not labor costs that are driving this uh um if I if I could just comment on that we know what the construction inflation has been I mean we have that data and that doesn't explain the growth from the 2012 Bond cost to the 2017. so we just need more more information that's what we need uh and finally yes to Lessons Learned as far as I know the only formal lessons learned that have been done on our bond program were around the uh Community involvement in the design process that was driven by director Moore and myself when we were civilians a couple of years ago but nothing around formally around the the entire construction project there has been some work done by staff and some considerable work I think our comments are focused explicitly on on the experience of Grant we just shouldn't forget and move on from here we need to learn if we can grant looks a little more like a precursor to 2017 than the tale of 2012. that's right director to pass did you thanks I just had a question thank you for your updates I'm new so I'm trying to catch up to speed in terms of what the costs are some of the other issues and this is the second meeting I've been in when FEMA was mentioned this this time in recur in in regard to earthquakes I I think that you know as a district we're kind of you know it's a moral imperative that we make sure that our schools are safe for kids [Music] um I'm sorry I'm losing my my question about this oh I'll have to come back I'm sorry I had a question I just can't read so I I think we do this a lot but just to clarify that the new schools are built so that in the event of a horrific earthquake everybody inside will be able to leave safely with at best minor injuries all right worse minor anchories the building might not be reusable but everybody leaves safely with no casualties director Moore did you have something okay yeah all right thank you very much thank you for bringing forward this
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topic we also have a pretty organized and active parent community group that is really focusing on these issues of resilience and seismic safety so they'll be an important part of that discussion as well I I just remember my question and and it's a comment that um the earthquake as Scott mentioned is going to be it'll hit different areas differently but I hope that we have the wherewithal to take a look at the most vulnerable um people in our community and those would be schools that had higher poverty um more immigrant refugees more languages spoken more kids on free and reduced lunch because chances are those families are going to be more burdened and have less insurance and fewer resources and so if we could um as we're doing going through a master planning project deciding which schools get you know get done first and which ones get done last I would hope that we would apply that Equity lens and take a look at who's going to be the most impacted and the least uh likely to be resilient good point yeah and that that was a specific point in the discussion that I want to say 2014 Bond committee that selected the schools to be master plan for the 2017. and that's one of the reasons Madison was superintendent Greer would you like to introduce the next uh discussion topic to follow along with the bond work thank you very much for your volunteer service I would thank you to our BAC Representatives I would like to invite up our chief operating officer Mr Dan young up here who's going to provide us with his quarterly update on our bond program which I think is a nice segue here superintendent and direct indirect I will keep my comments even briefer I think uh the superintendent is opening remarks covered some territory on the Monica ability committee did as well so I will keep it brief in your packets tonight you have information for the quarterly update that is substantially similar to the information that went to the bond accountability Committee in July and that meeting is about three hours and I'm scheduled for 10 minutes so I'll just hit some high points as the BAC Kevin noted that Marina Creswell has taken over the senior director position of osm and so we are very happy to have her on board and she's familiar with the program having been here for about a year I also want to thank Scott perala for his time as the interim senior director effectively wearing two hats for about six months so I appreciate his time they are both unable to be here tonight so you have me for one more meeting it looks like uh we covered some of the projects that are completing we have roughly two dozen projects that are that have completed or been completed right now over the summer uh including Grant and a number of other projects that we talked about as well we also have roughly another two dozen projects that are somewhere in the design phase uh not including our say our safe secure security Schools project which will touch almost every single school with just a couple of exceptions this school year and that project has begun construction as well uh and though as noted before this is the busiest summer that we have ever had for construction I think we're also in a better position for school opening than we have ever been so we're doing more and I think we're doing it better so it's a real Testament to all the teams that are out there I thought I would cover a couple of topics quickly that were brought up as discussion points one is the report about the the benchmarking uh in January we hired professional consulting firm writer love at Bucknell to do a cost comparison analysis of comparing our 2012 projects to our current projects what those costs are comparing specifically we asked them to compare the Lincoln High School to one of the Beaverton high schools in new construction to compare two somewhat similar new construction high schools and then comparing just our general square foot costs to other recent relevant projects in the area so they have given us a couple of drafts um as director of Scott noted that is very challenging they have struggle to get to a point where it's Apples to Apples I don't mean to imply that they're not good at this it's just getting the right information the right amount of detail to do apples to apples is a big challenge so it has been an effort that's gone on considerably longer than we anticipated but we do have the final draft and we expect that to finish up here in the next couple of weeks I thought I would also touch on the seismic resiliency conversation I certainly appreciate the comments tonight and just for some clarification the 2017 projects all have a space within the building that is designed to immediate occupancy the level four so for example Madison is the entire new gym structure not just the gym but that structure uh Kellogg it is the common area spaces also like the the Arts classroom and those spaces as well so they all do have a space the previous 2012 projects do not have do not have
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those spaces we also one of the requirements is for all the new designers to have that space and then to also look for other options of where we could increase resiliency so the design teams have brought forward other potential options most of those have not been exercised because of costs are always looking to reduce costs as much as possible and I don't know that don't work offhand some of those details but some limited ones the project manager Jesse from Madison just know that we did execute some of the plumbing recommendations that were discussed earlier at the Madison project but um that is what the standard is currently and going forward I think I'll stop there and I don't have a lot of time and I'll just answer questions director Bailey so we've got uh Lincoln uh just about it's after the first of the year scheduled to we're going to mobilize after the first year correct um which is a new structure correct and Madison which is a rebuild and that is being demolished as we speak um to make both of those up to level four which is will be occupiable after a major quake it goes back to and and director Scott's point uh do you have a ballpark what that cost would be to bring each of those to a complete level four the full facilities yeah I do not offhand we can take a look and at least get a rough ballpark I'm not asking you to do or do any work on this but um I just think it's interesting that the BAC is saying spend less but spend more just kidding these are going on with Madison now they've got a what do you have a six million dollar budget Gap currently so correct uh we will have in two weeks we'll actually be back here to do a presentation so you'll get more detail on that I'll give you a little high level review and I will ask Jesse if she wants to come down and provide some specific details so Jesse Steiger senior project manager on the Madison project is here tonight so similar to all of our projects we do pretty robust value engineering specifically on the Madison project we hired a third party general contractor to come in during I think DDS it was and do a constructability review so get another set of eyes on the project and say you know take a look at the design your professionals what is it that we might be missing here on Madison we brought a lot of our key subcontract rates on early so they were able to assist us during the design process and that helped us bring those design downs we always have a third-party cost estimate so we're able to review the different cost estimates so we can see where our costs are aligning in between the projects so those are some things that we do standard not to mention we hire design firms whose specialty typically is K-12 construction we hire contractors who typically their specialty is K is K-12 construction so the teams are really filled with robust professionals that this is what they specialize in real to get a a lot of expertise out of them so and I'll let Jesse provide any additional details you'd like regarding value engineering specifically just how you're addressing the budget Gap oh sure um so we've been uh chipping away at it it's currently about 4.1 million over what we were expecting um just today we had another meeting to look at how much we're going to be metering the building and looking at energy use like there might be another 100 000 in that like we are continuing that process at some point though we have to draw a line in the stand and execute the contract but we still have a number of ideas we're pursuing um and that process just keeps going um we did a lot to try and manage the risk on the project so we you know look at some of the issues that Grant ran into for instance I went through everything Ingles change order that Grant had I looked at how you know some of the problems I looked into and how we could maybe mitigate that and we've made some really specific changes to mitigate risk so that once we start construction maybe we would run into some fewer issues so there's there's a wide variety of things I've got like three pages of notes on how to mitigate risk and the things we've been doing and so I think that's going to be one of the items in the board packet in two weeks as well I look forward to that conversation do you know offhand the size of the contingency for the Madison project uh uh yes it's about 15 million dollars in owner contingency right now and is that consistent with other projects we've done or have we been increasing that contingency as we've been seeing construction costs Rise um it's consistent it would be it's
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about eight percent of construction or is it eight percent of total project costs going into construction that's a little bit lower than what we've started with traditionally but we're also setting this contract a little bit later than normal which should have helped mitigate a lot of risk and so it's a it's a calculated move there's some science behind it but it is a little bit lower than we would like roughly 15 million of the owners contingency outside the GMP contract the GMP contract that's going to be coming forward has another six million in there that we call contractors contingency to release four specific items that we run into because that total 20 to 21 million is lower than what we would like to like to see at this point in time we have program contingency outside the individual projects and that total is approximately 20 million dollars right now so we've effectively earmarked five million was where we would really like to be at to supplement to the Madison project if and when needed if it's not needed that those funds will never be transferred over but that's what those those program contingency funds are there for and as we forecast the cost for the full program we have been forecasting spending that 20 million dollars and the way that that structure is set up is it is specific for effectively the four modernization projects can I just finish it off on that point I appreciate that um background I think it's it's it's really important to keep the pressure on keeping the cost down and it's really easy when these contingencies are good you're right they're not they're not huge it's really easy to start saying well but we've got that if we need it and and take the pressure off um but I would really like to see that continued effort and and even potentially team up some really big decisions right to keep the project on um you know on budget and sometimes that means we just can't do what what we wanted to do originally so we have a actually a pretty decent sized list of alternates as well and that there are things that we you know if if we do go forward and there is a decision that you know what you absolutely have to stay in budget no matter what we could defer working on the fields we could defer working on the stadium there's there are options they're not options anybody in the school Community likes it's probably a a board decision to to choose to do that but we have a list and we've got a time frame of when we have to make decisions um so that's data we can be feeding you throughout construction so that we can make informed decisions about where the budget stands and I'm assuming the bond oversight computer Bond accountability committee weighs in on these on this this conversation do they provide suggestions through this this value Engineering Process we've we've provided uh a presentation to the bond accountability committee about the process that we went through so the the team went through I'm not sure how many weeks maybe six weeks of relatively structured value Engineering Process where the entire project team comes in and I just want to clarify that's not a handful of people that's dozens of designers and engineers and Consultants that go through this and with our stakeholders and a group that that all the project teams rely on to help make decisions that the district would want to make as the steering committees in this case the Madison steering committee and what that is is a group that's basically a cross-section of leadership across the district also has board representation uh and has subject matter experts in the room so when we're looking to make a decision like a tough decision we often rely on the steering committee to help give us guidance versus going if it's a situation that needs to go to the full board I'm just gonna follow on this comment because it's a topic I wanted to um raise um so appreciate all the work on the value engineering and really looking at innovative ways to deliver the project um at um at its current budget um but in the overview that we received about just the status update it had a number of things that were under consideration that ultimately were decided not to be pursued that were would have um change the scope of the project and produce some savings and some of those appeared to be ones that were based on the Ed specs and I asked Dan whether or not um if there was a change in ad specs that it would come back to the board and your response was that once we approve the master plans they don't go back to the board for scope changes unless there's a material change from the approved master plan and I guess I'm I'm concerned that we as as a board although it was the previous board made it just made some decisions on sort of equity on educational specifications both outside of the buildings and inside the buildings that we agreed when we realized that the
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budget was going to be more than was anticipated we just made a decision to build the schools that we promised the community we would build that would be Equitable um and that would have cost implications but we weren't going to build reduced schools or different inequitable schools and hit the hit the target which is why we went over so my question I'm a little bit concerned when I hear things might be deferred and things that we had considered would be sort of Base across all of our schools that we knew it would cost more money but that that was important that whenever whatever neighborhood you lived in you were going to have a similar to the extent possible we stick to the Ed specs so when you say unless there's a material change is um what what's your definition of that is that a deviation from the Ed specs and I consider a deferral to be deviation I mean I think the Roosevelt Community with their CTE would say like we don't you know we're still waiting for that so I'm concern that deferrals ultimately may become they don't ever happen so I'm interested so the criteria in which something would come back to the board and for for a discussion before those decisions would be made sorry that was a long yeah that's a great question uh I'll back up a little bit and answer a little bit with process so when any project when a cost estimate comes at any point in time and it is higher than the previous or higher than the budget the design team the project team goes through process to identify how can we get back into the budget in this particular case they went through a process and identified I think it was somewhere in the ballpark of 40 million dollars of potential ve or just scope reductions after reviewing the process and what stakeholders are going to the steering committee 18 million of that that looks like those are good changes that we can take we can reduce costs and we can keep the program and we can keep what the master plan shows for the scope so those were accepted and that design was changed and moved forward with that going beyond that would have been a change to the master plan and the Ed specs so that would have needed board approval so that's where we had the discussion is do we try to reduce scope below what was approved master plan come to the board and get that approved or do we think what the direction is because from the project side we don't have a lot of opinions on this we are trying to make the decisions that we think decision makers would make we're trying to reflect back what we learn uh and so and again using the the steering committee as the sounding board of saying no we think we need to hold the line with the master plane and the Ed specs and proceed forward with the full design and then mitigate those costs and manage that risk so that was the decision had we elected to proceed forward with a deferral or reduction of scope then we would have come to the board for that approval because that's a material change so you would consider a deferral as a material yes okay great um yeah um I want to thank Jesse for inviting me to sit in on some of those meetings and I'm not a construction professional but I can assure you that the agendas were dominated by value engineering that was like 90 of what we talked about um and again my opinion when asked on that was yeah to the Ed specks it would be incredibly unfair to you know put off doing the fields or the stands or some of the other things that were on the list just on on this point real quick I I just want to put on the table that there is there is an opportunity cost and there's an inequity um of making the decision to to to to do what we're doing even as costs go up and and so I just you know I'm not disagreeing with with previous board Direction on this to sort of maintain those specs so that we have equality among the schools note as long as the board has accepted the fact that that doing that even as costs escalate means you're putting off other projects for students and there's a huge inequity there of students who won't get a rebuild school for an extra two four six eight maybe even 10 years so there is inequity on both sides of this so I don't want to pretend that we're we're adhering to an equity principle by making sure that every school has exactly the same we also are deferring future uh and and you know potentially a whole generation of students that don't benefit from some of these things so there's an opportunity cost on both sides and I'd like to make sure as we have these conversations we keep that in mind as well important point I want to move this conversation along director Moore closing comment well I have a question
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um so are you seeing on the summer projects the smaller summer projects are you saying the same kind of cost escalation in those projects that you we're seeing in the the major modernizations I without having a lot of specific data and short answer is yes I know in particular our Roofing projects have gone up significantly um a lot of projects not just ours we talk around it's what ends up driving a lot of cost is competition where we would love to get five or six or ten bids on something we're getting one or two uh it's just or none and certainly when you go to larger projects you build it in smaller pieces and we have those problems as well and that's something and that's something our our professional cost estimators are telling us as well it's just this the lack of competition the lack of availability out there is driving up these costs so yes we are seeing it it might not be as acute um but we were definitely saying a lot of cost increases roofs in particular I've gone up a lot so is this a question of um lack of capacity in the marketplace to respond to what what we're trying to do that is a lot of it in the report The Benchmark report that we will share does talk about that and I don't I'll let people kind of draw some of their own conclusions when the executive summary they point to a lot of Labor shortages and just resource shortages as as cost drivers for for what we're seeing in our bids it's just curious if there's labor shortages why the average wage for construction workers isn't going up by 10 a year and and we heard we actually even had a meeting with some construction folks and um their assertion was that there is not a labor shortage of construction workers and they were surprised when we they were surprised that we were surprised at hearing that um so I I'm really curious like what's I think we're all eager to see that that study sure all right so I just want to note that in the BAC report there was a note that the Franklin uh final evaluation hadn't be been finished and it's my understanding that that's going to be done in the next couple weeks so we'll have that completed correct and the Roosevelt one will be done soon as well and that Roosevelt what as well okay great thank you so much and just um kudos to all the work that got accomplished over the summer we have just such a brief window we usually think about it as just the time when our kids are out having fun but it is just they are in those buildings the minute those children leave and are there until the day before they come back so that's a ton of work going on and good job thank you so much thank you all right superintendent Guerrero we are going to revisit our discussion of board goals this will be our third iteration where we've been homing in on exactly what we want to focus on and could you please introduce this item for us yes I'm glad we're continuing the conversation we knew this would be an iterative process we're picking up I think where the board left off its discussion on what is it that we want to uh measure uh so that we can articulate the specific smart goals which is why you didn't necessarily see them listed out tonight but we're gonna uh we're gonna turn the mic over to and put him right to work uh Dr Brown uh to walk us through this evening's conversation at after a very sobering conversation given that I just moved to the side of a dormant volcano so uh again first and foremost I do want to thank the board for its ongoing work around this and you'll notice that today that the the metrics that I'm going to discuss are very similar to those that that you presented uh and discussed on the 13th and the reason for that is we effectively hit pause for a moment because we have data that's coming to New Baseline data from 1819 which would set the stage for a three-year plan a three-year expectation but that data is under embargo and so rather than replicating 1718 data which is not the true bench uh The Benchmark not the Baseline for that I extracted that data and you'll see that instead I I stuck with what the board had discussed which was an average of about a three percent a year growth so I heard you talk about maybe an escalating two three four but I kept it
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as an average of a three percent growth but I did think that this was an opportunity while we're in this sort of limbo waiting for data to to be released from an embargo to talk about some principles associated with setting goals for the board things that I think can inform smart goals because as is the discussion around the goals has focused on some of the attributes of smart goals quite a lot and maybe not quite as much on some of the other attributes of smart goals and I'm not sure that necessarily talked about how the smart goals fit together in a ladder moving forward and so I want to talk about some of those big ideas and how they fit with the goals that already exist and then really sort of move into a conversation around the importance for continuous Improvement that if we're talking about Performance Management and if we're really talking about this larger vision of what a portrait of a graduate can be there aren't metrics out there that adequately captured the breadth of that so we're going to have to start some place and then build things out over time and that's part of that tension that I want to get at when I talk about smart goals I've seen a lot of attention spent to specificity I've seen a lot of attention spent to whether or not something's measurable and whether or not the time frame what about relevance so if we talk about the portrait of a graduate relevance is really important I mean this is something the community came forward and said hey this is we want something over and above a diploma we want to be able to communicate ways that our students are leaving High School prepared to go into a post-secondary environment with some demonstrable skill that reflects a diversity of ways that kids can show up A diversity of Interest so that's the relevance piece and that's the tension because the stuff that's easily measurable that's aspect it's test that's Etc we need to flesh out something over time that that encompasses a larger picture as we move forward and so I just want to keep that tension in mind as we talk so talking about Big Ideas I think it's important that the goals be sequenced in a ladder if the objective in the end is the portrait of a grad then each of those goals should work in a logical ladder upward towards that so that students as they're moving through school understand students and their families and the community writ large understand whether or not students are moving towards that that ultimate goal of a portrait of a grad and it should be sequential so you know these things build in sort of a from a foundation upward and they they build up in a logical laddering fashion they're not separate they they one builds to another that builds to another that builds to another the last time I I looked on the 13th you guys had three goals that you were talking about and that covered Elementary School you had stuff for for K5 you had a nice goal that I thought was becoming more expansive in terms of thinking about heading off towards the portrait of the grad for grade eight if there wasn't anything articulated for high school I think every school needs to see itself in this I can't imagine the board having a series of goals and the high schools not being able to see themselves in that work in a very explicit fashion and so you'll hear me talk about that that every school as we're aligning their work in the system internal Performance Management those those goals that we're setting with individual buildings should scaffold up in a very logical fashion to the board goals and the community goals writ large finally um really want to talk about growth a lot of the goals are have been framed in terms of proficiency and that can have some perverse incentives in it I mean to be quite blunt yes director Bayway I heard you loud and clear um I think we really do need to be speaking about growth and student growth and what it means to grow all students and what it means to differentially grow students we have to have differential outcomes or expectations for students to be able to close gaps it will not happen if we simply have the same expectations for all so every student should be expected to grow and and as we move forward we should be able to speak with students and their families about their growth expectations irrespective of where they are along the way moving on if every student's expected to grow it's not saying that we don't have a common expectation for students we do we have a common Target for students to achieve we've got this portrait of graduate where we want a common expectation for all students to Excel and it's something over and above a high school diploma it's wonderful that this system has moved its graduation rate it's wonderful
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that we've closed gaps on graduation but we all know in the 21st century as we're moving forward graduation is necessary but not sufficient graduation doubles the students lifetime earning potential but wow going on for post-secondary training can double it again so we know it's a necessary step but not sufficient and and the community writ large has said we want something more for that so when we're talking about more and we're talking about closing gaps for students we're really then talking about differential allocation of resources we're talking about what it means to change instruction to systematically meet the needs of students who have been historically underperforming over time this is changing classroom instruction in a very real and meaningful fashion as we move forward it's also something that doesn't happen overnight and so we can set that goal out there as a start point this sort of throws me off I saw myself over there a minute ago it was the PowerPoint so a little bit of side movement there I'm going to get used to this in a moment first earthquakes now moving pictures anyhow there's a commitment then to align resources to make this happen it's a commitment to create the change in terms of instruction to make this happen to be able to close those gaps again it doesn't happen overnight it's a it's a continuous Improvement cycle that we will have to revisit time and time again to be able to get there so moving forward again everything anchors to the portrait of the grad everything should ladder up to that some of this will look pretty familiar to you again I decoupled it from the 1718 data because the 1718 data isn't the Baseline we will reintroduce the 1819 data as we move forward and we talk about this and we can talk about okay we start here at the start of third grade in the 1819 year three years out we expect to be here based on a nine percent if that's the consensus you can see that again this goal is one that's commonly used around the country this is a fairly common stepping stone for students looking at that transition from students learning to read to reading to learn if you haven't got this by the end of third grade start a fourth grade then you're falling behind and school becomes more about remediation than talking about moving forward same thing in fifth grade the fifth grade metric that we talked about or that you guys have talked about previously makes a ton of sense to me again as kids are leaving fifth grade they're heading off towards Middle School do they have the prerequisite numeracy skills to be prepared to enter into pre-algebra so that they have opportunities to pursue advanced mathematics in the secondary environment we all know that that having advanced mathematics provides greater opportunities for students and allows them a greater set of choices as they pursue both secondary environments the eighth grade portrait this language is unchanged from the last time we didn't have any there was no data anchored to this yet so the language has remained the same I would expect again in a developmental fashion we will initially anchor this to what we have but then we'll have to talk about how we're going to build it out so that as we're thinking about kids going into high school we want them to to start contemplating how they're going to pursue some sort of additional certification or some sort of other evidence that they're post-secondary ready while they're in high school well where do kids start thinking about that they think about that in middle school they start thinking about what their opportunities are and they start exploring those and we need to capture that and part of what I've heard over time is we also wish to build agency we want our students and our families engaged in that process and again middle schools where that agency starts to happen and it starts to inform where I go for high school what I start thinking about pursuing in high school and how I start building that portfolio or resume for when I leave high school that demonstrates not only did I get my diploma but maybe somewhere along the way I picked up a seal of bi literacy where I've picked up one or more AP courses dual credit Etc finally again I took the liberty of reintroducing uh into the mix a metric that would be connected to high school and again if we're talking about portrait regret what does that look like what are some of the indicators and at this point I included things in that that are already existing things that I know that we could likely capture the data for and we could build a baseline from to be able to talk about here's where we are and if we increase participation rates encg or AP or IB Etc we can track whether or not students are are picking up additional certifications over time this is something that we can put numbers to and again I think is closer to the
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vision of a portrait of a grad than where we are again all of the above will require iterative work I don't believe that there's anything that we can any rabbit that I can pull out of the hat or anyone else can that will capture the breadth of that idea at this point in time so we'll have to work to that over time um so goal one and I just want to talk about this in context and I've got illustration here so rather than reading back through this again this is the same goal I was just extracted the Baseline data you don't have the hard start end on this understand that again when we have the data released from the Embargo we'll put it in there this goal actually has sort of two prongs to it and this is something I think worth talking about so one there's a raising the bar component of this but there also is a closing the Gap component as well there are some challenges with this and and I really want to spend a little bit of time talking about that and I I put this in as for as an illustration I am not suggesting by any means that we're only focusing on the average in the African-American and the Yale Al students if you put every student subgroup in there with a line it gets really crowded and complicated and real hard for an illustration my point in this was to show you okay here's where the average is here's where approximately African-American students are here's where second language Learners are and if we apply the metrics that have been discussed today and requiring that that on average students show a three percent increase over three years and that we cut the gap for for lower performance groups between that average and and the and the lower performing group that is incredibly ambitious for these two subgroups matter of fact more ambitious and questionable in terms of achievable than I think anything I've seen because we're literally talking about tripling the proficiency rate for second language students in doubling the professions they worried for African-American students in two years now we all wish to see gaps close but again tension between we want something that's ambitious but we want it to be achievable in terms of a goal and right now when I look at the history of the data for this system the history of the data for the state on S back the trends going the other way so we have to turn a corner first and then talk about closing gaps so I just wanted this to be an illustration I think it captures some of those big principles this is clearly a first step on a ladder we want students to acquire reading skills so that they can read to learn moving forward it captures that every K8 every K5 Elementary building in the system can see themselves in this and we can clearly articulate growth expectations for students on this it also I think as we move forward when we talk about measures associated with this I deliberately picked a picture of kindergartners for a reason I I know those are third graders they're adorable they're always adorable my favorite classroom to go into in any Elementary building is kindergarten classroom um no offense to any other teachers just kindergarten classrooms are really fun so but picking the the kindergarten classrooms was there for a reason because when we're talking about this in terms of continuous Improvement if we wait to third grade to measure this we've already lost we really need to be talking about cohorts of students as a enter kindergarten how we close those gaps through third grade how do we measure that cohort over time that same thinking will apply to the fifth grade model and we again need to be thinking about how do we track the growth of students over time how we grow every student not just kids that are around a proficiency bubble that doesn't serve anybody in the long run so our lagging metric the one that will likely be connected or has to date been connected with the board metrics as you guys have discussed them has been s back certainly can do that we have some leading metrics that could help us know whether or not we're closing those gaps over time the map data NWA will help us with that but I think over overall as we move forward and we have continuous improvement with us we really want to be tracking cohorts of students and whether or not they're on track to meet this goal because we do not want to wait till third grade for them your fifth grade goal same thing same logic s back will be the likely the lagging measure associated with it someone you've been discussing but we'll be looking at our kids closing those gaps over time and we'll likely leverage our NWA data for that one of the beauties of of that assessment I was so pleased to see that that we're moving in that direction is it allows for vertical scaling and which means that I can track a student's growth irrespective of grade without having to do some fancy math to say oh
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does the third grade score mean the same thing as the fourth grade score eighth grade sure or perhaps we could let me get through the whole thing today and then put some questions to it at the end eighth grade again a little bit more comprehensive in terms of how we're looking at it initially again I would expect in terms of lagging summative measures what what's happening on us back in eighth grade that would be a start point for that we also have some measures of social emotional learning again when I think about is a student ready to go to go on to high school well we want to know that they're academically ready so are they meeting the goals on S back in both reading and math Good Start point what about social emotional learning where are they with that because wow Middle School teachers and principals are special people because middle school students are special people at that point in life social emotional learning and really capturing those skill sets and being prepared to go on to high school it's important we often don't talk about that when we talk about reading and math but we don't often talk about social emotional learning I believe we have some components here that we can build into that metric as is in terms of continuous Improvement again how do we start measuring a portfolio of Interest how do we measure student agency how do we start thinking about whether in our our eighth graders are poised to enter High School to develop that set again set of skills are they exploring opportunities are they beginning to build out that with their family as they move forward and finally the career in college readiness which I think you guys had had an iteration of it before and I just sort of reinserted it with a little bit more language again what are kids walking away with over and above a diploma and how do we value the different ways kids can express their interests and talents so how do we value kids who are walking away from our Arch program prepared to go into some sort of post-secondary training connected to the Arts or some sort of post-secondary opportunity connected to the Arts how do we again map out these different Pathways for kids and give them credit or acknowledge the skills and and um preparation that they've accomplished over and above a diploma so again um really pleased to be here pleased to see that there's a foundation of work that is already in place wanted to provide some context for how I think we think about the relationship between metrics rather than seeing them as separate from one other and really trying to get folks to think a little bit about the attention between the relevance of a metric that gets at what a portrait of a grad is versus maybe a more routine metric that's easier to get at but doesn't necessarily capture the breadth or depth of what we're really trying to accomplish and what the community said that they want graduates to have so with that I thank you for letting me uh sort of go through this completely and I'd be more than happy to take any questions that you may have a question I have two questions when will the data be out of embargo did you say that and I missed it we're expecting that in the middle part of September okay that's you did say that and I I actually didn't say that but and then the other thing is um we have the students at the beginning of the meeting give their public comment and they talked about yeah that was very cool the leadership they've done with the climate strike and getting the city permits and so um as part of the fourth goal I'd be interested in seeing how a leadership component could be part of that as far as students doing those kind of activities shocking that I'd want leadership be part of it or in the eighth grade or in the eighth grade as well but I think those are all high school students that we saw for the climate story there have been middle grade students involved as well yes yes we're into The Graduate portion as well but I also think that with the PSAT and AP and IB I don't think those are as important when it comes to this I know that it's an important like milestone for students when it comes to taking tests but um when it comes like career Readiness and like Readiness for life I think that leadership skills and also like you know business classes and classes that are more electives are important as well when it comes to that because I know that I hate standardized testing so much and I know that a lot of students struggle with that too and so having that you know I take AP classes but I don't necessarily my scores aren't very good
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um even though I do well in the class and so like if that's reflecting my onto my like Readiness I don't necessarily think that that's true because you can do really well in a class or in one subject but it doesn't reflect onto a test you know what I mean so like in the PSAT like I do really well in English but I didn't do very well in the English part of the test so like when it comes to that I don't necessarily think it's the best to measure it up I think our hope Maxine was to have a variety of ways okay so it's not that you have to like I mean it can be ridiculous to have to be good at CTE art AP IB and PSAT and Leadership it's it's saying there are multiple you know everybody looks kind of different yeah and we like on this board we have different skills and so it's that idea of having multiple options to measure how someone would be successful and you are an incredible example of leadership right here right off the charts yeah yeah and so you know your AP tests maybe aren't as good an indicator of your Readiness but this totally is okay sorry I just also still don't completely understand all of this yet so yeah no sorry thank you director Lowry for your clarification um so I think kind of following up Maxine's comments um the the first two goals um are pretty cut and dried uh the other two I think were really breaking the mold on um and I think there this could be and I'm just if I'm if I'm out of out of my Lane here say so but my uh I'm thinking this would be a like a planning engagement year on both those goals that we could engage students and teachers in the development of those over the coming year because I I don't think um I don't think we're prepared to take those on right now and that I think it would be if I were a teacher I'd be really excited to see some of these goals not necess and and I kind of agree with Maxine I think with the high school one needs to be fleshed out a bit um but I think you know coming up with some really specific benchmarks around that that aren't test scores uh would be pretty exciting for teachers and you know that then gets backwards mapped onto less plans and curriculum uh I think that's a great opportunity to develop collaboration and engagement and bring that educational Vision to life that that uh I think that's a great opportunity for us I think that's exactly right director Bailey and that that's how we've been discussing it it's a harder it's a harder thing to grasp and to quantify um but just because it's more complex doesn't mean we shouldn't really go for it and it's a nice sort of Next Step from the visioning process to bring together a group of people Educators youth to talk about how do you create a portfolio process how do we make clear to entering middle schoolers with that Capstone sort of project is going to look like where they have to reflect on their growth along a number of areas we would want a bunch of Educators to really help us weigh in on what that would look like and so that will take a little bit of time and what's something we can use for current 8th graders versus incoming sixth graders that will have a little bit more ramp and time to sort of develop that but if you can imagine doing a city-wide process where we would work with our Middle grades teachers so that we're calibrated and you know there's a certain level of rigor that we would expect in these presentations we think we would we would be implementing something that isn't being done anywhere uh that that would could be really exciting work for for us teachers yes and students because if you get students buy into oh I know I am doing this and this is real life stuff not a freaking test score um and I think director Bailey that's a nice segue to the next part of this process which once we adopt the goals to then staff goes to work on articulating the strategies and then we land on the metrics by which we're going to measure how those strategies are doing I think that's right I think we're trying to land on the concept of what we want to measure I mean I think writing a smart statement is the easy part it's what are the things that we want to Value as a public school system
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that the concept of the latter because I really like the interconnectivity of it um but just speaking from personal experience the latter can also kill you because if you're not on the ladder you you you're never going to reach the goal and the problem is if you're not reading at third grade and you're not projected to ever read at third grade how could you ever possibly meet the fifth grade goals or the eighth grade goals and so I I'm interested in your thoughts of you have the traditional ladder which you know we hope you have this natural progression by um setting setting goals that show this natural projection that are sequenced and interconnected um but for those kids who aren't aren't Meeting those goals what is you know sort of their catch-up ladder um and how do we measure that because you know I just speaking from experience you have a third grader who doesn't you know read at third grade and that fourth grade they're not in fourth grade and then it just it goes on and on and I think we've got a lot of those kids and then you have this sort of quiet desperation of families and their students of we're not on the ladder and there's no you know there's no pathway that's going to get them back on the ladder so how how do we using goals get students back on those ladders and you know by just I guess I look at it so if you go back to that chart you had with the um really aggressive goals that you mentioned um we still have students who a pretty big group of students who aren't at those benchmarks so how is it that we're going to measure whether those students are ever going to catch up so um just as a point of clarification I don't believe I'm hearing you say that we would have different expectations we want a common expectation of high performance correct absolutely okay I'm just saying but so clearly it's not a pathway if you're if you're not on the ladder for a lot of students to get ever caught up which is why I've come back to this at least on the start of this when I talked about principles why I think it's so important to talk about growth and to talk about cohorts and monitoring a cohort of students over time because the type of closing the gaps that we're talking about will not happen overnight and it will require a realignment again of curriculum resources to get that done it's not easy work and again the the types of goals that I've seen laid out here to occur across multiple subgroups of systems to close gaps at the rate that I haven't seen happen yet so it's incredibly ambitious in terms of what what's laid out and again going back to third grade for example if you wait to third grade to measure it you're already too late and so it really is rethinking looking at a student's growth over time for multiple years and how do we support students over time to close those gaps so recognizing that this is sort of the metric that we believe if if we're focused on pk3 and literacy development and what a rich program of that work would look like I mean it's really more of a lattice approach and you include all the ingredients that we know make a difference for developing students literacy and probably our chief academic officers come up here and help elaborate on this but when you're placing a focus on those primary grade level teachers support and development the evidence-based supports and interventions the rich literature the extended literacy opportunities The Librarians uh you know go down the list to get to a point to where as a school system we could clinically diagnose reading behavior in any individual student very clinically and know how to very strategically not just address those those developing literacy skills but also engage our kids in exciting ways because we know that you know third grade is is a bit late they're not going to be able to access content if they have those foundational literacy skills that they're already walking into kindergarten with that opportunity Gap present so this is why Early Education is going to be so critical that they are focusing on on those literacy developmental skills to to have that
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strong Foundation but but the exciting part is to really rally the school system around those primary grades and all the ingredients that we would want to see in the teaching and learning environment which is exciting work for us Dr Valentino thank you good evening president superintendent directors so as a superintendent articulated a focus as we move from the initial implementation of our GVC that includes our scope and sequence and units of study more broadly as a foundation we're now moving towards targeting and an area one of the air many areas that we're targeting is our early Learners and so we're consider the concept of a comprehensive literacy system that looks at foundational skill schools as early as preschool to third grade inside of that you will also find efforts to address dyslexia right in a comprehensive way but also create a balanced approach to literacy so all of those components are going to be working in in alignment and in coherence towards making sure that by third grade our students have acquired the necessary literacy skills taxes the rigorous curriculum that exists in the third grade which is a very challenging space for for students third grade and so we know that reaching as one of the things that um Russia said director Brown has said waiting till third grade is very light and so being clear about that what we have to do we have to start as early as we can so one of the things that the superintendent is really pushing for as well is expanding services for early Learners academically and so we really need to do that but beyond that we really need to look at our kindergartners and how are they performing and how are we measuring the progress and growth over time so that we can track that so that when they get to third grade there's a level of confidence that we have that our students are actually meeting third grade standards so that when they get to the fifth grade we know that they've accessed enough understanding in the core content to actually meet the mathematics standards which are quite rigorous in the fifth grade because they're preparing them for pre-algebra work in in math Six seventh and eighth grade so it there is a Continuum of work that we're working on but it was really important to create a foundation so that we can then begin to Target early Learners Elementary grade middle school and high school and then in our Partnerships with our colleges and universities and our support services that will be available for students career that we actually create a through line that works P to career so there's this really is a pedagogical capacity issue um uh to get to a point to where we we can we can almost guarantee uh uh there are some methods for accelerating literacy development in our students but if we're going to run across the system uh the kind of inclusive environments where the Educators can differentiate for students whether they have a special need or their second language Learners or they need to have culturally responsive strategies um all of those things in their toolkit that they're prepared to deploy for whoever those diverse Learners are are in front of them and so um there there's some specific ingredients that we'll have to work towards uh as an organization having the capacity for across every one of our elementary schools the professional development prior to the start of the school year that there really is this intentional focus on differentiated instruction for every single student and director brim Edwards it what I'm excited about is both three and I think about the the kids I worked with last year and some of them are not they're entering fourth grade not having met reading level for third grade and they'll be sixth graders in 2022 and thinking about if they haven't caught up to grade level hopefully they have what this does for them this portfolio starting sixth grade with the sense of like leadership health and well-being Arts pre-cte because while those students do struggle in reading and need that extra support I think there's also something here that's really important to validate the learning that they're doing the expertise they're already bringing in these other areas and that while we I think we all agree that reading and math are fundamental and and what you know the heart of those first two goals are there's so much more to students and that's where I feel like you know you talked about if they're not on the ladder but I think if you know those students if we look at that 40 percent um for our black students in three years that's 60 that aren't on grade level and yet I think there's still places in this goal that will provide success for students as we ramp up to hopefully one day we'll have 100 third grade reading
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and 100 fifth grade math proficiency so I think there's that balance of how do we create space for students that maybe you know we we're not starting with just kindergarteners we have a whole school system and so how do we help those students succeed and meet these goals and this this gives me hope I mean I completely agree which is why our conversation about Equity equity for the Middle grades is really important because um we want the students to to not be just like grinding it out um in classes where maybe they're not being successful um but also having other areas where they could be successful and with our current models of some of our K under normal Kates we don't they don't have that opportunity I mean for me I was one of the first classes of uh girls who got to take shop and that was um like I don't know why do we bring that back but that was we all sorts of things I still have them um but that was really a place for a lot of kids who maybe didn't you know weren't successful somewhere else but or they shine with just the creativity and Building Things um having said that and I would say there's just going to be more frustrating and I think potentially lead to students dropping out if if they don't eventually have success in some of the the most basic academic skills so I I want to build it as an and conversation because um you know just grinding it out with no joy and things that you want to do I I don't think is going to benefit our kids but we also if your students not mastering or proficient in so the most basic skills you know it doesn't work either yeah director Moore um so grinding it out um I I I like the eighth grade um goal um I think it's going to take some work um but I I like the idea that it um I mean it does talk about the whole child what concerns me is that it's pretty late in the eighth grade to be talking about the whole child so what are we talking about third grade and fifth grade and I get very nervous when when we start talking about focusing on literacy in preschool in kindergarten um and you know I'm gonna I don't think you guys are evil so so I'm going to assume that's a good start well you know that's that's going out on our limb there I mean for you don't know me that's so that's a bit of a stretch um so I mean I I have to assume that you know you say these words and they mean things to you um and I think what I'm saying is um I'm guessing the words you're saying mean different things to you than they do to me so I I need I need some reassurance that that we're going to be talking about the whole child when we're talking about literacy too because my nightmare is four-year-olds sitting in early learning classes with flashcards so that they you know by the end by the time they enter kindergarten by God they will know that alphabet um and because it happens superintendent taking away recess is not going to be your legacy is it right so so I mean I'm just you know I'm I'm not accusing you of any of this but I I need some reassurance um I suspect I'm not alone here um and yes so there I can understand that uh particularly during the nclb era wasn't handled where well in this environment and uh so I can I can understand the concern there because there's some other ill-informed community members expressing similar ideas but I'm not that kind of an educator as a trained literacy specialist I can't imagine creating a school experience that's oppressive to our youngest students there has to be a joy of learning and teaching and that's only going to happen when for our youngest students they're in caring environments and so you have to absolutely think of the whole child to have this conversation all the time with my wife a
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25-year veteran teaching kindergarten about you know how you actually instill a forming sense of identity it's almost the same conversation in the Middle grades what I appreciate about the Middle grades is that it aligns with the audacious work we want to do in the redesign um and so it's a good question to wrestle with about how we give students multiple on-ramps to express that they've reflected on their Learning Journey which I think if we do well and it includes components of Youth Development they're going to be that much better that much stronger that much better humans entering high school and a gaining sense of pers of of purpose um and a discovery of sort of what they're passionate about uh that will drive them towards some post-secondary goal and I think as Educators that's that's how we like to think about you know this kind of a more holistic positive uh experience and it's probably a good time to to make a plug here for National School boards Cube conference I encourage board members to join me and a couple senior leaders to visit Middle School redesign work in in Miami which is a little further along than we are and it makes a very heavy it's a very heavy emphasis on the youth development the social emotional learning development given given that those can be awkward years if if students aren't in school environment governments that really help students navigate that developing skill set so so so yes uh we're I I don't think anybody in my team's a reductionist or a didactic educator we feel passionate about this work and believe that we try to be motivated by a student-centeredness to our work no one has ever talked about test prep or drill and skill or all those other assumptions that some folks are making I'm not sure where that's coming from that's not the experience that we bring to the task at hand known to happen so I think I think at the very least as we're talking about these things we need to be careful about how we're framing it um so the other thing is um I I detect so I think you're being polite about goals one and two um it's your first outing so and and so thank you um but I tell me if I'm wrong I seen I think I detected some pretty serious reservations on your part about goals one and two about the achievable part yeah um so I Telegraph that that much is that twitch that started developing yeah and and I can't let this go by director Moore I think you may recall that my first career was a children's therapist so I'm always thinking about the whole child in social emotional development of children and I don't think social emotional learning suddenly pops up in Middle School it just happens to be a place where we really need to attend to it those skills track all the way back um yes I have some reservations about that I really want to spend some time looking at different ways we could model the data to really emphasize growth because every student should have some sense of growth and we should be able to communicate whether or not students are making and at least a Year's worth of growth at a time so that if I'm behind I know that this year I I did what I was supposed to do and if we're talking about closing gaps we can articulate how much we close that Gap over time that may take a little bit more work to get at but I think that's probably closer to the spirit of what I think was embedded in what the board was looking at over time and it really does set the stage then again for trying to communicate success to all students all students should have some sense and some joy in school in some sense that they've had success even if they're not meeting an incredibly High bar set by a career and college rate and a standard which will take some time for many students to get to it's all it's also part of changing culture for the adults yeah yeah so are you are you planning to bring forth a couple of proposals yes okay all right I don't uh director Bailey so uh yeah so I look forward to some metrics that capture the every child's
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as opposed to the just jumping or jumping over the bar yeah um before we close off I think it's important for us as a board to reflect on the process that we've been in um and I've talked to a couple of board members about this but what I say is alone as as my comments uh one is when we started this process we didn't map out uh here's how we get from here to there so we we didn't say we're going to go through a goal setting process it's going to have these steps we're going to get to the end where we've adopted some goals we didn't own that process staff came to us so we did the uh the World Cafe thing which was a great exercise but we jumped right from there into these seem to be our goals more or less um and we never had a step where we said Okay that was a great exercise let's do a brainstorm or some kind of let's get everything out there see where there's strong consensus see where ones so we explicitly because a number of us had different ideas that we threw up there that were never dealt with explicitly um and I'm happy to let go you know I had one on Art we we kind of hey what happened to that and everybody said yeah well that's not her favorite okay I'm good with that but there are others that were put out there that we never said you know what that's not gonna make the cut it's important we expect the superintendent to attend to it but in terms of the major ones that we're going to focus on um that's not going to make the cut um and so we've ended up with a place now and and we're a staff person for better for worse has said you know really you don't want to know what about kind of a high school completion one on there yeah partly but it was a conversation and not uh you know we didn't have a decision in that sense there's there was an ell that was kind of out there for a while the leadership goal kind of morphed into the middle grade and is kind of sneaking back in the high school yergel explicitly for African-American third grade reading benchmark as an explicit goal and there are others of you may have tossed out things as well that we didn't explicitly we might have this is not to criticize wherever we're going to end up but as a process I think we can do better um and better up front as a board mapping out a process feeling like it's inclusive feeling like okay I had my say it made the cutter didn't make the cut good with that um that's my two cents worth if we're going to be a learning organization I think we need to to learn how to do it uh I think it was I think we can do a better process I'm not saying it was a terrible process but I think we can do better we're not done yet and I would say that tonight is another opportunity for further just discussion and evolution and you know for sure people either the comments tonight or as follow-up um should be shared with the rest of the group so like hey I think three of these four you know hit the mark and you know this one still needs work um but hopefully this process is this iterative process is going to get us to a place um you know I feel like oh I hate to lose that ELO goal um but but there's um but it's it's okay I mean we as we continue to evolve the different goals I think at some point um we need to make a decision like hey is this good enough and is it do we think this generally hits the mark and get going versus you know having just going on and on because we need to get after the work but I I do think I don't disagree with you that it was it's been a Meandering process and at points in time um not super efficient or effective at eliciting everybody's point of view but I think we're getting there
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well well I think to get there we'd have to have an open brainstorm put stuff up do a red dot Green Dot kind of exercise or you know do some discussion do a red dot Green Dot you know I'm pretty sure the third grade and the fifth grade are sticking I I hear a lot of agreement about middle grade I don't you know there's probably a fair amount of agreement on all four of them but are there others that might rise higher again it's not that other stuff isn't important it's what are we as a board going to focus on [Music] so I'm thank you for um saying that uh director Bailey I've been new in thinking that I was kind of unaware of the process I feel like I haven't been really clear on the process either I would also like to see some more discussion about the goals the one that I was very passionate about is not reflected here and that's important to me as a new board member but also as the only black member on the school board that that we're not more explicit about calling out um you know rather than saying lagging students that we actually call out who those lagging students are because if we don't call them out we're never going to get to them um I have another just a comment about being a learning organization and I think we are we're doing excellent work here I'm really proud to be here but I'm wondering what we're going to do with the information that we heard the testimony today from I think it was Ms mackham makeham and what we read in the newspaper this weekend about the failure of of the district II to educate black kids and so you know we're a learning organization we have an opportunity now with this goal setting to come out and come out in front to address these issues um they're not they're not new um and I would like to have a little bit more deeper dive with staff and and my colleagues here to you know to to improve what we have in front of us I I um have a little bit of a different take and that's that um I think staff did an excellent job of leading us through this I did feel after the World Cafe that it would have been it kind of jumped for me from the World Cafe exercise to okay these are now the goals we're working on I would have liked an extra step there to have a conversation and brainstorm I think that's the point in the process when it would have been most helpful I feel like at this point we've put a lot of work into these goals staff has put a lot of work into these goals and I feel very comfortable with all four of these goals I think there's some massaging and nuances um and I hear Michelle director of depos what you were saying about how we're not specifically calling out the failures of the The District in the past to educate black students and how do we name that in these goals and be really intentional about that as part of what we're seeking to correct and so for me it's how do we add that in in a way that's helpful but for my sense I I like all four goals I'm ready to vote Yes on the four goals as we move forward and feel like what I need even if we don't end up with a leadership word in the high school one uh that I that I'm happy with like the place we've eventually gotten okay I yeah and I I hope I didn't imply that staff you know um didn't do a great job on this because I think this is I know this is better than we what we had at this time last year um and again I'm proud of I'm proud of the product I feel like personally I could have used an extra step in between our work and being presented a product and because I work in the area of community engagement I'm always um one of the things I fail on sometimes in my own work professionally is failing to let people know how the information that they've shared with us in the evening on their in their free time how that information will be used to inform our our work and so I I think I like the idea of having another step where we're actually doing an exercise and seeing how we're where we're Landing um as a body and I think it would be helpful and yes it would take more time and yes it would take more staff time which I realize is a lot to ask I can I just reflect out loud where we were eight to ten weeks ago yeah didn't have access to a whole lot of data you got delivered to you in a box we started to digest those understand how to read some of these reports frankly a year ago we didn't have most of these metrics we've started institutionalizing some assessments that might actually inform instruction and
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grade level team and Department conversations among teachers we learned what makes a smart goal we spent some time looking at examples of that so that when we get to a point to attaching hard numbers here that that we have a sense of what what makes it rigorous and then we do have Department of Education accountability measures like no matter what we have here we still have to we're still accountable to those our schools have similarly accountability measures and school Improvement plans they they're you know they're a little bit further along in their data literacy because they have to do this every fall and they have the exact same conversations and they have to get really tight about defining what's their Gap area what's the growth Target how are we going to leverage the little bit of discretionary resource and people that we have available to meet those gaps and we're trying to build overall capacity for for getting there and differentiating supports and interventions to our most underserved communities and we have a lot of work remaining to do or we haven't had the resources frankly to deploy the reading Specialists and everything else that we need to do and so part of this process is to hear out not what all those other didactic measures are but what the board values in to to set an aspirational Target for how our work will will stream towards that and so as we begin to kind of think about how a strategic plan with a multi-year business plan attached to it will include some things that any strong school system should have but we want to orient it to the things that the board has said this is the flag we want to put down for the next few years how do we scaffold our work towards it and how will we progress monitor uh towards that work so so if you hear a sort of listening more than sort of chiming it is because we're we we could see that the board is wrestling with how does how is it inclusive enough of the things that the seven of us find important because they address some segment of the work that we need to do or students who through a racial Equity lens haven't yet had that opportunity historically in in Portland Public Schools and so you know you heard Dr Brown talk about we want to strive towards raising excellence in that part but we also want to close the gaps and so how do you accelerate that and how are those things achievable and if we want to get aggressive about it then that's going to mean some hard decisions about what we prioritize and so how are we going to balance all of that is sort of what we'll we'll make for for good future conversations and so Dr Brown's going to be a regular installment here at the board you know as we progress Monitor and continue to do this and in really strategic ways over time but you know I think we've heard enough conversation tonight where we'll take another spin at it and bring it back to you again and I don't think the board should Rush this I think we want all seven of you to feel confident about these reflecting our values and and the communities about what we want to measure that every student is growing up in the system achieving um I appreciate that very much superintendent and I um we've tried really hard to be inclusive in this process and to make sure that everybody has felt along the way that we're getting everything out on the table and and listening to one another so just I want to take director Lowry's lead and see if we can just go down the line um on where people are with the four goals as expressed here so that we can then um maybe reevaluate our next steps but you might not have been in here when um Ailey spoke so oh Julia why don't you go next okay the thank you conceptually I think these are the the right conceptual goals um you know there's a lot of definition I think especially in the post-secondary Readiness that needs to be added um so we have better definition of exactly what that is um I'm with Michelle I'm sorry um director to pass um that I think we need to be really explicit because this sounds way too generic um I think we should say who it is that we're really focused on we're going to help all students but who what students are do we need to focus on the most and I think that just needs to be called out but generally um I think it's the right direction and they're they're in the ballpark yeah I pretty much agree with director Lowry's comments I'm comfortable with the goals um I appreciate I appreciate the comments about the process um I actually did I do think it meant it a little bit but I also I'll have to speak for myself my own I felt like I had an opportunity um at various times to to talk about whether I I wanted to see something different or not um I am I am comfortable with these goals I you know one thing I've said it before and I'll
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keep bringing it up and I'm really glad you're on board Dr Brown thank you these are board goals they're not goals for the entire District they're not everything we're going to measure they're not everything we're going to look at and and I just think sometimes we get caught up in that of like oh but but how are we going to know before they get to third grade or before they get to fifth grade or high school or whatever and even getting back to your comment about you want all schools to see themselves in this maybe but maybe if the board focuses we're actually going to achieve a little bit more because the schools will see themselves in all the other measures that we will have when we have a robust performance management system for the district where all these things the Arts goals the you know entire holistic you know whole student goals will all be there and you'll have access to all of that data um you can see that the vision I'm laying out for you here a few years from now you'll have access to that data at any time all we're doing is a board is picking three of those and saying here's where we're going to focus effort and resources this year next year the year after but three years from now we might change three years from now we might adopt an art school and drop one of the others in order to focus you know on that so and that's these Performance Management systems are they change over time and they should they they are living organisms so [Applause] um if we were going to vote on it tonight I wouldn't be um fully comfortable um so I'm hoping that we have more discussion um sometimes I think you know if I was the queen of the world I would say yes let's get an art school and let's make sure everybody graduates knowing how to build something if nothing else um a cheese board you know or something useful for when we have this earthquake um exactly but so yeah just just tonight I appreciate the discussion here tonight and I wouldn't be comfortable voting on it tonight I appreciate your um responses as well thanks um excuse me can you just Ally um because I don't think we're going to vote on tonight but if we what what do you need to um to be supportive would you need to um as you mentioned before call out specific subgroups or are there specific things that when we come to the table the next time like I need to see that in order to be supportive yeah I don't know that I've I mean definitely being more specific in our language um I think would be helpful for all of us um I mean all of us up here that the people that were elected recently all ran on an equity platform we we all agreed it was important and one of the things I know from doing work in my day job is that you need to you need to be very specific in your language you need to be specific in the populations you're going to serve um so yeah I'd also feel um would like to again have some type of a little bit more process it doesn't have to be a lot but it would be really interesting for me to actually sit down in a work session again with colleagues and staff um and have a DOT exercise for lack of a better term Dr Bailey yeah I agree with uh director to pass um to me um again I'm I like all the goals that's that's not the issue it's more the process how we got there um and to me in terms of priority the reading goal is just there and superintendent Guerrero you've talked a couple of times about sort of a kitchen sink if we threw everything at this um could we even get there more ambitiously because we really you know we're getting an injection of funds next year we're gonna see how sadly how that's not going to be enough that we have so much Shoring up to do a fundamental systems like our I.T system as we've talk talked about that's outside of the classroom that needs to be attended to that's been deferred for so long but if we if we said their reading goal was number one because that's so foundational and we did a kitchen sink you know again not throwing everything there but everything that made sense to throw there what would that look like I'd be interested in being part of that that conversation which might mean as a board we go with three goals not four so I don't uh and what director Scott said I don't think that we need to see every school is reflected in these goals because we're doing
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I think we need to focus on the foundational work that will certainly affect every school going forward as that cohort advances director lateral add more it's because a lot of the stuff that I'm going to be doing is I mean it's important to still keep all this in mind but a lot of my work this year is going to be with the students so thinking more you know I mean I want to go through at least on my own and look more at like the Middle School like with someone else like at the middle school in the high school because the middle schoolers are going to become high schoolers and then you know it's all just gonna it's a circle um but also I was wondering if I could go home because I have to be at school at 7 45 tomorrow to help with freshman orientation so I'm gonna wrap up this discussion we have a lot of staff and have an awesome day tomorrow thank you happy birthday long but good we'll look forward to hearing about it all right director Moore um so I guess um I guess in a nutshell I think they're in the ballpark um I'm eager to hear some amended amendments to goals one and two um uh yeah I mean I think we're I I think we're closing in I don't think we're there yet but um I'm thinking a month but by the end of September we should have this nailed with a couple of couple of more iterations in between all right my only um comment echoing a few others is I think on the first goals first two goals if we were to flip how we State our Focus instead of the emphasis on the aggregate growth but really put the emphasis on who are students that were um really um double doubling down on our strategies for because we want to see accelerated growth I think if we express it that way it makes a difference so thank you so much it's great to have you here as part of this process thank you [Music] all right we do have a lot of Staff members and a few parents up here who have an early morning tomorrow but um we wanted to move into uh uh the next topic around our own board governance and how we want to organize ourselves to conduct our board work and we've been doing a fair amount of governance work together over the last couple of months especially given the opportunity to have a newly constituted board um so we everyone has had a chance to look at the proposed board committees which are not very different from the structure that we have now and then also we want to talk just very briefly about some other relationships that we have withstanding committees and and community committees so I wanted to start it off with the board committees what we're looking at um were is having in the audit committee which is required for us as well as Charter and alternative programs committee uh uh re bringing reprising our school Improvement Bond committee um have continuing our policy committee which is now called policy and governance but I think we're in agreement that governance is a collective responsibility so that'll just be around our board policies and we'll be working with osba on uh revising many of our board policies and that work has just gotten underway um and uh you know we want to talk just a little bit about the expected Cadence of the meetings for these committees because in my time on the board we functioned as basically a committee of the whole without board committees and then um swung the pendulum far to the other side with a really intensive meeting schedule of board committees I think we want to strike the right balance here of having board committees meet once a month the charter committee is different because it will include a focus on alternative programs and policy questions that pertain to those but uh Charter committee doesn't have the need to meet as regularly up until the time when renewals come forward so generally speaking a monthly Cadence and I think at the last audit committee meeting um chair director brim Edwards talked with that committee about moving toward a quarter meeting schedule and that
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committee also has community members on it so I just wanted to open it up for discussion on these committees and if anybody feels like anything is missing this is by our board statutes this is a collective responsibility of the board to decide how we're going to organize ourselves and what board committees we're going to have so all right I need some help cgcs so let's just focus on our board committees can you just tell me what they mean the cgc appointments okay and then let me go so let me go through so I was just talking about our board committees but we also have on here appointments so this would be appointing a board liaison to each of these standing committees so the first one is a representative to the Council of great City Schools the second is the liaison to Head Start then Community budget Review Committee Bond advisory committee then we have these design advisory groups for each of our schools and modernizations so we have Benson we have um multiple Pathways to graduation now that we're looking at the mpg building for um for the Benson campus so we'll need to appoint um Liaisons to those and then we have Master planning processes getting underway for Cleveland Jefferson and Wilson so we'll at some point see the the initiation of those design advisory groups so those are the reason that we have board Liaisons is because there is in each of those Charters or some of them don't actually have Charters but in their descriptions of their work they had they play they have an advisory role to the board so if they have an advisory role to the board then we need a mechanism for how the board is getting advised um and then we also have standing committees we have a spiac which is the special education advisory committee uh talented gifted advisory committee and English language Learners Council so these haven't had active representation from the board in the recent past but again they are supposed to play an advisory role to the board so so we should um have that there's also Deepak which is The Advisory board for title one yeah but I'm not sure yes it has not been actively can I um can I just clarify a distinction that has existed in the past among these different committees um so uh cbrc the community budget Review Committee has as far as I know always been a board committee so membership is appointed by the board the other committees have been in the past superintendent committees so I don't believe they have routinely had a board liaison attached to them um and Deepak is one I we used to have deep deep as well um and I don't even remember District Parent involvement involvement committee um so the these other committees are kind of sitting out there and um I think some of them have been more active than others large and they're as far as I can tell over the last I don't know five six years they've been mostly self-organizing I guess the question I would ask is do we see utility in having bored Liaisons to a support them and B inform us on their activity so I I think so um over the last two years I've gone to a couple of the the meetings and I always learn a lot and believe that it's an opportunity um for us to show up and listen because it's really in some ways their forum and also I think we do our work better if we're informed by what they're thinking I do believe we should get clear on what their Charter is because I think that that's not clear and so the expectation of who are they advising and what's their role um it just every if we set expectations I think things
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will work out better but I I think they're great resources for us and we should better you utilize them I think that's a perfect segue to Jonathan Garcia who's just come up who has been taking an inventory and yeah so just wanted to note that three weeks ago or about three weeks ago we hired our new director of community engagement Chinese clerk part of her responsibility is to actually uh really re-revive some of these advisory councils to really be uh you know advise advising Awards or advising councils to the board making sure that we have accurate bylaws that reflect the um the purpose the the chart you know creating a charter for every single one of these that currently exists and then really looking at areas or committees that we could explore uh that that we can bring new community members uh into the fold right because we know that our process really our our work here is a community involvement uh is is necessary so so again Shanice three weeks ago started uh and she has an inventory of what's currently happening with those advisory councils which ones are active which ones are not uh there's also the my granite Council for example that's uh not reflected there um and a number of others so I would encourage the board you know a little bit of patience I think one of one of my uh in conversations with the superintendent I think one of my uh Visions for the next year is to ensure that these advisory councils um uh come on a regular basis to this board to this uh to this body to share you know at the beginning of the year some of the the goals or you know some of their goals and then really in the spring to say you know these are the things that we have seen accomplished and this is uh you know so again bringing some more meaning to those advisory councils that have not that hasn't existed for for a long time and making sure that you know that there are staff liaison so that really can support uh their efforts so um you know happy to work with all of you on or some of you or all of you uh to to Really re-energize those committees um you also just uh as a as a point of reference you did also approve a five thousand dollar uh investment in really Reviving some of these councils so ensuring that there's you know uh food that there's uh child care that there is all of those things so you did approve that in the budget uh last year we look forward to hearing an update on that work so I did call up osba months ago to say which of these are mandated and they were unable to give me which I thought was interesting because I know dpick at one time was mandated I think through No Child Left Behind but I have no idea if that's still on the books or not depict being a general parent involvement Charter is but it's certainly we have policy that created deepik a okay we'll look forward to that coming back from Jonathan's Department any other thoughts here um can I get some clarification on the budget committee is that going to be a separate committee or does the committee as a whole yes so just we wanted to just add it since the budget functions as a committee as a whole but convened separately um so um you've talked about Charter and alternative programs tell me about alternative programs I've which specifically are you talking about including under the purview and what would the committee do so with each of these board committees I think we want to try to be disciplined about really focusing on agendas that look at policy that will be coming to the board within the the near future we that hasn't always been the case and so we've had some issues that have come up with our community-based alternative programs our internal District alternative programs that really haven't had a venue for discussion I mean even the the facilities issues around multiple Pathways could have benefited from broader discussion around um you know what is it how do we see these programs so there's funding issues that have been really our community-based alternative programs have really been looking for a venue for conversation around funding formulas and such so there are some policies related to our alternative programs that just haven't really found a venue so uh that will be part of the charge we're thinking that it makes sense to have a
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board committee that um looks at those seems a little fuzzy to me right now I'm not saying I'm opposed or four but uh and specifically what the charge is so I'm I don't know if you're looking for decisions tonight I saw a discussion but not decision in terms of board committees just discussion we don't need it's not something that we vote on it's just a board discussion around does do we have General agreement around how we plan to organize ourselves [Music] we have a voted on committees in the past no it's not it's Would we not just I mean we have a list of them here or sign up or express interest in or could we yes once we decide what the Committees are or what they are yeah but so director Bailey one of the things that uh chair con Sam and I had discussed is taking essentially the body of work that we need to accomplish this year whether it's reviewing the charters adopting the budget um approving a bond package and sort of charting it out um across the year and then taking the Committees and making sure they're clearly chartered about what's what's in scope and what's out and the things that aren't in the committee's scope will be full board work for example creating the superintendent's evaluation template um the budget work all things that would be at that level and then being really specific about what the discrete work is and do that through um describing the committee's jurisdiction and then getting agreement on what sort of the the calendar is for the for the year so that not only board members in the community if they want to engage in the the work understand what that uh what what will be hap the scope throughout the year but then also staff are able to plan I mean obviously there's going to be things that there'll be things that come up but most things we can we plan you know every spring we have a certain number of chargers that we've got to review we have a budget that we've got to adopt we know that we're going to be putting together a bond package so really building that out so that there's predictability for staff but also with the community wanting to engage they can see how that's going to how well in that case I think this is the cart before the horse horse yeah um so which way is the horse facing yeah right um it would seem like we would need to agree on a work plan and then the Committees would fall out of that I think there's reasonable expectation that the work that we have before us Falls Within These committees and then one thing we didn't discuss is um we have the ability to create task forces for more topical matters these are not standing committees and I think since we're not planning to have the legislative and intergovernmental committee that we have had more recently the first task force that we would likely convene would be an inter intergovernmental task force because we know I don't know how you're jumping to that conclusion because we have not discussed that right having a task force right and um so I I would argue that um we have a great many issues that would fall under an intergovernmental Affairs entity and I think most of them are of long-standing so most of them have existed for quite a while and I expect that they will continue into the future so I don't think it I mean a task force suggests that it's a a kind of short-term you know very discreet number of of specific issues that that you deal with and then you know call it good you're done and I don't think even intergovernmental Affairs would fall under that um I mean I I think we're not looking at a long legislative session so we you know we might we might need to have some sort of mechanism to respond to something that
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might come up during the short session but I I would pretty strongly argue for intergovernmental Affairs to be a committee okay so another just I'll offer um I think generally when we're talking about things that fall within whether it's the legislative agenda or something that's related to a relationship um whether it's the city the county um that a lot of those things happen at the full board level because of the interest of the full board and so the thinking I'm just my point of view is just that that's something that you then get everybody wants to be on the committee because everybody has an interest in those issues what at least that's what the practice has okay he said the practice has been that we don't do intergovernmental affairs we don't um you know how many how many times have we had presentations from the osm folks um and we and we hear about issues around permitting with the city and you know um zoning issues I mean all of parks Parks I mean there's all kinds of things that um that are out there that um the board is not dealing with in any way um and I think some of these things are significant enough and and persistent enough that um I think I think it would be helpful if the board did have some capacity to to elevate some issues to get some resolution um and I don't you know and if we just wait for it to come to the full board it ain't going to happen I think there's definitely a recognition that we have a lot of matters in that Arena that have not been attended to and there's a real appetite for for focusing on it can I assess the political question maybe I missed it what's the difference between a committee and a task force just that a committee is a standing committee um we're having this conversation because it can be reconstituted as our board has been reconstituted with the but with the expectation that it meets regularly that it has a charter that doesn't change task forces I can do a link it's it's bylaw as a description can be created at any time can have a limited duration yeah okay so it's a little more ad hoc and I'm sorry if I missed this part as well but committees can be committees can be added during the year or they could no they could yep so but all of this is again I just keep coming back to everything we're doing is sort of fluid and flexible right just like the goals you could add a new goal add a new well I think one I I will say um yes and um I think because it takes a fair amount of staff time to support committee work that we have to be cognizant that when we set up a committee that it's starting kind of a machine um and so you know be thoughtful of whether is that the best use of Staff time is this something that would benefit from having some really concentrated deep discussions which you generally have more at the committee level than the full board level and if that's the right place to have it then it's worthwhile so I think that the sideboard should be as you well know excellent point and it creates but it creates the basic structure for our work all right if anybody has any lingering thoughts please send them forward um I'm going to ex oh okay I'm just going to speak to something that hasn't come up it has been dressed but I just want to talk about the enrollment balancing and reconfiguration so this goes to some of the equity related work that we have talked about over the last year and the forecasting work is happening but I I strongly believe um that this work should happen at in a smaller um group at least initially to make a series of recommendations versus having it be at the full board level because this can just could potentially kill us and I I think this this is an example I think it has in the past well I think no I would say when we opened the two middle schools the committee of director Bailey Moore and Anthony really did a lot of very detailed work that neat that had that had to be done
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and then when it got brought to the rest of the board um I think there was a trust in the process that happened um but I you know always finish those votes thinking thank God there was that committee that did that work because you know you're going you know some cases Street by Street or you know looking at you know spending a lot of time looking at really detailed data that um I think is absolutely necessary because we're going to need that on the on the board I just think it's better to have it come from a group that has a really concentrated focus on it versus hey we only have 20 minutes at the board meeting to discuss this but the corollary is then we all have it it'll be important to trust the committee and the recommendations because not everybody's going to then have that same deep level of um understanding but I just anticipate this next year that's going to be something we're really going to need were you raising your hand to volunteer for that again director Bailey well if so yes but I I think um in this taking a step back and talking about governance we've had AJ come out and say don't do that but we haven't heard do this and there's a number of issues that I mean this is kind of an input issue and there's others out there um that fall into for me it's still something I want to talk through and figure out what our role is clearly in this process there were things that would come to us uh for decisions but I I want AJ to come back and continue that discussion very soon so that we get more clarity on our role because I don't have that clarity as superintendent I'd like a little Clarity around whatever committees that you the board decides to land on which of those will require some Staffing um because then that also shifts time and effort of the staff and what we can or can't accomplish with very limited cabinet level of people around all the things that we're describing we want to do so just keep that in mind and that's a really important consideration because we've seen the flip side of that as well yeah I think all of us have acknowledged that from the past our committees were extremely inefficient yeah um and as we structure these committees whatever we end up with I think it's going to be really important to increase both our communication with the public up front in terms of Engagement and with our fellow board members so it's it's more than trust it's also some some documentation along the way and I really don't want to get into the staff doing a big dog and pony presentation the committee and then having to come to the board and do exactly the same thing that's a huge huge waste so just a process question so where do we go from here and and I think when we do whatever we settle on I think each of these entities should have a charter absolutely yep and most of them don't now we'll none of them do it yeah yeah which leads us to our next item which is moving on to the business agenda um just one naive thing I would feel most comfortable with actually voting on these committees I mean I mean he said I think director REM Edwards you said well we sort of have a sense of it if we're going to make a decision let's just vote let's just get it on the record clear and move forward and not slide into a decision do you want to vote on these proposed committees tonight did you want to bring a resolution forward uh because we do need to get um you know assemble well we need to get people home but we also need to start our work uh in our committee structures so I I mean I would be ready to vote on audits bonds and policy right now going forward um the charter I would want to if we're gonna attach alternative programs they want to hear more about that before coming to continue okay let's do this we have round a conversation scheduled in
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the next week about where people's individual interests lie as far as serving on committees so let's um let's have those talks and then we'll come back and we'll wrap things up that'll help that'll help inform that conversation around exactly where we want to land with our committees and chair constant will clarify what advisory councils the board actually wants to Commission because I as superintendent have in commissioned any right or which ones are standing in and um you know could benefit from aboard liaison and some of them are by Statute uh I'm pretty sure uh Deepak the title one is size statute I believe ell is also by Statute I think we're we're digging into we're digging into all of that um okay so before we come back we'll um we'll circulate another proposal around committees have conversations around people's individual interests get the work going um I'm going to leave it to director room Edwards to take us into the business agenda where we have two items that still need discussion okay um should I just start with the two items director constant so I'm going to start with the easiest item that will be the the charter Review Committee um so before I start I'm just going to say we're going it's there's a revised copy I'm sorry the the charter for the audit committee and the inconvenience auditor so um there's a revised version and I thought what I would do is walk this was on the business agenda I think we had some I adjustments over the last couple days um we'll discuss them answer anybody's questions and schedule it for the next board meeting but we do want to get this approved we're about ready to add a second auditor and it's good to set the rules of the road so I'm just going to maybe um our internal performance auditor if you want to come down in case there's questions but I'm going to first just walk people through the changes since it was sent out last week so to start with our internal performance auditor Mary Catherine Moore built this and it was built basically using the foundation the yellow book or the Gaga standards which are common auditing standards also The Institute of auditing The Institute of internal Auditors guidance and our own board policy so there's many things in here that come straight from our own bug policy or from Gaga's I think it's important to realize that um many of the things that are standards we didn't just take out of the standards and put in the charter because it'd be a 230 page document so this is sort of a high level summary this came to the audit committee is brought by the internal performance auditor it came to the committee twice we had discussions about it we also had the benefit of some very experienced external government Auditors look at this and provide feedback so we had the benefit of that since it was posted last week there were a couple things that I'll walk through that were changes so on page two there's a section titled Independence and objectivity and a number four in a conversation with the superintendent we decided that we would add some specifically who the others might be who might and duly influence the auditor and that would be both management and board members so just to be clear that we want to make clear that neither management nor board members should be unduly influencing the auditors um in addition director Moore felt that there was a need to be just even more clear although Gaga's and all the Professional Standards speak to the Independence and the avoidance of conflicts of interest then those are standards that Auditors adhere to that we would add at number five that's here in that same section which is the auditor will conduct an audit by by not being affected by influences that compromise professional judgment thereby allowing auditor to act with integrity
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and exercise objectivity and professional skepticism I guess I should have been an auditor um so um the next page on page three under the section responsibility the number one there is a discussion about the development of the annual audit plan it the sentence ended at the audit committee will then make a recommended recommendation of the Board of Education and I believe this was director Moore who added which will provide final authorization so just providing that Clarity even that that was what the intent was but just to make it absolutely clear that the board provides the final authorization moving down the document number seven there was a missing word thank you director Moore the words PPS um and under management responsibility there's just some cleanup wording under the section report of irregularities in a discussion with uh superintendent currently if the um the superintendent is believed to be a party to abuse or illegal acts the auditor will shall report the acts directly to the audit committee chair which is what our policy calls for but in the discussion with our superintendent we've added who will share with all members of the Board of Education so while we that was at my insistence for the record so I say we might want to go back in our policy and make that clear added clarification as well because I say that can't just came directly from our audit audit policy um down in scope of performance audit activities Number Three director Moore suggested adding I think it's which we thought was understood but just being absolutely clear that activities and programs that are being inducted on funds expended in compliance with applicable laws and authorized allocations so also looking at the Fun side of things and then there is uh this is under the scope of performance audit activities number 11 um it the sentence started with resources are acquired economically and uh the superintendent suggested adding School District resources I think it was under um we felt it was understood that resources were the public resources but this is to distinguished say from a funder Foundation we're at number 11. I don't I don't oh acquired economically like in an efficient way it's auditor lingo [Laughter] IIA book okay we'll stick with it um for a good price fairly yes that's right so then the next session section and this is more auditor language director Moore but views of responsible efficiency is it officials is a term of Art um okay and this next section uh the superintendent um also had a question just to make crystal clear who's responsible for the creation of the corrective action plan and the implementation and that is very clearly management managers manage and Auditor's audit so while the auditor will create findings and make recommendations and could make recommendations for the corrective action plan that the responsibility for the development of the corrective action plan and the implementation is management so we thank you for that not that this would ever happen with our talented internal auditor I don't also actually have to agree with the findings or write a corrective action plan correct just for the record well it throws down the kotlin [Laughter] um and then in the same section there was a good question that was asked about the last section here and again this is something that came straight from our audit policy which we may want to clarify but it's talking about um contracted Audits and it says in the case of Contracting audits audits may be released without inclusion of a response and what this didn't include is the language that you see up above is sometimes there isn't a management response because management doesn't respond and that doesn't mean that audit doesn't get released so what we've done is just made clear that whether it's an
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internal audit or a contract audit there's the opportunity for a management response it's within a set time period if within the established time period the audit isn't um or the management doesn't respond that the audit is released but that is that fact is noted in the audit report so um I think that's a clarification and that is it in terms of the the uh let me just finish my sentence um it just that's it in terms of suggested language that was provided there also were a number of questions that um I think director Moore had provided in advance and so I don't know if you want to ask them now or um I I have one simple question under quality control and peer review it says get the auditing standards require an external review every three years and by whom there are actually um external reviewers that are in gagas they listed five of them and the one that usually does the school districts is the association of local government Auditors the auditor of the auditor yeah so that's like basically ensure they're following standards and best practices okay right exactly and for what it's worth I think we it's worth noting here that because we have an extremely small auditing function which will hopefully soon be two people that um that will be a very aggressive thing for them to be able to do because the stand most audit shops are much bigger and to meet the standards um which are rigorous okay okay um okay I had a bigger question um and that is um the in the in the scope of activities in that section um it's um it's pretty expansive and it's not clear to me what uh what the focus of the activities will be or if there are any limitations on the kinds of issues or activities or programs that would be considered within the scope of responsibility for the auditor as opposed to somebody else so and here's my essential question what is the if we're going to be if the plan is that we're going to be building capacity for evaluation program evaluation and and performance evaluation what is the difference between the evaluation function that we're building and the auditing function that we're building so I'd like to reply first to that um so we are scheduling a work session um around the work of the audit committee because this is these are employees that report to the board and the audit committee has gotten off and running and we now have a scope but we want to take a couple of steps back as a full board to really talk about what does this function look like which is Jermaine to your question what is the purview what is inside the purview what is outside the purview so Deputy superintendent Hertz is going to come forward with some best practices around the audit function in school districts that I think are going to get to the heart of that that question and the answer to your question is really to be determined by all of us in terms of how we decide that we're gonna um structure that and do you want to say anything more well it's just the we have the system performance team that is evaluating student achievement and more closely tied to instruction and having that expertise similarly to when the secretary of state did our audit last December last January it came out and when instructional leaders here tried to explain to the Secretary of State Auditors the improvements that are being made instructionally it wasn't necessarily something that they could since they weren't Educators it was harder for them to understand how improvements were being made there was if you will a translation Factor so the question is really what goes before internal audit team versus system performance team and we now have both
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groups in in the district and looking at auditing with um processes procedures operations Financial certainly it's about performing well for instance Contracting is one we're currently on the current audit plan that we're working on where it's looking at our instructional contracts with um community-based organizations working on instructional Improvement for students but it's really the internal audit component is looking at the metrics that are in place and making sure our systems are in place for evaluating those contracts so that there can be an overlap but really trying to come back and provide examples and and offer information to guide discussion with the board so we're also I appreciate the interest of the entire board and the audit function given that it's all of our responsive responsibilities and I know that in addition to the soon to be two internal performance Auditors we have we also have a Community member who's on the audit committee who has a lot of expertise who's already shared information uh with auditor more sounds weird yeah the other the other more that is a high level like what's the function of internal performance auditing how it differs I mean Kari guy who's the with the city of Portland and on our audit committee is very clear Auditors audit managers manage and it's very different I think also to give you comfort I hope is that the Auditors are going to be auditing or doing undertaking reviews from a approved audit plan from the board so there's not going to be auditing that occurs that's not within the scope of the the audit out of plan I I mean I I appreciate that and I know we're going to be I know it's written in here that the board would approve the audit plan but if if we're going to go to the bother of having a charter I think the purpose of a charter and and I think every committee ought to happen the perfect purpose of the charter is not only to say what the committee is supposed to do it's also supposed to sort of delimit the scope you know kind of clarifying at least implicitly if not explicitly what the committee is not supposed to do um and I mean I'm perfectly comfortable with the explanation that that we just got about the distinction between an audit function being essentially operational Financial you know looking at systems and the and the functioning of the systems and controls and and that sort of thing as opposed to an evaluation of an academic intervention for example um so to your point I mean they are very clear and we've just pulled out some of these but if you go to the independence objectivity you know the very first point auditor should not provide non-audit services that involve performing management functions or make management decisions and which I don't really understand what that means pardon okay I mean is that the auditor's audit and managers manage right okay but that doesn't that doesn't speak to what they're supposed to be auditing well there's there's a whole list of things that they're supposed to be auditing there's nothing in here that stipulates I mean just to put it most explicitly there's nothing in here that that indicates whether the auditor would be looking at what would be auditing an academic intervention and looking at the the effectiveness of an academic an instructional interventions so effect number two pretty much says the opposite or at least could be read that way and actually can I just ask director Moore for just a little more clarification on your concern there because I actually think a performance auditor would look at whether an academic intervention that the district put in place had been effective different than saying here's something you should do differently right that's not the auditor's job but it would be totally totally appropriate for a performance Auditor in a school district to say um the district puts something into place two three years later to come back and say did you get the the the benefits from that that you that you thought you would and that that's what a performance
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auditor does and I would say a system performance would then also offer suggestions for improvement so that's the difference is not just only identifying what needs to be improved but then going the next step and with having the expertise to suggest additional ways to improve right so so in that case I would argue it would be more efficient and effective to have this system performance evaluation address that question as opposed to so one of the things what a performance auditor is doing is actually and it should be duplicative of what good management is doing I mean good management is constantly looking around and saying what are the problems and what are the things and what are the controls that we need to be putting in place the performance auditor is just more independent from that and and has frankly just a little bit more time and space to sort of take a step back and occasionally point out things that that staff because they're really busy running the district may not have may not totally agree with you it would be more effective but I those things are not mutually exclusive so that suggests to me is that we still are grappling with Clarity around the role so do you want to suspend the do you want to make a motion to delay vote we're not we already said I'm sorry while you were going oh I'm sorry I already said that this is a discussion and yeah um okay it's an important discussion and I appreciate all the work that's gone into this I want to like make one other point is that the title of this is Charter for the committee and for the auditor and I think there's one or two committee things in here but to me not a a charter for the committee is is not reflected in here um and I think it would be helpful to have a separate Charter for the committee as opposed to interweaving those two together okay that's that's doable I do you need you need to leave the references to the audit community in here because they're the the place where the auditor the the direct engagement for for the auditor but you you very much could make it this is more of a Timeless Charter versus this is this is what we're going to do this next year but your board is well taken that we'll have a template for all of the Committees that will eventually have their charters in so so for example I think a charter would include what's Public public engagement around the work again in a general way what's the expectation around engagement and I don't see that reflected in here this is very um standard for an audit internal performance audit Charter we can I don't know Mary Catherine again I'm talking about the community not not the auditing per se correct so I think what just to go back to the the committee discussions for a moment that um director constem and I had talked about is having some set templates so that there's common reporting from the Committees that comes comes out and so I would expect that there'd be a similar template for the work of the each of the Committees and the task force so that there's a commonality that staff has the expectation has to work and then how things get reported at the board level okay no no no I I agree I think we need to come to those agreements up front so I'm uh I'm and again taking a step back at a bigger process I haven't been in leadership in my two years which means I'm left out of a lot of discussions and I'm looking for I'm going to ask you two as our leaders to figure out how to spread the wealth here on some of those discussions are is the expectation that the two of you would come up with a template and present to us or would you engage us in that discussion for example and we don't need to have that here but I just want to plant plant a flag on that yeah question what I would say is um distributive leadership allows a lot more work to get done so people should jump in and I can't jump in if I don't know the conversations right well we have to get our
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commission so yeah yes okay so I'm saying yes yes good point director Scott yeah director Moore did you have anything I had a separate section A different subject but okay um in the in the views of responsible officials and actually this was your comment that I agreed with and I appreciate that the end of the end of this and I hate word smithing during these meetings but I I do go ahead but I'm going to do it anyway I think that um it does get a little confusing at the end to just say in the case of contracted audits they can be released without inclusion but if no response is is received then then we'll note that I'm wondering if it's just easier to say because we're really applying the same standard of both at the very beginning a final draft of each other report weather performed in-house or contracted out shall be delivered to the manager responsible for the audit engagement blah blah because we say in here already that if you don't get a response you can publish it so the answer is yes okay I'll send you something so okay great and then I do want to just second because I think the superintendent's point is is actually really um as someone who has written you know uh responses that disagree with the auditor and said I'm not going to do a corrective action plan because you were wrong it's actually one of the most important parts of the audit process and way better and healthier for an organization than than leadership that just says sure sure we agree with those findings and doesn't do anything with them so that's actually a really healthy dialogue that the Board needs to have so thank you and even the auditor is not in her head at that yes they can disagree so uh question is 15 working days adequate time because I you know we've we've got a lot going on here we're not a a we're not at a smooth flying District level and to have to kind of drop everything and resp you know we've seen with the state audit what that took in terms of time for response so we had a discussion about that and the one thing this is again language straight out of our policy um so just that's where it came from and the discussion that we've had with um the other Auditors is that an internal performance audit function is different from an external um performance audit in which they're sort of you know dropping it on you and then here's um you know come back with us you know right away with it with an answer when you might have not even been participating in the findings and the process is described from with an internal performance audit is there's ongoing interaction I mean the Auditors are District staff um it's all with one objective which is to make PPS better and that the dropping of an audit on um it's just not how how it happens with an internal performance auditor there's ongoing discussions and um usually a very collaborative approach because they're working with their colleagues same question internal auditor spends six months developing findings and then I have 15 days uh you know so you know there's an equity issue there but but I did ask and you know what I learned was this is kind of a standard timeline and if the process is as you described then we would be in the know along the way right this isn't uh an I got you processed internally right and that I got you yeah I mean there should be no surprises because really I mean one of those one of the things I think a key difference is instead of waiting till the end of the audit and like hey you should have done X it is um a continuous process Improvement so they're not going to see something you know in month one and then not report it to the end like you could have made this process Improvement three months ago it's really um it's very different from an internal performance auditing standard than hey we're here to do the audit and then when we're done you need to respond and you don't have any sense of what's happening in between but it's no no there will be ongoing communication with the process owners this is recorded live no we do I do not want any surprises and that is something and also Gaga's the state that there has to be transparency so it will be an ongoing communication so it's not going to be a surprise um the new number five under Independence and objectivity
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um how is that stating anything different from number four and it's um actually may I may I comment on that actually uh I would like to remove number four and replace it with number five [Applause] wow because that kind of gives us can I words method because it's it depends sorry I what how would you like to Wordsmith it it's just feels a little I'm sorry to be critical but it's a little tortured you should read Gaga's the whole thing is our responsibility is to be clear um I would try to say the same thing but just more affirmatively so you I mean they're getting a couple of comments from others so I think you send them forward yeah set them offline so the next time not to change not to change something just like the auditor will not be affected by influence that compromise professionals judgment thereby alone once you send language I would like to move this next week we should have our Stan this is all part of standing up the audit function um not next week but our next board meeting um we have a new auditor coming on board I can't imagine I'm gonna have an issue with the language you send is there anything else we're going to have a work session to have a broader conversation about the audit function so the question I believe from director Moore was can we suspend the vote on the charter until after we've had that discussion well if it gets scheduled next board meeting because one of the things is we've now had an auditor um that this got brought forward three months ago and it um couldn't get on the the board agenda and we should have some pretty clear public guidelines on what um how the auditor is going to operate and what the standards are and the authority um it's best practice so if if the conversation is going to happen at the next board meeting yes but otherwise then we're another month into thing and we have in into the work and we have an audit underway and it would be good for not only um the Auditors but also other staff in the community to understand um what the standards authorities Independence and objectivity is I would say to director Scott's point that we are fluid and we can make changes I think we've done a tremendous amount of work on this Charter so we can vote on the charter I'm suggesting we vote on the charter at our next meeting and then if in our discussion at our work session we come up with any material changes that really are inconsistent with the charter then we bring some changes forward to the charger Charter I think we've done the bulk of the work on the charter through this process and I would like to just state that the purpose of the charter is to really Define the internal audits purpose Authority and responsibility so those are the things that is in here and there there's um like I said a lot of this information came out of the policies and the Gaga's book and also the IIA standards so it can be been reviewed by some of the best and most experienced Auditors yes that too thank you so director Bailey if you want to send me some of your language from four and five director Scott you're sending me some language on something else is there anything anybody else all right thank you everybody for your input on this um with apologies for the late hour we have another item that was pulled from the business agenda so um do I have a motion to consider resolution 5956 which is the resolution authorizing the naming of the new Lincoln High School Athletic Field the Mike Walsh field so moved director brim Edwards moves do I have a second
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second director Moore seconds um all of you have before you a slightly amended resolution so the only change are just the uh um excuse me um so the only changes to this resolution are the additional two paragraphs um the Board of Education agrees to extend the naming rights of the Mike Walsh field until 2038 or 15 years from the point that the new athletic field is ready for use and be it further resolved that the Board of Education acknowledges that this generous investment for academic supports of student athletes at Lincoln High School is the first step of a district-wide effort to supporting the academic needs of student athletes with focus on our historically underserved and often marginalized students of color and every one of our comprehensive and alternative schools and be it further resolved at Portland Public Schools engaging with the fund for Portland Public Schools will work to identify additional fiscal supports that help eliminate gaps in academic achievement for student athletes and support PPS student athletes in attaining college scholarships so this is just an important addendum to the original resolution that acknowledges with gratitude this gift to the Lincoln Community from a generous outside donor and also brings us back to an intention actually that our District athletic director has has had for several years around creating a structure of supports for student athletes in all of our high schools increasing College scholarships that come into our student athletes and um really creating a robust program of supports I want to join director Scott in the wordsmithing uh and so there's just a one little grammatical error on the second line of the first added paragraph which is effort to supporting the academic needs it should either be effort supporting or effort to support yes so which which do we like it's yours effort to support okay any other comments at some point we need a motion to amend the resolution oh yes so so we have our original motion I would move the amendment second director brim Edwards moves director Bailey seconds the motion to amend the underlying resolution any comment on the amendments all right um seeing none [Music] all in favor of resolution 5956 excuse me all in favor of the amendment to resolution 5956 yes all right any opposed okay no abstentions um the amendment is approved by a vote of seven to zero um now we'll take a vote on the resolution as amended or that do you have any board discussion as amended just uh quickly I want to speak to the just overall resolution I want to thank the Walsh family I was on the board when they made their first donation in the early 2000s um in honor of Mike Walsh and I also want to note that I fully support the additional language that's been added so as a district that we show up equitably for our student athletes um there are two additional there are two items that I spoke to the chief engagement officer Jonathan Garcia about um one I'd like and while we're approving the superintendent signing the agreement um I've asked for the uh the donation agreement there is a small diff there's a difference between what the resolution says and what the um which is to support athletic programming but in the document that we received from Mr Garcia it has that the dolls were used to support student athlete eligibility including but not limited to Athletics tutoring academic mentoring study tables and one-on-one support so just much more specific so I'd like to see the agreement and also another topic that um Mr Garcia and I discussed was now that the fund is up and stood up starting July 1 that we were going to have sort of a policy package that would come to the policy committee to discuss you know a topic that a lot of people in the community are interested in which is sort of fundraising and how we do that
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in an equitable way in order does really our community is very generous and how do we do that in a way that really supports all our students so I want to thank Jonathan Garcia for the openness and the willingness to um engage in that discussion going forward because I think it'll be a great one and this this is a great donation for us to kick off our our work with yeah I also want to say thank you to the Walsh family for uh continuing their generous support of our students all right call the vote on the amended resolution all in favor please say yes yes a post no abstentions the resolution is passed by a vote of seven to zero we have one I believe this martinek is ready [Laughter] to stay till the end I I did sure that so one more outstanding item from the business agenda and this is sort of a more a formality so that um we have done our due diligence as as a board there was a contract that sort of outside the normal process was added to the agenda um today and it's it's now been posted but it wasn't posted last week so I've asked Miss martinick to speak about um why it is that we need to consider it this evening and um so thank you for staying till the very end of course um thank you the invo contract um the reason it got to you today is uh there was some miscommunication uh some timing issues we were also waiting for a couple of weeks um for the contractor to return some information in the contract language for us so we missed some timelines there was some miscommunication the um the reason we continued to ask for it to be pushed forward is because these are services to our our students with autism and autism like needs and so it's crucial that they have the supports and services within that first week of school so that's that was the reason why we we did the big push even though we had um missed some pieces so I appreciate that you can't provide services without a approved contract correct to allow that to occur that is correct and just to offer further testimony we're extremely appreciative of info as a partner because uh our initial discussion and bringing them aboard in PPS is they provide a capacity that doesn't currently exist uh in the district and it's a gradual release model so as they work and train our Educators then you know those slowly make their way out but it really is a critical service for some of our most vulnerable kids right I did want to make a comment um I asked our senior director Mary Mertz how the relationship has been going and she um let me know she said it's been a wonderful partnership they've really helped us get our rbias and our bcbas which is our board certified um uh Behavior Support and Specialists we have helped them and they have helped us we have learned from each other it's been a great partnership uh what we are doing this year is we're reducing the contract by a third um our hope is to do it by another third or in half by next year because as we grow our own certified Specialists then we will reduce the contract but it's been an amazing partnership an invo came through at a crucial time for us where we needed that support and we did not have the ability or the skill set at that time to be able to provide those services so that's it thank you of course thank you all right uh lastly do we have any board committee or conference reports oh we need to vote on that contract excuse me of which that's a part so that was not pulled out we just wanted director Bailey moves do I have a second second director Bailey moves director Moore seconds to vote on the business agenda all in favor please say yes yes any opposed no abstentions the business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero thank you very much um lastly do we have any committee reports
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to hear the committee reports um so I have two very brief ones so the audit committee met on the 12th and we put together a draft work plan which I will circulate to thank you I'll circulate to everybody um we had a great discussion on sort of the Essential Elements um over the next 12 months what needs to happen again I'll circulate that we also had an update on the hiring of the senior internal performance auditor and as the board knows we approve that um we authorize that at the last board meeting so that's close to being done we also had an overview of the initiation of the audit that's about ready to start on contracts that was done by the internal performance auditor Mary Catherine Moore we just we discussed and referred to the full board the draft committee Charter um and we also had a brief management update on the implementation of the Secretary of State's audit so that's what happened to the audit committee um so there is this Thursday in the policy and governance committee um there's going to be three policies considered um one hopefully this is the final lap of the professional conduct policy and as people may know we've been working on this for um eight or nine months the last meeting we had great participation from Pat in sort of sharing their perspectives on a couple critical points that I think helped us get to some language that will make it be easier to operationalize in a school we had engagement from the board and staff that combined version was recently shared once again with the Portland Association of teachers they provide additional feedback so tomorrow morning or maybe later tonight I'm going to send it that will be sent out the version that we just got back today be sent out to the committee members I'm going to send it to the rest of the board too and I would encourage board members who aren't on the committee like to join us at the committee meeting or take a look at the um the the the most recent the version that we're going to talk about on Thursday if you have comments um feel free to give me a call or send them to the the full committee because we I I think this will be the meeting that we um send it back to the board for a first reading and hopefully we say we've discussed every word several times I think I do want to emphasize especially with the work of the policy and governance committee that really is important for all of us to look through those policies when we first get them so that we can get questions answered which is not to say that we don't have open discussion when it comes to the board but um it's it's always better to get a running start on it by trying to address some of those questions before we get to the Deus I say any any board member is always free to come to the committee and participate as a board member um the the other two items that are going to be and I just want to flag this for all board members because again they may be issues that you're interested in and um we invite you to come to the committee or weigh in we're going to be considering a policy and this will be another item that we likely will be referring out for first reading it's the healthy and substance free schools and again this was work that was done with um Brenda martinick and her team and I think we're at it we're at a good place with the draft and I want to really thank the committee members and staff for helping us with that so that likely will be coming I think I sent it to everybody yesterday um so send your comments if you've got them and then the third item and this won't be something we vote out but I will we'll send it around when we get the when we have the first draft but we have a request to modify our search and seizure policy and this is something that administrators were looking for additional guidance on not only did they we need to revise the policy but the ad need to be revised and there was a request that it happened before the start of school we we just had the draft now so um I think administrators have guidance going forward is that correct Miss large they do and also I think some of this there's been quite a cue at the policy and governance committee to get this there are many policies that we've been trying to get done by the first of the year so in Mary Kane has been working on it for a long time so we will have just the first discussion at the committee and again I'll share it with everybody and feel free if this is the topic of particular interest or you have questions engage because it's great to
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get the feedback at the front end versus when we bring it for the first reading I think it may be helpful if you could frame concerns when you send something out like we're starting a discussion on X policy here's some of the concerns that we've heard going in especially to to help our our newer board members but even some of our older board members I'll own the old thing Miss large do you want to add something here just to give you some context on the search and seizure policy go ahead yeah again I'm not asking for that now but in the in the in the emails come when it comes we I think we understand good right yeah uh all right any other business for the get of the order I guess under conference and as a member district of the council great City Schools uh we receive an annual report everybody got a hard copy hopefully you'll have a chance to see the array of support and services that they do provide as a result of our institutional membership which includes a lot of role alike convenings for for senior staff in addition to the legislative work and lobbying for funding that that impacts Us in the end and of course we look forward to seeing many of you at the fall conference all right thank you very much um just real quickly um two different things and these are informals and we might want to add to the list um I've been sitting in on climate Justice committee meetings as they've gone through enacting what we supported in the in the budget and in our resolution there's been a lot of progress made where uh I wasn't involved in it with the committee itself of of teachers and staff jointly went through a hiring process that's this close to being finalized to work on curriculum we also discussed at the last meeting the September 20th uh strike and it won't be the only strike Day this year so to start brainstorming with senior leadership about how to support student safety and also ways that we can engage students in school with some prepared lesson plans to provide an alternative for going out on the streets um so it was really good discussion there and secondly again informally um uh our quiet work abdicating around Harriet Tubman middle school and the proposed Rose Quarter I-5 project continues and we've been very strong in our advocacy for students in the school Community there really appreciate it here comes time I had been asked to do a report on our participation in the accelerating board capacity Institute but I think to defer to director Moore's feelings about bringing up Boston and the Red Sox being a sensitive subject right now with their 18 lost streak happening and also uh the fact for real that's for real and the fact that my uh soon to be freshman daughter needs her mom and the cat is apparently out of cat food I would propose delaying that till next meeting all excellent reason for me to say this meeting is a jerk

Sources

PPS Board of Education, Archive 2019-2020, https://www.pps.net/Page/15694 (accessed: 2022-03-24T00:57:49.341831Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)

2019-08-27 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - August 27,2019

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