2020-06-23 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-06-23
Time	18:30:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education, June 23, 2020

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me all right board meeting of the board of education for june 23 2020 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being streamed live on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times this meeting is also being streamed live on our pps tv services website good evening hello to our viewing audience today marks the last board meeting of our 2019-2020 school year which to say the least has been a year of unexpected great challenges tonight's agenda includes adoption of our budget for 2020 2021 a vote on our superintendent's evaluation and also an update on school free entry plans for the fall we will also say goodbye to student representative ladarelle before she heads off for her freshman year and also meet nate nathaniel shu who is our incoming student representative how are you max i'm good i'm doing i'm good it's summer now i'm happy about that um not really having the hot weather but it's it's exciting to to finish to finish this year all right well we are looking forward to hearing your final report um we'll move on to the business agenda at this time we will consider our business agenda board members are there any items anyone would like to pull for discussion i've got a couple questions about different some contracts okay so we shall we uh ms bradshaw are there teams this agenda no all right let's get the motion on the table and uh director brian edwards and you can bring your questions forward do i have a motion so moved do i have a second second director scott moves and director brynn edwards seconds the adoption of the business agenda uh any discussion yes um i have a ques um i have some questions about the office of the general council network or contract in tonight's agenda i have some questions about some of the other contracts but i understand that director lowry also has some he's going to join me in questions tonight so um i'll ask some questions and then flip it up to her so i'm going to just start off and these are questions for um executive chief of staff stephanie i just saw her waving but she meet up on the screen executive chief of staff stephanie who provided an overview memo for the board and as has been past practice that memo was posted with the meeting materials and so i want to say thank you for the background material so i just had a couple questions about the contract just because it's in the direct negotiation contract um so the first one is we've had previous contracts is this a new contract or an amendment this is a new contract okay and then um given this is a new contract i want to confirm that this contract also requires as did the last one that if other attorneys are hired by ms large that it will be with prior approval of pps as indicated in exhibit a and exhibit b yes it actually it explicitly um says that pps's approval is included okay so that's a carry over from the other contract it's a similar way we've been acting before great um and then i want to clarify that the contract provides like specifically provides for general accounts because it's just somewhat a different model than um other school districts that the contract provides for general counsel services from miss large and then conflict resolution services specifically from another attorney with ogcn as well as access to a network of other legal and non-legal professionals that it's not just a sole individual contract it's actually several individuals and potentially a network if we wanted to access that yes that's correct okay um and then again because this is just a slightly different model i know the district has looked at the cost efficacy of this model versus like just a standard in-house and then using a lot of outside counsel so i'm just wondering if you could speak to that the the district's review of
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um the cost efficacy of this absolutely so that's always you know a key element and when we're looking and putting together contracts and asking for approval um if you see the rates listed in this contract they are significantly lower than um than the cost of employing a general counsel and team um and paying all of those overhead costs it's also we get a really good deal with this contractor she has been very she and her team have been very diligent in finding ways to reduce costs for the district um so and if you compare it to um other firms in town her these rates are very very comparable actually very very cost effective for the district i was to say it may be compet better than competitive yes thank you um yeah so my last question and this is um just generally a more of a a district-wide question because i think sometimes it's the thought is that only the office of the general counsel is you know actively hiring attorneys and i just want to because i know we have a variety of different issues happening in the district where we might hire their attorneys or other professionals to review information or to do investigations and so i just wanted to clarify that you and other staff from time to time uh might hire an outside attorney to conduct an investigation or do say for example related to a complaint or to do other work that um maybe dr like drafting a document that wouldn't necessarily be the office of general counsel services correct yes we enter into other contracts with other attorneys outside of this contract okay that's all the questions i had about that contract i think director lowry had some yes i did um have a question um from sodenbeck uh you in your memo highlighted all of the great reasons to do this and i just wondered because this is a different arrangement than some other districts have do you see any downsides to our arrangement with the office of the council general uh yeah general counsel i do not see any downsides i think um districts choose a variety of different models for their legal services some have um in-house like i described and others use contract and then there's a mix and so um i think we've gotten um incredible amount of service and um and attention to really focusing on honing in and limiting our legal costs since we've used this contractor so i think it's just been a really positive experience and i appreciate that we have a chance to revisit the contract from time to time and reflect and decide how we want to move forward great and then um i did have one other question about one other contract director brent edwards if we're ready to move on go ahead um so i'm happy to have company um so dan i saw the memo about our cab services and i thought it's very clearly laid out the reasons that um and it was staggering to see that we've gone from i can't remember the exact numbers but um you know from something in the low tens to over 250 students uh over the course of five years that are needing specialized services um and so at the end of the memo it says that the hope is we will be able to incorporate more small bus routes and maybe step away from cabs in the future and i was wondering what if any steps that a transportation department is putting into place to begin to realize that hope yeah good evening uh and great question i'll give a high level answer and then i'll see if our director of student transportation is on the call as well terry brady she might have some more specifics uh cab costs is something very specifically that we have targeted uh for taking a hard look at looking to reduce the next fiscal year so what we have started already is meeting with our special ed departments where much of the the cab costs end up coming from um meeting with them already to start talking about next year and what we put in place is a sequence where we're going to sit down with them probably on a monthly basis take a look at which students are on the cabs and see if there are opportunities
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for students to come off the cabs go on to the smaller transportation or yellow buses adding aids potentially to some of the smaller buses or vehicles or something like that where there is some cost savings uh we'll we'll have to wait and see how much of that is available but what we do see with those those cab prices is they start off at an amount began the year and they they slowly or increase throughout the year so if they're if we can take the time to be intentional about looking at every one of those and we can see that plateau come down uh that's something that we would like to do so that's sort of the high level what we're doing from a process standpoint and i'll let terry brady add anything if i miss them good evening um this is terry brady director of student transportation rolling public schools um thank you for allowing me to talk today um dan's correct um some of the other things that we're looking at um we've been fighting the cdl driver shortage for several years we've had recent increases in the driver wages that has helped us in order to recruit more drivers we were just starting to realize some of those gains when we had our emergency closure this year we do hope to continue that so having more yellow bus drivers means pushing less towards our cabs we do plan on meeting monthly with sped to discuss how many students are being placed in the out of district what what students are being moved to a cab due to behavior issues we hope to increase our student management training to really try and address the specific behaviors we're seeing we've had a large increase and sped can also attest to this that our our highest growth i believe is with our behavior students and our artistic students who you know they need a specific type of behavior management in order to keep them safe and still relatively on the bus so those are some of the things that we're working on to try and reduce that level of dependence on cavs thank you does that satisfy your question director lowry director bailey do you have a question about one of the mous on the business agenda tonight director bailey okay we can um i guess move the business agenda and if he does i'm not done sorry okay maybe maybe while scott's uh looking for or waiting for stop to get back um actually i thought there was a good news um item in the agenda from the grant from pge i don't know if there's somebody who can speak to that hi julia if it's in regards to the electric bus i can't do that yes what would you like to know i don't know like did we we got a grant from pge for an electric bus yeah um we applied for grant uh early in the year this year uh the grant is from pge and then we're also in partnership with pacific corps power because our lot actually sits in their business area so the grant allows us to purchase one fully electric bus and to purchase and install the charging infrastructure to go with that bus it's going to be a 10 year project that will work with them on testing out how electric buses can work uh in our setting we were one of five districts that received the grant uh salem kaiser beaverton north clackamas and reynolds also received grants um our bus what we're look well i guess we haven't announced who's our vendor for the bus yet so i'll keep that but we are looking at an all-electric bus um we plan on using it on routes that will service our csi tsi schools at this time it's only one bus but we hope to keep our green status and move forward with electric into the future it's just that electric buses cost approximately four times the amount of a normal bus so um just a reminder we do operate the majority of our buses on propane um we're trying to move as far as possible away from diesel so this electric bus is just one more way
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we can stay great and if i may add this is jonathan garcia chief engagement officer uh director bryn materworth this is also aligned uh to uh pge's investment uh to uh to continue the work around uh environmental sustainability environmental justice uh as part of our curriculum and so we're really excited that pge you know has doubled down not only with our curriculum infrastructure but now with our uh build our operational infrastructure so uh you know because as we know our young people not only are asking or demanding for curriculum in the classroom but are also asking institutions like ours to to continue to be more um green and more sustainable and so i think this is a huge first step that we're excited uh that we get to partner that are you know partner with pge and other school districts great great job put together the application and secured the grant i have a quick question for ms brady um you said the buses are four times as much and that one day we can hopefully move the entire fleet to electric which i fully support um has anybody done the analysis on what the overall maintenance schedule looks like and what that cost because i know with energy efficiency improvements they do tend to cost more upfront but if you look out you look for the payoff date which is seven to ten years is a good investment but even beyond that what you're looking at in terms of maintenance long-term maintenance and of the infrastructure and then the other question i think i heard you say there was a charging station too so it sounds like will there be a battery or a charging station um where that will be parked in the lot yes um so part of this project is to work on that total cost of ownership and um see how we could move towards a full electric fleet in the future we also expect that as this technology becomes more mainstream the cost will come down um the majority of the cost is within the battery and so as technology moves forward it will become less expensive um so there's not much we've done so far on total cost of ownership there are a lot of studies out there um it's very popular in california and some other states who've been well on the road before us as far as the charging structure um we will have um we're looking to purchase uh a charger that has stations even though we'll only have one bus part of our grant allowed us working with pacific corps they're actually going to install a new transformer because our lot is right on marine drive so that will help us in the future we were able to tie it in with a current generator project so that helped us save on construction costs we hope to have all of this installed and possibly get delivery of the bus by the end of the school year although it depends on the manufacturing schedule of the bus company but yes we will have one uh charging station it will be behind our jeep so it won't be public but uh it'll be there for us i mean it's like the second cheapest um electric in the country um behind i think it's it's a midwestern state i can't remember which one but it wouldn't it might be a cost savings that we can look at over time if if it is it costs much it costs more to invest up front but if our long-range operating costs are lower you know might be something to look at in the future oh definitely um both the electricity electricity is cheaper and the maintenance there's fewer moving parts there's uh you get a better brake um where do the regenerative so we are excited to make those discoveries thank you thank you so much and uh mr garcia we'd love to see these kind of partnerships so uh yes please more of that thank you now director bailey do you have a question about one of the mouss uh yeah can you hear me now we can yes okay yeah i plugged in my headphones and that seemed to knock out the audio so good times um yes i had a question about the jefferson uh pcc agreement um i learned i think from one of our student leaders who i think is our new board rep i'm not sure um that jefferson students are limited to one pcc course a term is this
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uh mou or i don't know if it's an mlu or iga does this uh govern that funding for our students or jefferson students who are taking pcc courses um director good evening board member first is but the information about the limitations um they're they beginning with the junior year they're able to participate in the program and between the junior and senior year they can take up to 45 credits um it is not suggested that they take more than that because there um there is an opportunity for dual credit participation also they have to meet the requirements for graduation so there are school credits they have to meet as far as the uh the limitation on credits per um per session that is i don't know if that might have been a counselor recommendation for that particular student but generally speaking there are no limitations it is there is a conversation with each student to make sure that they are able to meet um the rigorous the rigorous programming that exists if you're taking the the if you're part of middle college and then also participate in in a dual credit program but that is not a limitation and and that is clearly spelled out in this mou as well that um participating students are expected to earn a high school diploma from jefferson as well as 12 to 45 college level credits from pcc these 12 to 45 college credits are a goal and not a limitation but scott i was with you in that budget session uh breakout with the students so that is something that we should follow up on those comments um from that student and see if um whatever the mecha mechanism oh nathaniel you're here and i do believe that was you so um welcome so nice to see you and what would you like to add on this question yeah i just like to say that it wasn't a um limit a formal limitation um it was a limitation as a result of insufficient funding we simply don't have enough it's a we get it fixed some right and we don't have enough funding to allow for students to take multiple classes at least not this term in fact during this term of the program we didn't have enough funding for all students to even take one class there were a few that weren't committed to as i understand it so yeah so that's what i'm talking about okay thank you nathaniel um so i i think i would and i would expect the rest of the board would as well be interested in some follow-up information on this i'm very interested in following yes can we ask dr valentino to get back to us on that question because um if that is the common practice it is um contrary to the mou that's before us to approve i will definitely follow up and report back thank you very much thank you if it's in conflict should we be voting on the mou without resolving it well i think we're voting on um we're saying that there are no limitations which is the language of the mou so if there are in fact limitations then we need to deal with that on the ground i think the mou accurately states our our expectations and our aspirations was was there a dollar man that mou or did i confuse reading things i don't believe so oh no no not not not directly for uh a specific number of credits credit courses there is a there is a line item tuition for credit courses the correct uh the total pcc iga commitment dollar is what was uh 460 000 and that included the support for a full-time college advisor an afternoon coordinator and staff to extend the hours of the middle college office um and then and and those costs also include like the fringe benefits for that for that um for that full-time college advisor and operating costs associated with the middle college office um and then tuition which is around 168 000 um was for the tuition for the credit courses which was part of the agreement so that's that's initially was the dollar
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amount director constant was 460 uh for the full pcc iga commitment so um i guess what we're asking is for a breakdown of how that tuition number affects you know how many students are able to take x number of classes and if in fact students aren't able to access as many um credit bearing classes as they would like to yes um we'll make sure that the office of teaching and learning um absolutely gets the answers to that and will respond in full to the board of superintendent thanks thank you nathaniel for bringing this up originally yeah um all right the board will now vote on actually amy i'm sorry go ahead two more things um that's okay um so i don't want to go let the stu first student contract go just because it's a 30 million dollar contract it's actually 176 million dollars overall um but it's a two-year extension for um for this for about 30 million dollars so i just had a couple questions especially given as we enter the contracting season and so the uncertainty of what the model is that we're going to be operating in and just making sure that we have flexibility um whether we're in a uh in school environment a distance learning or some sort of hybrid that within vendors especially ones in which they may or may not providing services so i had a question i don't know if um this is something that um deputy superintendent hertz or um terry brady is going to answer but um just the question is in this two-year extension have we built in um the flexibility for the various models of um how we might be operating whether it's distance learning in school a hybrid or a mix throughout the school year so i'm going to ask some chief operations officer dan young to respond to the first student contract i'm sorry no happy to do it and then i'll probably do the same thing let terry uh provide some additional detail so with this uh this amendment uh we started negotiating this amendment back in february and i would say we were 95 there uh by the end of february and then when march happened things changed pretty pretty dramatically uh luckily we've got to i think a very good place really the best uh place that we could get with this negotiation and and what uh it has in there as far as rates is we pay a rate based upon the number of routes that are run uh and if there is varied variability in that uh if we drop below a certain number um certainly the rate numbers change as as you go up and down but we also provide a minimum amount of fixed costs and that's something that that was a part part of the original contract we've just codified it more in this amendment uh so that allows to have some level of certainty that uh you know if there's a point in time where we need 200 drivers there's a point in time or we need a hundred drivers um they're going to be able to fluctuate and we're going to be able to fluctuate with that there's you know we don't use the word guarantee but what that does is that helps mitigate those risks uh as we go into next year and we see what our transportation services are our needs are i don't know if that fully answers the question or if you're looking for more specifics yeah no i think um if i were to summarize it is that this gives them some certainty but it also provides us some certainty and that we've sounds like we've reached an agreement on what the fix costs are um so that if we have um if we go in and out of closures or building closures that uh they know what they're going to be what their fixed base is going to be paid and we know that as well correct correct so we start thinking of sort of as we have this base and then as we add on to it more routes than we know we pay per route okay i really appreciate the district staff sort of protecting the district in that way of um knowing exactly what we're going to be paying so the other um well my assumption is and then whatever that fixed cost the typical state um district cost sharing agreement is an operation the state would pay 75 of whatever that cost is that is correct okay um sorry to interrupt but it's 70 percent 70 sorry exactly i was trying to get an
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extra 5 um so um i think that uh just my last question is i'd ask staff to do like uh uh just this is something that came out of the audit of like looking sort of at peer districts and comparison of the uh cost per mile just given given to such a large contract that cost per mile or some sort of benchmark against another district and the benchmark that pps provided was with hillsboro and i don't know if you want to share what that was but i thought we we we um came out comparative just a little bit less per mile than hillsborough yeah that's that's one that we looked at and yeah we were pretty close on that and that's that's a pretty quick look as well certainly with there's different transportation models between what's contracted and what's done in house um and we we participate in kpis with the council of great city schools as well so we get that national look but again if there is a challenge to apples uh to apples but yeah in that that one that we pulled we were very uh comparative so heading into this next year we won't have a situation like last year where we're having to negotiate um some sort of agreement we've we've got something that has the flexibility in a covet environment that protects the district that is correct over the launch of march this year the contract language just said to negotiate what those fixed costs were so we did that in march now what we've done is we've codified it in this amendment so if we come to that scenario it won't take time to come to that number great and then my last question is um it's just related to the one policy that's in the agenda that um we aren't separating out that we're having a second reading on and i just think anytime we are adopting a new policy it's good practice just to note for the record that we've got a new policy and i was wondering if um mary came the attorney the lead on here could just provide a short description so that we know that this is the new policy of the of the district sure i can i can speak to it so um the 2019 oregon legislature made up a number of revisions to statutes related to employment they're looking to address some unlawful conduct in the workplace and so they strengthened some of the protections around workplace harassment discrimination sexual harassment um we had already we have already um a sexual harassment in the workplace policy and rather than creating um a separate policy because the workplace the the the revisions in the under the statute include sexual harassment we thought it best to just incorporate the uh the new language uh into our existing sexual harassment policy so what the additions that are in there include supports that the district must provide to complainants um as well as notice of their legal their civil their legal and criminal remedies um and also that uh complainants uh may not well employers may not uh include non-disclosure non-disparagement no higher provisions in any separation agreements unless it's agreed upon by the complainant so those are kind of the key components that we have added to the policy and and then change the name to uh workplace harassment thank you and thanks for all the work that staff did on that and to the committee chair more all right yes thank you for bringing that through uh the committee process we've spent a great deal of time on that um seeing no further discussion of the items on the business agenda the board will now vote on resolution six one three one through six one three four all in four please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions the business agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral voting yes all right speaking of hello graduate hi it's been incredible to have you with us this year this crazy year um i think i can speak for everyone and saying we
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will miss you dearly and you've accomplished a great deal not the least of which is really creating a much more solid structure for the district student council so we look forward to hearing your final report thanks um so over the last couple weeks um i've spent a lot of time reflecting on all the work that i've been able to do not only as my time as um you know student rep to the board but also just being a student leader within pps i've been able to work on the search and seizure policy the levy the sro state of the union event working with the multnomah youth commission giving input on the lincoln health center hiring of the student engagement specialist working with students on the grant mural removal working on senior celebrations in the light of covid and having the awesome opportunity to be on opb and k2 as well as so many other very cool projects that um you know not many other young people have the opportunity to say they've been a part of and i feel so fortunate to have been able to meet such uh hardworking and kind people within pps and work alongside such awesome change makers and also have such strong student peers who are really going to not only in the dsc but so many other student leaders who are going to really change this education system for the better and as much as i'm really excited for the next chapter of my life and to go to college and to learn things um that i really am passionate about learning um i don't this has been my whole world for like three years now and i truly don't remember what it feels like to have a tuesday night where i'm not at besc eating dinner with the board talking about our days before rushing downstairs probably being a few minutes late and and um you know sitting there for hours on hours on hours um so thank you so much to all of you for listening to me um and other students including us when we have something to contribute and for investing in student leadership and activism and committing to bringing in more student voice and i just ask as i leave please continue to listen to students and help their projects give to their projects and have dialogue with them about they want what they want to see in our district not only now with the current state of the world and of politics but always it's it's ridiculously important that not only now where we see such strong student leaders taking a stand um to support them but to constantly support them these are these are i'm i'm the future and so are all of these other students um and i it's just so important um i want to say a big thank you to yen seychelle and shanice clark for being my my rocks at the beginning of this shanice like it wasn't her job but she she was there for me and we had so many fun meetings and for yen for being such an amazing support even though she was thrown into this crazy world that we are all engulfed in and to staff members who have been so kind and especially those who let me sit in their offices and and talk about random things for hours and hours and hours um and um lastly just to the whole board uh this has been like a crazy learning opportunity for me and a crazy experience to be an elected official at 17 and 18. it's it's been such a great year a hectic year a drama-filled year as we all know but i'm so grateful to have had this experience and um i'm so excited to see what's next for student leadership in pps with our amazing new student representative nathaniel who you've already heard from tonight you can see he's going to be great as well as all of the other students that exist in our district so thank you you're here um i want to recognize the superintendent for prioritizing student engagement and for funding the support that maxine mentioned in um yen's position and in jonathan's team um it's really important it was it was a cornerstone of sort of your strategy when you arrived superintendent guerrero and this board had been asking for um more of a structure of support for our student leaders so hopefully that made your job a little bit easier and we'll continue to lean on that as we include more inclusive all the time in bringing student voice into our decision making i heard that uh you uh you ran into rosie when she was trying to be stealthy trying to be sneaky this afternoon
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um thank you so much for the flowers and for my gift i really appreciate it it's so nice to have something sitting on my table just bringing a pop of color into my room i had just um got rid of my graduation flowers so now having some of these celebration flowers is wonderful so thank you so much for those well please please keep in touch we love it we hear from moses and nick and elima and all of our past board members get to see all the amazing things that they're doing so please keep in touch of course and maxine i just wanted to say it's been like an incredible pleasure working with you i'm so impressed with um how you've shown up every tuesday um i don't know if we're uh connected on linkedin but i encourage you to connect on linkedin guys i'm on linkedin let's all just connect i mean your network yeah your network i want you to just nobody gets where they are by themselves and so you know i'm in your network now if there's anything i can ever do like don't hesitate thank you so much i just want to uh just given that we're doing the round up maxine i loved how you always just cut through everything and just like basically laid it out there like wow you guys took twice as long as we did to make that decision and you know you were never afraid to like speak up and tell adults in the room um [Music] when we should listen to students and when we were missing like the main point of something and we were having a long discussion and you just cut right through to the essence i always say like my kids keep me humble and i think you kept all of us sort of like on track and focused um and really your um ongoing reminder to us of the wisdom that students bring to our discussions and that we shouldn't have them without students so um thank you for bringing that to the board and for your long list of accomplishments this year thanks julia any news for the good of the order um let me find my altoids oh gosh scott [Laughter] i i am so enjoying your altoids i'll miss your coffee breath so much she said with sarcasm in her voice i've really uh enjoyed getting to know you this year and watched watching in amazement as you've done your thing so um thank you thank you thank you and and best of luck uh becoming a sustainable logger thanks i'll miss sitting next to you scott well i'll just add that maxine was my favorite student representative on the board this year so um and i didn't even realize that until like before i took like you know i took and nobody had mentioned it to me and then also a strange connection i i went to the same problem as your dad except it's a tiny tiny little school in new jersey so it is kind of a strange coincidence so i got this whole strange connection with the family and i just really enjoyed watching you and i particularly enjoyed how you scott exactly what you thought every week that was a highlight highlight of my experience so thanks max thanks andrew all right everybody sheriff comes time if i can also pile on for our departing student rep a big congratulations on your next chapter maxine and for demonstrating um again what powerful student leadership can look like you started off your report tonight listing a whole bunch of really critical activity and initiatives that you played a heavy-handed so you talked about being around change makers just just know you've been one of those change makers so we wish you well uh send us a postcard and thank you for your service thanks guadalupe all right superintendent tough act to follow but uh now we have some interest in your report as well thank you chair uh good evening got foreign couple interesting topics on the agenda this evening uh good evening also to uh our listening night against who's catching this uh via live stream um just a few slides uh this first one is uh i know we were uh closed down this past friday that i would be remiss if i didn't uh acknowledge juneteenth
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hopefully our family has received a message from portland public schools but um we're in a unique time in history uh amidst this global pandemic uh we're also experiencing an uprising uh where our black youth and community members are rightfully demanding that we come to terms with our racist and violent history and i know that along with me our students staff and community are are deeply moved by this uprising and ready to try to answer the call to disrupt this racist anti-black history and uh despite the trauma we're experiencing uh one of the impacts of this is a renewed and accelerated commitment to racial justice so as an educational institution um we are committed to promoting a culturally responsive and sustainable pedagogy and one tenet of that kind of a pedagogy is that a critical consciousness a social political awareness uh that reflects an ongoing commitment to challenge injustice and disrupt inequities and oppression of any group of people one way that we encourage the development of this critical consciousness is by embarking on a critical examination of history and culture the juneteenth is a special historical day a day of recognition restoration and celebration uh pps joined the millions who on june 19th paused to reflect on our country's shameful history of slavery racism and violence but we commemorated african american freedom and joy and celebrated the achievements of black americans including those of our black students educators administrators and staff we continue to celebrate these achievements and believe we will be a better district and a better country when we celebrate black excellence every day so moving on to the next slide um it was it was momentous for for a number of reasons of this past week or so uh i think it's important to acknowledge a couple of other very important decisions by our country's judiciary branch the supreme court ruled that the executive branch could not eliminate daca and ruled that the civil rights act protects gay and transgender people from workplace discrimination so in addition to the aforementioned tenet of culturally responsive pedagogy at pps you want to keep working at building our racial equity social justice competencies of every adult uh the support of adults the educator essentials we're always referring to uh to keep to keep working on our competencies the ones aligned in our racial equity social justice professional development framework i mentioned this because we were talking again earlier about our commitment to adopting a targeted universalism approach that centers our work on improving the experiences of black and native students at the same time we want to ensure that all staff have the knowledge and the comprehension of the intersectionality the multi-dimensionality of oppressions uh i bring up these important decisions because they confirm and endorse our beliefs that the pbs and public education is open to every student we strive to be supportive inclusive we believe we're made better by the diversity in our workforce and our classrooms and we believe that our commitment to racial equity and our understanding of critical race theory allows us to more deeply understand these intersectional issues that our students staff and families experience this understanding will help us become a district where our students feel that sense of belonging that we describe and that they are truly prepared to lead a more just world we recognize that phrase it's right off the title page of our vision uh in this next slide i want to just put in a plug and remind our community that this thursday june 25th we will be hosting our virtual town hall uh on the pps virtual 2020. please join us for um uh i think it's
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repeated the word our virtual town hall on the pps bond uh please join us for this conversation we want to get the invite out there as we continue exploring the possibilities for the future of our city's public schools especially in regards to providing the most optimal teaching and learning environments for our students and staff already we are grateful for the safe and modern buildings that have been supported to date and that continue to emerge construction is well underway this summer uh these buildings these physical plants they represent the kinds of learning campuses we want every one of our students to have access to over time so for the public our stakeholders your insight will provide meaningful feedback and input to this board of directors as they consider a bond package referral to portland voters uh this coming november it looks like so i invite everybody please visit our website to rsvp for the town hall to learn more we'll see you on thursday and then lastly a topic that i know is on everyone's mind especially ours as staff uh and something that i know really has our students families and educators concerned rightly is to try to gain an understanding of what this fall may look like uh in the way of a re-entry uh for students and staff uh please no re-entry planning is well underway uh staff have a full update for you later in the agenda um but i can tell you all hands on are on deck for this work uh and we're not doing this in a vacuum since the initial closures of march we have continued coordinating with other districts in the metro area with other large districts in oregon and review and guidance and emerging plans from some of our peer member districts in the council of great city schools so stay tuned for uh hearing more details later on this regular meetings agenda uh and i know that our goal is to provide more frequent updates as uh as the picture gets clearer uh for the coming fall so um that's one of tonight's main entrees and we look forward to staff sharing with directors uh more details so that concludes my opening remarks for now uh thank you chair thank you so much um all right uh next as we mentioned we have the opportunity to welcome our new student representative to the board who was elected by the district student council nathaniel hsu is a student at jefferson we've already heard from him tonight but nathaniel we're so glad to see you congratulations on your election um do you want to take this moment to just tell us and and anyone listening in a little bit about yourself and why why you're excited about this work uh yeah sure um so i um as you heard i'm nathaniel um just like to tell you a bit about me i am a soon-to-be senior at jefferson uh where i have um been in the middle college program for several years now and have served on the pdsa board before entering jefferson i went to ainsworth um along with i believe your son amy um and um portland village for middle school um i'm the older brother to three pbs students an elementary schooler at portland village a middle schooler at portland village and a high school at metropolitan learning center and um over the coming year i am looking forward to work with and the dsc in student voice condition whenever possible and of course continuing the work that maxine has been doing thank you thank you so much please don't hesitate to let any of us know your board and your staff um how we can support you welcome nathaniel welcome nathaniel yes welcome go demos all right he's represented there too so awesome place all right as we we can now move on to um public comment um i'd like to briefly review our guidelines for public comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend our meeting with us and provide your comments we value public input as it informs our work and we look forward to hearing your
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thoughts reflections and concerns our responsibility as a board is to actively listen board members and the superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on board-related issues raised during public comment guidelines for public input emphasize respect and consideration of others we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional items or materials you'd like to provide the board or superintendent please email them to public publiccomment pps.net if you're watching the board meeting the live stream while waiting please make sure to mute your phone um prior to your turn to speak if you leave it on it will create feedback and um is just one of those those new zoom problems webex problems um please make sure as you begin your public comment that you clearly state your name and spell your last name you have three minutes to speak you'll hear a sound after three minutes which means it's time to please conclude your comments ms bradshaw can you please introduce uh the first person signed up for public comment yes vander zip um my my com i'm presenting with another student um eileen castro and i think she's gonna go first great eileen are you i see you eileen or actually hello sorry i have problems with my internet connection are you able to hear me we can hear you yes okay um so sorry um yeah hello my name is eileen i'm a junior at madison and today i want to talk to you all about why we need more student resources in schools um from my perspective my household has always set my standards high and my mom has always pushed me to do the most i always thought that she was being very strict on me and since my teacher and since my mom is a teacher she knows the school system but sometimes i take that for granted like i take her support for granted and i believe that everyone should have someone in their corner supporting them and advocating for them um there are numerous friends of mine and peers who tell me that they don't have someone like this in their life and don't feel motivated to learn and having mentors and educators that can relate to students on a more personal level is extremely important this is why having cultural culturally specific resources is a necessity and that everyone deserves to have the success and confidence that they're capable of and have a visible mentor have visible mentors that mirror them like for example um my fifth grade teacher nicole watson made such an impact on me because she made every student feel comfortable in their own skin and help prepare us for like the real world and the challenges that um may come up and she created a space where we didn't feel judged or under pressure and she taught me to be a proud she taught me to be proud of who i am and what i stand for and what i represent um she always told us that we are our ancestors wildest dreams and i still look back at that message to this day uh she helped me become the person i am today and everyone deserves an educator like her and like their life right and so um step up is another example of a place where i can feel safe in the school environment uh step up is one of the only places in school where i feel comfortable going and where i feel connected to others the majority of the staff are people of color and i'm able to relate to them in a different way than the rest of the school environment these resources are irreplaceable as the advocates go to student games provide opportunities outside of school and are people you can always count on for example franklin high school is able to have a 9th through 12th grade program as they have more funding while we only have a 9th through 10th one and the school system is not currently suited to accommodate students who need breaks or who need to have support to function better in the classroom so these places are useful because students can actively navigate the school system and get back into the classroom and minority students are already in inequitable spaces and have a harder time living up to the system standards funding for these programs is critical and can provide us with resources many teachers don't have
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the time or capability to help with as they see upwards over 100 students a day and are otherwise preoccupied with grading and fulfilling the needs of a much larger group of students so um yeah to just wrap it up or to um let xander speak it is important to have resources available for students like myself who thrive on a more personal connection with people in the school setting thank you so much sander uh yeah so i'm xander zip i'm a senior at madison uh my name is spelled x-a-n-d-e-r-z-i-p-p um and yeah i'm just gonna go ahead and start um all right so as eileen said the impact that comes from good educators of color cannot be understated with the termination of the sro partnership and mr guerrero's promises of social workers and culturally supportive services we ask that more of the people of the budget be used to fund culturally specific resources in all of pps schools at madison we have seen a variety of these resources utilized thanks to our open-minded admin and their commitment to hearing student voices we admire the school board's commitment to fighting for its students in this way but have come to notice that while overarching diversity collaboratives on the district level are a wonderful start we still need resources and partnerships that help students head on restorative justice had been a practice pps has played with in recent years we want to see more of these effective rj practices and resources utilized throughout the district through restorative practices and discipline and throughout the classroom we can focus on rebuilding damaged connections and severing the path to prison pipeline by focusing on understanding instead of solely on discipline student engagement coaches and partnerships with group groups like step up and other culturally specific resources are also a necessity these positions and others like it are the perfect way to get students positive role models of color or sorry in educators of color they focus on connecting with students who otherwise may not have meaningful relationships with adults at school in our own school we continuously see this with the creation of the spot which is an area in madison specifically designed to break down traditional school hierarchies this area supported by our student engagement coach is able to facilitate student need in a way previously unthinkable we as a student body would like to see more of these on-ground resources within all pps schools due to recent turmoil in these supportive positions we additionally propose that these positions receive union unionized protections ensuring that these jobs will be long-term and not expire after a year or two this way we can truly reap the benefits of having educators educators of color in our schools finally we ask that since these resources are for students they should be chosen removed by the people who can best quantify their wealth which is us the students as we see these resources on as we see these resources on the ground and how they're utilized we better we understand their impact better than anybody else we were against the implementation of sros in schools long before the board um officially severed ties with them we were four retraining rj practices within our schools and yet our partnership with resolutions nor northwest was still terminated we asked that before the district decides to cut these programs that the population affected is allowed input to summarize we asked the district to fund studently student approved culturally specific resources in every pps high school and to see an increase in educators of color within these schools thank you thank you so much ms bradshaw do we have further public comment yes um we have miro cox hi thank you for having me on this call i would like to talk about the uh changing the name of the pbs schools from segregationists to something more like accepted in order to do that we need to obviously get that petition signed but also draw more attention to like the racial problems that happened during school especially last year at wilson with all that like we can't have that happen if i think having the names of the schools like wilson for example woodrow wilson the segregationist like that almost draws attention to the racial problems and tension at school like getting that change will help get like bring more change and difference in school as well as giving more voice to the black city union i think would help like so maybe having more like black-led uh presentations for assemblies like having stuff talking about more like the black power side of things rather than the slavery side just to draw attention to everything i
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think that's the first few steps we should take then for changing the name i found a name we could possibly use stephanie diane wilson who's a african-american astronaut who has been in space three times which is more than any other african-american woman but it's still with the name wilson but it's not related to segregationists it's related to a black person who's done good not bad i guess he could say that's really all i have to say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you is brad shaw huey huey hedgeson um it's wayway sorry yeah um spelled h-u-i-h-u-i welcome so hi uh so you might met so you've met my mom uh shelley and my siblings lyndon and railro and i'm a junior at wilson high school and an adl no place for a peer facilitator an alley member of bsu a member of the api affinity group and i personally experienced anti-semitism anti-asian comments racist racist acts unconscious bias micro and macro aggression at the school in the past two years there are multiple issues at wilson that need to be addressed all are important but with historic figures painting statues and names removed from the building over the past three weeks the issue of the school name has risen to the top my siblings and i have been advocating for the mural of the mural of wilson to be removed and the namesake to be changed since moving to portland in 2018. my sister and i collected about 100 signatures in the fall and miss waltmore who also speak this evening posted an online petition to change the school name that currently has over 1500 signatures woodrow wilson was a white supremacist who lied to the african americans during his presidential campaign in 1913. according to a 2015 new york times article quoting eric yellen author of racism in the nation service historians usually say here was this amazing liberal progressive who was a racist which is too bad now let's go back to talking about the good things wilson's racist actions were seen as extreme even for the time his close friend made the kkk movie birth of a nation and screened the film in the white house rand miller teacher author advocate in new jersey where woodrow wilson was governor and president of princeton university denied african-american students entrance and as governor created public policies to exclude black people he signed into law a sterilization bill fueled by his beliefs in eugenics as u.s president he fired black supervisors like james napier who was whose signature appeared on the dollar bill printed in 1912. he required photos on all job applications on all job applications wilson was challenged by w.e.b dubois du bois and trotter of the newly formed uh naacp and they were removed from the white house for a quote not knowing their place wilson is quoted as saying to the new york times article quote if colored people made a mistake in voting for me they ought to correct it wilson initiated the occupation in haiti in 1915. he blocked a japanese proposal to include racial equality as a founding principal in the league of nations some say he should be judged for a judge according to the times but racism can never be ignored must always be corrected and never excused on june 2020 monmouth university in new jersey removed wilson's name from their building all pps schools building should be should be renamed if the name reflects the history of pr history or practice of racism anti-semitism sex sexism and and any and all the other isms we want the school name and murals that reflect the values we aspire to see in the world a year ago my siblings i researched other other wilsons in effort to reclaim the name harriet wilson in 1915 1859 was the very first african-american person to publish a book her father was a free black man and her mom was an irish immigrant choosing to honor harriet would be one of hope and inclusion other staff may be traumatized and harmed by retaining the wilson name and although the the monetary price for change may be more doing the right thing is priceless several of us will be meeting with principal reese teach tomorrow he ascend a letter to the superintendent per per admin directive 2.20.011 we seek approval to rename the woodrow wilson high school in a process that will involve teachers students and parents and to be completed by the beginning of the 2020 school year thank you thank you we have additional public comments bradshaw yes we have one more student who i don't see but want to call their
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name to make sure um it's mia cedric are you here mia okay um so next in the public comment we have ellen what more welcome hi my name is ellen watmore w-h-a-t-m-o-r-e i've been a teacher at woodrow wilson high school since 2009. i am here to present to you a change.org petition that was started on june 16th 2020 and has since been signed by 2 000 signatories including current and former students staff and administrators while there is much staff support for this initiative i wanted to center student voices tonight here are some comments by former student maddie limon class of 2020 portland public school board throughout the american k-12 education students learn about the leaders that have led america through trials and tribulations their acts of bravery and their noble causes we learned the conventional story of america one that still permeates many people's notions and beliefs yet what we students don't learn is the counter narrative all the dark and awful things that make these men seem less like brave leaders and more like scared cowards that has never been more true than for the 28th president woodrow wilson after whom our school is currently named students and educators alike have pushed for the changing of the school name for years now the name holds immense power and the name of our school shows that we inherently upsettingly are standing on the side of a racist oppressor and why because of tradition legacy conformity this name does not show what we the students the educators the faculty the community stand for this community strives for works for and promotes equity within our school how are we supposed to move forward in equity and social justice work as a predominantly white school if we are inherently connected to a racist past signed madeleine limon additionally some excerpts from a letter written by current student mia sedery class of 2021 to the superintendent dear superintendent during this time of racism and hatred many institutions are currently trying to figure out what the right thing to do is what are we woodrow wilson high school going to do to me the answer is clear remove our connection to woodrow wilson a racist kkk supporter who actively perpetuated the dangerous systems of racism that remain today how can we have a school named after a president who re-segregated the nation stopped efforts in racial equality and supported the kkk how can we grow as a community under his name in this very moment we have the choice to either continue honoring the white supremacists to reinforce segregation or we can change the narrative working towards equity and inclusion by implicating communities of color this is the very first step the bare minimum of equity work i've not even begun to address the lack of diverse curriculum or the disciplinary policies in public schools that foster the school-to-prison pipeline i've just scratched the surface of all the work we need to do but a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step loud suit and it's time to take hours thank you for your time mia suttery the languageofthechange.org petition reads for years students and staff at woodrow wilson high school have raised concerns about the racist history tied to the name of southwest southwest portland's only comprehensive high school what message does it send to our students especially our students of color that they walk the halls of a building bearing the name of president woodrow wilson given his racism and bigotry multiple articles have surfaced presidents wilson's racist beliefs and actions we cannot afford to let this racist legacy live on students have circulated paper petitions before but it's time to organize our support for these students and add our signatures black students and students of color have long carried the burden of anti-racism activism but it's time for the entire school community to join with them in bringing social justice to the school after all what better step can we take toward improving school climate and inclusion at this majority white high school than to remove the name of one who promoted segregation we the undersigned ask that portland public schools work with students faculty and community members to determine a new name befitting the school one that communicates the school's values of inclusion diversity and equity thank you for your consideration thank you so much mrs what more that's thanks for moving i'm sorry who was that that's a director to pass i just said i thanked ms watmore for her um for her testimony and for showing up um i i just want to send an appreciation for calling out things that are becoming more and more obvious agreed thank you and i think we're gonna um we have staff working on outlining the process for supporting some of these student-led efforts um which are arising in many of our schools now so thank you very much um no further problem with ms bradshaw chair constant at some point could we get an update on this is the first i've heard that someone's addressing it at all and i would appreciate
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kind of being kept in the loop in terms of um updated on on you know not necessarily who's working on that but what what's happening with that we could get an update every now and then um so we know what to tell community members because there's a lot of conversation around this renaming and murals and going on right now i know there's a process and i would just benefit by having additional information regularly updated agreed i think we all would um and so it's clear to the public how to bring those efforts forward miss bradshaw was that it for public comment no we have darshan preet gill yeah can you hear me yes okay hi my name is darshan preet gill spell g-i-l-l i work at madison high school and today i want to tell you about my experience as one of the small number of educators of color in this district so that you can be more informed and effective about not only recruiting us but retaining us i know that the district continues to put out resolutions policies budgets and press releases meant to center and serve students of color yet it keeps burning through the educators of color that are proven to be critical to that work before i delve into my experience i want to acknowledge that as a south asian woman while my experience has been difficult i know it's been far easier than what my black colleagues suffer through daily i can't imagine the mental toll of working for a state that actively excluded your ancestors a city that redlined your families out of maintaining community and building generational wealth and a district that has allowed according to the 2019 state audit a 53 achievement gap to form between your children and white children i was recruited by pps from my hometown of fresno california in an effort to diversify this district and better serve the needs of students of color in the recruitment process i was constantly assured that i was going to love it here having been here for five years now i sincerely wonder if they talk to a single classroom teacher of color in this district before giving me that assurance i know the truth isn't flattering but it saves education educators a lot of emotional labor and time when we don't have to dedicate our own mental faculties to try to reconcile the difference between what we're told will experience and what we actually experience having been through your recruitment retention process i'm still deeply invested in growing the number of educators of color in this district because our students deserve it however to best do this there are some things that have to change one there has to be transparency during recruitment please be honest about the huge amount of intellectual emotional or spiritual work you're asking us to take on right from the start and if you don't know how to be honest about that ask those of us who are still here before we burn out and leave too two set up set us up for success since being recruited five years ago i have taught at three different schools had students that ranged in age from kindergarten to 12th grade and taught nine distinct courses most of which i had no background in nor curriculum for how does this set me up for success please work with the union to prioritize the appropriate placement of educators of color our students do not benefit from watching us being poorly treated too and finally third please mandate student feedback for all teachers one of the biggest challenges i've faced as an educator of color is the disconnect between the known harm that is being done to our students of color in classrooms around this district and the actions taken are often not taken by administration or the district the most significant ask i can make from you is to mandate that students be given a chance to provide feedback for all of their teachers so that we have actual data that is seen and acted upon by administrators and is used in a clearly laid out process to identify educators who are harming the very kids you continually say you're prioritizing in closing i want to thank you for hearing me out and i strongly encourage you to solicit further input from other teachers of color around the district about how to honestly recruit us and actually retain us thank you thank you oh thank you can you hear me yes awesome thank you my name is kate maloney m-o-l-o-n-y i teach at madison high school tonight i'm thinking about how we can all work together to realize your ambitious budget document which acknowledges pbs's historical under service to the black and indigenous communities of portland and commits to center them and also our black and indigenous newcomers and our collective efforts moving forward i'd like to offer ideas about one inquiry-based education as an anti-racist curricular priority
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to the unworkable tension between current capitalist grading systems and school schedules and the graduate portrait and three concrete solutions from students and colleagues to assist in marrying the discourse and pedagogy within our current staff instructors first inquiry-based education has changed me as an educator and helped me get out of my students way allowing students to pursue their learning according to their own interests values and passions has changed student relationships to school with students at the center staff have fewer opportunities to cause harm or minimize a student's culture or experience invest in inquiry education at all possible junctions value every human in the building as an educator pp psu senior inquiry for all pps seniors with sliding scale credit cost offsets in more wealthy schools and areas of the district second grades in their current iteration are racist capitalist dog treats schedules of eight rigorous classes are too much for our students do not allow for the type of relationship building and support that our students crave and do not mirror the college schedules for which they are supposedly being prepared they also cause anxiety depression and internalized racism or worse exacerbate already existing mental health challenges in our precious young people audrey lord taught us that the master's tools cannot dismantle the master's house without reorganizing schools around communities love and justice the vision of the budget and the graduate portrait cannot be achieved students need more relationships different grading systems fewer courses and more flexible opportunities to design their own high school experience as supported by pps's adaption of the universal design for learning philosophy students should be allowed to accelerate get more credits for employment and have agency in designing their own high school path finally marrying the discourse with the pedagogy is the true challenge here with a teaching staff and delivery system largely made of portland area well-meaning white folks many of whom are in day one two or three and they're learning about whiteness i fear the budget document may struggle to live up to its own aspirations here are concrete ideas from students and teachers that contribute to system shift a strategy one where pbs commits to encourage and support an inclusive culture that leverages community voice one have a student and parent on every hiring committee even for besc positions two have students evaluate their teachers work with qut to include student assessment and teacher evaluation yes even elementary students could do this three establish a clear protocol with pat similar to sexual harassment reporting that allows racism to be interrupted in our buildings and holds staff accountable to anti-racist learning and change four mandate that staff learn and use the same restorative justice practices we expect our students to use in working through conflict not expect students to use these skills when we do not if you're looking for student voice please read the link that i had kara bradshaw send to you of student voice in my senior inquiry course at madison i hope that we are going to be able to pull off your budget it's an incredibly aspirational document and i hope that we can make it happen thank you thank you thank you sure awesome i have three people who signed up that i don't see again i would like to call their name to make sure we have midnote cleveland and andrea strauss andrew harvey okay thank you miss bradshaw thank you everyone for your comments um please feel free all of you to connect with board manager roseanne powell if you have something you'd like to follow up on with the board or the board office or something you'd like to submit for us to read um now superintendent guerrero uh as a board we've very much been looking forward to uh learning more about all the work that's been underway planning for school reopening in the fall would you like to introduce this item i would and i want to make sure and manage the board the public's expectation we won't be reviewing all the mysteries of the universe but we will give you a strong sense of how we're thinking about uh all the moving parts that come with contemplating or reentry uh this coming fall so this is a really large group effort a couple board members i think observed that uh yesterday in meeting but we do have a couple of individuals that are sort of playing the role of internal uh coordinators to this effort so as i mentioned earlier we look forward to just more ongoing communication from here on out uh to our families and to the board so
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um we have a deck for you and uh we have a few folks that are that are going to talk you through it um but i am going to turn it over to brenda martnick our chief of student supports dr sean byrd our chief of schools who are going to provide the board this evening with this overview of where we are in our planning for real food to school in the fall thank you superintendent uh good evening uh board chair constant [Music] board directors uh and our community and staff um we're really excited to talk to you about our fall 2021 uh re-entry planning process um so i'm gonna have uh sean kick it off uh because we're first gonna start talking about our guiding principles uh with which really kind of uh points us uh and is our uh north star in combination with our vision and our strategic plan so um sean all right good evening everyone check on stem vice chairman members of the board and community if you go to the next slide please as we are planning our re-entry for the fall we have four guiding principles that are guiding our work the first and most critical one is to ensure the health and wellness for our students staff and buildings so this is not only about making sure we have social distancing in place and sanitary processes but we also know that this pandemic has caused trauma to many in our communities so we want to make sure that as we return to plan and return to school that we're prioritizing trauma-informed care and support for our students and staff and our communities so social emotional well-being is an important cornerstone of this plan the second guiding principle is to strengthen and innovate the instructional core so we want to make sure that our students are learning through rigorous and relevant tasks uh regardless of the method of their learning whether it's face-to-face or distance learning to make sure that we are uh living up to the positions that are reflecting our graduate profile it's also a principle that's deeply rooted in our theory of action and acknowledges the priority to center our plans on improving the academic experience particularly of our black and native students third we want to make sure we center racial equity and social justice in our plans so that's the overarching approach to reopening is to embrace our relentless pursuit of racial equity and social justice in our plans we want to as we work to reopen schools we want to acknowledge and recognize that the inequities of our system prior to the coronavirus and we don't want to reopen schools by going back to what was going on before rather we are engaged in fundamentally accelerating and centering our racial equity and social justice work and then the final principle is to cultivate connection and relationship so we know that quality learning experiences can only occur when there's deep interpersonal relationships and a learning environment where children feel seen known and loved particularly in this time where kids have been out of school for what will be about six months from face-to-face instruction we want to make sure that we are supporting families and students as they return next slide i'm going to turn over to our superintendent to talk about the ode blueprint actually i'll go ahead and take that one sorry so what we did is uh ode came out with uh blueprint guidance around the second week of june and it is divided into eight components of the blueprint the first three sections is really around the health and wellness of our staff our facilities and school operations and how we respond to the response so what we're currently doing right now is developing our communicable disease plan specifically around covet 19. that will help lead us with those three components of the blueprint the other five components are around equity instruction mental social and emotional health uh family and community engagement and staffing and personnel so what we have done is we have started to align uh our re-entry teams in accordance with some of the blueprints and then also around the key components of how we're going to reopen schools next slide please next slide
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thank you so as you can see uh the public health uh oh go back one thanks thank you so as you can see um our public health and school uh re-entry plan is really based on a number of different factors first in order to operate our schools uh even in a hybrid in any case um that we would start to bring back staff and students we would have to meet the first three components of the blueprint document once we do that then we start to look at the planning and development of our blueprint for re-entry and so that really talks about our blueprint plan uh the engagement opportunities uh how we have uh interpreted and incorporated our communicable disease plan into all of our planning documents and our reentry plan and then once we have met all of those then school would be considered ready to welcome staff and students and so we have to actually meet all of these key components within the eight components of the blueprint document next slide thank you so what i did want to talk a little bit about is our partnerships we have started working with the big five districts in oregon which you can see all five of those districts there on the screen we started that a couple weeks ago so that we could start to align our thinking have discussions about what other districts were facing the challenges and some creative ways to start looking at how we re-enter in the fall thing that we did is we contracted with the district management group this group is helping to lead all five of these districts in oregon around a peer review and a strategic framework in order for us to really look at the planning process look at our implementation components and look at that through national information that they will help provide to us and they will also help review our plan and then we'll also get some peer review from our five districts in the state and then other districts around the nation the other thing that we have done is we're partnering with multnomah esd our education service district our oregon health authority and the communicable disease center so that we can help we can actually devise the communicable disease plan so that we can get started on those first three components all right i am going to turn it back over to sean all right go to the next slide please so briefly we have some several planning teams that are in place and so these are the sort of six uh buckets of work that we're looking at so of course the most important is the instructional core and our professional development that we'll be providing for teachers and then social emotional learning operations are things like how do we make sure we maintain social distancing how do we make sure that uh children are in stable cohorts as is recommended by the ode guidance we also are looking at security transportation those kinds of issues in the operations team equity access committee is looking uh at our racial equity social justice lens also making sure that we are providing necessary uh tools for homeless children students with disabilities students who are learning english still and also any students that are from our most vulnerable populations we also are looking at what resources we need so things like ppe for our staff protective equipment that is and other resources that we need to operate in an environment that is different than we're used to we'll also be engaging our stakeholders and i'll talk about that more in just a
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minute and then we're partnering with the groups that work with us in our after school and child care there's a committee that's working on that to make sure that we can operate those committees when we reopen school next slide we've made a lot of progress today we still have a lot of work to do but we have made some progress that i want to share with you done when we first began our extended closure we did as you know distribute chromebooks and help families that needed wi-fi we allowed help them get that in place so we know the areas that we still need to work on in terms of strengthening wi-fi we've also ordered and have in our in our warehouse technology that will help meet the needs of students we have uh perfected our uh nutrition services we've served uh hundreds of thousands of meals during our extended closures so we have solid plans in terms of uh nutrition services we are currently working on uh plans if we had a some hybrid version of school on how we would allow for nutrition that's spaced out so that students are not too close together so we can maintain social distancing so we're working on those kinds of plans in terms of nutrition services we just completed our capacity analysis for all of our buildings so we know exactly how many students can be in each classroom we have also been working on our busing capacity and how the what protocols we would need to have in place for cleaning those buses in between runs um we are working on our high school and well all of our scheduling but particularly our high school scheduling and how that would work uh most of our high schools currently operate on an eight period schedule a b schedule so we would look at if we need to make modifications for that in case of uh us return to school that's not on the typical uh brick and mortar school day and then we're looking at how we can engage our community so there will be different opportunities for community members to give input on these plans we've been in discussions with our labor partners and those will continue as we as our plans evolve and of course we are monitoring the the cdc for advice on how we maintain the best hygiene standards we have done some surveys already and there are more surveys that are planned to so we've done our teacher survey to allow them to reflect on what worked well during the extended closure and then what kind of professional development and other services they need we're also planning a survey that will go out soon to families to get their feedback on different um scenarios and dr bird if i may hear this is jonathan garcia chief engagement officer i i want to i want to make sure um just to highlight that the surveys are meant to to go wide catch cash cast the wide net of staff students parents community members etc then we will be hosting a series of focus groups that allow us to go in uh provide some in-depth uh uh feedback um to to the to the work ahead so uh and and as the board knows our commitment is to ensure that our black native and communities of color are centered uh in our conversation in our work and so as we um as we plan these focus groups that will be front and center so i just want to highlight that surveys are meant to go wide cast a wide net and our focus groups that we'll be hosting will will be about going deep with uh with communities especially communities that uh that systems institutions like ours tend to uh lead last or um leave them out what's up thank you and next slide please so finally our next steps jonathan just mentioned one of them that in addition to surveys we'll have in-depth opportunities for people to respond to our plans and to provide feedback we will continue to monitor the progression of the coronavirus and that will obviously have an impact on our plans so we will be in consultation with the big five districts but also have information and regular updates from the oregon health authority and the cdc we'll be implementing a regular communication plan so this is the first uh step in our communication plan as we uh plan more we'll be communicating on a regular basis with families uh on and so there'll be a regular cadence of communications that people can expect be finalizing different options uh once we have uh had a chance to get feedback from the community as jonathan just referenced we will take that input and finalize our options and then we will be paying particular attention to the high-risk populations the students that are most vulnerable as jonathan alluded to and and also our students with disabilities to develop make sure we have plans in place for accommodation and prioritize services for those
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students who are the most vulnerable and have have uh been out of school um you know for this duration of time i would also just like to add that we do have uh summer school programs in place for some students and that is giving us an opportunity to try out some of these protocols so um students that are in our csi schools which are our most underserved communities are will be participating in some limited summer opportunities so that we can a connect with those children and make sure that they are getting having education opportunities that may have been harder for them in a distance environment but also so that we can test to work on our protocols make sure we have the right things in place for social distancing and those and those recommended guidelines that is our presentation we open up for questions quick question on your last point mr bird are those summer programs a hybrid or are those all virtual at this point so um the ones i'm talking about for csi schools will be mostly virtual but there will be opportunities for small groups of students to to come into building no more than five to ten students at a time and there'll be opportunities for them to work with the teacher at certain points through that time those don't happen until july okay so this is uh julia just a question about um summer school of games i do think it's a great opportunity to um we're doing something similar in my workplace um do sort of a phase in sort of dip the toe in to see how things go and be able to sort of uh you know check and adjust as needed but with a much smaller population instead of just doing things full-on at the very beginning and i'm wondering if part of that this summer whether we would partner with ohsu or another healthcare partner to give us a review just given our core competency obviously isn't um the health standards and requirements of whether that's something that we've talked about doing as we prepare to open just so that if we need to make any adjustments now is the time to make them while we have a smaller group and it's more manageable and that is our plan uh director brim edwards our plan is to specifically for the summer programs is to implement our confirmed case protocol our contact tracing our login and log out how we move cohorts in and out of buildings how we physically distance how we monitor bathrooms entries exits and so it's really a nice time for all of the things that we have been developing for us to implement on a small scale so that we can kind of beta test them in order to start in the fall and so we will have some lessons learned after that and we'll be able to to go back to tweak things to work with our partners at oregon health authority and montgomery esd and revise our plans after that i just have one quick comment and that set um i imagine the kids that we're going to be serving in summer school are you know low income and kids of color i'm just broadly just guessing and i'm hoping that the protocols that we put in place are mindful of that uh fact that they're going to be out there and you know that we're taking the steps not to exacerbate those statistics that we all have heard about in terms of who's um mostly who's who's impacted first and longest and the most so i appreciate your attention to those details thank you i have a director bailey hi director bailey okay can i uh yeah thank you sorry it's the etiquette here is always challenging uh first i want to say thank you uh to our staff um you all have risen above and beyond this year several times already and this is just one more example of doing way more than you signed up for so thank you for that we keep our neediest students first and foremost especially our african-american students and indigenous students going forward [Music] as nothing would delight me more than to be
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quote back to normal although i'm not sure if normal is where we want to return to in the fall but i'm assuming we're going to be somewhere else and if we're dealing with say limitations of 10 students in a class and just thinking about that how do we uh i i would think that we would want to prioritize in-person time or our media students which would mean uh more maybe more days per week or more hours per day that they are in uh a pretty small you know 10 or 12 student classroom um but i'm also aware that there's a real imbalance in terms of our schools and i'm thinking just elementary here um in terms of the number of students who are you know really need that attention now especially after this last year how how do we balance staffing in us in a situation like that so uh i'm guessing you're thinking along those kind of lines right thank you for the question we are we um actually just today uh began conversations with our um largest uh labor partner the pat about um these kinds of issues there are certainly social distancing guidelines that we follow and that's why we did the capacity study of our buildings we have talked about different scenarios and we have groups of teachers principals and staff central staff that are looking at different scenarios so yes we are prioritizing those children who are for our most underserved communities also we want to be mindful of the youngest children kindergarten first second grade how can we make sure that we are maximizing their time one of the things that we know about schooling is that relationships are critical and so distance learning worked uh because we had been in school for several months before so kids knew their teachers they knew their routines um you know for a kindergartner to start school without having some face time with their teacher would be would be challenging so we're thinking about those kinds of things and particularly those transition years where are where children are going to new schools you want to be mindful of how much time they're in the building and also those children who are having the most academic um struggles so again we have the summer school program for some of those children uh to sort of get a jump start or kind of close some gaps um but then we wanna so we have different scenarios that we're we're planning and we'll be getting asking for feedback from people along the way and definitely working with our labor partners for staffing those classrooms and real quickly will we be doing the kindergarten transition program this summer ekt um brenda do you have information on that believe that we are doing uh ekt uh maybe um dr valentino do you um have an answer for that specifically uh as of now it was not going to be offered due to budget um we're going to continue to look at it just as we as we arrived and actually saw what the availability of funds would be yeah so we are going to be provide extended uh school year for our students with special needs and that will be virtual uh we're also implementing our virtual scholars program and that will be also virtual we do have a number of virtual summer programs for within our mpg programs for uh student our students who are some of them are our most marginalized students we are providing a group for black male youth and it will be coupled with athletics and math so that is going to be actually really exciting uh to uh to kick that one off and then we're also providing summer programming in our csi schools and so those are the ones that we're currently working on right now uh they're in a variety of our schools and they have a different capacity that we will be working on and i do want to stress to our families that are watching and our staff and our students that that your children's health and well-being is the most important thing to us and so we take this extremely seriously we take the cleaning and the sanitization
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extremely seriously the contact logging how we're really breaking students up into cohorts so that we are really ensuring that every student has that six feet of physical distancing and then also how we can then um work within those constraints and those parameters and provide an amazing and quality program for our students who have not come back into school since march 13th so so we take this really seriously and so i just want everybody to know that that is um that is a huge priority for us uh and so i i just wanted to to stress that point uh just one more time any other questions for us can i ask um so i'm very i was very pleased to see that you're working with a lot of the local partners um and i'm serious what kind of help they are willing and able to offer in terms of um both the planning you know figuring out what you know what the criteria are what are the what are the risk factors that you have to mitigate for and all that um but also any practical assistance um this is going to be a logistical nightmare i'm assuming um so could you talk a little bit more about what um what kind of you know really concrete support you're getting from those partners and and what your wish list is what would you like to get that you're not getting now are you gonna are you gonna make my wishes come true director more i can try but i need to know what they are first well i am happy to provide a wish list um so uh montgomery esd and our partners with the oregon health authority have been um actually amazing to work with we have a nursing department there that we contract with they are partnering with the cdc and so we get access and support and guidance and consultation through them multnomah esd has also offered additional types of meeting groups uh facilitation groups with all of our east county districts that are within montlick esd some of those we have participated in some of those are really focused on more smaller districts and being from one of those smaller districts it was desperately needed uh pps has uh more resources so we don't necessarily need all of the supports and uh guidance that money esd provides so so those are the partners that we have been mostly working with in terms of tele services or teletherapy we've also partnered with some of our community mental health partners and then also with ohsu and kaiser and a number of other medical providers so that we can start once school gets up and running we can start providing that tele tele services tell us it's not teletherapy but but anyway you know what i mean um and so those are some things that are in the works but our primary uh mission right now is to ensure that health and well-being of our staff our students and our families to make sure that we are providing services and supports to our most vulnerable students and providing our instructional core so that we can continue to move our students forward um i have a question did somebody mentioned earlier ppe um protective equipment and our summer classes and you know whatever we look like going into the fall is that something that's provided to staff and students at the district level or how how are we thinking about managing free skippers the guidance keeps um oh i'm sorry i would say the guidance is changing um we um you know as you know starting tomorrow in multnomah county everyone needs to wear a face mask indoors um so we'll be following that guidance from the governor um children are not always necessarily recommended to wear masks children under 12 are not necessarily that's not a recommendation for them
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but we want to but there are certain recommendations in the od guidance that was released about uh you know office staff either providing a face mask or a face shield or plexiglass as you go into stores now and see so there are various um um i would say iterations of that that are coming out so we'll be monitoring that as we get closer to opening but the district has ordered and does have in its warehouse in our warehouse some ppe that we'll be issuing this summer for our summer programs to make sure that everyone is safe we're of course going to continue to use disinfectant to sanitize high touch surfaces and just as a reminder to everyone washing your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water is the best defense against this so we'll be having hand washing stations in our schools and we'll be providing routine hand washing time for children when they are in school the additional things that we'll be doing is we are ordering uh the touchless thermometers for all of our building although we we won't be providing that as our first screen we will be following the ode guidance which is a visual screen it is going to be a process for the second step of our screening and we will be working with esd and their nursing department because we are fortunate in pps to either have a full-time school nurse uh at all of our high schools or a six or seven hour a day five days a week school health assistant who will also help provide that that screening and provide those quarantine areas until we can get the student safety so thank you um this is rita again um so i can understand why um why you don't want to talk about specifics at this stage uh because you're still working out um this is a very complicated thing um can you give us some sense of what the timeline that you're working on do you have any sense of when you will be able to kind of talk in public about different scenarios that you're exploring of course um august 14th is the deadline for the blueprint to be submitted to ode so we have to have everything finalized before august 14th so we do have a very aggressive uh timeline or decisions uh we have actually started rolling a couple of those scenarios out uh we'll be starting to meet on those uh this week in the first part of next week uh our hope and so nobody can stick me to this date but um our hope is that july 1st we will have some uh a semblance of what some of those scenarios could look like not that by july 1st we will be able to publicly talk about that because we will still have a number of different groups that need to kind of poke holes at it make sure that we run it through a number of different types of scenarios and ensure that it is truly a viable option before we share something like that with the public we don't want um to provide different scenarios that then we end up finding out can't work and so we want to try to be able to problem solve as many of those potential potholes as possible and brenda is your planning based on the assumption that um the school calendar will remain the same or at least the start date that's correct our start date um our plan at this time is that our start date would be september 1st uh and we don't know what that looks like um but we do know that um we're still planning on having the start of school on september 1st so before we leave i just i just want to jump in uh with just two quick points one um to thank staff for the work that's that's gone into this so far it is incredibly difficult work and and i know in my day job we're trying to you know figure out how we reopen um you know what are mainly office spaces and that's incredible incredibly complex um and we're not even working on a timeline we can open in august we can open
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december we could open october it's maybe maybe 10 of the complexity that you're dealing with when you're dealing with schools and lots of different schools and parents and kids and teachers in the entire thing so um it is incredibly complex and i just really i thank the staff for the work that that has been going in and you will continue to be running probably uh at 100 miles per hour for the next um two months at least um and on this point about communication i really appreciate this balance and it's really hard to find that balance um i i would encourage the district to communicate as much as possible i think your instincts are probably right putting out scenarios that we end up pulling back would be counterproductive but putting out information that lets people know we are working on scenarios we're working through this what the timeline is going to be most of the emails i'm getting right now are mostly just parents saying we don't know what's going on and and even if we know that we won't know for another month or another two months like that's somewhat reassuring then just sort of not so i even think i mean between now and august 15th when your deadline is a weekly email could be really helpful and even if the weekly email says hey we spent another week working that scenarios and we're going to continue doing that next week it at least provide some some communication so uh so we uh being developed uh currently by our men david roy uh our plan is to have information staff and families at the end of the day thursday uh starting in two days we did an another communication two weeks ago uh that went out on thursday so we will start seeing that weekly uh and our goal is to also on july one uh come out with uh some sort of campaign so that you will see a feel of what physical distancing might feel like and look like uh you will see what uh what a student might um experience when they're going onto the bus and you might look at what it might look like when they go into their classroom uh and then also what our physical distancing um visuals are gonna be because we do believe that um for transition and cotton candy and so whenever wherever student is or a staff member is uh they know what those lines are uh to look for in order to make sure that they're understanding at the appropriate place in the elevator that they're uh washing their hands before they are building uh that uh they are continuing to maintain that physical distancing when they're uh getting lunch or grabbing their coat account so we're really trying to think of all of those key aspects to enter success thanks i have a couple questions um i want to just uh join director scott because um i'm spending a lot of my time my professional life uh with this as as well and um it's co it's extremely complicated and then you add um children and youth in it and it's even more complicated um and in a very compressed timeline i had uh just questions just in a variety of different topic areas um if we uh have to revert to a distance learning environment because of either an outbreak or um we're not a hybrid where part of the time we're in distance learning environment and the other part um in school um i know that this year just i've heard from a lot of both teachers and parents just the frustration of like not being in their normal environment and just that the challenge of teaching and the challenge of learning or helping your child learn in a distance learning environment and i'm wondering um what lessons we've learned from the last um several months that we're going to like incorporate as we pivot forward and what that might look like that that might be different um is i i think a lot of people were like hey we made it through the end of the year but um hopefully if we go back to distance um learning that you know these these three things will be addressed and i say i um it wasn't for a lack of effort on um whether it was central athens staff or teachers or parents trying to help their students it was just you know a very different environment so i'm wondering what what lessons have we learned and what might we if we change if we find ourselves
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back into a hybrid or a just just a plain distance learning environment yeah so we did definitely learn a lot of lessons from our experience uh and so we the first thing we did was take a survey of our teachers to find out what worked for them what worked well for them and what didn't and we're doing the same thing with families but we know um you know we know some of that information already so one of the things that we would do we are working on is um looking at our technology platforms and what are the most efficient platforms for students to access in a in a synchronous environment uh so they can still go into small groups and they can still there's some functionality that we didn't necessarily have available in this iteration that we are working on improving there definitely are um you know we want to have more cons consistent roll out of curriculum so the central office teams are preparing curriculum so that it's readily available um that is a shift that we've made over over time so that those curriculum teams are working on developing that so that if we do have to go into this state it won't be something that we're creating at that at that time it will teach you and teachers have uh appreciated that in the spring semester i appreciate having the availability of but now we know we can refine those processes some also our um we have refined our communication tools with parents we did that sort of midstream uh this year with when we started using remind as a tool to contact families so we have some lessons learned from how best to reach students that are that are hard to reach so you know just those kind of communication strategies that we have been refining and um so yeah i mean there are several areas and we're still learning more from families and as jonathan mentioned earlier those engagement sessions um some of those topics will be uncovered explored more so that we can learn what worked and what didn't work particularly for families that we did struggle to keep in touch with so we want to make sure that we're giving those those families the tools they need to to succeed so just as a follow-up to that um i know one of the one of the challenges was uh that the way the state order was set up was sort of discretionary um and i'm assuming as we head into next year the assumption is um we're we're heading back into learning it may be in a variety of different shapes but it's not a discretionary activity and that's not really a criticism i mean it is what it is like we're in a global pandemic sure um there was a feeling of just like teachers i talked to and parents of that really sort of took the um um not pressure but just it there wasn't a big incentive for you know students to engage um yeah yeah so so i first of all i just say i would really commend our teachers um for you know we saw a lot of creativity come out in our teaching force and i think in some ways some of the lessons that we've learned will actually transform teaching when we go back to what is a regular environment because we've teachers have discovered some some new superpowers they didn't know they had in terms of using technology to engage students and so i i but yes to your point you might remember the order changed over time first it was just a focus on social emotional learning and then it changed to we had another order so i think now that we're going into this we'll have more um guidance i think we expect some updated guidance on june 30th from ode that will further uh give us some uh outline but yeah i think you would you would see a different it's it's not the same situation so you'll see it much more probably structured environment than we saw in the in the spring in some ways great i know there'll be lots of parents and students and staff cheering for that so another question i had is this is like more on the administrative side um and i don't know who would answer it but the district management group um i'm curious what their sort of health expertise is or what what expertise is it that they're providing to this and what sort of contract we have with them for the services they're providing so we are contracting with uh the district management group um we do have a contract with them uh it is for 12 500 it is to help guide our thinking uh with a uh with a framework um and then what they've helped us do is really be a critical thought partner with us in regards to the teams which members of the team would work well how we look at our plans uh through a different set of domains uh how we engage our community and teachers and principals our board
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members parent representatives culturally specific organizations so a number of different ways in which we engage different stakeholder groups and then what is really crucial is that peer review and then the national review so that we're not just working in our own little bubble but we're working um with our plan and how we implement our plan in relation to a global pandemic and what the dm group is really able to provide us is that global view that research and analysis and then peer partners that are across the country who have experienced different things than we have and have been able to be critical thought partners with us on this journey and brenda is that um contract in that process uh in collaboration with the other four school districts or um we have something that's just on our own as well that is our own contract so we have not done a contract in consortium we have each done individual contracts so while we're partnering with the other four large districts we will align our plans as much as possible but we also need to understand and incorporate our community our community voice our culturally specific providers and what our traditions and experiences are for portland i have a question dr byrd um specifically about what we know about learning loss and can you just um talk a little bit about how you're thinking about differentiating learning for our students that we know um needed the most and have maybe suffered the most slide sure so a couple of things that's one of the reasons we wanted to prioritize summer programming for uh students that we know are in csi schools particularly as those are schools that are struggling academically so we'll prioritize some very targeted um [Music] work with those students in literacy and mathematics and then go moving forward because of the way um you know school you know regular school ended march 13th so we know that we need to prioritize uh sort of reshuffling our scope and sequence for next year so that we can re we asked teachers to focus on the most important standards at the end of the year but you know we didn't necessarily catch every student so we want to make sure that every student is is kind of level set at the beginning of the year so all of our curriculum team now is working on reworking those scope and sequence so they're getting the end of the last year and the beginning of next year because as you might imagine a student in you know math as a building is builds upon a foundation so you need to make sure that those kids have those skills so they can go on to the next level so there will be some of that differentiation in the in the curriculum at all levels but particularly for students that are um are most vulnerable that's why we're trying to do some work in the summer as well for them thank you any further questions of staff just to echo director scott's point keep us posted and keep our families posted there's nothing that um people are more focused on right now um and we really appreciate just this incredible effort but that's you know that's where the innovation comes too right that's right that's right thank you i'm sorry i have just one last question because this is something that is a like apparent um just like a parent planning question the whole issue of face covering so right now the current guidance is um only for those over over 12 where you don't have some other like medical reason or reason why you wouldn't run through them so just to clarify the district is going to would be providing those or the expectation is that families would provide them and if it's the latter what things do we have in place [Music] to ensure that all students would have access to face coverage just as a way to protect their own health but also to protect the health of um our staff and other adults so so that's uh something that we're planning for as that guidance moves along as i said we have order we have a supply
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of um face masks and so we would be um you know hopefully many people have their own but if they don't we'll have them just like if you go now and you travel uh you have to get one from the airport from the airline when you get on airplane now so we would have a supply of them so that students would have them uh they will be accessible to people um but we're those are details that we're working through right now um in terms of providing that material those materials i i appreciate that and that would be an excellent place to apply our like equity lens because i'm guessing that people that you know are struggling probably don't have you know lots of face masks available and right so thank you and we are and for our summer programs we are sending them out to school right now and so they have them to to use that's excellent thank is you since um since this is going to be an issue for um pretty much everybody um is there any effort being made for a statewide initiative to provide ppe um for school districts um i mean given the burn rate that is probably gonna um probably gonna be pretty significant especially when you're looking at kids then i think we can have some economies of scale here both in terms of money and effort if the state could come up with a um a system to to do kind of bulk ordering for all of this stuff yeah are there any discussions of that if you'd like me to respond i'm not sure if someone else was going to okay um the oregon department of ed our school finance office has been in conversation with business managers and they are working to do a large purchase and for districts across the state so that is under under discussion and in the works i would like to correct one of the summer programs uh originally the athletic program for uh black male youth was only for our black males um what uh what we have done is we have expanded that um so it is uh for um both uh boys and girls and so i just wanted to correct that information and what grade levels is that brenda um dr valentino do you want to do you want to add the grade levels you're on mute thank you the program is for middle school students who are using the data that russ had um compiled for us showed that there was a group of students would benefit from the summer school experience and while originally it was for uh black male athletes it's been expanded so it's for both male and female athletes and it's not only for um students for students of color so i didn't want to correct that information i i just want to point out again one of the strengths of our administrative team from the get-go has been systematic collaboration with other districts and both in oregon and around the nation and it just really pays off those relationships that have been built is paying off right now yeah thank you for recognizing that director bailey i think you observed on monday thank you for for sitting in as the chair constant to get a little bit of insight about basically 100 senior leaders in the five top districts in the state are are collaborating and talking offline uh in their similar roles you saw earlier in the presentation just the list of considerations and questions of work that are going to need a concrete response uh and modeling which we're very anxious to to share with families and we'll you will start to to witness a more regular stream of communications about it because we really want to start to have some um some scenarios that we can pressure test as soon as in the next few weeks so i think you heard several staff talk about and were particularly concerned about students who we know this disruption to their learning is is
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has has negatively impacted their progress so this is why we're proceeding with some level of late summer programming for certain school degrees but even as we think about the fall i think what parents can likely uh expect is our uh attempt to bring in our youngest students our students with disabilities um since since they're their critical speaking population um so stay tuned for more appreciate the questions uh hopefully we'll have more answers and more emerging uh plans and blueprints about uh what folks can expect and we'll make sure to start posting regular updates on our website as well so it's it's handy there for for our constituents thank you so much to the whole team thank you all right we still have a couple of pieces of important business left uh tonight we have before us the superintendent's proposed budget for the 2020-2021 school year for us to adopt we went through our approval process at our last meeting have had our budget town hall with the community and various focus groups with different sections of the community and tonight it comes before us for adoption um the board acting as the budget committee heard on may 26th uh the superintendent's full proposed budget with its focus on the core values theory of action and concepts our community articulated in our bold vision prior to approving the budget on the 11th we had the opportunity to hear directly from many in our community on how that proposed budget landed and the values expressed therein um superintendent would you like to introduce this item yes thank you chair constant i certainly want to invite the public if they haven't already uh to peruse the two volume proposed budget books uh mainly because i i would want folks to uh take note of the preamble because uh in there you'll find uh many of the concepts and themes that we shared with the board regarding our investment plan and how that's really an attempt to resource uh key key priority areas they're connected to uh materializing our vision for student success uh they're intended to help resource some prioritized educational system shifts we're looking forward to the fall where we have a similar engagement process for our students and our educators so um hopefully folks will see uh the through line between uh while it may not be the full uh revenue that we were hoping for um the themes and the priority areas remain important they might be a little bit scaled down from what we imagined i do want to say up front a big kudos for a very large group of budget analysts and financial team members and principals who weighed in uh and a lot of stakeholders who helped to shape this uh budget so i've enjoyed the conversations uh for the viewers in public who didn't catch the pre-meeting with the tax supervising conservation from this commission uh tscc we responded to questions they had uh which we provide that opportunity on an annual basis for um we're pleased that they voted to certify this budget without reservation um but uh thank you deputy superintendent uh claire hertz who really sort of has been carrying the bps torch on this so claire mainly i just want to call out our budget team who has worked countless hours and led by a new leader nicole bassin who has truly shown incredible new leadership so i just want to to our team and she's worked for us for a while but she was promoted and has just done yeoman's work so i just want to call her out and her team that um has been supporting all of us and with that i turn it back to the chair and and look for any questions thank you so much we'll get this motion on the table the board will now vote on resolution number 6135 to impose taxes and adoption of the 2020 2021 budget
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for school district 1j multnomah county oregon do i have a motion this is director lowry second second go ahead scott mowry moves director brim edwards and director b second motion to adopt resolution six one three five miss bradshaw do we have any public comment on resolution 6135 yes we have grace groom great welcome thank you thank you superintendent guerrero and school board members for hearing my testimony tonight i'm sorry i didn't testify earlier um i am a mother of two pps students and have the honor of serving as a second grade teacher at markham elementary so you know how fast and furious this budget time has been i was rather busy but i did want to testify tonight just to thank you all for prioritizing our most underserved students with this budget some of the shifts made in the budget will make a big impact in the students lives and create more equitable learning opportunities one of the shifts in the revised budget since cobit is very concerning however and that is the shift that shifted the cuts to funding our k5 classroom teachers the original budget made a major investment from the student investment account to fund 47 k5 classroom teachers with the goal of creating more optimal class sizes to provide more individualized daily direct instruction to our youngest learners the revised budget funds just four classroom teaching positions district-wide the student investment account revenue projections from ode are showing a reduction of 37 percent which is big but pps's investment into the kf5 classroom teachers has been reduced by over 85 percent this is resulting in staffing cuts and increased class sizes for some schools at a time when consistency in relationships as you mentioned between teachers students and families is most critical so this shift just is not centering the needs of the students classroom teachers are the front line of support for students we are the ones addressing that will be addressing the learning gaps that were mentioned due to the coveted closures we make sure that families are connected to wraparound services and definitely supporting social emotional well-being of our students every day i absolutely agree with the superintendent's budget message that we must prioritize the needs of our black and native students and other currently and historically underserved students um this is even more true during this health crisis and i support the efforts made by our equity-minded leadership and staff to maintain or reduce class sizes for the kindergarten first and second grade classrooms at csi schools this is a good first step but to truly center the needs of students and make the extremely difficult pivot necessary during this pandemic we really need to reinstate spending on classroom teachers for all csi tsi and title 1 schools one way that this could be done is to shift the holdover amount for responding to high class sizes in the fall to funding k5 classroom teachers at these schools now another way to center students is to prioritize spending on direct service fte over any other investments during this crisis curriculum development is important and to moving improving outcomes but it can and it should be put on hold during a crisis such as we're facing curriculum changes will not provide direct supports to students during the pandemic teachers do that putting a hold on just two million dollars of curriculum development plans i'm not saying scrapping just holding 120 by classroom teachers i truly appreciate the efforts in this budget to support equitable access to learning we can and we must do better during this crisis to support underserved students please do all you can to provide funding for more k5 classroom teachers for our most underserved students as soon as possible thank you thank you ms bradshaw do we have any other public testimony no all right we can open it up for discussion any thoughts this is director lowry during this crisis curriculum development is important and and uh hello this is director lowry hello my my internet is funky i just was hearing ms groom speak again so i wasn't sure if it was okay for me to proceed just want to make sure you got the message um i i do think that ms groom's comments um really highlight how difficult this has been that there are um so many really important things in a school budget and um i think back
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i can't unfortunately can't remember her name but the teacher who spoke during public comment and highlighted the fact that she has taught i think she said nine different courses and didn't always have curriculum for them and so um you know as we get these public comments we as a board alongside the you know with the superintendent's leadership on this budget try to weigh all of what needs to happen and i think the staff has just done a masterful job of that and continuing to be agile and make changes as needed as new things come up and i i think our that commitment um to our esj work to centering our black and native students it's gonna continue to cause us to make uncomfortable difficult decisions where we are going to have to say no to things that are really good and positive as we continue to move forward in you know a pandemic where our budget has 12 million dollars less than we had planned um and where we're you know really trying to make system change so i just i want to thank the staff for your courage superintendent for your leadership um and the public for being so engaged and willing to you know highlight the things you're seeing on the ground and in your communities and i think that's the only way that we really can be better as a district is when we all work together so um i'm fully supportive of this budget and i want to thank everyone for their incredible hard work in this crazy strange time uh to get us to where we are thank you any further thoughts board can i just stay here i have some questions but i i can other people speak so go ahead no go ahead okay um just pull them up quick um so there's been since the last meeting there was there's been a fair amount of questions from the community about what was in and what was out of the additional funds for uh saa funds that we originally had 39 then i moved to 2025 um so it was still an increase but not the increase we thought it was and um there was a document that walked through um the initial set of investments literally line by line and then the adjustments that staff had made again using the filter of um the emergent strategic plan and the uh the racial equity lens and this is maybe a question for claire just like where people can find that so people can understand um because i'm still getting questions about like how do you know what's in or what's out if you were in the 39 you're still in in the 25 um and a lot of community partners are trying to figure out um where they are so maybe uh deputy superintendent hertz can share where people could find that information if they were the original number where we are now i think it's i think it's posted but i'm i'm not sure and i just want to make sure that we're able to point people um to a place to at least they'll have that the status of where we are right now it may change but there are three places one is on our board meeting materials each time we met about budget they're their attachments for each one of those meetings we also have a budget page that has materials for from throughout the whole budget process and there's also the cbrc the community budget review committees um web page it also has materials that we've shared with them and most the things that we've shared with the board we've also shared with the cbrc so and all of it is on the budget page there are three places to look awesome thank you um and just as to further follow on because i think everybody knows it's going to be a little bit bumpy um over the next couple months potentially with the legislature and our funding further adjustments like if if there are um community partners who are part of that um still part of the existing funds if we change we'll there'll be transparency and people will understand what if you know if we have to make further adjustments that'll be all transparent and public absolutely we plan on working with our community and our board as we revise budgets if needed as needed great um i know that's really
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appreciated um so i had another question um and i think this is for the chief uh human resource officer sharon reese um so i'd ask a question earlier about annual evaluations all right i can can i go ahead oh there she is um so i'd ask a question about uh evaluations uh for central office non-represented staff and the question had been answered that because of everything that happened um it wouldn't be um the evaluations wouldn't be done until um a future date and i'm just wondering if you can expand on that because i know we were trying to get into a practice of over the last couple years of shifting into the annual evaluation cycle and performance management as a performance improvement tool yes absolutely director broome edwards this is sharon reese chief of hr and i'm happy to address that question because performance evaluations are an important tool in both employee development and accountability so what what we looked at in determining to extend the evaluation deadline which is would typically be june 30th so it would be seven days from now uh if you recognize that we needed to prioritize the needs of functioning and emergency operations that our entire employee workforce shifted what plan performance goals were due to the pandemic conditions that uh our entire workforce had a major shift in what their work expectations were which were very much upended when we completely changed our operations due to uh cobia 19 right and then of course on top of that we had the adoption of a four day work week uh in our work share program um to save the district uh substantial sums of money to devote to next year so what was really important in that decision was setting conditions conducive to direct observation of employees and meaningful feedback so we made the determination to extend the deadline for performance evaluations great thank you um we have we have all received all that information we have that full response from staff right um we got it at 4 36 um so i just also want to get on the record um it was also subject of the um audit so the other question and i guess i'm also going to just say generally we didn't have a lot of time um in public discussion about this budget because of just the schedule so um i think especially especially as when we're heading into a pretty difficult economic climate um it doesn't hurt to have a public discussion about the contents of a son but 180 million budget um so the other question this is for deputy superintendent um hertz about the secretary of state audit recommendation about benchmarking and um there they had a recommendation about benchmarking to identify potential savings area and spending changes uh just with pure districts and i'm wondering if you could speak to that it sounds like while we had a very condensed budget process that wasn't part of the public budget process but how that was utilized internally and how it might be utilized externally going forward so we have a tool that allows us to benchmark all the data that we submit budgetarily financially staffing there's a statewide database from all school districts so we have a tool that um extracts that data and we can do comparison with peer districts and so it's something that we utilize as a tool when we're wanting to compare whether it's salaries or fte or class size or student achievement there's a lot of data there that we utilize and we do benchmarking as we look at where especially as we're looking to make investments or reductions we want to understand where we are in comparison to our peers and our dollars for students spent and so that's a tool that we use internally to just get a sense of where we are as a
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district compared to others now um having said that it's not always uh you know when you look at our building maintenance costs they're much higher than other districts because we have smaller schools than others so you can't always take it you know just for exactly what it is and our schools are also some of the old so many that are over a hundred years old so um but benchmarking is certainly a tool that we use and i um in this coming year because we have um some uncertainty with the economy we i've been working with the board leadership to move our financial quarterly financial reporting more to a dis more of a presentation mode in sharing concepts with the board about what we need to do short term and long term in order to make it through this this recession and recovery period so we will we can certainly bring some of that benchmarking information to the board in those sessions as well that would be super helpful today the just example of the comparison on the transportation on a really large contract that we had to see the comparison of the pbs um vis-a-vis hillsboro was a useful useful tool so i had one other question for you deputy superintendent hertz last uh when we voted on the budget approval there was a discussion about at a district travel and since that last meeting there's been um some changes in that budget and can you share what they are since we had a discussion about it before but there's been a subsequent change sure so we um made a change to uh put put a notice out to staff that between now and december 31st we will continue to keep travel to a minimal to minimum and so with restricted travel then we have also reduced half of our travel budget out of next year's budget and you included that in our reductions to balance the budget great thank you and i just have one last question for the chief human resource officer we also had a question just generally about pay for non-represented staff um maybe you could just share what um sort of the structure going forward we're going to be using for um making those making those decisions um and yeah how it links to the evaluation if it if it does links to the valuation schedule yeah uh so we've been looking uh of course at a number of cost cutting measures for months now um as we've spoken about frequently at the board meetings and since we're our service organization we're very cognizant of the fact that 82 or so of our budget is in salary and benefits and so of course we've implemented the 20 percent uh reduction in the work week furloughs we've reduced vacancies through reduced layoffs or we've done some layoffs and one of the things that we've been holding on to as a possibility is what happens with non-represented salaries the there are two ways uh that employees get increases one is steps so that's moving up the salary schedule based on years of service uh and then the other is a cost of living increase with this and those are two different assessments about whether or not to hold those in a band with step increases there are issues of pay equity especially under the oregon pay equity act and then there is [Music] of course concern about continuing to stay competitive in our markets so with um a cola uh uh coal increases slightly different right that's a cost of living and so of course we look at what the market conditions are for uh employees in our current economy so um we are we are planning on moving forward uh with step increases and we are holding the decision about um about
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cola increases for non-represented staff in a band until we have a little bit more information uh probably in the next quarter regarding what our long-term budget is so we're planning to announce this to employees this week but that is where we are landing on that uh decision i do want to note because this has been an issue of introduction to the public that um [Music] the what that means is for our senior leadership they are not on a set schedule so senior leadership would uh only get increases through the colombia system thank you for the explanation thank you i have a question that's going to be a little bit unpopular but um the city of portland has just frozen all cost of living um increases this upcoming budget year and and also for non-represented staff uh any uh merit increases and so i'm wondering if that's i wonder if we know what the total of that is going into next year for this budget like do we have a dollar figure associated with what those um what those cola increases are and what those step increases are totaled yes we do you can be mama [Music] i've got a i've got a question or two um first first of all don't hurt me but uh inflation is currently slightly negative right now now um in terms of cost of living adjustments uh um that was a that was an economist joke so nobody gets my hammer um i want to thank thank you for the thank you jonathan okay um the detail that we got today and i had a question on um it's the the very first function is the function code sheet and and the first function code that one one one one for elementary that shows a reduction of 37 plus fte uh some of that's eas that are being cut is one question and some of that are our teachers who we anticipated hiring with sia but are now not going to because of the cuts in sia so those are just my two questions of clarification and um i also have a couple of quick follow-up questions after that but let's start there okay so the um cola for um non-rep staff is 2.2 million sorry i'm responding to the first question and the step is 1.6 million and then in terms of the 11 11 function that is we are reducing some eas but then some of the so the reduction that you see there some of that was also picked up by title one so while there's a reduction in general fund there is an a in the title one funding to support it it's not completely reestablished but it's it is um a partially re-established okay and then in terms of roughly how many positions are we talking there you know i don't have it in my head but let me answer the other part of your question and um that is the um elementary teachers it is not this is just a general fund list that you're looking at it's not sia but sia we had an investment in class size for very strategic parts of the school then we also had some in general fund i mean first strategic looking at csi tsi and title schools and even having a lower class types but we also had some in non non-title non-csi schools would also have had a lowering of class size when we weren't able to keep that on in the sia part we also reduced it in the general fund to balance so it was a reduction on both sides but different types of schools
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with um the class size overall is the same as 1920 so the meaning the student-teacher ratio allocation is the same and um we did have uh we did lower class size in our csi schools in the primary grades and we also added in our some of our middle schools the elective programs to get to that seven period day in in some of our um uh most needy middle schools yeah i'm totally supportive of that funneling those sia funds where they're going okay uh and just to clarify this isn't a reduction in teachers it's we're hiring fewer or in some cases not hiring what we anticipated to hire is that correct so these are a reduction of positions but not of individuals that's correct right we still are we are not hiring as many as we thought we were okay um so having said that there could be someone with an obscure license i always will want to say the caveat i'm not tracking that so i just because sometimes there's staffing decisions that are made that are have nothing to do with the budget reduction understood uh and we've we've gotten inquiries uh from a number of school communities about i thought we were being held harmless but we're looking at reductions so i look forward into uh getting more detail on that i know it's uh it's shifting as we speak and it may shift radically more depending on what we what we're doing in the fall and also look forward to getting more detail on what's happening with special education services because i know we had additions in some places cuts and others just getting an overall picture on that we will have the individual school reports sometime in july and we will share those with you and those based on our actual staffing when we completed our staffing so the other thing that i would remind folks is sometimes um positions shift a school might get an extra teacher over last year because their enrollment is up at a grade level but there's also another school that might lose a teacher at a grade level because their enrollment is down it doesn't mean the allocation change it doesn't mean a budget reduction but we allocate based on class size at each grade grade level so sometimes there are shifts that have nothing to do with budget and sometimes uh principals still have some discretion for allocation as well as i understand it so yes yes okay good oh uh look forward to that and are you gonna set up a separate fund in the budget for sia or will it be uh it's a grant fund and we've uh there's a one designated iot that all districts across the state are using okay cool um and again thank you all for again incredible work just um in a very short timeline having to really turn things upside down thanks director bailey director moore i think you were trying to chime in there a little bit earlier you have any comments you'd like to make on the budget or questions um i just wanted to um kind of echo what other people are saying um i i think this is an extraordinary amount of work uh under extraordinary circumstances and um i wanted to join everybody else and thanking the staff for um all of the effort that's gone into this [Music] i i have only a a small window i think on how much effort has gone into all of this on the part of all the uh central office staff and um and i am humbled by it um i think it's been i'm going to overuse the word extraordinary but it has been um so i want to thank everybody and um and i think it it will be helpful when we get the school by school reports one thing that i think would be helpful for us as board members is to understand
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which staffing changes are are a function of a central office decision and which ones are a function of uh principal decision making to use um discretionary funds to um to respond to the needs for their individual school community um [Music] and um and i get i guess the last thing i would say is um i i from the comments i hear from the emails from text messages i'm getting from various community members parents teachers um i think it's important that we underscore um how difficult the circumstances are for this coming year [Music] i think the fact that the staff have managed to mitigate the impact of an enormous budget shortfall because of the pandemic has kind of shielded people from a sense of reality around what the economic situation really is and how it's going to be impacting school districts all over the state [Music] and so i want to thank the staff for figuring out how to how to do all of that mitigation but i think the downside is that um we we haven't done a good job educating people about the kind of situation that we're going to be facing in the next couple of years at least couple of years um so as we go forward with the budget amendments over the summer and then as we look ahead through next year we're going to have to be endlessly flexible i think all of us um and and we're going to have to be really careful with the resources that we have in order to mitigate the impact of probably even deeper budget cuts at the state level for the 21 22 school year so whatever we can do to economize this year while maintaining as the um as much of a quality education educational experience for our kids and and try to shield them as much as possible from these impacts um we have to balance that with uh being prudent about using scarce resources uh with an eye toward the next two three years so that's all anyway thank you everybody uh this is director lowry i wanted to say a piece about the staffing portion um i have been on the other side of this as a parent of the well in i came and stood in the boardroom with a sign because we were angry about the staffing allocation for the well in um i was the foundation vice president at selwood middle school and president there for two years at the foundation raising funds to help add staff to those schools and i really wonder you know how much is staffing a management function rather than a board function and i know when we we get those pleas from from teachers from students from families about class sizes at their school i know that class size is one strategy as we look at meeting our board goals and that you know as we look at the cuts that have happened to the budget that you know we're also looking at social emotional learning we're looking at reading specialists that you know it's really hard to get those emails about my my kindergartners in a class of 25 and that's too many and yet i think that you know what guadalupe and the staff have established is that they have a very detailed educational strategy around how we are going to move students forward and so while it's helpful for us to know some of the staffing piece i think what i've come to realize is someone who's advocated on the other side is that often the thing that i as a parent saw or advocated actually caused harm to other schools by asking you know no at one point at lewellyn we had you know 30 first graders in a class we've had you know 35 5th graders in a class no student should have that and yet if llewellyn got an extra teacher what other school didn't um and so it's a really really hard difficult conversation and it's very emotional but i also think to some extent we need to trust
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um the superintendent's vision of how he uses the resources we have to meet those board goals and and so i ask us as an entire board having been on the other side of this issue to really think softly how we engage on it and how we support the superintendent's vision and strategy in staffing allocations i absolutely agree um i'm just interested in in having the information to be a better communicator with the public not uh i'm not interested in second guessing people who know know a lot more about the ins and outs of staffing than i do yeah and as director scott i just want to echo both of those points i think it's it's director lauer's point is really really important i've got a couple schools in in in my zone that i'm getting emails about just like other board members are as well and what is interesting to dive in you know some of it's budget related they thought they were going to get an increase that they're not getting and and like like you know deputy superintendent hurt said some of it's also enrollment based and um you know and some of these these are schools that have gotten a little bit less poor and have fewer underserved students disadvantaged students in the school and they may have lost their title one status and and and those are unfortunate but but that does mean that the district has made really focused decisions based on equity based on this vision um and the superintendent's vision and those resources are going to other places and it's always hard when there's a line that's drawn because i'm one year here on one side of the line of the other europe you know the other year you're you fall on the other side of it um but but i think it is it is um it is important that we as a board sort of understand and be able to talk at that level about it um and then defer some of those specifics back to staff so i i'm agreeing with with both of the pre-instructors i'll also just sum up my comments on the budget i'm not going to go back to director lowry's comments when she opened this conversation i just i really sort of i don't think i can say it any better than that i i think it's been it's it's been a really good process um it's a chaotic process because of the timing it will continue to be chaotic um director moore talked about you know what's coming we need to be preparing our community for that um i was a little troubled and i shouldn't be because i've been doing public budgets a long time but when people focus in on one particular service that becomes the service to save we as a board have to help the community see priorities um and it's not a matter of just one service whether you save it or not it's a matter of do you save that service at the expense of something else and um this is the first year in a while we've had this conversation nobody expected it because of the student investment act we are having it but we're going to have it again for 21 22 and again in 2223 and i just hope we as a board can can do what we can to communicate um with with our constituency with the public um around what's coming so we can have a really thoughtful conversation about how to prioritize um and continue moving forward on the district's vision so so thanks to the superintendent and staff and and i i appreciate the effort so far and more discussion to come i i totally totally agree director scott and and director lowry with those comments and it brings me back to you know one of the pieces that we've talked about since we first received the budget proposal which is that those priorities are clear and transparent and that's not how decisions that budget decisions have been made in this district historically or to the extent that they have it hasn't been very visible to the public so you know you're right with every push there's a pull and we were all sort of amazed that we were able to keep some of the most of the priorities that we had outlined in our student investment act proposal we were able to keep most of those things in place our school psychologists our counselors our social emotional supports our our commitment generally to mental health services for our kids those are historically things that were considered um supplemental to the the core work and to the the staffing the classroom staffing and i think when we're able to see it in terms of the broader vision they're not supplemental at all they're in service to addressing our historic achievement gaps and opportunity gaps and they're also really focused on our children's overall well-being so just yes we need to be able to communicate to the public um that push and pull process and when it is painful to see you know staff classroom staffing reduced um well what it what else is coming into your school to to serve your kids and why is that the strategy that we're standing behind and that our superintendent has brought before us so um again thanks thanks to everybody um i think we've gone around the horn director to pass is there anything you want to add nope i'd like actually to just close out with some comments
03h 05m 00s
it's okay um so i just want to close um with um just some like a hopeful thought because um it would be easy to look at this is um we're heading into a really dark period but i think back to a year ago that um it was a culmination of two decades of work to pass um a major new funding source for for schools the student success act when it passed in may of 2019 and you know a billion and a half dollars that we're going to be going into education and you know that would not have been possible without um oea our teacher our partners in oea and pat and seiu and businesses that rallied behind passage of that act so it gave us a sort of a safety net actually this year that we would be in a much different place if we hadn't had that pass so i look at that piece and then the i'm also hopeful because our voters here in the portland area once again stepped up and said yes we will pay a fairly significant um local option property tax which adds another 100 million dollars into portland public schools budget and then i look at so you take those two things um so the generosity of our community members um our partners uh in labor in the business community passing something statewide and then um the pps staff who took um you know what was a hopeful exciting moment um and it turned into it wasn't quite so hopeful and exciting when we faced a budget cliff and really um helped us build a bridge from from where we were and hopefully that bridge is going to carry us through to the other side because the reality is we are going to climb back out of it and we will have um the student success act uh funding and the commercial activity tax is going to um be restored um at a certain point in time when the economy comes back and so i look at it is this is um we're gonna have some tough years but really thanks to our staff who are going to help to build this bridge and thanks to the community who really provided a foundation that that bridge could be built on to get us to the other side that um we've got a budget that is going to serve um the students in the best way possible we can unders and the circumstances we have and that makes me hopeful and appreciative that i live in a state and in the community that everybody has a different role to play and have totally delivered for our students so i'm not voting this voting for this budget with a i wish it was something different it is what it is but it is a good bridge i think to a much brighter future for our students sheriff constant if i may you may um i i want to appreciate all of the director's comments um i when you grow up of modest means you learn to have a different lens of appreciation oftentimes for the things um it's true we've had to make some tough choices uh you always have to when you have a finite budget we've attempted not to debilitate any function of our district uh to not have the impact uh felt uh in a dramatically negative way for classrooms or schools across the district when i hear directors [Music] highlight you know the superintendent has a vision you know i would respectfully say what makes it easier this annual task is that the communities defined the vision and that's what's enduring about this work is um not just in good times but in even more constrained times it's it keeps what your core values and those priorities are and the graduate portrait that you imagined and so i would encourage us to [Music] talk about the coming school year uh remembering all the positives uh that are that are integrated into this proposed budget um we're investing
03h 10m 00s
heavily in a an array of services uh that fall under an umbrella of racial equity and social justice uh or we're going to encourage mentorship and student leadership and elevating the partnership that we have with culturally specific organizations in our schools that oftentimes are the only presence of shared complexion in the building and we need those supports this pandemic has amplified the importance of student supports and social emotional focus and that work that in these recent times and current events um that sense of belonging and relationship uh we're we're making investments uh by making sure that in every school there's access increased access to counselors to to social workers and we want to get our kids back into some continuity of experience of learning this budget builds in some ability to deliver summer programming and in our schools that most need some opportunity for not just academic remediation but take a look at our small visual performing arts team you know if anyone can be creative they've been created they're anxiously on deck to launch arts programming who would have thought that we're offering arts programming during you know a pandemic when resources are slim but we're gonna do that because we understand extended learning opportunities um are going to be critically important for our students that we say are we're placing at the center i've heard directors talk about during this administration's tenure the importance of reimagining and redesigning middle grades experience and so we don't have a lot of resources but yet we've built in expanded electives for our students who've set aside and squirreled away a little bit of resource to really push redesign work out so that we stay on track with kellogg and uh and support our middle school our comprehensive middle grades um in parts of town that haven't always had the level of supplemental supports that they're really deserving of um and we have some designated comprehensive support target support schools and um to have an equitable distribution of resources means um we're adding more in there to give our students an equitable opportunity to uh to achieve and demonstrate excellence so i i just wanted to sort of end this discussion by reminding us that there's so many positives um also built into this budget proposal that are true to our north star so we've been going fast and furious and maybe we're not going to go as deep in our scope for this coming school year but we're going to continue to make incremental progress and we've set aside some modest amounts to continue to keep those strands of work alive in our district so i don't want folks to despair because [Music] we're going to continue doing this work thank you and one more mention uh again just to thank the staff but we wouldn't be in this position if the broader community and our stakeholders didn't understand that we're trying to keep the torch of this vision on fire and were it not for the labor partnership that allowed us to preserve resources um we would be talking a lot about a lot more cuts and a lot of reduced positions and so um i'm thankful to all of our labor partners uh non-rep central administrators we've done our part um and so that's permitted us to keep our students at the center so i just wanted to express gratitude and recognize that they played a role in this and and i think you heard some of them express that they were rather surprised because it hasn't been their experience in the past when times get top so thank you thank you so much superintendent and thank you again deputy superintendent hertz for so capably leading this whole process the board will now vote on resolution 6135 to propose taxes and adoption of the 2020-2021 budget for school district 1j multnomah county oregon all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes all opposed please indicate by
03h 15m 00s
saying no any abstentions resolution 6135 to approve the budget is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative lateral i believe is still with us voting yes and i am still with you even though i'm very tempted to fall asleep all right thank you thank you again um very very turbulent water for this process and you know we have an adopted budget but it's just a continuing conversation as we will reconvene to learn about what's coming to us from the state and to address subsequent uh budget amendments so thank you again um our last order of business tonight is equally important this is the evaluation performance evaluation for our superintendent earlier this year the board of education adopted an evaluation tool that acknowledges the complexity of the role of superintendent and establishes performance expectations for the superintendent of portland public schools for the 1920 school year the evaluation framework is based on the student performance goals adopted by the board in the fall of 2019 and is aligned to core standards adapt identified by the oregon school boards association we used this framework for superintendent guerrero's current performance evaluation covering the period of july 1 2019 to june 30th 2020. the board has reviewed the superintendent's performance and earlier shared this evaluation in executive session with the superintendent i want to thank the board for a really collaborative process this year also a much improved board tool that laid out the leadership standards that we were going to address as well as tied back to the performance goals that the board established um director scott would you like to introduce this discussion uh yes i'm happy to although you may have just taken most of my talking points so no no i don't that's fine we can we can wrap it up pretty quickly no i mean as as chair constance said um you know we started this process last fall i mean this is one of the most important things that a board does um you know is evaluating the performance of the superintendent we started the conversation we decided to hold off on the tool while we set board goals um because we wanted those to be a primary basis of the evaluation um so we did get the evaluation tool done a little later than we hoped but um we did adopt it in december um and just as a reminder it has two different parts um it has our board goals and metrics and those are again you know third grade reading fifth grade math eighth grade readiness and post-secondary readiness um and uh and so we evaluated um the superintendent on on progress against those goals we spent a lot of time discussing and talking to the community about that as well and then the other part are the um the osba standards and there are a number of osba standards um the superintendent suggested something you thought were key for the district the board um reviewed those and added uh to that as well so we ended up adopting five we're using five um of the osba standards one of those is around visionary leadership one of those is around communications and community relations another is around curriculum planning and development a fourth is on resource management and fifth was on labor relations um so we went through that process um it obviously was uh i don't want to say derailed but um there was a slight detour with with covid um although we did decide to continue you know pushing forward because we did have data on board goals and metrics um moving forward but but as we did this evaluation sort of recognizing um that um that we're going to need to revisit some of those goals moving forward um but overall um the superintendent did quite well and again as mr constant mentioned um the uh um um uh the evaluation is on file we had a really robust conversation in executive session delivering it and i just want to thank the superintendent and his entire team um for their work um i've only been here for just a little less than a year but um it's impressive to see what's coming out of this district um as with any district there are lots of places where we need to improve and i think with any individual and performance evaluation there are areas of improvement as well but i think overall it was a very positive recommendation thanks to the superintendent and maybe with that i'll just see if any board members have any summary comments and then we can adopt it and move on okay let's um let's put the motion on the table and then we'll see if there's more discussion um thank you the board will now consider resolution number 6136 to approve the superintendent's performance appraisal director from edwards moves do i have a second second second director scott and to pass second the motion to adopt resolution 6136 ms bradshaw is there any public comment
03h 20m 00s
no okay um any further board discussion i'll just say um well this isn't necessarily tracking the um that's the standards that we looked at in the um evaluation tool i think this was a year like like none other um and i'm trying to think how we could have predicted at the beginning or this is where we'd end but i want to just note the adaptability and the flexibility of the superintendent and his leadership team throughout this year again i don't think any um evaluation instrument could have captured um what we needed to land where where we we are um at the at the close of the year so i just want to note that particular piece which we which we didn't capture necessarily in our formal evaluation but um i think we're landing in a good spot at the end of the year uh well positioned to move forward thank you um i would just add one of the one of the things we discussed was that in our prior two performance evaluations of superintendent guerrero a big focus was on building a team um that he has reconstituted the entire senior leadership um team and so that was that's been a huge push for the for the first two years and so i think with the exception of well dr brown and dr byrd um we he had uh we had this whole team comprised until uh those two late late ad all-stars and um to that point i think we have all commented that with the unprecedented challenges of moving instantaneously to remote learning we've been so grateful for this team that's in place and for the leadership because to imagine um having to adapt to that and having to continue to serve our students without having the type of professionals that we have on board on board and the type of leadership is just um was really unfathomable to all of us and that was a thread that we discussed in our in our discussions um about your performance and and visionary leadership superintendent any other comments yeah i'm again just grateful for an extraordinary leader and extraordinary team um so thank you uh thank you for keeping our district grounded in our vision and in our equity work forward forward forward you're here all right the board will now vote of course sorry um the um everything is content um the fact that we've got a budget that um not only is staying true to the commitment on um equity but is actually making investments to advance equity in this current climate is pretty amazing um but the other thing i wanted to mention and i don't think anybody mentioned this tonight um during this crisis um pbs has become a real leader in this state on dealing with the corona virus crisis and maybe not in technology rita we lost you there for a bit sorry um i was getting a lot of feedback so i was trying to fix the feedback but anyway um so i don't know where i lost yet um pbs has in this coronavirus crisis in this state um and um i don't think we mentioned it enough i don't think we acknowledge it you know um and during the tscc meeting uh just prior to the board meeting it was mentioned that um as the largest district in the states ppf should have some you know some leadership role and um and it is a role that i don't think pps has actually fulfilled for most of the time that i've been paying attention to pbs
03h 25m 00s
so i'm i'm really thrilled that under superintendent guerrero's leadership um pps is taking its place in this state as um kind of a pioneer in um in changing the way public education works um we're getting our own house in order and um dps is um is helping to create a kind of a consortium of the some of the larger districts in the state to develop collaborative cooperative um arrangements that that are going to bring in professional development opportunities and you know really helping to um to to bring uh uh uh bring improvement science to the state for example um and it's so anyway um i i wanted to give my thanks to the superintendent and team for um you know really making pps uh a leader in this state for and it's it's going to benefit our kids so thank you here here call the question go ahead call the question oh i thought you said you had a question i was i was giving that a sufficiently awkward pause to make sure i gave everyone an opportunity to jump in the board will now vote on resolution three six all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no any abstentions resolution 6136 is approved by a vote of seven to one and uh ms large is it does maxine vote on this i don't think so because it's a personnel matter but maxine when we were discussing this in executive session if you want to send him a party email i'm sure it would be welcome okay all right thank you everyone um the motion is approved by a vote of seven to zero um we i suffice to say we feel extremely grateful for your leadership of the district superintendent guerrero thank you chair constant i've said it to the board previously and i can't say it enough any successes any growth that we've experienced [Music] it's due to the talented team that you see on the screen so it's their tireless work uh if there's any area falling a little short or not been up to par i'll take sole responsibility for that but we it really is um an acknowledgement of a lot of dedicated work so we'll be sure to as we always do uh in my vulnerability and transparency we'll we'll digest the document and uh we'll make a learning session out of it and see how we can continue to grow so thank you for your partnership and support and and the document will be posted with our our board materials as well and provided to the public okay we're just about done we have one last um item which is i believe we have a committee report from the policy committee director moore um we had a meeting yesterday um where we talked about several policies that are coming up for um for a vote relatively soon um we have a workplace harassment policy that's going to be voted on we're going to be up for a second reading and a vote that our next board meeting um and then at the following meeting we will likely be doing a second reading and a vote on another policy to search and seizure policy um we're also um starting to look at a policy that is responsive to a a legislative mandate for a process to to mitigate um suicide risk among students um and we're we're just starting to work on that so that's kind of coming down the pike okay that's all and director maura we'll just note that the workplace harassment policy was voted on tonight and approved yes tonight is the board meeting yes
03h 30m 00s
sorry i might apologize all right it's all right okay um thank you everyone this meeting of the board of education of portland public schools is now adjourned our next meeting is july 14th everybody take care thank you very much thanks everybody good night

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)

2020-06-23 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: Regular Meeting of the Board of Education, June 23, 2020

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