2019-11-18 PPS School Board Business Meeting, Work Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2019-11-18
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	business, work
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board Business Meeting and Work Session - November 18, 2019

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are there any changes do I have a motion and a second to adopt director for Medellin smooth the daily seconds [Music] is there any more discussion questions it's just confirming that we're not committing any other district resources of this this 20 times the second issue is around that hurt [Music] I'm not sure how many people will submit and I'm not sure how much was done first all right and it's fair to say that board members Steve myself ignorance and experience and a lot of it is for me this missions I've had over the years that I think that's a great suggestion we should just do it yeah it's not going away yeah I mean the reason is the question of just besides the overall fun the first come first serve should be advocating legislature for a larger amount people about students are yes this state should fund its own inches well I know that nobody answers what I've seen that doesn't that
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hasn't happened we carefully she still say nonetheless well that's not try to figure out what is the gap and whether they authorize and what should have a lot fries for everybody who actually there's already published change after December 2nd thank you Lord will download on resolutions five nine nine five five nine nine nine the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes [Music] was six thousand elated last minute addition for yeah thank you very much thanks for your support line up resolutions five nine nine five through six thousand of this agenda or favorite places to keep my saying yes yes yeah it's all pose please it became I say no are there any abstentions the business agenda is approved by both have six to zero four six seven it's the off-camera now one thing that just came out of a business agenda item which was the mattress sale might be useful because the letter we received in support of it there was a more nuanced answer argument for why they needed to have it than they give 0 direction so if we are in fact going to be resourcing make sure the schools whatever it is it will need be doing they know that it was a little bit shocking to get I know it's surprising [Music] is running for the OSB legislative quality all the favor please indicate by saying yes No Chris Howard swimming at a postural position 18 and the own skateboard all in favor of Chris Howard please indicate by saying yes it's all those losses to give us saying no all right this is our socket from Andy is all in favor of just Karzai please indicate by saying yes for decision 19 on the OSB a legislative policy committee our very own director or is running unopposed all the paper direct oranges if you keep on saying yes yes please indicate by stating know there's some slightly more robust results of tonight's vote will be submitted to OSP any activists we need for you to thank you for your service she was never one of their position that you should Pentagon will proceed with
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the rest of our meeting and you go tell Roseanne what your concern is and you can look and see if there's another position thank you okay I think we have a topic tonight that's really what school districts often find themselves contending with oftentimes when issues other objectives I just want to activate you a little bit we've got a presentation slides here with numbering slides and I just wanted to show you that you want to make sure you're using the policy that we see in front of you because you'll see where we've highlighted just a little logistical things five six by this paragraph just so you can get context we're putting snippets up on the screen but what I want you to be able to see where it is so if you're going through they'll be able to follow along all right good evening copy they have every scene with us we've spent all day together we've had multiple phone calls been a while helping us consider our program programming and student assignment so all of this work is grounded in the work that we did last year and that is the visioning work where we are community that helps us create a brand with portraits what we're looking for our students and so in as we look at bringing this to our students we have some work to do in our student assignment in our equity around focus options programming that we have throughout the district so grounded in this work or does not continuing to move forward into this process so the question is why are we doing this work and why are we doing it now so really looking at it at 20 money's over our chicken this work and seeing what we have available for all of our students in every school in terms of programming and classes and what we have to offer for our students and so we want a student assignment process that supports academic program improvements and built on our previous work we've had several groups over the last five years that worked on dfrac and I will say the other one wrong so reactive those two groups came together and from with our community and staff members the board members and we want to build on that work and for your students in our schools also we have a middle school opening is 2021 and so we are also underway in our middle school design work and not only Kellogg but thinking about all of our our middle school and we have coming forward to the community soon is a future bond program we'll be continuing on and over the next it's a 30 year bond program so as we're continuing to work on bonds I want to make sure we're aligning our students assignment work with our our bond and
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our capital programs and then also we're going to address it's an issue if we have under bigger old schools it's hard to offer the resources that students might want in their programming and if we're over and ruled it's also difficult to the portable classroom is not our first choice so we want to make sure that we're balancing out and then we're also looking at the diversity in our school and as we look at research-based practices we know that diverse schools by many different groups I think we will be going into that more in the event provides a better education that's overall why we're doing what we're doing now so we have goals for tonight we want to start with framing our work around the equity follows seeks to go see is for you specific language in the equity policy that should be embedded in this work and then we also have three relevant board policies that will be reviewing and highlighting the language that we'd like you to do take a look at and we want to begin to have the board give us their values their priorities and what they'd like to see in policies as we guide the work yes interesting and fun discussions educational outcomes about something driving out so what our thinking is if you look at this policies highlighting what's in the equity policy we'd like to hear from you about issues concerns things that you think are important about the policy as think about how kids are assigned to schools and what programs you offer and we'll spend about 10 minutes on that and for the student assignment policy we've allotted 20 to 25 minutes again to talk about issues concerns what you would like to discuss about that policy the third policy is transfers it highlighted parts of those colonies have spent about 10 minutes talking about those the options policy is the the last policy here we'll discuss them we think that there are some interesting pieces of finally we'll talk about for about 10 minutes to just hear from you all about our I'm going to be in an interesting role I'm going to try to facilitate as well as provide information we do want to have it we do want to have some fun and make it to make it interesting all right let's start with your racial equity policy it's a very interesting policy know that not all of you when you did this promise is a very slick policy I think an equity perspective of adoption in 2011 and you can see that the board at that time still a lot of thinking about what does equities mean to us and from the policy about something that we thought was important that what you said is the poorest of schools typically changes and then you said well what is racial equity mean and I think this is this is terrific because I hear people talking about closing the gap but I people said forget to say we want to
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raise achievement or educational outcomes for altitudes so the fact that it says both of those things he and and you also say what we really don't want to be able to predict these outcomes based on race and ethnicity I think it frames it really well and the community in the school system should be commended for that and I hope that this is something that you think will guide your work as you as you begin to grapple with some of these issues the the policy also talks about and if it's bring that in terms of race and ethnicity but I want to talk about it broader the educational benefits why does - diversity matter and the first thing when I think about it this is something I want to throw out for you to think about when we get later in the discussion is when I think about diversity and and I as I work with other school districts I think about it broader than just race race and ethnicity I think about it as looking at socioeconomic status and looking at English learners at looking at special and at looking at geography because as you know as someone told me today you're a school system and you say 90 neighbourhoods someone told me that but so having different neighborhoods be exposed to each other that's another kind of diversity is important but so so this educational benefits apply to all of that kind of diversity economy when they go to school together that breaks down stereotypes right and then they have the up they break down those stereotypes by working together we know for English learners for example and non English learners for for the kids to have exposure to each other so they can hear language both English and you know let's say Spanish for example there's a there's a richness and benefits to learning about that because we all hear it how in the world those I think are really important and the same thing for race and ethnicity so we know and we know that discussions are deeper and richer if you think about a discussion about let's assume we have a discussion about slavery it's a discussion in history about slavery and you know that the discussion is going to be different if you've got kids of different races and ethnicities different socioeconomic status different backgrounds and discussing that then if you have those groups isolated so there's a deepness and richness that is important that kids then can work from each other and we all know that they will then to be able to work better in the work world and have better opportunities to go to college and those are the things so those are all really important and so the board should be commend it to that we wanted also to flag and then I'm going to open it up to the ports so with the but the board said women adopted this policy in 2011 it's that we they have the following bowls and I think they're true today about your student assignment what is equitable access to high quality and culture and relevant curriculum instruction support facilities and other resources creating multiple pathways to success the use of diversity and created by expectations for all racial and ethnic groups and I would say for all groups that I've mentioned remedy practices that over identify students of color and under representation of students of color and challenge and gift an IV and of course that's an issue that every school district in this country is struggling with and empower students and families including underrepresented families of colors and color as essential partners in the planning process the district decision as you all think about the policy and listen to me you've talked what issues concerns what do you think is important about this policy to guide your work the outcomes not just the opportunities
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yeah anyone else practices well that's nice flowery policy words what's actually happening on the ground this notion I'm and I'm sitting with the fact that our Michelle isn't here tonight at her board member who is a person of color and I was I have this conversation with you know a fairly white dominated board and thinking about that last one interrogate students and families via website accountants of color so how does our just our very like system that make it hard for us to really do things differently and to be really attentive to that that it's really easy to fall back into pattern reason speaking please here we are instead of remembering foods down at the table and how we have to find listen to those sources I'm interested in exploring the topic I think it was - guys materials that were shared with us so we have a policy that's what this racial equity and actually in social justice but kind of materials that we were like the Stanford report that says short synopsis a while racial segregation within a district is a very strong predictor of achievement gaps we'll probably not the racial composition of schools and accounts for this effect which is counter to I think a lot of other research and so and it might so curious about what we think about this and then whether we believe this and then how we're saying it's more about the economics and this is saying it's race is what we believe what the research says I have to think it for two times when you take two time clean well then it's race and poverty and that you can't eliminate but this is a different theory I think I think that we change especially in a city like Portland if this is the guy this is the guide or its race words I guess I'm just interested it's worn out I might like to import them I think it's also particularly relevant to our school district because you know we are highly diverse relative to other large urban school districts we have a lot of students juicing so I think it's especially relevant acts like one of the things I wanted to say about the policies generally instead I think when the board none of us were on the board when this work was done and I do know that it's got to be a national model for others the mystery is really well respected and I think that what happened in the school district when this was passed is that then there was a lot of effort expended on professional development for the adults in the system to really examine their diocese and they're over the white privilege to large extent and that a lot of adults in the system found that work about very valuable it's not transformational for themselves and but in my opinion what we didn't see is the kinds of big structural changes that are required to really live out those ideals and I think they're even in efforts to make minor boundary adjustments that are just absolutely manifestations of these goals like you know are you gonna send some kids from regular to a libido which are you know right right next to each other and represent equally different communities racially and
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socioeconomically and the community goes crazy and the board prior boards have caved almost in every occasion so just just making the translation to what are the structural changes that need to take place to have more fidelity to our vision and I know that's part of what we're talking about tonight it's one of those manifestations is and while balancing because as far as I know we have we haven't really devoted ourselves to those substances you mentioned excuse me I wonder if I could just remind it we're not in the board room where there are mics and so it as a matter of transparency and as courtesy is there everybody in the room please speak up so he can hear you sorry Roger in terms of can you hear me I can hear you but we can also I'm a man in the room sorry Roger and in terms of the big structural changes that worked up what are you thinking about no I don't think the instructional changes were done okay what well maybe what I'm saying is I'm not even sure what they are you know other than what we're talking about here tonight some degree with just school assignment policies but what I'm saying is I don't think that this district is even really had the conversation about the translation from the values to the structural changes because it's more than school assignment right it is more than school but me I kind of Amy got most of it I think the way it's the way it reads now is important public schools will significantly change its practices in order to achieve and maintain racial equity and and there was a focus for invent on professional developments of the adults it was professional development very narrowly construed and there was I mean I would suggest that we might want to amend this policy slightly to include things like significantly change its policies and practices I would like to say structures as well but but as you were talking I was wondering what those structures would mean but but certainly I think we need to look at our policies in terms of this equity policy because and and I think it's the the absence of alignment between the equity policy is particularly apparent in the student assignment policies that the policies were going to be talking about today no I mean I agree with most of what's been said you know particularly going back to making sure we're especially doing something with the policy policies are only importantly I think this this question of race versus poverty is interesting but but I think most of us um well let me just speak for myself I think meeting with racial equity is going to be very important obviously if there's evidence of a different sort that's worth taking in consideration but I get a lot of policy areas you show that that has really positive benefits that I think given the achievement of black and brown children in the district yeah just to be clear yeah I do I guess I was sensing based on the material you shot this maybe and also because the legal constraints of what you can do really need to race in terms of school assignments that this was the proxy and so I guess I just wanted to better understand that because if you can't in a legal standpoint are unable to use race in terms of school assignments and transfers what are other mechanisms that might help you fulfill the racial equity policy again I think it's a I think it's a tutu time it's not one or the other but actually they have Harvey compounds race and so I guess that was yeah and I think that's really where the research is that it's policy and race and they're the two times is a good way to think
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about it but there's definitely an overlap and that's in part why I think about defining diversity more broadly because again I think English learners are in the mix I think special ed kids are in all that diversity is important yeah ii suppose second committees which are both very diverse both said yes this is key and we are broadening our equity concerns so that might be as you guys develop this that might be something you want to think about a little bit more but I would push you to think even though I probably won't be here to think about English learners and special and where kids live in the area that's geography kids bring different things because of those experiences where I live for example it's a big County district so we have urban we have suburban and we have farms you know we have cows and so so the kids who live with the cows will come into the urban areas and you know obviously they learn from each other about that that's a great and it's a real gift to have that and you've got where you may not have cows you have them okay you've got your I'm not even gonna go there okay that's kind of our time on the racial equity but we do think it it frames what we the next topic and that is a student assignment to school policy and as neat as we worked on this today you'll see that we've shifted a little bit from talking about enrollment balancing to student assignment because enrollment balancing as we talked about we're not sure what that means so we you know the superintendent was working and he really helped us we're like oh we're just calling student assignment now so if you see what you got earlier you'll see now we're talking about student assignment and we wanted to just highlight a few pieces we're going to spend most of the time on the factors but you have you have something about I'll call it ran solving or grand mulberry thanks like I see you guys color legacy or I'll do the big I'm not supposed to do that just because we won the World Series sorry [Music] and we need the broke we didn't for a long time so we're pretty excited about it but one thing a new practice so here you're saying you they have their right to attempt their neighborhood schools through the highest grade and later on putting out there now it's like the brothers and sisters so it goes on something learned in law school in perpetuity and someone said well is this normal is this what most school districts do and the answer is no most school districts have some grandfather or grandmother II however you want to call it or legacy but it tends to be when there's rezoning done either at the elementary level it might be the highest grade or the middle school at the highest grade the high school it will sometimes be the two highest grade juniors and seniors and you can think about why that might be important but you all have the right to attend to the highest grade except provided and we'll talk about that later then your policy says your superintendent or his designee shall regularly monitor Lohmann program demand demographic trends to anticipate the needs for boundary changes and what it most intrigues me is other viable options I want to hear from you about what you think that means when we when I open this up and then if the superintendent determines that conditions exist awarded boundary change or I would say or other viable options the superintendent shall develop recommendations what I really want to spend some time thinking about although I do want to hear about other other viable options so what this for we have several previous words of set what is your product or policy as well we have to look at feeder patterns so that's important and you want to allows any kids to continue to go to school together from one school
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level to the next student demographics we've just talked about that and so to the extent you're looking at that I would advocate that you looked at all of the demographic factors that would be that I put out there compact boundaries that promotes safer routes to schools and sense of community as well as the natural and human-made or man-made barriers optimal use of existing facilities program and enrollment stability in the surrounding schools and limiting the impact of boundary changes from the smallest number possible the policy also says a week pick we haven't given you the whole policy we just picked important things that we wanted to talk about to promote continuity and stability which of course that's important they students living in the neighborhood of proofer boundary change they remain at the school for the current school through the highest grade and here's your like real legacy younger siblings living in a neighborhood approved for boundary chains have a guaranteed through the transfer process to attend the former neighborhood school of an older brother or sister currently attends and will be attending the former neighborhood school of the following year that's a mouthful and so of course that my view impacts your boundary work right that's going to continue now as a matter of policy we can't stay in the tariff legal case that says you can't do that right that's something out there but can we go back to the factors it's a lot of extenuating circumstances that undermined what you're actually trying to do right I mean that's a fair point like family cohesion is for example an actor's reservist - for applicants should be a higher value and sibling preference the workshop your mum money say that again that's really please reference Trump's socio-economic steps for transfer songs when ii brought that recommendation in the lottery so what I heard was excite I know other districts do this so what and I don't know all the circumstances but apparently there was a recommendation to stay we're gonna reserve a certain number of seeds in a school or we're recommending that we reserve a school for low income kids for the in the lottery process right because a lot of times what the it's middle class and upper middle class families who tend to understand and this is a truth overall but you tend to understand how to work the process better and so a lot of times some families miss out and so reserving those speeds is a way to mediate that but it sounds like that was rejected yeah but maybe one things well I I would just add sibling preference is a problem if the district if the school is not well integrated to begin with if the district is doing a good job of integrating the school to begin with sibling preference perpetuates that integration so a tool itself is neutral where you start applying it as wearing either positive or negative if you have a lottery if we had in some cases almost the entire enter a class was taken up by siblings there's you can increase diversity at that school decades it's just their art that simply would you say surprise hi bride would be interested to actually see the day I know that's the apocryphal sort of sense that and I'm sure there is a situation where that's happened or but I mean you know the average family size importance too so I mean it certainly will the point is is though policy is
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the majority of our schools don't have arteries so it's only to the special program so for you have a neighborhood school that's not very diverse it doesn't really matter what what this weeding says is if they're not in the neighbor if they're not in the neighborhood and there's not a program but there's a lottery too and then it doesn't I mean all these factors don't really matter so these factors probably in some most of your programs or in cases in which you're making another change not right and this is I think the way to policies this is more these are the factors that you would look at when you're drawing down so the question then is for you all to the spouses how do you feel about these factors are there things you would add subtract are there things that you don't have more importance than others just when you're you're just simply drawing boundaries yes to things because you have because we've got this legacy policy what we have found over a very long time is that any boundary shift actually takes somewhere between five and ten sometimes even longer years to play out to accomplish the the original goal of having an optimal usage of the silver or you know whatever the reason was that you did a boundary change you're not going to see that effect for a very long time as all of the you know all of the exceptions to actually being affected by the boundary change clamped by the time and and therefore because it takes so long by the time the boundary change actually affect the original impetus may have disappeared because you're going to have changes in population going on at the same time the other thing I would say is on F limiting the impact of boundary changes to the smallest number of students possible what that has done as as things are played out is that you get whenever there is a boundary change that happens and it you know we are exquisitely careful about making sure that a very small number of students are effective then you get though the parents of those children of those eight children coming to the board saying why are you doing this to these eight children and almost inevitably and you know I'm as guilty as anybody else the the upshot is the Board says oh yeah never mind well because it directly contradicts a often because those eight those eight children are not a law allowed to continue with the cohort of the page right then went from forever but it's at 100 is it the way we have set it up we are setting ourselves up to fail because if if there's a reason to do a boundary change and then you prevent the boundary then you do it and we prevent the better to change we have we just picked up a whole lot of people for no you went through a lot of pain yeah I would just I would totally agree I mean it it may be a factor before you want to consider but making it sort of a requirement the board should have Hodgins options a B and C and up should see might effect of most students but I also have the most positive outcome and and this policy would essentially say we can't choose C we can't choose B because a affects to the smallest number of students yeah this this is as odd thing it's oddly limiting and it feels very political although as Rita points out it may have been inserted there politically but it might have the opposite effect right affecting 10,000 students might actually be easier than affecting in a smaller solution maybe the poor effort bold solution versus well the policy says they all they all go and so they're all going to go I mean I think I think the bigger issue is or it's just not having the audacity to when they make a decision to hold hold on it regardless of
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give a pecker powder Wendy prac did a prank which of these this most nice important FF was least important like that no the committee said now we this is built up curse such a long time these big large changes cases or we're going to get the and the other piece appears that be now disrupting students and so there is some student centeredness to saying if we don't have to do it why there are some some cases where making a shift moving a lot of students now yes is really key and there may be other cases where we're talking a small number that doesn't preach it which impact rather sort of school etc why do we do that now and distressing students so I think there's some trade-offs I think one of the really difficult things talking about this is that often the you know the student or the family that's in front of us that is unhappy or a suffering in a moment and weighing that against the potential future people that will benefit and that won't come back to us at board meetings can say thank you for moving those eight students and say gee we're constantly very and balancing the like very real person in front of us who is concerned with that like vision and a goal of what we want and how we how we have fidelity to what we say we're about the assassinating that this is student body demographics and doesn't spell out with that that really means it doesn't call back to that I mean just think about the super body demographic which alludes to it but I think that's what these students like how do we rebalance serve as the coded language we see with being really clear about what we're after and eleven I think that's why but I do think you should think about spelling out what bar was food and Emma Troutman see one note that I just wonder if if F wouldn't be better if the board would agree it's better if it said something like boundary changes should should have a positive impact on the largest number of students yeah right and then you're reframing it and baby you're having a positive impact on the largest of their students by believing that where they are or maybe or having a positive impact by moving them but that's the factory with looking at it as a positive impact on students regardless of winners but I'm just losers superintendent monitoring's you know many of you know you weren't around well what does that mean to you so the superintendent doesn't just have to bring you boundary change just a superconn superintendent can bring you other viable options what does that Ilan Scott well we shifted kindergarten class classes from richer to separate site we would install portables shuffle around self-contained classrooms for special education students
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sorry so yeah so yeah so we've shifted around special education classrooms we've built portables we've moved kids to again richer we move the kids outside and I think we've done things like that that didn't go on meeting like access and pioneer is part of that too right as we're trying to like make space and well I think also that states to focus on programs consider other viable options would you see a focus option program that is in effect only drawing from three adjacent neighborhood schools that are all clearly causally suffering because of that white flight for lack of a more ambiguous term that's that's another viable option that was so you're familiar with the events and balancer now which is somewhat impacted how Penn State abroad students having something like that for the public option programs to ensure that they drop as broad a applicant school as possible that one suggested it yeah another option that has been used in the past is great configuration or reconfiguration of a school so either go from a k5 to KH or I just wanted something I'm going to flip out of my facilitator role and just talk about an observation about this today what most school districts you you have what you call focus options and when you read the policy they actually have some of the goals that I don't think you're using but what the lists are doing now is calling the programs and they're calling and magnet programs and they say okay results first all attract diverse second goal improve outcomes for students third goal is to develop programs that meet the needs and interests of students and when we get to your policy but I want to put it here where the focus possible will get to this but I wanted to put it here because it also says other viable options and so that is something to think about and I don't know if your policy you wanna like that or even flinch some of the things you've talked about which what you said Scott was kind of an a regional thing right you know having focused different focus programs or magnet programs and then kids can pick from in these reason I guess right well we didn't do focus options like a magnet program has to say well this is a school that doesn't have good outcomes that has a high concentration of historic lander search is how can we get a better balance here well let's let's throw a bunch of really attractive programs here and supports bringing bringing in kids from outside of the battery per se that's not what focus options are here they're stand there largely standalone programs they most of them were like round up some group of parents and our teachers and idea for a very much and they just sort of emerged with that many any guidance in any any philosophy any this is how er this this is going to contribute to the greater good why doesn't say it's like they actually did you speak home magnet programs like JMP is a gentleman and in many ways what they became an outlet in addition for there being a focus that I think families or students were interested in they also became a way for families to transfer into schools that were producing better
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academic outcomes and I'll just historically so I went to Washington High School it was under enrolled the district took another option which was they merged it with the all-girls school Monroe at the time which is girls Polytech that didn't work to increase the enrollment and every boy who wanted to get out of Washington because it was a failing high school went to Benson because that was the open enrollment music and traditionally you know is that exactly example of a magnet but I think there have been a variety of uses for magnets here not some of them really enriching and creating opportunities for students and things that engage them that a regular neighborhood school may not have and they also have had impacts on neighborhood schools especially those in which the perception was academic outcomes were lesser than fools well and the not the be-all end-all they have to be used in conjunction with other things and I know you've got a big program improvement effort going on for all of your cells and so that you have to do bad it's just a question whether in a student assignment policy sometimes that can be used in lieu of redrawing boundaries and you just have to think about what that means that's a policy thing for you all to to grapple with and we just move on to the next winkers we're gonna have time for you guys to come back some of these so now we're on because it talks about educational options for all statement then you go on to say okay well right to attend a neighborhood school or and Missouri school right to request a transfer committee commitment to families that students have an equitable access to educational options and I want to pause there do you think you forgot that you'll see us with portfolio later we really have a portfolio and then this is something that I just heard was wasn't this and it may not be fair that how do parents know about the educational choices that they have so a lot of school districts that have choice will have an office that provides information about what the choices are they actually do marketing and outreach and obviously that costs money but if you're going to have some any choice you need that you need it on your website you need to go out to school so that you really know what their what their options are and so it's got a good policy statement but probably because you what I hear is you guys have done some of these things before so we used to have as a student fair or a school fair where every school program had like and what you might be stopped because the neighborhood school that was perceived as underperforming had nobody interested and they were all walking to the Sunnyside environment and enjoyed seducing if I was just I can't remember where this was if it was off the green hair or George but anyway the principal talking about the communications that were going out to their fifth or it was in an elementary school it was a good one so the communication that we're going out to fifth grade families about focus option programs and they were getting flooded with these and they weren't getting any of about their neighborhood middle school and then does the district then have an obligation to help programming for e to help principals because I was so principal 100 years ago but you know and I never thought about recruiting kids to my school I mean I never thought about it in a million years so much I barely engaged parent I would say those who things about the district at this point and I didn't know that my daughter who found the deficit you know that was not for her until I was facilitating a panel of Jefferson teachers that was being
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comfortable again I got a good nice just and I see you know there's every possibility that it got sent to me in an email and I missed it but I was really surprised to learn that if I don't know it what other parents aren't aware of that it's not pretentious right exactly I think not only do we not do it I think schools are prohibited so there was marketing I mean Judy kid but this I would definitely okay yeah okay because because of the impact on neighborhood schools so so the when when we would get when my kid was in school it was NCLB so for every failing school he got a letter saying you know you have a right to go to you know XYZ school once NCLB stopped intimidate the Fords he'll be when we stop that practice and focus option schools and programs were prohibited I mean they've given completely messages on the one hand you're supposed to increase your diversity on the other hand you can't recruit salmon charters well you all need to have a discussion about that I mean I just think I understand what you're saying but I think you're also saying that's yeah but there's really different geographic implications so to me the river and 82nd division of the Burnside literally that whole corridor was full of focus options the only my kids were it's called the only elementary school that was not was they didn't have a focus which it's a huge swath that's like 2020 some schools there you go say to another part of the district there's maybe one or two more I'm saying but the impact is going to be a lot of kids in one geographic area all they're close to it and so it seems to me like what the board needs to do in the next year's have a really important policy conversation about how we break down these systems segregation one of those is to eliminate focus option programs and said mistakes back to their neighborhood schools the other way is to to make sure that we're getting all those students that we want into those focus option programs to the extent they're successful and as the parent of two focus option kids I got to tell you we we were really hard to diversify the school we were not allowed to bark it we had no transportation we couldn't get after-school care but you know at the program so all these things we kept doing to sort of encourage people they're like well that's not going to work for me but but these programs also some of them have some really really good outcomes some of those outcomes are because of the kids who go there some of those outcomes are because the programs are doing something interesting and that's him he is the conversation that I would like to afford to have because you don't have to send me the sin that gets back the neighborhood schools you can get all those kids that are being you know there that are not doing well or they need something different into those schools if you want your talk you put it I mean you you you make it you go back to this this issue of who gets in first who's at the top of the lottery there were a number of us parents at these schools that were saying no no that you should give these to low SES kids like those should be the first ones in right that's not if you look at the data by direct certification at all attempts because of plays saying is and this kind of no man we can also move those programs to different places throughout the district so they're not thank you so it's equitable access issues right yeah your as a board to say to your superintendent we and staff we want to make sure that focus magnets whatever you're going to call them our house that kids no matter where they live there's equitable access to these programs that's it if they have some kind of litmus test that they are providing a distinctive educational level disappearing off the child well another thing is staying which is what
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districts are doing is it's a centralized function so in other words a principal can't just decide that he or she wants to be something right it's the central office through whatever process you go through that decides we need a whatever program here and we have to think about equitable access and we have that themes or program to draw the person so what's interesting going back into the institutional history and some of these key artifacts from board members we started by reviewing the racial equity policy around up relaxes the board's recommend its own practices have actually exasperated it's just so funny to move on am i going probably on time but you're going to have time to talk about the same topic at the end so don't worry about that policy winery is I think most visible to us are also hardship transfers I'm sure it is well it's an opaque system and actually we want a conversation about it among parents but that's the way in which like you can change the batteries wherever you want a lot but there's this other process that people get into others other schools so one thing that I would say is there should be a lot more transparency about what that is and what the impacts are who's benefiting from that because it is I don't think anybody has visibility to it's been asking you've heard of spaghetti code and perhaps it was like that's kind of your sorry and it was we got a data download on that and it was hard to make heads or tails out of it in terms of what is this me so visibility into what the heart should have hardship transfers there's a lot of money there's a new category it seems somewhat discretionary at least that's the rap on the street isn't it nobody that's what the criteria is I don't think anymore that's the case that's enough story that people are telling them what ok well that's true I guess I've heard I hear the opposite that is pretty than I mean people are getting it would be great to see the report because so they could just give an example a frame rate stinky what Franklin for example there have the passband like also be that you've of athletes who have arrived in cycle hothi mm-hmm get in and they're going on neighborhood students and it's like hardship transfer so it's just like I think there's a lot of conversations about it and the best way to dispel if it is not true which it just schools are getting into preparing the criteria about hardship transfers before and that is often what happens and something tightening up if you need to look at your definition in the process it goes through it may be perfect but but also just felling what's out on the street I think Korea's the transparency that I've heard from building leadership is that for some schools they have a number of students who were perhaps in that neighborhood and then identification happened those students moved out of that neighborhood and they maybe been allowed to stay favorite tool and those building leaders we've seen a decline in tenants of those students because it's much more difficult for families to get them and there's one case in particular where of the student almost nine days come back for to miss nine days come back for two they're not getting you know unenrolled but they're not been able to qualify for special ed services that they need and so it's this hardship on the bills they have how to be managed like and and the paper said you know we don't know what's best for
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this child it is the best for them to stay in the school we are known or would it be better for them to transfer to this coolness they know two blocks from what they are now living but then they might moving in so it's that sort of like is there a time when a transfers lost its Dara staff like Anna you need to attend seventy percent of this time to retain your transfer and then are there exceptions get sick or those kind of pieces but have that conversation about how do you think that standing with this is a discussion that surfacing a few big Gator in hospital areas and so you know this issue of transfers there's a lot of overall understanding and maybe we're not all calibrated sort of how it functions the imagined family so imagine even is here sort of response to here but as we capture the questions and we start to sort of provide some real information each of these days hope little dispel some of what makes myth but also clarify what the data actually is and whether these levers what role they play in the overall balance or diversity for that matter so let's go to your last policy so one thing we we just highlighted this last sentence promote equity is diversity in the admission of students educational options and minimize barriers to participation and educational options think about that statement and the discussion we just got what Andrew and others raised what you did I understand that tension between hope they were in schools and what focused full yep what does that mean and how can you deal with it all the issues that this conversation part is facilities issues that we used to be a district 17 and so we have a lot more buildings and actually had students on the west side most of the buildings are for the east side a lot of extra space and so when there was these programs that whether those parents or you know a teacher or a principal who wanted to start a program and it was like we need a place to put it they all got put in this centralized place so if they were to be geographically dispersed so the one that the only one on the west side we moved from Chapman I've seen to another building but today you actually have this the facilities that are were open for focus options were all sort of in one geographic area which had this disproportionate impact or most of them on this one set of neighborhoods and it's just you weren't going to go to a neighborhood school and say that wasn't Foster the Lincoln cluster and say we're actually going to remove these students from the school the neighborhood school to put in a focus option and so just by by default we have this huge concentration of those programs mostly in sort of sort of Center and it doesn't surprise me we're trying to fill space and not have to close schools right I mean that is a balancing that school districts went through when they but we actually below is school so just we just created our own disequilibrium because what we created our adjacent since seriously under enrolled school now we actually closed eight schools we closed Richmond we closed Brooklyn we closed application but we didn't close facilities become even close some people's new build up was neighborhood school programs originally Wilcox
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young son Applegate eight neighborhood schools were closed and they all either a now have focus options and this music for Tori there have focus options in them or some other alternative purely style program yeah okay so I think about what we talked about just a few other pieces of educational the different learning needs and educational interests the board values all options and continuing to complement each other and serving students family needs within the district by the primary they're the primary decision-makers what's missing there is the diversity piece right that's what's missing it's later in the policy but it's not dead right there because you're saying if we want to end any improvement of achievement so it says we want to meet the needs and interests of kids but it doesn't say that you value diversity when thinking about that and you want to improve educational now in addition to that a piece about educational interests of students the vast majority of the what I think we got to call magnet programs are are at lower grade elementary grades so it's not students who are making those choices it's parents and making choices and in 2010 PBS very deliberately shut down transfers at the high school level so that at the point at which a kid actually does have interests choice is now shut down so that that is an observation when I saw unlike other districts that you will see other districts that have more high school and middle school and particularly when you've got some elementary options not everything should be a feeder all the way up but you should think about those when you know you're doing your programs some of them don't make sense like Montessori if you have a Montessori program although there's some of people who have a middle school Montessori program I don't buy it but that's what they want to do but that's kind of an elementary program but let's stay creative in performing arts that's a great elementary middle high school and that will draw and you will have success I guarantee you I just want to push back well a couple things we have we have a middle school arts program I would say probably the vast majority kids there are artsy kids and I know there are parents who say get their kid in there and their kid is not an artsy kid and they don't know if they think they'll be make them more well-rounded or whatever and the child may very well have free sub-optimal semi mr. fine I know if my parent is like me in there when I was that age so diverse that even even have the elementary oh look how talented my child is in whatever why why would we have a magnet program at the elementary level around arts or math or you know we all think our child is brilliant in some way or many ways or others and people think that yeah yeah I might feel free to do so I mean I need a line program okay makes sense you know you should start as early as you possibly pre-k impossible but for everything else yeah I agree I don't you know I can't see my kid was a math genius yeah I'm gonna say just Julia's coming back while the district used to be 17,000 and we at 49 everything about suburbs I've been reading about the low birth rate and I think as we talked about facilities to talk about boundaries and so I went down a rabbit hole like Google very quickly
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but according to the study started sighted in the Portland Portland mere mercury last May the birth rate in Oregon is the lowest it's been since 1995 and in Multnomah County it's actually the lowest it's been since 1978 when the county population was a third the size it is now but Moldova County Probation 1000 last year people moving in but if you look across the u.s. the birth rate isn't massive decline so as we think about this and I think it's it is in our best interest for the long term feature of the district to really do a robust it's their job on these policies because we are going to have to continue to evaluate the schools and the boundaries of programs as if our enrollment continues to decline with with declining birthrate we're gonna have to make a lot of decisions about programs so we can lay some of that groundwork now instead of our static it's never a static landscape and I accept this to people before that the perforated to claim they think oh well so many people are moving to Oregon the people moving are not having children and/or they're moving here without kids and so like we really need to be aware of like it's gonna be in five years when the babies were born dissection study from 2017 so those kiddos you know they're going to be entering kindergarten before we know it and and those class size is that that affects everything as we think about how do we build the best schools for our students in terms of terms of options well I think currently we have still a number of students we're getting quiet again sorry we solve a number of students who are in under enrolled case and so in those middle grades if my child were in one of those under role fades when they got to sixth grade and it's like you could go somewhere else it surprises me as to stay in those because the options that they have with 150 students a basis for sixth seventh and eighth grade it's just so much less so you know maybe like the start of middle school is not that great it's not so much like we have to have magnets but how about just having middle schools that have we don't have that as Mikey the neighborhood school is a really a deficient option right now for that so I'll be full disclosure we use choice we'd like it and and if I had to do it again I would not I think there are real costs to leaving your neighborhoods because but don't become a parent until it's too late and I remember trying to navigate that choices and I like to think I'm reasonably functional on a good day it was a nightmare to navigate that it was so complicated you know it and she was in school where there was NCLB in and we were we were in an area where you know I was like choose anything I am NOT an educator I mean I only know what I know and I thought making was a mad genius so clearly I don't know what I'm talking about and I'm having to make massive choices on behalf of my kid based on you know like random conversations in the playground but when we say you're having to make why is that because you deemed your neighborhood school unaccept well also I mean we're not give me black no no no but but but I will say when when my kid was was entering yes that was the era when the norm was the exercise choice and I was doing this from overseas and it was a very clear message of a GPS website if you're a good parent you don't go to your neighborhood school you go to one of these fancy schmancy focus option things what so I'm just I'm just saying maintenance under certain circumstances made you fine and wonderful things but I am deeply skeptical for most families I
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wasn't under administrative policies an objective so clearly that's they're collaborating with educational options just to assess their ongoing as there is Authority in your policy to do some things that you may want to do they they may not have been exercised absolutely put them out there and I do think you know give it to your point I don't think it makes sense to have every school it doesn't make any sense to me to have every school a magnet school you know you're gonna have support folio schools kind of different kind you're gonna have some attendance area or each call neighborhood schools you're not magnet schools you're going to have different kinds of programs you want to offer in some of the neighborhood schools because that addresses the needs and of those kids in that particular area model so it's really important okay I just was so I know that it also seems like it's a big difference whether we have magnet schools in a district where there's a base level of achievement in all of our schools versus one where we have failings and that is an important and that's that's the same point go ahead every district has the same number of failing schools well maybe not every district but I work with a lot of districts around the country like I'm going to Clark County they have some active schools and some attendant area schools is what we call them there and you know they've got failing schools just read the paper I live in love every County Maryland you know I mean not all our schools are perfect bad either even though people think it's like oh the gun and sometimes but of course there are failing schools and every district I haven't evaluated your proportion but I don't think you're a failing school system just from my perception I just made I guess it also comes down to priorities we're talking about that it's but but I do think I mean I I would absolutely spend our first dollar in time fixing the failing schools before we spend a lot of time fixing and that's although maybe some of them are failing you know part of why they're failing is because they're dramatically under enrolled because everyone is fleeing from them yes and I've made the hen verses on the preposition because of our focus option schools in most of the cases people are fleeing from rather than and if that's happening we need to address it on the other hand maybe there are things happening in focus on to school that could be adopted in a failing school that would actually work well right so appreciate you bringing that up director Scott over now and no one's actually talked about some schools are more desirable than others and not have talked about well what would it take to actually make every school choice high quality choice and what does that work look like rigor in the program and they're also symptom the current system so that's why I keep coming back to the racial equity policy because institutional policies practices that are perpetuating that's just a crazy system so what is it that we need to stop doing where do we need to actually make an investment so that you don't feel like you have to exercise a choice you go across the street and you're going to be served well there's always going to be some schools that need a greater degree of support and intervention but they have those conditions that they're working on so what are those what are those factors the variables that we need to focus on because that's well that's why we have two regional sips at the table because that's where they spend their energy is how we take those most I just want us to be real careful when we're talking about failing schools I have no doubt that there you could compare two schools and have wildly different test scores and he's switched faculty because you're you wouldn't you
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wouldn't see any difference on average so Justin I just want us to be careful because that has been the test or thing has been used it has a reason to say that's a bad school so I'm not going to send my kid there when the quality of teaching might actually be substantially higher than in the higher income school so I think we I think we should how we define it yeah yes so I just I guess I was I think it's great sweetie Scott and I would add it's that not only what's happening in the school day but everything else so I'll just go back to mid-2000s and it's different now because there's just great there's middle school sports across the district by the time when our kids went to a title one middle school basically the first day of school we got a note saying and 3:45 your students are to leave the school grounds there was like no sports teams were organized paying coaches there is nothing and so it's not an that just sports I mean there's a whole host of other things but with the school and so I think we'll be yeah people say to us and like failing schools maybe some people will say that but there's also this like what resources do they have if your kids entrance to their music is there an after-school music program or are there more than you know you know is there just instrumental music no prior or you know whatever it is I think that's that's the bigger piece the appearance of looking at is like what are the other things I mean I know like it used to be we had some schools that just had half-day kindergarten carrots who worked full time just that wasn't an option and this is what I mean by conditions the very firm initiating the supports incoming he is starting to see that we do in our schools at Baxter administration have extra staffing if we could all have pre kids you know the extended learning we're talking about we've been to the bunch of the fifth quarter so they have a summer extended learning opportunity you know so how do we make sure these schools and home kids and your attendance area schools and some of those things you might want to put in some more one or more of these policies too so that would be and that's what I was thinking under the viable program options there might be some other things it's kind of like a checklist to kind of remind people because that's what holds kids aren't in parents I mean they're also used to be a very robust and then Steve probably could speak to this but a very robust pre-k program that had racial diversity so about it or we see a lot of kids from my neighborhood whose parents every day to a pre-k program boy CLE and then they went into Boise Elliott and it was a very integrated at the time k-8 or Celia but there were that was one of the strategies and northeast is that parents got their kids into a valued a diverse preschool program with the district grant so the some other strategy is that again making it more on the asset based versus the my school doesn't habit and I think some of those things in your policies will help you guys remember and also guys the superintendent as he you don't tell me what to programs but you say you should consider these kinds of things and you are doing letters to regionals I mean even clearer that this really feels like there's a lot of knowledge in the room it's important that we know our paths and like what we've done and where we've been and also that we kept the freedom to like set it totally new vision for what the future can be and to highly again hold that tension of acknowledging what's been and say we are moving in new ways and I think that's gonna be the huge tension of like as we look at very very legacies as we maybe say to some of our focus options it's time for you to change what's happening here that that there's going to be a lot of like tradition and institutional change I'm on the the committee that's hang about what eventually might change at Cleveland and we were talking about location and structure and my site deciding and someone that very passionate about the address changing so there are things and there are triggers that are really important to people that are going to be surprising and so how do we like balance that to get caught up in the story of attacks right to say well we used to do this way why can't we do that same old thing and have success but okay how do we learn from that and then do the newspaper where we used to do it that
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way and it didn't work so we're not going to think about that and then because I think things are different yeah a range of decrees ins why things don't work for why things do work and thinking through that so do you want to under D Brack I want to just move to this one recommendation thinking about that you want to point out and discuss as a group there are a lot of recommendations let's see so we were instructed initially to this really important so take your time some it's only my lived experience and we're going to do the whole district and then about a month later orders well I need a Westside plan next month and and probably exaggerating slightly but and the next month was like through but it was like we got the order right that now a time of year so in terms of a and they have a plan B trying to do the community outreach this time of year is a little nutty and see the turnaround time between getting a potential scenario and saying can we do it somewhat differently was several weeks and so it was completely or just kind of did what it wanted to do it was I'll just say something suboptimal so reading here it looks like a superintendent at the time supposed to be with a Swiss of these developing the enrollments in scenarios where did they like put that back on so yeah feel free to chime in stepped about scenarios random by dfrac and we had community also got some feedback excellent questions ran into illustrates several times there were some suggestions where you can't get there from here with the school bus so that memory change was not going to work my lived experience on the Westside actually helped and then just kind of running out of time I'm sure Sam felt that way too so there was the recommendation that then went to the superintendent and there may have been some modification and then went to the school board and there were more occupations there and some unfortunate politics so other reactions but there are a lot of recommendations and it's hard to tease out I think it's still one or two things but there's a lot of recommendations in the in the body of it and then there's the chart if we read that so we came up with six
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Elmen neighborhood schools focus option schools programs and maybe yeah we add you know after-school and other programs as you think about that given our discussion k8 + RK 5 minutes and programs optimal capacities for element you know that's particularly maybe important for you as you think about the bond what is an optimal size okay program and then finally feeder pattern so those are the topics that we thought when we kind of wanted to raise some things up based on what stab at heard you talk about I read something he's read the newspaper articles and talked to people just about with raises up 20 here from board members what is your commitment makes sense I think that's our pathway to success that like we said all of the schools are a good option anything you have every building is one where where people would say this is a situation of my time and then I think you know we do I put a ball I'm a big music doesn't have to all be the same but the parents would feel good about Stephanie emergencies and I think that for me it's my highest priority that we have stable of excellent programs and schools parties and I think I've only fully image of failing either I like this psi and PSI of schools that we just need to surround with more resources and more support and I think historically the the driver of budget our system has been and we have addressed that really significant community last couple of years some changes to our staffing formula so that we do have a program i hate's a minimum program but we you have you know we're going to include certain opportunities for kids regardless of what the economy and scale is or the teacher force there so just to make sure kids have that but that that is the driver for the inequity and balances an enrollment I want to focus on the word inclusive so I mean I would hope that we would have a pretty expansive view of what we mean by inclusive that would include all of the things that you talked about around equity issues so not only racial and ethnic diversity but also that kids needing special education services should be able to go to receive those services near their homes and that they're up to the stable locations so that the students who need the stability most get it and that has not finished yes we have schools that have gotten away with basically rejecting kids in their own neighborhood saying we're not really set up to serve you but there's a few out of kids like you at the school over there so when you go over there across them and also I mean I I think inclusivity also has to include tag services that are available so that it shouldn't shouldn't have to go to a special school where they can their educational equipment overarching values student happens so these these are things
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so I have questions about portfolio for the obese can I ask about click my question on that like what does a portfolio mean yeah how does having a portfolio or a managed as opposed to DL is different commit how does a portfolio and get this is a good question how does it portfolio all these others where their conversation should be yeah that's black white white you're ready to deal a lot but not other alternatives because the research shows that that DL is the tall way educated are emergent bilinguals students and as positive outcomes for both and English speakers and Spanish diverse work in whichever language and in fact more sometimes better outcomes traditional but you haven't seen evidence that's correct but am i right that DLI programs also have to save impact on neighborhoods absolutely that they draw and when I'm trying to get at is just just enough just think he gets back to this issue of what I hear you saying that I think I can agree 100 percent if we can show positive outcomes for the students in its programs it's something we should pursue even though there may be some negative impacts on neighborhood schools but we shouldn't pursue the programs that don't have positive to me I think we would need to show that that particular program meets students needs that cannot be met and neighborhoods and I'm ivy hi Mike me too I miss those gonna say I like lutely and sync sync with what you're saying that a do I program the uniqueness is the certain service to the Nate that the native speaker because a neighborhood program but not their language is they're going to get less than they would they would get less in a neighborhood program and a non it may be more interesting and engaging that I'm not sure there's a strong a body of research as the dual language yeah and I'll probably walk walk that back so that's just an outline thing so just one ended what's wrong but my and again I raised that as he I'm more in that asking the question rather than saying here's where you know ideas react as waves but I would put that out there was something that we if I get my posit that as maybe that's one way to think about it I'm willing to wrestle with that and be convinced one way or another but I think we have some programmatic focus option schools where what's delivered is not anything that couldn't be done and they were to the school and does not he just have to eat the needs of students that couldn't be and I meant primarily talking through K
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through five right now so I I think that's there's a whole area there that we need to rest with and again I maybe end up in a slightly different place we had some reactions like this I see you haven't shown here what Mexican say about any and all but I would say characteristic I know I've been like I'm gonna drop her out about our focus options and not just have the options because we've always had them but to say I think that's what you're getting to what is what is serving our students what is imperative our core goals and the outcomes we desire for students and and to really examine like what is the where are we in the district in are these programs healthy and coupled or are there places where they are passions of privilege or any of the other parts of what we have struggled against as a district and how do we disrupt those systems and it's going to be painful I mean anything I do the credits a good thing I've already decided I'm not running again that's my possible money but you know this is this is going to be a hard thing but I think if we're really committed the student outcomes into our board goals we need to be supportive of strategic changes to the entire system I think I think you're safe on this launch closer just just done this first I hope somebody captured what I just said but I think it's really important is that that for me in terms of looking at this right and I think the first thing is that our magnet program should not however if we can get beyond I do think in a district of our size there's value in innovation and creativity and and I see the magnet or focus options program so more is an opportunity to test out different models so yes it may work for some kids but it may also be something that we can take back and expand but but they need to be they need to be meeting kids and actually love what Scott said they're meeting the needs of kids who school is important to a point although I think when creativity innovation but my I will go back to the first thing they can't be doing harm which they are some of them are count as if our policies but you know I was just gonna say we have policy work to do so in my mind we can't do that work until we receive a recommendation from the superintendent from the educational leaders giving us some guidelines about the educational value and effectiveness of these focus programs relative to areas within schools like are they doing all the things we just discussed are they providing something the state dip and of value and if so and if they're not very diverse which most are all apart of them then we keep them and we need to figure out how to diversify that but we leave with them as a strength exactly no wait at your decide cuz another interesting thing right it would be so odyssey eighth-grade students have the highest lit scores a mistake I'm just a PPS book in the state what if we set aside fifty percent of those slots and Odyssey for low SES kids would those kids when they got eighth grade still have the high school well let's find out like that that's sort of walking the walk to see I heard you [Laughter]
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our students you know I mean you had an interesting experience I did yours was the height years was the old me I read in the whole system I did I went to 25 environmental oh I enjoyed but it also it was not diverse it was very different when I got the heist a little too major shock and my mom was like oh my gosh there's so many kids here you're in like large class and it's very different I think that either that poke adoption I learned a lot it was really valuable experience for me about environmental curriculum but like you know other students don't have access to that and that's kind of an issue especially I mean you know in my opinion like environmental curricular is really important but also for you know commitment to inclusive and equitable schools programs for high schoolers especially there are high schoolers that you know traditional and high schools don't necessarily work for them and so if there's that commitment to inclusive and equitable schools and programs or you know committing to resource you know give resources to those schools that are helping the students succeed and other programs that I mean I'm sure that goes from middle school but I wouldn't know and then for a diverse enrollments I think that definitely like means students and staff I think a lot of students of color when they don't have staff there that are a color as well they don't really feel like they have relationships with those people and I mean I could be wrong also but just from what I know like a lot of students at Franklin for students of color when they see that we have mr. Frazier it was it's black and we have a lot of awesome staff that are color as well that definitely helps people that helps students have a connection to those people and that definitely I think helps with the enroll point people staying there because they have that connection to stop I don't really know what portfolios neighborhood schools in focus options are programs to be different just different just variety and different choices okay I mean when we talked about goals and the capacity for high school enrollment programs and facilities and the student council talked about you know require these programs uniform across the whole district that kind of concept what program should students have access to and some schools would not other schools and a lot of students with the facilities you know their flaws and they don't feel and like you know parents think they're applause - so the facilities don't act are not optimal for what they people like staying with their friends sometimes sometimes they like making new friends in high school and I've learned but there's that sense of like comfort when you're able to come from middle school high school students have those really close connections with their peers how do I need people came through Sunnyside with you quite a few we have a need we kind of go everywhere but I have people that are in all my colleagues on my combo unit there's one person who I went to Sunnyside with but another garden but we have a lot of students for Sunnyside sinusitis it's like 99% neighborhood school yeah it used to be lottery minute change so values and priorities so I'm not sure where else I'm going to say this slide so I'm just an aside now is that is a finite number of stack staff capacity and we could you know this this could be like a decade at work plus for staff so I'm an advocate for strategically deploying that this staff capacity that we have and for 2020 I think a piece of that staff capacity model for piece of food and everything programs relates to just the physical so I'm all-in on the bond in 2020 and
02h 05m 00s
then sort of my another priority I would have would be in terms of what the capacity we as a board have because we have a capacity for how much work we can do as well is that the first bullet the commitment to inclusive and equitable schools and programs and then the optimal capacities and but I'm gonna be so further refined district-wide and so I think I would be interested in looking at the average incomes across the city by zip code they have the free meals by direct certification but I think that's a rather one instrument the data I've seen that workforce systems has by zip code income and it's yeah it's and so this is sort of just a slice but anyway we look at it you see and then look at those they were those take the two x factors or race [Music] and like the schools in those areas that are most diverse and that the biggest economic challenges and look at the schools and whether we're doing anything beyond sort of a minimum program because I'm concerned that I'd like this not to be confirmed by the data but I'm afraid it might be is that places where we have sort of the two x factor we offer the minimum the minimum program and having a really robust discussion so led by our superintendent about how we can change again I think you can make we can move boundaries as much as we want but until we're offering I think we will have those who can leave and so that that would be my priority and I would sense that that would fall primarily into under rollcage than little braids and then in those places where we have Underwood's take a eighths and just so I can look at that map and then that'd be the focus and his balance but they don't have the two x factor maybe that's a twenty twenty-one twenty twenty two I know there's a lot of interdependencies but if I had a pair size I get after this and in conjunction because I do believe I look at Franklin and having a modernized high school really has changed things in the neighborhood so I want to keep that lose that opportunity to energize other neighborhoods in the same way there's actually three she we know that think looking at this and maybe even all in as I listen okay bond about under roll K fives in the two times neighborhoods and the middle grades is things that are in the k-8 in the gym and this word is spoken clearly about explores for and so every hour that we can protect them SAP time is going into upping the conditions and those continuing to resources young or which we've done under current [Music] and today the discussion has been very helpful and sort of discussing the values of priorities of the student assignment system and I also want to recall that we also spent time developing core values
02h 10m 00s
in our visioning process some of you critically brought up some of those key terms creativity and innovation it's in the core value of students at the center is the first one for racial equity social justice is the second one so the excellence the partnerships and all those important factors we also know that there's a couple virgin weather we want to see punch them now later we do have to start want to create a new building with an older and so the program designed that we can demonstrate their to properly across the district is going to be very important a break to make happen and then the over enrollment issue crowd efficiency as well because you're not going to this situation in cases that's a lot that's a lot of their popular trade and articulated terms so I'm feeling I'm feeling which is becoming an overwhelming amount work and I'm feeling sort of compelled to remind us that we're talking about boundary changes and boundary changes are good at some things in terrible and other things and and even the things that they're good for they're good for this much so I mean there's a lot of stuff that has to go on I mean all the stuff around improving schools just because that's a pact for whatever we do in the batteries and I kind of feel like we're I feel like we need to decide whether we're going to talk about everything all at once or are we gonna focus because you know we can talk all day every day about the portfolio of schools and and I've been wanting to have that conversation for literally a decade and and I do feel some sense of urgency around that but at the same time it's a that's a very big conversation and and I don't know that we have the capacity right now to have that conversation I would I would like us to because I think that actually could have some impact on what we're doing with the bond we're doing in high schools but but we would have to make a full-on commitment to to have that conversation if we're gonna go there anyway that's I don't know if that's helpful but it's feeling like we're we're getting really big here and and we do have some things that are that are urgent are actually urgent so as much as I agree with what everybody has said I'm feeling like we need to remind ourselves with urgent things up and how how we how we can deal with those urgent issues or what role boundary changes might have in addressing those certifications yeah I think we need tonight and and other times have two parallel conversations that don't intersect very much Policy Committee but we talked about equitable offerings and you know what does that mean well for an individual child it means getting what he or she needs which is the very intentional work of school improvement that is underway right now so intensively at our highest speed schools and to me that's the most urgent work that we have right now and then we sometimes have another conversation around equitable offerings that's really about a few electives at the middle grades which is important
02h 15m 00s
because there have or not just the middle grades actually you know all through Kate that is important because there have historically been some really in defensible inequities but we have work to remedy that by making sure that there's base offerings in every school and we need to continue to do that but it needs to be in concert with the really important goal of what does it take to raise achievement urgently for our kids who have been left behind because ultimately that's way more important to parents and to our whole community than like you know at this middle school over here you have eight different elective choices and bTW they're all created by adults they're not necessarily what kids want and any given kid can only take one because they have to say PE or they're in a language or something so it doesn't really matter if you have a I mean yes we want our kids to be able to explore but that's what mobile redesign is about it you need to have a schedule that allows kids to do more sampling so so just I don't really know how to reconcile those two conversations that talk that don't talk to one another very much but for me equitable schools and programs is really all about the urgent work of school improvement so that every neighborhood school is a place where you feel proud and excited to send your kids second good frame to serve it needs to pull me back to that that's what we're focused on there's a lot of other things here that are issues we need to address in the system but what we're talking about boundary changes that's that's what we're trying to address and then we apply these values as we look at different options but it just it kind of pulled me back a little bit as we were talking about all of these issues one district I mean the reality is where are the places where that problem is close to severe that we need to make those fixes what are the options of that and then how to do findings but to everyone everyone else said about the criteria people I guess I mean oh the confused like just not maybe you just ask cuz I didn't view this as a conversation just about boundaries because I think that's a it's like saying we only have a hammer or in our tool chest to me and I what I see southeast it's not gonna matter to change the batteries and so like I'd love to have the conversation about what what actually our students have access to because I do think everything matters and and I just again I'll go back to my kids at hospira it was like here's the wonderful women if you don't my kids you know or here's the one language of this you know if you want to take another language that's too bad or if you need app your student who needs avid but we don't have it because you know we ran under enrolled k-8 I do think it matters what's offered so I guess I'm maybe I just I'm not sure I understood the premise was that we were just talking about boundaries I thought we were like that equitable programming well well like to me it's like batteries is one way that we can and I know there's some solution because you get more students but you and none of the k-8 is a boundary change going how long as you've got a new school but you could change the batteries all you're not late and you're not gonna get a big enough school in which they have a big enough set of offerings that it does and it doesn't matter because I mean kids basically have to some principles at KS and now we you know kids were they don't have electives they just get told like here's what you know the option you have and they're more slotted into those classes and those are sometimes it's the most important class well we made as parents I think that is the case the core is the most important for some kid that's what engages them and it's maybe like hey we just have instrumental music and you you know you wanted something different but that's what we have to offer because we don't have that much so I guess I want to just push back a little bit on the framing of the conversation being just about boundaries because what I hear in a lot in East Portland is not about boundary changes
02h 20m 00s
right I mean I feel like the boundary the boundary piece is one of the tools that we use to balance enrollment and and I feel like this is the disconnect we had at the policy some of the other night is that we are just talking about the hammer like tonight I mean that that when we talk about these policies and we talk about the boundaries we are just talking about that the one tool which is the boundary and then I think the conversation we have about what matters has looking about that focus options at those pieces I think that's direction to the superintendent and staff about what our board abilities are their alignment with our district values so they can go and do that work critical targeted interventions that help all schools income excellent so I think one of the the conversation and Amy was alluding to you that we have two separate ones a little bit and and where is the board purview and some of this work and where is the superintendent's purview and how do we say we highly value that all schools are excellent and that there's equitable inclusive programming and we as a board to support that work but our work is that you know boundary conversations and those other specific tools that the board can kill policy 1200 why we're here tonight because we recognize that we couldn't do the policy we can do any any student assignment work before we revisited the policies discover what I've got it's a priorities out which is exactly where there's nothing in the in any of the enrollment policies that's gonna help the kids who like barn and the kitty were an outer southeast who are in the Kellogg catchment area so and I guess it's like if there was work happening then I'd like to see I'd like to see it and the community would like to see it because there's a sense that there's ok that and shove is that you know an under enrolled schools that there's a sense it's not I would hope we have a conversation about that so there's something happening that's a deliberate plan and Finance I'd like to see it as my conversation which people like hates in South Beach has been that they see as Franklin cakes like they hadn't heard people talk about the positives that ka talk to their students and those other places where there are circles so that you know that the principal I talked to just this last week was saying you know these are all the reasons we need is the right answer for our students and these are all the places where we need to ensure the six apps that we're working and so I think it's also this is an ongoing conversation with a lots of different community perceptions so how do we say we're talking about boundaries we're talking about how the balanced enrollment and we are talking about that optimization of all programs but how do we differentiate that and separate it so because I think you can get distracted by saying the one at all today and you I mean what you said in here you had a timeline like we're going to do work this here's the work I'd like to see this area you know but we can't do it all at one moment so I think this piece about but you're gonna have to change boundaries again and again and again and again as our population shrinks as our programs become so awesome everybody wants to be in their neighborhood school so how do we get to the roots and values so that when we made these policies you have this clear platform to stand on so we can get to those very things you're talking about and it's not just about I'm sorry so I just said this before I want to say it again sorry if I'm repeating myself I would like to these are all interconnected it's a system yeah so the piece that isn't called up there explicitly is collocated programs that can have a boundary implication if we switch out of that would kill ugh is built that's kind of course some memory changes if we still have locus options in the same places that affects the memory for Kristen's can have to be this big which affects walkability which is pretty highly health value among parents versus this big besides the equity issues in terms of the library works they're all interconnection
02h 25m 00s
I would ideally like to see us have a unified plan that has taste and indentation because all that that that would be we are gonna work on doing these policies and making some shifts maybe run legacy pieces flow analytics we'll take those policy changes switch that into their magic algorithm and come back to us with some recommendations I don't know if that's the timeline as we begin to look at how the boundaries are going to work especially around Kellogg there's also the community in gaming especially with the parents whatever areas that we need to prioritize changes and that the variable of the values that we put forward and the policy work is quite huge it can it can change the direction of that work very significantly but I also think there's some staff work focus options that's look need to happen before locust a push-button staff like have is that another car I mean I think again the layers of like how much are we asking our staff to do in this moment and is that like the next thing after we do all the other things right like we can't add in your lower t fur you know in case there's ambiguity on the governance question here in administration of an educational program yes these things are intertwined so we need to exercise the lovers partnership and we're eighteen months into launching you know my definition schools catch the vast majority personal supervisor Stein is in the schools that most dramatically city because the ones who are actually dealing on the ground the last couple weeks in particular where these things are becoming acute because they're they're existing in the system that that has not that's starting to get the lay of the land here and seeing how these to be some of these issues are constraining schools it's a hobby I was I was thinking the same thing it would be great to hear your on the ground box on these issues but first your focus these days absolutely I mean I think we're talking about schools in need of improvement you know we're looking to add almost a third of our schools that have been identified as needing approval you know in a specific number of indicators ranging from mathematics performance English language arts to attendance even to something around graduation rate so when we're looking at how we approach that work a lot of the work is specific to you know what we were talking about here which value priority number one of just a commitment to inclusive and equitable schools and programs and that starts with you know what is our wrap around approach for how we're pushing into these schools not only pushing in support but also how we pushed in resources and services and capital into these schools which we have been working on very very hard and strategically on for the last I would say over a year-and-a-half since most of us have gotten on board to start having this school improvement focus when we talked about actually what the data's did what the day to days look like you know we can talk from a curricular standpoint we can talk from a student support services standpoint in terms of what is the SDL wrap around approach look like in terms of what we're doing for those schools but I think you know with Kili who specifically overseeing our CSI schools and we we know we're gonna have a board presentation you know coming up in a couple of weeks around our SS of runner-esque the schools and our asked to strategy or really be able to talk a little bit more in depth of what does that look like but I'd like to hear you know Keeley's perspective just really quick in terms of what is that approach look like for CSI and if you can just give us just a quick glimpse into what your work looks like in a day to day basis working specifically with your
02h 30m 00s
schools so for our CSI schools we had one area senior director and we have seven schools that are gonna fly to CSI and then we have an additional two that are grouped and so that's really what's different this year is we have one person identified to work with a group of nine schools so they get extra professional learning they get weekly visits by the area senior director I'm there as much as I can a majority of my visits with them or what do they need from us how can we help them what extra support when extra resource what professional learning do they need they have gotten some additional resource this year they all got an additional teacher or licensed teacher there to act as a substitute because they have some low fill rates or for future making so we breathe it's pretty targeted support and then we spend a lot of time in our schools we try to provide equitable resources they need and a lot of times that's support from us to the principal it's walking classrooms where the principal's it's going in to see what professional learning their teachers need and making sure that we provide that to them so like six Craig's gonna go into a lot more detail I'm here in a couple weeks at a board meeting but that is definitely our focus schools in need of BRC aside in the nerve CSI - but this year we've really been intentional around the support Garcias Iseman the board will recall last spring when you heard from supporters our leaders in these school communities that's the work that is the work right and that's what we're blocking and tackling and protecting and supporting as much as possible because exhaling just out there so your team that's the destination there are others that also needs support supervision some of the characteristics some of the attention what the leader does for the teachers announcer what I discovered is that there's so much time constraint around what they wanted to do because they do need time to think they do need time to plan and I'm talking about it especially if you rely on the leader at the school you have played a lot of vested interest in the capacity of a leader so how much capacity does that mean you have within themselves and how much capacity are they really have to disseminate their knowledge within the system and within the ranks for the teachers how do the teachers then take you know the second part of what I've been looking at also is how do the students learn because not all our students are auditory learners and what happens with lesson planning is we have a lot of Stand and Deliver yeah you really spun get a chance to hear what the student knows well in your ability to hear what the child does that's how you know exactly how much understanding there is within the classroom and within that individual challenge to be able to do that though the lesson and instruction has to change the opportunity to learn has to be intense and a lot deeper and the tasks have to be really sophisticated to get at that critical thinking piece that we want well all of that takes time so when there is no time to plan during the day it really is the problem for the leader and the school so that's what I've known it's something campaign Ian's as I've been here to try to figure out ways to build time during the day before the teachers to plan we have to consider the fact that they have families too and it is really unrealistic to think they're going to and 60 hours doing all this work and then go home and have any more energy to engage in in-depth thinking to be able to searching these all have solutions and they're all solvable and they can all be solved this coming September it's how focused do we want to be on this work and I hope you prioritize resources to go towards that we'll see accelerated control towards your goals that you're going to hold us accountable we need to preserve our bandwidth for those efforts how we sort of prioritize areas that here and those are just the databases you to remind you we have a team who's there I would say homo bene um will be Oh muffin and I have been in several schools not long after you have been there and staff and parents have raved
02h 35m 00s
about your interactions how long has it been now it's so nice to hear that I'm sorry but what you're looking for is students engagement you know not like focusing on how to help the principal help the teacher and what is the teacher doing in the front of the room but like what are you seeing as far as those students actually displaying their knowledge and they love learning [Music] I to planning death I think my experience of firm support is that if I let it it will take over my life there is always more I could be doing more good and I think that that's true for our staff I think we we instead as a board those policies around their great reading 5th grade math eighth grade capstone and I'm supposed secondary readiness and ok and as much as I want to like let's examine all the focus options and really be strategic we don't have the bandwidth and I think we need to be ruthless in pursuit of those things at this level and at this time and know that you know the rest will come and sadly I know that my time on the board I'm not going to get all the things done that I think needs to be done or want to do but it's like how how can we move like a step closer to what we envision for our district and I think we have to be ruthless and protecting our staffs time to do what we've asked them to do and it would be easy for me to make a list of about thousand things I'd like the staff to do and really we've asked them to before and all the other to have yes we're spending one an extra three million dollars balancing around where we wants to have a robust program yeah it's important and that's that's not insignificant and we spent a bunch of time for the bridger move which cost staff time Harrison Park hello it's coming the same thing so it's it's a lot of money there's an action behind still it seems so yeah so so just yeah and and again to do some things like fully creating middle schools and Salvi's requires boundary and requires some focus option work so yeah and that's nothing to focus so I'm I'm I'm actually already going to the next steps Sinai she's so so the first bullet point here is update policies and we got a meeting soon yeah and based on tonight's discussion I'm not sure that I have a clear sense from the board about how we want to handle the dilemmas that are inevitably going to happen when we start looking at the policies so there are things like and and I know this just from having worked on committees before about this stuff so so if you've got a value of diversity in terms of racial ethnic makeup economic diversity inclusion if yo else fits tag all of that but how do you balance all of that because those are not honorable and there are the values that I think it there that have been embedded in a lot
02h 40m 00s
of the discussion when we start looking at boundaries on the ground they're going to be in conflict so just just for example and if you're going to increase racial ethnic diversity and you want to have you want to increase so you've been on the diversity and you want to have neighborhood schools how do you do that when you've got a city with housing patterns that are deeply segregated so how do you manage that so I mean I think when we start talking when we start talking about you know cutting and pasting and copy editing these policies I'm not sure I know what to do I don't know how the board wants to handle those dilemmas I moved us back to because I thought next steps and then why are we doing this work why are we doing it now I think it helps there is some focus particularly there is a way prioritize that and then you just have to think well what factors are policy guidance you want to do in that work and the same thing with the future bonds those are two two things whether you want to take one overall a bigger picture over and under enrolled school now that maybe you want to put that and set that aside for another moment don't know a same thing for diversity with all of your schools maybe just want to focus on diversity if that's the value you have okay really because because I think what you're talking if she has to leave the policy work so she guys yeah yeah I like right now I don't know I mean it makes sense to me too that we might want to face all the work you know you can't do everything at once see you may take it in chunks okay well when you're talking about policy I thought the whole point of reading a policy was to have kind of a big picture in mind to establish some criteria for making decisions when you get them to the implementation stage and and I am reminded of the beginning of the d-brane process when they came up with about their values so they had three values equity accesses and environment by which they meant school environment um and I remember at the time looking at the PowerPoint saying and how is that gonna guide anybody who actually has to drop out her you make its yeah so because they're clear I dilemmas that are inevitably going to happen we are going to have to make decisions where we these policies about we're gonna have to prioritize needs and I mean I can come up with stuff no on any right things but I mean I was hoping that I get it that we would get a clear consensus from this discussion about you know in particular about how you want to change the policies ok can i and I'll tell you if I can take that for a second ok everyone fine there you already got the Lord recognizes such factors make them flip with one another we've had that discussion or not following following non prioritized list so the board recognized in 2008 when they did that so the question is are all of these things good and you would use
02h 45m 00s
them in drawing the boundaries and sometimes for some boundaries they're gonna be a form of a priority for one than the other I don't know how to draw a kilogram if I haven't done that but they're going to be other schools involved so how do you sometimes speed or pattern is going to be sometimes student demographics name I think you should define what you mean by student demographics there so that would be a change and what am excited about the instead of limiting the impact of boundary changes to the smallest number yeah Optimizely yeah never get nice thing he said that I generated from the great stuff yeah positive outcomes for those differences I guess we know what I would say is that I have such paper hey there's there's a lot we put on the table back we have not given scripts right what you're right we've given you lots of it is but I'm totally confident with the three of yous and come up there just doing all of us to then come back and then and then the whole board either says you nailed it or cuz I look at this to me okay so for example say there was consensus around the table that we got economic diversity within our school was should be a primary factor in their enrollment so we passed the policy and then staff comes back and says well you know what that's a perfect reason why we're gonna take this group of students in Northwest Portland and bring them across the river to Roosevelt Lin or we're gonna take some Southwest kids and pull them across the river real may say we're supportive of but to me I think there's some things in this policy that I guess I'm not clear how it then gets applied so tonight is but I think that was the next part I was gonna say the policy is not going to not let you solve the boundary question that's where the good staff both are nestled center districts that need to weigh in in fact it should and if we're trying to write a policy that solves every decision and not just boundaries themselves every you know equitable program decision we're gonna fail the policy has to be able to and then and then each one of those decisions were going to policy how do we create the largest bowl and what he said was you know the largest bowl that we feel like any reasonable person would would be able to like we would be comfortable with the decisions they can make than that all and so you know like I think our staff would you guys I mean how small the bowl or we're going to get them around this issue each one of these there's there's conflicting things here so it's always about press and on sub decisions we make the same it's more a B and C another decisions it's one E and F but there's a good reason you can just buy each one of those okay so I'm gonna call the questions on the thing that I think is gonna cause the most upset yet legacies so what we say students have the right to attend their neighborhood schools through the my screen except this providing section okay so a we ask a direct question of the rest of the boy are you would you support changing this changing the you know the legacy of like the legacy of legacies wait the understanding that would there would be some exceptions in order to you know to accommodate you know very feasible to make a decision what I would say to that data around what it means the impact it would have some recent analysis from the three of you who talked to staff as part of your committee meeting I can't tell you today how I might think I can tell you today that night generally supportive of making some changes to that pot to that part of the policy but exactly what that looks like that feels like you me okay so so then okay so I'll keep it really
02h 50m 00s
broke I support arranging the legacy okay so so in my experience if you made a tiny change you're gonna have an explosion so and I think it this one in particular we are already anything else but I am already hateful I am are three of the explosion is directly related no no intercept should have the disparity to the degree of implosion is directly it is it is completely divorced from actual impact compassion perception it is I mean this is a time-honored dearly health value with MPPs and if we do anything other we do anything to change it there will be hell to pay so this is the question I want to that all changes I don't think it's unreasonable on the ice to me I'm just saying in high school if you're in a high school or in a your ask people's opinion that the basic allure middle school to be able to finish out your time period then okay everybody's gonna have a very reasonable argument ready China's interest an issue what what I'm testing here is people's willingness to engage in this exercise in spite of inevitable political pushback I mean cuz if we're not willing to do that it's any concern you know in disguise I think in this particular case and perhaps and others that instead of a left or right that there there are arguments on both sides that are student-centered arguments that Andrews phraseology of their greater good for the most students and I don't think we as a board would need to say this unless the board decides to suspend policy which we can't always do in a decision or this so right right now we could do a boundary change and say we're going to suspend policy the policy that says your snips get to say say we can flip it around to say nobody gets to say or only eighth grade or however you want to phrase it but we could also suspend in certain cases where really the greater good is not going to be served by just can I finish thank you so I'm going on and on why I you know Julie asked for an explanation I don't know that we need to polarize it okay questions especially if there's a breach Ange is southeast which kind of missed applause the west side and also the ones that were made to Northeast they'll say so you have a new legacy policy or legacies or whatever it is it's not going to apply to all the legacies that were already previously handed out in the previous one so last year when we gave some families ten years are we are you saying it's not going forward but like everybody's are the rules for everybody so a few last year were in the Madison grant because it's so like well how much people just
02h 55m 00s
got locked in to you know a decade in two together pattern and now you're coming and saying hey you may be in the midst of high school and you don't even get to stay so I mean it's a this isn't a really important question to talk about early on about how it if it's a rule applies to everybody regardless of what decision was made and if it's this is what I asked the other day in committee it wasn't really clear so yeah I would say well I mean okay we're a parent me when I'm supposed to make decisions so right where you know we can put it with we can talk about what I'm saying is pretty much if we change anything there's no ever again I just want to know asset-based mentality okay I have been there in fact I know what we're facing and I am I am and we know it and we know it this was so right so if are we gonna be brave are you gonna be brave or not but it's gonna be more less if we go into it really clear like the problem we're trying to solve this is the ration and these are these are the solutions we're coming up with it's not perfect it's not gonna be you know I hate your service to white and I think your point about how high school and and all of that Mandy that's the work of our committee to say what really is an equitable policy what really is best for students to this and just for plenty of information lots of districts when they do high school boundary changes will grandfather or grandmother two years in a senior and our reasons for doing that they may or may not grandfather rising eighth graders in middle school and they may or may not grandfather rising every grade [Music] but but it's all easier when they when offerings are more equitable and when schools are incremental a stronger in where you guys have agreed on their values and priorities right I mean that's I mean that's part of why we wanted to flip out there guys so the extension we could tweak some usage I think you do you should do that you guys didn't have buy-in for that and then you move forward why right where are we doing this work I'm here the under enrolled the over-enrolled we trying to fix and you populate Kellogg water so that's one thing we're trying to fix I guess dr. Andrews so we're all those schools and I'd be interested in come over that just in a sense of prioritization we changed regular I think that that's a really positive thing to do in that school I think there's no other school with us in the same boat we should really improve and so we were yeah aren't here I mean if you're asking us to go out and like talk to our communities which is what which is what
03h 00m 00s
the community engagements going to be about and selling like that why this is to use integers we're going better for the greater good like what is it we're trying where is it that we I know some of the places I mean I I could articulate the Senate places where I think it needs but I'm not sure for reading that slide that we're do we need to articulate everyone well then have a sense of what it is like we're trying to accomplish because we're trying to create a framework to analyze the hots as otherwise it sort of like we're changing this policy to irritate a lot of people versus we're changing this policy because we know this movie has to it's 200 capacity and you know costumes are bursting or these five elementary schools those kids are not getting an actual education because they don't have you know the minimum number of students to even become a viable program and I think well that like Americans is really important as we do our community engagement I see this policy work as thinking about not just the moment and the problems were trying to solve but what kind of values do we have going forward and how do we strategize and plan for the future and so that this policy should be something we can come back to and that will be refined but will be you know that stable base to build on and I know that legacies like my Llewelyn have about big boundary change that's where my daughter went and looking at the numbers of students who are now in the Dunaway but still came to Llewellyn and the effect of that pad on class sizes and staffing allocations and the struggle of that that we looked out and that it continues it continues to this day and that boundary was changed Webster you know before we even Department again so I see this like this bigger question of where I mean this is what we started where our systems failing us and and while we can look at individual school and specific issues and stuff bigger questions of this systemic patterns that have created our inequities so how do we look at this and say our legacies are incredibly generous and we know that that has cost us in ways that are not immediate but have substantial impact and how do we shift that so that we were disrupting those systems so that we can then fix the specific problems but I don't think that I don't think those boundary policies are about let's say specific problems I think it's this we want to disrupt and systems of lettuce to this place let's disrupt those systems and then work together with our staff to solve those problems because I'm only I'm interested in disrupting systems if it's in pursuit if it actually allows us to achieve our goals I think up this one I'm not yeah it's like the hammer when we need a like potentially a fuller array the boundary helping the boundary policy helping the students who in some Southeast put so many of those yeah yeah it's in the that's also partly creating a false dichotomy about the experiences in different places like if you do go I mean everybody wants to be in a new facility so that's a great example because the building itself is a drop but it's also about improving the experience in pace and you know it's not I think we want to get away from creating or perpetuating these windless scenarios well the exact we're all trying to get after for example say we have a bond and you know that Harrison Park used to be Ben Snead and actually we're probably gonna need that building it again or either that we're going to need to build a new another new middle school and outer southeast because you're still even by after you open Keller you're gonna be one middle school short I think we're saying reap it that's the mix with the determination with around Kellogg feeder patterns we just need to I'm not gonna open it anything never mind that's what I'm saying just think let me try to solve that problem today no I'm just I'm just saying you know we don't get it on the radar screen so the awards we're telling the families so you're getting the kill on your students who's in one of those but that's the opposite of what we're telling them because we're investing in those schools as well so we're not creating this false dichotomy about what those experiences are and yes we're moving toward that reconfiguration and yes Harrison Parker's the Domino behind catalogs most likely but also like what are we doing
03h 05m 00s
to create you know the great middle grades experience I don't know what you'll sing and you don't but it's all about what in placement it's about what's going on and really that's the whole are we gonna make no school redesign there's policy work what I'm more like process rather than the initial I'm fine with the policy but I don't see the policy work actually I'm trying to connect it to like how does it then solve some of these huge inequity how is it work is not be the solution for all the issues policy over arching for us to do the work I mean I think we're part where I mean I think toward configuration too but I think we're also like reimagining what is that experience for kids and is it equitable and is it but they want we know that our middle schools are far away from that right now we don't want to replicate what we have in our middle schools great comment so what our next steps are administration duty struggle to recover from just about identify buildings it's about having an educational programs that's the work for well aware that that's the work that we and we want to sequence that with all the other things competition as well so so there is sort of that which things are wish list coming one semester against the policy work done and there has been some great discussion here and I think her group will be able to make some changes that think guys what you know you have to do is the Kellogg issue whatever that whatever you do with the Kellogg is you're gonna have policies of you guys have recommended yourself to modify it or not that's gonna guide what happens that come on and you know you've got to do that in terms of prioritizing that you've got to do you got the building coming on now is gonna have an impact on surrounding schools so you're gonna have to use your policies your racial whatever equity policy your student assignment policy you know whatever I don't know how you'll use the different pieces but we have four different pieces but in and you was a board because you think 2008 you did sweet assignment 2011 the equity policy we've done I don't have the other two years in my head but you as a board haven't really worked on those two said these are pretty good but we need to tweak them here and there and that's what you're gonna leave that's gonna guide the work then you know you've got Kellogg so you're gonna get Kellogg done at the meantime like the superintendent's saying is they're out there working doing all these program improvement place things in your attendance area schools see where that goes I know it's pressing because there are other pieces that I get enough of a look today with staff I can see what some of the other problems are religious not there yet see I think Kevin is gonna be music because people are gonna want like frankly I don't think I think the POAS whatever you do with policy will have very little impact the issue Kellogg is people are gonna want in and so it's deciding who gets in and then who gets left out and who gets left out is then gonna be in the there's no middle school out there so I don't think nationally unless concerned with what are they getting when they get what is that experience that's wherever they act that design and so that eventually we have pliable
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but dream now opening day reaction that's a whole lot of work and I I guess I don't see it especially about that the boundaries being the hammer I see that hammer and the program is interrelated they're they're not two separate things in my view so that's why your work is so important all right whatever just one last thing that we haven't touched on tonight which is that as we saw like in our racial equity policy I mean we already have some good policy guidance and we're going to create some more that we don't adhere to so that's our responsibility as a board is to make sure that we really have tudela t2m acting our policies back to the ongoing work and every step of the way and our problems that we're addressing tonight have been exacerbated by not attending to some of the ideals that we were already smart enough to recognize and there's also mistakes in here that need to get fixed but but we also need to close the loop and we need to have you know as a board that accountability mechanism to make sure that we are we are living according to our ideals yeah we we went after the transfer policy a couple years ago because we could demonstrate that it made segregation even worse than what was out there in terms of housing in neighborhoods to the extent that we still have policies and produces and play that make things even worse we need to address those in your program options last amended in 2003 and it calls for a regular review and that's never occurred 2008 2011 in only 10,000 when I say 2003 2008 2011 and then 2015 you didn't make some changes to that time to review them trying to debate they weren't enough right all right so nothing else yes valid comments conversation to hear perspectives that against the Chinese it's the first step in a 10-step conversation thank you I mean I felt like it's hard to come into a room and you know I don't know the district like I know a lot of other districts I've represented Las Vegas in 1995 I can go without boarded I've written some of their policies right but so this was kind of hard to figure out and we're just going to send our policies I've got to my my plate right now for them you know thank you for letting me be part of this and that idea but if I tweak it this way it might work I mean that's the whole point of the film so thank you for having me in I'm here to help however we're going to debrief with the staff tomorrow and then you guys can engage however I can help you guys I'm happy that after I get like it was kind of new some of them were there we're now all engaged so yeah that's a law where's the door handle now we fly a bus over the wall but here when we want to get to public comment I think probably have some public comment and then but first we did make like one of the positions for the OSB a port so thank you Anna for noticing that so Sonia McKenzie we do to save us no more stone in the recession we're Sonia Kenzie is running a pose for position 19
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for the OSP aid before Darrell we see for the RSB a board on the favor of okay so if you have to prove that closely of candidates and do we have any public comment Steve a long one give it to you it's late but one of the reasons I think if you're from Maryland you may understand this one of the problems that were you were having here as a board in dealing with all of these issues is that we don't have a foundation set up that's around what really we should be talking about in the number one value in any school system is that you believe that every child in that school system should have equal opportunities educational opportunities of a period we don't have that now in Portland that's the first place we should be asking the superintendent to go that's the first place and the second place is once you establish those equal educational opportunities along with that and that would then allow you to establish equitable opportunities for children to need special help and then the third place you need to go is to look at what's all these other things out in your schools that are happening how many are yet it is this school going on all these field trips and this one is not is this doing it you have to do you have to lay that foundation right now you're trying to build a house on wet sand because you don't have a foundation we should did you got rid of that they had one they were working on that the district was working on that to do that and then in the last two years you've gone away from that and so instead of going for equal educational opportunity for all children and you have to look at the children themselves to school necessarily this the children you can look at the school but you're going to get down at the children level is it equal do I have PE as much as this one do I have these things yeah that's where you need to go and you're not anywhere near that you need to tell the superintendent that's the first place you need to go down I know they're overwhelmed with a lot of work but that should still be your number one priority period thank you all right stay where you are whatever is most comfortable I wasn't playing singing but I my name is Beth Pam and I'm a parent in Southeast Portland and a former member of D Brock and I just want to say that as someone who joined this work when my now sixth grader was in kindergarten that I as you're looking at Kellogg I I really want to talk about how important it is the concentration and focus options and some peace and have if you leave that policy piece for later but you're reacting you're finally getting to Southeast now and if we don't talk about those focus options that's terribly impacts those same communities over again and then you have to look at them eventually so it might mean you look at them and say it's fine but there's this there is feel like this others she waiting to drop in southeast because if we don't know what's happening with the focus options that any boundary change feels like how temporary is this and and then feeling like if policies are changing so kids are maybe not staying in their school tonight is created that if you then it's like that's a big scary feeling like building a might change in two years when you focus options finally here that's just something to consider making that focus options it says people say it back my name is Jessica coldly sorry I knew that thank you but what that says adding focus options in front end is so important because they're the resources they're so scarce and some of the schools are doing really good work and helping kids who are who need it I mean I'm provoking probe alternative options because you don't fit or for the kids were just thinking different ways but I think that to neighbor focus options have become sensitive privileged and centered as well and do not prioritize diversion diversity equity or inclusion and I also think that the sibling policy needs to change because then is a huge part of a twin turning the classes enormous lease it with very few people so yes anyone else I need data there they're effective
03h 20m 00s
it'll show yes thank you very much thank

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)

2019-11-18 PPS School Board Business Meeting, Work Session

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Event 1: PPS Board Business Meeting and Work Session - November 18, 2019

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