2019-09-10 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-09-10
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - September 10, 2019

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is this yes all right welcome thank you so much the board meeting of the Board of Education for September 10 2019 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on 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 I'd like to note we have a few changes to tonight's agenda we will vote on the business agenda following the superintendent's report so that staff who are asked to stay to answer questions do not have to stay late also we'll postpone adopting the amendment to the bond accountability Charter until the next board meeting staff is working on a series of revisions primarily to the ethics appendix of the Charter but also that will bring the proposed charter into alignment with other existing structures we will all receive the revised version with plenty of time for questions and comments prior to our board discussion and vote doc director Broome Edwards is with us tonight and will be joining us at the dais shortly tonight it is our absolute pleasure to be holding the first board meeting of the school year in Grant High School's beautiful auditorium we had an opportunity to share dinner with a few students and hear about their experiences here in this beautiful new school thank you for your time all of you to open tonight's meeting I'd like to invite on eight eight and Jackson Wolfe co-presidents of Grant's native Student Union up to provide the acknowledgement of the traditional native lands on which we stand thank you so much Ani and Jackson hello everyone so I want to give credit to Paul Lumley the director of NIA who wrote this land acknowledgement so yeah indigenous people have obviously lived here in the past the Portland metropolitan area is vast and includes modern-day cities such as Portland Vancouver and many others it covers both sides of the Columbia River and both sides of the Laramie River spending into surrounding counties such as Clackamas Columbia won't Noma Washington Yamhill Clark and Skamania in this broad area there were numerous tribes people and villages that honored the abundance that the lands offered we honor their history and acknowledge the sacrifices they made in the metropolitan area the tribes are Multnomah Wasco Cowlitz Catholic Clackamas Chinook Tualatin Calif who you Malala and many other tribes who made their homes on the Columbia and Willamette rivers let us also acknowledge the robust present-day federally recognized tribes of this area the Grande Ronde Siletz and Cowlitz in addition I would like to acknowledge the Chinook nation who has been seeking federal recognition for many years the urban Indian community is made up of tribal diversity that originates from around the country representing at least 380 tribes the urban Indian community has a vivid history made up of people whose journeys have brought them to Portland by ways of forced displacement are seeking more opportunities today these tribes and communities celebrate their heritage showing resilience and tenacity that would be greatly admired by their ancestors thank you thank you very much I would like to invite Grant High School Principal Carroll Campbell up to say a few words about how the start of the school year about the start of the school year and introduce some students who will share what's special to them about Grant High and I'd like to just take a moment to thank principal Campbell for all of her extra duty and incredible work in helping to bring this new building to fruition and principal Campbell is legendary for her attention to detail she doesn't like to be honored like this but she was really such a wonderful superintendent operating from the educational realm and really making sure that the build of the school reflected what the students and teachers would need so you were just a huge asset to that process and we really appreciate it it's it's a pleasure to be here and welcome everybody we've been welcoming a lot of people over the last couple of weeks and there's there was nothing more exciting in my entire educational career of 35 years to open up this building on the first day for students it was
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overwhelming overwhelming joy overwhelming excitement to our whole community to be back here in Northeast Portland I want to invite Santiago Ruby and Zack up here we've got several students here tonight who had dinner with board members and shared some of the things about being back in this new space I wanted to introduce Zack because six years ago I was going around to elementary and middle schools and talking to parents about us going to Marshall for two years some of you may have been at those meetings maybe but it was really kind of it was hard to imagine like what that was going to be like Zack was in fourth grade and we had an open house at Marshall so people could come in and see the campus and ride trimet because their 4th graders were going to be freshmen at Marshall at the Marshall campus and Zack came out to Marshall with his parents and walked around and then sent me an email and asked me if he could be part of the planning for the modernization of Grand High School he was a fourth grader he is a sophomore now so he has been involved in this as long as I have so the other person in the building that's known about this project six years ago it's that Golson he's a little shy but I would like him to say just a few words about what what he likes about this building and then just pass the mic down to Ruby and Santiago yeah well it's truly been incredible to see how beginning the design being on the design team and then getting to come to this new school and see really what and what's come of this it's very very incredible and it's wonderful thank you hi I'm Ruby one of my favorite parts of this brand-new building is the community spaces like the conference rooms upstairs it's a great way for my peers and I to connect and collaborate on different projects we're all working on [Applause] hi I'm Cynthia I'm a junior here and what I like about this school is I like all this natural light that we can see here we don't have a lot of lights on we just looking around here a lot of light I also like the auditorium and the gym like just being in this part of the building is amazing it's just so nice and schools really nice I'm we're very blessed to be here thank you thank you so the great thing about my job is that I get to work with amazing people like this and just take this opportunity to thank all the members of the community city of Portland school board taxpayers anybody who worked on the bond this is the the fruits of that labor to see students come to a space where they really feel cared for and included and it demonstrates to them that we really value their education so I feel really fortunate and I'm grateful for all the students that are here today and all the board members and anybody who showed up tonight to see the new building there'll be lots of other events going on here and you're all welcome to attend thank you all right thank you very much superintendent Guerrero would you like to share your excuse me I'm sorry we're gonna head with our student comment for this evening miss Bradshaw my first time saying your new name do we have any student comment hmm iris Hodge welcome my name is Shirley Ornelas Reis and I am a proud 2019 graduate of Learning Centre and I want to thank the board and superintendent girl for supporting contracted community-based schools like Mount scott Learning Center that ask you to speak up just a little bit please I'd like to share a little bit about my story I have six siblings and as early
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as middle school I would always have to take care of them after school and make sure they were okay my mom worked very hard to provide for us but it was important for me to always be there for my family although my family was not able to graduate high school she always stressed the importance of going to school and having hopes and dreams anxiety and depressions were big obstacles in my life growing up having to take care of my siblings and put them first all the time contributed a lot of my anxiety and depression I didn't take care of myself and by the time I entered high school I was a total mess and wasn't even thinking about graduating I was going down the wrong path and starting to not care about school I was completely off track I heard about Mount scott Learning Center through my brother who graduated from there in 2015 the school had really helped meet him so I decided to give it a try from the moment I walked into doors at Mount Scott I felt very welcoming and supportive the staff provided me with so much care and appreciation they greeted me and the other students each day and put us in a positive mood to learn they were constantly checking up on me and were willing to give me a chance to just let my feelings out with giving without getting judged or push away I no longer felt like I didn't matter math had always been a struggle for me but when I came to Mount Scott the teachers taught me in a way I couldn't understand and were really patient with me I had never really got a passing grade for math but eventually started all A's with the support I received at Mount Scott I learned to love myself and to keep going no matter what obstacles come into my life this past June I graduated from Mount Scott a year early with a four-year scholarship to Portland State University this would not have happened for me at any other public high school I'm starting in the pre-nursing program at PSU later this month and I'm a part of the Conners program which provides mentoring and support to news first-generation Latino students at Portland State my goal is to graduate in four years and move on to OHSU and to be a role model for my younger siblings to show them that they can also be successful in closing I want to thank you again for having options like Mount scott Learning Center these options are keeping hopes and dreams alive for hundreds of PBS students each year miles Scott has definitely kept them alive for me thank you so much congratulations on your future plans hello my name is Thomas Bodmer and I'm an extremely proud student at Mountain Scott Learning Center this is my senior year and like most of my classmates I previously started attending a PBS high school and I'm here to share a little bit of my story in support of Mount scott in the other contract or contracted option schools the differences between my freshman year at my previous school and now at Mount Scott are staggering I started my freshman year struggling at Franklin with a number of issues at home including neglect and abuse like most other students and I also made the decision to come out as transgender and identify as male all of these issues made it extremely difficult at time to focus on schoolwork it led me to think that I would never succeed in any school system in a big high school was closed to 2,000 students it was almost impossible to get one-on-one from a teacher unless it was after hours with 40 other kids also needing help just like me in a span of two months I switched between four different school counselors people would only respect my pronouns when I corrected them and work would only get done if it was rushed and not even partially right with straight A's in every club were straight FS in every class it was clear that there was no way I could bounce back while juggling everything else that was going on it got to the point that I pretty much gave up because no one was going to help me with the issues that I was having at school and at home I took it upon myself to look for another school option where I could get the help that I needed and luckily I discovered an on Scott Learning Center and it was a perfect fit for me at Mount Scott I was immediately greeted with kindness and understanding the personal attention given by the staff allowed me to provoke as' on schoolwork pushed aside and you know other struggles that my previous school in the midst of one of the most challenging times and difficult moments in my life Mount Scott began to something for me to look forward to
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every day at Mount Scott I was not only seen but I was heard all those previous us eventually turned to passing grades and I began experiencing success in high school for the first time now if I remain focused and determined I can graduate on time at the end of the school year this is something I never thought was possible until I started attending mount Scott Learning Center last year the PPS deputy superintendent and chief of schools visited Mount Scout and met with me and a small group of students we were asked what PBS can be doing at its large traditional high schools to help make sure students like us didn't transfer to small contracted schools like Mount Scott the answer is you really can't duplicate what Mount Scott has at a large traditional high school we need the smallest and the uniqueness the community in the personalized learning environment that schools like but it's where we find hope and it's where we feel safe in it take this stink I usually works for the mic thank you I just want to thank you both for sharing your stories and being so candid and open I also graduated from a alternative high school and I think it saved my life in a lot of ways and I'm just I'm really proud of you for being the first in your family to finish high school and go to college and I know you'll do well too thanks miss Bradshaw do we have more public comment we have iris Hodge and Ginny price good evening my name is it sounds like it is I just wanna thank you for letting me share our story tonight so my son was diagnosed with ADHD in second grade he had troubles in general ed settings really like the second day of kindergarten he didn't do well with the fast-paced and packed classes of PPS schools it was a great school I he just didn't do well there he struggled behaviorally but consistently read at an advanced level for his age I didn't know how to help him and I felt like no one cared I felt like he was slipping through the cracks and I just had no options by the time my son began middle school he had cycled through five different schools each time he got to a school they either lacked the resources to support his learning style or shut down and transferred the special ed program separating him from whatever friends he might have made he absolutely hated school which is heartbreaking from a mother's perspective he believed he was a failure and thought that the system was built to make him feel bad and now it kills me as a as high school approached we heard about Mount scott Learning Center and decided to take a tour the class sizes are small and the kids are treated like important parts of their own education my husband and I were overjoyed when my son started last year at mount Scott he was rightfully concerned but immediately he reported how awesome the teachers and staff were and how for the first time ever he liked school by the middle of his freshman year mm-hmm he had been voted student of the week which was the first time in his life he'd been acknowledged for his educational efforts and it inspired him to finish the Year Strong I am so proud of the progress he's made while out mount Scott Learning Center and I can't imagine where my son would be without the support of the caring and amazing staff in closing I did want to make an appeal directly to superintendent Guerrero and members of the school board it's an appeal for equity for the nearly 2,000 students that are served each year by
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Mount scott and the other CBO's these are your students and are arguably some of the highest need students in the district yet the resources allocated to serve them are considerably less than traditional schools and the in district alternative schools unfortunately the message being sent to these students are that they are worth less and my son is not worth less the district's long-standing partnership with the CBO's has been spotlighted as a national model for positively reinstates but for too long the contracted option schools have been left out of the funding discussions that could have positively impacted their students I'm sure discussions are currently underway on how to best allocate the millions of dollars in funding available through the recently approved Student Success Act which I was happy to support as an engaged parent but what is all that funding good for if the most vulnerable students are not getting access I respectfully request that you make sure the CBO's are part of these early discussions and continually engaged as these fundings are being allocated lastly thank you for recognizing that different students have different needs and that not every path to graduation looks the same [Applause] my name is Jeanne price and I am a parent of a 4th grader at Rose City Park Elementary School and I'm going to read a petition that we have been circulating throughout the school I'll just I'll just read it so we are parents of 4th graders at Rose City Park a PBS elementary school our students currently have two classrooms with 34 and 35 students we believe that all students will be underserved by these large class sizes the PPS P 80 that's the Portland Association of teachers that contract spells out class size goals at every grade level with 28 students as being the threshold number for 4th grade so we share a common goal we you know as the contract and as parents we want to help support students learn in the best environment possible and we want to make sure that student safety is our first priority sometimes students with small behaviors get caught early and in a larger classroom sometimes those aren't able to be caught or they're ignored because there's other things going on that the teacher has to pay attention to and that could cause those behaviors to grow and have a bigger negative impact also with so many students teachers may not be aware of bullying going on or smaller acts of violence in the classroom like theft or damage to property and of course besides being safe we want students to learn and thrive in their classrooms many of these students have IEP s and 504 plans that require more individualized help that will stretch the teachers that have such large classes students who are struggling may not get the extra help and attention in order for them to succeed academically and socially students who are at performing at grade level may not thrive and the higher achievers may not be challenged students with sensory needs are already negatively impacted auditorally and physically with so many people in one small space students with attention issues may have even more trouble with such a busy big class additionally our Rose City Park community has students with individual medical needs that are harder to manage with larger classes in PBS's new staffing model released in 2018 the first identified goal was quote to ensure schools have adequate staffing to maintain reasonable class sizes our current class sizes can hardly be I you know be classified as reasonable at this point large class sizes can least lead to a host of problems for teachers I'll finish up okay so reducing class sizes a 2007 study in the American Journal on public health found that reducing class sizes may be more cost-effective than most public health and medical interventions so we know that PBS is looking at overall district needs and we
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know that underserved communities need help first but we are also asking for our help for our students and we do want to say we have extra space in our class in our school for an extra classroom and that would that's our first goal would be a separate classroom but we also are amenable to an assistant they could help with both of the large classes thank you your constant to our last public comment speaker could I just have a Deputy Superintendent Craig Cuellar raise your hand if you can make sure to have your contact information as our board knows we're carefully monitoring our class sizes across the district particularly after the 10-day count he'll be able to provide some direct communication regarding Rose City Park on in that regard thank you we are acoustically challenged tonight because neither of us had any idea what you just said I just wanted to make sure our last public speaker had our deputies contact information so we could keep her up to date right next we have Mike Bauer and Blanca strode the state of our climate at Cleveland High School what color is my face pink pink because I'm a little nervous delivering this message to you green green with envy standing in this beautiful new school or is it red red with heat and frustration given that me and my students are working in temperatures exceeding 85 degrees in spite of the cooling temperature cooling weather good evening school board members my name is Mike Bower and I'm here on behalf of the 100 educators and 1,600 students at Cleveland High School I'm here this evening to make you all aware of the deplorable environment in which we work and I'm here this evening to ask for action inaction is not acceptable first the facts Cleveland High School is more than 100 years old so the temperature extremely is extremely inconsistent throughout the building many days the temperatures in the main building is at least 10 degrees difference from the East Wing the East Wing addition which was built in the 1970s has neither adequate heat when it is cool nor ventilation when it is hot during the first two weeks of school classrooms in the East Wing were hotter than the temperature outside classrooms were 85 to 90 degrees with absolutely no airflow see the teacher purses fans in the window when winter approaches the opposite issue exists classrooms will hover in the low 60s or lower last year we talked for two weeks starting two weeks straight wearing down jackets woolen hats and gloves my colleague downstairs decorated her door as a giant Frigidaire most rooms require the use of a portable heater just to make it bearable we use humor as a mechanism to survive the days but survival should not be our goal when considering the students learning environment the poor conditions are a barrier to our students learning we ask for a high level of critical thinking students cannot concentrate under these conditions outside the classroom door the environment is also deteriorating rusty radiators waters missing ceiling tiles backed up sewer pipes in the bathrooms members of the school board the educators and students of Cleveland high school are asking for immediate action to remedy the unacceptable unacceptable temperatures we endure in our classrooms more than this we would like you to commit to fix our school building both in the short term and with a vision to rebuild Cleveland we welcome you to join us in the building when the temperatures hit these extremes so you may fully understand the magnitude of these issues and experience the learning conditions that face our students and the working conditions that the professional
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educator professional educators endure thank you for your time good evening everyone my name is Blanca strode and I am the fifth grade Spanish immersion teacher I can send elementary I am here today to speak in support of my coworker my friend and my sister my sister strode my Islamic art oh and her daughter miss Kaylee McCarter in my four years working for Portland Public Schools and my 15 years working for Beaverton School District I have never seen a more dedicated educator than her in her 21 years of service to PBS maestra mikado has done everything possible to ensure that her students get the best education possible for this reason I was devastated when I learned that her daughter Kaylee has been excluded from attending Franklin school with her cohort I cannot comprehend how little appreciation and gratitude has been given to someone who has been a positive role model for hundreds of PPS students and Families let me tell you this is not simply a case of a family not getting what they wish for this is a situation that involves a life-threatening medical situation my esra Mikado has had multiple brain aneurysms that have forced her to take medical leave in the past unfortunate mysamma Carter is currently dealing with extremely medical issues however in such a difficult time a time of our certainty and stress Maya stroma Carter did not have the time to be selfish even when she was not sure she was going to survive her brain surgery she was worried and thinking about her students and their families so please help me understand why a family who has been dedicated to the Spanish immersion program for over 21 years has been told that they are not longer welcome why would you let Haley be part of the immersion cohort for nine years and then exclude her why I parents are asked to sign an agreement of commitment to the immersion program when clearly PBS does not have the intention to honor this commitment it is seems to me that PBS is asking something of a parent that they cannot reciprocate to make matters worse the MacArthur family discovered that their neighborhood school with the Beaverton School District would not honor many Kaylee's academic credits in math and world language sending her back an entire year in math and for years in world language as a result her self-esteem is completely destroyed today Kaylee has been clinically diagnosed with depression and it is completely heart broken why do people like these are allowed to destroy a child's dream our enrollment numbers more important than a children's life I'm begging those in charge to reconsider that decision though they there has already been significant damage done to Kayla's self-esteem and development there's your time to make amends please allow Kaylee to attend Franklin High School please and her unnecessary suffering please return consistency and a stability to Katie's life so she can continue develop a healthy cultural identity rooted in community please allow my yarmulke to to have her children close close to her so that when the emergency come her children can be with her please respect
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her years of service and dedication to the immersion program by presenting her projects yield protection letter please do the right thing gracias we have Sarah Adams and vinden s Bella good evening members of the board my name is sorry Sarah Adams I'm a parent to two children in the Spanish Immersion Franklin cluster and I'm here as well to speak in opposition to PPS as rejection of Kaylie McArthur Jimenez inter-district transfer request having been an executive director for the last three years I can certainly understand and appreciate limitations on space and capacity in in certain built space sorry limitations on capacity in both space and service and however Kaylee's situation is unique she is not asking to suddenly come into this Franklin community with zero tithes she is merely asking to remain in the same community of students and teachers that she is known for the last nine years since first grade when we accepted our students position in the immersion program our family made an express commitment to PPS to stay within the program through the 12th grade my family in the broader community understood this to be a mutual promise by rejecting Kaylee's request you have broken that promise to this community this family and most disappointingly to this student not surprisingly this broken promise is negatively impacting the mental and emotional health of Kaylee adolescence is hard enough without being uprooted from your community by arbitrary decisions that fail to take into account all the circumstances in this situation this impact will likely have ripple effects for years on this student to come that you committed to nine years ago and finally from a retention perspective I would like to note that Kayla's mother my Sarah MacArthur is one of the most dedicated and professional teachers that I have gotten to know she has dedicated more than 20 years to PPS and I think it's fair to say that part of why she has stayed this long is because her child has been enrolled in the immersion program within PPS broken promises like these will not encourage our best teachers to stay so I employ implore PPS to honor its commitment to Kayleigh to her classroom in the entire dual language immersion community by giving her back her rightful seat in the classroom and so that you can see I'm not alone in these sentiments thank you thank you thank you okay I attempted to reach out to you on several occasions to discuss discrimination against students of color on all occasions you did not respond the decision to me is completely yours and I have no choice but to respect it however the excuse on why you won't meet with me given by your legal counsel that I don't have kids in the district is flawed it is this kind of closed-minded thinking that hurts all of our schools yes I'm a Beaverton parent and no I don't have kids in this district but I deeply care about the success of all of our kids in schools and I firmly believe that there's no place in Oregon where educational opportunities should be limited on the basis of skin color and zip codes furthermore you are failing to see the power that comes between districts and how these between cooperation between districts and how these partnerships have a direct positive impact on kids staff and communities second as you aware we are preparing to file a class action discrimination lawsuit to seek resolution and federal court oversight of this district you and I both know this will take time but the disparities and kids dropping out is happening right now if it is for this reason I am partnering up with schools and Portland Public to get much-needed resources to these students and staff now it has been reported that you may be discouraging
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staff involvement with me while I did not hear you say it I'm considering this to be here saying I would like to get ahead of this if you are indeed doing it or plan to unfortunately other superintendents have used this tactic before but I plan and organize accordingly so you can throw whatever roadblock you would like but just so you know I will go through everyone because our increase in community involvement partnerships programs student and staff support can be the difference between a child graduating or dropping out and when you deprive our kids of this you aren't just taking away quality education you are taking away their futures thank you for your time [Applause] superintendent Guerrero would you like to provide your report to the board and the community good evening everybody when I started this it's nice to be here at Grant High School we're off to a terrific start terrific start this school year I'm very pleased to say that the first day and week of school has has been by all accounts one of the smoothest in recent memory I think we've heard a lot of testimony regarding that particularly from our school leaders many thanks to everyone because that's only possible from the work that our teachers and school administrators our bus drivers our nutrition services staff central office support staff and everyone who showed up in a big way for our students so that they would have a positive start to the 19:20 school year and one of the schools I was able to visit that first day was starting here at the newly modernized Grant High School and I am gonna spend a couple minutes gushing a little bit further about the campus that we're sitting in here tonight because yes every one of our school and our students deserve to be in a safe healthy modernized high school we were here early on that first day to welcome the media given a lot of interest in the reopening of this fabulous campus some of you also notice I had the privilege of breaking in the beautiful new basketball gym just down the hall as well and this past Saturday one students had had a week or so to settle in here at the school we welcome to the the broader school community and what a fantastic showing it was at the grand reopening this past weekend with over a thousand guests who were estimated to have been in attendance it was a powerful reminder both of how many people it takes to make something like this happen and how many students and educators this school community has impacted both in the past the present and in future generations the ceremony included a number of student performances including the Grant High School bands and the choir the Royal Blues thank you for your performances thank you - director Bailey R Grant High School student leaders in two principal Campbell who each articulated what grants modernization means from from their own important perspectives among our speakers were the elected officials whose leadership and partnership are crucial as we continue on this journey to bring every PPS student a learning environment like we see here at Grant my thanks to congressman bloom and our mayor wheeler Cherica Forry who of course demonstrated her grant school spirit on this day as we shared in our remarks we are incredibly fortunate to have the support of our broader community as we physically transform our school system and for those who were unable to be present at the ceremony this past Saturday we have just a short video to recap the grant reopening to give you a sense of the experience today is generals day [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that's my dad senior class president 1945 but today really represents an important milestone for not just the Portland Public Schools but also our cities a great day for the generals as a beautiful building here and taking
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advantage of it or what [Applause] [Music] I'm so proud to be part of the first graduating class who gets to experience this new campus so many more opportunities for my peers at night to collaborate and cheer on our fellow generals it's modern but it keeps some of they old and is there anybody here that doesn't doubt the Grant High School is truly one of our great historical treasures in this community [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I think the message sends is we value education and we're investing in their future and and the futures gonna be right a great day to be sure and work continues we are in demolition mode at the Madison High School campus we have poured the foundation at Kellogg middle school and we will begin work at Lincoln soon in downtown Portland these are all important milestones and each one is worthy of celebration ultimately our students and educators benefit from these modernized teaching and learning environments I have another big topic that I wanted to touch on tonight which I know that the board and the broader community we're going to spend a lot more time getting in to the details about and that's the Student Success act a couple folks have commented on it tonight already work across the state and with school districts are starting to commence now in the planning and engagement phases of Oregon's new Student Success act as you probably know the Student Success act as a historic reinvestment in public education that will result in about 1 billion dollars annually in additional funds for k-12 some folks obviously as we learn more are getting a sense of some of the details and parameters there but about half of those monies are intended to be part of what's being referred to as a student investment account I'm going to talk about that in a moment about 20% of that is intended to be a down payment or in a healthy installment and early education and about 30% for some statewide education initiatives to be determined some of those monies are going into what's called an educator advancement council to support our teachers statewide so so school districts in Oregon have now started receiving guidance about the expected process for determining how these funds will be invested at the local level staff has started to become familiar with these requirements is now starting to develop a process and a timeline I wanted to touch on a high level on a few things knowing we're going to get into many more details and upcoming board meetings but there's five priority areas that are outlined for districts to to address as part of a needs assessment and our community engagement process these include reducing those academic disparities for our students meaning students mental behavioral health needs providing equitable access to academic courses allowing students and staff to have sufficient time for things like collaboration with other teachers and staff opportunities to review student achievement data grades absences discipline developing strategies to ensure that at-risk students stay on track to graduate and fifth strengthening partnerships many of these touch in areas that we've already had ongoing conversations about so if they're pretty much in line with some of the things some of the areas that we want to prioritize as well let me share a little bit about the timeline that's been projected at the state level for school districts and you can see why everybody's really ramping up at this point but from the advertised advertised timeline here you can see there's a very short runway for districts to complete all of this related work assets today we began a weekly series of district leadership level meetings led by deputy superintendent hearse Hertz who's serving as our executive lead on this effort along with partnership from our other deputy superintendent dr. Craig Cuellar yesterday we had just an initial meeting on the Student Success act with our labor partner leadership from Portland Association of teachers but we know that school districts are busily learning more from the Oregon Department of Ed regarding the requirements for this process and staff expects to share those details with the board particularly around what our approach will look like
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here in Portland but it will certainly include advertised opportunities for stakeholders across the broader community to provide their input and feedback so please stay tuned for more details at an upcoming board meeting and on our soon to be launched website website page regarding Student Success act specifics and how we will work collaboratively to determine the wisest investment of these resources in PBS so we want to ensure everyone that there will be multiple opportunities and ways for stakeholders to lend their input the board and community can can look forward to these details and inviting those interested in Wayne in our intent is to host opportunities for community members to be engaged this fall to build off of what we learned from a spending plan this last year hearing from school communities regarding what was important to them but also building off of our district's vision development process as well and like in our vision development process our engagement efforts will focus on elevating the voices of families and students of colors and deliberate ways the Student Success act prioritizes priorities map well with many elements of our own vision and our emerging multi-year strategic plan the Student Success act should be seen as another initiative as much as a welcomed important way to fund the work that we know that we need to do especially with the regard of reducing and ultimately eliminating opportunity gaps for our students so we have much more work to do and to report on in the coming days and weeks community members will be able to track related information and news and announcements on our website shortly finally just to give a sense of where the superintendent's out and about some of some folks know that I will be speaking at the city club tomorrow evening to share a little bit of the state of the district and where we are in our journey as well as Thursday which is our first gathering of all of our school leaders at their Leadership Institute meeting and it's the first gathering some classes have started and our school administrators will be diving deeper into some of their own professional learning and leadership as well as an opportunity to dive deeper into our graduate portrait which is a key component of our vision so I'm also excited that we're kicking off two additional professional development series this year one that's tailored specifically for assistant and vice principals of our school so they have an opportunity in a forum to come together in a professional learning community as well as a more informal opportunity for central office leaders and staff to hear and learn from leaders reflect on their own career journeys I'm happy that I'm honored to be the first featured guest at this month's leadership talks and that concludes my report for this evening thank you all right all right thank you very much superintendent we will proceed to our business agenda we have mercifully adopted a new practice which is to move the business agenda toward the front of the meeting so that staff who are present to answer questions from the board can go home after we dispense with this business so thank you director Bailey for prodding us to make this change at this time the board will vote on its business agenda miss Bradshaw are there any changes to the business agenda mrs. Powell okay do I have a motion in a second to adopt the business agenda director Broome Edwards moves and directors Bailey and Scott second adoption of the business agenda miss Powell is there any public comment on the business agenda is there any board discussion on the business agenda I have one note I wanted to make on the business agenda is that we have an item that concludes the discussions we've been having as a board about the board committees how we will process our work coming up and that's been posted listing what the committee's are but we've also had a fair bit of discussion around creating a task force on enrollment balancing and equitable programming across our schools so the discussion has been when will we constitute this work there's some staff work going on in that area now so we just stay tuned I think we'll be pulling that together within certainly within the next six to eight weeks that's my only note any other discussion on the business agenda all right the board will now vote on the business
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agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions seeing none the business agenda is approved by a vote of 7 to 0 with student representative lateral voting yes thank you at this time I'd like to invite HAP Courtney Wessling director of government relations to provide her update and before you begin Ms Wessling I'd like to ask director bailey to just share a bit of news with us regarding our vote to refer the levy to the ballot so it seemed to be an appropriate time to comment along with the superintended about having the first real injection of new money into schools in more than a generation a couple of generations of students more than my lifetime as a parent and it's incredibly important that we also renew our Local Option levy in November in fact the local option lovely will bring in slightly more money than the new money that we expect to get from the state all the roughly ninety million dollars a year that will bring in in the first year will go directly into the classroom for teachers and student supports so encourage you to vote YES in November Thanks thank you I'm Courtney Wessling director of government relations and this is a little belated but I think we're still in the sweet spot where I can give you a legislative update it's not it hasn't been too long so as you know our long legislative session wrapped up at the end of June for those who don't know we have long budget sessions on the odd years and we have short five-week sessions on the even years so we're getting ready to go into a short session which always makes me kind of happy but I'll get to that a little bit later so I have an agenda for you and I guess I'm in charge of this did I do something wrong Brian is there a trick oh I just have to go the other way okay I have to be smarter than the remote okay so for the agenda just real quick we're gonna talk about some of the key k12 investments obviously the Student Success act but I am not planning to spend a lot of time on that because we're gonna spend more time on that in the coming weeks and our superintendent just went over some of it other pertinent legislation from the 2019 session specifically want to call out the employee employee misconduct work and the pers changes just because they're pretty hot items or at least focus items for us and and then some important dates coming up for the legislative work okay so the key k12 investments House bill 50:16 bill numbers probably don't matter that much to you but I'm putting them on here and so that you can refer to them if you want to on the legislative webpage the House bill fifty sixteen is the state school fund that's our per pupil spending that comes down a formula from the state we had I see that I missed the the percent increase but I do have that number for you it's nine point seven percent more than the last biennium so just a little less than ten percent from this for this year last biennium was eight point two billion measure 98 which we all know has been a really great investment in our you know I guess eighth grade through high school because they've changed they made a change after the fact after it passed to include eighth grade so that is getting full funding and the way that that's working for this year is OD e put out some guidance saying we want to fund this starting this year so they took a little bit of money from the Student Success act and front-loaded it to make sure that we can be working towards full funding for this year so it's kind of confusing but just know that two hundred million dollars from the Student Success act is being is covering this this school year 1920 so that's what that second bullet means and then I think just so you guys know and it wasn't it wasn't talked about too much here but the Student Success act is a tax and I'm gonna get to that but that does not start flowing until January of 2020 so that is why there's no with the exception of the measure $98 that's
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going to be coming later and then do you want to ask questions do you know when where PPS is actually going to see the money from the SSA I was in a meeting recently for my day job and the information this is somebody from a different district and the information that they had was that the school districts would not actually receive any money until November I haven't heard that what has what's being told to districts at my level is you'll start seeing money in time for the 2021 school year so I don't know yet what that what that's gonna look like I think we're gonna know more soon but I know that they can't collect the new tax revenue until January because they have to set up all the systems to actually do it at the Department of Revenue and then you know the fiscal year starts in July so that's that's what I know right now the timeline of deadlines we have for submitting a needs assessment and a plan we wouldn't see a disbursement of funds probably until July at the earliest so one thing we'll need to discuss is how to forecast investments and things like human capital when we want to front-load some of that hiring for our school community so we'll be coming forward with some more specifics about not just quantity but but when we can expect those investments to hit the district and so that pivot i'll pivot to Student Success act just to give you that quick so it's four hundred seventy five million student investment account for the 2021 school year that's for the state we the number that's being thrown out for the first year for PPS is thirteen approximately thirty nine million but I think it's all gonna shake out but it is a monumental investment and so I think I I don't want to give too much leeway to people but I think we need to be patient with OTE and with other departments who are doing the work because is this is a big deal and they have a lot of systems to set up to make this work and so I think we're gonna be getting I know we're going to be getting a lot more guidance as as they step up because they just they just hired staff they're just getting started the tool kits that are being shared with the community are still in draft form so there's a lot of tweaking happening right now which is you know can be frustrating but it's also exciting and we can give feedback so if you back you know we'll take it we'll take it to them well I'll give some feedback right now there's a big difference between July and November yes you're right in number two's you're talking about November 2020 right so I mean if we're not actually gonna have any cash in hand until November that's gonna big implications for our budgeting discussions yes number two I don't want to sound ungrateful and I I do I am I'm deeply grateful to the legislature for finally at least attempting to address 30 years worth of disinvestment in public education at the same time I think it's important that we all understand the limitations of this money thirty-nine million dollars for a school year in Portland Public Schools is not a life-changing amount of money I will take every nickel but I think everybody needs to understand that this is a down payment on the disinvestment this is not going to be one and done this is I hope the first installment so I just think people need to manage expectations yeah that's a good point it's not it doesn't get us secured yeah I'm the quality education model but it is a nice it's it's a good thing it's getting us closer and then the other big couple of things I wanted to mention on the facility side investments on the facilities side are the organ school capital improvement matching grant which we've taken advantage of for the 2017 bond and likely as we continue to go out to modernize our schools we'll continue to take advantage of that program it seems like a drop in the bucket because I think like 8 million but that's a project so it's you know that's a piece of a big project so I think it's important to keep that in mind and then the 100 million precise degree have grant for the seismic rehab grant program which we've taken advantage on I think to date we've had seven awards for that program through that program so we're very happy that they continued those two programs
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yeah was that at Madison yesterday and I could see that money in action as they were drilling sized pins into the earth to tie down medicines on a slope and it that's where the gym comes down from the building and that whole Bank needed to be stabilized on one side I got one picture inside the auditorium where you can see out because it's again exciting to see so Student Success act everybody's favorite topic so as you know there it's a new commercial activity tax on organ businesses it only applies to businesses with more than a million in Oregon sales it exempts groceries utilities gas and Hospitals it the preemption on local taxes issue is not something I'm gonna go into because I'm not an expert but it is something that's being discussed right now because what it it it is making it difficult for local governments to do a similar tax to raise revenues so that's a topic that's out there but I think for from my perspective our goal is to get community feedback and go figure out how we want to allocate these funds and it takes effect in January like I said so the Department of Revenue is busy getting their system set up to do the actual tax collection I think the other thing that's important to note that I don't know right now there's no no one is trying to refer this early on it's very it makes me very happy that that's not something we're dealing with so ok and then real quick a little bit more detail about what the superintendent referred to the breakdown of the funds it's a about a billion dollars annually for k-12 education broken out like this 50% to an equity focused student investment account which is a essentially a block grant to districts it's not competitive but we do have to show that we've done the work with our community to to plan for it and get board approval of that plan 30% of that fund of the fund will go to statewide initiatives some of that includes full funding for measure 98 as I mentioned there's some front-loading of that but essentially the plan is to get to that full funding number investments in school nutrition so that we can have more schools that are participating in community eligibility programs so we take the paperwork out of it and you know ultimately we'd love to have all kids eating for free but that's a really big number it's very expensive to do that so this is a good first step other statewide equity initiative so funding actually funding some of these you know the Latino latina Student Success plan the African American Student Success plan etc the tribal work that's been already established but not necessarily funded so that will help fund those and then some other things like summer learning in title 1 schools some other ideas that people had you also mention educator advancement council superintendent that money is part of the OD e budget not part of this just to clarify also to clarify on the 50% equity focused those are some of the suggested yes so we actually have to do our own needs assessment and determine what strategies and interventions we want to invest in those are the four buckets that we are to be there we use mentioned the five strategies or the five priorities these are the four buckets they're very broad you can imagine all the kinds of things you could fit into those buckets and then the 20% for early learning that's a huge amount of money for for what is you know very known to be a good return on investment we know that starting early is gonna benefit our kids long term so there's a lot more coming down through some of the pre-existing but figuring out how best to map out where we're serving kids and making sure we're meeting the needs of the community early learning for everyone's benefit would you explain with oh yeah if I can never remember it's early intervention early childhood special education so if anyone's ever been referred to to for services with a small kid I in fact had that with my toddler when he was having some gross motor delays it was awesome it was free it's free for everyone which is amazing and it helps give parents strategies to figure out how to help their kids get there we had a situation not that you're at you asked me but I'll tell you where we only had one visit we got some strategies and he was just taking his time so sometimes it's nothing to worry about but it's nice to have some peace of mind so I just gave a really good plug for e ie CSE okay so two things yeah that's we used to have a much twenty years ago had a much more robust early education intervention
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early intervention model that that saved us a ton of money mm-hmm and then it got cut but I'm just undergoing some really cognitive dissonance here around how much money we are expecting to get from the Student Success act because I thought was gonna be almost twice as much so if we could get a clear explanation pearl so the early numbers the early estimates that came out from the Department of Revenue back in March when all of this was just being discussed and hadn't passed yet was 39 for a year for our district I expect that that has changed but I haven't seen another number since then I don't know if claire has seen another number but I think we is that it is the revenue different than thought superintendent Hertz is on our way to help you out Courtney okay and again I would like it like this in writing as well as a verbal explanation I would like something in writing as well as a verbal explanation right so so part of the information sharing I talked about as we digest it getting really concrete about what this all means I don't think the general public also understood that everything was going to be so pre-portioned out either but we're certainly crunching what it this is going to mean an exact dollars for us deputy hurts everyone's experience tonight so I'm glad to know that it's behaving all right so the 50% student investment account that is the 39 million and that is confirmed with OTE OTE state school fund personnel director and in particular has talked to us about a calculator they're creating and and we have verified that that 39 million for the 50% yeah there's a pretty consistent number and then the other two are there are too many unknowns and that we have a range of numbers and we are bringing a financial report to you at our next board meeting and we include everything that we know at that point for those other two pots of money as well and I should clarify I think I wasn't very clear that that 39 was for the 50% the student investment account I think maybe that's where I confused folks with the small smallish number it's not all of it it's just for that piece of it one of the joys of getting old is that man when when the acoustics go bad my processing really so good I hope to I'm glad we'll be learning more the gory details this will have a range we look forward to that conversation okay can I ask a question about the 30% for the statewide initiatives do we do we know what the mechanism is going to be for that 30% are these going to be application driven or is it going to be a an allocation the 30 and the 20 or more through a grant process and reimbursement so there will be allocations but it's just not clear yet they don't have the specifics out about the process for each of them they're being created right now they are hiring in the process of hiring the personnel to actually do all that processing and role writing and and creating but we need two applications that will need to complete and so they've got things started but it's not ironed out yet it's still being it's still being run through the system so that there's clear communication to everyone about each step each one of those so there's so many different pots there's we just don't have information on all of them yet do we know when we're gonna know do we know when we're going to know I don't have a specific date I just know how weird we've been told by state school fund personnel at the state level some things to consider so we're giving a low range and a high range at our next meeting but we have our ear to the ground and we're listening and I'm continuing to hear us as steps are rolled out and and you're coming to the board with our preliminary plan around our own budget planning and
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how we integrate these it's on the 23rd - that your presentation I guess because I also this is gonna be the largest and just the mechanics of getting it in place technical Corrections made this and I think I don't well we may say it's not enough to accomplish what we want for our students I think we should recognize it as a massive investment and a billion dollars in new taxes along with a new mechanism in a long time and I think captured thing we want that the legislature and the governor aside from the tax structure itself and the fact that it actually they're found the political will to bring it into fruition is just the expression of value specifically around public education and it's been a long time since we've seen that as well so some other significant legislation from 2019 because student success acting did take a lot of air out of the room but it didn't take all of it so the OD e budget and I put in here mentioned previously the state school fund budget was mentioned previously the OD e grant in a budget I didn't mention and that was another bill that some gets a little less attention but essentially that is what funds measure ninety eight also passed and was kept some of our for example regional programs was slated to be cut in the governor's budget but they were able to keep it at current service level so there was some good stuff it wasn't groundbreaking news but it's very helpful the employee misconduct legislation I'll get to that in my next slide I'm gonna start wrapping going faster because I know where we had purse changes that was also hot suit some suicide prevention bills that I think are gonna fold in really nicely with the work of the Student Success act and all the work we've been doing around behavioral health and mental health and the challenges that our students are facing that these days that many of us didn't face when we were in school there's a mandate to include Holocaust and genocide instruction in our schools which is really exciting that was a really just a really cool process to watch unfold unfortunately the gentleman who is leading it passed away during the winter before it happened but it passed and it was it was a really positive and happy thing and then the paid Family Medical Leave bill which districts are figuring out it's it's a it's a pay end to kind of thing like like workers comp collective bargaining a response to the Janice decision at the Supreme Court that was that I wasn't very involved in that one but that's got some interesting although not it was watered down so not a lot of big ramifications and then the restoration of the opt out there was talk about removing that we were able to read it to reinstate that before it took effect and then I know this is a hot topic and I didn't put the bill number down but 3310 you know Rita you've brought that up and I have a little bit more information but not a lot on how we conduct our school board elections so I'm gonna move real quick to employee misconduct that was Senate bill 155 which was a response to the Whitehurst report findings from last year this was a long process what felt like a lot of stakeholders which is good but you know when you have a lot of people at the table there's just it just took a long time to get it right and I think that was a very good process what it took the recommendations from the report which were to change the definition of sexual misconduct and then to shorten TSP C investigatory timelines it was taking them on average eight months to get through to finish it to
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complete an investigation just too long and but it cost money to do them faster because you need more people so we were able to tighten that down to 90 days so they're hiring FTE at ESPC to help with that it also got really the bill got even bigger it went beyond just the Whitehurst recommendations it also includes now a little less than five million dollars over the biennium to provide resources to DHS to do they call them closed at screening claims where if you're calling in but you're not a familial it's not there's not a familial connection they close that call at screening and they don't investigate it that's that's a huge gap so this will give resources to DHS to allow for following up on those claims and then it also creates a new investigatory structure at OU de to look into claims from classified staff contractors and volunteers who are not covered as licensed teachers or administrators at T SPC so very good things but with that of course will be a little clunky rolling out a new another new system and then we also did a couple of what I call low-hanging fruit but really important to include the definition of student includes all kids up through 21 who are served by our programs so like for example our community transition students so I thought that was a really important ad do you know anything about how and when the money is flowing to TS see two staff up to really be able to meet that mandate yeah I'm not sure it doesn't take effect until January so I don't know I don't know when the money is flowing to them but I can check in with them on the timeline the 90-day period is inextricably linked to their staff she's been woefully inadequate and that's it's clear that that money has to that new those new resources have to go towards FTE cuz that's the real problem you just don't have enough people doing the work to get it done faster and they know that a big part of how we got to the all these numbers was based on how much does it cost to hire another investigator pers this was obviously a controversial bill during session it changes the way that we it redirects a portion of what pers members are goes into their pension so this creates an employee pension stability account tier 1 and tier 2 will now redirect 2.5 percent to that fund which helps pay down the UAL and then officer members or tier 3 the lowly people like me have it 0.75 percent goes to the employee pension stability account and then these are just the highlights of what's in this bill this is very dense stuff and I'm happy to figure out a way to set up a some kind of briefing if you guys want a briefing I know that HR is looking at all of this but it also capped the final average salary at 195 thousand which is it was a big issue for especially for larger public employers like OHSU who have very expensive doctors that there for example there that they're hiring it also creates a new pathway for a retired employees to return to work if they want to continue working and then it REM roses it's such a nerdy word but it spreads out the payment money so depending on who you are you either like this or you really really hate this but the reality is a huge first problem and it's not a secret that we need to figure out a way to rein it in so this is one step to do that I'm sure there will be court challenges I haven't heard anything specifically yet but more to come I'm sure Courtney I'll try and the mic I just wanted to point out it is a significant amount of savings but but the bulk of that savings comes from the reauthorization and so I just want everyone to sort of make be the you know the nodes in the room that this is not actually saving us money in the long run it's actually costing a significant amount of money it's like reprise it's like refinancing your mortgage after you've faded for 10 years so so we should think about the people who are gonna be in these seats 10 or 15 years from now and think about ways and there is a state matching program that was also it was created previously and I think some more funding was put into it and I would like as we go into this budget process to talk about if there are some of these savings could go into a one-time investment would that buy down the future and make future board members roles they'll thank us a couple decades and then my last slide and then I'll take any more questions is just to let you know what's coming and there's still a little bit of talk about a September special session although I haven't heard as much lately the legislative committee days are coming up so every during the interim they meet
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every two months and they hold committees and they're in session to have informational hearings and usually their hearings to follow up on something from the session before or to prime the pump for something coming up in the next session so next week is legislative days and then they'll do it again in November in January and then February 8th is the first day or third sorry February 3rd is the first day of the short session the short session is really seen as a place to get technical fixes made not to do epic policy changes it's usually it's usually frowned upon if you try to do something big during a short session because there's just not enough time to engage and to make it meaningful and it feels rushed so and I think going back a little bit to employee misconduct I think there will I don't know exact what they are but my guess is there will be some tweaks to make that was that thing passed at the last minute it was worked on until the last minute I'm sure there's something that we you know some housekeeping thing that we'll have to get tweaked but and then we've also we're seeing a little bit of disconnect between what decisions were making as a district and what the TSP see decides and so trying to figure out some of that with them and whether or not that needs a legislative fix thank you thank you for all the good work on the advocacy oh and back to 3310 really quick so that's the bill that basically allows us to change how we do our school board elections it's up to you to decide if you want to do that it also gives those who feel like it's not a good system and opportunity to complain and Sue and I think so I think it's it's a discussion that needs to happen there are there's a lot outlined in the bill it's not that long but it's pretty long and and dense but there's there are steps that we would need to take as a district as you would expect lots of community input and public public notice and public hearings to have those conversations so as I know the Secretary of State's office will be putting out guidance I don't know how helpful it will be I don't know how much they were involved in this I didn't get involved so as I get more information I'll share it and I'll try to put together a little just a few bullets on kind of what what steps we would need to take to start that process but the bottom line is that it is looking to remove barriers for under representative underrepresented communities to have representation in school board elections so it's calling really for analysis of what made those barriers get in your district it would be this is just the echo word it would be great to get a legal analysis of the Bell in addition to great cuz instead of waiting for somebody to complain it seems like this would be a great conversation for us to have just we have a mechanism now to have it and it seems like proactively and it may be the the system people like the system or or not and we should have that conversations I think it is we just have the system that we've always had and sorry I feel like I'm talking really loud I was just saying instead of waiting for somebody to complain about the system and that be the impetus for the discussion of us changing the way we do our elections that it would be good for us to proactively get an illegal analysis have a conversation with the community because we have the elections we have now because that's just the way we've always had them so I'm just saying I think was just that previously for the bill there wasn't it was so the other thing I just getting the Student Success act through and I mean I think there was navigating both sides of the tax and the expenditures was a huge lift but also getting Senate bill 25 pass was a real we win for student safety and know that
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while it's a statewide bill that PBS played a very unique role in pushing this through so I want to acknowledge your work Jonathan Ames our contract lobbyist the office of the General Counsel board members who testified it was I say a groundbreaking piece of legislation and it will have statewide impacts but PBS really drove it so thank you thank you so much we'll keep tracking to make sure that tonight the board will be holding a first reading on the healthy and substance free learning policy in addition we will be having a first reading kind of a reprisal of the professional conduct between staff and students policy while this policy has been open for public comment following a first reading on July 16th there have been enough changes to warrant a new first read as chair of the board policy and governance committee which has considered tonight's policies director brand metrics could you please introduce this Thank You chair constan both of these came from the policy and governance committee but before I do that I want to just briefly take a moment for another committee the Audit Committee I wanted to tonight we have our new senior internal performance auditor Janice Hanson with us I want to welcome her to PBS it's day two so we don't have anything from the audit committee tonight but welcome to PBS so the two policies that we're going to have first read I'm going to start with the Professional Conduct between staff and students policy and while we're as director as Taric ronnstam reference we're having a second first reading this actually this policy has almost been out has been under consideration for over a year so in May 18th the white the Whitehurst report came out and had a series of recommendations and one was that there be a policy that provided clear guidance to employees as what were appropriate conduct and boundaries but between staff and students and this policy seeks to address that the draft that everybody has and which will be posted on the district website is relatively lengthy policy for us but just at a very high level the policy and intent of the policy is to recognize the importance of health relationships and children's lives and the world adults play and modeling healthy behaviors it also clarifies expectations for staff conduct and provides examples of healthy and unhealthy behaviors and it reorganizes components of policy so that's easier to understand so because this policy has been out under development for so long I thought I'd just briefly describe the process so we had we had a first draft staff basically looked around the country for some model policies and there aren't very many good examples so we've really spent some significant of time building what I believe is a model policy we had input from lots of different stakeholders parents principals teachers students community members and we came up with the first draft this summer we had a first reading of the new policy and then are actually the spring and then we had a board election so we have three new board members and we had the benefit of the three new board members providing a fresh perspective I'm sorry I can't talk both ways the fresh perspective of the three new board members in addition we also received some really invaluable insights from the Portland Association and teachers on yeah I think how we can we could avoid some unintended consequences we want to support health relationships between students and adults and we talk about adults in this case we're not just talking about teachers we're talking about classified staffs contractors volunteers and so as part of our committee hearing getting sort of real-life on-the-ground examples from teachers of what what we should avoid doing to harm those positive relationships and draft language carefully that we encourage positive relationships between our adults and students and then be really clear what the guidelines are for in a when what
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the boundaries are and inappropriate con conduct so we incorporated the revisions and suggestions of teachers the new board members another round from the committee we had a committee hearing on July 16th and another one on the 29th and in the ten 29th we incorporated so the last set of revisions and committee and director Moore and director Const and we're also committee members we are recommending it to the board for a first reading this evening and to have a 21 day comment I I will acknowledge we also received some comments from director Bailey that we're gonna be considering during the comment period but I think we'll be able to incorporate them as we move ahead so this will be posted online we welcome the community's input into and comment on this draft policy and that comments that we receive we will consider at you know in the committee and we'll either incorporate them in to the draft or or not but we welcome comments oh that's a years in the making and I really think some really great work from on the policy side from offices general counsel also Carol Hawkins Labor Relations and HR and a lot of other staff so it's I want to say I think that there are some ways in which this policy is or this proposed policy is really groundbreaking and we reviewed and drew from a lot of exemplary practices and existing policies but we also did break new ground and to director from Edwards point there was some really challenging but very meaningful dialogue with teachers in this process because would be very very easy to end up with unintended consequences that inhibited expressions of appropriate caring relationships between teachers and students and so there were really some some great conversations on that so we hope that we'll continue to receive more comment from the public and staff during the next 21 days any more board comment all right moving on okay we welcome and I say I think the the overriding focus is student safety and then also recognizing how important adults are for our students so the second policy that is before the board this evening for a first read is the healthy substance free learning environments or schools draft policy and in order to align our priorities and national best practices the office of student support services recommend creating a drug and alcohol policy separate from our discipline policy this policy also embeds our racial educational equity policy and also trauma-informed practices and maintains a focus on prevention intervention and recovery and the draft is also aligned with the Student Conduct and discipline policy that we currently have under review as well as the district's recovery education and action for athlete living initiative it's probably important this is a this is a brand new policy and so there won't be a red line posted it will just appear as if it's a new policy because the whole thing is brand new and I really want to thank Brenda Marc Nick and her team for bringing this forward the district didn't have a drug and alcohol policy rather the guidance for these types of situations related drug and alcohol was embedded in an administrative directive and we are pulling that out and really trying to emphasize a focus on the goal of inner you know intervening educating supporting our students at the earliest signs of a problem and we want to have a culturally responsive restorative support system for our students and that became the focus of the policy so we think we started in one place of being really clear we needed to drug and alcohol policy and then there was the
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you know what about the discipline and we I think ultimately came around to a developing a policy that really supports our students instead of taking a punitive approach really trying to provide supports along the way and I think both again both the committee members director Cranston and director more for their assistance and that sort of that the thoughtfulness they brought to the discussion and you know working through real-life examples when kids are being disciplined and those drugs or alcohol involved and how we as a district approach that so we had Russians in the Committee on June 4th the 27th and I was 29th and at the August 29th meeting we felt the policy was ready for a first reading also these three policies benefited from the fresh perspective of the three new board members so everybody he's I believe today we have everybody's feedback and this new draft and it's ready for first ready for a first reading and again any public comment that we receive will be considered again just breaking some new ground and really genuine conversation for discussion you pause too long oh no we're not we're not doing commas thank you very much so actually it's a great point because I want to say that if people have non-material edits that you're seeing like hey they forgot a comma that's a code to colon it should be a semicolon those are things that we can make those changes that we can be we can make and so please just send those yeah this is not non-material but it's helping a sentence scan perfect we welcome your feedback as soon as possible though is there a hard deadline for the edits so same as for the public we ideally if you have them send them now we'll get them incorporated and so we can aimée director constant I would just like to comment that the line that says if a student discloses prohibited substance use in the course of an investigation into a situation in which they are a victim or in a role of support for the victim they shall not be penalized for that use and will be offered support and resources to encourage healthy choices and I just so appreciate our the district and the people who wrote this policy protecting students in that way and I think it really shows what you were sharing director brim had words about putting student safety and well-being first and that this highlights that culture shift from punitive to really trying to do what it's best for students so I appreciate the work that you have done on this committee in that regard I'm really glad you brought that up because that specific piece of this policy speaks to the very constructive dialogue that we as a board have with with our parent community and our student communities that line came out of students coming forward and relaying specific incidents where that has occurred where there hasn't been a punitive response to a student who comes forward to support as a friend and so you can't sit in a room and try to generate all the hypothetical situations but when the community comes forward and really shares their experiences in our schools that's what's most important for informing the work I would all say in both policies I mean I look at down on either side of the board and we have probably over a hundred years of sort of parenting experience among us and so when we were to doing things like talking about group texts in the professional conduct policy and sort of how that plays out if you're a parent of a student who plays sports or in this particular case if you've ever had your child and disciplinary process I think there was real value to get people the the perspective of parents from board members in incorporated into house because I think we've all lived in very various ways some of some aspects of these policies and so thank you to board
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members for lending us your wisdom and expertise that comes from parents source of these gray hairs these next couple of items are just a couple of housekeeping pieces that relate to our board governance and we have really made a commitment collectively as a board to get better at getting better and to to intentionally focus on some of our governance practices so the first one is a board self evaluation template so everybody received a copy of the Oregon School Boards Association a template for board self evaluation and this is not a practice that the PPS board has had in place for as long as anyone can remember but it is certainly recommended as a best practice so this is just for everyone's for everyone to consider whether we want this to be the template that we use I don't know if people have already had a chance to review it and want to share any thoughts now or if not just bring those thoughts forward in in the coming weeks we just wanted to introduce that yes we do want to implement this and we won't actually conduct it until the spring so that we can be somewhat linked to the evaluation process for the superintendent and we're looking at those things at the same time so please give it some thought and we certainly have some flexibility about what we want to do chair comms tom is there a timeline to adopt I think one of the things that came up when we talked about goal-setting was it was nice to have a clear process so is there a timeline or a strategy of how do we want to adopt this and when so that you know it's helpful to know what we're being evaluated on so we can be sort of looking for that as we head towards the spring so nice segue to our next item and if there are any other go go ahead if you have another comment on the template go ahead and then I'll answer your question Haley yes so I guess I had a question about we that we did have another potential template so this is one model and it tracks in some ways with some of those super the OSB a superintendent evaluation template but we also had the one that AJ shared with us that is much more really for the hyper focus on student performance and how aboard supports the center of the work and it's a very different model evaluation tool than this and so it seems like you could do a hybrid but you know I thought a year ago when we the retreat we talked about making the big pivot to really focusing our board meetings and our work more on student performance that you I guess what you measure you you do so if we wanted to have think about our work more focus on student performance we might want to look at a different metric this is this is more and there's nothing wrong with this it's more traditional and it's you know comprehensive and friends but and the other one is like very non-traditional and you know I say hyper-focus so I just think it's worth a discussion on which route we want to go over the chart so Miss Powell let's recirculate the template that director berm Edwards is referring to and then just bring forward thoughts place to me and to Julia and then we'll have another discussion this next item just to walk through the timeline on the superintendent's evaluation process we want to adopt an instrument for the superintendent's evaluation by the end of October so that would be the timeline for this as well so again any other examples that people have or even just philosophical approaches to how we want to go about this our welcome and solicited I just have a question about the process are we the seven of us doing our own evaluation and averaging are we doing this exercise together how are we going to make decisions on where we land with the I think that's to be determined and it depends somewhat on the instrument that we choose but we'll certainly have a work session to go through what our responses have been in the spring we do it first now we're deciding you know
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what do we want to hold ourselves accountable to is a collective process so we get to decide how we do it I think I'd like to give it some thought but I just went through a process this afternoon where we were evaluating a list of proposers and where there were seven people in the room and we started out using averages and then we moved to different kind of decision-making models so I'm just I was curious about if we had a process already in place or we are we able to determine what how we're gonna proceed we do not because we have done this before any other comic superintendent you've likely had experience with boards doing a self-evaluation I think one of the reasons that a lot of Oregon school boards use the OSB aid template is because it talks about many of the standards they refer to that school boards typically are demonstrating in their role so even though one of the standards includes accountability and performance management for student accountability and achievement and outcomes it also talks about some of the other ways that a board can demonstrate its leadership in the community for instance so I think they're all worthy of discussion along with other exemplars out there I think everyone realizes the important thing is to agree on holding itself accountable for a priority as it's outlined and an objective way to measure against that so the next item is just a brief discussion of developing an evaluation tent template for the superintendent's evaluation so we have four board members who have done this before three board members who are new I think it's safe to say that all four of us would say we want to improve on our process from the last time and improve on our evaluation instrument from the last time I don't think we were satisfied with exactly how that went so we're we're delighted to have an opportunity to improve i've asked director scott if he would be willing to lead this process for the board in terms of looking at best practices and making recommendations about an evaluation instrument and then this will coincide with the process of the superintendent do his self-evaluation but in the past several years our about well actually since you've come on board superintendent agrerro our evaluation our our adoption of an evaluation instrument has been quite late and so you have been through the better part of a school year without knowing exactly what you were being evaluated on and I think we all recognize that that's not best practice so our intention is to our intention is to make sure that we reach consensus about our evaluation procedures and instrument by the end of October and this is not a coincidence that this is coinciding with us landing our conversation on our board goals which we also will add are planning to adopt on October 15th so we'll have one more open board discussion on the step on September 23rd about our board goals and then in in some form or fashion those will be reflected in the in our what we arrive at is our template for evaluation of the superintendent so again asking board members with thoughts about that process to reach out to director Scott and in the meantime I think we'll be sharing some examples and maybe articles on best practices there that help us all so just to clarify when is it that we're that we have identified a date to adopt that the instrument so in guadeloupe its I'm sorry in the superintendent's first year we did adopt something in early September out of the school year and so yeah I'm sorry yeah I don't know what it is is I'm wanting to know the the date so that we can back map back to well if we're going to adopt the instrument on X date than what date are we going to have like our board meeting discussion
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about it so that we can get an instrument in place so just be useful to get it sketched out and to make sure that we actually have a time on a board agenda to have a full discussion about it versus offline so I think we would look to adopt it at our last meeting in October so that's the 29th which is after our adoption of our board goals if that seems reasonable just two weeks hence and then again just still beginning to figure out what this process looks like but certainly would have one more opportunity for board discussion between now and then does that sound reasonable what's our the 24th 29 so the the 15th is when we adopt our board goals and so the next meeting after that is October 29th and we don't have a board meeting between the 20 so we'd have to have a discussion on the 50 the same meeting that we talked about our goals which is not they're not incompatible discussions but if we're gonna adopt something on the 29th then we'd have to have the discussion on the 5th to 15th that works [Music] sorry about that are we going to have a retreat because it seems to me this might be a good topic for a retreat but I'm a little concerned that we're going to try to talk about some pretty complicated things during a regular board meeting where the time is going to be pretty short Miss Powell is working on landing a date for a retreat I think we have I think what you said is right now we have November 5th but she's looking at trying to move that up trying to find a date when we can move that up we had a retreat earmarked for November 5th but Rosanna has been working to move that up earlier in October so that's in process and I agree I agree doctor with director more I just also think that we need to set a specific date to get this to have a full discussion and October 4 months into the calendar year I was agreeing with you so I hope so to date myself this is like get smart and then cut the cone of silence and ideally these processes coincide you know fairly well with our school year which is our expectation of delivering the evaluation at that very end of the school year right now slated for June 23rd did you have something you'd like to add oh okay I can't hear Scott and he's next to me so I don't know if it's the microphones or me so working on scheduling the time for you know broader conversation but this is just in the housekeeping department of goals self-evaluation superintendent evaluation and we can commit to getting something out in the next week that lays out a firm schedule work plan work plan as one of the topics for a board retreat after we have constituted our board committees which we just passed and can start to contemplate what those agendas of each of those committees look like any other comment all right thank you so much have it is the season for nominations to the Oregon School Boards Association Board of Directors and legislative policy committee we have in the past had board members from PPS represent the
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district on both the legislative policy committee and on the executive board of directors for OSB a do I have any nominations for the OSB a Board of Directors position 18 or 19 I would like to nominate director more documents so for the Board of Directors this is for the Board of Directors that I'm sorry okay that's all right I don't think you want to serve in that role so hearing none do I have any nominations for the legislative and policy committee of the Oregon School Boards Association I would now like to nominate director more second all right director Moore has served in this position for the last two years and has been a really effective and an active advocate for PPS in helping shape our statewide legislative agenda for OSB a so we're really grateful for that work director chair calms damn I jumped the gun a little bit in nominating director more because I'm so excited about the work she's done and the commitment she has made on the state level and I'm very thankful that she's willing to continue that important work and I really just wanted to beat director Bailey in making a nomination well you did a very good thank you but no it should be stated it's not it's not a huge time commitment but it's not insignificant and it's really important to have a seat at that table and os ba was very actively engaged in lobbying for every single one of those legislative wins that we saw that we heard about from Courtney tonight and they were there were the chief voice advocating for students I'm just about every single one of those successful bills so it's important all of those in favor of nominating director more for the Oh SBA legislative and policy committee please say yes yes yes any opposed all right seeing none we have just nominated director more from our board to the legislative and policy committee and the nominations will be forwarded to Oh s ba okay can I just say thank you that everybody OS ba I think is a really critical voice in this state for school boards and it's there are a hundred and ninety-seven school districts in this state and it is important for PPS to be represented somewhere in the OSB a leadership I think because those 197 school districts have vastly different needs and resources so anyway thank you all right thanks for your willingness to serve have any committee or conference reports a report from the Audit Committee although I've already introduced the new senior performance auditor who joins Mary Katherine Moore our other internal performance auditor who joined us earlier this year we now pull in public schools I think is the fourth largest governmental entity in this in the state and so we have an auditing capacity that is close to approaching what it what it should be and certainly I think compared to other school districts in the state we are the only district with the own with our own internal audit function which is best practice so really we are I think heading and they're headed in the right direction in terms of accountability and transparency and looking at how we can improve operations through the internal auditing function the first audit is underway and it's a review of contracts and that's part of the audit plan that everyone that we discussed several meetings ago and approved phase one of the audit plan and then at the next board meeting are two internal performance auditors we'll be providing an overview of performance auditing so I asked all board members if you have anything in particular that you're interested in them covering and they've informed me they could talk about auditing all night but we're not going to allow that they love auditing but if you have something that you would like them to cover that you think the full board would benefit from since the
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internal audit function reports to the board please share that with them this this the next two days in addition they've got lots of materials that they're willing to share so please don't be shy about letting them know what you're interested in hearing about next week they have a presentation there'll be time for questions that won't be the only time Maxine what does the Audit Committee do so would you like to join the audit committee well can I know what it is first can you want me to tell you first yes please so the audit committee is composed of currently of three board members and two community members and we work with the internal performance auditors they come up with a plan of different parts of the school district that there they will audit based on risks and how we might be able to improve our operations so they make a recommendation when we might audit the Audit Committee reviews it we make a recommendation then to the full board and then throughout the year as the audits are completed or the reviews are done it comes back to the audit committee for a discussion so we try not to we won't be having a really deep conversation comprehensive conversation about an audit at a board meeting but we would in the audit committee meeting and I'm sure that Mary Katherine and Janice would be happy to share materials with you it's really about the difference between an external audit an internal auditing question is really it's designed to help the organization work more efficiently and effective effectively and in improved practices so it's not a external antagonistic function but really designed to support our team here by taking so at a critical look at different operations or aspects of the school district and making recommendations for how we might be able to do things that either improve controls or improve practices - again more work more efficiently effectively and ultimately to better serve our students and to use taxpayer dollars effectively so Maxine Janice says she's just knew is making arrangements to sit down with each board member to talk about interest so you guys should definitely sit down together and in a lot of our potential audits there should be student voice included you know for example we might audit something like Student Activity fees how much do kids have to pay to participate in sports and other activities or all sorts of operations of the district it would be a critical part of the audit function to make sure that students experiences are represented the other thing is this is the committee that we're going to be trying to meet at 4:30 or 5:00 so after school's out so we want to allow community members and students to be able to participate so it won't be during the school day ok maybe I'll join but yeah I was gonna ask about the the student voice lense when it comes to auditing but that that kind of already came up but yeah cool thank you all right do we have any other board or committee or conference reports alright any other business of the board the next meeting of the board will be held September 23rd 2019 back at the be ESC this will which will be a Monday instead of a Tuesday evening this meeting is now adjourned thank you for joining us at Grant High School

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)

2019-09-10 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education - September 10, 2019

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