2020-07-28 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-07-28
Time	19:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 7/28/2020

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um the board meeting of the board of education for july 28 2020 to order uh 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 and this meeting is also being live streamed on our pps tv services website welcome to our viewing audience if you are just tuning in uh we have just had an update from staff on the plans for fall reentry and we know how much families are anxious to hear about what school will look like for students next year so you can check out that meeting also on channel 28. and tonight we're very excited because we get to vote on the 2020 bond package and hear an initial update on the 2021 board goals we're going to begin however with the consent agenda and so members are there any items that you would like to pull um we will discuss those at the end of the meeting and but on them then so are there any items uh that we need to pull from the consent agenda tonight sure lowry um i have uh two items that i don't we don't need to pull them can i just state my questions and they don't even have to be answered tonight just put them in the record that sounds great yeah okay let's go ahead and get the motion on the table director medwards and then you can ask those questions so moved second the consent agenda so the two questions i'd like to have uh just answer for the record um later in the meeting or put them in the record is on the transportation services to district employees we have a contract with safe transportation and my question is how is the training that is part of our professional conduct when we have unsupervised interactions between adults and students how is that training delivered to the contractors so that's one and then the second question um is um what are the metrics for success for equity for the center for equity and inclusion um for the contract and both of them uh i'm supportive of both contracts like the answers to that and then one last thing that ainsworth office expansion i think should just be clarified that it's not actually expanding the office but their offices for special ed uh teachers to have meetings um versus a expansion of an administrative office so i'm happy to have the questions answered at the very end or next meeting whatever whatever works for staff okay so let's uh can we have staff answer those via email director brent edwards is that acceptable okay so staff could get those to director from edwards via email that would be lovely uh miss bradshaw were there any changes to the consent agenda i know we moved and seconded pretty quickly there i there nope there were no changes to the conference agenda then we don't have to redo the um motion is there any further board discussion on the consent agenda uh yeah i've got a question um in reference to the minutes it doesn't look like my vote was recorded as for board policy um in any of the last two board meetings hi nathaniel um that is because the it's unofficial and the new program we have doesn't have a place to put it so the overviews aren't complete yet but when the overviews are complete they will state your vote for each of the items so it'll be in the discussion it'll show your vote right but it is that not also recorded in the minutes that we are to approve roseanne are you able to answer that i'm not sure they need to do that so we do not approve the meeting overviews but we can talk to uh talk to board leadership to figure out how we can uh work through this so that we can note your vote i think we can take that and come back nathaniel with uh with some further thoughts and a solution on that yeah all right thank you for raising that student representative shoe any other discussion on the consent agenda ford will now vote on resolutions 6147-36149 and the consent agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all posed please indicate by saying no are there any extensions the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student
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representative shu voting uh abstain for the reason of yeah all right thank you nathaniel we now turn to student and public comment and before we begin i'd like to review our guidelines for comment the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your testimonies public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns and our responsibility as a board is to actively listen board members and the superintendent will not respond to questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on board-related issues raised during public testimony public input emphasizes respect and consideration of others and we request that complaints about individual employees be rejected be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to publiccomment pps.net please make sure that tonight when you begin your comment you clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound at the three minute mark which means that it is time for you to conclude your comments ms bradshaw who do we have signed up for student or public comment tonight we have mitchell kenny is our student signed up all right mr kenny okay hello my name is mitchell kenny that's k-e-n-n-y and i am a senior at medicine high school and when i heard about the proposed four class semester for reopening and reopening in the fall i realized there were some problems for ap students such as myself and i think my situation really illustrates those prompts so normally students in these classes would spend most of the class learning all the new material and then have time to study before the test in class with class time dedicated to the subject from the first day of school to the day of the test however under the four class semester an ap student would only have the class for one semester and they would lose the continuity of studying that subject throughout so for example if a student had the class in the first semester they would learn all the material in that semester and then they would take about a three and a half month break from the end of the first semester to the test day where there would be no allotted class time for the subject and in the worst case if a student had an ap class in the second semester they would only have that three and a half months to fully prepare for the test which is completely unfair to the student so in my schedule i had five ap classes planned for my senior year but because i have five under the four class semester even with optimal scheduling i would have four classes to fully learn in the first semester and then not touch for three and a half months and now then i would have to fully learn another class in that three and a half months and this is the best case scenario where my first semester is all ap classes so options to help ap students have already been mentioned but in cases like mine with at least five ap classes i think those options might look quite different the district might ask me to self-study a class or even drop them to fit the schedule at benson specifically so in any case no matter what the district would be asking i think it's ridiculous and the problems with ap would be solved by reverting back to the eighth class semester so i know my situation is an extreme example but there are hundreds if not thousands of other ap students in the district who will face the same problems i will because of the four-class semester so i felt the need to come here and speak against it thank you thank you very much for your testimony tonight uh we were just talking about that in the last session i think you've heard part of that as well uh ms bradshaw do we have any other public comment tonight yes andrew constantinescu hi my name is andrew constantinescu my last name is spelled c-o-n-s-t-a-n uh this is to superintendent guerrero and portland public schools board of directors we the teachers and staff of james madison high school enthusiastically applaud your decision to initiate a process to change the names of schools throughout the district we encourage you to stand behind that process and remain committed to naming our schools in ways that our diverse group of students can be proud of as you know schools like james madison high school have been honoring slave owners or leaders who have contributed to the racial injustice that permeates in our country's culture
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by now you hopefully know that james madison for example enslaved over 100 people and he legalized the racist dehumanizing and exploitative institution of slavery by placing it squarely into the heart of our nation's constitution this along with other acts that dehumanized and targeted people of color is hopefully well known to you by now naming our school after him is a very real problem therefore we implore you to place our school on a fast track to the standard change process rather than delay for multiple years we appreciate the importance of deliberation we wholeheartedly agree that students alumni community members parents staff and other stakeholders must be involved in the path to renaming however we feel the utmost urgency for multiple reasons number one our school rebuild is on pace to be completed at the end of the 2020-2021 school year as part of the redesign the building will be branded with a school name logo and a mascot to best use taxpayer funds in this process it makes sense to be proactive in renaming the school instead of waiting until the rebuild process is finished number two our students have been engaged in a campaign to rename our school for over a year and a half already they have researched james madison pulled the student body made fact sheets written school newspaper articles spoken to community groups created petitions engaged with alumni met with administrators and even given testimony to the pps school board a lot of work has gone into this from our student body and it only shows that they are committed to making this happen and have been for over a year number three because of the groundwork that has already been started we believe that a thoughtful process for renaming our school can successfully and respectfully be completed within a year we've already seen a similar process happen within our own cluster when rose city elementary merged with gregory heights middle school in 2007 to become roseway heights as our school is one of oregon most diverse we call on you to please make our school a part of your case study rather than put our efforts at the back of the line show the portland community that you truly do stand behind your commitment to support bypoc students by adding madison to this initial plan we stand ready to work with our students parents alumni and community partners this is only one piece and a broader deeper effort we are committed to that will help make our school more just and more equitable but it is an important piece we are excited to commit to right now and not at some ambiguous later date thank you thank you ms bradshaw do we have any further public comment yes we have tim neiser welcome tim yeah so my name is tim kaniser a n i i live in the madison high school neighborhood my daughter attended roseway heights and now attends madison high school and i'm a teacher at madison as well many portland public school building names and mascots came about as a result of individual and institutional racism madison high school is one example but i'm not here to discuss if the name should be changed of course it should be changed i'm here to discuss when it should be changed school buildings like ours that are being modernized and set to open in 2021 need to be prioritized names and images are being added to new construction now every month that passes means time money and energy spent and wasted on new work and materials and more time more energy more money spent a few months later to replace it the madison high school remodel is on an urgent timeline renaming it should also be on one two we can take this simple concrete step to dismantle institutional racism right now and we should renaming our school cannot become a long and distracting process for our district because there is so much more that we need to be working on to create a just and equitable education for all of our students please insist that a new name is chosen for our school in a timely manner and by the people who are impacted most immediately thank you thank you ms bradshaw do we have further public comment amina ali welcome
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it looks like amina is still muted miss bradshaw do you unmute her sorry i am tech challenged oh no it's totally okay my name is amina ali and my last name is ali i i um have one son who is a graduate of madison and i have two children who still attend madison and i i really want to start this by thanking the school board and the superintendent for all of the work all of the craziness that's gone on um i can't even begin to imagine the decisions that are having to be made right now but i have to say that when i heard that the school board was acknowledging the need for changes and names of the schools i was thrilled and then when i heard that it would take three to five five years for that change i was immediately deflated now is the time i it just makes sense when we look at a new building and new construction it just makes sense that this is the time hard-working teachers and students have been working on this literally for years now they're ready to say to anyone right now in these incredibly divisive times that anti-racism has to wait three to five years seems completely backward to me southeast portland needs a win we need a win southeast portland it's not just about madison as a high school and the amazingly diverse population that goes there it's also about a community in southeast portland that is suffering we have been suffering for a long time we do not get resources as you well know um we don't get resources when it comes to things like sidewalks and traffic flights and new business we need something to look forward to these kids that well know the history of wilson wilson and madison they know don't make them walk into a brand new building with an antiquated racist name behind it it's called the modern modernization project and as we think about modernization i think we need to think about philosophically what that means it's not not just about new tiles and pretty computer labs it's about what the school means what are those kids going to carry on their gear and on their academic transcripts there needs to be a name that's inspiring there needs to be a name not of a racist not of somebody who abused and kidnapped and tortured children this needs to happen now please consider putting madison with wilson as a test case for a name change southeast portland deserves it madison community deserves it and definitely ghost thank you i'm one of those kids oh wait thank you miss bradshaw is there a further public comment yes adam daniel uh miss bradshaw i don't see mr daniel on the list of participants oh maybe he's one of the callers are you there okay can we move on to the next comment and try to connect with him yes mia callaway um can you hear me yes okay great um actually adam daniel is in the call i'm not sure why her um connection isn't working but if we can so sorry she's she's called in yes i'm so sorry i misgendered her we will uh resolve the tech issue after you are done speaking if that's okay yes okay great i was just making sure
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that she would get her time to speak um okay perfect hi everyone i'm nia callaway that's um my last name is spelled o w a c-a-l-l-o-w-a-y i'm a campaign lead for you pass with um youth environmental justice alliance and a 2020 park rose high school graduate um i'm speaking this evening on behalf of the get moving measure more specifically the 9 million dollar annual investment for all youth in the metro region to receive youth pass as a transit dependent student with a history of long commutes i've seen my share of absences and detention students without transportation options can miss as many as 11 extra days a year of class youthpass can minimize these absences and help improve academic performance having accessible public transit available has proven to decrease chronic school absences issues for students this measure also expands resources to the many low-income and bipark families in the east county as well as those within portland public districts whose needs are met by youth past this measure can and will change young lives like mine who are dependent on transit and deserve a safer and more reliable way to get around safer meaning cleaner safer meaning acknowledging the needs of young black indigenous and youth of color and safer meaning transit dependent youths communities are being more funded transit-wise companies and corporations like nike we know in the past have come out against the measure due to an employee tax there may be some people on this board with conflicting perceptions on this measure due to aspects like these and i urge you as members of the board of education to only think in the interests of portland students and not personal business interests programs like youthpass help leaders and representatives like yourself tell the youth of portland that they care about them and their futures it also in turn creates a future of loyal writers choosing public transit over cars which will alleviate congestion and mitigate climate change and a free regional youth pass creates a universal region-wide benefit available to over 200 000 youth as they become the next wave of public transportation writers many of them being students youth advocates are here in hopes of your full support on the youth pass portion of the measure and the numerous other equity wins like safer routes to school and other safe transit benefits expanded to predominantly communities of color which is a huge need for portland thank you for your time thank you is ms daniel are you available to speak at this time is bradshaw um have you been in touch with ms daniels so we can see what the tech issue might be here i have not received anything from her i'm not sure which column user should be looks like we have column user four it's the only column user we have right now that i can see i just unmuted them hi daniel yes you can hear me now yes thank you for your patience with us tonight fantastic okay um hello everyone my name is adam daniel my partner is she and her and i'm a campaign lead from asia and i went to dave douglas high school i wanted to address the youth pass as a part of the 9 million dollar annual investment a part of the get moving measure i want to acknowledge that youthpass is an extremely important program because we can easily see how youth access to transit contributes to climate justice as well as social justice youth will have the right to mobility and we know that marginalized communities youth and students suffer the most from these transportation disparities so this program will provide equity and allow for all youth to get free transit although pps has bus passes this will benefit the district far more because your students will not only get it during the school year but also in the summers and provide more for your regional community this program is extremely important for your students suffering economic disparities due to clover19 this would show your support and help out these families more i want to remind you all that youth have worked really hard to make this transit program accessible to our entire region i want to remind you to act in the interest of serving your students the youth in your community and marginalized communities beyond we have dealt with corporations feeling against this measure and how the tax will work but this measure truly acts in the benefit of the broader community for working class people and for the entire community beyond we ask that you do not your penal interests with the interests of the community you serve this matters to your student body
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the people of your city the youth they want your support as tps for the youth pass program on the get moving measure as well as a part of to create safer communities better routes to schools and other advances towards achieving equity as we are in these current times it is very crucial that you all as as the portland public school district take action to achieve this equity thank you very much you miss bradshaw do we have any further public comment one last person signed up for this banda hunter hello everyone my name is vonda hunter that is h-u-n-t-e-r my pronouns are she her i work for oregon afscme council 75 and as a coalition partner of asia i am speaking on behalf of alejandra gallegos who cannot be here today but wishes they could i will now read the testimony that they prepared my name is alejandra gallegos that last name is g a l l e g o s my pronouns are they them i am the youth environmental justice alliance organizer at opal i am here today to give you all an update on some very exciting news outside of all the quarantine and federal messes popping up on july 16th we were able to get the entire metro council to unanimously pass the get moving transportation measure measure that would include a nine million dollar annual investment in youth pass this investment in youth pass will provide all youth 18 and under in the entire metro region year round regardless of income and school enrollment status to have access to this amazing program that pps already partially enjoys this is over 20 years of work led by black and brown youth predominantly women insisting there should be no barriers in being able to get to and from school this is a huge deal for portland removing a barrier as simple as transportation has been proven to mitigate dropout rates and improve graduation rates in cities where transit is free for students and we all know oregon needs it you all have the opportunity right now to correct portland's intentionally racist history by supporting working class and by poc youth today and fully supporting the youth path portion of this measure going forward this measure also includes multiple other equity solutions such as safe routes to school better and safer buses and corridor improvements in historically underinvested in communities of color we urge you today to place the needs of students over that of personal business interests thank you thank you and thanks to all of those who gave comment and if you have something specific that you want to follow up with the board or board office please connect with our board manager roseanne nathaniel would you like to provide us with your report this evening uh yes i would thank you um all right so this is my first report as student representative uh which is both very exciting and daunting um i hope you all will be able to forgive me for any slip ups herein um so let's let's begin um as it's summer it's difficult to report on student affairs overall so i will mostly be focusing on the district student council the dsc for this report i would also like to thank the dsc for their instrumental role in planning this report i am most grateful for your help and um i would like to note that while the dsc was very much involved they do not necessarily endorse everything that's about to come out of my mouth so moving right along um we have committees we are working to appoint at least one dsc representative from each com sorry one dsc representative to each board committee and advisory group at the moment we as a council have a representative from approximately half of district high schools hopefully as we add more reps this fall we can ensure that each rep gets a committee and each committee gets a rep and uh quick plug if there are any high school students watching who are interested in joining the dsc particularly from alternative schools and from larger schools such as franklin and lincoln please feel free to get in touch with me it's on nshue pbs.net now um dsc and student representative policy as many of you know we are currently at the beginning of the process to amend 1.20.012
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p which is the student representative and dsc governing policy we are planning to map out and subsequently implement a community engagement strategy in the near future and we tentatively plan to send the policy to the policy committee at some point in fall of course all that is subject to change based on the highly volatile by environment in which we currently find ourselves um now um originally i had planned to include a section on reopening i was going to um discuss the need for greater clarity surrounding the district's reopening plan um no no i no longer feel that is necessary given the recent guidance from the governor and our discussion um it is it now seems pretty clear what we're going to be doing in fall um which leaves me with one final topic um well this wouldn't ordinarily be within the purview of this report we as a council have decided that we cannot fail to mention an issue of this magnitude we would like to signal our support to the protesters to all and particularly the students who have been involved in the protest sorry who have been involved in the black lives matter protests and for that matter movement more generally we thank you for your activism and your bravery we would also like to condemn the federal response to the protests in our city the likes of which are uncalled for and have no place in a democratic republic and that concludes my first student representative report thank you uh that deserves a round of applause from your board of colleagues for getting through your first one with such uh weight and clarity of uh the values of our district so thank you representatives but also um for bringing up a topic that um adults are just uh uncomfortable with so i really appreciate your um showing up that way thank you i know we all look forward to continuing working with you through this next school year um superintendent guerrero you get to follow that so good luck i was just gonna say that for our student representative's first report he's making it a hard act to follow but uh i'll do my best i'll just repeat what he said if i slip up please forgive me so good evening directors chair uh to those watching the live stream or joining us here live thank you for for being here this evening i'm just gonna touch on a few topics uh one because we talked about it earlier and for for the larger public's benefit uh if we go to the to the next slide i want to start the evening by looking back to some of the themes we covered earlier in the work session uh that we just wrapped up prior to beginning this meeting folks probably mentioned uh or noticed that earlier today we we made an announcement to families and staff that we will begin the upcoming school year online we made this determination after reviewing the best available guidance from health officials and following today's announcement by governor brown regarding new health metrics and standards that we should consider when opening schools i also want to recognize and realize that for families this news might provide some some assurance they were looking for but it also uh likely presents challenges to to many others so as we're nearing the end of the summer i i said this earlier i think we all hope to be in a different reality with this pandemic and for those of us in public ed we always prefer to have our students face to face engaged in classroom-based learning but under the current conditions uh it just would be unsafe to have significant numbers of students and adults back on campus at this time so our comprehensive distance learning model which directors and public heard a little bit about uh earlier is intended to be different from the student learning experience of this past spring our goal is to be prepared to engage students and provide them with a more robust learning experience students will be observing a regular weekly schedule there will be regular interaction with teachers grades will be taken as well as attendance uh so although this will be a a more uh atypical or unusual start to the school year um we are working uh and collaborating with our school leaders and educators to really sort of create a new kind of opportunity and also establish support structures that better ensure black native and students of color have access to culturally specific supports this includes continued and strengthened partnership with culturally specific community-based partners continuing to braid our racial equity and social justice strategies
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into our instructional core and developing supports that begin to address mental health impacts uh of these times i i want to thank parents who lent their voice to a couple of recent focus groups about what would be helpful uh in supporting them as we contemplate the new school year i want to invite families in the broader public to stay on top of our posting information we'll be doing that on a regular basis at pps.net fall 2020 so please stay in tune on our homepage we're also going to be reaching out to families through other means so these are tough times we're going to do our best to rise to them i will continue to count on our educators and staff to be creative and compassionate as we as we serve our critically important mission so i know that the next update will dive into much more detail about uh the specific experience that our students and teachers will have next slide uh we committed to our directors uh we we want to recognize this also was an unusual budget development uh season this past spring there's a little bit of movement uh in this area and we just want to call it out here we know that our resource planning would be different for most years and information from the state is is also going to be iterating so we're waiting for the next state budget forecast we're beginning to hear a few things from the ways and means co-chairs revenue proposal first of all there's a possibility that the student investment account funding will actually be cut by two-thirds uh earlier forecast showed that funding would be cut by one-third uh pre-covered so we're paying close attention to that on the good news side we understand that measure 98 funding just might be fully funded uh for for the coming year uh and we're also hearing uh uh that there may be fuller full funding for state school funds so the current level of funding uh under discussion at the state level will i we believe cover all of our staff and resource needs to open the coming school year but as soon as we have more concrete information from the state we'll be sure to come back to the board and the cbrc with that that pledged budget amendment after the special legislative session is completed uh that session is anticipated to begin on august 10th so stay tuned for for more updates there and then i just wanted to touch on what what is going to be a a main topic of conversation in tonight's regular meeting uh because it's an important milestone uh something that we're asking to or planning to go to the voters with this this fall and continuing to ask for their support uh in passing a bomb that will result in uh not just the modernization of benson and jefferson high school but also builds in a transformation and ability to really dedicate an investment in curriculum uh in learning technology and continued health and safety and other facility upgrades and then importantly and i appreciate the director's conversation at our last meeting uh attention to facility accessibility uh which is particularly appropriate on this week which marks the 30th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act so uh glad that the board will be considering that this evening uh for a final vote as well and then there's another exciting concept in there uh which i want to go to the next slide about and say a little bit more about we're excited about this concept of a center for black student excellence i'm excited about this vision i think it's a groundbreaking concept for a number of reasons one it's long overdue and much needed in our city and in a school system that too many times has marginalized black youth and their families this initiative allows pps to play an important role in partnership with the broader community and lifting up our black students uh the partnership aspect is central to the ultimate success of this initiative if we're going to truly succeed in serving black students and youth and we'll have to do it together there is great power and partnership and we could bring some things to the table but we're a better school system when we work with our community partners uh to serve students and thank you some of you for for being on the line now uh our conversations and planning with albino vision are going to continue the potential of the center for black student excellence is limitless again this concept represents a constellation of school communities this uh might very well be our landmark effort that will benefit generations of black students their families their
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communities portland public schools and the city of portland in general so i think this bond package has the potential to drive a foundational change for us but i want to thank everyone our directors staff volunteers and members of our broader community for a really great deal of hard work and input that has led us to this moment and i know we're going to have a deeper conversation and i'll have a few more thoughts to share later in our agenda uh so as a last slide uh to my report this evening um just want to sort of preview here uh you may have noticed that around this time uh at the end of each summer as we launch into the new school year we we come up with a theme or a motto um and for this year uh and i think it's appropriate uh the theme is together we will uh and partly because we're taking on some enormous challenges uh and changes due to this pandemic uh and so a lot of dedicated work important work is going to need to continue uh we're gonna need to be more focused than ever uh to meet some pretty aggressive goals and standards we've set for our ourselves and stay on this path of reimagining public education in portland so our school leaders as they do every summer are going to still come together it's not quite going to be the week-long extravaganza and culture builder that uh we're going to miss not being able to do but they are going to come together for a couple of days to really prepare and plan for welcoming and engaging our students for a positive school opening even if it's virtual so as we work to provide and to ensure the best possible beginning to the school year we're eagerly anticipating the day hopefully soon with the community's cooperation when we can welcome students back to school so that concludes my remarks uh for now thank you chair thank you superintendent guerrero um it is now my uh honor and pleasure to invite uh director andrew scott the chair of the school improvement bond committee to provide an overview of how the 2020 bond package was constructed great thank you chair lowry i'm really excited to introduce this item and i'm going to provide just a quick overview um and then also give a chance to some of our other board members who are heavily involved throughout the process to talk about some of the specifics um i think it's just it's an exciting day um and the culmination of many years of work to get to this point obviously things have predated my term on the board um tonight what the board is deciding is is whether we're going to ask voters to consider a 2020 school bond renewal that would maintain the current tax rate uh and continue our critical capital investments um in our portland public schools um portland public schools has a long-range facilities plan that identifies the district's intent to request voter approval on capital construction bonds on a four-year cycle and this is again continuing that that um continuing on that four year cycle that cycle is intended to support um what really is a multi-decade multi-billion dollar capital improvement program to modernize the school districts aging schools and as some of you have heard me um sort of riff before i spent a lot of time uh in my career working on government infrastructure projects and and trying to find funding and i i think we're at a really exciting moment within portland public schools because um again we do voters were very generous in 2012 and generous in 2017 and we're at the point now where if we can just maintain this tax rate and continue to come forward with these um with these bond renewal cycles um you know it we we really can over the next couple of decades um make a huge difference in in the infrastructure uh in the schools that our kids attend um so for this particular measure back in early 2019 staff began exploring options for what a november 2020 bond might look like um meetings with the school improvement bond committee began in october of 2019 um shortly after some new board members joined and you know over the last nine months staff and the board of education have met to discuss district capital planning documents and guidance we've talked about educational and facility needs assessment and priorities we've discussed cost estimates and different financing options what potential bond projects might look like what those scenarios might look like and we've done our best to get community and stakeholder input during this time we propose three different options for community feedback um and even during covid uh we were able to get that feedback through surveys through focus groups through polling and virtual town hall so what we have before us tonight um is the culmination of that work it's an option that will include increased investments in curriculum and accessibility it includes funding to modernize jefferson high school which i think most of us would agree all of us would agree is long overdue it includes funding for planning design and pre-construction for the other two comprehensive high schools cleveland wilson which will be the two remaining high schools um spawn package goes forward and passes and really makes some significant progress so that we can come back in 2024 and finish those high schools off
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as i think we promised the voters we would do and it also includes a focused investment in realizing a community vision for a center for black student excellence which is the superintendent and others have talked about we'll talk about tonight um is an incredibly exciting vision um and something i think is really important at this time so in you know my view this is a package it's really well balanced um it's aligned with the district's racial equity and social justice policy um and i think most importantly every student in the district is going to benefit from the investments that we're making in technology in updated textbooks in the culturally relevant curriculum and increased building accessibility for students staff and families so that's a high level overview i do want to turn it over to some of our other directors to talk a little bit more about some of the specifics director constance she also served on the school improvement bond committee and and of course chaired uh the the school board over this last year and i was going to um ask if you could please speak to the education health safety and accessibility investments in the bond package sure i'm happy to um one other comment i want to make which you you touched on a little bit is that um i want to commend our staff for the public engagement process in the development of this bond um package you know i think we never could have imagined five months ago doing this without the ability to get together in our school gyms and cafeterias and really hear from the community about what they want to see and we did things differently we had some sort of curated focus groups that um i thought yielded really authentic meaningful engagement that um helped us improve our thinking on things so um kudos to uh jonathan garcia and shanice clark and their whole team for enabling us to really hear from the community about what they wanted to see um andrew i think you went through things fairly fairly clearly but i'll speak to the first couple of elements that we see in this package and these really came forward from the superintendent as he looked at his vision for transformation for this district and specifically how are we going to move student achievement and as a board we've settled on four um achievement-oriented uh goals and so the superintendent's marching orders were okay if this is what my board is going to hold my team accountable for then i need the tools to get there and so the first part of this package is um to invest in curriculum materials and that means you know some traditional materials like like books but it also means um access to online materials and all kinds of things so i think this is very um this is a very thoughtful contribution it's not something that we have included in our capital bonds before but given that this district is 20 plus years behind in curriculum adoption for virtually every subject in every grade level it's sorely needed and with the voters blessing once we we and not adopt these new curriculums then we can be on a more traditional curriculum adoption cycle that other school districts are on to refresh materials but we we've got to make up for lost time and another piece of that too is to really have the 21st century curriculum that our students are clamoring for and that they deserve so this means ethnic studies curriculum that is integrated into you know all content areas and all grades not just as a standalone elective class or something that maybe a a project as a particular teacher we know that's not what we want for our students we want a fully integrated ethnic studies curriculum so we have 53.4 million dollars um that uh makes up that request for curriculum um we also have 128.2 million dollar piece in this bond for technology and again this is an area where our district has been sorely behind in making necessary infrastructure investments so not only are some of our internal um you know some of our internal hardware antiquated to the point of like near failure but this also includes being able to um purchase new devices and new um uh teaching tools uh for for all of our teachers so that is um again a long overdue proposed investment and um we'll really um bring this district into the 21st century um next area that we have is in terms of flexible special special education supports 13.4 million dollars and you know i want to call out that i think in each of each of the categories here
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there's been a great deal of consideration given to our whole our commitment to differentiated instruction so um all means all and so with our curriculum materials with our technology those are those are and intended to and will serve all of our students even in the technology ask some of that um includes resources for assistive technology for some of our special education students but we also know that we need to do more and i appreciate superintendent you bringing up the anniversary of the americans with disabilities act because um it's so important for us and with our old facilities we have a lot of work to do in terms of physical access but we also have work to do in terms of the the innovation and the ways that we serve those students so those will support some of our focused classrooms but but also more thoughtfully we'll be in service to the inclusive education that we want to see for all of our special education students in all of our schools um we also have 33.8 million dollars recommended specifically for physical improvements for accessibility and we know right now that every student with a physical disability cannot attend his or her neighborhood school or any parent or grandparent or staff member um cannot access each of our buildings which is really um shameful that's not that that doesn't represent our our values it doesn't represent our social justice framework so um this um this amount of money represents first floor accessibility in each of our schools um so that's a huge huge difference it doesn't get us the whole way there we want all of every building to be accessible and that's what our our full modernizations do like our our beautiful fully modernized high schools um but it gets us a long way there um andrew did you want me to continue with the health and safety um yes i believe so okay sure sure so um again this is just long overdue investments on our ancient infrastructure more than half of our buildings are over 75 years old some of them are at point of almost critical failure in some ways so that includes just over 65 million dollars for roof work and of course with that roof work comes improvements to seismic um stabilization 75 million dollars on our mechanical systems including our heating and cooling systems which are really challenging in all of our buildings i'm glad no one's having to teach in one of our school buildings today because it ends up being really tough sometimes um almost 25.9 million dollars in security investments so this would would redo all the door locks and all of our buildings and camera systems for each of our buildings again most of our buildings many built at the at the turn of the last century certainly didn't anticipate the kind of security um concerns that we're faced with now and they've got multiple points of entry and exit so um this is um really needed work for that and then also um an additional 17 million for um some more seismic improvements um and and roof stabilization work so um this is this is all um hugely helpful for the for the safety and well-being of our students and our staff working in our schools every day so i want to thank the staff for um really coming up with the thoughtful prioritized list for the board to consider because i think the figure that deputy superintendent heard uses is that where we have over two billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance on our facilities in this district so there are many many more projects that we could do but i think what we have before us is a urgent and thoughtful um list of the most the most pressing things that we can address in the next four years um and i think that's it from me great great thank you very much um uh for that overview um director uh de paz uh you played a really critical role in leading the initiatives related to the modern nation of jefferson and the groundbreaking work was center for black student excellence in fact um i'll actually just say and i think i mentioned this to you before but it was actually your comments in our board meeting a few weeks ago that convinced me that now is the time to move forward on jefferson so i thank you personally um for that perspective um i'd love to hear from you a little bit about um uh uh the modernization of jefferson
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what's included in this bond i'm sure thank you director scott and i'm all when you talk i'm also always listening to you to hear like michelle's been at this for such a long time so thank you for not going on and on about how many years i've been involved um so i'm really excited to support the modernization of jefferson high school and we've been hearing tonight about things that are long overdue for about 170 years portland public schools has had issues um failing communities of color particularly black and indigenous students since i think it was william boyd tried to enroll his children in one of the two white schools in 1860 so addressing the black community's needs are long overdue but i'm really excited to support the modernization of jefferson high school in this bond in this moment for so many reasons one because um it's the first time in my memory which goes back a long ways i'll admit um that pps has seriously taken the voices of the black community um but particularly because of the benefits it'll deliver to black and brown students particularly black students who finally will know if not directly that their education matters black to black students out there who probably aren't listening on this call right now your education matters jefferson's located in a neighborhood that was once a historically black neighborhood but prior to that was a neighborhood of all immigrants including my father's family my father's family some of you have heard this story emigrated from panama um to portland in 1947. my mother's family had been here for several years by that time having come from louisiana um my dad met my mother at dawson park on the first day he's here and he joined other immigrants including chinese americans germans and russians and those from other europeans in this neighborhood we have two onion domes still as remnants of um that that early immigrant presence in albina the albino neighborhoods um encompassing king saban mississippi humboldt boise elliot are significant today because the areas were restricted because it was an area that was restricted to housing black people um there that could live there and only there having been forced to the neighborhood after the vanport fled um but those people that lived there could not purchase homes if they did purchase homes like my grandparents did they had to buy it through someone else that was not black there was a very thriving business district as black people realized that they could earn middle class wages by becoming business owners and neighbors looked after each other it was a different time um dr unthink's office was located there um saint martin preschool named after the only black saint he's not a black saint anymore they took his sainthood away but um there was a preschool where the knot street um community center is and there were groceries and meat markets and and dry cleaners um beauty shops churches and there were even two black owned banks they were they were called negro own banks one was affiliated through the naacp and the other one was privately owned american state bank but the city and the mortgage and real estate industries individuals and banks did not invest in albina and you couldn't get a bank loan here as a result i have two distinct memories memories of this neighborhood um about albina was like when i was a child which was a long time ago um one is bustling and thriving and doing all of our business on foot and the other was a burned out shell of its former self with addiction and just incredible disinvestment so you can understand why i'm excited tonight about making these significant investment in a school that has historically served black and brown kids for about 60 years in addition to the modernization of jefferson high school um i'm sorry i've lost my place for just a moment but in addition to the modernization of jefferson high school that's been serving the bulk of the city's black students that has experienced significant investment from the district board and administration we today also have managed the opportunity to invest in a center for black student excellence that will be imagined and brought to life by the community in partnership with the district and i just i can't express that enough so if this if the plan sounds vague it's because we want to keep this opening for the community to reimagine what this um center looks like um i imagine that there will be a robust process that intentionally seeks input from impacted stakeholders and i personally hope that the community will revisit the naming conversation at jefferson um i understand that we uh the community went through a naming conversation several years ago and from what i hear from alumni is they would like to have that conversation again because times have changed so shiny new building aside i'm excited to realize acknowledge love cherish and value the excellence that's the black community
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today to demonstrate our shared vision and values through this investment to show kids we care we are listening and we have big hopes for them for our communities children we are a resilient bunch having survived many many generations of disinvestment and navigating systems that were not designed for us to achieve excellence and yet many of us um have we've we've survived so i can't wait to witness um the kids that we're investing in today as they cross that stage with their deployments in hand headed to the future that we help them to achieve i um don't i think i failed to mention the dollar figure and please correct me um dan jung if i'm wrong it's a 300 represents a 365 million dollar investment that's that's uh 305 million for the modernization of jefferson and about 60 million for the center for black student success thank you director to pass that was um um really important history and and and and powerful words in this moment so thank you for sharing um i think it's a really really exciting from in from my perspective the most exciting part of this bond um vice chair bailey who was also uh served on the school improvement bond committee over this last year um you also participated in the benson design advisory group from benson and engage with the multiple pathways to graduation work can you provide a quick overview of what's in this package for that project well director to pass that's a chef act to follow but i am you know we considered uh a number of options over the last couple of months in terms of how to structure this bond uh but one uh piece of the bond that was in every one of those options was rebuilding benson and building a new uh building for our multiple pathways to graduation programs um so i have been sitting in on those meetings for benson director brim edwards has been representing us in the discussions for the uh and excuse me mpg not miles per gallon multiple pathways to graduation uh building uh and they're they're a real contrast benson is rebuilding a historic building which is a real challenge while the mbg building is brand new but it was also challenging because of the variety of programs there and trying to build something that um worked for everybody and had some synergy as well uh so it's been a a privilege for both of us to to sit on on those um and again one of the um one of the real areas that this district has made strides in over the last couple years is moving towards a true system of career and technical education programs in all of our high schools but of course benson is the flagship for that and having a modern benson will will help us uh even more uh deliver state-of-the-art career and technical education programs for our students in partnership with uh businesses and uh unions across the city so i'm really excited about that um when it comes to multiple pathways to graduation program one i have to again thank students from programs like alliance and pisa for giving us a swift kick a couple of these years ago and saying um you know what about us and that really gave us the impetus to move ahead and to prioritize uh building that building so uh programs that will some of the uh mpg programs will be in benson some will be in the new building but they'll all have modern facilities just very excited about that so again that includes alliance which is currently split between alliance at meek and alliance at benson i'm wearing my reconnect t-shirt here because the reconnect program that goes after students that our high schools have lost track of to call them back in and help them get that diploma uh will be housed there uh there will be a teen parent center there um our dart program that works with the students in long-term treatment
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will be there as well the pisa program which works with new immigrant students and i hope i'm not leaving anybody out i apologize if i am but some really important programs again will give some great facilities going forward great thank you very much uh vice chair bailey um director moore there are three high schools i mentioned briefly in in this bond that are going to benefit from a significant uh advancement in terms of their construction or design um could you share a little bit the cleveland wilson and roosevelt design and implementation plans thank you um i want to give a little bit of history not nearly as much as director to pass but i think it's worth uh remembering how all of this started um in 2012 um the portland community agreed to voted for a bond uh which was the first bond for construction new construction in portland public schools since 1995 and this is my cat who says hello um and in 2012 um it was coming on the heels of the long range facilities planning committee that outlined a 30-year plan to modernize all of the schools in portland's um 82 school portfolio for the 2012 bond uh the the focus of that bond and and the the initial focus for the monetization work was determined to be high schools um a lot of the reasons went into it uh was partially a product of the time but um starting with the 2012 bond portland public schools has been modernizing its entire high school portfolio piece by piece and um with this bond we're going to be tackling jefferson high school and then we're also going to be providing uh plan funding for the design and pre-construction planning for the remaining high schools cleveland and wilson that will be completely re-modernized in addition to that we're providing funds for the design and pre-construction work for roosevelt high school to be expanded to um to a 1700 capacity to match all of the other the capacity of all of the other high schools um and the uh the hope the expectation here is that um because we're using this bond the the next four years to do all of this pre-construction planning the hope is that these three high schools will then be included in a follow-on bond presumably in 2024 um to continue on this path toward um and uh if the 2024 bond passes um with the approval of the voters then construction could start as early as 2025. um so this is another step in in the in our journey toward creating 21st century high schools um and responding to uh enrollment growth in north portland and um it's it's very exciting and this will allow the the original 2012 conception of this kind of first tranche of completing um a level of um schools in the district um it will maintain the momentum and will be able to start construction hopefully as soon as the next bond passes so thank you great thank you um director moore last um but definitely not least in fact maybe uh most importantly uh director brett edwards is chair of the audit committee can you speak to some of the review and accountability measures that are going to be included in this bond moving forward i think you're muted uh director madrid you missed the thank you to you um thank you director scott um as director scott mentioned it's important to note um that this that the bond tax rate um in this package is um going to be a continuation of the current rate um so it's a renewal it's a flat rate um it'll likely be the only bond or levy
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on the portland ballots uh this fall that will not be an increase or a new tax so really important for voters to know this is this is a renewal um it's also important that we demonstrate to taxpayers that were good stewards of the dollars the capital dollars they give us just um as we are with the operating dollars that we receive um so what will that stewardship looks like look like first uh we'll continue to have an independent external bond performance auditor sec reviewing the bond expenditures as they currently do for the 2017 bond um those audits are presented and will be presented to the external bond accountability committee and to the pps audit committee and the audits and the district responses are all posted online at pbs.net and second um we'll have an ongoing review and audit auditing by our external financial auditors who will look at internal controls and compliance with state and public regulations and laws and third in addition we have and i feel bad because like compared to director de pass's um speech this is all about the financial controls and our review and the expenditures but i think certainly important for our taxpayers so the third sort of layer of auditing we'll have we'll have contract auditing which is looking at the guaranteed maximum price and they'll review and audit invoices and change orders as they currently do and have done with the franklin high school the grant high school and the roosevelt high school bond projects so you know as a taxpayer in the chair the audit committee have confidence that the expenditures currently that our bond expenditures currently receive and if the voters approve the 2020 bond that the expenditures will receive a very thorough review and where there have been issues that the auditors have raised the district staff has been very responsive integrating recommendations and into the ongoing operations and work of the um office of school modernization in addition um this this time uh the board decided to add another pre-referral check on our bond and expenditure planning so the bond accountability committee which is made up of community members with professional expertise um they currently advise the staff and the board on the bond and this in addition to staff review and board review this external um group of beauty experts who volunteer their times um also we asked if we could add another um responsibility to their current charter so last october we amended the charter to add um we asked first but to add um on to their list of responsibilities to review uh future district bond planning including cost estimate cost estimating processes and risk management strategies and um i will say that the while the bond accountability committee has a full plate they agreed to undertake this so there were a number of informal meetings between staff the bond accountability committee i know some board members attend those meetings but once we had a proposed bond package the bac met to review the package that we're gonna that we're considering tonight and i'm gonna close my section here by asking kevin spellman who is the chair of the bond accountability committee to give a recap of their review of the 2020 bond measure and i also want to as kevin uh gets prepared to speak i just want to thank all the members of the bac because this was over and above what we already asked them to do which is a considerable amount of work in reviewing the expenditures on behalf of the district and the community and protecting taxpayers investment so with that hopefully i can turn it over to kevin chair lowry is he on i can see mr spellman and i see that he is still muted oh there we go there you are mr spellman all right thank you director brim edwards um indeed when when you uh changed our charter last october uh another way of putting it i think was to have us kind of take a look at staff's work and ensure that the amount of money being asked from the voters on any future bond
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was consistent with the scope that was being promised so that's the charge we we took on we met with staff um i think a total of six or seven times uh but most of the work was done as the scope of the proposed program uh became clearer in the last four or five weeks and and i know several of uh you board members sat in on some or all of those uh what we the process we used was we looked at every piece of the proposed program and explored how staff had calculated the associated costs um and it's i think it's important to note that this is not necessarily always a science sometimes it's an art and some aspects of the work are clearly more well defined than others and really that's where we tried to bring our technical expertise and uh ensure that staff has brought had brought data in support of their um their costing techniques and those where the scope was still rather undefined we it's we we tended to explore their use of professional judgment we asked questions we made suggestions uh we asked in some areas for a rethink and then we reviewed the district's responses to all of those and i have to really complement the staff on how they handled this process because i'm sure some of our comments were not necessarily always made totally artfully but they were nimble and professional even though they're working under extraordinary time pressures with furloughs etc not to mention covet etc as far as our conclusion is concerned we've issued a memo to the board and we're pleased to present our conclusion here that in our judgment the pricing of the bond package before you is appropriately supported by robust professional cost estimating processes and risk management strategies great um thank you and again as as uh uh director brent edward said thank you um kevin for your work and the work of all of these ac numbers um it's it's really important we appreciate that we're saying uh chair lowry i'm going to turn it back over to you uh for the rest of this um item excellent thank you uh director scott we have some public comments and testimony on the bond and um each person will have three minutes to share your thoughts and we'll begin with uh kathy reynolds who's gonna speak with us about mpg good evening can you hear me good evening school board members good my name is kathy reynolds r-e-y-n-o-l-d-s pronounced she her and i appreciate being able to provide testimony regarding the multiple pathways building as a central element of the upcoming bond measure as a parent of a multiple pathway student and as a member of their dag it's been my pleasure to be part of the process and to bring to you what mpg does and some of the many benefits that the new facility will create for the students who have long been served frankly underserved in substandard facilities multiple pathways serves majority students of color black native american latinx from six weeks of age to age 21 enrolled in schools as well as district-wide programs everyone in mpg works tirelessly to create an education system that works for all students to make every student feel welcome wanted and worthy this is what this new building will convey to our students and our families that they are worthy and that we as a district value and are making space to center their experience and their membership in pps over a thousand families will be served each year in reconnection outreach services alliance high school students will come together from both the meek and benton campuses dark clinton school whose students and teachers work with three community and mental health partners will bring those students together in their day treatment programs team parent services will have a child care facility to serve mpg and benson high school infants and partners in the dag we have been really intentional in our thinking about how the facility can reinforce multiple pathways values social emotional wellness and have a deep menu of academic programming for the students we have brought trauma-informed design to the center of our discussion what the mpg building will provide includes a welcoming space that is warm and inviting for all families specifically for racially diverse communities we want the entrance to be that of a living room experience we want them to be welcome and belong
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it's a facility designed for people with various needs we've heard about ada wheelchairs strollers varying levels of anxiety and that provides private confidential offices for mental health counseling support iep testing i mentioned bringing together the alliance high school campuses so we can share those valuable resources space equipment staff we're going to have automotive manufacturing digital media natural resources culinary cte strands and dark clinton students will have access to cte in their building for the first time ever teen parents will have access to child care and social workers at the same facility of their school we will have showers mpg serves many homeless students and yet the current facilities don't have showers and laundry we all have food pantry services for our students and families who need them we'll have a gym not just to meet our basic pe requirements our students need movement yes but it will also allow for school assemblies guest speakers cultural celebrations our staff and leadership and families speak about how this building represents a larger cultural community bringing families together were so often displaced so the work that we are doing is inspiring we know creating a welcoming space helps increase enrollment attendance and graduation as reflected in alliance's class of 2020 who right now has 132 graduates having the mpg building in the bond is the right thing to do and we know it will raise student achievement funding the completion of the building in this bond package is in complete alignment with the pps strategic plan thank you thank you our uh next speaker is jason trombley speaking about the three high schools good evening can everyone here and see me yes perfect good evening chair lowry student representative shu members of the board and superintendent guerrero good evening for the record my name is jason trombley spelled t-r-o-m-b-l-e-y i am both a pps alum and an active volunteer in pps recently the co-chair of district committees addressing enrollment and school boundaries a public advocate for the 2017 bond and recent co-chair of the lincoln high school dag i'm pleased to be here before you to speak in favor of the 2020 bond proposal that is up for consideration this evening and the opportunities that lay ahead at a systemic level it takes us a large step closer towards completing the modernization of our entire high school system portfolio by investing resources now this investment provides the wilson high school community plenty of time for generations of the community to come together and design what this campus will reflect and stand for when construction is complete this bond gives the community time to work through a series of significant set of questions that are connected the name of the new school how the new design will reflect and incorporate the next chapter of the school community and where do and how all students will engage in learning during construction for the cleveland high school community this investment and planning resources now helps provide stability for this community it gives their new principal time who recently worked through the early design and planning process at lincoln to engage with the community early and learn from the observations at the lincoln campus and work through the cleveland campuses complexity for the roosevelt community this investment is another step forward to bring their facility to parity with other modernized campuses but at a long term level this work provides an important investment for future work as seen in the proposed educational and accessibility investment section of this bond package among the investments here i'd like to note my support for the middle school redesign section this investment package is an important move because it allows the district to both codify and fund what the programs will be for students in lower grades and the supports needed to ensure that all students can access these programs this investment is essential in some this bond accomplishes two significant goals one it moves us forward towards completing efforts to modernize our high school portfolio and two it provides the district time and resources to continue its work to design and invest in curriculum and services for students in grades k through eight this allows future bonds to be crafted to ensure that the modernization projects included are designed to help implement the programs we envision with our students this bond is the right step to take especially in this moment in time and with that thank you for the opportunity to testify about the 2020 bond proposal before you all this evening thank you jason our uh next public test money is from uh sorry laquita elliott please correct this bonus pronunciation of your first name speaking about the um jefferson and the center for black accents yes so yes look at the elliot you have it correct uh so good evening board members uh my name is lakita elliott last name e-l-l-iot and before i talk
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about the proposal i just want to tell you a little bit about who i am um i'm a proud third generation alumni of jefferson high school the best high school in pbs uh my grandfather attended jefferson in the 50s my parents my grandfather led the school to its first state championship in basketball my parents met at jefferson high school in the 70s and i actually attended jefferson for preschool and came back for high school um i'm the proud parent of a fourth generation alumni my uh son graduated from jeff in 2015 and i currently have a niece attending uh who's carrying on the family tradition um additionally at various times i've served as a secretary vice president and president of the jefferson ptsa and have been here in front of the school board on many occasions to advocate for jefferson high school i tell you those things to give you a sense of how deep my love is um for the school of champions i also want you to know that i've served on various pps committees uh jason tromley who just heard from we have a running joke about who served on the most committees and we kind of had a joke about this is our first one via video but i served on high school design committee and also on the long-range facilities committee with director bailey and at the time it was initially suggested that jefferson be the first school on the list for upgrade or modernization and that option was taken off the table because at the time the school was starting the middle college and there were concerns about if it made sense to uh you know to do a redesign and disrupt students during um you know during that start of that new program but i agreed to that decision with the understanding that jeff will be on the next bond and was disappointed that it was not it's time now to ensure that the school is modernized much of the school still looks the same as it did when my grandfather attended in the 50s um i also want you to know a little bit about my story so i grew up within blocks of jefferson high school and attended humboldt and tubman schools in the eight in the 80s my parents became addicted to drugs and myself and my four siblings end up being raised by my grandmother my siblings were some of the first sei students i participated in urban league of portland programs my sister attended the alternative school at the urban league of portland we sometimes accessed the saturday school program that was organized by our community when i was a student at humboldt there were teachers and other adults who had grown up in the neighborhood of my parents and who knew um who knew and understood my situation and were able to provide a level of love and care that helped me thrive despite my situation i often tell people that even though my parents were away in their addictions i grew up in a community that cared for me i never felt like i was lacking the support i needed to succeed in a way i grew up in a center for black excellence there are people like myself and rakai adams leader without buying a vision and they can't get harman johnson the director of the urban league who grew up in that same community um what you see in our command continued engagement and service to our community is a direct result of the kind of community we grew up in and what it looks like when a community invest in their children the reason that albino vision and sei and kairos and others in our community can vision something as big and bold as the center for black student excellence is partially because we've seen an experience with a thriving connected black community where adults are committed to the education and success of its young people looks like in a recent article about rakai adam she's quoted as saying that the albino community that if you looked at it from a wealth perspective it would have seemed to be under-resourced and small but to be inside of it as a black girl i was surrounded by people who knew my name and knew my family and the adults created the environment for me to be strong um you may or may not be able to see i'm wearing my black kids matter shirt from kairos um i've also been here in front of the school board to advocate for kairos on a lot of occasions initially when they first applied for their charter because i believed in the type of education that they they provide my nephew was one of the first graduates of cairo's and i brought him to a school board meeting when we were advocating to keep kairos at um at humble and at one point during the meeting he looked over and he was like wow i didn't know this many people cared about me in my school um you have the opportunity in this investment to create the next generation of black young people who know that people care about them who can experience growing up in an educational environment that they can experience success and be strong and become the leaders we need so i urge you to um to make this investment and to honor the commitment to the students at jefferson and the families who will hopefully attend jefferson in the future thank you thank you very much um our next speaker is oops i scrolled down so i'm missing my list our next speaker is roberta phillips robbins uh also talking about the center for black excellence hi can you hear me okay yes
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parent of a rising second grader at cairo's pdx thank you for the opportunity to share some thoughts with you this evening i would like to acknowledge pps's proactive role in partnering with cairo's and albania vision trust to rise to the demands of the current environment that we are in only brave and bold leadership will close the achievement gap in our district i acknowledge the pps board and staff for committing resources specifically designed to support black children and their families it is about high time this legislative victory would not have been possible without the important contributions of civic leaders including ronnie herndon joyce harris and many others champions for black children who refuse to give up and accept the same old feeling outcomes for our community let me be clear in this moment and through this bond referral you have an opportunity to bring us all closer to the vision established in brown v border bed the truth is that america has failed black children and portland public schools has failed black children within this district black children have succumbed to disproportionate discipline abysmal graduation rates and referral to the criminal justice system and those are just the highly publicized failures let's talk about the failures we can't easily quantify black children shuffled into lower performing schools and programs black children who leave a system believing that they are not meant to reach their potential how many physicians scholars award win winning artists and entrepreneurs would we have within the black community if our children were to reach their potential again that number is difficult to quantify but i offer that even one is unacceptable in failing black children this body has failed black families and it's failed the black community an important step in the right direction is to support the center for black student excellence and i urge you to take that important step thank you so much for your time thank you our next speaker is angela jarvis holland at stream at the ada hello can you hear me okay well i just want to say how moved i felt by the testimony that i've heard and it's like we each have a slot where we're speaking to one piece of this bond but i think it's really important that i just acknowledge black lives matter and that all of these pieces need to connect the rasj framework um and ada is a piece of that framework in my mind and um it is the 30th anniversary and my community were very pleased that there was a reconsideration and um support for some important changes made by the board last week and um i've been talking a lot i represent 5 000 families and disability crosses every boundary there are people of all races or incomes or sexualities who experience disabilities so it's kind of a interesting intersection but i think that what we have is this moment and this reminder from our wider community to really pay attention and this possibility and i commend the leadership of guadalupe and i commend the black volunteers leaders teachers who are willing to come back to the table the same as somebody that was with me 12 years ago working on ada came back and gave me testimony and talked to me and encouraged me to keep me me motivated and come back and work with the school board it's a moment for us to realize our interconnections so ada is about belonging and i think that's really what this bond is about it's about belonging because if we have a hierarchy of need nobody can learn if they don't believe they belong if we don't believe we belong our minds are troubled our ability to learn is not with us and then the curriculum and the intersections and the respect is the next layer that we need help with so ada is long overdue i'm hoping in the next bond we we complete pay in the debt that is is owed but i'm also excited to see these pieces fit together and i make a commitment as a woman a white woman a privilege that i'm looking for how i will bring my best self to the table as i represent many other folks voices and how i'll elevate their voices in the in the work ahead um and i think if we
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can all speak to these intersections and speak with pride about what's being attempted here as we try and market and encourage people to support this bond then portland's going to be a better place and portland public schools will be a place that we can really truly be proud of so i just like the thought that i'm standing alongside so many other warriors i consider myself a social justice warrior my two children went through portland public schools one had mental health issues and is an incredible artist daniel my son has down syndrome there were difficult days he considers himself a media guy and went to benson i can see that we were able to carve a space with privilege i don't want people to have to hack their way through to find justice i want us to put a path in front of them that says welcome and i'm grateful to be part of this community of pps and this community of people on this call this evening thank you um our final speaker tonight will be michael alexander i am trying to get uh can you hear me yes okay and can you see me no good let's start here and see if that okay um my name is michael alexander last name is a-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r and um i am actually secretary of albino vision trust and also past president of the urban league of portland i want to extend greetings to all on the call tonight and particularly to the board albania vision trust is pleased to offer endorsement and support for the proposed bond renewal and we are particularly excited about the commitment to the revitalization and renovation of jefferson and looking into the creation and the planning and design of the center for black student excellence you know i really could have given my time to direct to the past as she offered her comments because they reflected many of my own thoughts it's not lost on any of us that the portland school board in its 170 year history was created at a time when the accountability and the service to black oregonians was not a part of its portfolio and clearly base assumptions that were built into that system and others embrace concepts of racism and cultural deprivation that we have had to address over time i commend the school board for its commitment 10 years ago to its policy of racial equity and over the course of that time there's been ongoing efforts to begin to unpack some of the impacts of that work and that mitigation against the efforts of the needs of black communities here in oregon and particularly in portland but i think the events of the last several weeks have told us that whatever we've done it's not been enough and clearly one of the takeaways is that you cannot fix what you won't face and i am heartened by the resolution that was passed by the board in its june meeting and the language contained within this resolution which owns up to the history that has been a part of the non-performance of the school board over the course of many many decades we have an opportunity now to create new history we have an opportunity now to begin to invest in the students in this community who are most deserving of the best that we can do and the center for blacks to student excellence is a wonderful opportunity for us to step back and create a new pathway it's clear that many of the things that have been a part of our history need to be revisited i support director the past and looking at particularly naming convention changes some of you were here several months ago when mayor landrieu michelangelo from new orleans came and spoke and talked about the challenges he faced in removing um confederate statues monuments to the confederacy but you know that's only a part of it it's wonderful that our children do not have to walk past institutions that are named after individuals many of whom whose primary distinction was largely associated with their
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support and endorsement of slavery but it's equally important to identify what we replace it with and we have the opportunity with this center and the innovations of concept pedagogy and partnership with organizations here locally that have absolutely committed themselves to advancing the educational dreams and interests of black children as their core mission sei cairo's the work that's being done at rosemary anderson high school and many others we can create new history and so i commend superintendent aguero i commend the leadership team i commend the board for the courage to not only look at change but look at the change that will define the world that our children and our grandchildren will live in that many of us will never see and so thank you very much for the opportunity to offer some comments and know that the albino vision trust is fully committed to partnering with you and to navigating this path wherever it takes us because we believe that it will be a noble one that will put us on the right side of history thank you mr alexander i think you're going to really like what's coming next uh which is that we are now considering a resolution in support of centering black student excellence in berlin public schools russia depos would you please read the resolution aloud are you there michelle she had texted me that she was having some uh internet issues i am we can hear you so that's good yeah so okay okay yeah i'm sorry i'm having um some some issues mr alexander i heard about maybe a third of your testimony but thank you anyhow for being here um so bear with me this is long but it's important it's a resolution in support of the center for black student excellence in portland public schools in 2019 the board of education adopted pps reimagined a community driven vision for what we want for the graduates systems system and educators of the portland public schools this ambitious vision represents the values and aspirations of thousands of portland students families staff partners and members of the community and our articulates our foundational and enduring belief in racial equity and social justice and that all students can succeed academically we believe in the fundamental right to human dignity and believe that generating an equitable world requires an educational system that intentionally disrupts and builds leaders to disrupt systems of oppression a decade after the pps board adopted a historic racial educational equity policy that held racial equity and social justice as central tenets to our decisions and actions pps is determined to bring about racial justice and equity in our district espousing a counter-narrative for our black native and students of color through an updated race racial equity and social justice framework and plan pps continues its steadfast commitment to creating access to an array of opportunities for students especially students of color aligning our cultural norms practices and structures so that they center the lived experiences and hopes of our black native and students of color developing culturally responsive practices including equitable budgeting and strengthening our partnerships with culturally specific community-based providers to tailor individual supports to the needs of our students an important aspect of this work is acknowledging the cultural and institutional racism that has existed in our system since its inception over our history pps has promoted racist policies protocols and procedures helping to reinforce racist cultural narratives beliefs and norms six years before oregon proposed a state constitution banning black people from entering residing or acquiring property portland public schools oregon's now largest school system was established for close to 170 years pps has failed communities of color especially black and native american students from the time of its founding when william brown a resident of portland in the 1860s was denied the right to enroll his children in one of portland's only two public elementary schools launching what would be the first recorded case of racism against black children in portland public schools while our commitment to calling out and eradicating systems of oppression is clear in our vision we also know that cultural and institutional racism continues to produce disparities and negatively impacts lives of our students of color specifically black students reflecting on our community's vision for pps our core values and educational system
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shifts along with the acknowledgment of persistent racialized predictors for student outcomes pps must strategically utilize and invest resources in a targeted and culturally responsive manner to achieve racial equity and social justice cultural specific culturally specific organizations are uniquely positioned to partner with pps to support our racial equity and social justice goals and we rely on our continued partnerships with them to implement culturally responsive family engagement mentoring mentoring wraparound services and support on june 11th of this year the board unanimously approved resolution 6130 declaring that the lives of black students and our black community matter and committing to working with the portland community to create the conditions for every student especially our black and native students who experience the greatest challenges to realize the vision of the graduate portrait the albino vision trust is a non-profit organization facilitating the thoughtful reinvention and transformation of the 94 acres of lower albina from which thousands of primarily black residents were forcibly displaced over decades of urban renewal recognizing the power and importance of education albino vision trust seeks to develop a youth-centered community in lower albina that creates opportunities for portland's next generation of black people to learn build wealth and reclaim home this albino vision neighborhood this albino neighborhood would allow for intentional design for the safety of black and brown children in the urban environment while at the same time providing the housing and community stability that supports education equitable access to public education has long been a key component of the civil rights movement and fight for racial justice building on the legacy of advocacy for black children in portland and catalyzed by the social movement for black lives black portland community leaders have put forth the concept of the center for black student excellence this concept endeavors to center the experience promote opportunities accelerate outcomes and celebrate the achievements of portland's black children this new collective impact effort channels the decades of visionary leadership and culturally responsive and pedagogic kind of glide i'm sorry stumbling kind of pedagogically sustaining approaches of community-based non-profits like self-enhancement inc and cairo's pdx among other black led culturally specific organizations here in portland this emerging community-led concept seeks seeks to unify and elevate the educational experience of portland's black children and their families connecting a constellation of community schools such as boise elliot humboldt elementary dr martin luther king jr elementary tubman middle school and jefferson high school and black-led community-based organizations in the albino neighborhood which there are many the center for black student excellence will work with the students families and community stakeholders to develop a coherent set of strategies that will positively impact student achievement and outcomes while affirming student identity and will include promoting and supporting culturally responsive sustaining teaching and learning from cradle to career the center for black student excellence will serve as a living expression of portland public schools expressed commitment to black lives and will help advance pps's mission to prepare students for competition to be compassionate critical careers on july 28 2020 tonight the pps board will consider adopting a resolution to place a general obligation bond on the november 3rd 2020 ballot if approved the proposed bond will allocate up to 371 million off by 6 million to modernize jefferson high school and will launch the design and implementation of the center for black student excellence in neighborhood schools and facilities in north and northeast portland especially in the heart of historic albino neighborhood i now therefore the board of education affirms that it will stand shoulder to shoulder with the black community who continue to be central to building this nation who have fought and continue to fight for more just and equitable opportunities here in portland and across the united states stands strongly in its commitment to authentically listen learn and partner with our community's black elders and listen to our black youth to address the cultural and institutional system that have it has existed in our system since its inception commits to affirming its long-held belief to lead a robust racial equity and social justice agenda and centering the lived experiences of our black students these educators and staff in our actions decisions and words firmly stand behind the communication inspired idea of the center for black student excellence
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both as a physically built environment and as a designated set of culturally responsive studies immediate and long-term plans and culturally specific partnerships to advance black student achievement in pps affirms the phased approach to implementation based on the center for black student excellence conceptualizing an overall plan starting with phase one focused investments in north and portland facili facilitates funded facilitated funded through the general obligation bond referred to the november 3rd 2020 ballot if approved by voters directs the superintendent to resource and develop a clear roadmap for the design of the center for black student excellence an initiative that focuses on group of community schools by supporting optimal teaching and learning environments and promoting culturally responsive strategies and to continue to partner with culturally specific black led and black serving community-based organizations to develop these plans and finally requests that the superintendent divide their public updates to the board of education on the progress made toward the conceptual design and implementation of the center for black student excellence thank you director depos before i turn this over to superintendent guerrero i did want to apologize for any confusion i caused by saying that was the last public comment that was the last public comment of that section don't worry we have like four more sections of public comment tonight so if you're anxiously waiting to share there is ample opportunity um the superintendent ferrero i'm going to turn it over to you to introduce this item thank you chair lowry and and thank you director de paz for for reading what i think is a very strongly worded ambitious uh and inspiring resolution i hope you're feeling directors a little bit of what i'm feeling as i listen to each of you describe key elements of this bond campaign because in my short tenure here in portland what's going through my mind is late evenings hearing alliance students talk about um facilities they don't have access to i'm thinking of saturday mornings with spanish-speaking mothers of special needs students thank you angela i'm thinking of all those critical voices many of whom we've heard here tonight uh in particular community leaders that i want to well recognize have been engaged in this advocacy for a long time and i'm just proud that we're at this moment this evening in this milestone to address so many wonderful aspects that are going to mean so much to our students not just in their learning environment to their health and safety to hopefully not walk around with 20 year old textbooks held together by duct tape of course i'm excited about instructional materials but i've got to say the the element that for me stands out the most is is the one that we have just heard a lot of testimony about and that's actually following through on investing in our black students specifically this concept of [Music] a center for black excellence which by the way represents the geographical constellation of school communities but more importantly an approach of culturally sustaining pedagogy and practices that lifts up the gifts and talents of our black students i'm thinking of endless conversations with leaders like mr tony hopson thank you for being with us here this evening who says often to me we know how to do this right and i think this this is an opportunity to really engage in that collective impact that uh director to pass you were just referring to uh that together we we can actually create that counter narrative here in portland we can be that demonstration we can do what we know is possible uh particularly when there's such a rich history here in the city uh thank you laquita for for sharing that uh your your story uh in the same way that that director depass did as well so um i'd be very excited to receive this kind of a directive from our directors as it considers this resolution i can't
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think of a more powerful mandate to have and and to jump into this work uh in the same way that i know that the staff would look forward to to addressing all those other elements so i just want to commend the directors for uh what i'm hearing uh is a really grand consensus on an ambitious and ambitious agenda for for every one of our students but especially those uh who we haven't provided that same opportunity so so thank you for this for reaching this milestone this evening thank you superintendent guerrero the board will now bring forward resolution number 6150 resolution in support of centering black student excellence in portland public schools do i have a motion go moved second second go ahead director constand moves and director to past seconds the motion to adopt resolution 6150 and i believe there are two public public comment comments on resolution 50. is that correct ms bradshaw yes we have first joe mcferrin all right mr mcferrin can you hear me oh good good evening chair lowry pps board members superintendent guerrero and attendees president this evening my name is joe mcferrin spelled m c capital f e r r i n second i serve as president and ceo of portland oic in the rosemary anderson schools in my work i have spent the last 25 years providing a safety net of education youth development and wrap-around services for african-american students suspended expelled and pushed out of the portland public school system and other district systems throughout multnomah county and many of these students have been disproportionately involved with the juvenile justice center i enthusiastically support the portland public schools 2020 bond renewal to include the center for black excellence i would like to commend the district for all your work your courage for partnering with cairo's the albina trust to ensure that black children have access to the highest quality education they deserve and that so many of our ancestors fought and died for yes vote for the center for black student excellence from pps will signal to the black community locally and throughout this country that you are serious about equity unlike so many other private and public sector organizations that have used the concept of equity in a hollow and superficial way to appease stakeholders i sit before you as a result of the center for black student excellence in its concepts from the first grade to the third grade i attended the black educational center bec was led by ronnie herndon and you all know how much of a advocate and effective leader he has been for our community and my homeroom teacher was joyce harris who taught me how to read my experience at the black educational center gave me the confidence and the skills to succeed academically despite the challenges i ultimately faced in pps grounded in low expectations while in high school i participated in sci where i was counseled by african-american men who instilled in me that failure was not an option and pushed me to reach my full potential as a student athlete to conduct myself with the highest level of integrity the center for black student excellence will give so many african american students the true history of the contributions of black people to
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building to the building of this country and the confidence belief and trust and tools a need to prosper i will do whatever i can to ensure the success for the center of black student excellence and i'll say this as i close a couple of things i remember having dinner with guadalupe um when he arrived early uh on the scene and i have to admit that i wasn't quite sure where he was going or his real commitment but i gotta say uh and i want to say it publicly superintendent guadalupe has uh continued to step up for black kids and other kids of color in a way that i haven't seen before and i just wanted to to call that out i really appreciate your leadership i look forward to walking alongside you and support you in any way that i can lastly i'll say this i have a grandchild i have another one on the way and knowing that there's going to be a center for black student excellence in our community i don't have to consider a central catholic necessarily i don't have to consider a catelyn gable i can consider a portland public school will support them in a way that i was supported in our community as a child thank you joe uh miss bradshaw i understand we have one more public comment on this part don't worry yeah tony hobson yeah can you hear me yes sir right uh for the record my name is tony hopson senior is at peter s-o-n i'm the president ceo self-enhancement inc let me just say uh good evening to uh to the board to all the staff of portland public schools and all of the participants that are on this very long call i have the distinct pleasure tonight to speak to you as a past student of jefferson high school a past parent of jefferson high school grandparent of jefferson high school a staff member of jefferson high school and a staff member of portland public schools for over 10 years i have 55 years of experience within portland public schools we are looking at a vote tonight that would move forward a bond measure to modernize jefferson high school and provide resources to pursue the concept center for black excellence first in the resolution you recognize and acknowledge the cultural and institutional racism that has existed within portland public schools for decades with that we should also acknowledge if not for that same institutional racism the jefferson modernization would have been one of the first efforts of modernization and not one of the last tonight we entertain the concept of black student excellence as if it's a new concept we have had black student excellence in the jefferson cluster in spite of the district's systemic racism there are examples of that black excellence speaking tonight and other examples that have presented to you before we in the black community have always had the solutions to our educational challenges but often we've lacked the resources and power to do what's right when we do have the support from the district you have examples like cairo's pdx poic and sei that clearly show what success for black children can look like the jefferson high school example of black student graduation rates exceeding the district's graduation rates for white students is an obvious clear example exactly what portland public schools says it wants to achieve
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no achievement gap between white students and students of color so we understand that adopting a racial equity policy 10 years ago did not move the needle for black students so in today's climate we know that saying it is simply not enough we absolutely must do it portland public schools by itself has no history to suggest it can get the job done for black students but together let me say that again but together within this resolution that outlines a true partnership between portland public schools the black community and successful proven black organizations we can create an environment of support and leadership that will create a true culture of success success not only for black students but for all students that are touched by love by respect and high expectations that must exist for every each and every student so tonight i gladly support this bond with the center for black excellence recognizing that the community has been doing its part for years and is ready to go for this school board representing decades of disappointment in the black community to now have this amazing amazing opportunity to create support and directly impact the success of black children and families is an unbelievable moment in time unbelievable moment in time one that we must must take advantage of you cannot change the district's past but as board members you can surely provide the light and pathway for a more equitable future so like joe and others i say please vote yes on this it could help provide an opportunity truly for all of us to breathe thank you thank you ms bradshaw is there any other public comment on this not on this resolution right is there any board discussion on this resolution yes i have a couple things i'm just sitting here kind of stunned by the incredibly inspiring words of our community partners and to to honor and um acknowledge what mr hobson was just saying about how so many of you have been doing this work for so long and have the resources in the community to to fulfill the dream that we all want for our black students um and now here we are able to invest so just incredible gratitude to to you to mr mcferrin to um laquita elliott for her role as a parent activist to uh michael alexander for just always showing up at different times always keeping an eye on this board in the school district and looking out for the kids and and importantly our black students um it's incredibly inspiring and um especially because this is a collaborative effort and because our vision for a center for black student excellence not only is it realized but it's not even fully imagined yet it's a glimmer and a dream that we're going to build together so um i'm just a little stunned and deeply grateful for all of you and for my colleagues um for bringing this forward as well and um now to be a total downer actually i have just one tiny little um little picky uh piece on this resolution which is actually in the recitals and i think we could handle this through a friendly amendment but um in the last recital it says the proposed bond would allocate up to 371 million to modernize jeopardize jefferson high school and will launch the design and implementation of the center for black student excellence etc and um just to be to be consistent um nowhere else in any of our bond language or our options have we referred to that number in aggregate the estimate for jefferson high school and the center for black student excellence and so um i think um i wouldn't want to inadvertently um somehow take away from what we are earmarking for the center for black excellence should there be any budget issues with
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jefferson high school so i think um in order to just make the language more consistent if we just um remove the word will so it reads would allocate up to 371 million to modernize jefferson high school and launch the design and implementation um because at least to my mind it it looks like those could be read as two separate efforts so if uh if everyone will humor me with that friendly amendment um it makes me a little more comfortable that it's more in alignment with how we refer to to this proposal elsewhere all right sorry i was going to check in with liz to see if that was kosher uh hearing no objection i think we can uh deem that approved on a friendly amendment basis excellent and i apologize for the language i just used was inappropriate so if it was uh clear that that was okay um is there any further discussion on this resolution so this is uh director from edwards um this is a reflection on both the center but also the jefferson high school component of the of the bond and um as a long i haven't been around quite as long as mr hobson um but almost um i've been engaged with pps since 1966 and i was very moved listening to the director to pass read the words of the resolution because we have a lot to reflect on as a school district and um we have a lot of ways in which we have um really done damage to the black community in portland as an as an institution and i think tonight i think there's it's two big steps we have the many other things we need to do but i think one of the things that i want to acknowledge is um the student voice over the last um 10 years in 2011 when the bond failed when jefferson was in it and then the next year when they didn't weren't in the bond it would have been easy for community members to have just given up on pps but students consistently use their voice to speak to what they felt what was needed for them to be successful and having met with students over the last five years um i know one of the things they very clearly said was the condition of jefferson high school really was a reflection they felt a reflection on how the what the community felt about them because the condition of the school building was so poor and that um if we if we wouldn't want that for our own children why should that be okay for for the students of jefferson and um so i think i want to thank the students for really holding adults accountable and i want to thank tony and all the other members of the community who consistently have shown up because they shouldn't have to to hold the board accountable for doing the right thing and i i do know that we have an opportunity to really make a difference tonight and again it's not everything but i think the students the staff um jefferson and their community partners have done their piece and now it's time for us to do our so i'm really excited this is in the bond package and i know our community is as well thank you director broome edwards any further discussion all right the board will now vote on resolution number 6150 resolution supporting centering black student excellence in portland all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6150 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes excellent the board will now bring forward resolution number 6151 a resolution of portland public schools multnomah county school district number 1j multnomah county oregon calling a
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measure election to submit to the electors of the district the question of authorizing 1 billion 208 million dollars of general obligation bonds and providing for related matters do i have a motion so moved second director from edwards moves and director conte sam seconds the motion to adopt resolution 61-51 ms bradshaw is there any public comment on resolution 6151 yes we have mine frozen mr rosen are you there i saw you earlier great i'm gonna get one of those t-shirts that says you're on mute okay you're unmuted now mr rosen okay great um so good evening or good laden tonight board chair lowry board directors and superintendent guerrero i'm mike rosen last name r-o-s-e-n and i'm very excited about the 2020 bond proposal and very appreciative of the scope particularly the health safety and accessibility portions we started this work in 2015 through the health safety and accessibility committee which i chaired and we recognized this as a long-term commitment and seeing the board continue this investment is critical as a parent of three cleveland high school graduates i appreciate the investment in cleveland high school and wilson high school and then finally the investment in jefferson high school center for black excellence is critical in these times and absolutely necessary right now i represent the board of the northwest down syndrome association in all born in we're an organization a nonprofit with a very wide reach in the disability community our annual and we're up to 16 years our annual all born in conference attracts 600 people our facebook page exceeds 5 000 families and our influence is national and as such we feel ourselves to be an important ally and resource for pps the pps 16 million dollar investment in making every school's first floor accessible is historic and to be celebrated combined with other accessibility investments this is a total investment of over 30 million dollars this i believe represents a nationally unique commitment it's important to keep in mind that we can achieve total ada compliance for another 60 million dollars and our hope is that this work will be completed in the 2024 bond finally i want to acknowledge the intersectionality of ada issues with race and thank pps staff for recognizing this i look forward to more racial equity and social justice discussions in the area of ada rights and goal setting and then in closing i want to thank amy constand and julia brim edwards for their strong and independent leadership on this issue we wouldn't have achieved this historic investment without you and then finally i want to be the first person in history to toast you with my ice cold corona beer refreshing thank you thank you mike uh miss bradshaw is there further public comment no that concludes public comment all right is there any board discussion on this resolution all right the board will now vote um can i can i just say one thing yeah um i'll keep it brief um this is um a number of us have been involved in bond work since since the world was sludge it feels like and and this this bond package really i think is um extraordinarily responsive to the world historical moment that we're in to pps's responsibilities that we have long neglected um
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it it's um it's a balanced package it is going to result in both long-term and immediate benefits to students and um i'm proud to ask my vote in favor of this um i think this is hugely exciting for portland public school thank you [Music] all right are we ready to vote it's very exciting i'm super excited so the board will now vote on resolution number 6151 a resolution of public schools multnomah county school district number one day jump chem oregon calling a measure election to submit the directors of the district the question of authorizing billion 208 million dollars of general obligation bonds and providing for related matters all in favor please indicate saying yes yes i think everyone's unmuted doing a lot of moving in the background all right i will pose please say no are there any abstentions all right resolution 6151 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right thank you members i would like to ask director broome edwards who will be leading the bond campaign to briefly speak to the path forward for the bond measure great uh thank you director lowry our chair larry um you know it's been a long process and we can't uh wrap up this agenda item without um the board giving um our appreciation and thanks to the staff uh for really uh all the work you did to help us design this package um also this i want to thank the school bond improvement committee chair scott um the committee members and the board members for all the work they did around this this package that really is going to i think inspire and serve our students well um and thanking the community members who spoke so eloquently tonight and supported the referral um as we know it wasn't a straight pass we half we started building this bond package last year we continued through the onset of that pandemic and then the recession followed by a national reckoning with racial um justice and we we made adjustments in the package um throughout that time again um i appreciate the work that the staff did because um we've positioned ourselves um that the campaign is ready to take the uh baton handoff um we're making the right investments at the right time so with the reduction of the referral tonight the next step will be to launch the bond campaign we have less than 100 days but we'll have a strong and diverse campaign team and campaign effort it's a challenging economic time for portlanders we need to acknowledge that um this isn't going to be easy voters are going to be thoughtful about decisions they make but we've consistently we consistently heard and i think we're well positioned as we head into the campaign um that our community wanted us to go big and be bold and i believe we've we've done that but we've also been judicious um and how and how we're doing that and thoughtful um the campaign will be sharing more information in the next couple weeks uh we're already on twit you know have twitter handles and instagram and facebook we're at yes pdx schools again it's yes pdx schools it's the same name as the website we've engaged a campaign team that has won the last two pbs bond and levies campaign and we're looking forward to working with students parents community members board members to get this across the finish line so i guess i'll just close close out this chapter of the referral work and move into the campaign uh maybe reflecting on mr hubson's words that we have an amazing opportunity and and it's an unbelievable moment in time so let's go do it all right deserve the dance break i think uh let's take a six minute uh break uh you'll hear some tunes from the 2016 england high school uh playathon while we take a stretch break and maybe do some celebratory dancing for the referral of the pond director just one thing i'd like to add to director bryn medward's um statement chair lowry um is first of all thank you julia for volunteering to lead this effort for the bond campaign um it's going to be interesting campaigning um in the virtual mode but um just like the
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public engagement that we talked about um that helped us build this package i know that we can do it and also you know reflecting on the strong support that we heard from the community and testimony tonight that we've um been hearing through the from the community as we've been considering the different elements to comprise this bond um this is this is going to be all hands on deck we need our parent leaders across the district we need our community leaders who share our same values around creating a center for black student excellence and all the other aspects of this work that are so important um so this is just a call to our whole city um step up this is this these are our schools this is our effort um we need your help and uh we have to realize this mission that we have for our district right now definitely thank you director comstam all right we'll see you back here in four minutes at 9 15. enjoy
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2022 as part of that process we outlined a set of academic milestones that we intended to progress monitor ourselves against and hold ourselves accountable to achieving those outcomes for for our students uh our plan originally was to come back to you this fall with those initial metrics uh to inform our progress today but as you know this past spring we found ourselves navigating a new reality as a result of covet 19. so instead of administering end-of-year annual assessments we had to change course and implement distance learning for the remainder of the year so just to lend a little bit more context which really what this is this evening is more informational uh i've asked dr russell brown our chief of systems performance to to provide an initial update so russ thank you um and i'm waiting for someone to pull up the powerpoint for me perfect i'll get started here and while that's going on i'd like to take a moment of privilege just to say um really feel honored to be part of this organization and with this board's leadership i believe i just listened to what i consider to be a historic vote and for me having been here oh we can back up with you um having been here about a year now you know reflecting back over uh where we've come and our sort of our continued um commitment to an investment uh to our black and indigenous students uh is something that i i'm really proud to to be a part of and honored that that um i have a chance to speak this evening with that i i know it's late so i will go through this quickly it is really truly meant to be an informational item and a reaffirmation of our commitment to our goals for our students so if we could next slide please again today i just want to remind the board and commute what those goals are i want to talk a little bit about the context i'll i'll expand a little upon what serving guerrero had mentioned and then i want to talk about the data availability so what we expected to have last year and what we expect to have this year um it is just the context and again information for our work around these goals as we move forward next slide please yeah um as you've heard us speak during the course of the year we've talked about our theory of action our commitment to our black and indigenous students and the notion here is that we we wanted to have high expectations for all our students and we wanted to set goals that incentivized achievement gaps and that differential growth that's necessary that some kids are going to have to cover more academic ground to catch up what does that look like and and how can we move forward with that and then that commitment to a continuous improvement cycle that as we move forward we would continuously look at the data and revise given our context i think we have to look at our data and revise so next slide please all of which it was centered on on our uh graduate portrait and our our goals and the board goals as as laid out act as a ladder to this um fulfilling this vision of the graduate portrait and so if we go to the next slide please the first of those goals focused on third grade reading and it acknowledged that there's not only an achievement gap between our black and native students and their white counterparts but there's also a growth gap and if we're ever going to close the achievement gap then we have to accelerate growth for our students and really third grade reading at the end of third grade um it's one of those gatekeepers it is a transition point from students learning to read to reading to learn and it's an incredibly important skill as we move forward and remain so next slide please likewise in fifth grade there are some foundational math skills that are incredibly important too and again it's important to accelerate the growth of black and indigenous students so that we can close those achievement
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gaps that occur have been persistent but to close them over time and it requires again acceleration of growth all of that builds towards eighth grade which is the next slide and the objective for eighth grade really was more of a summative goal and the objective here is can we ensure that our students are better prepared to enter high school so that they can pursue uh pathways towards post-secondary readiness and again laid out on a way to to move kids forward through this and again now moving forward to the the high school goes uh the post-secondary readiness next slide please again a racially explicit goal that talks about um closing the gaps between opportunity for our black and indigenous students versus versus their white counterparts in terms of post-secondary readiness one of the things i again was really pleased about with this board and his book its leadership last year was this acknowledgement that graduation while it's an incredibly important step in a student's life while it literally doubles a student's income earning potential in their lifetime it's necessary but not sufficient you need those additional post-secondary readiness attributes and we've heard students today talking about how important it is to to be able to pursue ap pathways as they move forward so those were the goals that were laid out at the start of the year adopted by the board in october i shared those with some of my colleagues around the country many of my peers would love to have boards that were bold enough to adopt racially explicit goals that target student growth and achievement in the way that this board has so moving forward and then covet happened and as the supernova pointed out it was you know it's really an unprecedented challenge um to the educational system across the country certainly pps isn't uh immune to that and as the superintendent pointed out all the assessment activities in the spring were cancelled either by the state or the federal government or or even locally and so some of the data that we had planned on having as you mentioned simply wasn't available at this year add to that research that's been done um would suggest that that the growth that would be expected uh typically expected an academic year likely didn't happen and i think that's not going to be a surprise to anyone early research on that says that essentially kids reading growth last year might only be two-thirds of what would normally be expected in math it might only be half so we're in a very different space than what where we wanted to be at the end of this year and i think it really argues uh for setting a new baseline it isn't to say that the goals aren't important the goals i think are incredibly important and well stated but we are clearly in a very different space moving forward let's look forward let's look at what data is available or will be available in the coming year for grades three and five we expect to to have a fall testing window we we have even piloted a remote assessment and we expect that we're going to be able to do remote assessment in the fall here and i think it's going to be incredibly important for our families our students to have and our teachers to have that baseline information to understand where our students are starting and to begin to plan to to close those achievement gaps during the course of the year we anticipate having a winter window and then in the spring depending on what what happens in terms of availability of state assessment we could either do nwa or the state assessment at the end for grades three and five as we move forward going on to grade eight 8. again last year the state assessment window didn't didn't happen in the spring we anticipate a march through june window this year with data that would be available in september of the coming year and then finally going on to high school where i see a typo and i'll apologize for that uh seems like we all have a slip here there uh there are two graduation windows not testing windows one in june and one in august but the data for for graduation really isn't finalized until january and that involves the resolution of the cohorts and where students finish their academic career so as we look forward this year we we anticipate to have more data and a more complete data picture for our students in grades three five eight and and also with our our seniors at graduation and you know we've we're putting into place again uh i think you heard much earlier in the evening
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again the plan for assessment to help drive instruction and and drive the instructional plan as we move forward last slide please so again with covid with the interruption that we've seen uh it's an unprecedented challenge and so um while i think the goals as stated make a lot of sense i think we really need to look at our annual targets and our baseline where we started because we're starting in a very very different place and i don't think anyone and if they tell you they're confident in this i'm not sure what they're basing on anyone's confident of what growth will look like under a under this environment so we i think really do need to get uh gather new baseline data uh and so um i think the other piece that at least a couple of you had raised is is you know wanting to know more about the availability of data and the timeline so you know clearly not all the goals fall on the same timeline some of them we have early data in terms of the baseline for grades three and five we'll have mid-year data for grade three and five as well as some projections for grade eight we'll have some mid-year data around the graduation post-secondary readiness but then when you come around to the end of the year some of that data particularly with the state assessment data isn't available until until the fall and so data will come at different points during the course of the year graduation data again doesn't come till january so as we look at this data over time i think we have to set a reporting schedule where we come back and talk about the different board goals over time and we can revisit what we've learned before but we need to understand that the goals don't all the data for the goals isn't all available at the same time and i think we're now around a question if you have them and i appreciate your your patience this evening that was a long information item at the end all right let's do alphabetical question asking again to make sure everybody gets a chance uh to weigh in and we'll go in alphabetical order this time so director bailey do you have any questions for dr brown uh i'm gonna pass at this moment uh i may come back around with one but i'll let others go first director do you have a question julia you're still muted i'm saying i don't have a question but i do have a request um for a future discussion this is something just building off of last year um as we i think um that uh we had just started this um process right sort of mid-year right when the office was being stood up but the request i would have is that we've this year built out the dashboard so that we have both growth and proficiency um so we can see where we're heading i'm completely support support growth as a measurement but i also see think it's like in somewhat without context um and the other piece is um at the end of last year we didn't get any of this this aggregate the the data on the high school measurements of what um the cte and the various other indicators and um that's a piece that i'd like to have built out i am very supportive of the a reset and um no acknowledging that we're in a um very unique time um but i also think now is an opportunity to build out this sort of baseline dashboard um so that it actually so for our community it they can see both the growth and proficiency and they'll be on the same journey as we are so thank you director deposit i don't have any uh questions at this time director constance thank you so um one of one of my questions that i shelved from the earlier presentation on reopening was for dr valentino around his comments around assessment and really being able to focus at the beginning of the year on um learning loss because of remote learning and and inevitable summer slide so i think dr brown um i will be interested to see when we
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do these assessments at the beginning of the year i hope that we we put it in the context of our mid-year maps assessment from last year and i think you know i know that part of our curriculum planning is um building in um refresh of proficiency standards from the prior grade um to try to get a sense and correct me if i'm wrong dr valentino to try to get a sense of um you know where those kids were and um where they are now so i i just will aside from our our march toward proficiency toward proficiency i'll be interested to have the conversation in the context of just the covet slide as well yeah i i think we're all very interested in where our students are starting and i i think that baseline information is incredibly important for the purposes of planning and i'm sorry dr valentino i think i just spoke over you no i was actually just going to acknowledge the fact that you've been spending a great deal of time thinking about that and we've had a couple of conversations in different configurations to think about how was it that we're going to be comparing so that we're not comparing apples to oranges um but that we're actually measuring in the right way um as as julia indicated the growth and the proficiency right over over that period of time in an authentic way because one of the one of the things you need to be able to say is that the assessment is really not just the system need for data but the need to actually be able to track each individual student in in in the way that actually will allow us to adjust our content but also to help teachers pivot to practice as needed my question continues to be about our middle school portfolio and how we're moving towards that steps we're taking and i know with school looking differently than we had planned um that that might be delayed but again we want to just continue to move forward on that portfolio because i think again it is a historic way of measuring student success and really offers a lot of opportunities for students to demonstrate leadership and those attributes of the portraits so is there any additional information on the portfolio at this point i do not have any additional information on the portfolio at this point i have to admit that um we have been very busy trying to plan for what what fall can look like so um the director go ahead dr valentina so yes so what i wanted to uh that we did slow down a bit because we needed to refocus as as as russ indicated but uh we have been maintaining the focus on three components and we've integrated the three so that it actually helps inside of our middle school redesign effort is project-based learning and our portfolios one so that it actually focuses on the middle school and that we are able to identify not only a a service provider for the portfolios but that we're able to use it and integrate it into uh part of part of our re-entry is to begin to identify practices that we can build off of as we think about the middle school redesign entry for the following year with kellogg for example or any other pilot school and so where while we did slow down a bit as as dr brown indicated we're still maintaining the focus on that and we are still looking at possible partners for both of those areas i did have one follow-up question just to make sure i fully understood everything you said dr brown are we going to be doing maps testing this year or is it going to be different assessments we will be doing map map assessments this year okay so we will be doing that in those testing windows that you indicated yes yes how does that work how does that work yes so uh the map assessments are computer adaptive as you guys are aware and that allows us to be able to to do it remotely if need be um again we did a pilot of that with one of our schools this past spring learned a lot from that was very appreciative of that and we've got some guidance for schools in terms of how to communicate with parents about expectations in terms of the testing environment um you know it should um again
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it can be performed on uh on a chromebook so there's no reason that that can't happen so there's no additional i.t requirement we're going on to a single sign-on environment should be easier for students to pass through um that being said it is a new environment so i think we do have to look at the data when we get it and look for anomalies and and i would uh think that you know when we see exceptions to the data then you know we have to contextualize it with with student performance uh in other areas you know how are kids doing on their homework how are they doing on unit assessments it has to be part of a constellation of information for for our students um we won't be the only folks doing that uh our partners at nwa have spent some quite a bit of time thinking about what it would mean to to be able to do that as well so i i believe it can be done successfully or i wouldn't recommend it great director moore do you have any questions yes um so i'm going to be uncharacteristically uh pollyannish and build off your question uh cheer larry um and this is more in the spirit of a comment and a question um there is much that has happened related to covid most of it not good um but there may be a tiny little silver lining here because um one of the things we were moving wanting to move towards um for the eighth grade assessment was um using portfolios and so much of the distance learning is going to be um is gonna of necessity require students to do some portfolio-like work that this might be a stepping stone um and i i think you already mentioned that so um so a little glimmer of of good news in the midst of a lot of bad um i did have one question and that is about the high school metric um because when we originally developed that metric we we didn't really take into consideration um the timing um the timing of the res of the high school graduation related um measures and um and i'm wondering if you would recommend that we revisit the a high school metric and with the possible revision of what we want to be using as as an annual metric because otherwise it's going to be unless we use the the mid-year map results for seniors as well it's going to be a lagging indicator by a year right so what would be a recommendation there if any so i i think that the metric is fine um the data the final data for it's not available until january um i think the challenge with that is you know when it's interwoven with the superintendent's evaluation it's and so i guess i would say let's think about decoupling those two things and how would we wish to decouple that and what because i think the metric as written really captures the essence of what we're trying to do with the portrait of grad and so i i would be reluctant to move away from that but let's talk about what we could base it on and that i think could be a mid-year progress measure um much like we did this year director scott do you have any questions um no not a question just to comment um i appreciate the information and the reframing i think with all performance management um it evolves over time um both the measures evolve as well as the targets and you know we have to do this all the time um with with normal events sort of taking a not revisit pandemic is not a normal event and so um it's sort of recognizing that and you know i i think um i i don't wanna and you're not suggesting this so i should appreciate it as well we don't wanna lose any of this data i think we need to measure where we are and even if our students have significant backsliding as a result of this we need to to measure that and be clear about it but i'm also really comfortable with the uncertainty for a little while about targets and until we have a sense of what that new baseline is and
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what the impact is because this is not obviously impacting just our students impacting students throughout the nation and the world so um so anyway appreciate the reframing thank you for the information thank you dr scott student representative shu do you have any questions uh no i don't think so dr khan sam it looked like you had something else to add thank you very much so uh you know when we originally put together our board goals we had a lot of conversation about um trying to have some kind of metric around social emotional learning and i think we finally decided that maybe we can build it into the middle school one or we just don't know what the right metric would be and so we let go of that but i know that there's a lot of thoughtful planning going on right now with our remote curriculum and our protocols and our professional development specifically around social emotional learning because we know that in addition to proficiency and learning targets like a huge important part of this giant experiment that we're in is making sure that the adults in our system are are are making sure that our kids are okay and so i feel like it's hard but maybe there's an opportunity for us here to revisit that because there's a huge amount of focus on it um given the new delivery model and so maybe we can come up with some kind of uh board metric um that tells us how we're doing in that respect i would like to revisit that all right um is there any further comment uh or question for dr brown yeah just uh mr bailey um just want to say i i have thought that there was at least some discussion about not doing map this coming year um in any case i'm i want to echo director scott's comments that i'm i'm glad we're doing it i think it's it'll give us a consistent measure and and again as a data geek help us measure what the backslide was i think that's important going forward as we continue to have conversations both with our state legislators and our congressional representatives about the needs of education going forward um and having data points like that uh could really help in moving those discussions forward so i'm glad for that i'm glad that we'll continue to have kind of a consistent baseline measurement going forward all right thank you very much dr brown for your presentation tonight um we are about an hour behind schedule right now so i wanted to take a quick moment and see if um you all the board members uh wanted to continue tonight with our ten o'clock scheduled meeting which was an executive session um so i'm just going to pull the board we can move it to another night if you would like or we can go ahead and go forward with it director bailey what would you like to do i would like to unmute first uh and it's it's past my bedtime all right director brim edwards it's not past my bedtime but i think there's a mercy rule for everybody else because i have a lot of questions all right all right director deposit i would be in favor of stopping early or not early but [Music] um should start all meetings at 10 p.m um but i'm willing to let this go yeah i'm good either way director scott i was undecided until julia said she had a lot of questions i say let's put it off okay and student representative shu because you don't come to executive sessions i'm not going to ask your opinion it sounds like we are going to defer uh for another time nathaniel i'm sure you would want us to all keep meeting because you don't have to come to the meeting so uh yeah um all right well we're gonna move on to committee reports um sorry accidentally muted myself um i think our first report is from uh
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director broome edwards do you have a report for tonight hold on yes um so the um audit committee uh met i think about three to four weeks ago now uh we were supposed to report the last meeting uh we received the um first audit from our internal performance auditors it was on the contracts for pbs and they had a number of findings they were appreciative of the cooperation and work with the district staff they have the audit has been posted there were a number of recommendation findings and recommendations um given everything that's happening with ordinarily there'd be a fairly tight window on the turnaround from staff on responding and building out a plan based on the findings and the recommendations given everything else is happening with the reopening of school and the bond we set a date of october 1st of when that next piece of work will be done we also received an update on the second audit that the auditors are working on which is the ach audit um as everybody will recall we had a fraudulent transaction staff asked that the we put this back on the district audit plan we've done that so that is underway um in addition um given the um it's the end of the year um in the cycle and the board has um the responsibility of because the independent uh internal performance auditors report to the board um [Music] there'll be a the performance review of the internal auditor uh through the audit committee and i want to thank um director de pass for doing um taking a lead on that and that will be coming to be delivered to the rest of the board shortly again thank you for directed to pass i know she put significant amount of work in that and then um the last piece was basically looking at the audit plan for this up next upcoming year and that will be completed probably in the next three or four weeks not the out of plan i'm sorry the audit committee's plan all right thank you director do you have any reports to give i'm sorry are you talking to me no i'm talking to rita but she's muted i do have another report oh i'm sorry do you if you do i mean it's it's very short it's on youtube and then we'll go to rita okay it's very short it's on the rose quarter i5 project um as most people may have read in news reports um based on a number of factors uh that some community groups and elected leaders have decided not to participate in the project and the executives advisory committee and there was a discussion with board leadership in june about pps's position we're in somewhat a different position than the rest of than some of the other community members and the elected leaders and that pps never endorsed the project so um there's not a need to step away and in fact um if we want to stay engaged and actually have the state and odot address the issues we've raised around harriet tubman and the blanchard site that one of the ways we can do that is staying at the table so there's a two-month uh break for just the summer break when the committee is not meeting but it's going to start meeting again in september and the early discussions have been that this needs to have a solution that's greater than odot they don't have the resources nor the mandate to actually address some of the things that pps need so in working with courtney wesling and others we'll be looking at other ways in which we can either bring other partners to the table or the resources at the table to address the issues that pps has for that specific project any more reports director brim edwards i'm done thank you
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all right now i can let uh director moore give any reports she might have um just really quick um the policy committee will be meeting on august 3rd um we're going to be kind of looking ahead to um the upcoming work for this year um one item that i know we'll be talking about well two items um we're gonna be talking about developing a um protocol protocols around communication um related to upcoming policies so not waiting to till the end but kind of um putting community uh outreach up front and um and developing um kind of protocols and timetables so that we all know what to expect um and the second item that i know we'll be talking about is um a look back on how the complaint process has been working over the last two years uh we're at the two-year mark after very substantial revisions to the complaint policy in 2018 so um we'll be getting the full board we'll be getting a report an annual report on the complaint process um and the policy committee will be looking at that and then getting any recommendations from staff or community members about any any room for improvement in the policy that's all director scott do you have any report to give uh no only that there is a bond accountability committee meeting tomorrow night for any interested board members and then we are not having another um improvement committee meeting until i believe it's august 13th all right i have one additional piece of business to discuss and it's kind of exciting director moore has been invited to serve as a member of a state team formed to apply for a grant presented by the cdc and the association of university centers on disabilities that would fund a 12-month project to promote early identification of children with developmental delays screening referral and implementation of services if the grant application is successful director moore would continue to serve on the advisory team director moore would you like to provide any more info about the grant application or the um anticipated work if it is accepted um just a little bit um so as you mentioned this grant is part of a larger cdc effort to improve the well-being of children with developmental delays by improving systems for screening referral and provision of timely services the specific project um is intended to engage with parents and caregivers to identify barriers to appropriate care that have been revealed or exacerbated by the covid19 crisis um and then developing strategies to overcome those barriers um so i'll be part of a an advisory team that's composed of representatives from [Music] across the very broad spectrum of um systems agencies non-profit organizations that make up the early childhood system in oregon and um it's um i think we have a good i think we have a good chance of getting this grant and it it could make for some um important changes to benefit families and children thank you i think this is an important opportunity for us to be able to drive some investment into this much needed area um are there any questions from the rest of the board for director moore congratulations yeah sounds like a great opportunity i also have a question um how um this work will differ from the work that already happens in the head start programs where there's some you know targeted uh identification of kids you know they do hearing screenings um site in our head start programs um so head start is part of this advisory committee this advisory team um and this project in particular is going to focus on latinx families parents and caregivers um because especially probably in particular migrant families
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who have been extraordinarily hard hit by the covet crisis um so it's um head starts um there's a list of about 20 agencies that are part of this advisory team so is this happening is this happening then at the head start level or is it kindergarten no this is for young children so this is pre-school pre-kindergarten pre-kindergarten so it's you know three four basically three and four-year-olds that started yeah but potentially um it ideally we're looking ideally we would want an early childhood system that would identify um any kinds of developmental delays as early as possible so so the actual age range that is going to be looking at is zero to five um because the earlier you can identify developmental delays um and um and the quicker that you can provide approp supports and services the more likely that the child will not suffer um you know ill effects that you'll be able to provide supports um to for appropriate operations for the development development ways um so that's it i mean the focus the focus is going to be on trying to improve the system uh preventative systems um and intervention systems um and in particular focus on latinx families thank you well hearing all of your congratulations to director moore i um consider the board to have agreed that director moore will fulfill this role on the grant application and if funded the advisory team congratulations rita all right is there any other business tonight before we adjourn director bailey yeah yeah yeah very quickly um i said in on a uh benson work group meeting um as you know where uh benson will in anticipation of the bond passing thinking optimistically here uh benson will move to the marshall campus well that school is rebuilt uh work has already started on the main marshall building to accommodate them there's another uh small building that will be built for cte space for the program that building was coming in a bit over budget so our staff went to work and trimmed out basically non-essential non-classroom space to slightly shrink the footprint of the building so now it's back on budget great work staff um secondly i just got to tour the madison site construction site again wearing properly masked and social distance with a couple of our architects and one of our staff people from osm jesse um that's again that construction is on a tight timeline but still uh on on pace to open up in a year uh it's gonna be great um and again the timeline uh wouldn't be so tight except for um delays from the city of portland in the permitting process that were head scratchers frankly um the other slight issue that's impacted uh the timeline is covid and the day after i was there and thank you dan again for the courtesy call uh and ironworker tested positive nowhere near where we were and and actually isolated from a lot of the other workers in terms of where their workspace was but um again there's there's still some some cushion there for some uh potential delays like that that it's it's going to be a great building uh and finally talking to the architects you know kind of like what are the lessons learned from this and the architects were unanimous uh if we can build a new building as opposed to remodeling that things go a lot smoother um that's been a real challenge on that site um that's all thanks thank you director bailey all right i think that brings us uh to a close the next meeting of the board will be
03h 15m 00s
held august 11th at uh 6 pm and this meeting is now officially adjourned only 40 minutes

Sources

PPS Board of Education, BoardBook Public View, https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/915 (accessed: 2023-01-25T21:27:49.720701Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)
PPS Communications, "PPS Board of Education Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbZtlBHJZmkdC_tt72iEiQXsgBxAQRwtM (accessed: 2023-10-14T01:02:33.351363Z)
PPS Board of Education, PPS Board of Education - Full Board Meetings (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDW0GVGkV4xIiOAc-j4KVdFh (accessed: 2023-10-11T05:43:28.081119Z)

2020-07-28 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 7/28/2020

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