2020-05-05 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-05-05
Time 18:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type regular
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: Regular Meeting of Board of Education - May 5, 2020

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board of education for may 5th 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 streamed 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 pps tv services website welcome to our viewing audience and thank you for joining us virtually tonight we're looking forward to hearing from a student teachers and principals about their experience with distance learning we will also be voting on a revised business agenda tonight and on a resolution uh to approve a 20 furlough through july of this year but first we'll start by recognizing that this week is teacher and school administrators appreciation week director bailey would you be so kind as to introduce this item thank you chair constant uh interesting times are in every year students and families look forward to celebrating our amazing teachers and school administrators and while this year's teacher and school administrators appreciation week doesn't have the usual school traditions we still want to acknowledge our educators and let them know how much we appreciate respect all of you this year especially we appreciate how much you're working to adapt to a new way of teaching connecting students i've witnessed this firsthand in my household as my wife who is a proud member of the portland association of teachers has had to meet the challenges of online teaching she's lucky in that she is very technologically savvy and had already incorporated google classroom and other online tools into her teaching before covid changed our lives i watched as she has coordinated with her principal and fellow art teachers online worked hard to connect with all of her students and has come up with new lesson plans and projects that her students can do at home even so it has not been easy for her and connecting online is not the same as connecting in person i know it has been even more of a challenge for teachers who have less experience with online teaching tools it's great to see them rise to the challenge so to all our teachers and building administrators please consider this to be a virtual cupcake delivered to your virtual break room thank you so much for all that you do for our students every day you stay safe and healthy in the days ahead i love that the virtual cupcake this is the time of year when our offices are usually overflowing with cupcakes and cookies and casseroles and all the things that parents bring forward to our teachers and administrators the board will now vote on resolution number 6107 to celebrate teacher and school administrator appreciation week of may 4th 2020. do i have a motion so moved second director to pass moves and director broome edwards seconds the motion to adopt resolution six one zero seven is there any public comment on resolution six one zero seven all right is there any more discussion on this resolution the board will now vote on resolution 6107 which resolves that the portland board of education declares the week of may 4th 2020 teacher and school administrator appreciation week in recognition and appreciation of their dedicated efforts to ensure the success of students in all portland public schools all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution 6107 is approved by a vote of 7 to 0 with student representative lateral voting yes all right thank you and thank you director bailey at this time the board will vote on the business agenda board members are there any items you would like to pull for discussion if there are any items you'd like to pull for discussion we'll set them applied and vote at the end of the meeting is there anything uh yes i would like to pull the lincoln uh the resolution i don't have the exact number just for a couple questions that's that's sufficient we got it uh ms bradshaw are there any changes to the business agenda uh roseanne or kara actually do you have that resolution number handy for the lincoln guaranteed maximum price uh let me pull up for you also were all these were all these
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posted yes including the ones that came in late yes but did discuss some process improvements around um accessing uh contracts in the way they're posted because i i think it was a little hard to find and what was that resolution number roseanne oh i am still searching for it oh sorry i have some apologies i guess i can ask now do i have a motion in a second to adopt the business agenda minus the lincoln resolution so moved second director scott moves and director to pass seconds the adoption of the business agenda with the acceptance actually actually director brent edwards you didn't want to pull it you just wanted to ask some questions all right let's have it just be separate okay okay so it is snap resolution number it's actually 6101 okay so the board will now vote on resolutions 6102 through 6106 in the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes actually has four components where are we gonna wait and vote on all four components of 6101 because it covers lane caesar as enrique as well as lincoln yeah the resolutions the way that we've done them in the past are the contracts the individual contracts that's the way that it was posted so we have posted in under resolution 6101 all the new contracts under one so that's um all the expenditure contracts and uh amendments to existing contracts yeah so let's just pull 6101 and then answer the question we'll just ask the questions regarding the lincoln piece uh with the understanding that there are three other aspects to that contract or to that um package of amendments so the board will now vote on resolution 6102-6106 in the business agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes also please indicate by saying no any abstentions business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes all right um we'll go on to student and public comment um before we begin i'd like to review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community or actually um even though it's not our usual practice uh in the interest of uh allowing dan young who is on this call right now to uh continue on with the rest of his evening with his family let's um let's discuss the the item from the business agenda that we've just pulled so we can um commence with voting on that um so um dan young are you there i am here and actually we also have our senior product manager uh eric gerding and senior director of osm marina creswell here as well just in case we have questions okay i just did all three of you a solid here so so um director brynne edwards do you want to pose your questions about um the lincoln guaranteed maximum price amendment great um so um because we don't post the amendments or the contracts anymore there was just a couple items that i wanted just to pull out that i had questions about um so one of the things in this when we were doing our bond planning earlier um we had um as a principal stated that we believed it was better um to move away from portables most of the time they weren't actually portables they'd been there a long time and you know not the the best in terms of uh the best environment in terms of health and safety and security and so um i am interested in uh just the in this particular case uh we're building an entirely new building one of the ed specs is a teen parent center um so i was
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surprised that it wasn't included as part of the new building um just given that that's what we did at franklin i believe at roosevelt that it was en encompassed in the new building so um i'm wondering uh dan or somebody else if you could speak to um um this wasn't incorporated into the new building and design and um that the confidence you have in the the portables that are going to be used in this case yeah that's a great question i think i'll start with the answer and i might let uh eric gerding add some detail to that uh the the team parent center has some unique requirements that the the way that the new lincoln high school is situated uh makes it somewhat of a challenge to get in there having a dedicated outdoor space having a dedicated separate entrance and some other requirements it became a challenge to figure out how to best fit that into the ground floor of the lincoln high school building so we looked at other options including creating its own standalone building and that's really where the design started to move towards is its own standalone building on the property closer to where the existing school is now and then the option came or the proposal came to reuse the existing portables on site so the portables that are lincoln are very unique they're unlike any of the other portables that we have in the district uh they're what are called staged classrooms they meet quite a few different uh green building requirements and standards so they're a much better quality product than what we typically see and in most of our modernizations we have opportunities to reuse at some level we're not always taking down the entire building and there's efficiencies that we're able to gain from you reusing some of those materials or items lincoln has very few of those but this happens to be one of those so we are pretty confident that that design having those units stand alone or they'll have their own their own little parking area their own entrance their own outdoor play area will be a good fit for the team parent center so eric's probably got some more detail than that so i'll let him jump in here all right thanks stan yeah part of it was also in our development of the design where we were having budget issues we were looking at you know how could we economize and utilize what is existing so we're using the existing concessions building and these portables that were just finished for the 2016-17 uh year uh are really state-of-the-art and great buildings and so we were realizing almost a million dollars of savings on the project in schematic design when we made that shift and so since the shift was made later in design it's really not fully kind of vetted out as far as the full scope so normally it would be included in the regular cost of the budget but we just have the special allowance because we're still developing the design and just two follow-ups so one of the other issues with portables that has been raised was that if you're trying to create sort of a secure envelope for students that having portables and i know we have them all over the district um but there was an intent of moving them back that we'd be setting up a sort of freestanding structure um built in some sort of security or we feel comfortable the district feels comfortable that um having this as a standalone structure is secure for the students and staff yes definitely i think with as dan referred to the design of the main building if you could imagine it's really just it's on taking up whole city blocks and so we have street conditions almost all the way around loading zones fired lane pedestrian easement where you know having a nice outdoor play area was really difficult to design also we're looking at loading and unloading off of public streets and loading areas and so having this separate structure it's actually inside the secured parking lot for staff so to be able to get in to drop off uh you do have to go through a gate and there's a secured entrance there and there's also a secured entrance off of 14th avenue if someone is being dropped off there they can come and get buzzed in and allowed to come onto the campus there so yes we've done a lot of security review with this and district security supports right um so i just have one other
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question and then a comment is um there's another half a million dollars going for uh field storage and i know this is an issue for a lot of other high schools that they've got these shipping containers which the rationale for why we're building a separate structures shipping containers are less than ideal is that something that as we go back and look at the other high schools and sounds like madison um has this but is that something for the just in terms of equity for the other schools that would be getting rid of the shipping containers as well yeah as you know the other high schools or the roosevelt and franklin and grant have used a mixture of containers or fenced areas underneath the bleachers or some in permanent structure storage the the out the exterior and the containers certainly cause a number of issues there's a lot of vandalism to them there's a lot of them and certainly when you're just under the bleachers so it's it's preferred uh to be able to have a permanent structure so uh madison has gone that route they haven't they're going to have all their equipment and then what we have in the gmp is an allowance so effectively we think we can afford to build a permanent structure instead of putting those containers out there uh so that's what the plan is for lincoln there's no specific plan to go back to the other schools right now and change what they have if funding is available and the priorities are such that we have the capital funds to go back and do that but there's no specific plan at the moment okay and then the last thing and this is more for the superintendent is um right before kovid and things started to shut down there was a board discussion about the student health center and i know that brenda martinick had had a conversation with broad-based community providers and i would be interested in getting an update on where we are with that and i recognize that that happened right before the um [Music] the pandemic hit and we really had a huge pivot to make but i'd be interested in getting an update on where we are with that so not a question for you dan it's more of a um brenda martinic and the superintendent i don't i don't need it for tonight's vote i'm gonna be fine but i like it at a certain date i can certainly speak a little bit to it if you want or i don't have to you you can either provide it offline we don't need to um yeah brenda if you can just provide a update to the board um since that that meeting that would be great sure sure so uh julia is correct uh the day that we had the health forum the student health forum was the day that we also stood up our emergency operations center and we've been working on that ever since but we've also been doing some additional work in the background in regards to how health centers are going to look like in the future we have had conversations with um alexandra lowell and multnomah esd in our student health forum discussion back in march we did talk a lot about telehealth and about how we could provide medical uh and nursing services to a number of different students who don't have the traditional school-based health center so what we are in our initial stages of discussing is telehealth and a partnership the county is very interested in developing a partnership with portland public schools and multnomah esd in the county to see how health has changed it's very innovative and based on all of the things that have been going on lately and how rapidly everybody has had to become a distance learning or a teletherapy or a telehealth consumer we are trying to expand upon that and build on that and so uh so i just want to let you know that it hasn't been completely placed on the back burner because we know that we have to get back to it um so so that's uh what we're looking at right now we were just actually uh james was on a phone call with peyton um just today uh talking a little bit more about that um and we did have a meeting with alexandra lowell uh to discuss that as well so so that is my little mini update great thank you thank you very much
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sure us did you have a question uh director lowry i thought i heard you no it wasn't me but i would like to say as we vote on this resolution that i'm super excited um especially for the lane floor um if any of you have been out to lane middle school and seen the cafeteria floor you know this is desperately needed so appreciate the work that's happening on these other items as well dan thank you great okay do i have um uh a motion to bring forward resolution six one zero one from the business agenda scott moves and um i think that was director broome edwards seconds seconded the board will now vote on resolution 6101 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes please indicate by saying no any abstentions all right resolution 6101 is approved by a vote of 7 to 0 with student representative lateral voting yes all right um so we will move on to our public comment period i'd like to review our guidelines before we do we thank the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments to the board we value public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen 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 materials or items you'd like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to publiccomment pps.net if you're watching our board meeting via the live stream while waiting please make sure that you mute prior to your turn to speak if you leave it on it will create feedback and you will be muted by the meeting administrator and we'll have to come back to you please make sure also when you begin your comment that you clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have three minutes to speak you'll hear a sound after three minutes which means it's time to please conclude your comments we appreciate your time and your input and thank you for your cooperation ms bradshaw do we have anyone signed up for student or public comment yes we have it done i can't hear you i didn't get your last name dawn but are you with us i hear you okay i we can hear you i believe hi i am a partnership specialist with the census bureau and i just want to do a quick update for the school board for discussion later on so so don i'm sorry um i don't know your your last name but if you could speak any more closely into your microphone that would be helpful you're kind of coming in and out okay i'm right up against the microphone let's hope this works but if not stop me again that's much better anyway okay i'm with the u.s census bureau on the partnership specialist i am the school district liaison to the 2020 census project and i just wanted to do a quick run down for you what's going on for some engagement opportunities scott bailey and i have been talking about this over the course of last week measure window to respond to the censorship originally closed july 31st it's now been extended to october good news is we've got a lot more time so we want to absolutely
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all of them nonetheless uh we want to get out of this immediate price later all right thank you very much i don't know about others but i had a time hearing all your testimonies so if you um can provide that to the board in written form that would be great i do know that we've been collaborating with the census effort and i believe that we have been um putting reminders into some of our meal just into our breakfast and lunches that we've been distributing so uh thank you very much yeah thank you director constance that's basically what john and i uh talked about when we kicked around ideas is again how how to leverage all the communication we're doing with families to get the word out about census and particularly particularly around meal distribution if we could get census material that's translated uh to hand out to families would be uh would be a good thing to do that's great um ms bradshaw do we have any other public comment this is roseanne i don't see anybody else signed up okay thank you so much um superintendent guerrero good evening would you like to provide us with your report good evening directors students families and viewing public i hope everyone is in good health and excellent spirits now that we are in week eight alone together uh and campus closures uh we're fully underway with our distance learning uh pbs hd um our daily routines have changed uh we're adapting to new ones uh including our board regular meetings um uh which seems to be the routine throughout our our work days so um as i open my report for this evening um i want to continue to share appreciation for our hard-working frontline staff especially our nutrition workers our custodial staff they continue to work around the clock to meet essential needs of our students and families you see three pictures actually on the slide our nutrition workers teachers and some of our students from previous graduation ceremonies i'm going to talk a little bit about those three things tonight i'll move on to the next slide because uh like the board also want to share my appreciated my appreciation and join new directors in celebrating our hard-working educators uh really proud to be superintendent here at pps uh we have the board's leadership and we have thousands of portlanders uh who who together um have have imagined a better future uh for for our children for for our youth um and we articulated in this vision uh these attributes for the adults that work within the school system we call them educator essentials that every adult uh has a role in supporting our students uh it's in these educator essentials that you find if you recall words like innovative caring resilient uh and in the middle of this pandemic these particular three words uh have taken on a whole deeper meaning during my 25 year career i've been an educational assistant a classroom teacher school district administrator and have experienced many challenges in school systems but confronting this particular health crisis has certainly demanded a completely new level of attention and out of the box thinking and our organization and its people's ability to turn this disruption
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into a transition a crisis into an opportunity uh what could be potential chaos into a clear focus uh as our continued main focus are students and families and that's due to the flexibility and the perseverance that's been demonstrated by our educators and our school administrators uh frankly it's their thoughtfulness their care their innovation their resilience it's what's making this level of distance learning essential services and supports for students possible so today as teaching and learning is taking place at kitchen tables and in living rooms coffee tables we want to take a quick minute to to acknowledge and celebrate our educators all week long as part of national teacher and administrator appreciation week so uh thank you teachers and administrators from your superintendent uh for being a hashtag bps superhero it's another special day today for those of us of mexican heritage you'll recognize it's cinco de mayo and i want to i want to call that out because last friday many of our schools and families also celebrated another cultural tradition in via de los minos day of the children uh also a mexican holiday that celebrates the most precious among us our children uh in fact uh on this day teachers and schools across mexico organized the day uh around focused on their students playing games enjoying activities and food so uh in the spirit of celebrating children uh his staff seems to have pulled up a particular first grader there uh yes i wore suits school even in the first grade so uh as a teacher and school principal uh i think it's it's always important to to honor and recognize that the diverse cultures and traditions of the families uh that we serve so uh to our children out there uh to all of those celebrating uh el dia de los ninos in cinco de mayo i'm also i was also a history major so uh for those of you who may not be familiar with with the history of of the fifth of may it commemorates a particular day in history uh the battle of puebla when a ragtag scrappy mexican army uh in a very important battle defeated a powerful french force uh during the mexican war so a little history in there as well uh and what i would say is it's a story about uh defeating the odds uh which is going to transition me to to our next slide um because during this pandemic um we're also doing our best to to beat the odds uh to come together and and to make sure that that we're supporting uh our students and families so uh more on our nutrition workers uh they can they've now provided a total of over 300 000 meals to children in our community our technology team has distributed over 15 000 tech devices over 700 families also now have connectivity to the internet as well we've had great partnerships with uh businesses in the community businesses like doordash who have continued to put thousands of meals directly into the hands of more than 450 pps students thus far uh many of whom are at high risk of getting sick so um and then on the advocacy route on the on the issue of beating the odds uh i continue to have regular contact with my local national counterparts who are also continuing to find creative ways to address and mitigate these immediate and long-term challenges i know that our board and the public is is wondering and and imagining what it's going to look like when we begin to reopen uh it'll certainly be a different way of conducting business uh more on that later but in the meantime we're going to continue advocating to legislative bodies and other elected officials who i know share our concern that our public schools require funding uh relief funding in particular as we prepare our classrooms in our school campuses for the fall so in the sense of some normalcy normalcy many more of our students though continue connecting with teachers counselors social workers and other key staff at a regular cadence so thank you to our professional for continuing to maintain those connections and part of the reason we see next slide more students connecting with our school staff is because how teachers and principals are exemplifying those educator essentials flexing their adaptive and resilient skills so through ppshd they're finding
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countless creative ways to connect with engage entertain enlighten and educate their students uh just to name some examples uh from among our school leaders principals like megan mccarter making short tick-tock messages morning messages to her students uh teachers who are producing creative learning videos for example here in the hat you have mr anderson the automotive teacher at benson uh pictured here uh he tried something new uh i think he says in his video you know how do you teach uh automotive when it's a very hands-on um location with a creative solution to continue teaching his students about motors uh in his virtual auto class so i enjoyed his lesson he's pointing there to a tractor uh he was talking about this grader and it's uh motor and i learned something new so thank you mr anderson principal mccarter and the many other educators out there who are finding new ways to engage our students in learning so thank you and then lastly want to talk for a moment about our financial forecast so their school staff is continuing to find creative ways to bring joy to our students i along with our senior leadership are continuing to create and find strategies to mitigate what is looking like a really sobering reality uh a negative budgetarium that this pandemic is having uh not just locally and in the state of oregon but certainly across the country uh and in particular for portland public schools as the state's largest district uh is is needing to think very carefully uh about the impact of this pandemic so uh this evening uh the board directors are gonna hear details of uh our latest uh next proposed cost-saving measure uh it it proposes to institute furlough days across the ins the organization uh our chief of human resources officer sharon reese uh who kudos has spearheaded this effort is going to walk the board through this proposed plan for the board's consideration which aims to preserve funds for direct services to students in the coming school year in this case by leveraging some available federal resources to support both our employees and the local economy so ultimately i believe these kinds of actions that uh we're continuing to share with you uh and then we'll continue to implement um as difficult as some of the decisions may be uh our number one goal is to protect uh services for our students uh the supports uh that they very much need uh and the talented uh educators uh that we're appreciating here this evening so uh ultimately we want to make sure we provide the best educational program in the coming school year and by taking some prudent measures now we think we will help to mitigate some of those impacts so much more of that in the coming board meetings and tonight we'll hear about an additional strategy that we're proposing to the board so um i'm gonna pau i'm gonna stop here that ends my report for this evening uh thank you thank you very much superintendent and thank you for sharing your first grade photo or or having someone else share a first grade photo um you're up next as well would you like to introduce this next item where we hear from some of our educators and one of our students about their experience with distance learning yes so uh we committed to continuing to provide some updates on how uh distance learning uh is and the experience that uh our students are having during this campus closure and i can describe it but what better way to hear about it than directly from our clients i'm going to turn it over to our chief of schools dr sean byrd who i believe has some special guests that's right good evening uh chair constant vice chair moore board directors and superintendent uh we want to we do have some very special guests tonight that we want to uh introduce you to but before we do that i just want to provide a little bit of context about our distance learning update so that we can set the stage for our guests to speak so you can move to the next slide please as you remember about eight weeks ago we embarked upon this journey of distance learning and when we did this we did this in partnership with our labor partners and our principals and we really just laid out a framework that we would
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base this work on so based upon the executive order the governor and and therefore the guidance from the ode we really wanted to make sure that we were focusing on access equity and inclusiveness because if you remember back to that first executive order it was about keeping schools open and making sure that we were connecting with children and making sure that we maintained a connection with children as they were not even able to come to school every day we wanted to make sure that we established a spirit of collaboration with our labor partners um particularly because we know that they are also dealing with personal circumstances at home and we wanted them to connect with students teach students but also take care of them as an employees uh and make sure that we were collaborating together to to come up with a workable solution to this to this um different circumstance that we're in we wanted to set expectations for uh continuous learning opportunities so we knew uh you know you might remember back to the beginning when we thought we were only going to be closed for a couple of weeks it was really about staying connected and um doing social emotional kind of work and then as the school closure uh extended then it was about prioritizing the standards that children needed to learn so they'd be prepared for the next academic year so we've been in continuous um collaboration with our with pt and also with our principals about how that best looks and how to make sure that we're not harming um children and make sure that we're we are doing everything we can to to keep track of where kids are and keep them engaged in uh learning activities uh ongoing support and guidance um i often think of this as kind of like apollo 13. we turned around a system that was not designed for to do what we're doing right now we turned around a face-to-face system and made it into a distance learning system in a very short period of time so we've had to do some ongoing support for our teachers some of them had lots of experience with google classroom some of them did not and so we needed to provide some learning and that continues on we also want to make sure that we are extending grace to people as they learn new technologies both students and teachers are dealing with a lot of issues right now and we want to make sure that we're providing training and also understanding of people's individual situations and so the thoughts will so next slide please so uh you know we worked out some expectations um and these are listed here uh we want to make sure that teachers are in contact with students to hold to plan lessons and they can you do that in a synchronous fashion or asynchronous but they're needed to be uh focused on the content of core content every week and it's different for different grade levels and it's ramped up the the time expectation has ramped up over time especially for elementary students you can imagine those of you who have small children in kindergarten for second grade it would be hard perhaps for them to sit in front of a computer for extended periods of time even for adults sometimes as we've all experienced probably zoom fatigue um over over our uh weeks here so we needed to make sure that we were balancing what what children could do and um and what was reasonable for them to do so there will be some time that they're with the teacher and then sometimes they're doing independent study this is all of course supported by uh work that our office of teaching learning has done through uh pps.net student with uh different resources for parents to access in addition to that um we also have asked people to keep track of their contacts with their students so they're ensuring that the students are participating we've been gathering that data and uh we want to make sure that we're reaching out to students who are not engaging as much as we would like to make sure first of all that they're okay and they don't need anything any um you know sort of social services that we can help them with but also to make sure that they are continuing in the learning process we've asked our principals to hold weekly staff meetings where they're doing professional development with teachers and then teachers are participating uh weekly and professional learning community meetings where that's their planning lessons with their colleagues they are uh you know talking about the technologies they're using those those types of things next slide next slide please as with any new system there's always some opportunities for growth i like to look at things with a growth mindset so we have not had perfection in this process by any stretch of the imagination we certainly have had some people that are natural uh using technology and we've had people that have really gone above and beyond as the superintendent uh point out some examples of that um and we are working constantly to improve our process we when we hear from parents and community members of frustrations of their experience then we are addressing those as as they come up certainly you can imagine that parents are at home working you know taking care of their own career they also on march 16th became emergency credential teachers for their own students which is a new task for a lot of parents so um we had to
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understand that uh parents are dealing with you know they're they're juggling a lot right now and so particularly families that have uh multiple children in the home to just to carve out time for and space for their kids um so you know we definitely have gotten feedback and we've responded to that feedback as we get and we continue to refine this process as we go along um i think definitely an area that we need to continue to be explicit and communicate about is the ode guidance that we receive along the way it hasn't come out all at one time because things have evolved as the school closure has extended so definitely there has been feedback from our community about grades and the purpose of this is learning so particularly with gray's the past and complete concept has some people have indicated that they wish that we were going to give grades or could we give grades and so we've um explained uh that we're you know that we are in accordance with the odi guidelines but i think you know we need to continue to uh to provide that guidance and also that that doesn't mean that education is not going on uh that just means that we are giving feedback in different ways and then the purpose of distance learning quite frankly has changed over the time the purpose of as the closure extended it became more important that teachers not just review material and make social emotional connections but they also prioritize those standards that they are that they need the kids need to learn so they can be successful at next grade we have groups that are planning for next year different strategies of how we're going to catch students up because if you think about the time if we do go back to school as scheduled it will be almost six months that kids have not been in a in a building so there's going to be some things that we need to do and i think probably uh definitely not probably definitely a challenge uh that we've experienced has been uh refining our delivery of our special education model uh there are just aspects of delivering these services to students with disabilities that are difficult in a distance learning environment for a variety of reasons we have been working with our special educators to um to help them manage the workload because they just have some federal requirements that that general education teachers do not so we've had to definitely and we are that is a work in progress we continue to uh refine that um that process okay next slide so we're going to continue to work on those um those challenges um and as i said we have a work group that's planning for summer programming and really focusing on groups of students that we're particularly concerned about you know we want to make sure seniors get across the line we want to make sure that we are paying close attention to students who are historically underserved african-american black native american students uh economically disadvantaged students students disabilities english learners all these groups of students that we typically we need to make sure that we are really uh putting extra effort into so as um our governor uh issues new orders uh easing social distance will be looking at ways we can serve those children in between now and the start of school and so of course you know we have to wait until we receive new guidance for that but we are we have contingency planning that's happening uh and has been happening since since this uh this event started we are uh every week i check in with my team with supervised principals and i frequent check-ins with the pat leadership um to monitor the success of what's happening but also to make refinements as needed as i mentioned we have been dealing with some uh issues around special education that we needed to uh to look at and we have you know refined our um our process with with regard to that uh as also you know we have from time to time principals will will ask us questions about uh teachers that are struggling with technologies we've set up help lines we've set up things that are designed to help teachers uh to be able to do their job and what they need to do and then finally we are planning for a new school year and uh we don't know what that's gonna look like none of us know yet but um there's a possibility there'll be some form of distance learning possibility there's some new guidance from the state government but you know we are learning from this first version of this process and we're gonna continue to make refinements and you know we'll launch 2.0 if necessary um and depending you know kind of on the evolution of what happens with therapeutic options as this disease progresses so i just want to give you a little context before we um start we have some of the special visitors our first visitor is rudy duncan he's the third grader at lent elementary school so i just want to see rudy and thank you rudy for coming today i just want to ask you a couple of questions about your experience so why don't you just tell us how it's going how are you liking distance learning and what um what what are some things that you're doing every day at home well like first to thank all the board members for
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inviting me for into this meeting um and well thank you for being here with us so i usually start my day by doing a routine so i get up in the morning um i used to set my alarm for 7 30 but now i get but now i um but now i um don't have to set my alarm and i usually wake up at 8 30 at the latest and if you know my parents become my alarm great so and then i eat breakfast um and well i'm gonna eat breakfast um i've been i've been i've been able to make um make breakfast thanks to um things that thanks to that i have um a lot of free time um i've been able to make eggs and pancakes and stuff like that right um and then after that i do uh my schoolwork from my teacher um like it's like reading and writing and math or basic stuff and does your teacher go you go online with your teacher like we're doing right now in a video chat or how does that work yeah i do that every day at 12. every day 12 okay for how long how long does the the class last easy to one o'clock then after that i exercise with my mother okay um and twice a week um tuesdays and thursdays um i i get to meet with my mother's colleague's daughter um her name she's a teenager and her name is um jenny great we speak in spanish together about um our lives and we just okay and do you do do you do schoolwork outside of your teacher after you meet with your teacher from 12 to 1 do you do like homework or do you do uh things on the computer does she ask you to do things yeah um i do khan academy okay and um and then i have and then i do special projects with my mother like the family tree uh-huh a family tree that me and my mother are doing um i've already learned about my grandfather's side as a family i learned about slavery and reconstruction and the great migration and jim crow laws and segregation um um i also do science with my father um and then you and then sometimes um and then i and then i eat dinner and then yeah i go to sleep so you've been you keep yourself pretty busy that's good so if you had some advice for us how could we improve um what do you think we could do to improve what's happening online or the do you think you should spend you know more time with your teacher do you think you should get more i don't think you should get more work you're probably you sound like you're pretty busy but how do you think we could improve this for you i am pretty busy especially since i had three meetings today yeah that's a lot um uh well i think i'm i what i miss i really miss in school that i'm playing with my friends because and you don't get that in um in a website like um google classroom or seesaw right um yeah i would like it to be more um interactive and could um like talk to your friends more and like have friends like friendship is probably the one of the one of the things you need most in this time yeah yeah i think we should make it more and um also we could and also um interactive also means like doing um sun school like you could do chess like for example
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chess club we could do like a meet like we could get like an app or something yep um have a meet like a zoom meeting and then um use that um app to play to play with to play chess with other players yep so you like some of the after school activities that you do also not just reading and writing and math but some some other things that are fun and challenging too yeah more connection connections okay dr burr the uh superintendent guerrero do you mind if i ask a question of course go ahead rudy it's great to see you uh it's always good to check in with you uh i know that we're working with teacher ron um i we have a challenge out to the lent leopard chess club for a virtual tournament so i'm looking forward to that but i had a question for you i know that you're a very active learner and i appreciate you sharing your daily routine with us but you've also been teaching can you share with everybody you posted a recent video lesson which i watched and i learned something and you tell everybody about your google classroom lesson um well yeah um a lot of people wanted um wanted to to um write down their answers to um let's say a math project but and they didn't want to type it or they didn't even know what how to type um and um and i was and me and my mother found out a way to um go on uh google doc and um and um send a picture put a picture um put a picture on the google doc and turn it in and um yeah and i i did just my mom my mother did a spanish version for people who spoke spanish um i also did a second video that um that acts that helps that actually that fully um tells the instructions well fantastic thank you for sharing your learnings with the rest of us thank you so much rudy all right rudy thanks thanks for being here thank you nice to meet you all right so next up we have uh somewhat of a celebrity she's become the tick-tock uh principal of oregon if you saw the news the other night uh principal megan mccarter she's the proud principal of scott school and she has a teacher with her angela bonillo who teaches fourth grade in the dual language immersion program so i've asked them just to talk about their experiences with you and so i'll turn it over to megan first and then you can introduce us to your teacher reagan um hi everyone uh thank you for having us here tonight um again kind of similarly you can hear from me but i think um you know what scott the people who are really doing the hard work and the hard work every day are our teachers and a lot of our community a lot of our families are doing um this really tough work and being super innovative so um i brought with me one of my fourth grade dli teachers angela bonilla um she's really incredible i i'm doing a choice menu for pd with my staff and i actually got it from her um so i can take no credit for it um and so i think first maybe i'll just turn it over to angela to talk to you guys a little bit about what's happening um at the school at the classroom level in the school level and then um i can always add on any additional questions you all have um so angela hello am i okay to unmute my mic or is someone supposed to unmute me yeah you're good we can hear you all right you're great welcome thank you thanks um my name is angela bonilla i teach fourth grade spanish um dli class uh at scott elementary and um wow distance learning has been quite the uh steep learning curve it's had a very steep learning curve for us as teachers and for our students and as teachers you know as soon as we found out on friday that we had to head out on friday uh we were stressed but we kind of do what we always do which is figure out how to make it work so i know a lot of us packed curricula and packed worksheets and things to grade because we assumed we were coming
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back and now knowing that we are going to be doing online work for the rest of the year a lot of us have kind of changed gears very similarly to how the district has had to change gears in terms of what we offer currently i meet with my students as a whole class twice a week for an hour um and then they vote we had a conversation because that that meeting is usually more of a circle time and a way for me to explain the choice menu that they have the different activities they have to do for the week um and i asked them if they wanted something uh similar to the last to what the last speaker uh discussed like a social hour um and it had a resounding yes that's what we need so i let them vote on a survey what topics and what days worked and now after each team meeting as a class there's a social hour meeting um where students just get to hang out with each other um i think you know we were really trying to make sure we were connecting with families and connecting with students and making sure those basic needs were met um but i think a lot of times we forget that a lot of what school is for kids in addition to the learning and and like math and reading is the relationships that it's the relationships that they get to build um and a lot of them just miss their friends or they don't live somewhere where they're near anyone else that they can interact with safely so it's been a really great engagement tool kids are coming to the meetings because they know that there's a fun you know video chat afterwards um i've had to learn how to mute different tabs so that i can keep an eye out on them without blowing out my eardrums but for the most part i think the social aspect for my class has been the driving force behind their engagement in distance learning when it comes to the actual work i've been trying to track what type of work most of my kids will do so i've been giving them activities on different platforms three five was asked to use um google classroom and for some of my kids that worked and for some it didn't and since scott was a tech smart school most of my kids have experience with seesaw and once i started posting more assignments on seesaw i saw more engagement so a lot of our work as teachers has been trying to gauge what works best for each of our kids while not being able to kind of sit with them individually and make sure we know exactly what's working for them um i think the biggest struggles have been the not knowing for a lot of teachers you know we're worried about the kids we can't contact we're worried about our kids with different needs those who are not able to access different services or don't have many community supports and a lot of times those are the kids who aren't showing up to our chats or are showing up with their cameras off um as silent participants uh so i think you know we're worried about losing some of our kids we're worried about not being able to be that steady presence for them but we're doing the best we can with what we've got right and so um i think for me i was one of those teachers that used google classroom when i taught sixth grade last year um i'm pretty tech savvy so the switch wasn't so much um how do i do this it was more of how do i make sure all of my kids are included all of my kids are getting access to this um and you know luckily well i don't have children and so for me teaching from home is not as big of a hurdle as it is for some of my colleagues and so that's been another thing that we've all had to maneuver like how do our home lives how can we keep our home lives and our work lives working symbiotically and it's definitely taken a toll on some of the educators i've spoken with but i think pps and pat have worked really well together in figuring out ways to reduce our workload and our expectations while making sure that we're still serving our kids um so yeah that's that's kind of what we're doing as teachers thank you thank you so much okay we also have from uh ockley green we have christina howard the principal of luckily green uh and also her seventh grade math teacher at least hugh so we want to give you a little perspective from the middle level as well so we'll turn it over to christina hi everyone um i apologize if you hear a baby in the background i have a one-year-old and so i'm trying to balance that um and this is a really tricky time for her so and she knows i'm in the other room um so i just want to preface that before i speak but uh i'm gonna do the same
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thing that megan did and just i i do want to share our consistent community care message that we um are putting out to all of our families and all of our staff and i think that that's sort of the uh the motto that's like guiding us and and how we're we're approaching distance learning and so i'll share that and then i'm going to turn it over to elise um so this consistent community care message that we created as a staff goes out in like weekly communication to families it's also part of how we talk about students and how we're approaching this in team meetings and so basically it's just a simple message that we would love for you to participate as much as you can you and your family together determine how much can be accomplished in a day or a week we understand the need for you to be able to do what you can don't worry about it take care of yourselves and your family and so that's that's how we're approaching this and so um i'll let elise share what she's doing she's been doing an amazing job and leading a lot of our staff in the math team um she's had a lot of experience with this uh working in other districts and she's brought that knowledge to ockley and um so she's she's been doing a lot of great things and getting a lot of great results so i'll let her speak and then i'll answer any questions that you guys have hi guys um you might also hear some background noise sharing houses and trying to teach um or meet at all um so hi i'm elise hughes i'm a seventh grade math teacher um and christina kind of mentioned my background a little so i've worked in districts that have been one-to-one so i do have a little bit of prior knowledge with this but this is completely different than i think sharing a space with kids and then expecting them to have technology when they get home this is completely different this has been all about trying to keep the connection we have in our classrooms and either continuing that or growing it and just not losing it um i think that's been really the hard part so i know the district has provided a lot of resources and what that's been for me is taking those and making them accessible for my students so um christina did a great job kind of setting up a schedule because in middle school i see 130 kids so checking in with all those kids individually and like setting up a schedule if we all tried to do that we would um it would be a little bit chaotic so she set up a seven period day throughout the week so kids know when they can check in with me so i see my classes throughout the week and then um and then also hold what are called office hours so uh the way i've kind of set it up is i've pushed out content to kids either through videos or uh google forms to gauge their gauge the response so on mondays it's kind of like my hey guys welcome to the week um some sort of weekly question to check in on how they're doing social emotionally and then a video from me so like the video content what are we learning about this week and then i collect data essentially from that i see the kids who have checked in um on that day and then can instantly on monday already start seeing who's checked in and who hasn't and start messaging them through a google classroom email her mind um and seeing what they need in order to be able to participate and then through the class seconds and office hours i'm able to actually help answer questions so kids can come check in and say hey i didn't understand and come do that um i think the thing i've had the most success with and i think rudy kind of mentioned it was social hour is i set up a class kahoot game so every single week uh we do cahoots on wednesday and i open it up to anyone who's my student i actually had a kid from another school join one of these kahoot games so um apparently they're popular so we always start with math because i love it and i want them to love it as much as i do but um and then i always choose one that they might have some more interest in so we've been doing basketball and sports and music and then they've been trying to create their own so that they can play um some of their games in that as well um that that's been the most successful and then i've actually started doing it two times a week because we're getting a lot of kids in that space um we had lunch clubs running before and now we have a bunch of teachers who started lunch clubs back up are holding recess for their students because it really is about how do we get these kids online we pretty much go off of a touch point document which is essentially an attendance sheet and look at which kids we've communicated with uh was it like communication via google classroom or was it they've actually turned something in or are they doing both are they showing up to google meets and that's been a really good way for our staff and support team to see which kids are needing support which kids are kind of falling off um because the distance learning is hard and we're trying to make it as flexible
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for them as possible uh i think the most that i feel like a teacher is when i do those cuckoo games or when they show up to class but i recognize that not all kids can and just trying to make it as accessible for them outside of that so making myself as available online for them to find information whether that's google classroom or youtube or setting them up on our distance learning like website hub so they can find us has been very pretty impactful for my kids looking at last week's data i had 84 of my kids attending which either means either communication turned in assignments or um both of those things and recognizing that still 16 of my kids i'm not seeing and i know that that could be that i don't like math but you know um uh and are checking in at other places but still for right now it feels really impactful and then it gives me an idea of who i can touch point with this week to try and get them connected so thank you so i'm wondering if i can ask just a question um so just given this model and it's going to play out through the um end of the year first of all thank you for everything you're doing under challenging circumstances and to all the other teachers and staff um i'm curious about your thinking about um you know when we uh re return to the classroom um kind of your thoughts on your teacher working with individual students how do we sort of make up that time period or what's um what's the most effective way that you would see we could um yeah especially kids who are struggling beforehand so i don't know if that was directed sorry to me okay um so i'm also i also am the professional learning community community lead so we we work as a math department to kind of look at that so since distance learning has started we we looked at programs to set up to make it so that kids want to engage but really our focus has shifted to what standards are kids actually going to be missing and how how can we support these standards in what we're doing now and then moving into next year so we're already like our meetings tomorrow is all looking at the priority standards laid out for next year what should kids be coming into um each grade with and and what are they going to be missing and how can we how can we boost them up so that they aren't going to be missing those skills i weirdly in this time i have connected with more of my students um who are struggling math students because there there's like no stigma against not learning math so i have students who used to be afraid to answer questions be able to send me a private video of them doing math and me be able to send a private response to them where i used to get nothing um so i know that that's a little off topic but uh really looking at the standards and trying to start planning is what our math plc is working on right now we spend we spend an hour a week if not more talking about that very thing so i don't have a final answer but prioritizing the standards and looking at what the holes are has really been our focus that's great to hear thank you can i um sort of build up something that you said um i was at a meeting last week including representatives from a bunch of other from pps plus a lot of the local school districts and it was a people who mostly focus on student support services and we're all sort of checking in on how things are going with students and one of the comments i heard was that some of the students who had the most difficulty getting engaged in the regular classroom are actually finding some benefit to the business and learning um sort of what you were talking about that they're um for for some of these kids they're they're feeling more connected to school now than they did before um academically um and i don't think anybody is suggesting that online learning will ever be a substitute but there might be some lessons to be learned about how to um integrate different techniques with um with students so that um
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you know we can um we can differentiate the instructional models um a little bit more with with students even postcoded i would love to uh agree with that because that's one of the things i've seen just having video like just having technology for these kids to access has been huge a video of me teaching something where i mean you're not building that connection but students can pause me they can make me go faster or slower in the video um there are so many different platforms out there that give students instant feedback on their learning it is something that i think teachers are able to learn a lot about and how to incorporate this into next year whatever next year looks like regardless if we're all online or all in classrooms having these tools and like being gently nudged to use them has been super super helpful i think i can think of a handful if not more of kids who have really felt like they've been more successful in this environment and like parents have reached out saying that they have seen their kids anxiety and like stress around school dramatically reduced and i know this isn't the case for a lot of kids um while our kids need the social time i don't think distance learning is for everyone but i think we as a community of educators can definitely learn from distance learning and bring this back in yeah so many ways i'd be curious um as this goes on i'd be curious to hear if there's any way that um that you can capture you collectively can capture kind of what proportion of kids are having real difficulty um kind of engaging with these new methods versus how many are just kind of fumbling along and then you know what proportion of kids are really um kind of thriving um or or reacting positively to to the kind of distance learning stuff um because it might be i think it'd be really fascinating to to see how that would play out in terms of how different kids respond hi it's hayley i have a question for ms vanilla um i was just wondering you i think you mentioned that you taught an older grade before and now you are teaching a younger grade is that correct yes so have you noticed like as i'm just having had experience with the older grade how have you felt like this the younger grades have um adapted to this with their social emotional needs um i think that's a great question i feel like for um the fourth graders that i work with it's definite they've been together for so long you know by fourth grade they are family and so a lot of times they just want to have that interaction with each other um i think in terms of uh this distance learning and how it's affecting their social emotional life there's there's definitely kiddos that started being engaged and then other services finally clicked and so they no longer need me and they don't come online and they do the paper packet so i think as long as those other systems are still in place a lot of our kids are getting searched but i do know that there are several kids in that k-5 range who come to school to get a break from home and aren't receiving that especially our kiddos who have lots of children in the house um several children in the house excuse me who might all be doing distance learning at the same time uh i i've noticed that a few of those students are having um some behavioral needs i was on a phone call with a parent for an hour and a half yesterday trying to support her in how to support her son in doing the work and also behavior management because she's usually working and he's usually with me five days a week so i think there are different needs popping up just like our older kids are getting you know some of the kids are benefiting from not having to give answers right on the spot being able to process a little bit longer being able to show their learning in different ways but i think there are other kids who this is bringing up different types of stressors that families aren't necessarily equipped to deal with i hope that answered your question totally and it made me think of what an awesome teacher you are because you're like their deeds are getting met so they're disengaging and i my i would probably affirm that is they're getting overwhelmed they're disengaging so uh your sort of willingness to do this work in such a beautiful way shine
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through in your answer so thank you for the amazing teacher you are and for the grace and um connection you offer to you thank you i would say thank you to all of our principals and teachers and and rudy for joining us tonight um chief byrd i don't know if you have anything more that you wanted to share with the board but it's been so important for us to hear your insights and your challenges and just what your day-to-day um is like and this you're all just the picture of adaptability because everyone's finding their way and just to hear the stories about you know how do we make sure we're connecting with each of our students and figuring out you know how this is all landing on them is just so beautiful so thank you all for being here and for everything you do every day all right thank you thank you thank you thank you wow that was pretty inspiring um okay excuse me it was a really interesting discussion yeah yeah um okay back to our board uh business just a moment the next item on the um agenda is looking at our revised 20 20 budget calendar um superintendent would you like to provide some background on this item superintendent would you like deputy superintendent claire hurts to provide some background on this item you just took the words that i said with the mute button on so thank you deputies welcome deputy superintendent thank you good evening um you have before you an uh amended uh budget calendar for 20 20 21 budget process uh as you are aware our local economy state economy national economy is seeing an impact from the um pandemic and so because of that we are expecting a may 20th economic forecast and that will give us up-to-date information on what to expect for funding for next year and we are going to bring our proposed budget to you after that forecast so that means we're moving it out to the end of may and then we will have a shortened process with three meetings to complete our budget process is an abbreviated process still providing two opportunities for community engagement um at those meetings for testimony but understanding that our governor may call the legislature into special session to reallocate resources for next year so even by statute we must complete our budget process by june 30th and so we are going to keep going forward with our current funding level in a proposed budget and we'll be bringing that forward and we'll also work on tiered reductions to present to the board at time at the time that we understand what our funding level will be so because all this is changing so rapidly we didn't feel it was wise to bring this forward until after that may economic forecast so we have built our calendar or an abbreviated process and bring that to you for approval tonight you're muted excuse me rookie move thank you deputy superintendent hertz and we'll get this resolution on the table and see what board discussion we have the board will now vote on resolution 6108 to amend the 2020 2021 budget calendar aligned with public schools reimagine students the student success act and our multi-year business plan do i have a motion no moved director bailey moves and do i have a second i'm sorry who was that that was julia from edwards and director brynne edwards seconds the motion to adopt resolution 6108. miss bradshaw is there any public comment on 6108 no all right is there any more discussion
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yes i have a question just about um the um i'm looking at the budget calendar um maybe this is either um stephanie soden or david roy or jonathan garcia but where um we have a super tight um time frame between the proposed budget on the on may 26 that being rolled out and then voting sometime the week of the ninth on approval and i know in the past our budget hearings have been um [Music] lightly attended um but in years in which um i think like years like this in which um we're not going to be additive that i would anticipate a lot more interest in the community engaging and then just the whole challenges of potentially doing that in a virtual environment so i'm um be interested in knowing where um and how that will be set um in terms of getting input between the 26th of may and the week of june 9th when we're going to approve the budget hey director brim edwards this is jonathan garcia chief engagement officer so we are still working out those details pending the board approval tonight we have a meeting scheduled tomorrow to discuss kind of the game plan for how we will partake in community engagement i can tell you that our engagement team has been working around the clock um to to really figure out how does engagement look like in this new uh reality um they've been working and meeting with or be participating actually in in webinars with uh folks like dr karen maps who is the kind of premier uh expert on family and community engagement uh and and so i know that they have been bringing in a lot of that learning um and so again we plan to talk about it tomorrow and really uh design the game plan uh to to make sure that we get uh our families um connected to this conversation uh and especially our communities who are front line and and our communities of color so we'll know more uh in the next few days um director lowry do you have anything you want to say about the um community budget review committee meeting this past week in the discussion that you all had about a revised budget calendar unfortunately i had to miss some of that conversation because i had to be in an executive session with uh the rest of you um board members but i know that the cbrc continues to discuss um how they can feel like their perspective is heard um and i know that we are um you know in process for them to have that short turnaround time to really review the budget um and i know that um cynthia lee who works with them and deputy superintendent hurst did a really great job of grounding um the team in sort of the bigger goals and the values of the district as sort of the baseline for how those decisions will be made it will be a very different year in a different cbrc process but grounding in those values as they take a lens to look at the budget will happen and um there continues to be you know conversation about the role of cbrc and as a reminder you know we as a board at any time can task cbrc with looking at specific provisions of the budget for us through that lens of our district values so they're that resource and tools to be used not just in the annual budgeting process but throughout the year as we see fit thank you um do you have any further uh board discussion or questions yes let's just follow up with oh go ahead well i had a question um about uh kind of what we can expect in terms of a realistic discussion of the budget going forward so if the if the revenue projection doesn't come out until may 20th and six days later we're going to be hearing about the pps budget um i can't imagine that uh no matter what they say on the 20th there's going to be enough time to actually make any substantive changes to the budget so so am i correct in assuming that we're going to be seeing the budget that you prepared um working on life as it existed two months ago
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yes you'll be seeing uh state school funding level at 9.0 billion which is what was appropriated by the state for 2019 to 21 biennium so we are bringing that forward as well as full funding for the student investment account and full funding for measure 98. what we know is that we have enough revenue to support all of that but until until we have more information about what that will be we have we had already prepared this budget as this um event broke and we were just getting ready to put it to print so you actually will be receiving that next week in in the u.s mail will come to all of you both the proposed budget document as well as the individual school reports now they um both so we and we will post those also on the web so that people have them way ahead of time to review before the meeting but in all reality we know that our funding is in question in various um types of funding in question and so what we'll have to do is whether or not the legislature is done with their work we'll still have to adopt a budget by june 30th we need to make sure we have our appropriations made and our tax levies approved in order for us to visit july 1. so um we will wait patiently for their process and and be listening carefully to what we hear from salem that we will continue to bring forward the funding level we know that we received reports from from oregon department of education until we hear otherwise so again um we are already working internally on um and and we'll be going through a process of tears of reduction but until we have the economic forecast we we don't know exactly what we should be bringing forward in as reductions but we will be sharing that um at the most opportune time in this process when we have enough information to share what the level of reduction should be so can i just can i just follow up um so um and this sort of links in with what uh jonathan was just talking about with community engagement um so i think the budget um timeline for next year is actually going to extend well into the summer um so what will happen is we'll have official actions but we'll have an amended budget you know if the since the legislature is still working on it in july and and we are um we'll have to at one point start staffing in time to have school open at the end of august but we will um be bringing an updated budget to the board in an amended budget after july one once we know the full funding level so are we um since you're going to have to be kind of making changes that apply um are we contemplating having any kind of community engagement process as you make these adjustments or is it is the timing just going to be um sort of impossible it's very tight timing when we get to july and wanting to staff our schools and have them ready it will be a very tight timeline so i think it's best that we get our input during the end of may to the end of june so that we know what people um you know so we can hear from our community and then we um continue to have to continue to modify as we hear more information from the state and direct more this is jonathan garcia just uh to chime in here um agree with uh uh deputy superintendent kurtz um i think what we need to to be clear on with our community as is this shortened timeline right and so i think as soon as the board if the board approves this new timeline you know we'll work with david roy and our communications staff to make sure that our community understands the titan timeline uh and and really begins to uh find ways to engage in in conversation with us so again we're meeting tomorrow uh afternoon as a team to really be designing what uh community engagement's gonna look like not only for one day not only for two days but ongoing knowing that we have virtual tools in our disposal to to make that happen so i just wanna make
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sure that i understand um we're going to get um in the mail and delivered the budget that was based on the appropriation that was previously passed we know in the may forecast there's going to be a significant revenue drop and then on the 26th we're going to have this life before budget along with a series of potential reductions and that is um what the community and the board will be looking at these sort of this one document overlaid the other document um so having been in this and then my sense is it'll go there'll be iteration the series of those um if 2002 is any guide where there was a whole host of uh legislative sessions or special sessions um so as we think about it even though the timeline is really condensed we know it's going to be really condensed now um the bunch of cuts are really i think we all know are going to be really hard for this community um we should just try and maximize the community input that doesn't mean that people aren't necessarily are going to agree um with us but to having the time to you know share their grief over losses um i think is really important and for us to get a sense of the community's priorities so however it gets that community engagements get structured um jonathan i hope that we even though we know if we have a short period of time that we really try and maximize the input because i don't think this is going to be one of these years where everybody says yeah we're good with everything um it's just um in some ways people sometimes have to share a sense of loss and i think um we're gonna need to do that on an accelerated basis um and that's gonna be hard for staff the board and the community but we should really try so the sooner we have more information the better i think that it's transparent and communicate often i appreciate that uh director bryn edwards and and we'll circle back to the board of ed to make sure that our design for our engagement uh is um is is worthy of you know making sure making sure that our community has adequate ways to to engage in in meaningful dialogue with us uh even if it is virtual so uh we'll circle back with all of you to make sure that that's uh meeting the the needs of our community during this time thank you yeah i i think um one thing we can do in the outreach process is present a range of potential cuts you know a b and c and talk and and get a sense of the prioritization for um if we had to get this much we had to get that much we had a third touch and that can guide us going forward when things are changing um maybe for the better maybe for the worst and again a lot of this depends on the congress does something to backstop education across the country that might soften the flow a bit but if we have that range of options and get feedback from the community that can help us uh on a pretty short notice in our direction going forward definitely uh director bailly and and uh so you know and as part of as we design uh these engagement sessions or engagement opportunities if you will you know i think part of as you and i have talked about director bailey you know part of part of this work is is really making sure that we're up front with our community about you know about what what is happening right so so we know we're walking into a a deficit budget right so so coming into the conversation with hey we have limited resources so how are we gonna uh you know bring ourselves collectively you know through a a res j lens through our visioning process through our vision to make sure that that you know we come out of this but uh conversation uh you know again not fully uh realized because again we have a a cuts budget making sure that we can move forward together so you know i'll work with all of you to make sure that that we're able to do that um jonathan i'd like to just give my offer my two cents and that's that um one of the presenters guest presenters uh this evening talked about using kahoot and um i've found that when uh talking with the public about sorry difficult conversations around budget
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is to use hoots because that allows and i don't know how well it interfaces with uh zoom for instance but it allows um community members to get a visual picture of what other community members are thinking and that can be a very powerful tool um and you know everybody in the audience gets a dollar a virtual dollar and it's not going to stretch far enough to meet the needs of the district and you allow people to vote on a menu of options um with that dollar and using cahoots or some other um voting platform allows everyone else to see kind of what everyone else is thinking it's a great way to incorporate a um rs res j lens um and in a visual in a visual sense yeah no i appreciate that director to pass the the uh you know as we as we're designing this engagement strategy i mean i think you know part of the the or the number one question that is going to be in front of us is how do we lean in on uh our res jay our commitment to register right to racial equity and social justice in this virtual reality in this virtual uh uh new norm and so uh you know that's what i think i'm interested in is making sure that the folks that you know are farthest from being able to connect with us are able to so uh you know we're gonna we're gonna think about creative ways you know that may not involve online uh you know engagement you know so so again i think part of part of what you're hearing from me and and from uh our deputy superintendent is that uh we're still waiting for direction from the state in order to to really define or design what we have uh to do in the next few few weeks so again we'll circle back with all of you to make sure that that it meets um you know our communities um need so if i could just add their listening to everyone's questions and we share the concern what's different this budget development cycle from most years is uh there's not going to be a lot of resources uh to contend with or to have discretionary conversations about um beyond sort of trying to preserve some some core functions and a few prioritized strategies what's different this year is last year we didn't have a community driven vision defined we didn't have an outlined set of prioritized shifts in there that we said we were committed to um and so our starting point is is that document and what strategies can we afford to make those shifts a reality and so our conversation which continues in the coming work week which also includes school leaders is is exactly what director bailey just mentioned you know how do we tier the resources we do have available uh as we make some of these difficult decisions um but we're we're not going into this exercise without an idea of of some of the areas for for investment and we can't wait till the late summer to make decisions about some of these areas particularly the ones that involve some critical staffing because folks aren't sitting around waiting to see if we'll call them or we'll need them so it's going to be a rapidly evolving process that's truncated further where i think you're hearing we want to afford opportunities for community members to to weigh in and understand and learn and be educated about what we're proposing should be the areas that we invest in that won't let us as an organization lose ground as we head into a really difficult i want to underline that really difficult uh coming school year from a financial perspective so we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment i believe superintendent and director garcia i want to say um i'm not as pessimistic as you are i'm confident that congress will show the american people they value public education and local and state government services just as much as they value large corporations and large banks that is a great segue to some of our business later in the evening director bailey and with that i think we will um move the conversation on are there any other questions or comments regarding the budget calendar all right the board will now vote on resolution 6108 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by
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saying no any abstentions right resolution 6108 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes thank you how does the cat vote she's not with me right now she's probably somewhere else in my house getting cuddles but haley's cat i'm sure votes yes all right continuing on with our conversation around um budget issues we've had a fair bit of communication with our employee groups and with our parents and community this week about a proposal for some budget savings so uh superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this item um well before we talk about um some of the yeah we're going to talk about that in an embedded way here we're pulling up uh here we go a presentation which i think dovetails nicely with the conversation uh we were just having so uh and we're gonna update the board about um recent actions up up until the hour before the school meeting board meeting started so we wanted to spend some time and i know board leadership sort of uh really encouraged us um to sort of begin to paint uh the scenario for us we may not have an accuracy in the numbers or resources available to us as a school system but i do think it's important to spend time reiterating some of the priorities and some of the cost-saving measures that are within our influence that we can preserve for a better day next year so we wanted to spend tonight spending some time on describing some of these budget strategies you'll notice they're preserving district priorities uh because that's that's how we see this uh predicament that that we're in so next slide um i'll remind us um not to not to depress us but just to remind us uh that just a short time ago two months ago uh we were singing a very different song it was a very scenario it was a very different scenario that we were in we felt uh pretty healthy about our general funds uh continuing to grow reserve uh the voters were good to us once again with the resounding approval of an option tax which covers a hundreds of adults providing direct service to our students we're hearing about full funding for measure 98 continuing which provides important high school supports our district uh quickly geared up and in a matter of months and community engagement process and uh well-balanced thinking i think submitted uh early uh its student investment account application for the full 39 million that were being made available to us we felt good about the package there we were talking about uh what should appear in the fall potentially as a bond to the voters and let's have a conversation about how we continue to prioritize safety security and have conversations with our communities about modernizations and you just learned about another surprise a bit of additional revenue i won't say it was a surprise because it was calculated um and that's the latest bond sale which uh is is going to provide some much needed additional revenue into our ongoing capital project so that was a little bit of the scenario uh just a couple of months ago we were in a really great place uh the leadership team was full throttle on its work with the multi-year strategic plan uh in this context um that's where we were and then and just to remind us a little bit about the work that was contemplated with some of these additional resources because i think it's important to understand some of those elements because we have to make decisions about what of those elements we're going to prioritize if we don't have full funding in some of these revenue sources so for instance next slide measure 98 just to go a little further on this high school student success plan which which has been presented um you know that provides about 11 million dollars in a few key areas it's permitted our high school secondary educators uh to invest in culturally sustaining pedagogy and curriculum interdisciplinary work project-based work there was some great conversations that continue to be ongoing about
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our own system alignment and responsiveness to local industry post-secondary planning with our students partnering with our communities of color really articulating that range and continuum of options for for our students uh contemplated in in this work uh is continuing to to focus on fostering those healthy and equitable school climate and culture initiatives the social emotional core programs uh those culturally specific mental health uh supports those positive behavior intervention elements and then a big focus of measure 98 as you know is to really enhance and push forward enhanced career technical education uh the quality and the integration of that with core academics uh you saw our matrix about how we were continuing to develop pathways how we're integrating those cte and work based learning programs especially now into some of our core academic classes at high schools and we were also thinking about how to develop those processes for recruiting certifying and retaining the cte teachers of themselves in many of these programs um all of which with the goal of really preparing our students for post-secondary success uh so thinking forward but also supporting our students now so what kind of kind of college and career level coursework access that we were increasing uh the enrollment that we were growing through awareness uh in our campaign uh making sure that all of our students have access to to that type of engaging coursework we were aligning our credit recovery options across the system uh understanding that our students have very different needs and very different goals and aspirations so that's just the range of measure 98 activity uh next slide we spent quite a bit of time with the board talking through our student investment account elements as well which was projected at 39 million to remind us there was a whole bunch of activity that we were proposing uh academic supports and targeted interventions especially for our students uh not yet exhibiting equitable outcomes uh social emotional mental behavioral health supports which we believe are going to be in particularly important as we reopen there was an outlined investment in there to think about more optimal student teacher ratios accomplished through redux continued reduction of class sizes we wanted to make sure kids had more opportunity to a greater range of electives especially in our comprehensive middle schools we're continuing to push out our arts education pathways we don't want our students to have to make difficult choices and and make sure that they have full access no matter what middle grades uh school that they're attending uh and we talked a lot about those culturally specific student and family supports as well uh we have an rfp out now as a matter of fact uh where our partners are contemplating how they draft in and support uh our shared goals as well and we were going to make an installment of investment in some sorely needed curriculum materials and the accompanying pd for our educators so this this was going to be a really big push for us i hate to talk in the past tense because uh like director bailey want to be more optimistic uh but i just want to remind us there's thinking that that has gone into the road that we want to travel moving forward and then bringing us to current day on the next slide uh we've had to shift uh some of that planning into gearing up to the current situation that we're in uh addressing this pandemic uh which you know from a hierarchy of need really focused on supporting our students so switching up our delivery model uh continuing to evolve it's not perfect uh there are some frustrations it's not enough and yet you heard tonight some testimony about the splendid job that a lot of our educators very thoughtful job that our educators are doing attempting to engage and maintain some continuity of learning all of this in response to the executive order that districts were issued curriculum is continuing to be made available whether it's online or for pickup and hard copy we are particularly concerned about our seniors i know we all share making sure that uh every one of them possible walks across the stage even if that's virtual so we are case managing them carefully we have some some particularly uh specialized student groups uh students with disabilities my grenade indian ed students uh all of whom we want to uh think of uh continue to struggle with sort of what are some creative ways that
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we can continue to outreach and support uh them and also as an organization we needed to create the access so technology you've heard uh in our updates that growing number uh at this point are starting to feel like we're starting to reach the meeting of the need uh whether it's hardware or internet access and of course our students uh continuing to have access to meals uh is something we're continuing to be committed to and of course in this pandemic our first responders need support with child care and we're continuing uh to provide that as well so uh that that has really um captured our attention and our energy uh during current day um but now we're gonna bring continue the conversation about where we are now and some of the continued cost-saving measures that uh we're taking uh to try to preserve precious resources so i'm going to turn the next few slides over to deputy superintendent herbs good evening again so one um thing that the state school fund budget is at a appropriated at nine billion dollars for two years from 2019 to 2021 and it's 38 of this um state's budget so one thing that we hear in the news media is when we have so many billion dollars shortfall at the state level so one thing that's just for us to keep in mind for every billion dollar loss in state revenue in their general fund it equates to 30 million lost in um state school fund for 2021. so for a billion dollar loss at the state we would lose 30 million dollars at um for the 20 20 21 school year and so another thing to consider is that our budget is 80 is people um when um we look at making reductions um by the time you're paying for electricity and keeping the buildings warm and the technology running the internet access all those kinds of things and just some minute you know the repairs that we need to do to keep our in keeping our schools clean and just operating on a daily basis keeping our buses running there is very little left but personnel to make reductions so this is a magnitude of a budget shortfall that will require significant reductions in our system and will and will impact the classroom we're going to do our best to minimize that impact but recognize that the shortfall is large enough that it will have an impact on many of our services that we provide students moving on to the next slide so what we have focused on in this spring as soon as we knew this was happening we put some cost saving measures in place we froze purchasing and we also did hiring freeze for this year and next year pending waiting to hear more about where our funding level is we have scaled back on year-long contracts and we have banned travel so we are working we expect to take drastic measures for this fall this helps us reduce them but doesn't eliminate them we have an opportunity to preserve resources in the millions for next year and with this i'm going to turn it over to um chief human resource officer sharon reeves next slide please good evening sharon are you with us we can't hear you i don't know if you can hear us
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um can anybody hear me we can't now are you there now hello yes can you hear me we can now yes okay excellent i think i was muted remotely there so uh getting me sharon reece chief of hr so tonight we are asking the board to vote to approve our next cost-cutting measure which is a partial furlough to begin this week through the end of july in order to preserve resources to use next school year we believe that a day of in-person and on-campus instruction next year is more valuable and of the most value to our most underserved students particularly viewed with a res day lens than a day of distance learning is in this school year at no time has that been more true when we hopefully return our students to our schools this fall after the longest campus closures in the 150 year history of portland public schools so a couple of basics before i talk about what's sitting on this slide first as uh deputy superintendent hertz mentioned over 80 percent of our budget goes to salary and benefits so in the face of a cratering budget we need to look at every cost savings lever that we have because that's how that budget is how we're going to fund our mission and our vision second we have a really unique in fact an unprecedented opportunity to access federal stimulus money right now through the federal cares act unlike in normal conditions we have this opportunity through the oregon work share program to access federal care act money where we can simultaneously reduce employee hours to save the district money and bring that federal stimulus money into our local community through our employees and third all five of our unions have reviewed this opportunity with us and agreed that it was the right thing to do for our students in our district and they are willing to engage in this unique experiment with us because we truly are stronger together so we heard just before this board meeting that our teachers union portland association of teachers voted yes to move forward with this plan so you see on the slide that what we're proposing is that the district close every friday through the end of july for students what that would mean is that home-based distance learning would continue monday through thursday and be closed on fridays and that we add three inclement weather days which are currently scheduled june 8th 9th and 10th for student instruction for families and staff that would mean that district offices are open monday through thursday through the end of the school year and most of the summer and close on fridays you might be familiar that oftentimes our court system does a very similar model in budget strained years for our district budget and for our states those federal funds that are available through the carers act come back to oregon taxpayers and the state economy right now the carrots act money that we are are attempting to access here uh is available through july 31st so it's a very short window of opportunity and uh of course this preserves about 20 of district salary costs now for use in uh in 2021. so uh while we're talking about can i go can we go to the next slime so while we're talking about financials every financial decision and every decision we make as you've heard throughout this presentation we must put our student and our students in our vision pps reimagined as our guiding north star so a key component of this furlough plan through the oregon workshop program is to leverage those three inclement weather days built into our school year with doing that we lose five fridays but we add we extend the school year one week into the summer and we add those three instruction days back so we do have a net loss of two instructional days but the advantage of extending our contact uh with students one more week into this school year so um the lift we anticipate and while we're still working on implementation we do expect to realize an excess of 10 million dollars
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over the course of the next three months from taking this action so all of this of course is to preserve resources now to lift the 28 20 21 school year and it is action that we can take now we don't have to wait for further federal stimulus further state uh budget forecasts uh or anything else in the weeks and months ahead we can take advantage of this really unusual unprecedented opportunity right now before i take questions i i will give a couple of notes uh questions have come to me about our senior leaders participating and the answer is yes from our superintendent to all of our senior leaders that you've heard from this evening to all of our principals and every employee in the district there are some exceptions for those who can't participate in this uh under the oregon workshare requirement that's almost that that's mostly employees who have been working full-time less than six months or part-time less than 12 months and people who are on lease of absence but barring those and a couple of other small exceptions everybody every employee in the district would be participating in this i'm going to pause to take any questions that you might have i think we will introduce the resolution and get the item on the table and then see what questions and discussion follow the board will now vote on resolution number 6109 approving a 20 furlough through july of 2020 and modifying the 2019-2020 school calendar do i have a motion so moved director bailey moves and a second second second second this is rita uh director bailey moves and director moore seconds the motion to adopt resolution six one zero nine miss bradshaw is there any public comment on resolution six one zero nine no okay thank you very much um all right now to um any board discussion or questions thank you sharon for that um thorough analysis and this is not the first time we've had this conversation as we were contemplating it but now we know that um all of our in all of our employee groups have endorsed this [Music] um strategy uh one i want to say thank you sharon and your team thanks to our labor partners uh this is exactly what the cares act is for which is if any organization is facing a revenue shortfall this will help fill the gap my question um is does the extra three furlough days and how all this i guess impact uh provision of meals to families that's an excellent uh question uh director bailey the um right now our nutrition services hubs which have provided over 300 000 meals in the eighth week by the eighth week of our closure are serving meals on fridays to cover weekends for those families and we would shift to thursdays providing sufficient meals to cover friday saturday and sunday and then would this also mean an extra couple of days with the added furlough days into the extra week i'm not sure i understand your question would this mean but the three extra snow days would have meal uh yes that's my understanding yes it would uh it would increase the meal uh one week into the year great okay excuse me that's another huge win any further questions or comments from the board so um i think it's uh the numbers are very preliminary i i understand and we don't really at this point have um have a solid idea of what kind of budget shortfall we're going to be looking at um but i think it might be important to
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in order for for folks to understand why ten million dollars is um is a significant amount of money uh to save um would somebody be willing to give a kind of ballpark uh best estimate right now of the kind of shortfall that we're likely looking at i'm going to defer that question to the person with the most knowledge of that our deputy superintendent of business and operations ms hurst so we thank you we are preparing um a 60 million dollar tiers of reductions for portland public schools internally we are looking at different tiers and but looking at a possible 60 million dollar shortfall this is director lowry and this is this is uh sort of my quick and dirty past president of a local school foundation math is that we always set our goals a hundred thousand dollars is about equal to one teacher so i know this is apples and oranges and it's not the same thing but 10 million dollars is around 100 teachers um and i know there's other factors to that but that's kind of how i've been thinking about it is if you can that's going to be even if we lose 60 million that's a huge impact on some of that staff we can still retain them so just a pretty close thumbnail uh direct directory library we had uh one final slide there in our presentation just to help sort of provide a more a continued response to that question but it's it's true the resources could support over 100 fte i want to appreciate the cooperation of all of our labor partners because those fdes likely represent across the board many of the folks that keep pps running um but again uh we're preparing the tiered budget reductions to 60 million uh hopefully that's a worst case scenario hopefully it's much better than that uh we have our vision we're continuing to work on our strategic plan that remains our road map we identified some shifts in there so these savings you know help us take us part of the way uh to any anticipated budget gap um and informs the conversation about uh in these areas uh what can we continue to to prioritize uh in the coming school year so i have a question and then just a comment i want to make um so my question uh just a clear point of clarification um and i know that these conversations have happened with our uh staff but i think we've all heard the stories about just the challenges that the oregon employment department has had in processing the claims um that have come in and sort of unprecedent unprecedented numbers and just to clarify all of our employees and any other employee groups that participate in work share the district or the local jurisdiction or the employing entity they make a batch claim and so there isn't the onus on individual employees to file um for the claim correct yeah there is an initial this looks as much different from the employee point of view than and when i say this i mean the work share program looks different from the employee point of view than a typical unemployment uh benefits application so the employee uh needs to complete an initial claim form uh as well as a direct deposit form that happens at the very beginning of the process and then the weekly submissions which are typically the responsibility of a laid off worker uh where you have to demonstrate uh and certify that you are ready willing and able to work and that you are looking for work that part of the process goes away because it is the employer in a workshop program
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who submits the weekly certification of the reduction in hours and the reduction in compensation there are some you know hurdles uh to get through uh the oregon employment department has been um a very uh strong partner uh with us as they have tried to and are in the process right now of identifying a streamlined way to address uh our application and then just the other question i had um just a point of clarification because there's been some commentary in the community about the 600 a week that was part of the cares act for employees and um just looking for the confirmation that this congress was very clear that they intended for there to be this additional weekly compensation on top of the unemployment um payments that workers would receive correct yes that is correct the um there was uh discussion uh uh when this before this was passed about whether or not it needed a cap whether or not there needed to be a cap of what based on employee typical income and the decision they did not put a cap in there so the intention of this money through the cares act is to infuse communities where covet 19 is having a financial um is having a significant financial impact on workers so this is the very intention this use uh is the very intention of the cares act money and i hope that other employers consider this as an alternative to laying off workers because that is the intention of the money and sharon if i could just this is andrew if i could just jump in on exactly that point just to confirm that i think that's really important and i think we we've all been getting some emails around this sort of questioning and the reality is this is exactly what the funding was intended to be used for um congress had the ability as you mentioned i'm just going to repeat basically what you said they had the ability to put caps in they had the ability to restrict it um they chose not to do that and i think they did that very intentionally and i think one of the things that's that's being lost a little bit in the conversation is millions of americans are already taking advantage of this 600 um a week um unemployment either because they've been laid off or or because they've been at schedules reduced um and so i think this is you know um the idea that this is somehow taking advantage of a loophole is really false i mean it's actually it's actually taking advantage of the program the way it was designed to be taken advantage of we are suffering a potential 60 million loss we are reducing pay by 20 which is really material for our staff and our teachers the federal government has stepped in to say that in those situations we're willing to provide this this this new benefit this very generous benefit as a result um and so i just i just want to thank you um and your staff for for sort of doing this research it is transforming um how other local governments are looking at this issue i can i can let you know for sure that that's happening um dps was um a leader in terms of looking at this and other governments now are also looking at this and again it's not just government it's private sector it's non-profits um you know this applies to everybody and i think that i would actually love it if if we get a little bit of media attention on on what's happening in the private sector as well um because if you listen to podcasts you know like freakonomics or planet money or the weeds i mean they're talking about this exact situation where employees are having their schedules reduced um and in fact they're making more money as a result of this this generous federal benefit which was debated by congress in past um somewhat remarkably but but it is it is the situation so anyway thank you for that for this work it's it's it's really exceptional well said director scott i can attest to having for heard from several school board members from other districts today about exactly this plan and how did you do it and how can you how who can guide our staff through the same process so it's really it is good work and it is um taking advantage of exactly what the process was supposed to be doing for the employees right now so um it's thank you again also for the um depth of the conversations with each of our employee groups um i know that wasn't easy it wasn't simple um but in the end um we have to approach anything like this in partnership um with our our labor groups so thank you for all of that work any further questions or discussion from the board before we vote on the issue at hand just one one final thing to consider is just
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the positive economic impact to the community of this money coming in that then gets spent in the community to support local businesses going forward so there's there's a multiplier effect here as well absolutely so i just wanted to make a final comment unless other people have questions um i also wanted to thank the staff for bringing it forward um i think it's really um demonstrate some proactive nimble problem solving um that's keeping students and their needs at the center of the work and i also want to thank the governor for publicly stating that um she intended to waive oregon's waiting week which is really important because it's just additional potential savings that we can use for next year um you know as we're facing a dual threat the coronavirus pandemic and also the crushing economic environment for public institutions nonprofits and businesses um you know it's one of those things we're gonna need to be laser focused on preserving structural time and i think this is a great example of sort of proactively looking at what next year might look like i look back to 2002 and 3 pbs went to extraordinary and the community frankly to avoid shortening the school year or having any school furlough days teachers took a pay cut or that you know 10 days of working for free all portland taxpayers paid additional 1 income tax surcharge ppf staff had reductions benefits school buildings were closed a whole host of things happened in order to preserve instructional time same thing in the great recession pps avoided school staff for low days um and as we look at the tough choices um that we're going to have over the next year i think tonight is only you know one in a series generally um i don't support school staff furlough days as a cost saving strategy not only as a result of medical deduction uh pay for school staff but we just get less instructional time um so i had to sort of weigh like you know what i think about us having furlough days and i think i'm totally um confident in this being the right call because i do believe as was outlined earlier tonight that we're trading much higher value school days with students in classrooms next year with their teachers for the current distant learning days in which students have a fraction of the time with their teachers as they do normally uh so in that case i think this is um you know when we think about it now it's a hard decision maybe a hard decision to make but for next year when we have students back in their classrooms that um those are exactly the days that we don't want to have to be considering for the day so just the trade-off is well worth it um i do want to acknowledge that um we have had some concerns from community members about the proposal and i can understand why parents would be frustrated with the current situation um but i don't think it's unique to pps um there's a better responsibility that's been shifted from parents from the public education system because of the covid um pandemic and those require requirements from the state so um i can totally understand where parents may be coming from as they as they look at this um so that's understandable it's again not unique to pps and i say i think we're going to have higher value days next year also there's a community member or parent who may have interpreted earlier communications that decisions had already been made prior to the board meeting um the discussion and that's not the case i think all board members benefit from hearing from community members even when they disagree with us as it helps informs our decisions and then just finally um i want to just close again by thanking the staff especially sharon reese and the hr team because i do think this fundamentally protects really important instructional time and unprecedented um and challenging times for our country and for the state and school district and of course thank all this role and administrative staff who with us to make this happen thank you director brim edwards the board will now vote on resolution 6109 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution 6109 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting
02h 25m 00s
yes all right thank you thank you sure thank you to the board for considering this proposal i also want to publicly commend sharon reese and her dynamic team with backup from liz large and many others uh i think when you say pps is blazing a trail here that's particularly true i know that many of us have been fielding phone calls from both districts here in the state and out of the state and so i think we're going to start a trend here so thank you for your support and your consideration tonight on this resolution all right um thank you next we move on we have um some appointments to our citizen bond accountability committee uh director scott i'd like to introduce this item great yes i would love to thank you so um tonight we get to appoint three new members um to the bond accountability committee so i'll just give a really brief overview of where we are so currently um the bond accountability committee allows for 10 members we only have six right now and three of those on the committee uh their terms are expired at the end of 2020 so this is really important to get some new folks onto this committee um and we actually have a little bit of a staggered process we're going to appoint three people today and then in a few months from now we'll be appointing some additional people um to the committee as well um allowing these folks to get on board in a new batch um but i just uh tonight we have beth woodward and norm dowdy and greg diloreto um who are appointing so just really briefly it's an incredibly um accomplished group of folks um that are willing to serve on our bond accountability committee beth woodward is a retired senior management auditor from the city of portland um i had to laugh because i was pretty sure that i uh experienced at least one if not multiple uh audits by that when i was at the city of portland and i was able to find one i think from 2010 um which was actually positive and found that we had um we had responded to an earlier audit effectively so that's not the reason investigating on the bond accountability committee but it was nice to go back and see that anyway she um worked for the city auditor um she's a certified construction auditor she previously worked for ch2m hill um and some other jobs as well um and she holds a master of public administration and an associate in applied civil engineering technology degree so she has spent a good chunk of her career doing the kind of work that we asked these members to do norm dowdy is a retired construction industry executive um uh he was the principal and vice president at rnh construction he was involved in a number of local projects um i think really interestingly he served on boards of the local chapter of the american institute of architects and cedars-sinai park senior living community and he's been active in industry organizations on the american institute of architects architectural foundation of oregon and the urban land institute is really deep oregon roots and then finally greg diloreto is a past president and chair of the committee on america's infrastructure the american society of civil engineers and he's retired ceo of the twalton valley water district so he has a public service career and also an incredible depth of knowledge in this field so i think we're really fortunate to have these folks on willing to give a significant amount of time to this committee it's extremely important overseeing the 2012 and 2017 bonds and then potentially a future bond as well which we'll talk about in minutes um but really really just grateful for them for their time so i would encourage the board to support these the other thing i would say is that um we always can use additional nominations um again we have a few people that we're still talking to who might be interested we'll bring forward later um one of the things that we as a board have talked about is trying to diversify um our boards and committees and the uh um uh the appointees we have and i think that continues to be an issue and a challenge um i think that's a challenge that we as the seven board members need to take on uh and again this has come up previously but um um i have been you know racking my brain to try and find folks in the community who are willing to serve and particularly people of color who are willing to serve on these committees um any of you who have leads please feel free to order them to me or dan young we're happy to contact people walk them through the process talk about the commitment what it means um but we really do want to make sure these committees are as represented as they can be the entire community director scott if i may this is jonathan garcia chief engagement officer uh dan and i have been in communication this week about that exact issue and and topic and so uh we look forward to uh to uh bringing forward a a lot more diverse candidate uh poll uh to the board and director i'd also like to forward a couple of names but i send that to you um just directly yeah send it to me and dan dan young as well and and we can we can get in touch with those folks and and um yeah that's fantastic michelle director to pass thank you
02h 30m 00s
you're welcome that's great let's get this resolution on the table thank you director scott and thank you to everyone who has done some legwork in trying to bring good candidates forward it's really an incredible volunteer role um that is so valuable to the district so uh again we can bring on another slate within the next six months we still will have uh is it two or three open positions after uh assuming we approve these um this will take us to nine people but then again three are ending their terms at the end of the year so we really will have four open positions at the end of 2020. okay um the board will now vote on resolution 6110 recommendation of new members to the bond accountability committee do i have a motion so moved second director to pass moves and director bailey seconds the motion to adopt resolution ms bradshaw do we have any public comment on this resolution do we have any further board discussion on this resolution all right the board will now vote on resolution 6110 all in favor by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions okay resolution 6110 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes thank you maxine and thank you again director scott and dan young and jonathan garcia for helping with that process okay our last item is a resolution to advocate for and approve additional federal education funding so um superintendent guerrero referenced at the beginning of our meeting that he has been working with other superintendents of large urban school districts around the country to advocate for more federal support for school districts board members and board representatives to the council of great city schools have also been engaged in the same process so this is a resolution to advocate for and approve additional federal education funding for public schools due to the kova 19 pandemic and um there is a fourth round of congressional pandemic relief um in the works right now and um today the direct relief for for public schools has been fairly minimal the statistics i've seen is that it's been less of one less than one half of one percent of the entire first three coronavirus relief packages going to to public school districts and you know as we all know with the picture that we saw earlier tonight about the very dire um prospects for our state budget and similar circumstances for state budgets around the country it's really needs to be part of the national conversation that public school districts need some relief in this moment especially when we know that our students will be facing significant learning loss and our needs will not only not be the same they will be greater than before this budget crunch so um i would like to ask if we have a motion um to put this resolution six one one one on the table so moved director moore moves and director we have a second second i believe that was director to pass seconds the motion to adopt resolution six one one one um miss bradshaw do we have any public comment no um is there any board discussion yeah um this is director berm edwards um i just want to um actually make sure that we at our resolution i think reflects it but to thank the delegation so far um senator merkley and wyden and then specifically uh congress michi and um congressman blumenauer who represent um constituents in the portland school district because i do think they've been our advocates and um we did receive some funds in the first the first round um but as chair constant noted um not
02h 35m 00s
to the extent of um previous years um so i think we should just note that we're you know thanking um our federal delegation for the assistance so far and um really looking forward to their partnership and delivering for public schools in the next package thank you thank you very much really important point and they have been a great partners and i guess i just wanted to mention one other thing which is that the importance of our passing a resolution like this even especially considering that our our delegation is already on board and acting as our advocates is that it enables us to speak with a united voice with other school districts around the country and that's that's very powerful representing um school school children in urban districts around the us so other boards across the country are passing similar resolutions um any further questions or discussion i would also this is director lowry just like to say thank you to superintendent guerrero and our other leadership we're working through the council of great city schools on um advocacy and making sure that we are leading not just for portland students but for students all over the country so i know our it's not only our congressional delegations on board but our staff has already done a lot of work and planning with others around the country to help serve students yeah can i just sorry go ahead i was going to say the council is on the offense and the defense uh there are also attempts to infringe on resources intended for public school systems so uh that is a also an ongoing conversation just for the board's awareness dr moore um yeah i wanted to just uh this is in the resolution but i wanted to say it out loud um just to provide some context for the the level of federal support for public education in the midst of an economic crisis um the uh the the existing the cares act that was passed uh includes only 13 billion dollars to support public education funding um during the crisis and by way of comparison in response to the 2008-2009 great recession um the legislation that was passed at that point um between 2009 and 2010 the federal government gave 110 billion dollars to public education and if you look at the unemployment figures we have had a steeper decline in the economy in the last month than happened at all in the great recession and we're seeing nationally unemployment figures that are essentially equivalent to the worst period during the great depression um so i i would hope that the the federal government that congress would um exercise its wisdom and uh understand that public education plays um an enormous role in the lives of children and families and communities and um we need help so i'm i'm very happy that we as a board are endorsing this resolution it it just to take the conversation to full circle too um it also keeps people employed because as we know uh budget state budget cuts directly translate to layoffs because eighty percent of our budget are our employees so if we are to feel those cuts those are gonna that's gonna be people without jobs and in many cases i'm sorry go ahead sorry in many communities across the country school districts are often the largest employer and here in portland i don't think we're the largest but we're certainly among the top three in terms of a number of employees all right thank you thank you everybody excuse me another comment uh i hope uh certainly it's important to advocate for public education i hope we are also while we're doing that supporting funds for state and local governments because our children and their families need mental health services
02h 40m 00s
health services juvenile services housing services and so on thank you director bailey okay the board will now vote on resolution six one one one all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all pose please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution six one one one is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes okay we still got you maxine barely time for bed i know i think we all feel the same way one last bit of business to do uh committee and conference reports um director scott can you give us a preview of the uh school improvement bond committee meeting that yes i absolutely can and so we have a school improvement bond committee later this week i was just checking the time it's at 4 30 um so i look forward to seeing um not only members of the community but as many board members as are able to to attend would be great so to give a little bit of preview of the conversation we're gonna have on thursday um you know as i think we've heard a lot tonight um the district is is currently all hands on deck in terms of supporting students families and staff through the covenant 19 crisis and it is consuming a significant amount of time um and it's really hard we heard from the budget conversation we heard from other conversations making decisions about the future you know in this in this time of uncertainty is is difficult it's required some flexibility and some rethinking um just you know pre-covid which i feel like you know we can all divide our lives now between when we used to go to work and now when we work at our dining room tables um that you know we were considering this eight-year 1.4 billion dollar bond package and you know that amount would have been invested in health and safety and modernization pro projects throughout the district and and i think most importantly would have renewed the current tax rate right and and would have maintained sort of the tax rate that that voters were generous and and you know um voted for in the 2012 and 2017 bonds um i think now with the the coveted pandemic um it's really highlighted the critical nature of our school facilities um and the need for us as a district to be resilient in the face of these types of emergencies um there's also a huge impact on the um the economy there's a huge impact on the community and even as we were talking about the cares act and the issue of people losing their jobs in the unemployment rate we know that's happening as well um and and i think what we've seen in our own experience is that uh while we're facing these budget cuts access to technology is has never been more important for the district um as we focus on this distance learning and sort of adjusting this new life so what we want to do in this thursday meeting is come back and have a conversation about the best way to move forward and and really sort of sort of look at you know is is the current um proposal the best way to move forward or do we want to look at something different one option we're going to be talking about on thursday that's going to be on the table is is again continuing this sort of idea of renewing the current tax rate but doing it for a shorter period of time and funding some projects that would really address some critical needs that have been underscored by this covet crisis so these are things like updating dps's technology infrastructure to improve access for all students improving access to devices for students and teachers updating our curriculum throughout the district especially as we expand distance learning platform and then i think also equally important is making sure we complete the work on benson which has been started in ongoing and there's a gap to fill there and i think that this this this type of investment would would continue our long-range bond program would keep it running we keep staff you know working on this um and allow us to invest in some of these critical areas um that we may need as we go forward over this next year given so some of the uncertainties um it would continue again sort of the same current tax rate and we can have more conversation on thursday about that um the idea is you know again voters were really generous we have a tax rate at a certain level um if we do a shorter bond we can we can do a shorter amount and go back out in two or four years what we had been talking about was waiting eight years and a larger dollar amount but either way that tax rate um stays the same and and and really talking about what this means if we were to do a shorter term resiliency bond what that means for the long run program and when we do come back in and focus on modernizing the schools and finishing the high schools as well so it's the beginning of a conversation um and something we're going to be talking about later and i just want to um you know again i would encourage any members of the public that are interested in listening um you know to tune in i would encourage board members who are able to come um have that conversation i think it's a really important conversation about the future of the district and also also for the public of course um all the materials uh for that meeting will be posted um uh which will contain more specifics about what's under consideration yeah um any decision
02h 45m 00s
on on referral of a proposal is not likely to happen until later summer so we're going to have some conversations at the bond committee meeting and then there's some community engagement that we're talking with the district about as well over the next few weeks and and uh to sort of get a sense from from from uh from the residents and parents and students uh you know what their highest priorities are um so with that sort of overview and intro um what i would just say uh in terms of wrapping up the committee this committee report is is if there are any specific questions or concerns that board members have um you're welcome to to bring those forward on thursday but you're also welcome to bring them forward today if you can't make the thursday meeting or if there's something you want us to look into between now and then it's 48 hours i'm happy to do that as well really thinking about how we can be responsive during the children's crisis for the district's highest priority so this is a question maybe for staff is the thursday meeting going to be the video available so that if if that's where the discussion is going to happen that people have access to since they can't come to the meeting to be able to have access to a video conference like this yes this is roseanne yes it's going to be live streamed like this and an opportunity for people to uh provide comment too in the same way so there'll be a public comment slots yeah i think we have two at the top of the meeting and people can reach out to the board office to kara to sign up similar to what we do for our board meetings i just have a quick process question um why the why we limit it to just two comp two comments or is that two commenters is that just it is i think it's just a time constraint i mean i would i would defer to roseanne if she has any history here my understanding is it's just because it's a committee meeting we limit it to two um we have usually not filled those slots so i don't think in my brief tenure less than a year um i don't think we've had a situation where we've had more people who wanted to speak when we had slots available exactly and certainly you know what i've experienced with our committee chairs is that we have more people that want to certainly there's uh you know roommate or public comment though but we we plan time for two at the beginning how's that thank you yeah i was going to agree with roseanne that it's i believe it's up to the discretion of the committee chair yes kind of have we it's not a hard and fast rule all right we look forward to that conversation on thursday and um really moving this important discussion forward um is there any other business for the good of the order so i just want to flag just from the audit committee um that there's a body of work that's going to be coming to the full board it's um that will need to be completed in the next month and a half as everybody recalls we had eight action items from the secretary of state's audit that were specific to the board um so um in a conversation with deputy superintendent uh claire hertz um we've decided we're going to put together a preliminary framework of what we believe um the board has done to date in terms of um actions related that related to the recommendations that were board specific but a certain point in time the full board will need to be engaged in that discussion again probably the next couple months before the secretary of state's office comes back for their review all right thank you very much director brim edwards um all right director constant one final thing uh love to hear an update as to where we are on yeah that's the cat uh amazingly loud cat um weighs about three ounces uh where are we where's uh where are we with policy work and uh i'll take my answer offline okay thank you very much um all right this meeting of the board of education of portland public schools is adjourned was nice to see all your faces thank you staff for your helpful presentations tonight the next meeting of the board of education will be held


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