2020-02-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting, Work Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-02-25
Time	missing
Venue	missing
Meeting Type	regular, work
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education February 25, 2020

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welcome everyone the board meeting of the Board of Education for February 25th 2020 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being televised live on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our PBS TV Services website welcome thank you for being here tonight in addition to voting on the grant goal master plan we will consider the enrollment and program balancing process scope of work which would direct the superintendent to begin the first phase of this multi-year process following the board meeting we will transition into a work session with the community budget review committee to review our district student investment account application at this time the board will vote on its business agenda board members excuse me board members are there any items who would like to pull for discussion we can set those aside to vote at the end of the meeting and director brimm Edwards I understand that you have just you don't want to pull anything but you have a couple of questions about two items on the business agenda can I do I have a motion director Scott moves director burr meadow at six seconds the adoption of the business agenda miss Bradshaw is there any public comment on the business agenda no okay any board discussion yes so I've got two items that were in the business agenda that I wanted to one asked just a couple questions about one of the contracts and then I guess make a request about that comes out of the minutes from the January 24th board meeting that we had which was a board meeting that lasted about five minutes for to authorize one student to travel and it was a special meeting of the board that we had to have to authorize that travel and it seemed like for one student that would be great if we said or it would be helpful to set a more efficient to set a threshold so that's whether it was in the regular business agenda or not that trips of one or fewer than five or so whatever the threshold is at the board not be involved in approving that because it doesn't seem like it's a field trip if it's one student and I know director Scott and probably like to talk about the like the larger topic of field trips but I think that maybe having a threshold of because one student traveling does not seem like we should have oh so have you talked to director more about revisiting the field trip policy and the policy I don't know if it's an administrator yourself to talk to I'm not sure we need to change the policy maybe it's just an administrative issue that we set a threshold so it's more than one student because I'm sure we have students going all over the place for various educational reasons and we don't approve those okay well can I jump in thank you for teeing that up and and I would just add if we're going to talk about a threshold I don't think it's appropriate for the board to be approving field trips I think that is an operational issue I think we can trust the superintendent and staff to do their due diligence on field trips and so I think to the extent we are revisiting this policy the fact that we've had two special board meetings to approve field trips kind of highlights the I will use the word absurdity of the board weighing in on school field trips so I would actually say let's revisit that policy and and with the request that we look at potentially stopping that as a practice okay we will look at what is administrative practice and what is policy and to the extent that some of that is in trying to board policy we'll put it on the list and meet every form and then the other I had a question about a contract that's on the business agenda relating to the FEM law source and it's a contract through the original term through June of 2023 for 700 something thousand it's for the administration of the new Family Medical Leave Act and so my question was as part of it since this is a new contract it has them building a claim management system to meet the requirements and my question was whether this system that they're building if we decided in three years or after the original term just switch to a different vendor whether we like those are sunk costs that we've paid for or this is just a movement to another vendor they would have already had the sunk costs and we could easily switch just wanna make sure that we're not connecting ourselves to a vendor because they're building a system right and we have a
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30-day termination provision in the contract the system of course it would be certainly difficult to ensure high quality service to employees but that quick turnaround and that is our intention but the we would not be tied longer than 30 days to this particular vendor the claims management system that is referred to in the contract is ensuring that we are compliant with the federal and state law which is one of the big advantages of going with this vendor and so the they already have these claims management systems set up for other clients then I'd be gonna be creating something unique for us great so it's nice some costs that will connect us to a vendor so then my other question is around their performance guarantees which I thought were great to see here they have some pretty strong quality performance guarantees around responsiveness that employee contacts if they contact the vendor though then two business days they'll hear back respond to complaints within two business days 95% of the time releas are very high quality standards and my question is who is going to be monitoring those standards they also you know tribute to the contract management staff here and staff in general and that's if they don't meet the performance standard there's a built-in penalty fees but my question is who's who's going to measure whether they've met those standards and if there's a penalty how would we how would that be assessed if they didn't meet the standards that they do - which are very high right one of the big advantages of this contract is of course that service level provided to employees which exceeds what we can do in-house so the monitoring of those performance guarantees and the turnaround commitments that they have made will happen in a couple of different ways one our benefits team so to my right is our adorable I Gina hein and she and her team will be monitoring the vendor they will be the vendor will be producing reports and then we will be doing spot checks and assessments of how they are doing beyond the reports that they provide to us and then the last sort of check is that we're going to be publishing to employees what they should expect about turnaround and so we're going to hear if our vendor isn't turning around answers and providing those service levels and if we hear if we heard concerns then we're going to look into that great yeah that's it thank you your mom appreciate it and I say I think it's just a great standard that it's been said in this contract and just in terms of monitoring the performance and having something to hold the vendor to yeah thank you very much the board will now vote on resolution 6:05 2 through 6 0 5 7 in the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions the business agenda is approved by a vote of 7 to 0 with student representative ladder L voting yes all right I don't know if I should have declared a conflict of interest because my household has been subsidizing our Bechet for a number of years and it's really nice to see at the beginning to really equitable heart funding across the district for supplies so I agree that's really positive okay before we begin our public comment period I'd like to review our guidelines the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and to provide your comments to the board we value public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen without distraction from electronic devices one quick reminder any oversized signs need to be in the back way and signs in the audience should not be held in any way that obstruct others view of the meeting board members and the superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide the board or superintendent we ask that you please give them to board manager Rosanna Powell to distribute to us presenters will have a total of three minutes to share your comments please begin by stating your name and spelling your last name for the record during the first two minutes of your testimony a green light will appear when you have one minute remaining a yellow light will
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go on and when your time is up the red light will go on and a buzzer will sound we respectfully ask that you conclude your comments at that time we appreciate your input and thank you for your cooperation miss Bradshaw do we have any people signed up for a student or public comment yes we have both student and public comment hazel cross and Caroline racinos miss Bradshaw it looks to me like the three students came together would it be possible for the three of them to come forward together is that sure yes yes welcome my last name is keer Ste tter Kerstetter okay dear Board of Directors have you ever heard the saying practice what you preach I see that you have agreed to the ideas on your resolution 50 52 72 I'm hoping that you have seriously considered the action steps recommended by PBS climate change Justice Committee but four years later you barely but for lazy years later barely any of the resolutions have been acted upon don't get me wrong I applaud you on writing the resolutions and preaching about climate justice but I'm here today to encourage you to act on those resolutions and practice what you preach in resolution 52 72 it was requested that by the end of this school year about three months to go every single PPS building administrator will have attended at least one in-service on climate justice education from what I know and have heard there has been no action so far to follow up on this resolution by teaching the tilt teachers we teach the kids without education you can't take action in point 5 of the resolution the climate justice committee asked the PPS to take action to have metal utensils at my school we have silverware because we have pear who have the time and resources to fundraise not every school has the resources to supply their own silverware just because they can't fundraise doesn't mean they can't have silver utensils this is something that the district should provide starting this equality issue here can start a chain reaction to make our earth a little cleaner PPS should have made a transition to reusable silverware but there has been no obvious strides by the district to make the utensils eco-friendly so unfortunately while we are talking about climate justice we are putting single-use plastic forks in the hands of students and giving our money to companies producing plastic pollution the cost of one metal fork is more than a single-use plastic fork but in 17 days the cost it evens out let's remember PPS has been running a lot longer than 17 days it would only make sense to cut the funding for single-use plastic forks and move to metal help bps as a whole be green and help green in schools can start students on a chain on a train react chain reaction to be green and clean buying metal you buying metal trays will allow our district to invest in the longevity of our world instead of the fossil fuel industry PPS has is a long-lasting school district so why should our dishware why shouldn't our dish ware of reflect that in point 5 of your resolutions it states that we have asked you to switch all dishware to reusable we encourage you to make the decision to instead of buying more plastic you know will hurt the environment to buy stainless steel trays we understand they are more a little more expensive but it will not only help the environment but show students across PBS the more responsible auction that helping our environment truly matters you might argue that the metal forks will be thrown away but I know from experience that if you give students a shot at community service they will jump on it giving you a fix for your problem thank you I'm hazel C our OSS and these are the plastic
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utensils by our school beverly cleary in one week buy collected by a parent volunteer a hundred and just one hundred and seventy students and just imagine what that would be for the entire district but where was the recycling and where can I recycle we have talked about recycling cans on my school and luckily we've got right recycling cans and all rims but the front hall and in the cafeteria but in other schools they can be harder to find why aren't recycling bins as abundant as trash cans it's eco friendly and it teaches more sustainable behavior students show up with plastic bottles aluminum tin seal food cans plastic tents and milk cartons every day this can lower our from it can lower carbon footprint a Stickley to have recycling bins available and not just in cafeterias but in all costumes across PBS but most people don't even know where all the recycling does at our school we put signs on our cans but we had to print them after students and teachers found the bin sides online we realized that many teachers were not allowing anything but paper in these bins one of the worst things anyone can do is sew the wrong thing in recycling bin it ruins tons of fun tons of recycling and 91% of plastic that is produced is not recycled part of this is apathy partisan misinformation and part is not having access to recycling when needed labeling is important because according to Metro one in four things the under recycling bins are not recyclable that is unacceptable because containers aren't labeled this is evident in our gym after weekend sports unlabeled recycling bins becomes a trash can which means that everything can't be recycled because the because we've been has been contaminated even one little bottle lid or plastic utensil can mess up a whole ton of recycling in our school we have parent volunteers who could help us compost until the students where to put food waste and where to put recycling we need something that is more long-term that parent is not going to stay at the school forever and in most schools they don't even have parent volunteers to help with composting but composting is so important not even not all people do it from what I've heard and research is that most schools don't compost this is wrong putting food waste in the garbage is one of the worst things you can do it traps carbon and landfills across the world but there is a simple solution composting but the longest recycling of chance composting needs to be implemented in schools thank you for your time i'm caroline Recinos part ii CI NOS in the cafeteria there are many food items served that are wrapped in plastic or other non recyclable or but non biodegradable packaging just a few examples include sandwiches wrapped in layers of plastic wrap bags of baby carrots enclosed in little plastic baggies and milk cartons this waste is not as recognized but just as harmful as the plastic silverware that many schools still use plastic silverware takes up 4.4 percent of the total waste volume at school whereas plastic packaging takes up 5.5 percent of waste volume and if you count milk cartons in the wasteful packaging which I do it comes to sixty point four percent of the total space taken up by cafeteria waste which is a giant amount of waste plastic utensils in schools is a pretty simple issue to resolve but removing a wasteful wrapping on a food is much more difficult in plastic wrapped food they're wrapped so because of things like hygiene and cost efficiency both are very difficult to work around however it is possible there are several options that can minimize plastic waste via plastic wrapped food a few such options could include finding compostable / recyclable packaging options or simply eliminating the waste early wrapped food of course all of this is inevitably going to have a higher cost than the plastic wrapped options but I believe it's worth the investment it can also be worth about to switch to minimal packaging so as to eliminate the expenses every move non biodegradable waste I know that you were all people who want to do what is best for schools so I hope you will see my perspective and consider thinking about my ideas one last thing I want to leave you with when it comes to climate friendly changes in the school environment we believe that short-term added cost is outweighed by the long term benefits we believe that making investments towards climate justice in school it's one of the most beneficial things you can do as PPS for members thank you miss Bradshaw any other public comment yes
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if Armand milazzo and Jeff Greer please come come on up so my name's Armand Milazzo mi la zzo I'm the parent of an eighth grader and I will not let my child be a statistic of suicide suicides a real thing in our schools two and a half years ago we brought up some physical bullying that was going on in our kids school it's escalated not only through physical but verbal about his physical size and escalate it to suicide encouragement from other students we had several meetings lots of words but no actions it wasn't until we contacted the superintendent's office that we had another meeting again more words no actions once I contacted the school board it seemed that some of those applicants actually started to make promise and some of the things that were promised in the past started to happen the biggest concern right now is that my kid and I'm sure other kids aren't telling adults because I hear things like well what's that matter no actions were taken in school nothing's going to happen it gets worse the day after I told students teachers my student don't believe more because he went and told how many other kids is this happening to what are the policies of PPS for this why does it take two and a half years and God forbid this is in your hands this is a real thing something needs to be done about it and I'll just keep coming back here until I see more actions taken this is my child what other children is this happening to thank you hey there my name is Jeff Gere it's GI e-r e-r and I'm a speech language pathologist currently serving with Iran School in Northeast Portland go Wildcats I'm grateful for the opportunity to share an urgent concern of mine and my colleagues and PBS speech-language pathology I'd love to be here tonight to talk about the fantastic work here 100-plus colleagues and PPS speech-language pathology are doing for the almost 4,500 students and families we serve I'd love to talk about how we spent the past decade eliminating assessments and practices that over identified our students particularly our students of color for special education services I'd love to talk about our meaningful relationships with communication science programs and local universities I'd love to talk up the research your speech-language pathologists have done or how PBS speech-language pathology became a regional and statewide leader for our culturally and linguistically responsive assessment and intervention practices but I'm not I'm also not here to talk in detail about how PBS support for speech-language pathology has been cut to historic lows over the past two years how you speech-language pathologists currently have a class-action grievance against the district and special education for an anti student staffing process how caseloads are rising how our national organization is reaching out concerned that we are we concerned that we're meeting the ethical obligations of our licenses now because of what PBS special education is asking us to do or how historically underserved student voices are being marginalized or silenced those are all important topics but my ass tonight is smaller historically PBS speech-language pathologist have been given a tiny amount of additional time to support students who have the most intensive communication needs in our school communities I'm talking about our students in our special education focused programs this month PBS special education and director Mary Mertz announces students in our focus program classroom will no longer get protected support from speech-language pathologists supports our focus program students have received for decades at woodland we have two focus programs programs comprised mostly of students of color my students have feeding needs use technology to communicate often require two on one or three on one adults to help them be successful learners my students can always tell us what they need or who they are or what their dreams are but their voices are super important the amount of protected FTE for speech-language pathologists to help their voices be heard is already not and has never been enough it's not what they deserve or what speech-language pathologists like me would love to give them and now PBS special education and director Mertz are taking that small level of additional support away I believe our students their families and our school communities deserve better than what has been proposed this year I'm here tonight to urge you to follow your speech-language pathologists previous staffing practice and importantly to protect dedicated communication support for our focused program children because our students deserve it thank you yeah Jane come up and read Espada
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hi my name is Jane komal CEO mea ult I'm a parent of two students at Beverly Cleary school and I'm here to talk about reconciling PPS operations with climate change and climate justice and reiterate what you already heard from our from a few of our students it's heartening to see progress on resolution 50 to 72 with climate change and climate justice curriculum development this year but it's not enough it's not fair to teach students about the causes of climate change but then ignore the environmental impact of PBS schools and act like it doesn't matter we wouldn't teach kids that smoking is bad for your health but then allow teachers to smoke in the classroom why is it okay to teach kids about the causes of climate change but then carry on sending food scraps to landfills to rot and create methane gas or serve four point eight million meals a year with single-use plastic forks and spoons or use thousands of reams of copy paper made from clear-cutting virgin forests these are just a few examples of the discrepancy between talk and action within our schools PBS needs a climate action plan that starts with an operations audit and includes strategies to reduce PBS greenhouse gas emissions together with funding to implement the plan I also want to speak about equity our school is a relatively affluent one where we have a dedicated group of parents with the privilege of time to volunteer and a can-do attitude among our school administration so we've been able to introduce reusable silverware and food scrap composting for the lunchroom side of the cafeteria the amount of volunteer time required for these efforts is not feasible for most schools nor should it be the responsibility of volunteers to do the work PBS needs to transition to reusable dishware in composting of all organic wastes at all schools and the responsibility of the work needs to be written into the scope of work of PBS staff I want to close by coming back to the reason why we're all here because we care about PBS students when our principal announced the reusable silverware and composting programs in our school cafeteria the kids cheered totally unprompted they break out into whoops and applause because they're excited about waste reduction and they want this they deserve it and while I'm delighted that climate change in climate justice curriculum is being introduced across the board it's obvious that students are finding their learning environment in congruent with their learning please help students feel empowered and less anxious about their future by seeing through the commitment you made already in resolution 52 72 and quoting from the resolution Portland Public Schools recognized that our schools must play a leadership role in modeling for students climate and environmentally friendly practices when it comes to building design energy use including the use of solar panels land-use waste disposal and composting and recycling students continue to advocate for themselves in their future but it is our job as a result as adults specifically your job as community leaders charged with decision making for their future to start operating PPS schools as though climate change matters Thank You superintendent grout given the testimony of the students and the parent I think I would like to have further discussion on the students mentioned Metro which is of course the Regional Government I'm somewhat fond of um and specifically the question about food waste and so Metro passed a policy for the region requiring commercial food waste to be composted Portland has adopted that as well and I my question is whether PBS falls under that and in terms of commercial food waste that policy and I just actually don't know if we do or not and then second I'd be interested in a more robust conversation about the cost benefit about our single-use plastics and reusables and so for that I know your staff are looking into that issue I'm sure that's a constant conversation but I mean she didn't hear more about that in the future about that because I heard resolution 50 to 72 twice I managed a small program called sustainability at work and enforcement of food composting is coming to PBS and all other regional schools in about two years currently we're working with large large generators hotels and other you know hospitals and hotels but institutions such as all of all of the schools in the region we'll have a visit and and will our enforcement for this large generators will start in about two years but we also don't just talk about food composting we talk about you know energy use in buildings we talk about water use we talk about other operational things that the institutions and and buildings can do to become more sustainable and to model good practices you know around printing on recycled content paper looking at a transportation plan for
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employees reducing your natural resource use energy water and some of those sorts of operational things and I think it would be important for us to to look at those as well for cost-saving reasons if nothing else my name is Fred Spada SP a DA when I'm calling talking about today is the transcript destruction problem you guys have with me I've been fighting with you guys for four years regarding it I've sent you two emails to each EU with no response I've sent a letter now certified return receipt to each one of you no response now you guys have cost me my life because of doing what you did back in 1980 before I even stepped in my first class at Jesuit you destroyed my transcripts now I've had a problem with it this has been a four year fight the Oregon Department of Education did an internal investigation and they found that I'm not an isolated incident now according to oh one six six four hundred dashes zero zero six zero that's against the state law you're supposed to maintain those transcripts post nineteen ninety seven seventy five years pre nineteen ninety seven ninety nine years according to the state archivist he did break the law you guys have not fest up to it and your superintendent when I went through your kangaroo court would not be proactive and deal with it and come up and say hey this is unacceptable we need to deal with this he avoided it completely now I applied for a job with the IRS straight out of Oregon State University with a business school degree back in nineteen ninety and back then mass shootings weren't happening in schools they were happening most offices and what's the most hated institution in the US the IRS now I had an opportunity to get a job with them and only to find out when I was a finalist to get that job I didn't pass the background check G years later when I discovered and only to find out my transcripts were destroyed I put two and two together when they found out that I did not attend any school here at Portland Public Schools I got eliminated now I've written you guys specifically and all you do is have me deal with Liz large on this deal and I'm sick of it and I expect you guys as a board to step up and deal with this because you got a problem and the even as far as Kate Brown is trying to cover this up now I have not got any reply and I expect you guys to deal with this because obviously this is a problem and you're trying to cover it up now the transcripts are the basis of the foundation of an education system and they should be there according to state law and you guys are not above the law thank you very much thank you Jesse Erwin and Alicia Chavez downing hello my name is Jesse Erwin er WI and I'm a school psychologist here at Portland Public Schools and unfortunately I'm here to echo some of the similar concerns that were brought up by my speech language pathologist colleagues like most of my colleagues who are school psychologists I work at multiple schools in the district but I spend most of my days at vestal Elementary it's a small but mighty title one school on northeast 82nd who's had more than its fair share of adversity this year I'm so proud to be a part of that school so I was shocked to learn exactly one week ago that my position at Bestival was being cut in half from four days to two days per week I initially thought this has got to be a mistake especially because we have two intensive skills center classrooms that vessel and as the board now knows or knew before students who attend focused classrooms such as vessels I see required disproportionate amounts of intervention through the severity of their medical cognitive or behavioral needs I soon learned there was no error rather there was a change to how school psychologists time was allotted in the past much like our SLP colleagues we received bumps for working at title one schools or working with schools that had focused classrooms but rather this year and without warning the special education department allocated time based strictly on head counts without regard to the nature and severity of our special education students needs the end result of this apples-to-apples headcount is a grossly inequitable distribution of School Psychologists time mm-hmm under this formula thirteen schools received increases in their school psychologist allotment just two of these schools were title one in contrast 19 schools have their FTE allotment cut 11 of these schools were title one schools will focus classrooms disproportionately suffered as well six schools that housed
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focus classrooms receipt increases about 14 lost a school psych time to be clear removing psychologists from schools and focus classrooms or schools that are title one or the serve a large percentage of historically underserved students does not line up with a district stated equity goals and is not in the best interest of students it also goes against what staff parents and community members have repeatedly asked for at the listening sessions for the Student Success act so I'm sitting in front of you pleading for your help to help rectify the situation my colleagues and I have spent in ordinate amounts of times over the past week seeking answers from our superiors only to be met with silence psychologists have until 4 p.m. tomorrow to decide whether to stay at their current schools and piecemeal a full-time job by adding a third sight our other option is to drop our sights with the hope of landing at a school with better allocation by this time tomorrow I have to decide whether I will stay at vest 1 with my colleagues or start new somewhere else so please ensure that schools that so often go ignored get access to the school psychologists time they deserve thank you did you submit your written copy of your testimony could you please do so with Rose Ann Powell board secretary or by email thank you hello good evening my name is Alicia Chavez al I sha CH a vez I am currently a k2 intensive skills classroom teacher at Atkinson Elementary I am here today to stand in solidarity with our speech and language pathologists also known as slps I am deeply disappointed to hear that speech and language pathologists who support classrooms just like mine are experiencing a reduction in FTE to speak just to my school our speech pathologist currently has a caseload of 58 students to support which to point out is 8 students over our current contract threshold trait SLPs this is outrageous and I know high caseloads for slps are not just isolated to Atkinson this caseload includes students in to intensive skills programs k5 a one strand Spanish dual language immersion program and an English only neighborhood program our speech and language pathologists is not only supporting students bilingually but is also supporting students who have severe communication disorders limited communication Augmented and all and of community communication device users and many others I know as educators we were many hats during the day but stretching these individuals so thin that they can't even do their work with fidelity is ridiculous and unjust our students deserve so much more than what you as a district are providing them how can we gather in rooms like this where teachers are forced to advocate for the basic rights that we claim in our policies all children should have what does this really say to those students and their families do you understand the message you are sending with this action we are constantly talking about retaining educators but how can you retain highly qualified and educated professionals like SLPs when you continue to staff them as if they are not valuable or if you continue to break to overwork them so that there is no possible way they can support our most vulnerable populations not only are you consistently violating the contract but you are breaking decades of past practices to support focus classroom students who need the most support with communication I am more than happy to host any one of you in my classroom so that you can see the myriad of specialized supports our SLP provides to our students and the time and attention it takes to deliver those supports I hope as you continue to hear how to best support our most marginalized communities that you will be proactive and honor our PPS vision by using the SSA funds to support underserved communities honoring school communities like all of our schools like Rosa Parks keeping them year-round please acknowledge those mistakes and do not keep making them and causing harm thank you [Applause] is that it thank you [Applause] all right thank you everyone for your comments if you haven't done so already please feel free to connect with our
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board manager Roseann Powell if you would like to leave a copy of your written testimony for us superintendent Greer would you like to share your report Thank You Jer constan good evening everyone as we had as we find ourselves in the final days of February energy still high things remain busy here at the central office and in our schools across the district as you know we will be heading upstairs later this evening for a work session on our student investment account application I think many of you likely caught the media story posted yesterday thank you at our Campuzano or the Argonian for your coverage on what we believe is a bold well about well-rounded investment package the overview that will be presented this evening as well as the more detailed official full application that you've now received is the culmination of a great deal of work in alignment with our vision our emerging strategic plan months of community engagement efforts involving numerous stakeholder groups including students families educators administrators and community-based organizations I think you'll see later and I think I reviewed some of these themes in our last meeting that our application addresses a few key themes just to list them here again these emerged after months of engagement we believe the application to be supportive of the strategic priorities and we're looking forward to diving into more depth around the specifics with each of these we are closing on the month of February Black History heritage and culture has been celebrated throughout the month here in the Portland Public Schools a few examples Roosevelt High School held its fifth annual hoodies up event Cleveland High School welcomed welcome to Portland City Commissioner Joanne Hardesty - it's Black History Month assembly students at Grant High School raised the black lives matter flag in front of their school and local Media has spotlighted a number of our black educators and administrators including principal Curtis Wilson at Benson James Magee ap at Lincoln and first grade teachers at Woodlawn Anthony Lowry and Lionel Clegg learning black history is increasingly an integrated part of our lesson plans throughout the district year-round and in February schools have focused intensively on it here are some additional examples at so search Ava's k-8 middle school level students read books about black history to k5 students at rekey elementary there was conducted a freedom fighter multimedia art project by fourth and fifth graders Dunaway Elementary studied Vanport as part of Portland's history and the exclusion laws of the 1840s Robert gray middle school launched and established a black student union students everywhere learned about the life of dr. Martin Luther King and studied the civil rights movement and other classroom lessons including read Aloud's videos of speeches and documentary presentations were part of students learning schools have held marches to support black lives matter and hosted multiple museums schools have hosted black black brilliant celebrations and school librarians have supported read a book by a black author programs as well as you can see these are many examples of ways that our educators are placing a focus on black history in February we've done our best to keep track of everything you can find details about some of the events that I just mentioned and many more by visiting our website PBS Matt if you click on this photo on the homepage you'll be taken to a pretty comprehensive list of school events and celebrations videos and media coverage and if you've not been able to attend a Black History Month event at one of our schools you'll find on our web page that there are still a few events remaining between now and the end of the week and hope to see you at some of those there's also other events just as a public service announcement that we do publish on a monthly basis on our website and that includes our student arts performances and events you can find a full calendar at PBS arts calm in fact we're just entering our spring musical season at our high schools Roosevelt was just highlighted in The Oregonian for their upcoming show bring it on and we will have our annual state of the arts report at an upcoming board meeting so stay tuned for that and that concludes my very brief remarks this evening tonight yes it's also short I just wanted to announce that the district student council is going to be doing our annual student summit in May
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we're planning on having it at Benson high school we also heard that or heard from dr. Davis and Nicole Berg around the climate justice and climate change curriculum and so I thought I would give a little plug to that that they're doing design teams at each of the high schools for that curriculum and that Cleveland Lincoln pioneer Roosevelt Wilson Jefferson and LC and then no I didn't mean to write that never mind I'll need to need students to help with those curriculums it's such a cool thing that we're getting to do especially coming from I experienced climate curriculum since I went to Sunnyside environmental school so seeing that at high schools can be really cool even though I won't be there it's it's okay and then there's also a youth climate mixer that's going on this coming Monday at Roosevelt from 4:30 6:30 if students are wanting to get involved I wanted to give a little update about search-and-seizure engagement because that's something I've been really involved with throughout the year our engagement team has been doing engagement with students around the three aspects that were most important to students which were parental consent and presence during police interviews documentation and tracking systems for reporting and then the SART language to limit bias and interpretation of reasonable suspicion and that's been happening through the middle school GSA summit that happened last week I just saw my face on the screen I don't like it the International you thinks it's just kind of jarring the International Youth Leadership Conference that's happening this week and then also by going to specific schools and hearing from students that's it Thanks Thank You Maxine mm-hmm all right we now have a first reading of our revised diploma requirements policy director Moore would you like to introduce this item so we the the policy committee looked at making some revisions to the existing diploma requirements in order to come into compliance with some new legislation that was passed during the last legislative session the changes are relatively minor but important and is Mary came here by any chance okay so if anybody I'm gonna point people in your direction in case anybody has any questions the changes will not will not feel particularly substantive to students it's these are mostly kind of detailed internal issues that we had to change around the language so it's necessary but not scintillating okay so these proposed policy amendments will be posted on the board website that today and the public comment period is 21 days so the last day to comment will be March 17th the board will hold a second reading of the policy at our meeting on the 17th so Shere Khan Sam I just wanted to note that I think this is the first time on mic during my 3:30 in my third year that we actually are now proactively getting after changing policies as statutes change and so just recognize that process improvement and the staff starting to get into rhythm of as statutes changed that our policies change to reflect those statutory changes so just a mantra shout-out to staff and that key person there's a lot more about to come okay thank you very much superintendent Carrera would you like to introduce this next item on the proposed scope of work for the enrollment balancing yes I'll introduce deputy superintendent Claire Hertz as the board knows we've spent some time iterating and collaborating on defining a scope of work and so she's going to give a little context to our public is aware of the parameters that are evolving here so thank you for bringing this forward tonight this will really help us get the process started later this spring so after review and study of previous processes on enrollment balancing
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including 2nd and D Bragg our district-wide plan includes comprehensive analysis that will be implemented in segments and we'll have a report to you by the end of March prior to the start of our segment at work the implementation includes looking at ramifications of adjoining areas and the district as a whole we are being thoughtful and planful and anticipating implications of other areas as we work on a single area so this is just we've made some additional changes based on suggestions from our last work session and I bring that before you tonight for your approval all right thank you very much we'll get the motion on the table and see if we have discussion do I have a motion second director scott moves and director Lowry seconds the motion to adopt resolution 6:05 nine enrollment and program balancing process scope of work is there any board discussion on this resolution just a question I'm sorry you said the report to the board and in March of next year or no and it's a report on it's the comprehensive data analysis of the whole district and about the implications of the problem areas where we need to do our work based on our outcome goals in our scope of work so we received I think some information I can't remember so the committee or the full board already on sort of where there were schools that were over enrolled in schools that are under enrolled that so this is building building on that is this the whole day just the whole data set yes so this will be more in depth and and we'll have narrative associated we've given you certainly charts and maps and such in previous meetings but this will be a comprehensive report and I think that was a key takeaway from our work session last week was that we will have this underlying analysis for the whole district and then we'll begin the implementation work in phases starting with figuring out feeder patterns for our wonderful new Kellogg middle school any further discussion so just a further question just for community members in southeast since that's sort of this its district-wide but starting in the southeast quadrant around Kellogg and the potential of another middle school what's the best way people for people to parents and families and students to like follow what's happening in the process or to engage if they have a point of view like will there be some more than the webpage or are we going to communicate to the school communities that potentially are going to be an impacted or what is that bowl that look like for people who want to have interests district website that's dead okay specifically for this process and we've already started posting with the work sessions in this scope of work work drafts so we're starting with the oldest work at the bottom and Liz knew each time we have a meeting or additional work on it then it's going on to the top of the web page so it'll continue to grow throughout the whole process we also will have coming out soon an application process for where the we'll be looking for parent community representation from asbestos pacifically for the schools in the southeast that will be involved in the first segment and then just because I know sometimes when you there's lots of stuff going on with when you've got multiple kids or just one child and in school that it may not sort of Don you to go to the district website is there gonna be communication to the impacted school committee next Tuesday's pulse awesome about the website is there is that an interactive website where the public could engage you know by submitting a comment as the plans you know are put online so right now there is a link to submit a question or get an additional information but we'll have many we have an extensive community engagement plan that I think we've brought before you yes in draft mode previously but it does carry all the way through November excellent and then also is there a way to translate into other like the top languages the harbor language safe harbor languages so the website or is something I've looked into for my own work as we're sending out the information for the southeast area will be our applications for the process and
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the information well is being translated into the main languages that we do on a regular basis at PPS okay but on the web site is there a way to let's say you're a Russian speaker is there wait on the on our web site - I don't have answer right at this minute but we'll get it for you okay thanks so so we had some I think a really good conversation last week and heard some good testimony as well and I guess I want to sort of just make sure I'm capturing sort of the issue here but my sense of this is that you know the the the approach that the district is talking about is he's doing sort of this comprehensive look and where the problem areas are but then implementing by so one of things we heard from some parents and community members I've gotten some emails as well as this concern that if that approach may limit by the time we get to the end what the options are and we discussed that a little bit at the last session and it seems like the trade-off there is that if we were to sort of do the entire comprehensive plan before implementing you know we're looking at a couple years out and we've got a middle school opening we've got to deal with access so from a public policy perspective I find it both interesting and challenging and right in terms if I can see pros and cons on both of this can you talk a little bit about the the process you're putting in place so when we're talking specifically about access when we're talking about this open in middle school we're talking about you know getting you know starting in South East go to north northeast and then west side what are you doing to avoid the problems of getting to the end and then realizing that you've already registered to two areas you've got another area that's been registered and you've you've limited your options with the district wide analysis report that comes out will identify what we have in each region in what what needs to occur - whether it's under enrollment over enrollment colocation of programs it's all the out you know at responding to the outcome goals in the state scope of work so we have identified across the district what those issues are and so as we look at as an example with southeast where we're starting there are we're looking at what schools overlap between the north and the south and what would so as you're looking at colocation of programs you say is there Spanish Immersion just to you know to the north of where we've stopped with southeast is that something we need to consider as we're looking at opening several highs middle schools in the southeast we also look at what is the middle school enrollment balanced just to the north of where the southeast area stops and do we do we need to look at continuing in the second year to complete filling that middle school to accommodate the the corrected enrollment and get a balance and across the whole district and we're also looking at also the high school level so it is in all levels we're looking across even though we're doing in segments we're looking across the area for any overlapping issues that need to be addressed at the same time I got a specific question from some access parents because you know it's noted in here that that access is one of the issues that we need to deal with and I think we'll go early and their question was does that mean access is limited to finding space in southeast or is looking at a citywide or district-wide approach we're looking at a district-wide approach for that thank you so I was one of the people who had lots of questions last week and in what I was looking for was clarification that we're going to be starting with a district-wide comprehensive analysis and that the that analysis will we'll look at will identify areas that are going to require some some work to address the problems of over or under enrollment but those areas that are that are that have issues we're going to be looking at each of those in terms of the district or the district as a whole so that before we start implementing and that the implementation has to be phased mostly because it's it's going to be very complicated and it's going to be very labor intensive and time intensive and community engagement intensive so we can't do all of it at once but even as we we
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implement changes in a in a particular region that's being done with with a clear understanding of the implications that any changes will have on surrounding areas and the larger district that's what I was looking at last week and I'm satisfied that the comprehensive analysis that we're gonna get is going to it is going to highlight all of that so I'm I'm gonna vote YES on this revised scope and I'm looking forward to the comprehensive analysis that is being done by floo so those of you who've been wondering what flow has been doing this is one of the things they've been doing and I think it's going to be really fascinating to see what is identified as areas within the district that are going to require some some work I think a lot of us already know what some of those are but we may find out there there are other things going on and and I'm I'm looking forward to actually tackling this work even if it's going to take a few years to get it done this this work has been pending within PPS for a very long time very very very long time and I think it's going to produce more efficient use of our facilities and that that means that we're going to be able to provide better learning environments for all of our students and it's going to address some of the really persistent inequities that have plagued schools in this district for a very long time so I'm looking forward to start work and thank you for moving us I appreciate it thank you for that eloquent summary director more do we have any other discussion yes Clare Clare has given me a look right now I don't understand why so this is an issue I've been dancing with for quite a while and we'll be happy to vote YES on the scope of work looking at all the things that others have have echoed and I want to I do want to come back to director Scott's point we do have to have boundaries by next January at the latest for Kellogg and that's just the way it is I've been the holdout for doing the boundaries all at once so I do want to say my big caveat with all this is we take the southeast study area and you know we that hasn't been officially determined yet but for example it's likely that vestal school will be there the vessel needs a bigger catchment area and it abouts a number of schools if we artificially draw a line around it and say we're only going to impact the boundaries south of Vestal if festivals as far north as we go and I'm not saying that's going to happen but I'm just throwing that out there then we've constrained things and so Vestal is needs an adjustment it's on the boundary you go across the boundary there's other schools that immediately probably abut that whatever that southeast area is that need adjustments and so you're introducing a constraint in terms of in phase two do we only adjust outward and not in Word and I don't know if that will lead us to some thorny issues and forced us to come back and revisit some of those boundaries that we drew in southeast it maybe there's enough flex because we don't have to hit every school at the exact perfect enrollment because we know enrollments change every year anyway we need we're looking for hopefully something close to and I don't know if it's a 90% capacity average whatever that is and we we can flex around that and still be pretty good to that ideal I don't know if we're going to end up when we get to north-northeast and whatever parts aren't part of that initial cohort of schools that we look at if we're going to run into that issue or not and that's my worry is that we rebound and go and have to go back and
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redraw some boundaries that we just drew a year ago so that's my worry yeah and I know I you know when we look at dr. Martin Luther King jr. school which needs a bigger boundary there's a whole ripple effect how far that ripple effect will ripple in terms of across the geography I don't know but it's there's gonna be a bunch of those so that's my worry I resigned myself to I mean the timeline is what it is we have to have some boundaries for Kellogg and in that area going forward but that's that's my fear and you know this is a case for me oh that's not like the perfect be the enemy of the good or whatever it is this is work that I've been waiting 10 years to do be done and done well and I think we're going to come as close to that as we can in this process so I appreciate y'all putting up with me as we've gone through this process and I'll leave it at that actually I want to recognize you for your leadership on this issue and you've worked really clever with deputy superintendent Hertz and also director more also because of the intersection with policy work that we need to do to make this all happen so thanks to both of you and you got the last word so I am I'm I'm banking on this comprehensive district-wide analysis to highlight a lot of the issues that you've talked about so that so that we won't end up being in a position where we have to undo something we just did that I think that's the whole point of doing it district-wide and frankly I've been doing this 15 years so there and you know we were on be brac let's just leave it right I mean a lot of it here's my guess my guess is those of us who have been you know deep in these weeds for a while I will be surprised if we're surprised I think they're I think a lot of the issues are knowable and known already and and I am I'm banking on the idea that we're going to be having this comprehensive view that that's going to be you know logic logical and rational and will be will be looking ahead to how how all of these puzzle pieces need to fit together and there comes a point where you just got to do it and we aren't well past that time so I was waterboarding yes I'm looking forward to this starting thank you for putting up with me as well I appreciate your indulgence I couldn't do the work without you for sure and it's definitely a Rubik's Cube and I always liked them as a child so thank you so one last question and then just to comment so my last question is under the outcome goals it talks about [Music] the issues of the portables and that from just the standpoint of the district that that's something that we want to reduce the the use of need for the portables and can you to speak briefly about how this is going to intersect with the bond because when I read that it looks like it seems like well that means we'd be having investments in permanent structures or something because we have portables because we don't have permanent structures do you anticipate that any of this is going to feed into the 2020 bond I mean if not how would we do it because if we have another bond say until 2028 so I just can you just speak to that how that how we did dress that so one of the things that we brought to you and data was how the average age of the portables at each school site I was shocked at the average age of some of our portables yeah you know they they have lived longer than my grandmother lived right so it's so though they're not very portable right they are not and I would say they need the ones that are 80 years old need to be removed so we want we need to make sure that we're doing our best to use the facilities we have to a good capacity and avoid using portables in the future they're expensive they
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don't last as long they're not connected to the school there's a lot of reasons not to use them it's what we have so we're going to use them but the ones that are really old it's time to to get them off the site and then have more open ground at our schools instead of becoming an old building just staying there so really talking to our facilities team or your chief operations officer about how we approach some of that especially they're really old ones getting them out and with a goal as we're looking at this is there are there times that we want to really work towards maximizing the whole school that's connected rather than out to portables so it may be a removal and not a replace and it may not be a new building but it may be how do we use our current school footprint more effectively okay and then that's lots of my questions but that I guess I wanted to just thank the superintendent and board and staff for recognizing the that there are a lot of long-standing issues and outer Southeast's that need to be approached and well it's not always the best thing to be first sometimes it's a learning process when you enter into it I feel like it's been a long time coming for some adjustments that need to be made in outer southeast and I'm looking forward to hopefully a robust community conversation about their future so thank you so somebody just texted me a question about the scope of work so I thought it might be just useful to run through the three outcome goals for what we're doing here real quickly to do that one is to optimize the use of our facilities so we have schools that are overcrowded some that are under enrolled to the detriment of both and as director prime Edwards just referenced we have portables and some buildings we'd like to minimize the use of those and especially going forward like avoid using avoid having to come up with new portables due to an unanticipated overcrowding the second thing is to support equitable programming for some areas that's going to mean shifting from a k-8 to a k5 and middle school grade configuration we also want to leave open the option of looking at some k-8 configurations for ake a whole dual language immersion school that that made me a an optimal educational configuration and third is to minimize program collocations where we essentially have two programs in a school sometimes that's dual language immersion and a quote neighborhood side sometimes that's has to do with a focus option so to minimize those because in a number of schools the the reality on the ground is problematic in terms of the education of our children thank you and of course the materials for the scope proposed couple work is posted with tonight's meeting materials I'll write the board will now vote on resolution six zero five nine all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution six zero five nine is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes all right thank you thank you thank you very much superintendent gray or would you like to introduce this next item regarding the grant Bowl yes we're gonna have our chief operating officer dan young and team come down while he's making his way the next item on the agenda for your consideration and vote is the specifically grant bold master plan I want to acknowledge principal Carroll Campbell is here in the audience mr. dan young will share with you what our best thinking and recommendation is at this point okay thank you good evening chair constan directors and superintendent with me tonight I have arena Cresswell who is the senior director of osm and I have Jamie herd project manager with us also I will do a quick overview and then we will happily answer any questions that you may have in your packets tonight you will find a staff report and resolution regarding the grant bull master plan in 2018 staff and the board looked at four options for where to place the grant softball softball field at that time the option with the softball field and the grand ball was selected master planning proceeded after that point in time during the master planning
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effort there was an alternate plan that was developed that included the development of the grand bowl and the softball field next to the baseball field up on the upper field that and becoming the preferred option that option was presented and recommended to the school improvement bond committee two weeks ago and staff recommended a phased approach of completing the softball field in phase one and completing the rest of the improvements as part of the phase two a later date and committee agreed with that recommendation so with that we will happily answer any questions that you may have all right the board will now consider resolution six zero five eight authorizing the grant bull master plan do I have a motion so moved director Bailey moves in director brim Edwards seconds the motion to adopt resolution six two zero five eight Miss Bradshaw is there public comment on this resolution yes Debbie Engel stone and Kent Peterson thank you welcome hi thank you my name is Debbie Engelstad a & GTL sta D behind me where'd you go Olivia is Olivia dun she's one of my players at Grant High School she came up here in case the coach falters so so here we go good evening board members and thank you for your time and energy I'm currently a teacher for the last 32 years at Grant High School I also have coached three years of basketball 21 years of soccer and then in my 34th year of coaching softball I also went to grant okay just a minute that's pretty awesome that's me Oh gets worse here I also went to grant played soccer and softball at Grant so except for the four years I earn I was in college I've never actually left grant but what that being said I am passionate about Grant High School obviously if my teaching and my coaching coaching gives us a unique experience with the students we teach their relationships you build the community and the empowerment that you impart on are often overlooked athletes so when it comes to inequities I feel I'm obligated to practice what I preach excuse me and speak up because it is for the far bigger cause than just myself in my program most of my coaching career I've been fighting advocating and talking with those who would listen about an on-campus softball field it was drawn into the plans many years ago with the upgrades made to the park fields but was quickly erased from the plans as it was deemed in addition and not an upgrade it made sense at the time and there continued to be conversations about it happening in the future with the Grant High School remodel there was no doubt in my mind that the future was here the time was now and that was over four years ago when we started that as the construction got underway in the remodel process it once again became apparent that it was not to be the plans for the baseball field remained but the plans for the softball field were erased I was told that another solution would be found in the meantime my players got to experience playing on the brand new on campus Roosevelt field the student body and community support were overwhelming the softball team was being playing right outside the doors of school my determination to continue the battle for the field I just determined was the right thing to do the heartache that my players coaching staff and the softball community that was supporting us in this effort felt watching the construction of the beautiful baseball field as we continue to practice and play at the football stripe T ball field in the bowl we were torn as a baseball team also deserved a fight field but again we have been overlooked for many years this has been a roller coaster of it will happen oh sorry it won't and back again it is my hope that this is the time and it is for real at this time and the process was constructing a field can start without delay but forgive me for my apprehension as this has been a long row road and I have to see it to believe it thank you for your time tonight and all the good work you do for our students in PBS excuse me my name is Ken Peterson PE t er s o N and I am president and land use chair for the Grand Park Neighborhood Association both Grant High School mm-hmm pardon me and grant park fall within our neighborhood borders I appreciate the opportunity to address the school board concerning the current request for approval of the grant bowl alternate master plan at the outset I want to make it very clear that my appearance here tonight should not be construed either as an express or implied statement of opposition to the
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plan in any way given the very short time between completion of the proposed plan by Borah architects in a document dated February 7th 2020 and tonight's board meeting less than three weeks later it was not possible for our board to consider the plan prior to this meeting the Neighborhood Association learned about the plan On February 17th the only as a result of an inquiry received from a Grant Park resident addressed to us on our website rather than being directly informed by Portland Public Schools to my knowledge PPS did nothing Pro to publicize the latest and final plan to the community and gpna believes that was a mistake although there had been prior information shared and well attended public meetings about Grand Bowl modernization mm-hmm the plan contained in borås very recent report was the first detailed disclosure of the latest plan and the significant proposed changes involving the upper field in particular the plan involves adding six light stanchions to the four previously proposed for the bowl itself for a total of ten moving the southern boundary of the field about 20 feet closer to residences bordering the field on US Grant Place and removing and replacing fencing that was installed as part of the recently completed Grant High School renovation less than a year ago Grant Park Neighborhood Association believes that before the board votes on the plan there should be an additional well publicized public forum organized and held by Portland Public Schools to present plan details and allow Grant Park neighborhood and other interested residents to make enquiries about the impact of the proposed upper field changes this need not involve a significant delay and such a meeting could likely be scheduled and completed by the time of the board's meeting on March 17th if it were promptly organized our Neighborhood Association requests that a vote by the board be postponed pending the occurrence of such a meeting and I want to add that our board is fully supportive of adding the girls softball field it's not an issue for us in any way thank you for the opportunity to address the board I'm happy to attempt to answer any questions anyone may have thank you thank you very much thank you hey I have David petka welcome good evening I am David pica I live across the street from the scoreboard I live across the street from the proposed softball field as a neighbor as a person is going to look right out onto the field I am absolutely not opposed to the softball people coming bringing the softball back to the field that is not an issue at ball we want softball on the field and we want three things though all we have asked for as neighbors is a study showing the increased use by students proving the need for lights by season and hours we have asked that the park depart not part-to-part parked apartment not be allowed to extend the use of the field with lights beyond the use by the students and we're looking for a mitigation strategy whether that is landscaping whether it is control of the lights by hours and I have asked for this many times to the staff at the community meetings they have today I don't want to use this word too strongly refused I used that word strongly to address the hours so one thing I did was and I sent everybody a memo I said please note in the 2020 Spring athletic season starting March 2nd and that's when they can start practicing with the Sun sets at 6:15 on March 8th daylight savings time kicks in and it is now setting at 7:08 assuming to our practices two hours for boys and two hours for the ladies over 90% of the season
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the athletes will not need lights reasonable analysis suggests that expenditure of $500,000 for lights to avoid one week of field shearing is problematic however the staff should also do exactly the same thing that I just did for the fall season because there could be demand in the fall so I want to be extremely clear I love the coach she is special she gives extra time I want the softball team back in the cab on the campus all I'm asking for is a study showing the increased use not have the parks use it beyond the students use and a mitigation strategy thank you very much any additional board discussion on this matter questions yeah but to have staff answer a couple of questions so I think what we're hearing is really rad support for the concept and all I can say is thank goodness because the idea of the track and Southall team flip-flopping practices and going late was just not going to work so I think everybody's pretty happy with that we have two questions raised by people who testified one is sort of a due process for engaging with the Neighborhood Association and their quest to delay things for roughly a month well actually couple a couple of weeks so starting with that is question number one is that going to materially impact us in any way in terms of the work to be done we discuss the community engagement process first so we can at least give you some perspective on what community engagement occurred already please and I think I'm gonna pile on my question so that you can integrate your response which is describe what is already planned to occur as part of the conditionally the additional conditional use process thank you so my name is Jamie herd for those of you who I haven't met yet Hur D we were directed to from the office of school modernization to complete a master planning process which really studies options and feasibility and also gathers a lot of community feedback in the process we started that process in the fall of 2019 convene an advisory group that was inclusive of Portland Public Schools Portland the pil the athletic staff Portland Parks because they are either full or co-owners on all the property we were talking about and then PBS staff here that works with our real estate leases in that process we had three advisory group meeting was kind of a smaller group although they were all open to the public we also convene to community workshops at our first community workshop I believe there was over a hundred people in attendance in the second there was probably well over sixty and at all of those meetings we always presented two options and we were clear in the community meeting from December 3rd that we were presenting or addressing the master plan which was what we were directed to look at which plays softball in the bowl but that we had also had a lot of support for the second option which was having softball in the upper field and all of that was presented at the time the boards were there for um you know public comment and whatnot so after that meeting we had one more advisory group meeting and then did the work for cost estimating and developing a staff report and that type of thing so we have not been back out since the end of December regarding what happens next we feel that the the master planning process addressed most of the standard items involved in a master plan we do know that this project because it includes lights is going to trigger what's called a type three land use conditional land use process that is also a very public process we anticipate that we will be given guidelines around lighting guidelines around noise
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guidelines around use through that process and and so we are hoping to take that forward so that we can do that work and find what works best for the school the parks and the neighborhood same with traffic so traffic studies we had a traffic consultant that worked with us who also worked on the modernization traffic studies are typically done in concert with the land-use review process so that would also be undertaken at that time thank you do we have any further discussion I stepped back a little bit bigger question so all of the high school modernisations we've had have included a basic facility or stadium for student student use of this at the school and that there was a point in time at one point with Franklin when we were getting close to the budget where there was a suggestion of not putting in the bleachers but just putting in the pot the posts for on the at least on the visitors side as a way to save save money and the decision was made that all students at the high schools in Portland deserved at least with this basic feature at their school which most in most schools thousands of students are are using across the seasons so my question is I know tonight's just phase one but I'm curious is phase two going into the 2020 bond or and I don't know who's gonna answer this question but it if we don't put it in the 2020 bond grant will be the only high school in which would we've done an upgrade of a modernization school without doing at least the sort of centralized feature so I'm curious in I don't know if that's a question for a deputy superintendent hurt sir you're free to answer it but I'm FF sense maybe that that would be a so we're just getting a big a little bit over 1 million dollar part of it and there's a larger piece that would be make grant have what's comparable to the other high schools yeah the the opportunity with having softball on the upper field is to do phased approach the second phase would have to be funded from another source there isn't it's roughly 11 to 12 million dollars for that scope of work there isn't available funding right now to complete that level of capital improvement it could be part of a future bond program but of course those decisions will will have to be made ultimately will be made by the part was that in there I mean the writ was it originally all the high schools so for example the ones we just approved over the last two years Lincoln Madison Benson Oh Benson actually is a asterik we'll get to that but they all have full like a stadium set up and so it would be the only comprehensive and if we didn't put it in the bond or identify some other source then potentially we'd have grant with a pretty big missing piece of their larger campus yeah I believe it is correct that grant other than Benson is the only Portland high school that doesn't have bleachers around their field Roosevelt you know didn't get upgrades to their field or their bleachers but they had them existing says 12 million approximately yes I said only so when other people are done with questions I just have something I want to say about the project okay well I kind of want to come back to my question which is I mean I I think what's what's on the table is great and good process is important too and I think it's a different process to say hey come look at our options in weigh-in is different than here's our recommendation what do you think so I again want to say if we said let's give a little more let's give give the Neighborhood Association a shot at at weighing in on a final recommendation makes sense at this point so far for me
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I'm gonna vote YES on this tonight and I appreciated Jamie's point about the conditional or marinas point about the conditional use process coming up which i think is designed to address specifically the concerns that the neighbors are bringing forward tonight and I know it to be a very rigid rigorous process within the city of Portland so I'm comfortable with that tonight I want to just go back though and to the underlying issue and coach Ingolstadt thank you for your 34 years of service and I want to apologize that softball was not given due due consideration along with baseball at the outset of all of this planning and you know we this is a huge part of our bond program to make sure that this capital reinvestment in our athletic facilities ensures equity for boys and girls sports across the district so thank you for persevering but I'm sorry that you had to and your students and it's gonna be awesome yeah yeah I'm sorry you had to but thank you for your advocacy and the other bigger point that I wanted to make is that you mentioned that one of the reasons it was not included in the original plan was because it wasn't existing prior and this is unfortunately a problem a systemic problem that we have in our educational specifications Lincoln's dealing with severe inequities in their athletic facilities right now because the design process didn't start from square one to look at what a student athletes need and they said we're only going to replace the facilities that are already there and of course Lincoln's a challenging situation because it's in the middle of city and it's there's not very much land but there was very little creativity applied to the problem at the time so I think that that bigger issue is something that needs to be addressed in the in our educational specifications so I'm gonna support this tonight as well but I will speak to the three shoes that the neighbors brought up and I'm going to support it because I'm gonna go back to 1972 with title nine which established the obligation for us to provide equitable facilities and opportunities for both genders I in 1977 I played in the first PIL softball team that when they started offering it as a sport for high school girls and I also I'm gonna go back to when I first right before I got on the board the first time in 2000 I think one of the first community events I went to was a discussion about the facilities at Grant and the complication the real complications that exists by having a facility that is sort of used intensely as if it's a school facility by the by the school community at the same time it's part of the parks and yet this joint process so that's 19 years ago when I went to my first meeting about how do we adequately support student athletes in the grant community so it's been a long conversation and I you know breaks my heart to hear the you know playing on a football striped tee ball field because our students deserve better and I will say with for the neighborhood I think it's completely reasonable that we provide the seasons and hours and we can do that for the for the teams having seen some of the complicated matrix that are required I think people will be surprised even if you're super efficient moving people on and off fields that which I believe our staff will do that I can't for say that you can't have lights no other high school is able to do it and I've heard from grants students about the inability to play in their home fields because they don't have that capability I think the issue relating to parks adding on additional hours is a real issue and I think that's an issue that the school district could have a conversation in additional with we don't control that but because they do their own programming but that we could be a partner in that conversation about what that looks like so I think that's a reasonable thing to ask it's not something necessarily though that we we can tell the city what that entails but I think we can be a partner with a neighborhood and in terms of mitigation
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strategies I think that is a reasonable thing to ask and can be built into the part of the process as we move forward because I live two feet from our part on two sides in my house and there are and there's great benefits to living next to a park and a public facility and also it comes with some other some other things that sometimes mitigation strategies are needed so I think that is a very reasonable thing to ask and would hope that this district can be a really good partner with the neighbors because I think that's what we aspire to be so I'm going to be yes all right the board will now vote oh one more my question has not been answered what would pushing it back to a March 17th board meeting decision materially impact our timeline on getting this done for not this spring obviously but for next spring I'll let Jamie jump in here but I think we would need to take a look at that it's not something that we had considered before right now so it's something that we could take a look at it might not change the overall outcome or generally looking at construction in summer of 2021 but there is a lot of process between now and then and I would I would also submit that the approval tonight I don't think would would impact any of the conversations that we're having I also that that the the requests are fair I think we can work through all those issues there's lots of variables that still need to be worked out between now and when we have land use approval and we have building permit approval negotiating with Portland Parks and Rec all those things will happen over the course of of this project and so I think they're all doable but specific to the question about timing I think we need a little bit time take a take a look at that and I think whether or not even if the resolution is approved tonight I think it would be a good idea to have an open house or meet with neighbors within the next month to let them know what the next steps are and where the engagement can happen and how the public process will continue can we ask you to direct staff to see that that happens some opportunity to I think it's been clear from testimony tonight that there's an appetite for more of it I think you're hearing staff acknowledged that and so that's something we would make sure to have occur okay great sorry I want to acknowledge I went to both open houses they're really really good process that you guys ran very well attended there was a nice station on lighting and how modern lighting can really be shielded in ways and focused in ways that really minimize impact I also have this kind of nervous tic about are we building lights that Parks is going to benefit from even though we're paying the money and that will impact the neighborhood because parks will do that because parks can do and you know we we've had issues before where we end up paying the money parks gets the benefits and what the heck I do not want to go down that road one more time so if there are lights I think we ought to control when they're on and who gets to use them and I think that's a important discussion to have with a neighborhood all right the board will now vote on resolution six zero five eight authorizing the grant bol master plan all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution six zero five eight is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes all right okay go generals have a great season okay tonight the board will hear updates from our four board committees and one task force and I who will also provide a brief report on my participation at the linked learning conference last month director Moore would you like to start it off with a report from the policy committee and the and the intergovernmental task force I'm gonna start the policy committee and it'll be fairly short we we're working on a
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Emile's policy reimbursement for meals and yeah meals policy and we have made a couple of couple of changes I think it's ready to come back and hopefully we'll be approved for forwarding to the board at our next meeting which is March 9th the the other the major work that we're doing right now is looking at the theory policies that related to the enrollment balancing work and we've gotten some feedback from community engagement sessions where we're talking about what we're talking about making some revisions to the language all three of the policies where we're going to be looking at adding language that aligns with the racial educational equity policy language and then we're looking at changing some practices around particularly when any boundary changes would take effect my expectation is that it's it's going to require a number of sessions before we complete the revisions there the next thing is the intergovernmental task force and you'll be pleased to know that there are discussions that are happening with Portland Parks and Rec that will hopefully lead to a revised collaborative agreements and there have been some changes in Portland Parks and Rec relatively recently and and there have been changes on our end as well the is the existing collaborative agreements is rather old and I don't remember exactly when it dates from but it's it's been in place for a good long time and practices are not necessarily aligned with the existing agreement so I try I've heard the agreement is older than our portables it could be it could be so there is ongoing work happening to craft an agreement that is going to work for both PBS and Portland Parks and Rec I don't have date when that work will be concluded but we have been we the board members Amy and I have been talking to staff about the issues that we're aware of that have made for a somewhat tense relationship over the years so we're getting ongoing updates on how that's going so we got some legislative updates most of which were stay tuned and since things have come to a screeching halt it appears I I think we'll all just have to stay tuned the the other major thing that we did at the meeting was to get a report on district sustainability efforts and this is directly relevant to some of the testimony we heard earlier there's a great deal of work going on and PPS has a pretty good track record on sustainability and it's you know we're adding to it all the time and one of the really positive efforts that is going on right now is we now have a real infrastructure within the district around sustainability so they're actively engaged in some work across departments to improve practices around sustainability and it's kind of a work in progress but it sounded very very promising and I would just add to that back to the testimony of our friends from Beverly Cleary nutrition services is deeply engaged in looking at single-use plastics and all sorts of aspects of their practices and engaged with with students and school leaders - on how to how to continually improve their so that was
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that was good to hit learn more about what is it is there a one-pager bullet points stuff that were engaged in doing we actually did receive something for that meeting so it's posted with materials but Rosie and can resend that around director Scott could you provide you've moved off that topic I'm just gonna say is there seems to be like a disconnect between I agree that there's a lot of work great their work being done but it seems like whenever we gotta engage students they it's not connected to that to them somehow and it seems like it's that we have such a pull market and the excitement I mean when the last year when the kids came and brought the beeswax wraps instead of single-use plastic and then going out to Bridger for the announcement of the sustainability I grant from PG e I just see all this enthusiasm for students and somehow if we can connect the good work that's happening internally with the student energy it's just like I think great things would happy happening the students would be less frustrated because there is a lot of there are many things happening so if you're gonna illuminate that somehow elevate the work so Maxine is still here but there is a student committee now that is part of this it's alright I was just gonna refer to you you didn't have to come back do you want to say something quickly about the the student work with the climate justice committee I don't have extensive knowledge of it of the student I don't know exactly what it's called except that there is a subset of students are working with Nicole and working with Sarah on the curriculum stuff and also just as a group to be but part of what they're looking at is also as a district and as an employer our own sustainability practices I wish that we could have shown that students that the reason we have these glasses tonight is because students came in and asked us not to use disposable water bottles and I agree that we should probably do some more messaging and I'm also curious who if there's someone I could connect with at the district that's kind of the point person for either facilities or operations because I actually have a checklist I could share that they could just kind of tick off some of the things that are already being done and so we could better message those things we do have a director of sustainability Rosanna can connect so can I just is that person's facilities and operations or I believe he's in facilities management yeah but he is tasked with working across departments on all these activities it sounds like a brief high-level synopsis of where we are and our sustainability and green efforts because some of these important topics you know have been explored are continuing to be explored things as simple as having durable lunch materials utensils depends on whether there's dish washing capabilities in that school so in some cases we've been able to help with that so but I think there's all range of other things including a progress report on a resolution implementation so let's see about putting something brief together just just a quick you know FYI and then I do think it should just be a regular practice to have an annual report on our sustainability efforts and the resolution specifically but I agree sometimes our students are hearing the progress that we're making in many ways along different fronts whether its energy or any other area so one of the other things that came up during the meeting was can we highlight what we're doing on on our website and and the answer that we got was yeah it's in there but you guys look for and if there's a way to sort of raise the visibility I think that would be good board members would like to see that link Roseanne you can thank you okay director Scott waiting here to provide your report from the school improvement box thank you a lot going on in the school broom and bond committee over Moscow police we had a meeting on February 13th where we discussed the facility condition assessment reviews we discussed educational sustainability review we got an update from the bond accountability committee over the water pilot program and a preview of the grandpa decision which the board made today and then as an entire board we met in a work session on February 18th to again review some of the facility
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condition assessments review potential bond options for for the 2020 bond this November and then really engage in a pretty robust discussion of criteria that we'd like staff to use as they develop the 2020 bonds so getting good conversation staff is taking that input and will come back to us with the next iteration of bond package options and I think we're gonna be discussing we have an ex bond committee meeting on March 12th and then a potential full board work session on March 17th so lots going on lots of discussion as we move towards a 2020 bond thank you very much director la we really excuse me director Lowry could you provide an update from charter and alternative programs where there is also a lot going yes it's interesting because most people normally mess up my first name not my last name but thank you for asking about the work of the Charter and alternative program committee we held a hearing on February 13th it was a very busy day for chair constan as she was both at the bond meeting and then at the hearing as was director bailey yeah both and so we have that hearing where we heard from the community and from Kairos in portland village school as we looked at renewals of both of those charters and then we had a work session on February 20th for the charter schools and alternative programs committee where we made recommendations that will be coming before the board for the our March 3rd meeting to vote on those charter renewals and the extensions to others opal school and Arthur Academy and we also have been working with our community CBO's and I see Tom and Joe are here as well as some other CBO folks to talk tonight about the essay and increasing our support of our CBO's and that work of conversation and engagement as we continue to make sure we're serving well those students who need extra supports and so I'm thankful though they're here tonight to continue that work in that conversation and the work of the committee and one of the things in your packet was a memo around increasing the pass-through currently state of Oregon laws that we pass through 80 percent of the dollars for charter schools and we are looking at increasing that to 95 percent for schools that serve 50 percent or more historically underserved students so you have a staff analysis in your packet that we will be bringing forward for a vote also at our March 3rd meeting and that came out of conversations that both Turk on Sam and I had with some of the schools and director Bailey was part of that conversation as well as we looked at what would the impact be of again making sure that our students who need them supports and resources have those so that's everything from the Charter and alternative program committee thank you very much and thank you for your leadership there in the extension and renewal process which is a lot of work director berm Edwards do you have a report from the audit committee excuse me we recently had an audit committee we as a refresher we have three three members of the board and two community members who serve on the board at high level the topics that we covered we had a report from the internal performance auditor and we have a project underway right now which is to gather all the disparate audits that happen across the district whether they're internal external financial bond and to try and get them in one place because you have to go all over the place to find them and then more importantly a lot of the audits have had recommendations for the districts on how we can improve our operations and so we're in the process of pairing the district reports on implementation and on the recommendations in the implementation progress so that community members could see the outcome of the audits what recommendations have been made and then what progress is happening visa vie the various audits cuz there's there are a lot of audits happening right right now in addition we had a discussion about a potential fraud hotline and so something that again the internal performance auditor Janice Hanson brought and while we discussed the benefits of it I think there was a consensus that we're in the process of standing up the internal performance audit office of the internal performance audit and we have lots of audits underway with Secretary of State's audit that at this time that's not something that we should entertain as something that's needed because we have a lot of other audits and we're still in the process of really getting the internal office audit office stood up we also had a brief report from the bond performance audits they have a the engaged in field work right now relating to the to the current bond there's five five primary areas they're looking at contracts and procurement health and safety
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construction management and prior audit recommendations follow-up and that the field works underway so they have nothing to report at this time we should see significantly more reporting on the health and safety side of things so last year was a lot on the modern of the modernisations and this year there will be I think more information on the health and safety which will be I think useful information for our broader community then the committee also considered a staff recommendation on a contract extension for our comprehensive annual financial audit err and we're recommending tkw and I believe that recommendation will come to the board at the next meeting they've done a good job and staff presented a number of reasons of why it would be to the disadvantage to continue so that'll be coming to the full board the recommendation from the committee and then lastly we had a discussion about the secretary of state audit and there has been a report an implementation scorecard created so that again people don't have to wade through well you know all the audits and long spreadsheets to figure out whether or not we're on track to implement and so we talked about that and we part of the discussion was around how the there are some very specific items that were our board related and some of them we've completed some of them are underway and then there's something that we self to do and so talk me had a discussion was somewhat philosophical about how it is that we're going to as a board report on some things that we were assigned as part of the audit so it was a good discussion I say we have a scorecard that is I think pretty straightforward and understandable to the public about where we are in terms of implementation and the staff items are well underway thank you very much - excuse me that was the audit committee yep - round it out I have a report from a brief excursion I was able to make to Long Beach Unified School District with some of our staff to look at their learn length learning which is really a CTE focus of all their high schools but it's also so much more than that that's really integrated project-based learning throughout their high schools and connecting their core curriculum to their career pathways in their high schools which really really increases the relevance for students and it's had a huge impact on their graduation rate so it was a lot to learn it was really especially illuminating for me to be there with some of our staff we had teachers from Madison and Wilson and Lincoln who were really impressed and and interested and fired up about bringing home some of their their learnings from there and tonight on our business agenda we approved for a director to back to pass to visit Nashville which has a similar linked learning approach with their high school academies and so this is all part of our ongoing efforts to improve our our career pathways for our students and also just and improve the relevance in our core curriculum so I appreciate the opportunity to have gone on that learning journey with some of our staff and seeing no other business we will adjourn and reconvene in a board work session to discuss our student investment account priorities thank you

Event 2: Board of Education-Work Session- February 25, 2019

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[Music] all right Thank You superintendent Guerrero members of the Board of Education my name is Tania Jardin and I'm the executive director of mouska burn center which is one of the districts contracted organizations referred to as cbos thank you for the operating opportunity to speak tonight on behalf of all the studios which annually serve more than 1,600 PPS students and then previously dropped out or wrongly dropping out let me start by thanking all of you for your commitment to providing options thank you for recognizing that different students have different needs and then not every path to graduation looks the same thank you for allowing the CBO's to successfully serve and bring hope to hundreds of these students each year we also appreciate your efforts and those of many others in the community in advocating for the CBO's and our student investment account funding proposal submitted last December and we're pleased the district is including the CBO's in its student investment account application however we are disappointed the district is recommending an allocation of only 40% of the funding amount requested in our proposal we are requesting the PPS Board of Education increase the CBO student investment account allocation to a minimum with 75% of the original mount our proposal this would equal approximately 1.6 million compared to the district's current proposed allocation of 945 this would be an important step in demonstrating full district support that the PBS students served by the CBO CBO serves students that have historically experienced academic disparities we serve the highest percentages for special education students in the district we serve high concentrations of students of color emerging bilingual students and students navigating poverty and homelessness and foster care this is the population that architects of the Student Success act as well as district leaders have stated need to be supported to the student investment account the CBO's understand and appreciate the tremendous amount of time and effort you all invest in creating equitable opportunities and outcomes for all students and we recognize the tough decision you must make in allocating funding across a large district we want to leave you with a visual aid before you begin deliberating on the district's student investment account application for getting each of you know passes that event we're giving each of you photos of eight students that recently graduated from a CBO after previously dropping out or almost dropping out while these particular students are from one CDL they represent the students spread across the entire CBO network of schools please refer to these students and their stories as you consider resourcing the CBO's at a minimum of 75% of our proposal not the 40% currently designated on the district's application it will help these neglected students and schools but the opportunity they deserve thank you so good evening check on Chen thanks chairman and members of PBS port for the record my name is Yolanda Wilson and I've been the organizer with Stanford children here to speak I'm the student investment account proposal before becoming an organizer attended schools and BBS graduating from Franklin High School in 2014 and then worked within PBS Communications Office or Sigma for a couple of summers while I was in college during pal reach I'm a first generation college graduate and I am dedicated to ensuring that our students receive the quality education
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that they deserve so that we can bring our graduation rate up to 100% because we know that we can at plan do we help shape and advocate for the Student Success act specifically the student vestment account and we want to applaud the guests working to fulfill the intent and spirit of the law by one centering the work on equity to working to meet students mental and behavioral health needs and three focusing investments on increase increasing academic achievement for students including reducing academic at this barriers for students advocating students of color students with disabilities students to our emerging bilingual students who are in foster care students are experiencing homelessness and any other groups of students who have historically experience academic disparities it is an honor to partner with PBS on engaging members of the community in this process a lot of work went into this process and there's still a lot of work to do in order to ensure that the district serves our students equitably across the reason after reviewing the proposal there are several or investment areas that I want to highlight it's important to note that these investments reflect feedback from members of the community after of doings are exceeding more funding for culturally specific organizations and services expansion of mental and behavioral health supports state increasing staffing for students with disabilities boost in with supports for early transition and additional resources to support the implementation of ethnic studies tribal history shared history early literacy and language development against these investments reflect feedbacks from members of the community and then resourced equitably and implemented well these investments can be game changers for so many of our students who have given these targeted resources and supports can and will succeed we appreciate the opportunity to partner with PBS and look forward to ensuring the proposal for people to vent and Center equity and reflect and incorporate input from the community members especially communities that historically been underrepresented and underserved overall this process is heading in the right direction there are a few areas where we have some information clarity will follow up with those some additional questions and feedback we've gathered from partners and community members this is our opportunity to help change the odds for so many students across their district and I want to thank you again for your time today and I look forward to collaborating with you more thanks to stand on the front end one more person signed up for folks testimony maria Rangel [Laughter] good evening everyone thank you for your time of listening I'm here just you know behalf of CPS I help support my name is Sonny I've acted by legal outreach coordinator for ABI I work under the breaking barriers grant that is federally funded under this graph my role is to break barriers for underserved families and their children with disabilities and also increase our spatial justice youth program our organization is also Oregon's community Parent Resource Center the role of the community Parent Resource Center is to work with families and youth with disabilities and specifically work to help parents participate effectively in their child's education and to partner to improve all outcomes for children with disabilities I have been doing advocacy work and supporting parents and their advocacy me for the past ten years I have specifically been supporting his family because parents navigating the special education system for about three years I have experience I have experience that most of the parents starting point and advocacy is the same as mine West years ago when I started the journey of advocacy for my daughter that experiences with disability I however did not have the language barrier and there was still very hard for me my advocacy experience included navigating through a very negative delivery of diagnosis which couldn't for which put me on the path of having low expectations for my daughter due to the to society and lack of real positive information that I had access to overcoming challenges in my community on how people's like how people see people with disabilities challenges in the school system due to not understanding my rights nor my daughter's rights this all changed for
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me and my daughter when I got connected and empowered I've got connected and empowered to parent leaders in the community I now had access to information my mind shifted to having high expectations for my daughter believing in her abilities and feeling more empowered to help advocate for her rights letting go what - letting go of what I have been taught by my parents and community and believing that I am my child's expert at number one application is the hardest thing for me to do and is one of the hardest things for the parents that I help support to do I only work 20 hours a week and that is merely not enough to help support the mothers with the PBS and not to mention that but my 20 hours cover families all across Oregon based on the need I have seen with the PBS Hispanic Latino parents that have children with disabilities I would like to ask for your support I would like to ask for you to see that intersectionality of race and disability and to partner with our organization with our organization that has been doing the work for many years and has the passion resources and connections to help parents in our community I'm a few months ago there was two parents that spoke at the board meeting that I hope support one of their ask was the hiring the hiring of a person who plays the role of educating supporting the process navigations and advocating for families who do not speak English before during and after IEP meetings another ask that I often get from families is to create a leadership group to be effective disability advocates for their children and to expand the information to other parents it will be great if there was a person doing this and PPS half of the time but it will also be better if there was a person that was working have spent time in PPS and half of the time with an organization like ours that that they can directly provide support our organization as one of the other barriers I have seen poor families that want to reach out is the fear of reaching out to as the school system they often feel less fearful reaching out to a grassroot community organization we also have the history of successful partnerships with PPS and our all learning movement and conference that also has two Spanish humanity and the PBS mission you need people of color and people with disabilities the community of parents that I have support represent the intersection of both and the oops you partner with I don't see a partnership with the skill intersectional disability organization that is already doing the work so I asked if I asked is that you please consider how better help you support the Latino Hispanic community so they can be effective advocates for their sons and daughters so we all love our sons and daughters but they need more information and they need more barriers broken as we have been doing a lot of work but now it's time for where you to step in and help support us in the work that we're already doing thank you for your time and have a great evening everybody it's nice to see the world populated works veterans clearly a topic everybody's attention as a chip I'm gonna I'm going to lead us off you're going to hear from several senior staff members and we're going to get into some of the details will cover some themes and what represents a historic investment in k-12 pre k12 here in the state of Morgan yes reimagining our school system to better serve every students the student investment account represents one funding source I'll be it a really important one because the first time we have a substantial set of new resources in 30 years to actually begin moving a needle in some of the work that we need to do to better serve our students and so I just want to emphasize that tonight we're talking about our student investment account investment
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package we're proposing to submit to the Department of Education we are also simultaneously commenced our overall general fund budget development the broader will also speak to some of the similar areas or areas that might not be listed that we understand need to be a part of the investments that we need to make it also doesn't count other funding streams we continue to learn throughout the spring and the district's budget cycle the budget picture becomes clear for example I do a budget monies they may also get them to the school district that also sort of will give us a greater capacity so a few of the outcomes I'll start off by sort of trying to think a little bit of a picture about how we put this all together how this jigsaw because we don't want only look at this in isolation together to get at our goals for our students but we do recognize that there are some since we need to make in our practices and the way we go about our work something that high-performing school systems have as characteristic is they have a very clear vision mission they expect for their students we spent a year engaged with community to develop reimagining PPS which stands as our North Star is the school district we put our students at the center as the Graduate portrait we're backward mapping with that graduate portrait looks like throughout their pre k12 experience including at the earliest rates and what usually comes next with the mission is how we're gonna operationalize towards that North Star so we've also embarked and commenced our multi-year strategic plan a strategic plan will we'll operationalize our work over the next few years and it will be followed by another iteration of the strategic plan with the goal of making not just a glassy aspirational document that sits on the shelf but that we're actually producing the evidence that were making come true that that is what is guiding our work our vision talks about not just a graduate portrait but also the educator essentials that mean the characteristics that any adult that works or touches students characteristics that we believe are important to model curve for our students but it also includes a third characteristic it identifies the system shifts that we need to make in the school system to better serve every student we know right now that not every student is being deserved we rely on our culturally specific organizations we rely on our community-based programs all of them play a key role and we recognize that and we have to work within the finite resources that we have to engage some high leverage strategies and activities which means sometimes stopping doing the things that we can't quantify have an impact for our students so that we can engage in the activities that this represents in the SI a investment package an opportunity to really identify those does it go as deep as we would want to go in every single area probably not could we spend time advocating that one areas you get a little more than maybe another we could debate that but what we've tried to do is produce a bold well-balanced investment package that touches on the spirit of the legislation next steps for everyone's information if you didn't see it already on the posted materials you'll see today tonight's high-level presentation but more importantly you will see a lot of the details that are we are intending to submit to the Department of Education that includes the full application which includes a pretty lengthy narrative I just appreciate up front for four months of work that went into producing this set of relatives by staff engaging the community and really deliberating and debating all of the line items and every one of the activities and how they build on the current capacity that we made so next steps beyond sort of spending this evening talking about getting a better understanding is to make sure we're continuing on our roadmap I talked about our visioning we launched our strategic planning we did that needs assessment we were out in the community those months doing that we submitted our district plan in December before the winter break we came back and continue to do more engagement we captured the synthesis of all of that feedback you got it in a series and remember that's part of our artifacts that we are submitting I don't I can't think of another district that's the comprehensive part of the job we always do more absolutely and here we
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are March prepared to submit our application and even as we do that we know that it will continue to involve around when it actually needs and on the ground I mentioned the system shifts that were prioritizing this year from the range of system shifts that we believe we need to embark on and as the senior leadership team we prioritize these five areas they capture five big bodies of work which have multiple strands within them and we think are going to be key drivers and the work that we need to do moving forward so it means making sure our systems and structures are more racially equitable school system in Spain attention to our talent and having ways to develop you'll see in our investment package much of it is personnel dependent we are in a state that has a critical shortage of qualified professionals in many of these areas and so we have to also think long term about how we create those pathways those pipelines we have a massive curriculum debt and partly public schools not unlike other school districts around the state where there have not been the resources to make sure we're on a cycle to refresh our students having high-quality materials this is an area we really want to continue working with our data to make sure students at a minimum no matter what building they're in have those quality resources and we're continuing to invest in our educators with those abilities of strategies to differentiate particularly for those students who have not experienced success the Student Success act or the FA in particular emphasized a few areas such as social emotional behavioral and mental health which aligns very well with our culture of developing a physical emotional climate and culture of safety in our school communities and so you're going to see a number of investment areas where were putting a focus there so I'm going to kick it off to the team to continue sort of the overview before we go into our small group discussions all right so it's with this background and this foundation of the goals and aspirations around what the district is trying to achieve along with the spirit of the legislature in passing the student Investment Act in partnership with a lot of our statewide and local advocates that we attempted to think about how do we sort of remain keep this focus on where we want to transform as a district while also incorporating the feedback the feedback and the engagement from our partners or the teachers or staff from our parents from our students so that we're being really strategic and so while the student investment the student investment account represents a fantastic opportunity once in a lifetime opportunity people the infusion of resources it really called on us to be strategic and so we wanted to give people an opportunity to hear a little bit more about some of the strategies that we approach this prioritization and the application so like the superintendent said many of these you'll see the sort of like stream that draws through in terms of our vision our strategic plan and that what we're hearing in terms of voices from the community into these three main sort of strategies so we wanted to make sure that as a district as folks who were prioritizing and strategizing that we had a clear emphasis on racial equity and social because their theory of change is that when we focus on students of color with an intersectional lens which means that we might start recognizing the pernicious caps at students of color experience while also recognizing the multidimensionality of oppression and that students of color are often students who are experiencing homelessness students experiencing poverty students with disabilities that we needed to make sure that we were we were taking into account that intersectional lens and then if we can and if we can't really focus in on addressing those barriers that lead to those pernicious caps that we would be able to improve the entire system we would take this continue to take the targeted Universalist approach of having universal goals and targeted strategies recognizing the multidimensionality of our students of our families in our communities and being targeted in our approaches around that I think the other thing that we are that we're really called into as a district is as we think about transformation as we think about the goals that we want to achieve we're called to really reach inside and to think about how we build our and that is a longer-term strategy and so we also want to make sure that we're reaching outside of the district outside of her institution and thinking how we continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our partners that we reach out and that we lean on their capacity their expertise their culturally specific work or their relationships with community to really
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help accelerate the transformation of democracy so we have to be able to make sure that we have partnerships that were engaging that folks as thought partners as experts as able to sort of build that bridge so that when we think about the urgent need around town diversity around a staff and community members with expertise that we're utilizing that and that we're using that as a strategy to accelerate the transformation to meet the urgent needs that we're seeing now the other thing that we are really called on to is that more is not necessarily more right and so with this infusion of resources we want to be critical and think about what if what are the strategies what are those we can think about how we can do things differently more of the same to address the pernicious gaps it's going to make a change is it going to address the needs that are emerging and the for a long time and so we really wanted to as a leadership team as community partners really asked folks what are those like high low neural high leverage strategies where has research where has experience where has David told us that we are moving the dial and that we can see some acceleration with additional resource and so that's difficult right because we had to think about where can where can we find those leverage points and how can we really use this funding as a way to catalyze catalyze that change I think and the superintendent Elizabeth about how PBS is really trying to do differently in terms of engagement we've heard time and time again our community wants to be part of the process not only at the front end but in the in the making and the sausage-making and also to be able to hold us accountable to what we what we say that we wanted to so we really followed a process that almost mirrored the Student Success success committee that did town halls that sort of like took in information it came out with some came out with some proposals and then asked people for feedback so we started with brought community engagement we engaged with organizations like Stanford from an organization like Stanford children the coalition of communities of color with our school partners and we had really great input we had a really well attended session we also worked with vocal students we wanted to make sure that we were asking students directly and really trying to live it live it lead into our aspirations around student voice we also recognized the importance of our educators of the expertise and the talent that we have in house and wanted to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to give feedback so that they can be part of the problem solving and the strategy making them learn to do we also continue to really lead groups that the legislature asked us to focus groups with migrant education with head start families and with I think one of the things that the superintendent alluded to about how we were doing things differently is that we we have a serious set of really strong community partners for a call a specific that serve thousands of our students and families each year and we ask them to be partners with us in late October to take some of the findings that you were getting to help us think about how we might reimagine some of the work that they were that they're doing with us and how we can do that differently and more effectively and so that that thought partnership that broad engagement that focused engagement we're really trying to as a district do things differently really sort of lead into that partnership of and collaboration with diversity of stakeholders because we think that that's what's ultimately gonna make us stronger as a district and help us build that overall capacity so hopefully you'll hear and you'll experience that this engagement was not just a check the Box activity but really something want to sort of like incorporate it be part of the fabric the heart of today's works of student activity is really going to be around a lot of the work that we're going to be doing at our individual groups so Claire and I are going to get through the rest of this presentation so we can make sure that we are on time and we are and we have the report at the time that's dedicated to each of our teams moving forward so this is some of the exciting work that some of our partners that were speaking at a public comment earlier alluded to what's really really really exciting about our key investments is that the majority of this of these investments are purely in the schools you know these investments are something that that principals and
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leaders and teachers and and kids can absolutely feel and and being able to actually see some of the impacts of what these investments are aimed to do right here we're looking at increased academic supports and target interventions for most vulnerable students this this ranges from adding additional teachers and instructional specialists at our targeted schools which are CSI or TSI ignorant idle schools which is 30-plus schools here PBS an expansion of early at access additional special education classrooms and services which we know has been called out specifically in the SSA culturally specific curriculum supports to accurately presents to all students and contributions of Native Americans past and present and we know that that's something also that was specifically called out that we are making an investment in increasing social emotional mental behavioral health supports across the district and proving our counselors student ratios at all of our middle schools are and our and then also looking at increasing the number of social workers that we're adding in our system every single high school in a 1.0 social worker our comprehensive high schools looking at social workers then going across the entire system and servicing our K fives our gates in our middles looking at all of our middle schools also receiving an additional counselor with the counter ratio being dropped to a 1 to 250 ratio we're looking at additional school psychologists we're contracting with culture specific organizations which we heard earlier which was specifically called down to the SSA package and then additional staff and a restorative justice and title 9 teams through the office of student support services again which is a huge investment which is a direct response to some of the needs and our systems that our students have been grappling with so we're really excited about that optimal student-teacher ratios and class sizes across actually a lot of our grade levels we are at we're looking at lowering the class sizes actually k12 we're really actually seeing some very historic class size shifts especially in our kinder in our first grade we're looking at looking at classroom shifts classroom size shifts significant in our middle schools and then also addresses some of those shifts at the high school level we're really excited about that also additional constructional specialists to support teachers of students with CSIT aside schools we know that that's where our historically underserved students the majority of our students are in our si si TSI schools and and whatever concentrated efforts that we heard from our superintendent is that we have not had a robust curriculum very I'm here in PPS but as we are rolling out our guaranteed a viable curriculum we also have to be able to make sure that we're equipping our schools with instructional specialists that can help coach and guide our teachers through the rollout of this but also more importantly our instructional specialists are also going to be working with also small student groups to make sure that our students are actually reading the standard meeting the need and are consistently growing so we're really excited about that shift and that add in our si si T in high school the expansion of elective courses and comprehensive middles and K eights one of the things that specifically SSA called out was how we are making sure that we're providing equitable programming and opportunities on access for all of our students we know that there have been gaps and disparities across arcades and middles in terms of offerings in terms of elective offerings and what students have access to this is a significant investment in terms of how we are making a concerted effort and adding additional electives and additional course offerings for all of our students that are k-8 and middle sis is huge one of the things that we're also looking at doing through this is continue to expand on our arts pathways and ensuring that we actually have very clear feeder programs where students have multiple pathways that have access to a variety of different offering specific in the arts technology support to implement one-to-one device programs and five of our new Verizon innovative schools and I'm really excited about that and we have our CTO here Don would be more than happy to talk about this exciting opportunity that we have for us for our students regarding our one-to-one initiative a more equitable access to arts education especially in our historically underserved school communities we talked a little bit about that but this is specifically increasing art staffing and supportive elementary and middle levels and the Jefferson Madison and Roosevelt clusters this is again very huge as as we're looking at expanding those feeder offerings and making sure that we have
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consistent pathways at our feeder prepping our feeder programs additional visual Performing Arts teachers on special assignment positions to support the master arts IDI plan we know that Chris abrasion and her team have done that nominal work in our visual artists performing artist departments we are adding additional additional ptosis to make sure that they're coming down to support the expansion of our arts programming in our district and then of course another significant investment is the purchasing of new instruments and materials for our visual arts and performing programs and this is our investment in our cultural Pacific student family supports and expanded community partnerships we're really really excited we have Daniel Ledezma here with us today who is our senior advisor at racial equity and social justice would be more than happy to speak to any of these specifically but to touch on it which is really really exciting again we heard from some of our partners our earlier public comment I'm an investment in expanding our cultural Pacific student and family engagement resources making available additional high school wraparound services increasing our extended learning opportunities in our system providing more opportunities for mentorship and student leadership and expanding culturally specific enrichment activities I know that that seems like it's a lot but Danny and the team have a robust wraparound plan for how this is going to touch our source students the underserved schools in a way that's going to be very meaningful and impactful and it's going to help us drive stick achievement and then we have an investment to go actually school trip over to our deputy superintendent of business and ops so on our last page of investments is really about curriculum materials that we're looking for English language development for our English language learners and as well as new curriculum with professional development in materials for especially in our health or key areas so and one thing that I wanted to clarify has ever seen better times today in your packets you have the long list of where you'll see tier 1 and tier 2 so tier one is what we're playing forward and bounce to the allocation from the state tier two [Music] you know when we simply submit this plan to the same to get it approved in the meantime we're beginning to hire those positions it is possible we may not be able to player because the whole state is firing right so we the puritan will also be our backup so if there's areas that we can't our requests we're going to make sure that we spend every dollar of the essay okay with that table discussions with our board and see between any budget review committee members and we have some student join now we're running a little bit late so I'm going to ask that I report out go down to 20 minutes in and so that means 5 minutes per table so we'll give you a half an hour to discuss the school's investment account materials you have little applications to and we have two guiding questions where you see from our community and if you were to present this to your constituencies tomorrow one of the key takeaways [Music]
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the one comment was in regards to like all in like that identified in to student they said that it look like we was such beauty they really liked the plan they liked how our CEOs said she really liked how it feels like this has touched every school another conversation that we had is that every school program is is affected and what would people take away from it is to talk about that we really focus on social emotional and directories is like yeah that was her elevators - you might look fit and I would say though that we're looking at middle school I'm working on an arts and then of course we still need sources we have hiring and all of the work that goes into an uprooting and hiring specifically color and what goes into that and the communication that more global communication just about the work that we are doing just wants a a staff spent a ton of outside the 40-hour workweek working on this and specifically we're going to be after being important decades chronically late in our hiring schedule we're going to be chronically early and that's again a ton of work by staff play in HR so I just want to call that out and same thing all right above this table are we ready over here sure make sure I capture everything so if I miss something please speak up so we kind of started looking at both of the needs assessments from the community and the staff and where they aligned and I think notably it was around social emotional learning so we discussed what that looks like for a student and teacher across the district how these specific budget items will actually play out in terms of support so how this class size reduction kind of support social emotional learning development for kids in schools we also talked about this kind of issuer challenge around overhead and operating costs and maybe being tapped within legislation itself so if we're trying to effectively get these budget pieces in play with less not less but not enough to get the district it's not going to be as efficacious and how can we be kind of advocating for that or talking about what that might look like moving forward we also talked about just overall how
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these investments kind of lay the groundwork for future planning across the district so we shared that you know in terms of the high school success where the modern the redesign work early literacy and early learning initiatives how does this kind of tie into that forward momentum across the district and then finally we talked about how this really aligns with the district's overall vision and strategic plan and that means that kind of critical piece but you know super chemica erred in the beginning of course there was a wishlist that was enormous you know and then kind of making that decision if it doesn't tie into our overall vision and North Star and it really isn't we had a lot of questions though around staffing and then also like our investments around the GCC and so like how does this translate into better instructional practices at Tier one and then finally our last question was evaluation and so how are we going to evaluate the impact of these investments what does it look like and how often so what are we going to first determine if they're working the way we intend them [Music] [Music] but there's a question around the category of staffing and how we're going to be able to accomplish that and the only one out of line for that objective well it was fun strategy it was on the system ship see there was only one good strategy less the better one I had to do more with the HR function hiring someone that could do the retaining or that I'm sorry that retention so it was more optimal student-teacher ratios and class sizes across many grade levels and the activity to get us there was an FTE for Human Resources and cute including two of te her recruiters and what FTE per class and compensation analyst with additional admin to be to be determined at about a half a million in year over three years so then we work the question was how does that translate to you you know more diverse staff and the system so I was wondering and that's that's how we're spending is okay by supporting if you commander this intention hiring hundred yourself yes and it's adding a whole other layer of work but certainly it does also align with our work okay just jump in just before you leave that at that point because that's one of the things we were trying to I didn't realize this the state legislation perhaps the administrative cost for a district like 50s at five hundred thousand dollars which is absurd and in fact will make will make the program ineffective so I think as we go into a budget conversation we need to talk about how to redirect some other resources since the state has restricted our ability to use these new resources to effectively implement the program where do we get those resources elsewhere in the budget to make no effect so that was one of the points well it's 211 employees the admin indirect is typically like a four percent number a legislation said four or five hundred thousand maximo so a bigger district is very quickly so you don't notice they we're on this list a bunch of new central office administrators well we decided to invest those five hundred thousand dollar limitation on is to HR recruiters so we can even find all those licensed
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professionals it's about one and a half percent okay one thing that was kind of tight inside as we serve doing some things with the system so the babies and then the switches will come out of the types of there ended up being those things address the particular spending party work very little boy and this doesn't really call out why we chose what we did and where were specifically choosing to not invest right now even though we call them coming forward in April the second question is like what are you gonna go back to constituency what I'd be like choosing did not do some things here and I don't know exactly [Music] so what we'll come back to the board well once we get the approval from the trip this application then it goes to OD and then we go through a whole process of them and then we get to July and August remembering that spend every dime but we can't hire enough social workers because everyone in the county when social workers we're gonna decide what is our chair to investment using in order to specialist always but we actually get some September thirtieth the first year but a duty nurse will have to carry we always have to have that tier 2 available some of that is in future here just to clarify by tier 2 and then at this point we're not really opening it up to a public comment but I'd be happy to take questions and answers at the end so I'm whoa it's not even a question it's a statement so I'm very concerned that I'm looking at this plan and I was listening at this fruit and not once did I hear African American social workers I was at three meetings it was very clear that people at the fabien meeting and at the Roosevelt meeting and at the meeting at Harriet Tubman said that the social workers should look like the dominant minority group I didn't hear that and one of the things that concerns me
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if we are not intentional about what we're going to do it could possibly not be done it wasn't in there I saw that we had social workers we also work very clear at those meetings that we wanted more teachers of color I I saw more teachers but I didn't see teachers of color I did hear this group call it out but I'm saying we to be intentional we have to see this and write it because it's real easy to say we did everything on that piece of paper but we didn't spell it out yes so I I'm just saying I didn't hear it beautiful you did a presentation up there and I didn't see it and when he asked what what was what did you notice about this nobody in this group said that I just want to make sure it's on the record that that's what I heard it three means yeah and I and it's we've got to be intentional we've got to be intentional about working with our african-american kids I put the Student Success I said are like Latino kids that's what the Student Success act says our students who are I heard special needs a lot so co-moh social-emotional but that's a lot of kids that are not special ed so we have to be very intentional and very clear because that's what you asked for community input I heard it I heard the community but I was there and I want to hear it every time we talk about how we're going to spend student success that money

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)

2020-02-25 PPS School Board Regular Meeting, Work Session

Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education February 25, 2020

Event 2: Board of Education-Work Session- February 25, 2019

Sources