2020-06-02 PPS School Board Work Session

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-06-02
Time	18:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	work
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Work Session - 6/2/2020

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sessions of the Board of Education of for June 2nd 2020 is called to order for Portland Public Schools Board of Education this meeting is being audio stream 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 audio streamed live on our PBS TV Services website tonight in addition to reviewing the timeline for bond referral and a financial overview will have an opportunity for discussion as we consider options for the 2020 bond renewal hello everyone good evening good evening can't see all your faces yet I want to take just a minute it's so hard for us to connect with one another and also for us to process through really complex topics like this bond consideration before us with so many materials to prepared so hard to do and zoom but I want to take a minute even in this strained strained means of communication to recognize just what an incredibly painful week this has been for our nation our students our families and for all of us who have committed ourselves to addressing the historic inequities and systemic racism that is embedded in institutions like this school system and certainly including this school system and I think that is what has called many of us to our work and I want to thank the superintendent are you here superintendent Guerrero I haven't seen you yet on zoom' I want to thank the superintendent for his message to our families this week in her community affirming our commitment to our black students and saying unequivocally that we cannot stay silent and we cannot stay neutral about racism and Thank You superintendent for for that communication in this in this moment and I proud to be part of this explicitly anti-racist organization and to stand by the strategic priorities that Center our decision-making on our black students and all of our students of color and we just affirmed that in the last time we were together in looking at our our strategies around developing the budget and facing some different difficult choices with the budget but I want to acknowledge that I'm proud that those are the those are the the priorities and this and the values that this organization is committing ourselves to in order to serve serve our black students so thank you thank you everybody and thank you to all of our student activists some of whom in my own house who are having a hard time figuring out what to do in this moment and how to make change we support you and we look to your leadership to all of our students thank you I want to proceed this is a work session which really just means that we're focused on one topic which is consideration of options for the 2020 bond we will have a bit of public comment here at the beginning of the work session miss Bradshaw as I understand it we have two people signed up for public comment okay I'm quickly review our guidelines for public comment and then hopefully our person who signed up will join us please make sure to state state your name at the beginning of your public comment offered virtually to us and spell your last name for us you'll have two minutes to speak um you'll hear a sound after the first two minutes which means it's time to conclude your comments we really appreciate you showing up here with us tonight and sharing your thoughts miss Bradshaw who is our first person signed up with this money good evening commissioner jayapala good evening good evening Shere Khan Sam
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board members and superintendent Carrera thank you so much for giving Northeast Portland can you hear me I've got a bunch of static on the line I want to make sure you yeah yes we can okay thank great I think I want to say that I okay I thought I had three minutes and so you know I hope you'll give me a little forbearance but otherwise you could just cut me off misma sentence I'm here because I understand that you're considering your options for a 2020 bond referral including whether the referral will and will include the rebuilding of Jefferson High School and I'm here to urge you to move forward with the rebuilding of Jefferson we all know the history of Jefferson and the neighborhood at third we know that North Portland is a historic and present home of Portland's black communities we know that our black communities experience displacement educational inequities health inequities economic inequities all rooted in and caused by intentional structural and systemic racism we also know that despite all of that our black communities have been resilient they've maintained their relationships in and with North Portland and in and West Jefferson High School in this moment in this moment during a pandemic that has disproportionately taken the lives and livelihood of black and brown people in this moment the week after the murder of George Floyd and after the nationwide and local can ocean of grief and rage that's a response not just the mr. Florez death but to all the profound injustice that led to his death and to the loss of countless black lives in this moment we all pledge to do things differently you and we have an opportunity here to do that to do things differently we built Jefferson would be a concrete literally and figuratively concrete investment in our black communities it would reinforce an anchor and it would help create the conditions for moving the needle on the stubborn in educational inequities experienced by black students in the Portland Public School System rebuilding Jefferson has always been the right thing to do and it is even more so the right thing to do in this moment I want to close not with my words which always feel inadequate to this motion to this moment but with some words from me viewing the author of a book called ghost in the schoolyard the book is about school closings on Chicago each side so the subject isn't directly applicable because we're not talking about a closing here but rather about rebuilding but the perspective she provides is applicable he talks about the fight to keep schools open about how in fighting for their schools community members are fighting for an acknowledgement of past harms a reckoning the present injustice and an acceptance of the reality of the value of their schools in communities and towards the end she says this quote we must continually set our sights on what it would look like to get things right and we must integrate those visions into our rhetoric and our strategies but we built Jefferson would be part of what it would look like to get things right it would represent that acknowledgement of past harms the reckoning of present injustice and an acceptance of the reality of the value of Jefferson to this community it would be one way just one way but an important to match our strategy to our rhetoric Thank You Commissioner jayapal thank you so much Thank You commissioner thank you miss Bradshaw it has our other person not chimed in no I just got a message email from her saying that she was having trouble getting in I think why don't we why don't we proceed with our conversation and if you learn from her that she would like to testify and that she's connected to us then we can we'll interrupt ourselves and invite her to do so how does that sound okay thank you okay thank you so much I wanted to ask director Scott the chair of our board School Improvement bond committee to walk us through a bit of a timeline around this decision-making process for
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building building and options for 2020 bond package just like everything else in our in our lives and in our world this process can be divided into pre kovat and post kovat and that has led to some different ways of thinking about what we want to do and that's the conversation that we're going to continue tonight so director Scott would you like to just remind us where we've been and what brought us to this moment sure Thank You chair constan so yeah and I'll just give I'll spend a few minutes sort of recapping what got us here and then we could turn it over to staff for some presentation and then board conversation what we're doing tonight is is continuing to the discussion essential 2025 package and and and I do think it's important to just sort of remind everybody how we got to where we are in the conversation tonight and where we're gonna go from here I think one of the things that's important to remember is that for mobile schools has had a long-term vision for addressing its infrastructure back well and I think that vision doesn't get as much attention as sometimes I think it sure but voters have really strongly supported that issue and you know voters passed a modernization bond in 2012 they passed another modernization bond in 2017 which combined funded our modernization of six important high schools along with important health safety and seismic improvements throughout the district the overall infrastructure need within the district is is massive and that shouldn't surprise anybody there were really decades of under estimate that's not just a school district problem though that's so that's a societal it's gonna take a long time to fix all that infrastructure issues that the district is facing but I really do want to focus on the fact and acknowledge the fact that PBS is actually a leader in this area I've spent the last 20 years or so doing public budgeting and operations and I can tell you flatly that most governments don't have a plan in place to address their infrastructure meet needs much less of financing mechanism like the school district has the city of Portland doesn't have such a plan while County doesn't have a plan state of Oregon doesn't certainly the federal government no matter how many construction weeks we have does not have a plan for sort of addressing this backlog but porns the public schools is on a path that over the next 20 to 30 years will address a huge portion of the need but what we need obviously is continued voter support for that and that's why we're talking about a 2020 bond to continue this work and really to continue to make these investments and I think people parents community members businesses are beginning to see the impact of these investments when you visit some of our rebuild high schools they're truly amazing and they're the type of thing that I think this community wants our students to have as they go forward in their education so as a result we started this conversation last year and we started it in in the bond committee we had meetings October 8th November 7th 21st December 4th and December 19th and all those meetings in addition to focused on current management of 2012 in 2017 bonds also began to sort of approach what what would the next bond what should the next bond look like what should it include on January 7th of this year the board passed a resolution that directed staff to develop a general obligation bond for the November 20 2011 we continued after that resolution was passed at community conversations in January 16th and February 13th we had another full board work session on February 18th we had additional committee meetings on March 12th and May 7th and then finally a full board work session this last week on May 19th the goal all along has been to develop a package that continues the modernization program and prioritizes our most urgent districts and then in the middle of these conversations of which as you can tell we've had a lot of we also had a pandemic and and I think it's important to acknowledge the impact that's had on the conversations and really the impact that that might have going forward as we think about what the most urgent needs of this district are before covin 19 entered the community we were considering as a board and as a district an eight-year one point four billion dollar bond this is an amount that would allow us to finish benson high school it would also allow us to invest in health safety modernization projects and even this amount which would be a very large dollar amount we would only be asking voters to review the current tax rate at 19 that's been a goal experts currently pay 2 dollars and 50 cents per thousand through property tax levy and and the goal of the district moving forward is just to really maintain that rating we can do all of this modernization and rebuilding an infrastructure address our infrastructure and assets by just maintaining that tax rate however as a result of the Cova 19 crisis it's caused us to really rethink what the best way is to move and one of the things the crisis has done and we've heard this from the superintendent and his staff
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over the last couple of board meetings is underscore the critter critical nature of our school facilities this includes access to technology both access to devices as well as internet connectivity and the realization that it's it's never been more important to have it access to access to technology as we adjust a distance learning as a way to adapt during the pandemic we've also been focused on curriculum needs and those needs to meet current standards support options for engaging students in the classroom both in the classroom and distance and then also really highlighting what are the critical health and safety the 2017 bond addressed a number of these but there continued to be health and safety needs across the district including roofs and mechanical systems that need repairs replacements seismic retrofits KT improvements and security upgrades and then at the same time there's a desire and and and I think it's in essential that we continue the long-range plan to modernize it schools so the key question that we're going to be addressing tonight is is really this how do we balance these short-term urgent needs against the longer term school modernizations and continue down this path that former boards and former voters have put us on and I think the second key question for tonight in addition to how do we balance but but how can we effectively an authentically engage the community during the crow mid-nineteen crisis and I really appreciate that we had some some public input tonight and one of the things you'll hear about is our timeline for public engagement forward it's become a huge challenge for every government as Commission of japon those at the county as I've experienced it Metro how we engage with the community during this time is really really challenging but even more essential that we do and we do it in a really authentic way so host Cove in nineteen as we're dealing with this pandemic can be out out from it our conversations really focused on a different approach and it's focused on potentially instead of an eight year one point four billion dollar package but renewing the current bond rate for a shorter period of time and focusing on some of these urgent projects and the idea was to focus on critical investments in technology curriculum and then potentially return to a bigger conversation about long term monetization in 2022 the shift also gives us time and this is again the shift we've been discussing in the last couple of meetings would give us time to focus on reopening and and looking towards recovery before resuming some of these community conversations about a longer or larger bond we do that continues the 30-year plan to fully modernize our schools and by finding some of these urgent educational health and safety needs across the district we have capacity in 2022 for a more in a 2022 bond for more long-term modernization projects so that's really where we are and tonight we're going to continue that conversation based on previous conversations that I've mentioned staff have developed options for us to take back out to the community and so chair constantly maybe I'll turn it back over to you I mean we can turn it over to staff to walk through some of those options and some of the financing information and information the details thank you so much director Scott and I just want to say so so based on the last two conversations that we have had about development of the bond package the last two post kovat conversations which would have been the May 19th bond work session which was extensive in the May and the May 7th meeting as well the the direction that the board set was looking at a smaller shorter term bond and that was that was by far the direction of the board nearly unanimous director bailey l advocating for still possibly pushing for a larger bond and including Jefferson Cleveland and Wilson modernizations in okay I've caved I've listened and changed my perspective but just speaking to how we got here so the options that we have on the table or staffs response to that direction from the board to look at a smaller shorter term bond so that's what we'll see several variations on that theme tonight we also have and this is not something that we have discussed yet but we see in half of those options we also see money that would put a down payment on the modernisations of Jefferson Wilson and Cleveland in the form of investing in the design the full design process so taking things all the way up to construction documents and then if next time we came out would have those numbers and that greater specificity on those as well as having advanced the schedule
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by a couple of years so those options are in there for our consideration I have also asked staff to bring forward an option which does deviate from the direction that the board has set thus far in our most recent meetings and this would be going back to a much larger bond not our post Kovan pivot that we were contemplating of you know the neighborhood of five or six hundred million dollars but a much larger bond that would include the full modernization of one of our high schools that being Jefferson High School so we can see in Daniels presentation tonight I think he has a slide that just roughs out the numbers of what that would look like an invite board discussion about whether or not we could have consensus around pivoting back to closer to a billion dollar four-year bond or any any of the other specific options before us or any variations therein so with that we'll turn it back to our conversation of the options that staff have put together and I think first deputy superintendent Hertz is going to walk us through some considerations of the financing again based on the options that came out of our most recent work session so the smaller five to six hundred million dollar bond are you that true is that where you're headed sure Constance can I ask a question first or Claire for Clark first the outcome of tonight is for the court to agree on options to share with the public to get their input is that correct that's correct we're not aiming for board consensus tonight on a package we're aiming for consensus are close to it on which packages we want to get public input on correct that's correct narrowing a range of options for public input okay know that I do have our second public comment person on the mind whenever you're ready great hang tight for just a moment please definitely pretend it hurts and Kara we would love to hear from her welcome do we have anyone on the line who would like to provide public comment oh I'm sorry I thought we were gonna have to go first we have tell you things read I'm using you I'm using you right now oh there we go hello welcome to six my name is Heather trick yeah my name is Heather Siegfried and my last thing called s IE d f r IE d i I've been teaching from Portland Public Schools for twenty years now and I'm a teacher at aqua green middle school and you know before I started teaching I was at Jefferson High School as a merit corner working with the junior class number one and you know I've witnessed the remarkable resiliency of my community but I'm really having a hard time understanding why we're fighting for the inclusion of Jefferson High School on this ballot on the modernization project you know Jefferson high school is a school that has served the black community for so many years and it's also historically underserved population and I believe that our Jefferson students and families and community deserve to have a state-of-the-art facility now where they can grow and learn and I would expect the district would want to make this right towards the Jefferson's families and community and students and so I think this is one step in the many steps that need to be taken to address the disparities and remake of Jefferson High School and so that's what I wanted to say and give my feedback to the district today and the importance of actually including Jefferson on the ballot and not waiting longer even after you know post : thank you thank you so much to share your thoughts with us alright excuse me superintendent Guerrero I'd like to hand it to you to please introduce the staff that we'll be presenting to us this evening of these issues good evening chair constan words
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and thank you director stock for providing a synopsis of what's been an evolving conversation to arrive at a smart investment package into safety security modern facilities that that our students very much deserved in many ways it's a timely conversation because we're having in our thoughts on right now and thinking dickens opening paragraph of the Tale of Two Cities the worst of times last Tuesday staff was presenting emerging priorities of our strategic plan because we believe it's important that we try to align all available resources towards student achievement and when you can't go here instead of strategies will drive more equitable outcomes when we want to be particularly attentive to our black and Native students and right now it's very important that our line wanna communicate directly that our black students were thinking at those black lives matter when we're educators better way than to promote critical thinking at this time so buildings are another important resource will appreciate Commissioner Dinah follow only teachers testimonial tonight the importance in continuing to invest prioritize our blackberries in particular so tonight we we have staff coming back with another evolution hopefully capturing the board's latest thinking hopefully at the end of this work session we'll have a little more guidance from all of you about the kinds of things we'll want to engage our public stakeholders about next and I think from staff tonight we have our chief operating officer dan young and court and Wessel our leads the seller Courtney we're intergovernmental nations person and I think Claire wanted to say a word about the financial aspect of this Before we jump into some words hey everybody its Courtney Wessling director of government relations can you hear me okay so Roseann kickoff the slides and I'm gonna just TS up and then I'm gonna kick it over to to our one of our friends Andy Ruiz to walk through the our bond timeline and then we'll go over to Claire so just kind of starting somewhere else but we'll get there in a few minutes so really quick next slide so just to run through the agenda we're gonna do a referral timeline overview talk about what decision points are coming how community engagement fits in and some key dates that we want to make sure on your radar then we'll go over to Claire for some conversation about financial information a couple of specific questions that were raised I'm in the last few weeks and then we'll go over to Dan to talk about the options and he'll lay out new different options with some pretty detailed nuance in the number so we'll walk through that and then we'll come back to me to talk about the community engagement process a little bit more in depth and then we'll open it up for questions and you know other considerations and I don't know how you want to do this Shere Khan Sam if you want to take students and discuss as we go that's up to you all but will will we're ready to do it however you will however you want so I will have a meet with us to do some of this communications inconvenient work and she is going to walk through the time line let's just see if we can get through each of the staff presentations and hold our questions for each individual presenter until the end unless it's a clarifying question right hey thanks Susie I'm next slide please so I'll keep this pretty quick just when I ground us and where we are in the time line this has been evolving related to the pandemic and and to allow enough time to get to where we are today but here's how much time we have left we do have a hard deadline to file some paperwork with the county for a referral by August 14th so we're currently in that first week here of June in the phase where the board is identifying the bond options for further community engagements we'll have a little bit more detail and all this in the next slide but at a high level the next phase will be that Community Engagement arm the
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actions about three weeks then we will bring that community feedback back to the board to meet the first week of July discuss that feedback it may take you to two meetings to discuss and review that feedback and identify a preferred option and it may be that you end up amending one of the options that you put out to the community based on that feedback then we would put that preferred option back out I posted on PBS's website and notice a public hearing on that option we're currently pegging July 21st as the held date for that public hearing and then the board would have an opportunity to hear that feedback on that preferred option direct staff to fine-tune it in any way so that the final referral paperwork can be prepared and voted on July 28th which would then allow that paperwork to be filed the first week of August that does give us about 11 days wiggle room should the board need a little bit more time around the preferred option or or after that hearing but that's the timeline we are trying to stick to right now with that hard deadline of August 14th next slide has a little bit more detail so here we are today June 2nd with the board identifying the options for engagement community feedback during that community engagement phase we will be posting a community survey we did this four years ago for the 2017 bond or three years ago for the 2017 bond a little 800 people responded to that survey to provide the board I think the question the way we framed it was what should the board be considering as they decide what to refer voters we are also planning to do a representative sample poll to gauge priorities for community members and voters and the board has has been engaged for a while now in reaching out to stakeholders within your own districts that you represents and across the broader community and that we hope will continue and all come together to inform that preferred option it's an early July the board will review all of that feedback the results of the survey the poll what you're hearing from members of the community and discuss that to identify the preferred option which we will then post again public hearing July 21st targeted referral vote on a final option July 28th so that we can file the notice of ballot title by August 3rd and the hard deadline for that noticeable a title is August 14th this is all towards the November 3rd election thank you very much is that are you at the end where we are and what's next and just to underscore the obvious and from the beginning of your presentation there is very little room for very little wiggle room on that schedule working from now to the referral date does anyone have any questions on those dates all right ms westling do you want to move us forward yeah next slide please Roseann so there are a couple of key questions that came up in the past few weeks and we wanted to address them head on and have deputy superintendent join us to kind of talk through some of the what we like to call this up like tiles you should have gotten that document in your packet it's the pretty one with lots of bars superintendent good evening Claire hurts and so to make this a real short presentation the answer is yes and yes however I'm sure you want just a little bit more detail than that so what we have in the presentation is of course the the lower amount we have two versions on slide nine and slide 21 and excuse me in those pages in the packet for the financial analysis you will find on page 9 584 million issued in November 20th of 20 and 1.3 billion in 22 or 23 and then on slide 21 we have a larger package of print 785 million in November 2020 and 1.3 million in 22 or 23 both of those scenarios are utilizing the same level levy rate our rate will remain the same however what it does the more you put upfront the less you have to go up to continue working in the future so we want to find the right balance and we can only complete so much work at at one time so we need to be you know thoughtful about scheduling all the
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work and keeping that level levy rate so we we will continue to more and continue to refine our financial package to support whatever plan the board brings forward so as I hear new ideas from this evening we will even do another analysis for you so that you have that additional insight as to what what that would mean so when you guys come down to more of a final scenario or what you kind of reached a consensus around we can run you another analysis and that way you can see how much capacity you're using for the short-term bond and then how much capacity for the longer next term bond and then even beyond that we can show you how it how it leaves Stairsteps capacity out into the future okay questions about that you will always hear me say we will keep the same rate we will make the plan around keeping the same rate does anyone have any questions about the the significantly more detailed material financial information that was included in this packet for this work session clear this is this is Andrew yeah just a quick question and thanks thanks for that overall summary is there is there a point the goal again is as I mentioned it you bet just to keep the rate in the same so I haven't really formulated this question exactly but is there a point where if we were to not go back out in 2020 to 2024 and at the rate would start to drop and we you know and I know you have a lot of flexibility to issue some of the boss earlier to do that do we know do we know where that line is so I'm gonna ask you to look at the it says page 9 in the PDF but when you have the PDF page 10 but when it's the hard coded it says page 9 where there's colorful bars I've got about 8 PDFs open so analysis PPS geo November 20 2005 28 20 it has analysis PPS geo November 2020 thank you I'm there sorry ID me an it myself so turn it's either gonna be page 9 or page 10 depending on which numbering system you're using and it has gray and black bars and then turquoise II and lavender purple alright so you on that page that's what you're looking for so let's talk through this you'll see from 2014 to 2020 it's all in a darker black color that's our history and we've been targeting that $2.50 per thousand of assessed value for our rate so that's the rate that we're wanting to keep overtime are you having trouble hearing me are you ok you're doing ok ok I saw someone cut their ear so it's just checking ok and then then you go into the next year and you can see the lighter gray that that is bonds that we have already issued so that's so we've created Stairsteps if you're looking just at the gray you can see from our 2017 in our 2012 bonds we have some to pay off over time so those have already been issued and they're purposely have been issued in increments to create those four year Stairsteps now we are now talking about if you look at the blue colors of issuing this is an example of 584 million so we go out for an election in 2020 and then we have we actually break that into two different sales right so that's where we get more flexibility about timing is when we we don't issue all the bonds at once because we can only spend so much at once and it doesn't make sense to necessarily pay interest on something there you're not using yet right you'd want to hold off until later so with that blue you'd see there a 300 million dollar issue that we would issue in 2020 right and then you can see how that continues to get stair-stepped we go for two years later then we do a
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four year and we do an eight year so these these options can all change right we can stair-step this whatever length we want so if we want to go two years and then eight years we could do that if you want to go four years and then eight years we could do that so in other words we have flexibility of doing whatever model you guys need for your vision for how we're going to improve our facilities throughout the district so thank you yeah and so I think my question specifically let's just assume a scenario of a four million dollar bond and you can show the issuances there and then I just want to make sure I understand if if a future board decided not to go out you know 2020 so that is the 2020 to go I've decided not to go out in 2024 or beyond you you could you could you could pay those can you pay those bonds off more quickly to sort of keep that tax rate at the same levy that's what I would do is that 284 million dollars I will pay it up pay it all quicker to fill in the stair step right if we work we're holding off then I'd pay it up quicker and not stair-step it out thank you yeah and if this is something that's come up in our committee meetings at our board meeting before us so just just to clarify there's quite a bit of flexibility in terms of how you manage now you have to know what our plan is and that's important right but to the extent we have a plan moving forward there's quite a bit of flexibility to sort of keep that tax rate steady which which again has been one of the sort of policy goals that so the other thing is our 2017 bond our most recent issue is so as as rates have dropped we also get the chance to reissue so our older bonds so there there is also restructuring your older bonds to get lower straights and savings and then you can restructure your stair steps that way as well so there's many different ways and I don't know I need to go into all a lot of detail this evening but there are many ways to to manage a bond program so Claire just again your radical if we did sell bonds earlier we'd have to use the money earlier potentially there might be capacity issues and us spending that money in terms of how much work we can manage so that's and is that an issue or not really because when you go before the boat voters you're going to say this is what we're asking for approval of it's just some amount of money to do these projects and we have flexibility based on cash flow and when we need the money on when we issue the next set of bond so we make that plan it more in the background so that we can manage that level levy rate and clear one more technical question but there are some restrictions um in terms of what when you have issued bonds there are some requirements in terms of how fast you spend that money once it's been issued again we have flexibility when we issued what what are those rules so if we want to make sure that we're spending I don't remember if it's 75 or 80 percent I'd have to look it up over the three-year period of the issuance date that's why you won't see me issue all of it at once I'll do it in chunks to ensure that we're spending it within three years the the bulk of the bond issue and it's not the election amount it's the amount that we've issued that we finance there has that time limitation I'm hearing 85% any further questions pretty superintendent hurts thank you much okay then we're gonna kick it off to to the esteemed Dan young to talk about the options thank you very much next slide please good evening as director Bailey noted you have a whole bunch of documents in front of you tonight one of those documents is is called a board reference documents document and what that is is it has a bunch of links to previous documents that have either been shared at a board work session or at one of the subcommittee meetings so hopefully that is a useful tool tonight I'll walk through these next few slides pretty
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quickly as the the data on them has been the same as what we've covered in the past so for our educational improvements our top priorities has been consistent of technology curriculum in our spend classrooms excuse me I reference you to the document and facilities improvement summary that was updated on May 19th and we reviewed two weeks ago at the meeting that has the options for the educational improvements and those remain the same and so the bond options that we'll look at tonight are consistent with the options that are in that document so next slide please similar comment here the health and safety improvements for our roof mechanical and our other improvements that improvements summary document outlines what the different options are for those and is consistent with what we looked at here back on May 19 and next slide please our modernization and rebuilds as we look at the different bond package options you'll note that all of them include funds to complete Benson and the multiple pathways to graduation with projects some of them will have varying amounts for planning and design the future high schools and also different amounts for capacity or other educational improvement projects next slide please yes section of idea worth noting for anybody who wants to do details cuz that was a I love little explanation of a whole lot of a comprehensive body of work that all those documents are a global correct on that yes net website under the meeting materials so if people wanted to click down and get more information on the loops or the seismic or the security or anything like that but all that information is posted so yes all the documents are on the website yeah yeah I just wanna make sure people know that like pretty quickly and we've seen there's a lot of times but if people want to dive into what that means you're talking lifting the back up that mean so yeah and on that reference document all those links actually go back to the board website so that specific board document on the date of that meeting okay moving in to the different options you'll see you have six options total all and A's and B's so three primary options with variations of both a and B option a here as noted all the options includes Benson and the multiple pathways to graduation project also aligns generally with the lower end of the options for the educational improvements and the facility improvement it is substantially similar to the option that were reviewed in detail two to go option 2a also includes Benson local pathways however it aligns with the higher end of the option ranges for the educational improvements and the health and safety improvements also includes some funds or additional educational improvements that would be TDD it would be projects that we identified during the course of the bond similarly some funds 10 million dollars for health and safety TBD projects and 10 million dollars for capacity or enrollment projects as we've talked in the past there is a likely need for capital improvements for capacity enrollment there just isn't any specific capital project identified as it next slide please 1b is substantially similar to 1a the only difference is there are 75 million dollars of funds for design and planning of Jefferson Cleveland and this option were to go forward planning and design efforts for those three schools would be included in that bond package similarly to be is the same as 2a it has those same funds so there would be fun set aside for planning and design of the three high schools next slide please and so option 3a and 3b is not the details down in your packet so we were presenting that year so this is an option that is actually substantially
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similar to option 1a but it includes the budget to complete and total Jefferson High School so that is one Lauren ization project that would be included and would be completed with this effort it also includes funds to do some planning of Cleveland and Wilson as well so those projects would begin with this bond effort but they would not have the funds to complete both Wilson and Jefferson but Jeffrey pair excuse me Wilson in Cleveland but Jefferson would be included in totality and 3b is very similar to 3a but includes the high end of the rage for the curriculum options where as 3a has just the lower end of the range for those so it's just a five million dollar difference between the educational Commons would actually take them you all design into construction documents not just an unspecified amount of pre-planning is that correct it is potential we need to put some more time into what those numbers are it certainly would be enough to start significant work and most likely would be enough to to bridge any efforts between now and a future bond assuming a future bond does not get delayed but we would need to look more specifically at exactly how far we think we could get into the design documents thank you Dan I have a question about the Jefferson High School number so I'm just curious is that the core for 1700 but not mean what what is this number based on because I know that only very high level in my plan had been done and it looks just high on a what I would expect from the script but interface and just as a very rough estimate or comparison to Benson which had a much bigger footprint equipment and everything else I'm just wondering how that can that is a great question and I will reference back to that reference document there document number three is high school master plan option summary so the the full master plans for all three schools are referenced in there but they're also there is a summary of the options for each one so Jefferson for example had three different options which two of the options were full 1700 student capacity and there is one option for a smaller 1,000 passing the three 320 million dollar option is option a which is the one of the full-size 1700 capacity project offhand who we have the our product manager on the line answer the question I can't remember the difference between option A and C one of them I has none I know has more new construction and one of them is more renovation work but that is the difference so this is a full 1700 student option at the 320 million dollars and it is higher budget than the other schools Wilson it is significantly larger the existing Jefferson high school building is a large building has a lot of square footage so it is a bigger project overall and and this that number is the preferred staff option that came out of the master planning process a can as I recall we talked about the options on committee meeting a couple months ago and the rebuilding on the current footprint option was about 50 million dollars more at a rebuild that didn't set set ringabel fellow committee members let me if I may I believe our senior project manager Steve F Revis is on the call and Steve if you're there if you could just quickly walk through the difference between the three options we know one of them is a smaller capacity option but if you could talk through the difference between the two 1,700 that's the options yes all right thank you Dan to everyone hear me yes it's okay great yes actually so the really part of it is
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auctions a and C do both maintain the 1909 historic North Bar as a classroom building and then everything else is rebuilt south of that as new construction the difference between a and C is really just kind of how how its laid out on the site unfortunately the two diagrams should actually be slightly different they're showing up as the same but they're just just variations that the conceptual master planning committee presented as you know you preferred options they're there and 'mentally pretty close in terms of area and you know program space the other thing I would add in terms of the size of the program is that the conceptual master planning committee would support from the steering committee which included leadership determined to actually enlarge in certain cases the ED spec for certain spaces so it enlarged from the typical 500 seat theater to a thousand seat theater because of the importance of the Jefferson dance program it included four large dance studios additional supports space for the Jefferson dance program and it has a pretty significant amount of space for partner programs including sei and Latino Network so that's some of the discrepancy I think are the difference between this high school from a conceptual master planning standpoint and the other two high schools Cleveland and Wilson and possibly also kind of talks to the difference between it and Benson in terms of or maybe it's it's sort of more in the size of that type of school Steve given what you just said does it have even assuming 1,700 students does it have more square feet or per student than our inspects call for and then what guided has guided our other high schools yes they just you know net or gross it would I would say you know it has it has the necessary or the same amount of classroom spaces it's just when you look at some of the shared assembly type spaces that's where you have a larger capacity and I think partly the the the program and you know with input from the principal as well and the community members the dance program is seen as not just a you know a school program but it is something that is kind of a community facility as well so I think that was sort of part of the justification for enlarging that that space beyond the heads back requirements i Jefferson and I didn't graduate from there but I attended part time and those studios were amazing at the time it was a long time ago and I think that we Jefferson also partnered with Portland Community College to to have dance companies that came in from New York that would live in Portland for three weeks and teach classes Monday through Thursday at Jefferson take a day off and come back on Saturday and do a community college class and so I love to hear that there's some like additional seating being being talked about because that's a wonderful community asset to have a theater that seats that many people have a question for Steve the ED spects we have a requirement for all our high schools for a health center and a teen parent center is that also included in the square footage yes has there been any evaluation of a modernization versus will rebuild in terms of any kind of cost difference there wasn't as part of this process so that not uncommon on our behalf but I you know it's I'm not sure if they in if this was run separately through our OB or if they looked at that at all we have not looked at that as an option the question programs from sometimes schools will have an option for new construction and sometimes they'll have just modernization options and and sometimes that is cost driven and other times that that is really more driven around what is the desire to school what's the desire the district was the desire of the community and I think for the Jefferson not speaking for Steve and
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others who attended all the meetings there's a very strong connection to the existing building there was a lot of support around maintaining the historic structure and and modernizing that similar to what we saw you guys seen at Benson's no more to what we've seen at Grant's motor school so now I want to come back to my original question and maybe I'll have to follow I'll put this offline but it seemed to me when we were talking about the footprint of Jefferson that and this wasn't the extra spaces for dance that was driving this but it was sticking to that historical footprint was going to raise the cost by that 50 million dollars off of some alternative and so I guess I'll follow up on that Scott I vaguely I remember something similar yeah it was a big Delta between the two but 50 million is a middle school so I just just want to throw that out there for consider eight as were thinking about how to go ahead with this I appreciate that and if there was a conversation that I am NOT recalling offhand I'm certainly happy to go back and look into that I will answer a little bit also with a little bit of process the intent of the conceptual master planning process that we went through was to get a general idea of the cost of modernizing or replacing these schools or the purpose of budgeting for a future bond if we proceed with a bond that has Jefferson High School the first step will be to actually complete the master the master plan will go to the board so with it there very possibly could be other options we're not saying that these are the only options these were the efforts that we went through to get an idea of a budget range so there is a desire to do something to look at a new construction option we certainly can't do that going forward dan can you talk a little bit this is Andrew a little bit about the timing on that and maybe relate it back to the high schools that are already under under construction sorry I turned off my kill over a second the high schools that are already under construction in terms of when those just generally get made because because again I heard you say there are some options of looking at other things but this is 320 million dollars is based on the work of the dag and sort of the staffer for option coming out so how does that how does that work going forward for for this high school and others you know we're talking now yeah we're looking at an option that includes the one high school a few months ago we were looking at options that include a three high schools in this option could include design for others as well so we need to ultimately decide on a sequencing of what those schools looks like so when do we start design window anticipate starting construction and completing those projects generally we have about a two-year design process so the sooner we can get InDesign we can start that effort of two years and then construction is two to three years depending on the size of the school depending on how complex it is depending if it's occupied and has to be phased and those sort of things so I think what you're alluding to is if we take more time planning before we come to agreement on a master plan then that will potentially push back when we can start design and when we can start construction I think is what you're what you're asking but we were generally garden-variety looking at two years of design and then two to three years of construction yeah and actually my question is a little more getting at what kind of flexibility we have and and you know I'll put it on the table one of my one of my concerns about before with Jefferson I mean the first question I think that that director berm Edwards asked you know in this conversation what is this 320 million dollars based right and and we've we've had some discussion about this but it's been pretty limited and so one of my questions moving forward is if there is if there support to move forward this is the 2020 bond and we include 320 million are we are we sort of I mean that it feels to me like that number becomes the number right and we have to sort of figure out how to live with your net
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number and we've seen some of the issues that come up from the 2017 bond around that but but does it are we limited in terms of what what we can do with that building are we essentially saying this this design advisory process that we've gone through is the direction we're going to go with Jefferson or is there flexibility over the next year or two to make changes to that good question I would say there is flexibility to make changes certainly we are not done with the master plan well we would anticipate on any of the projects with it there would be some level of change between the conceptual master plan in the actual master plan we wouldn't anticipate drastic changes if there is a desire to go forward with something such as a new construction and that's significantly cheaper than a modernization option that might be something worth exploring because of the financial component of it but outside that I wouldn't anticipate significant deviations between here and there one of my concerns is I think at this point Jefferson has Naaman very robust offering in some areas and it's very limited in offerings in other areas very very strong dance program but a relatively small music program for example and I guess my question is has the educational side of the house at this point in figuring out kind of what the future array of offerings might be at rebuilt Jefferson and if not how quickly can they be engaged because they say haven't been I might suggest that we would want to build in a pretty significant fudge factor that would allow us to to accommodate any increases in any any changes in the array of offerings without being behind the eight-ball so I just add to Rita's question when wouldn't would that be already included in the ED specs and is that was that the basis for the design groups to start with and then the arts was ended it's a good question I just I thought our theory was we use the ED specs as sort of base every High School has y&z yeah yeah great questions about stakeholder engagement and inspect so the aspects and our design guidelines are really our two fundamental guiding documents so when we start planning a project figuratively there are the two documents we take off the shelves and we hand to our design teams and say okay start here this is this is what our similar components that should be in all of our schools then that those components blend in with what the existing conditions are and what the programs are or are desired to be at the school so that's stakeholder feedback that we get from educators and we learn by going through the bag process and having these steering committees you know informs the design team about the uniqueness of these sites and what are important to be maintained that is ultimately all kinda fied with the master plan so the master plan of course goes to the board of the recommendation and then that's what codifies these changes so all of our high schools deviate from our aspects to some degree or another and in different areas due to programming or SCI constraints or whatever they are existing facilities buildings but the master plan approval is really what codifies yes these deviations are acceptable and are approved in as far as the stakeholder engagement with with the instruction side and with educators we go through a couple of different processes where we look to reach out directly to school level staff also you know instruction district level staff and in keep in with the design advisory group process and so we actually put together pretty robust engagement plans and how we do that but since we have Steve F Russ here I'll let him talk to
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you briefly about how we have engaged educators on the Jefferson project yes so you know it was it's definitely in the case of conceptual master planning it's obviously a compressed process compared to the full comprehensive but we engaged through the steering committee with all three high school teams including in this case with principal Calvert and her instructor and you know pretty much hue to what Dan described which as we started with the ed specs I think we've stayed pretty close I would have to go and look at percentage-wise how close we were to the ED specs overall but they were basically the foundation of what we developed and I think like someone was mentioning the the additional seating and dance rooms were above and beyond that but we're probably pretty close to the other two high schools the Cleveland and Wilson in terms of Ed spectral bridge dan can I ask who's like where we are in the master planning process and who's Ben Howard could do that that planning process and what their engagement has looked like beyond just the building staff or education staff good question we have we brought in an architect to manage the conceptual master planning process and they completed that scope of work I'm just wondering who it is is it bora-bora architects we had four three German high school Steve help you with thank you it was Borah yes Borah with 100 that's correct and where are they in their like in their development where are they in terms of their planning they what do they think might be a date they could present something so the the master planning the conceptual master plans have been completed and those were presented in January and finalized in January I believe it was so proceeding forward with Jefferson or or any of the schools we would then go through a process of bringing a design team on board to do the full design and take us through project completion okay I just also want to just put it out there they're in that kind of immediate area there's a lot of affordable housing being developed you probably know the residential infill project is going to allow greater density on Lots in that area there's an effort by city of Portland to do anti displacement work in north and northeast Portland and so while we might not see well we've got neighbors that aren't sending their kids to Jefferson now but I think that the density increases and zoning changes are going to impact the number of people that live in that area so just to put that on on the radar that that they're anticipating a quite a bit a greater population they're in and around the aqua green interstate area in between interstate and MLK and probably like Rosa Parks and Broadway thank you yeah we appreciate that and we also know that when we complete modernization that the attachment rate for those schools they go up significantly thank you I just wanted to share that I think director Scott and director de Paz we all had the opportunity to participate in that conceptual master plan for I know the three high schools I was on the Cleveland one and I know that we weren't always able to make those because at the times they were but at Cleveland the process was the community looked at things they valued in the building for things that were important we talked about the historic facade at Cleveland and then came up with a couple of variations based on the values of the people on the conceptual master plan you know do we have the counseling services near the front of the house or in the back of the house like what what fits for our community's needs and then one of the things that people got super weirdly passionate about was the address like they don't want to change the address of Cleveland like if we moved the entry to another side that that would mess that up but that was a community value and then out of the conceptual master plan there were three options my favorite had like a supercool sky bridge in it and those were prevented and kind of sort of cost estimates and then from there there would be more design and more engagement so that was kind of the process at Cleveland and I'm not I'm assuming that Jeff person we we got those kind of that in January right the sort of different variations that the
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Jefferson community had talked about which is what director Bailey was referring to when he talked about the 50 million dollar difference of being on the footprint or not um director deposit know if you were able to add 10 any of those conceptual master plan meetings but was did we ever talk about tub men at Jefferson and I know there's been conversations like I was on the Charter Committee with Carrie was about a Center for Excellence and were those included in the process made of the 320 yeah I haven't been very engaged admittedly in that process I did attend one meeting where bora architects was there kind of at the stage where they were presenting like bubbled ideas about the entire property and so we didn't get down to the level of you know we really want the address to stay the same for some people in the community it's x it is the little thing so yeah and i know like for me those meetings were already set when i got assigned to that team so it was really hard to make make some of those meetings and so i understand especially with you working full-time not being able to yeah i just wondered if you if you heard anything from the community at those that was like the address there's been some discussion not necessarily related to the bond or building or not rebuilding or not about changing the name or of Jefferson and there was a big community community process I think about a year ago or maybe a little longer about the name and what that represented and people were very passionate about keeping the name so one of the things just back back to Rita's question about the programming one thing that student there's been student interest and and need is a high tech music production program that also would complement the other arts program there and that's something that as they're looking at the design of the school that has been something of interest to students and staff so what one Michelle I'm glad you brought up enrollment issues because there's there's a pretty wide you know Jefferson right now is not a neighborhood school in the sense that the others are because it doesn't have its own unique catchment area it's got dual and wrong areas with three other high schools enrollment right now is in the six hundreds I believe and at least current projections show no change in high school enrollment over the next ten years for the district as a whole so I would ask staff what kind of as we look at how big to build Jefferson what kind of enrollment analysis was done and you know depending on what kind of housing goes and makes a difference in terms of how many you know children young youth or a unit kind of kind of thing in terms of apartments my sense is it will take a whole lot of housing to have you know to fill up a 1700 Jefferson giving the current conditions so I just want to ask what kind of enrollment analysis has been done as we move ahead and before we hear I actually don't know that that population projection is correct I actually don't believe it know based on what I I think I know about the projected population increase and the housing just for instance and off the top of my head there are 1,000 single-family sorry there are 1000 units being built that are affordable to people making about 70 percent of the median income in north and northeast area I don't know how many of those are exactly in the Jefferson Clinton area because there is known there is none those are standalone or townhome style homes there's a thousand of those projected the residential infill project has created zoning throughout the entire city of Portland that will allow everyone on a standard city lot but as we know it now a 50 by 100 lot to build an additional up to 800 square foot
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residential housing unit on their amendments and they're still like they're still land here and and so I that we have the Portland State Center for population I I don't think that that I don't think the population projection is accurate I'd like to see the data and I also just want to share what I'm hearing when I hear you talk about Jefferson that way and I am a little touchy about it even though I didn't graduate from there but I did attend there for two years and what I'm hearing is a resistance to envisioning and building and supporting and elevating a school that has great significance in the black community and you know you're you're entitled to share those your thoughts are valuable and and we need to especially this especially today like this week take in what we know what we've seen all Street in the last couple weeks and take that and learn from it and and and do this thing like we need to do it we've had just since I can recall mostly white boards making decisions about Jefferson High School and this is the time to do business not as usual to apply that racial equity lens we're all in together right everybody talks about equity let's actually demonstrate what that looks like I think that we don't know what it looks like but let's actually demonstrate that by supporting a full 1700 capacity gorgeous modernized historic building in North and Northeast Portland and expect excellence to come out of that building like let's do that why don't we do that director Bailey to answer maybe your you wanted to make pausing III expect excellence out of every one of our buildings and and have been working to support excellence and build excellence in all of our buildings so when I hear what you say so first let me take a step back it's are like a year appreciate what you say about Jefferson and about what that future can look like and challenging me to support that so I'll just I'll just stop there and listen to your words and take them into your sit with them yeah thank you for that thank you sir anything I can I want to make sure I caught all the nuance of that but I think it's like think positive think supportive thank you excellence envisioning a future thank you thank you thank you director Bailey yeah and and going beyond that it's like actually being intentional about elevating the experiences of people that are out marching in the street right now because of its generational trauma and and and when you're when you're on the bad side or the downside of not being given you know the tools and you know and and that the resources that everybody else gets you do feel you do feel beleaguered and so this is a defining moment for us as a district and actually you know there's a lot of bad stuff happening out in the world right now well I feel hopeful that this is such a great opportunity for us to say to lead and and we've done some great leading like the work share program I can name so many things that PBS is led on in the last six months and I've been involved I've been proud of and this is one of those moments where we can say we're actually gonna like help black kids we're gonna expect high things from black kids so it's yes it is like thinking positively but it's also putting our collective effort towards making this towards envision this and addressing all of the concerns about you know we're not going to have it enough again engagement time and you know are we building for 1700 and are LED specs being made but rather what are we doing for the black community that we've never done before that we have an opportunity to lead on that we have an opportunity to like say Danny Ledesma is like leading on this and pushing this and it
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requires her work and all our work to get this done so I was just sharing with you what I heard I wasn't trying to be critical of you as a person I was sharing that I heard existence to to developing the full amazing scope of work that could happen at Jefferson do these like little you know questions and concerns about population density or community engagement or maybe there's like a classroom bigger than the one at Lincoln or whatever it is and that we have an opportunity now as a as a group as everyone on this call to work towards getting that getting that on the ground getting a shovel in the ground and and recognizing that vision and this community has had for like 50 years literally we've envisioned it it's just one of the I know I went on and on and on but yeah very passionate about it and you've talked to some community leaders in the last few days that have this same passion and are waiting for us to do better so my student is about like as that neighborhood changes and infill comes have the conversations about gentrification I mean if it goes to a 1,700 comprehensive high school will the kids that we want to serve the black students especially will they be pushed out of that neighborhood what's your sense of that so the city of Portland has a thing called the preference policy and that is came out of the Portland housing Bureau in 2016 it was a legally challenged it's a thing it's a preference policy that anything any City investment that happens within a certain boundary gives preferences to those who currently live in the boundary have lived or grandparents or guardians have lived in so this goes back affects people going back it would be like my grandparents generation if you had an address in this neighborhood in 1947 you are entitled to preference you get preference over someone that doesn't have that historic history healer in in housing and that's middle income middle wage housing that's housing for people that make 80 percent of the median income or approximately I think for one person it's about maybe thirty-eight thousand for a family of four it's about forty four thousand dollars in Portland in this year and so the preference policy is helping to stabilize black families in North Dakota Portland the gentrification has definitely happened and it's still happening but with the combination of these zoning changes and the preference policy working in concert together and anti displacement policy that's being worked on currently there is recognition that black people have not been able to own land and and have not been able to become homeowners and we're trying to change that like as a as a city community where we are working to address what we see happening on the ground and that will make an impact on who we see living in these neighborhoods so I wanted to save one topic about also about the enrollment is I think it would be useful at a future date for the board to get a presentation it's one that had a chance to see that principal Calvert shared with the other high school principals regarding the enrollment areas because Jefferson is the only high school so Benson is it's a citywide focus program but Jefferson is the only traditional neighborhood High School and wish the school district the board and staff leadership have given people an option an opportunity to go somewhere else so they have a sort of two choices and again Jefferson is the only neighborhood high school that has that and if you actually gave Jefferson a boundary and a high school that parents would want to send their kids to because of the condition of the building and that had a modern facility I think we'd see a very different a very different student population there but right now through district policies that really came about in the late 2009's and they were an aftermath of No Child Left Behind and some of the federal policies that really had huge impacts on Marshall Roosevelt and Jefferson and we still have a lasting vestige of the No Child Left Behind that only pertains to the Jefferson community there's no other high school which we say by the way you live in the Jeffers you live in this heist neighborhood to high school boundary but you can go to another another high school and I think it would
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be a great topic and director Bailey you have been sort of a champion and one of the board is experts on enrollment and enrollment balancing issues and equity related to the enrollment I think would be a great topic for the board to look at because when people when people point to Jefferson's low enrollment it's it's a low enrollment because just just like how Benson at one point had been capped is actions by the district not necessarily by the by the community so I think it would be a great topic to dive into and I'd love to hear your take on the numbers based on that yeah yeah thanks I think you know we the the district started the middle college program as basically an experiment with again unique the dual enrollment areas were unique to Jefferson and and I'm trying to remember the first year of that program I'm thinking eight years ago seven or eight years ago somewhere in there and we we've never certainly we can see Wow graduation rates have gone up and it's the only program with only high school in this city where with such a tight relationship where students can get all the way up to an associate's degree through PCC so it's not your average neighbor at the high school it's it's different in a number of ways the program is unique in a number of ways and it's um as far as I can figure out some really good ways we've never done an evaluation of that what have we learned from that what's what's working what if any alterations do we need to make to make it even better but it's certainly some really positive things have happened there it would be nice to have an objective look at that and you know we're supposed to be a learning organization so you know plan do evaluate let's let's do some evaluation so we can fine-tune what we have to make it even better and what are the takeaways from that so this is a relatively simple question I think but maybe back to church but maybe this to the entire board if we if we move forward with Jefferson it sounds to me like we are also simultaneously making a policy decision to redraw the boundaries to make it a neighborhood school and we draw the boundaries of the other three high schools that that currently overlap one I guess is that an accurate depiction and then I guess the second question I have is we know that that's what the community wants and again I'm a relatively new board member so I'm coming in with this you know sort of trying to understand here and if the answer to that is yes we over the years know that is exactly what that will make me much more comfortable I am a little concerned that I have not been involved in that engagement process and I'm not sure not sure how involved that you know we have been in that so I guess it's sort of an open question for me what what does the community want for this high school because I want to I want to get behind actually I want a March arm in arm with directive pass that if this is the vision for the community I want to be there leading on pushing this forward but I also want to make sure that we don't make some of the same mistakes of a majority white board not all wait any longer but a majority white sitting here making decisions about what Jefferson's going to look like I want to make sure we've engaged the community effectively as we do that yeah so what I've heard from leaders that have the wherewithal to speak for other black leaders is unequivocally time to support Jefferson in this way unequivocally the time to make those investments in that part of town and and they want to stand by us and help get that work done they're not there people are ready for this project and I know you have some concerns about you know full engagement but we have a network like there's a network here we have a bat-signal we can put out and people are interested and they are watching and they're watching tonight and and so you know we still even with me I mean we're even with me on the board we're still mostly white like I just I was supposed to be returning from Scotland tonight on a drienne a trip so I I I know unequivocally the community in and around north of Northeast Portland wants to see this happen um there's a hundred percent support for it I haven't
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heard otherwise from anybody that doesn't want to and anything that you have any concerns that you have confident could be dressed people we we know how to address these things right and I think that the thing is to do is to think about like moving for me not putting up any roadblocks to the project I guess yeah so I I don't know I want attention on that Laurens in here because I agree and I want to move forward and you know I absolutely want to do that I think the trade-off is not before not been forward the train is moving it forward engagement about what it's going to look like and here's here's my concern to be really direct about it we include 320 million dollars in this bond we are deciding it sounds like what the school's gonna look like in the future and we're deciding to move forward with advisory group process that's that's happened to date and we're limiting some of the flexibility effort really interesting ideas about maybe you want to move to maybe as part of this issue with i-5 and maybe we the state image that maybe you want to move Tubman to this campus maybe we want to look at Kairos as dr. Lowery he said earlier those options are not included what we're talking about I am actually worried that moving forward quickly will show support but then we will also start hearing from the community about other options there ideas that maybe haven't been fully vetted that we will not have funding for because we wouldn't do that process so I guess my question and I'm three weeks down engage which is not a very long time but I'm I'm totally in favor of engaging around I want to make sure we're engaging around because it's not a question of moving forward or not there's seven members of this board that want to see Jefferson built and we want to see Jefferson built as quickly as we can to me it's the question of what does it look like once it's built and and if you know Michelle if if I if I hear from the community there's Union it'd be or at least a broad consensus like ice I'm on there I just I need I need to make sure that that exists dresses a Scot at SCO TT yeah I appreciate you saying that and concern so the black community has never in development processes as you know for the last like in my memory never been consulted so this is probably a good time to start there's a lot of with a develop I mean there's a lot of moving parts right there's the highway project you know there's although in a vision there's the north-northeast there's a project happening on the corner of Vancouver and Russell that's been an empty plot of land at the I think south end of the Emmanuel campus and so these things happen they're all happening and I it sounds like you want to put a placeholder so we make sure we get the most the best thing happening at the time and we also we some of these processes can happen concurrently I believe what if you look at development Gantt chart and like the one that we looked at earlier about the bond timeline we can overlap some of the processes that you're talking about in terms of engagement and like and I asked earlier today we're where we were in the master planning cycle because a master planning cycle could do what they call bubbling and they can bubble future plans or something and so so there's a space available for any future additions to a campus typesetting yes but I wanted to clear blue 320 million is after after going through that so over the next six to twelve months that really what we need is a 50 million dollar project we won't have to do it and that's the risk that I want to make sure that we're addressing in this process so I think there's very little risk if we build Jefferson the Jefferson High School community is going to say that's not the high school they wanted so in 2011 they were on the bond and then when that bond lost by 900 votes for reasons other than Jefferson they were then then they didn't go on the 2012 bond then they didn't go in the 2017 bond and I know during this meeting we all got a copy of the letter from principal Calvert that was the explanation to the community of why they didn't go in 2017 and you know we can we can perfect you're never going to get unanimity you won't have that for any high school there are different opinions on Grant at Franklin I know there's still people talking about Franklin in the community about like well they would have liked Franklin to be a little bit different or why didn't we you know make this one change you know to this building that we were attached to so I
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don't think you're ever going to get unanimity but I I have heard very clearly for the last two bonds from the Jefferson community about the high school so there's never an end to other things that could be added but I think there's a certain point in time where you put a stake in the ground and I don't think I I'm just gonna have them to guess based on conversations I've had over the last six months that if you ask people should we go ahead with Jefferson or should we wait and have a much longer planning process and wait for the next bond that you will get pretty close to even a minute maybe we should go nap we should go now with the high school and the other pieces like the albino vision is a as rakaia adam says a multi-decade vision and it's not all going to happen in the next five years but it's gonna blow out over several decades yeah Julian I don't think I want to be clear though the alternative here doesn't actually delay Jefferson bill at all it does put it on a future bond which increases the risk and I'll acknowledge that but but you just said it would extend the planning process and let the construction and actually what you would not so so again the options that I want to make sure we're going to the community really transparently about our that we can include funding now and if we include funding now it will and it passes right then it will be certain that the funding will be there it will also limit the options for that campus and for that site or we can include funding and significant funding 2530 million dollars for planning construction design engagement community etc and and and end up at the end of that process the end of that two-year process was they really defined this is exactly what the community wants and then we go back out in 2022 with a plan to do that so I acknowledge there's risk in that latter approach and I can be convinced to do this former approach but I don't I want to be really transparent with the community the approach of including funding now limits and narrows our options for what Jefferson's going to look like they need to understand that trade-off when we engage them on this process I think that's a great way it's a good segue back to just our decision making process that's in front of us and I'm glad that we're having this robust conversation about Jefferson because we do have the options on the table that include doing the design documents for Jefferson and for the other two high schools would keep the same construction as the same timeline getting those done if we went back to the voters in two years and so what we really and I agree with you that I actually agree with both of you which is that there is great enthusiasm in the community for not deferring this decision anymore because the Jefferson community does feel that they've been deferred with the last two bonds and if we were to not go forward with all of our high school modernisations on this bond which is the expectation of that community that 2020 was finally there time there would be a lot of disappointment and a lot of just triggering of decades of broken promises but but the question before us now is really back to the big picture of how big a bond are we willing to go out with how comfortable are we with the conceptual master plan notions of Jefferson as opposed to further specificity on budget and design I think that this is where we really haven't had much conversation since our conversations and our last few meetings have been winnowing down to a smaller bond so I think it would be good to hear people's thoughts generally about okay if we want to if we want to include you know Jefferson has an option for full construction that puts us at close to a billion dollars which is not something that we've been talking about in the last few times we've gotten together so I think it's worth you people's perspectives there yeah so can I just say I think we have three great options in front of us and I feel comfortable going out to the community with those options I think we've talked about some of the issues involved in sort of pros and cons for those options I think this this has been a great discussion you know bringing those out and more more food for that or us in the community going forward so I think we could have some really spirited and good good spirited community discussions and get
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some good input on each of those options going forward and I think that's a great segue of what you just said let's talk about though and it's not even though let's talk about the ramifications of a billion dollar bond in a two-year billion dollars in two year when the last bond we had was a four-year with 700 million and how that works out I mean do we want to make that 2-year did we want to make that four-year instead how does that affect future financing those kind of questions I think are important too I think is where you were trying to focus this for the next can't dispense sorry this is reader I think before we move on to that we actually had six option on the table and I think six is way too many so I think we should at least I mean three I do three is doable to get some feedback but we got low end and high ends on three concepts and I think I think we need to make a decision about what of those six options you really want to put before their community and if I could just step in for a second on a process issue so we are we are in a work session and so actually we won't be making a decision but what we are doing is giving some guidance to staff so that they can come back with these options and so just like just like chair constan just asked for sort of feedback we're gonna be repeatedly now for the rest of the meeting sort of sort of going around round-robin and hearing from board members staff are going to take that and superintendents gonna take that and then and then hopefully that's enough to sort of narrow down so I just I just want to be really clear we're not we're not we are not as a board sort of deciding which options tonight we're expressing our views they'll then take that and make some decisions thanks for that clarification know I used to work as an interior designer and I noticed when you get more than three options for somebody you know you're doing like three different renderings and three different cost packages it doesn't work out really well to have more than three is all I'm saying so I'm hoping that we can narrow down tonight - what does anybody know what my deal number is to bring it out to the community is it like scenario a or B well I'd be interested in hearing people's ideas on the areas we have had more conversation in last few meetings around the proposals from the superintendent staff on technology and on curriculum and also see if there are any remaining questions we do have a fair bit of detail and all of our materials to about what the what numbers made up those numbers technology you know so I have a slightly different question but on the same memory yet it's not the specifics of those ranges so I think I have a good idea those it's and pick which either group 1b or to be are the sort of high-end options I think we referred to them what what are the ramifications so I'm going to ask an impossible question of staff and I think it's pretty impossible if we were looking at a 40 year time span so right right there stop laughing and and we were doing back-of-the-envelope at what date could we see all of the schools in PPS modernized either you know torn down or rebuilt depending on the building or gutted and rebuilt so that they're safe they're accessible modern learning spaces they're energy efficient you know all those qualities that we want in our schools what's what's the rough timeline on that and there's trade-offs going forward in terms of how much we put into non modernization versus modernization and there's there's again good reasons for doing non modernization things we started at this bump over in a 2012 trying to minimize the non modernization maximize the modernization because that seems to be the most cost efficient
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going forward of getting as many of our students as quickly as possible into safe accessible modern learning spaces so if we went with one of those bees instead of an a how you know there there's a risk in going with a because we might have some systems fail that we didn't get around to fixing and there's a risk in a because if the more we put into the current the farther out that modernization that he goes 30 years does it become 40 years so I'm thinking along those lines I don't know if that was very coherent but I be interested in a staff response on that just generically on that issue was that clear it um director Bailey I believe what you're asking for is a long range facilities plan and luckily our staff is starting that process as the district does a long-range facility plan every 10 years and we're do and so while I don't believe tonight we can answer your question I do believe that we that long-range planning so that we can really get if we are go out 40 year and we know the conditions of our current buildings and what we want what we need to continue to do and how long that's what that long-range facility plan is for and it can help us with also creating the stair steps I don't think it needs to you know we don't need to look for it we should go forward as we're going now but we have lots of room for planning in that long-term range that long-range thinking as we continue to evolve we know that it will be decades for us to get get to where all of our buildings are modernized so we are committed to bringing that work back to community and the board in a process that that would be awesome and I know statutorily were due for 2022 I think it's every 10 years we are required by the state to prepare that plan so I appreciate that work has darken on that the lengths when we did was a great values document but not a plan and that's part of why we're struggling somewhat right now and it's a good struggle but with that a better framework and even though I and I appreciate what you said Andrew at that Wow we're ahead of other local governments because we we have a plan Anna and a funding mechanism that's true to a certain extent I would like to be more true in terms of having a more defined plan going forward but so I think that's a long way of saying as we look at the difference between an A option and a B option those are the trade-offs that we should be very clear on there they're both attractive depending on your your point of view in terms of let's put more money into modernization that's that's really important versus oh my gosh we want a safeguard against an HVAC system a heating system going out in the middle of winter in one of our schools that kind of catastrophic failure so I wonder I'll just throw that out as an idea maybe if we want to be all through it as as as off the top thinking right now doing maybe a 1a a to B and a 3b where either 1 or 2 is a lower dollar amount and one of them is a higher dollar amount for those non modernization pieces and 3 is sort of a full meal deal that would include that extra curriculum money just that's top of head thinking or food for thought for others so one thing I would be if I were looking at sort of that the urgent needs versus some of the longer-term modernization I would be supportive of lowering the amount of dollars for curriculum that's in there in this in any of the options it's not
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something that we've ever used the bond to pay for and I know I know we can but I think if I were looking at you know what are the most urgent things I think the technology we've got plenty of recent examples of why we need this infrastructure in place for our students whether or not they're distance learning or in the classroom but just really need to be ready for the 21st century I think the health and safety pieces have been well documented I just if I were to look at where what are what are things that could be played or with other reminisce curriculum to me belongs in the operating bucket versus the capital bucket Julia can I just ask on that I mean everything we have on the table here can be paid for out of other of other funds but I guess are we are you are you suggesting maybe as part of our budget process we look for cuts in the district to pay for curriculum in the operating center I'm suggesting that we pay for it the way that we traditionally have paid for it which is out of our operating operating dollars so generally most of these other items almost all these other items we have paid for using you know count the capital program or bonds and so curriculum is when I look at this list one of the things that we traditionally have paid for out of our operating dollars or our general fund yeah I just say that I think we haven't sorry I just just we haven't paid for it which is why we have a curriculum that's 20 or 30 years old so I think that that it's the issue and I guess I I also hear what the superintendent of staff have said about how important that is to the actual achievement of kids in our district so that it to me I feels to me like we have to be updating the curriculum I don't disagree there are other ways we can do it but but I worry the operating side those those cuts would also have an impact on learning whether it's cutting teachers or programs in order to pay for curriculum so I'm in favor of QC I'm sorry go ahead may I ask a question for clarification and actually because we when someone stops talking we actually all pile in I wonder if there's a way in this program to raise your hand just throwing that out there I know I interrupt a lot because I'm from a big family but I wouldn't mind raising my hand I agree on larger calls that would be helpful I seen that feature on WebEx that we can do there we maybe would do hand signals or something it would so my mom's a you know my parents are both retired educators my dad's an economics professor my mother was you know taught it at King Elementary and I still don't understand I know what curriculum is but I'm wondering like what is it entail what is it what is twenty four point nine million dollars get us that we don't have today and I'm not asking that to be snarky I really am interested in hearing like is that is that like totally appropriate materials is that updated textbooks is that looking at learning outcomes considering what we know now and we didn't know 30 years ago and I'm just I'm just curious I just I literally don't know so Roseanne are you able to link to some of the materials from our packet that go into detail about the the curriculum that dr. Valentino has has put forward to us a couple of times and I just wanted to make a comment about curriculum that I I agree that in a high-functioning school district we should be able to accommodate curriculum and refresh creek you and keep you know culturally relevant relevant in topical curriculum available on an ongoing basis out of the general fund however I think the reason that we do have this proposal before us from the superintendent for this capital asked is because we have such a serious deficit and if we're if we're committed to really addressing our disparities and achievement and in raising student achievement generally we've got to be able to address some of these these core issues because I don't I don't see the ability to do that with our general fund certainly in this budget cycle but Julie I don't disagree with you I would I would I support including curriculum in this capital asked here and then I support having a responsible plan for refreshing and updating and maintaining out of our general fund on a regular basis but this school boards before has us did not do that or we're not able to do that and that's why we're in the hole we're in now can I weigh in on that too this is Rita um yeah I agree the way CPS
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has done had funded curriculum in the past is that it happens and he never had a an annual budget line for curriculum that was just that every year you would invest with whether I presume normal districts do so I I feel pretty strongly that we have an opportunity here to jumpstart that curriculum work that I think in 20 years behind the times and I can't imagine us being able to make up the deficit in existing curriculum any other way the other argument I would make is one of the perpetual complaints from families about the bond program is that every bond picks out you know a relatively few schools that see enormous benefits and then other schools maybe if they're lucky get some benefits in you know affirmative furnace maybe or some other terribly unsexy improvement that not nothing but if we invest in curriculum it means that every student in every school is going to see some benefit from this bond and I think that could be significant and while I've got the floor I'll just say I'm not afraid of going to the B word um I think a billion dollars over four years okay I appreciate your comments director more but I I think mechanical systems that work are pretty sexy I would say also it's just worth noting that the technology upgrades and the devices that every student would have I think is also pretty compelling just in terms of what what we now know are that have been the spotlights been put on the deficiencies that we have in our district so I do think there's a lot of things we can talk about and I guess just back to the curriculum you know I think we haven't there's an opportunity every year for choices to be made and they haven't been made the past but it's not that it's not that it's not an option so if I just my own preference I would reduce the curriculum number somewhat not to that full level and you know I look at the other projects and almost all of them are going to be the great thing is going to be that they are going to actually support jobs and employment and create better and improved buildings and modernized buildings in our community and the curriculum unless we're buying it locally is going to be go out of the money is going out of state okay I I just want to add I think I happen to know that the superintendent got an earful from a sophomore that I know just yesterday about part of the reason that we have such persistent inequities and deep systemic racism in this country is because kids don't have enough opportunity to learn about our racial history and that we have you know ethnic studies we're just beginning to implement our ethnic studies curriculum but it's it's nowhere near the 21st century education that it then it should be embedded and integrated across all content areas across all grade levels and this is coming from a kid who was recognizing that and if we're gonna be serious about addressing these issues we need to start with education about our past and we know we have what our kids are using social studies texts that are outdated
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and from putting forth a lot of a lot of implicit or explicit bias so I was I was trying the hand raising thing it didn't work but that's okay and this is under you know consist consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds or something like that I in previous meetings argued early passionately for an 8-year bond with no curriculum and I have swung back around to a 2-year bond with curriculum yeah I thought you'd appreciate that and and here's why part of it is the planning issue I think andrew has raised some of those issues which would not affect the actual timing of the start of construction or for Jefferson where we should go down that route and a second piece is is equity we did have we hadn't do we know curriculum Department back in the late 90s and through about 2004 I think when it got reestablished and then we started doing curriculum updates in a regular basis and then in that 2008-2009 recession that got suspended and basically not much so there's some language arts not much has happened since then until the last couple of years so we are behind this is a huge actually to chew if we're hit our our goals for increasing student performance I think we need that curriculum now and I think what Amy just referred to in terms of integrating ethnic studies into our social studies curriculum you know from from k12 is a big part of that so I'm I'm I could support a I'll call it a one time to be a long time major support of curriculum I out of the bond and in looking at then getting on more hopefully a more sustainable model through operating expenses rather than turn Lowrey I have a question and I just wanted to let people know because I just discovered it myself there is a way to raise your hand but we would want to be in charge of monitoring who has their hands up and that's a job for somebody I'm just saying like there's a way if you go into the participants there's a little person like a head with a body and then if you go into the list of participants there's you can where you can mute your microphone your video and you can raise your hand but that would require a moderator someone to volunteer for that I still haven't really heard enough about the curriculum but there's so much content online and and and so I'm just like I'm one I'm trying to imagine like 29 million and I appreciate the effort to talk about equity we can do as much as we can in the schools around social studies and teaching racial equity but a lot of that you know racism actually has learned at home I'm not sure I don't know and and my other concern is we're purchasing curriculum from whom and are those is that $29 29 point four million dollars being spent outside of our local area is that leaving the economy other vendors that aren't that don't have to live with us like don't have to be our neighbors or is there a way to invest that those dollars luckily knowing the impact every single dollar we spend in our own community their understanding the ripple effect in that community and is there a way to source curriculum from the communities that we already have here and the vendors that we already have here to benefit our economy at the same time as helping our students which is our ultimate goal I wonder if you might just briefly weigh in here you've talked a little bit before it's been it's been a while when you initially framed this asked on curriculum you talked a little
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bit before about what that adoption and refresh cycle is for high-functioning school districts and what you found when you write here and and just generally what the impetus was for this is a capital investment you want to revisit that conversation briefly I'm sure chair constan and staff and I have been listening very attentively taking notes tracking the the ongoing evolving conversation and they think chair constant you and others you know have described the severe curriculum debt that exists in the district maybe if their students had access to more accurate and current culturally responsive service cool racial history materials it would help us make sure we have our graduating students with you know those couple of critical understandings and I agree if that was a degree of consistent investment over time year after year on a cycle across content areas we wouldn't be in this predicament and so this represents an opportunity to try to get caught up and then get back on the cycle I think when you look at the listing of proposed investments you'll see they're actually three modest amounts to be spent across a dozen plus content areas whether it's math social studies health PE arts language arts some of them are division 22 requirements I'll remind the board that we haven't been in compliance with admission to state requirements precisely because our curriculum is not up to date and so I don't know how we get there or high but I understood our one of our key missions is student achievement and in order to be able to do that that requires high quality materials so I can't I can't emphasize enough it would be alarming to not make investments there and I would propose other trade offs or certainly we can not put the little spawn but then that would require other hard decisions and we're already facing you know not an optimal economic environment as it is where we're already making those choices what I've heard tonight a little differently and I think I started the meeting off by affirming and I think last Tuesday night's sharing of our strategic plan priorities I applaud any time that we can steer the conversation through a racial equity lens applied an emphasis in this case in Portland's historically predominantly black high school great but I also don't the racial equity lens demands that we sort of be dialogue with those that decisions like this would impact the most and I know that on some level they've been involved that I heard clearly that the board would there which welcomed a deeper conversation with stakeholders because if we're going to build a fabulous facility that can host a lot of exciting programming I want us to need all those desires that the community may have and so I would want us to make sure we do some meaningful engagement because that helps all of us have a fuller understanding of what the goals there are so I I believe safe modern warm dry buildings should be a guarantee to any one of our students no matter what campus they step foot on but if you have a modern building in 30 year old textbooks there's a little bit of a pendulum or balance it's missing there so I would hope that we maintain some degree of investments in curriculum or think about how you sequence the technology work which is also you know subject to failures that would not be good for our school district in the same way that I've heard board members talk about the need their size and again roofs I think we would all agree there lots of areas that were deficient and we have an opportunity to try to present a compelling package that
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the broader community could be supportive of and I think we can get there I just tonight's conversation was to help us think about how we get to the public engagement and I'm hearing that certainly the Jefferson thing is is one that we need to engage more deeply and that I do think it's important to just be with community stakeholders about the other areas too so we have a little bit better sense of what are our primary stakeholders which would be supportive all so it's been a informative conversation to be instant to today ask the superintendent to elaborate just a little bit on the curriculum question so I I am in received from a number of people of questions why we would need to have that level of investment in curriculum when there's so much online that is available for free where teachers develop their own curriculum again you know using primarily free resources so what is it that is twenty nine million dollars you'll be bent on sure I won't ask our CEO to give this seminar on the spot tonight about it but when you see house and a level of investment that it's important that we provide our health educators and students with an ability to teach to those revised standards we have a million dollars proposing to spend in sixth through twelfth grade languages materials Portland offers a very attractive array of language and world language program options we want to make sure we have the materials you know in those languages those native languages available students and then there's some areas in here that are directly related to some of the opportunity gaps we have so when you see a modest investment of 2.5 million across a 212 in English and second language materials well you know could it be that part of the gap that were observing from about student group is due to the fact that they haven't had integrated and designated core curriculum in English as a second language I'm guessing that might be the case for some of our core content curriculum textbooks they they're out of print and were published before even a lot of learning standards so yes I agree teachers have had to get very creative things from other resources we count on their professional judgment and I'm not talking about you know pallets of textbooks showing up showing the ethical front doors of campuses these investments would represent digital content resources as well and loading up a learning platform that our students could access our teachers the cool lessons and resources from so yes there's a lot of rich material a lot of it's available online but you still need a ability to organize and invest in those materials we've seen those inequities across our schools you have some schools buying software licenses for a limited number of students the school down the street doesn't have access to resources so you really do have to have a systems approach to make sure a new student has access to rich content and then I think as we make these initial investments and looking at oregon state of Oregon's revised ritalin cycle now we can get back on track with each year making that sequenced investment in updating or replenishing in some cases science materials or the work that needs to happen in our lives and in our classrooms so that's what that represents we've spoken about our master arts education plan and the need to fill in Visual and Performing Arts pathway gaps materials musical instruments and visual art supplies that's part of that ongoing investment there so that's my quick attempt at providing a synopsis and we now it seems a little silly have to answer the question but it's a good question why does curriculum matter in schools different am I on the ground anecdote to
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that is when the PD mandate and the new health stuff was rolled out and the way the schedule was that cell would for a hot minute art teachers we're gonna have to teach sixth seventh and eighth grade kid in a mixed class sex ed and the curriculum wasn't finished yet and so if you want to see teachers panic just to remember back to middle school and if you would like sixth graders and eighth graders in the same room while you're discussing you know their changing bodies with no curriculum of course the district got it all worked out eventually but there was you know a lot of teachers questioning their life choices in that moment I've been in that situation and their force the argument for making sure that as a school system we have an organized smoking sequence where every one of our content variants that's the least we could do to ensure equity and access functional program so I want to kind of come back to what's the director more posed and and other people I think are posting as well just if you could clarify okay six million bucks more math and the Connection we hear sometimes or we have sometimes ourselves is well why don't you just go on on the web grab a bunch of free stuff granted you have to pay for staff to do that and and to organize that what are we why is there a need to I stuff if it's my materials or lesson plans or if if it's out there free I mean that that's kind of a question that that bubbles up what could you can you give a little more detail on how that works in in reality sure and I think I'll invite our chief academic officer if you could succinctly try to express why what that investment represents and how it might be a balance of sources for the teaching tools dr. Valentino hey do you mean the board members or internet so these are incredibly good questions and some that sometimes we take for granted because we're in this 24/7 the the primary purpose for having a curriculum that is centralized that is consistent with best practices and research on the teaching of math is that it brings coherence and alignment across the system when the goals that you articulated in math for example is that we follow sequence from first grade third grade fifth grade eighth grade and into high school that requires that we are consistent in how those the scope and sequence of those standards are being taught and that the curriculum is rigorous enough to support the students being able to achieve those standards as they go through through the system so that we actually meet the goals that have been identified at each particular grade level when we are when we purchase randomly or when we go online and we download we do have numerous documents that can actually work together they have not been vetted for the level of rigor that would suggest that at every school they would be implemented consistently and so one of the things that we that we've learned through the pandemic and the closure of schools is how important a curriculum that it is actually aligned across the system will help to address the gap that has that will ink will have increased because of the closure and so the more consistency we can provide across all disciplines teachers can focus on the planning and instruction and not in developing of the curriculum because if we compile our own curriculum then it will be it will become the responsibility of others as well to develop and align the curriculum so that it actually is standardized across the standards that we have set as a school district and as a state by purchasing a program that is now that would that if you took looking at math at bridges which is not 22 to 25 years old which is prior to the standards we would be purchasing something that is standards aligned and then the professional development would focus on how to use this program to teach the various student populations you have the with the cultural sensitivity with the emotional sensitivity that is required right the elements be but if we don't then we're now asking teachers to also become curriculum developers because each school will then choose which
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sources they they they use how they come together to plan and in some cases would be by grade level in some cases would be teacher by teacher what we're trying to do through the adoption is one to build in the internal coherence to teaching and learning that has not existed in the system for a long time number two to put us back on the cycle that in the long term will be less expensive to do to be on the Oregon curriculum adoption cycle alright and number three it gives us the opportunity to now begin to balance between the analog materials paper with the digital materials and so one of the things that we're doing with the publishers is talking about how in this new environment that we're all moving into those resources will support their learning both in the classroom but also in the home so we're trying to couple that experience for the teacher and the student and understand the return this year is going to be an incredible lift for teachers incredible and the more that we can provide for them that they don't have to worry about the better off the students will be the better off the teacher will be and the the odds are greater that we will meet the expectations that we have set for ourselves as a school district thank you thank you dr. Valentino director Scott I wondered if I might be able to pass it back to you since you've sort of Abele managed this process starting through this school improvement bond committee and winnowing our options looking at what we will be imminently taking out to the community do you want to try to see how we can gage individual directors yeah seer great yeah no thank you and this is actually you you you would started this a little while ago and I think we got an answer from director Bailey but we could also go back to them again so just to remind everyone that the goal of tonight's work session is to hear from everybody which we've been doing which is fantastic about what the options are that we want to share out to the community for feedback and so the superintendent can get a sense from the conversation about what what what to put in that process and we just heard from him you know in terms of all the things he's been hearing given the time it's 8:30 I figured let's let's do another quick round and actually not everybody got in the first round so let's do a quick round through all the board members and I think that the key questions we're looking for are of the options of the six how would you narrow that down and then are there additional questions that you still have that either we can get an answer tonight or maybe we can also follow up with you would be interested in hearing more about and maybe we will just start in a round-robin style and I will call on director Lee more okay well I think I already said it I think my preference is B and because I want it all and and I think if we're going to go big we should go big and I guess my the thing I would like to emphasize I guess I think we're going to include Jefferson respond and and I it makes them I think we need to almost immediately begin to really engage with the community and also all of our system partners in particular PCC to to address the question of what will a new Jefferson is like what would be included because I think I think it has a real gas in its current away offering and I think one of the things that we have learned over the last two months is that during the planning process because the people who are most intimately involved
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with the process are the people who are currently there what is in existence today has a huge impact on what it imagines for the future building so I want to make sure that these we get Jefferson right and and I think we can do it but I think we need to really double down on on planning if we're going to really make the best use of this opportunity and and provide the students at Jefferson with the kind of high school that they deserve I think that's it great thank you clarify for one second please so Rita when you say be you referred earlier to a capital B which is close to a billion dollar bond but I think you mean the greater option on the right side of the ledger in in all categories so that actually she said 3b should be talking about a billion dollars so we're gonna do it do it never mind thank you very much but it cannot be over two years that's crazy yes so I'm just okay is the was the three the materials we had an advanced in the meeting didn't have the option three in it is that posted online I know it's now on this on our screen which is super helpful thank you Reza but is that a document that got posted because it wasn't posted prior to the board meeting it just would be useful for we can't post it I don't think it's been posted yet I just asked for staff to create that just before our meeting as because I wanted to have it as a talking point this is frozen and yes great thank you so director brim Edwards why don't you go ahead yeah so can I get all of three please I can't see it on my screen sorry and I don't have it so I'm I know we're do you want to set me just ask a clarifying question Andrew do you want us to say the three options that we want to have presented or like a preferred and then a secondary or yeah so at this point just just indicating what do you think we should go out to the community at feedback on so it could be 2 it could be 3 it could be 6 I hope not yeah well I would say they would all need to be should be some variation of 3a because the one thing that's different because I behaved from the others is it includes Jefferson and as I said several meetings ago the building is not really suitable for students and I think they've waited a long enough time so some variations that I I would be interested in sprint and Guerrero said that um you didn't want to turn that curriculum that he had some other places rather cut and I'd be interested that I think 988 is maybe fifty million more than I'd like to so I would be interested in other creation of that but definitely having Jefferson and completely sort of all the options that have been sent ways to graduation technology sped an ad a and sort of some sort of sliding scale on the rest great thank you any any burning questions for staff just the question I mentioned which is right you did and I guess one of the things the questions I'd have for staff as I think it's gonna be really important because I think there were a lot of questions raised tonight about Jefferson and then no it wasn't necessarily prepared this way but I think it would be super helpful of any future sessions we have or community sessions that we have the Jefferson principle available to answer these questions I think many of these could have probably been easily answered by somebody who's been in the building for about ten years and leading that the transformation there so that's more of a request great thank you director de Paz yeah thank you I'm I'm
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kind of going back between a couple screens what we're seeing now that doesn't have well I I can see the three options now thank you and then earlier materials that had options one a I'm leaning toward the both of I mean my top choices would be my top choice would be three eight or three B and that's because they both include Jefferson I know there's some fear about not doing not doing it correctly my feeling is having lived in this area for very time is not doing anything with Jefferson is what doing it incorrectly looks like and of course right now we have an opportunity to address that I'm completely in favor of the sped classrooms the curriculum I still have a lot of questions about I'm not sure what that looks like it may be I wasn't listening very well but I'm not sure what that looks like and I'm not sure if curriculum can be if we have vendors locally or just in the Pacific Northwest even that can deliver help us deliver on that promise of you know giving an equitable opportunity for all students you know I don't really want to even look at the options 2 & 1 because I want to just plant my my foot in the sand for the options that include Jefferson High School for multiple reasons and and I'm also willing to look at if they're I don't see it here on the screen but if there were a hybrid between like if option 3b and to be had a baby and you know that mechanical and some of that infrastructure work could happen which I know is very important from a facility's perspective and we get the new high school in the area I've lived in most of my life that's that's important and so yeah so that sorry it's limited 3a would be my or B would be my top choices okay great thank you hi director Lowry sorry I'm in the sunglasses Loveland because we're back to migraines I have ordered new clear sunglasses that'll help with the blue glare on the screen anyway I'm gonna make up my own three options that I would like take it out I think this one would be to take out these three options to the public and see what our community is saying the first one would be the two year that we did kind of initially discussed was basically a third of the money going to Benson and multiple pathways to graduation a third going to those ed and Mints including curriculum technology and the sped classrooms and then a third going to those sort of critical facilities including some of that 88 work the mechanical in the rooms so that'd be sort of like the base option which is what we've been time out for a little bit my second option would be to include in all of those planning for all three high schools to do some of that beginning of that two year design work had talked about and then the third option I would want to take out to the community would be an option that would include building Jeff and design work for the other two high schools I know director brim Edwards talked about that Jeff was on that 2011 bond Cleveland was also on that bond that failed and so well it's a very different community that community - feels like they've been waiting for a long time we have you know some planning there's a kind of reissue of that community that they are on the radar kind of the three I'd like us to look at is the base bond we've sort of been talking about that's kind of a finishing Benson getting our classrooms in order getting our curriculum dealing with some of the crises adding planning for all three high schools and then building Jeff and so that the two-year would be that first bond adding the planning to the high schools might make it a three year and then adding Jeff might make it a four or five year so that we'd have to also look at the timelines that would go with those dollar amounts and see what the public is willing willing to go for in in that kind of timeline so that's what I would like to see us hear from the public about Thank You director Bailey want to recap what you said earlier yeah something like and it can be I can remind you cuz I actually was gonna I was going to agree with you okay I think it was 1a 2b and 3b to be or not
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to be I'm I'm kind of agnostic whether that would be one be in too late but you know I'm kind of happy with either those so let's say for sake of argument 1a 2b and 3b here's what I would and and I want to agree about length of time and and kind of be transparent for how this is going to work out anyway so pretending that we had bugs were past and we just had the money in hand and we're proceeding with rebuilding schools we would be jump into you know once the 2020 bond was passed we would be two years planning or the first school in line which I I hear a pretty clear non decision made consensus around Jefferson so that after that planning period it would be roughly the end of I want to say the 2223 school year if I'm doing my math right that construction would be Gantt maybe I'm off year but but you know after that two-year planning period construction would begin and roughly two years after that construction of the second high school would be we haven't talked about which one that might be and two years later that third one would be so what I think we need to do when we're talking about a difference between a 1 a and a 2 B which is a couple of hundred million dollars I would want to have I would want that paired with a both the timing and ref amount of the next bond and some assurances from staff or not and some clarity from staff of can we keep with that to year roughly two year interval high school high school high school going forward is there a enough money to do that and B the timing to do that [Music] going forward and again if we did a big bond that was and I think we would have to go for year we would still be queued up at the same timeline for that second high school as I understand it so I'd want to see a you know if you do a two year you get to this point and then the follow-up bond is this and what's the actual timing of construction for the schools I think to talk about just one bond is is going to I think we need to go fuller or the public to see the bigger picture going ahead so that's that's my sort of add on request is that if we're gonna do whichever option there's going to be a follow-up bond when would that be how would that affect construction timelines if at all that we we need that full picture to help the public way yeah great thank you I'll go next and I'll turn it over to chair constant to wrap us up um yeah I also I think in terms of options going out to the public would like to see 1a 2b and 3b and and I think the reason for that is 1a is a you know is a very scale back bond that you know it provides that option of sort of saying look let's just focus on on you know these these immediate items and and sort of put the modernization on hold with the exception of the finishes Benson but look next moderate is just little I don't I don't like that option but I think it's good to give the public and hear from that in this environment with unemployment really high is that something they want to see what I like about to be is that it includes the planning for all three high schools and actually moves significantly forward on on the modernization while also addressing some of those things and and then and then 3b I really want to hear from the community about this Jefferson question I do want to clarify because both options 2b and 3b include Jefferson moving forward and they include Jefferson moving forward on the exact same timeline and so I think as we go out to the public we need to be really clear with them about that um to be includes funding for Jefferson to do engagement design construction documents and would still break here would still be roughly in the 2023 timeframe for building it option 3 be includes all the funding for Jefferson it would still be approximately 2023 moving forward what
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we lose in 3b is the opportunity to do some of that bigger you know conceptual thinking what we lose in 2b I might have confused myself on this well we lose in to me is that risk of that what if we don't go back out again and to me there's pros and cons on both sides and I really want to make sure that we're not making this decision as a board that we're making this decision based on on feedback from the community and so I really want to talk about what each of those means specifically for Jefferson and engage in that process about about about the options that we have options that we potentially depending on thank you I want to just make a comment and that's that I did mention that I think there's a ton of support from black leadership and others so I'm hoping that you believe me when I say that and I think we should also go out to the community because we haven't heard from anybody and I just just a call out for everyone like let's listen to how we're actually talking about this so that we're not particularly this week we've again we're seeing stuff happen in the streets people are protesting let's be very intentional about our language and how we're talking about things how we're showing up for community it's really important right now to take a trauma-informed approach to this discussion and it's really important how we land on it and I just I just want us to all be a reminder for us to be mindful of how we're showing up particularly for the black community um I'm thinking about this myself so just let's just be mindful there so one of the things I really appreciate that comment Michelle one of the things that I have learned over time as as a white person with a lot of privilege is to not be the one who's making the decision but to be the one who's asking the people impacted about the decision they want and throughout this discussion tonight I hope that's come through that my my fear on option 3b is that we'll be limiting the ability of the black community to weigh in on what's gonna happen at Jefferson and so to the extent that's already happened that's that's that's great now when you hear it but I don't I need to make this decision I mean this is something that that I want to hold myself accountable for is making sure that I have listened authentically to the community and what they want and so to the extent they want funding right now that's great as long as we have a vision that the community agrees on and like I said at the very beginning if that vision exists and everyone agrees but not everyone but you know most people hungry to it I am with you and I will move forward and I will fight for this for this bond I will fight for Jefferson now I think there are standing questions that I've heard from the black community that they had at least a few months ago and I want to make sure that those questions have been resolved yeah and but I mean a few months ago and even a week ago I we are a learning institution and a learning organization literally and so I would hope that you know two months ago our world was so different and we have to be able to adapt to the information as it's coming in and and so that's why I say like at this time right now is a time to take what we're learning take a look around see what's happening in our world take that information and use that going forward and and I look forward to engaging too and I appreciate your concern for the black community as a whole and I look forward to it but I also want to say that we we've had new information coming in every day that will impact this decision greatly not just the pit just the pandemic thank you no I appreciate that very much and I look forward to the to the conversation and I think I'm speaking of that that's a question because when we went over the community engagement at the front end I'm wondering if now that we're done with this whole conversation and if we could maybe just go back to that slide what that looks like because I thought I heard like community forums but I have had somebody emailing and texting me saying that it was just a survey which you know how obviously has its limits and I'm wondering if we can just get a recap now at the end what as we send off the options after get this we have this conversation distilled how is the community engaging and giving us their point of view before we make a final decision on a package yeah and maybe either corny or Amy Mary and Jackie and Ruth have we
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heard from all board members I'm sorry but but I think what I think Amy check on Sam is the last one so maybe we'll get an answer to this and then it's Amy Ruiz to recap the public involvement and also we do have just back to the conversation of Jefferson we do have you know a fair bit of detail in the conceptual master plan that Dan has linked to which also includes information about the public engagement process there but thank you I really appreciate everyone's comments coming into this conversation it's been really important to me that we keep that we include planning money for Jefferson and for Cleveland and for Wilson even with a contemplating a scaled-down bond of roughly half the size we had been anticipating I wasn't willing to let go of the modernization of our high schools and that that promise that we've made in those school communities and I would say particularly the Jefferson community because they have been deferred and put off pretty explicitly with the last two bonds and had a very very reasonable expectation that it would Jefferson would be on this bond so in all those options it's really important to me to keep the ball rolling on the modernization I would support problem my personal preference would probably be 3a so that is the scaled-down version with the construction complete construction inclusion for Jefferson I do still have a lot of questions about our numbers in particular I think we still need to hear from our bond accountability committee we went out of our way to change their Charter so that they would have an opportunity to weigh in on the development of bond packages and I know they've done that on the numbers for Benson which is a really important figure in our considerations here I don't believe they've had an opportunity for a deep dive into the numbers on the MGP building or on the Jefferson conceptual master plan budget numbers now the reason they haven't is because we haven't yet asked them to do that but I think that's a really important step I also think there's some conversations that we need to have when we look more closely at the modernization budgets in this case if word sounds like we're just considering one high school but for example we have staff recommendations that don't include the full seismic work which is also something that our bond accountability committee has really asked us to consider there's a bit of an up charge for the higher grade seismic reinforcements for the whole buildings as as both as opposed to just certain gathering areas within the buildings I'd like to I'd like to revisit that conversation and just really be thoughtful about the numbers that we have back to director Scotts point you know we these are the numbers that we're gonna live by and I think it's easier to put a figure out for given by and a technology by and six rooms versus eight roofs or whatever that's there's more flexibility there and it's manageable but as we don't know with these huge scale school modernizations we need to be able you need to know that we're able to live the budgets that we set and I do think it was an interesting conversation in the Jefferson community about the number that we have that's come out of conceptual master planning is for the high school itself traditional redesign of the high school basically on the existing footprint it doesn't contemplate any more creative or or broader solution that could you know bleed into some of our other school communities for example Tubman or the the humble building or any of that so I'm probably lying with that but we need to be really clear to the community that that's what that figure represents and it does to some extent cut off our ability to to be a little bit more flexible at least in the near term but those are some of my concerns I'm actually heartened to hear the majority
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of our board colleagues have an appetite for going to the voters with a larger bond in my conversations in the last few days including with some economists and big thinkers about where we are and where our electorate like Lea's I'm somewhat optimistic about being able to bring forward this this amount of work in this amount of scale to the community even in this time and that we are just going to keep keep renewing our commitment to rebuilding all of our skills all of our schools on a long long term plan so I think this is this is an exciting conversation and that's my my personal two cents and then I will ask Amy Ruiz if you're still on if you want to recap first of all answer the question as to whether you feel like you've heard enough specificity from the board to narrow options that we're gonna bring to the public and grow and compare what that process looks like or that's Cortney Wessling yeah hey um thanks Roseanne for putting the slide up so yeah we had planned shoot I think yes this is all been very helpful to answer your question Amy this is really helping us drive a little bit closer to narrowing a path to take to the community so thank you all for this really rich discussion and important comments um that you shared so for Community Engagement moving forward I think you know there was a slide of the beginning that showed timelines we could go back to that really fast Roseanne could you go back to the top all right so here's the key dates um what we're thinking right now is we're hoping to have a website live by early next week I'm not going to give you a day because that will lock me into that day I've learned my lesson over time with that one so that's that's a we're gonna have Duke you guys are already doing a lot of great stakeholder outreach we'll have more of that for you some individual one-on-one phone calls with community leaders many of you are talking to them now but there are more I think the other thing that we talked a lot about is a survey that the plan for the survey is as you see on this slide June 15th is the hopeful kickoff date for a three week opportunity for the community to weigh in in multiple languages it will be a mobile-friendly survey we know that folks have have smartphones if they don't have easy access to wireless internet at home the town hall question is a tougher one not not anymore I think for a while we weren't sure what that what a town hall would look like because we didn't know what you all were gonna settle on in terms of what options you wanted to push forward so I think with the questions around high schools and those high school communities being on the table it really does make sense to do that deeper outreach with those communities and so what we can think about in the next few days is doing that towards the end of the month early July to lead into that next couple weeks after the third and then have a public hearing on the 21st so that is where we are right now we definitely have heard you say in copious notes and we'll welcome any additional feedback you have for us all right thank you so much director Const him yesterday can I just say thank you for reminding us about the seismic-proof work for our most vulnerable schools and yeah if that's not part of these options I would like to see that put on the table somewhere it it is amusing to me as the guy who's mad at 1.3 billion and everybody said no no no no no let's go small that we we've crept the lease back up to a billion so there you go it's your gentle persuasion catch I also wanted to just mention that my when I mentioned a hybrid approach I in my mind was talking about those infrastructure improvements such as the roofs and I think the seismic is you have to do seismic when you do a roof and there's a code requirement you have to meet there but it my hybrid approach would include some infrastructure work as well Shere Khan Stan Courtney again I forgot to mention one other engagement option for folks we do have an email address it's school bond at PS net and that is working and we're checking it so please if folks have comments that they'd like to send in via email it's school bond at PBS net thank you thank
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you director Scott for your help tonight and facilitating this and then managing it through the school improvement bond committee process and seeing if that there's nothing else for the good of the order going once going twice this work session of the Board of Education of Portland Public Schools is now adjourned thanks everybody for your time great feedback thanks everybody [Music]

Sources

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

2020-06-02 PPS School Board Work Session

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Work Session - 6/2/2020

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