2020-10-05 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-10-05
Time	16:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	committee
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board Policy Committee Meeting 10/05/2020

00h 00m 00s
this is the policy committee meeting for october 5th 2020 and um uh we we have on the agenda 25 minutes for introductions we're not going to do that um we've got a very full agenda so um i'm going to ask the board members to introduce themselves and then the student representatives to this committee introduce themselves i i will start this um i read more uh on the school board and uh chair of this committee bailey i think is next alphabetically there we go well jay before s scott bailey board member julia julia broome edwards uh board member and committee member uh jackson weinberg student representative to this committee parker myers the uh benson rep i'm nathaniel's shoes didn't wrap to the board okay is that it and um my cat has made his presence uh this is bernie who attends every meeting religiously um okay so uh we're gonna move right into the agenda and i'm gonna ask um staff members to introduce yourself um whenever you first speak up so um we're going to start off with some staff updates um starting off with the student suicide prevention policy so who's going to take the lead on that one there you go amy hi can you hear me okay awesome okay good afternoon everyone um hi my name is mila rodriguez and i use she her pronouns and i identify as latin next and um i'm a district-wide school social worker with student success and health department i have many many buckets of work however my focus and my attention is around the mental health and wellness of bypoc students and lgbtqia plus students in addition to supporting the implementation of send bill 52 so addie's act um amy can you introduce yourself and then i'll have brenda introduce herself and then i'll turn on the powerpoint yep um amy ron is student success and health i have the opportunity to work every day with mila hi um i also engage in lots of different buckets of work within the department um i get to support neil's work as well as our crisis recovery work substance use coordinator our threat assessment work our new school social workers and our mental health partnerships so we have a great team and i'm super excited to be back and as mila's support person that she presents today and i also use she her pronouns and i identify as a white woman thank you mila and amy uh brenda martinick chief chief of student support services i use pronouns she and her and i identify as a white woman and i'm very excited that mila and amy are here to present our engagement process for uh senate bill 522 and addie's act um around the policy that we are um we're trying to get approved for the district it's an extremely important one it is not anything that we haven't already been doing we've been doing a ton of this work for years thanks to amy rona mostly as of late also mila and a number of other staff uh and so we're actually really excited that this policy is getting off the ground because it not only supports the work that we have been doing for years it provides a little bit more teeth um for us to be able to uh enact a number of other uh really important professional development opportunities for our staff in order to keep students safe so i will turn the time back over to mila thank you brenda um in addition to um what um my colleagues are speaking to one thing that i do like to name when i do talk about this particular bill and when i'm talking about suicide prevention is that we're talking about such a heavy subject and and so there might be some points of activation for you so if you need to
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take care of yourself you need to turn your camera off if you need to take a deep breath please do so as suicide prevention affects all of us not just our students um so you should have received last monday something that i called um draft senate bill 52 ad exact community engagement plan and so that was for your review i put a a very quick and robust powerpoint together but really honestly it's mostly for me so it can help me frame the conversation everything that you'll see in the powerpoint is something that is in that plan so nothing new nothing that's shifted uh mostly so that it can provide some guidance for me um so bear with me as i put it on and i won't be able to see y'all's faces which is fine and so if you have any questions if you don't mind whoops wait until the end that way i can actually see y'all's faces and can actually respond to all of you not yet not yet no well then i did not hit um present that was my bad okay so now okay can you all see it now yeah okay so something that i'd like to start um is providing a little bit i know we um amy and i were here back in july and i wanted to start again with providing some context regarding um addie's accent bill 52 and in everything that i do i try to provide context and and really providing kind of a starting point a baseline of why we're all here um we're here today because of the loving memory of addie star um amy and i had the pleasure of speaking to addy's father um back in september 21st just to hear more of his story um addy's story and where he's at as a parent and giving feedback to us as pps in regards to suicide prevention and this particular policy so something that i wanted to mention about addie is that um they identified as they them and transgender and in some news articles they also go by she her however i was waiting to hear from their dad regarding what gender pronouns to use for today so i'm going by they them in regards to how they presented themselves in the past um they were a student at portland public schools who completed suicide in summer 2017. they were identified by their parent as fierce a fierce advocate for equality in their school and in their community worked very closely with the local agencies in regards to supports that were identified for lgbtqia plus students prior to their departure they wrote a quote called self-destructive letter or a paper in which they were worried about their future safety as how they identified in their paper lon addy's dad reported that the teacher who read the the the essay never reported um this concern to the parents until after the fact and so that's actually what sparked addie's parents um to basically begin this level of advocacy through legislation not just at pps but um to really basically fight for the for the forgetting um statewide suicide prevention supports across all of our school districts and so one thing that addie um addy's family wrote in regards to addie they identified that addie found purpose in advocating for others so we'd like to honor her by sharing her story and continuing her efforts to promoting a world of kindness and acceptance and so that's who we are i'm focusing on and why we're all here today and talking about addie zack senate bill 52 and in addition to that i'm a parent of a black child at pps and so i'm solely committed in addition to making sure that bypoc students are also served um effectively and equitably in regards to suicide prevention as we know that it's a population that also suffers especially now more than ever um but we're here today because of addie and the supports and advocacy of their parents some of um a quick background of of this particular policy we know and understand as pps that suicide is leading cause of death for young people and even more on youth consider and attempt suicide more than ever the possibility of suicide and suicidal ideation require requires vigilant attention from our school staff so not and by staff not just school social workers school psychs but every single person that we
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encounter in within the school system like i said earlier by pop black indigenous and people of color students and lgbtqia plus students are considered populations at risk for suicide not just by research but in this bill it is essential to seek student feedback regarding this policy which is why i'm grateful that this policy is asking for student feedback and so as a result we must engage in best practices to provide school-wide suicide prevention and intervention strategies in an effort to minimize suicide radiation and prevent attempts and deaths within our district and we also must work to create safe and nurturing environments that increase connections and build strengths and self-worth and students and these efforts will directly align with the pps racial equity and social justice framework and have been and we've been trying to intentionally assure that that happens however the emotional wellness of students greatly impacts school attendance and educational success therefore this policy is based on research and best practices in suicide prevention and has been adopted with understanding that suicide prevention activities decrease suicide risk increase help seeking behavior and those at their risk for suicidal ideation in order to decrease suicidal behaviors um amy do you mind giving us a brief history of what has been done even prior to addie's act and senate bill 52 as brenda so eloquently put it that you have done an incredible amount of work and advocacy prior to us getting here so i'm wondering if you can walk us through that um i appreciate this kind of words i would give a lot of credit also to our school staff right who are really like there on the ground doing the work um thank you um so we know that we're talking about the engagement policy today but we really are the engagement plan but we really wanted to to continue to give some context for that engagement and and as we're working with students and families and staff and getting their feedback on a couple of things that that we all need to be reminded of um i think one is that tier one we've been doing sel and suicide prevention curricula in schools and that just continues to grow and what this policy is going to do is help put a system in place to track those tier 1 suicide prevention curricula efforts so that will be one of the changes tier 2 we've had bypoc lgbtqia plus student interest student identity groups those are also continuing to grow we consider those suicide prevention activities and what this policy is going to do is really reinforce those tier two suicide prevention strategies and outreach really specifically to those student groups and other student groups that are providing those those kinds of supports year three um we've had a suicide screening implemented um since the 2014-15 school year each year the submission of those forms increases we regularly get school counselors social workers and school psychologists trained in assist applied suicide intervention skills and training we also continue to train them on how to support students as they return to school post-hospitalization and or mental health treatment and what this policy is going to do is really increase our access to train all staff in basic suicide prevention and support so again we're continuing to build off of a lot of the work that's already been done and in getting some of that feedback we will continue to make this policy even more robust thanks amy so um as we move on with the community engagement approach something that we have to we eat both amy and i really had to understand the name are the considerations as far as how we are approaching and engaging our students and actually school staff in this particular plan so moving from you know being in person to this home-based distance learning has created a digital divide as far as who has access to use of or impact as far as um the devices that we have available to them and or internet and so engagement um with students and school staff is is completely different and so the goal has been to for both amy and i so how do we decrease the digital divide as much as possible as we're approaching families and students and staff regarding all of this however as students have made it very back to school virtually the students emotional well-being their physical health and family health have been of the utmost importance of pps staff in regards to the feedback that we're hearing and of course the work that we're implementing we do know that that is of the utmost importance additionally students with intersecting identities of being black immigrant english language learners and lgbtqia and special education have been disproportionately affected by continued race-based trauma in our society in our current times therefore continues to create you know a different level of consideration as we're thinking about in you know our approach to
00h 15m 00s
engagement so um given all of this um and all these considerations in mind the feedback um has been pushed out the gathering of feedback the majority of it has been pushed out to october november is what most individuals have requested that we approach groups by then if not later given that they're trying to get their bearings going that they're trying to get connected to students that they're trying to make sure that all students have access to a computer access to internet access to all things um health and so we have taken these considerations and and taking them into and collaborated with school social worker our school social worker um sosa our our cosa and our school psychologist um we worked with them and um assured that our their weekly newsletter offered information for us to get connected to student groups who are interested in providing feedback to a suicide prevention policy so that was one of our ways that we were able to get connected to gathering that student feedback so far we have actually been able to meet with lincoln high school in their particular group we met with them october 1st we will hopefully be meeting um with george middle school one of their groups october 12th and in roosevelt high school that's to be determined however and we'll get into the actual tables the tables will indicate a very thorough plan as far as when we're actually meeting with them we also sent out a student affinity group email to all of the advisors that are in um the list that shanice gave me last year in the spring in regards to who are the advisors um so that was my way of also connected getting connected to those particular student groups um most of them have not responded but those that have responded are in that plan and those are the ones that are also um identified waiting to october and or november um we um amy you know and i have worked really closely with the oregon statewide alliance to prevent suicide um working group that has been getting together for um this particular senate bill um addie's act um there's monthly consultation working groups and amy and i are in attendance of that uh where either we are participating it will we participated in the rulemaking and or um helped us with outreaching to other organizations that are part of the alliance such as lines for life given that lines for life was one of the asks i believe one of the board members had asked us the last time to get connected to lines for life we have not heard from them however we are hoping um that the coordinators that facilitate the statewide alliance um can actually get us connected to them um so that we can further our feedback and engagement with that particular working group um in addition to that was our way of getting connected to lon staub addy's father um lon was just um voted into being a member of that or an executive committee member of that working group and that's how i was able to get connected to him expressed to him our interest and our desire to hear his voice to hear his perspective in regards to why he advocated for this policy in regards to what we could do better in regards to this policy in regards to how um he can provide some feedback to us um besides you know the the verbiage but anything else that he um is interested in and so we actually spent a really solid a good solid hour with him and he gave us some really solid feedback um but mostly one of the and amy will get into this but um a thematic thing that came up for him is the accountability piece who's holding folks accountable to this policy and implementation and making sure that all schools are implementing what they're supposed to implement so that was one of the his biggest feedback loops and in recognizing and considering equity during online engagement here are some of the things that we kind of considered or and or are considering as we are engaging with um students and student groups and the folks um the school staff we're asking them and letting them know that we are more than happy to record meetings if necessary in case students need to give feedback after the fact that we're more than happy to translate meetings if relevant um that are relevant to their languages if they need it so that's been something that i've been asking folks ahead of time about something that they need um of course centralizing um and our voices are bipac and lgbtqia plus voices i'm recognizing the privileges of people in the organizing group so something that i tend to do um in when i go to working groups is naming my positionalities my name my role and who i and how i show up in those
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spaces um one example was how i introduced myself um when um like when we came to this meeting i named my um my gender pronoun and also my race and ethnicity i'm pretty ethnically ambiguous and so sometimes people don't necessarily know that i may um that i identify as latinx and so um owning and addressing those privileges um during those groups is super essential to gain and build the level of trust with this organizing group with this organized group um and also understanding and acknowledging the long history of pbs asking for community feedback and by what we mean by that is that we do know that folks have people have been going and asking for feedback from students and staff and so one of the things that they've said in return is yes thank you for asking and we're inundated with giving feedback and we want to see action um is there anything in return that you can give us and and in regards to the feedback that we're providing to you so we are coming in with that level of acknowledgement as well and also trying to gauge the level of comfort given that we're all online giving feedback so however that looks like for them this is also a very difficult topic and so kind of basically addressing the the trigger warnings ahead of time making sure that they are okay with turning off their camera if they choose to do so communicating through chat if that's how they choose to do so and then of course you know clearly defining my role and and amy's role when we're going into these working groups and asking for their feedback but most importantly something that most people will probably know about you me and i say we do try to invest time and energy in relationship building and so i know that ever since i've been hired since last year that's something that i've been really focusing on is really engagement building those relationships district-wide so that we could get to where we are today um so those are some of the few things that we've considered along the way in regards to equity as we're engaging in an online platform so in in your document on page three you'll see table a um so there's a couple pages of table a that um talks about the stakeholder analysis for engagement and here you'll find the working groups that we um were able to connect with the folks that are leading these particular working groups and the stakeholders as far as the feedback that we're gathering and the level of engagement so those that have been able to respond those that have completed their engagement and the accountability loop basically who's responsible and connecting back with this group either amy or i and so this is just kind of like a picture of it but you're more than welcome to go back to that table um and it thoroughly addresses um all of those working groups and intersectionalities and time frames that we're working from as far as when we're hoping to gather the feedback in these working groups table b addresses begins to address the actual feedback that we were able to get we have some feedback but like i said we are not we will come back again at another time i believe um to give or to kind of give a where we're at with the feedback that we've collected but you need do you want to talk about some of the thematic things that have been coming up um with some of the feedback that we have been gathering yeah i would say you know i know that this is this is just the beginning and we will return with the full engagement plan and the feedback collected but some of the themes that have emerged at this point that's been really helpful in thinking about the policy um is students asking about having suicide prevention curricula that gives them the opportunity to practice um connection skills with their peers what do i do if my peer is suicidal what do i say how do i get them to a helping adult without ruining our relationships so can we be sure to have some sort of lessons curricular opportunity within um our classes in our school that will help support that so that's been one thing that's come up the other theme is um having our trusted adults in the building all be trained because our trusted adults aren't necessarily counselors psychs and social workers sometimes they are often they are but that's not always the case and if my trusted adult is a coach or is the librarian i want to make sure that they are also trained so that i don't go tell them something that's really hard for me to share and then they don't know what to do and so when they see in the policy that getting all adults trained um is part of it that that i visibly see them kind of have a sigh of relief when it comes to that and then i would say the third theme that isn't necessarily directly mentioned in the policy but something that's come up is um a low low barrier access to resources so like what resources does my school have how do i get how do i get access to them um who do i talk to um that kind of thing so those are those are a couple of themes that at this point i've seen emerging but we're super excited to continue to collect this information from our stakeholders
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okay so that was a brief overview of the document you all received last monday i believe i don't know if you all have any questions or anything that's coming up for you but that's so far what we have as far as our engagement plan and we're super excited to engage with our students in the near future okay thank you um so just to clarify um for all the reasons you've mentioned um your uh you're probably going to be doing this engagement this month and next month um right okay and that's going to be and then i'm assuming we're going to see how it goes and um and when you get um you may or may not be able to finish by the end of november but if we could get uh um some sort of status update at that point that would that would be helpful i think oh yeah totally absolutely so are there any questions from a committee member it's a it's a very thorough memo so thank you for that it was um it's impressive any questions okay dr bram edwards go ahead no go go ahead uh so just uh um one thank you uh tremendous amount of work and uh on the one hand uh yeah let's let's get the official policy pass it's great that you're already doing a lot of things in that i recognize that um and two if you need another month to do more thorough outreach you know this this is important stuff um to get to get right um secondly and this is mr i've done this with a whole lot of policies uh i know it's a draft policy um when we get to a final and i'm glad to help uh editing uh having some complete sentences sometimes some of the sentences aren't complete or there's a passive attempts which gets back to accountability whose responsibility is this um i think just will help uh help clarify things um in particular for example and again this gets back to the accountability piece that was raised if there's a an update once a year to make sure that we're doing best practices a short report to the board for example might be a marker that we put in there um as as our little bit of the accountability piece going forward um and due to extended circumstances i haven't been able to completely read i think there's a draft of uh it was a guide guidelines for staff but i know it's just in the early part like there was a discussion of how to tell parents and bring that in i know that's a really challenging piece of the work it wasn't clear to me from reading that on yes this is going to happen it was more like we need to do this and so if i was a staff person reading that i'd be unclear as to whether um yeah this has to happen or i really really wanted to have it because it's important and you know there's a need for it to happen is different from um hey we got we got to make this happen um and my wife teaches high school and she's been been in this um and it's been interesting to list her experiences the the training and support that from counseling staff really helped her navigate this um so um just just wanted to throw those reactions out there uh but again we're talking about making something really good be really nailing down the final pieces of it so you thanks again for your work i i appreciate you naming that to um the parent piece because that is something parent guardian piece emula and myself another department consult on frequently how to how to have that conversation how to have the conversation with the student to get to the conversation with the parent guardian um so that is absolutely near and dear to our heart it is best practice of course unless there's some safety concern but otherwise we have a ton of um guidance and
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and toolkit information for folks around supporting how to have those conversations both with the student and and with the parent guardian so um i appreciate you bringing that up so i had a couple questions um but i'm going to start by just um thanking the team for the really thorough set of materials we received um and so because it looks like we'll i think have uh just a really diverse uh set of feedback from the community um and i recognize how challenging that is during covid um just a question just so i understand what people are giving what stakeholders are giving feedback on is it just the policy or is it the policy and the language for the student handbook or is it the curriculum or um because the policy is relatively short um so i'm wondering what i couldn't tell from looking at the community engagement plan um i thought it was really well defined the purpose of why we were doing it and what we're going to ask but i guess the question is is it just the policy i mean that would technically be it but is it the policy and the sort of related materials um i actually julia i actually appreciate you asking that's something that um amy and i were trying to get clarity from the last four committee as well as far as what kind of feedback you all were seeking from however i'm in meeting with um denise i think i met with her maybe twice um after the fact it seemed clear that we were just trying to seek feedback because one of the things that what um that we told i think liz and i think mary is is that let we put it actually in i put it in the document on page three i said um senate bill 52 is a legislatively mandated policy and does not have a lot of room for adaptation when asking the staff students and families and community stakeholders for feedback this will be made clear so people know ahead of time as to what can be changed or not and so most of the feedback that we've been gathering we're hoping to be using it in the administrative directive mostly because the policy there's certain things that we just can't change um and so that was one of the things that i was trying to gain clarity the last time i was um in the policy community i'm like oh were they asking for feedback for the policy specifically even though we can't change the policy or what were they asking feedback for so to answer your question i think we're all on the same page that we're asking for as far as implementation direction and they did look at the policy um you can correct me from wrong amy but they did look at the policy gave some feedback but what we're noticing is it's less about the verbiage and more about the implementation and their experiences and what they're hoping to receive within um this policy has been mine and meelo so appreciate the thorough um thinking about how what what are we asking for and what are we what are we going to get um and and mary and i also when you have completed the engagement work or at any point along that journey and there are things that emerge that that may not be contemplated now and the question about what where does that go we are happy to be thought partners with you and kind of sort through um feedback you get and and you can't you have to comply with the statute but sometimes you can also add to as long as it doesn't undermine or contradict what's required so we're happy to be um part thought partners in that with you along the way as as you get that feedback from the community and from students yeah i guess that's um just as a as a follow-up to to my question um i guess i would view as like hopefully if there's if there's something that comes out of the community feedback that goes to the policy which is the you know the broader overarching piece as long as it's not in conflict with the statute that would be great to get so that the community can not only see how they've informed the implementation the administrative directive but the policy as well and again if it's not in conflict with the statute you know absolutely you know share recommendations because you know sometimes the ones that come from osba are just a little bit generic so um it doesn't feel like pps doesn't have that pps values and feel to it so um especially like in the the lead-in um so uh another question or just a request i guess um so you had a powerpoint which i thought was great um and i'm wondering if that could just be paired with materials on the website because i think it gives more context um like the history and i think some um useful parameters uh and guidance for community engagement just seems like it makes it kind of brings the whole
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package together versus um you know a just all the the the different materials like you know like why are we doing this um it frames it up in some way um and then and i don't know if this is an appropriate policy um in the policy or where it fits in um but the and i'm not quite sure how to ask this question um so how would we know if this is an effective policy uh i mean i think what we my sense is what we'd all say is that we reduce um or eliminate the incidences of suicide among our our students um and so how do we know if we got if we got this right or if there's things that we should change um so and i don't know if you've thought of thought about that i mean we have a lot tells us one thing to do but again like how how do we know that we've ultimately landed on something that's effective all so many great questions neil i don't know if you want to i mean i mean i think it goes back to lon's feedback right he wants to see accountability and i think scott um you had mentioned a yearly review of where we're at with things i think that that will also keep us accountable to making sure that we are coming back and assessing where are we at with the policy where we're at with the implementation and what's working what's not working um there are things that we are currently doing in regards to that already so one this is just a very quick example it's our suicide screening form it's now it went from being on paper to virtual and along the way we've been asking for consistent feedback from the users that are that are using it and so we're making those changes as we're getting the the feedback um and i would say that that would be the same for everything else um one thing that we're hoping that we get in addition to um the supports with training in regards to this policy getting approved is getting supports who can actually understand developing a system to like the accountability piece and um that that's like three different jobs in in that piece and i can't do that by myself i need a person who can set up a system i need another person who's gonna keep an eye on who's followed up with um the data who's followed up with the training for each um school staff member literally each school staff member making sure that the mandatory trainings move from mandatory to required trainings making sure that we have a system that assesses that out so i i think that i'm hoping that from this policy we can get some support around those pieces in order for those accountability um uh things are put into place because that's my worry as well julia um but that there are things that we're um changing as we're getting feedback um so that's one thing um amy did you want to add anything else yeah i mean we've already started to i don't know what version of the policy that we have poster that's available right now but we've already started to make changes in addition absolutely based on based on feedback you know that accountability piece um so that's our we're already starting to to really build that out um i think additionally you ask how we can tell if it's working so we five six years ago said here's the suicide screening tool and the first year got 25 30 over the course of the year and by last year um you know we had over 500 and some people panic at that and we think no like staff are asking the question they're connecting with kids we know that kids experience suicidality and ideation and we want to make sure we're asking the question and they know they're a supportive adult to help them out there so so that's one piece i think getting feedback from staff around their comfort level and talking about this so right now right if we were to ask staff how comfortable would you feel if a student told you that they were thinking about killing themselves um you might get a very different answer i hope than a year from now where they would say we really feel like we're in a place where we could have that conversation whether it's with my student my family member my neighbor um so i think those are some some different ways we could tell as well um as you bring that up julia one thing we can do is ask um the oregon alliance to see if they have something developed and or framework to work from as well i mean they they're working with all the districts across the district i'm assuming this is a question that's going to come up or has already come up and maybe they already have a framework that they're recommending um and i'd be more than happy to go back to the oregon alliance and actually ask them specifically are there best practices to address that particular
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data um factor i can do that as well great thank you um great one last thing uh i'm wondering um and this is a great question julie i'm wondering if in our annual student survey if there are questions that can help us keep track of yes i'm familiar with resources i can turn to or something like that it might not be specific to suicide prevention but uh broader i i know we've got we've got some questions along those lines but that's another marker we can use around sel in general yep great idea and and we do actually have some new behaviors yesterday data already that we can we'll be able to do some some comparisons to um that that uh one of the jenny mcdonald's okay i'm gonna interject here um because we're uh we're going a bit long um so thank you for thank you for coming back and giving us this information um i look forward to hearing from you again in a couple of months and um and i'm assuming that i mean lots of good questions about kind of um the language and the policy and i'm i'm assuming that's going to be um amended as you get more input so um so one last question though um my understanding is that um the deadline to produce this policy established by the statute was uh completely unrealistic and it was july 1st um so we are substantially behind schedule um i think mostly because the schedule was unrealistic um so i just wanted to point that out because the next exercise we're going to go through is um around setting the work plan for the committee so i as we come up with sequencing the work um identifying the priorities which policies we're going to be focusing on and then the sequence sequencing of consideration of policies we need to take into consideration um deadlines on some of these compliance issues so anyway um okay um let's stop it here and um we will move on to the next update chairman yeah before we um move on maybe one thing just looking at the timeline and it sounds like that the um most of the comments are around the a.d and not the policy maybe um we could move ahead with the like take whatever the latest after the next meeting the next round of comments on the policy and get the policy at least first read so that that's happening while engagement's happening i mean it's just if there's not a lot of comments on the actual policy itself but it's more the implementation that may be a way in which we can um move both processes along just an idea well i'm um i'm reluctant um to short-circuit the community engagement process um we're telling people it's about the policy so um i don't want i don't want anybody to think we're being disingenuous about um our desire to get feedback on the actual policy um so i i would be um i personally i pref i would prefer to um let the community engagement process proceed uh before we move ahead with a first reading of the policy um so we're going to be getting we're going to be hearing back in two months and i think at that point we can uh we can find out whether there is input on the actual policy requiring i mean it's a brand spanking new policy so um it's not even a question of amending it we're writing this thing um but i think if at the end of november we hear back that um most of the comments you're getting are about implementation rather than the policy itself um i think that's a very different situation and we could really have it move ahead at that point so that would be my suggestion i'm going to send some just notes um on so i can get into the process
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thank you okay appreciate thank you um for having us and thank you mila for all of your amazing incredible hard work on getting this all organized and um so appreciate the time yes thank you thank you thank you hi um okay so i want to move on to the next um update which is on student conduct and discipline um and i think this will be a fairly short update uh i can make it i can make it very short um it's it's really status quo continues that um there is a pending grievance that relates to this same subject matter there is um mutual intent um on all sides to to work through this issue with pat but it's coming behind the current um discussions that are happening about it's hard to call it re-entry because we're already entered but the same re-entry discussion so it is a topic of present conversation but there it's really not feasible to move forward in part with the policy while this other piece is sitting out there okay okay so we will stay tuned um okay so the the next um the next agenda item is on work plan and i'm going to make a suggestion to the committee um it appears that uh we have i think probably for the very first time um we have a full complement of people who want to testify in public comments and i believe all of them are about the climate policy proposal so my suggestion is that we move up the public comment um to happen now before we talk about the work plan um is there any objection to that no mike mike did you have an objection you're unused you're a mute no we can't hear you so i was just going to say thank you that we had told people that the public comment period was at the end of the meeting so maybe some of the people that were prepared to testify might not be here so do you know if most of the people are here i can't tell let me see oh i was just looking through the list um but i don't see most everybody is not here yet okay all right then we'll we'll stick with the schedule as is um okay um i was trying to make it easier on people but if it's going to be hotter there's no point um okay so let's move right into the discussion on uh work plan and um so before we launch into this um i also want to say um you've probably noticed we have a very full schedule for this meeting um i i'm hoping that we can get through the full agenda at this point i'm not sure we can but i'd like to do the best that we can so um so two things one i'm going to be um kind of ins i've got i'm going to be enforcing the um the time limit pretty pretty strongly um and i'm going to be asking people to be as efficient um in their comments as possible um and if if it looks like i'm gonna facilitate the discussion pretty pretty pretty strongly um and uh the other thing i would say is um given what we have on given what we have in the queue um and the fact that we were tr i was working with staff in the last week or so to come up with a way to uh kind of visualize the um all of the policies that we have
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in the queue that we've already identified um and it ended up being kind of three-dimensional chess so um it's gonna be a pretty complicated calculation about how we can most effectively prioritize our work this year um so i think it's probably likely that we are not going to be able to finalize this work plan today but i would very much like us to get um as far in the discussion as we possibly can to um to really highlight the um a body of work that we can do in the next say four months like we really need to establish some clear priorities in the short term um so i i've uh i've had to ratchet down my my uh goals for the meeting but um we do have a lot on our plate and and we've got to be pretty efficient in deciding how we're going to spend our time um okay all that being said um i think we can i think we can launch um so i'm going to ask liz are you willing to kind of um take this staff lead in this absolutely do you want to put up the document that you prepared over the weekend or do you want um okay uh so we're reaching the limits of my technological expertise here um i've tried it before and failed i've got the documents pulled up if uh if i'm shareable i can do that we start from a place where um all of these um potential policies and amendments and creation of new policies is uh important topic so the the rough cut that staff took at trying to categorize and prioritize is um um a difficult task um and one where we we knew it was the first cut but not a any sort of uh final conclusion so uh there we go we also broke down um the policies into compliance like we're required to do this policy work and then uh other policy making um uh that that follows so this first section and then let me back up a little bit of process and then we tried to talk to us what's the workload required to get through the policy making and engagement process and and how is that distributed among staff and board just just for an assessment of time as you're trying to figure out in what order you want to attack uh these uh various policy issues and and what's the capacity given how long some of them will or won't take so you'll see the first chunk there and what we sent out with with the policy committee materials rita um who has um the right side of your brain works better than mine and so created a chart that's really pretty instead of a list um and uh you'll see student conduct and discipline which is already in the mix and is on hold so it's it's urgent and we need we have some compliance related changes as well as some non-compliance related changes but that really can't go forward until the pat process is complete title ix um the foundation policy which has some compliance some some not some other uh recommended changes suicide prevention which we just heard about all students belong which is the new ode requirement for a policy at the end of the year um that prohibits various forms of hate speech in the form of swastikas nooses um other uh similarly destructive um speech and then comprehensive sexual sexuality education which is um i think we're going to require probably the lightest load so we we decided to separate the two types of policies into this work has to be done to be compliant with current or uh coming deadlines and then the discretionary um do you want do you want to do you want would the committee like to
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have a conversation about the prioritization of the compliance piece or would you um i would say that the comprehensive sexuality education and all students belong um don't have there's a little bit of time although i think the all students belong piece uh that deadline is going to be upon us quickly and i don't think it's going to be a lot of work we're waiting for the osba model policy which was supposed to come out i thought late last week but i to my knowledge i don't think we have it yet um i think title ix is going to be a heavy lift because i think the federal regs that just came out and the state statutory requirements don't uh are not complementary and from a user perspective and you think about a student who has been through a traumatic experience to try to sort out what how those policies work is really hard for us to reconcile um we're also having conversations with courtney on what needs what may need to happen in film to help fix that but we can only do the policy work right now that addresses those i would say um like many many school districts we have uh we are not fully compliant on the federal side yet because of this additional work some of it we've taken care of by a.d some of it we actually need the policy so i put that pretty high on the list um and the others i think we've we've talked about the foundation um one i think is maybe i think we should do that work i would i would put title ix very high on the list as i'm looking at these i'll just i'll pause for a moment members to ask questions or just say you want to talk about the next tranche that's right can i opt for something on the title nine we um uh policies we we hr and um the catalan director and i met with jackie sandmeyer um and she has promised us some assistance in helping to um kind of coalesce the the state and federal requirements into a simpler policy as opposed to what what we were originally looking at were multiple policies which is not it's not user friendly at all and so i think we're going to get some assistance with that and i hope i'm going to follow up with her uh this week to see how soon we can get that who who is that that you're working with jackie sandmeyer um she was for many years she was working with uh the task force uh for title ix compliance in in the state of oregon she's now got an organization where they're providing kind of um uh tactical assistance to districts on on how to become more title and compliant she also their her organization does trainings and they are um they've received some doj money and so they're able to provide this more easily to districts and they've agreed to help us so can i ask a question um i'm making the assumption here that um pps that pps is not the only school district in the state facing this dilemma um which suggests to me that osba should be all over this uh are they are they or are they not or is there is so i okay let me be clear so is the dilemma that we have a pre-existing policy and we're trying to shoehorn some new stuff in it or is that the essential dilemma that the state and the feds don't agree with each other um there's tension between the state and federal definitions of sexual harassment so under title ix it's a it's a much narrower pool of of of people who would be covered under title ix and so the and the processes by which um the state and then and then the federal uh uh procedures for handling those cases are different and so it sets up a kind of a confusing process for any student or family who has to go through it because you're like why aren't i getting this or what how does this work and so um i think uh that is a bit of a struggle um and so we're trying to and and and jackie recognizes it as well uh as well and which is why the the attempt to try to put this into a single policy
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um so it it's easier for students to navigate and students and employees and everyone to navigate so um question first just in terms of the color coding does heavy for the staff workload also include uh public engagement student engagement as applicable yes so we did not do yet another column but but and sometimes engagement is is heavier for the board we know sometimes the board will want to be on the front line of conversations related to certain um with staff support of course but but on certain subject matters so we we considered both the policy writing and the engagement in ranking heavy moderate life thinking in terms of timelines one is it seems like we're dealing with so many policies where we want input um that's that's a lot of workload and almost plus we're asking a lot from again people you're asking me for more input on something else again um we probably need some thinking on how best to do that that isn't making our staff crazy and the public uh also feeling burdened um and and you know i'm looking at you know the new policy uh mandated by the state again if it's basically you're going to write a policy that's going to say this that limits what kind of actual input we can have as we just heard about with the suicide prevention and i'm wondering how that affects our schedule and public input just want to throw that out there yeah i think you know what we're trying to do as we continue to build out the engagement planning and process is to focus on um the voices that may not have been that in this subject area may not have been listened to may not have been present or as present as they should be in prior policy making efforts and what what voices and information in are in service to the work that this committee has to do and so there's when you're thinking about mandatory language be compliant with an ode deadline of 1 121 that might be one where there is pretty limited engagement now there's more focus on communication and there can be further amendment later if if it were needed to be augmented but we would work to be compliant by the deadline and i think there was a similar discussion about that on suicide prevention this summer but the decision was it was so important to get student voices and input on that um and that that one we decided to wait and do the engagement work first so i guess maybe the short answer director bailey is that i don't think there's a single cookie cutter method but we need to be cognizant of capacity we need to be cognizant of what what you need to hear from in order to be informed policymakers and um what voices may not have been um historically present in some of the work in these important areas and i guess that's also feedback for our partners at the state if they're going to mandate something i think most of them aren't thinking about public engagement at the local level which takes time and resources and that's a that's a good use of time and resources um but to have have a pretty short turnaround timeline to have something implemented um doesn't go well with good public engagement so that's maybe something courtney can help with again going forward so i just want to say clearly yeah we we've got some mandates here we need to get on them they they need to be on on our our work plan can't i'm following up on that um can i just clarify are there any um are there any potential sanctions attached to not meeting these statutory deadline i there are i think it is remote on the title nine side but but could there be yes um i uh i think that we are not i think there are a lot of school districts who are many many many school districts around the country are behind on the title ix reg implementation i think oregon again there may be other states that have
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similar challenges of reconciling these two structures in ways that are make clear respectful paths for students and staff that may make it a little harder here um so there could be potential penalties um in an ocr process i wouldn't want to test those i i would i mean i think you can go down there i can't tell you exactly what they would be but they they almost all end in funding somewhere right so we or but but frankly more than that it would be some sort of compliance plan right we would enter into a conciliation agreement we would do these things i mean i don't think you get to the disastrous end game quickly we'd like to be complying as soon as possible across the board yeah really really the cost the cost there is that something happens to one of our students they get unclear guidance i'm much more worried about that than being slapped around by some other government agency yeah i agree and i uh we need to get it we need to get those paths clear i think we have some pretty thoughtful staff in this district who are wanting to make sure that um students have uh are heard that allegations are investigated that they are documented that there is uh we are sharing resources that are required to be shared by state and or federal law with students who've been through the process i think the the requirements on both sides so victim and accuser um we are trying to again reconcile what falls in the title not you have to do certain things if it's a title nine eligible allegation and the state requirements um are broader than that and then i think you have the like what should pps's policies be and how should we react to that and how do we also think about our values and and systems and processes that that aren't again inconsistent with those but are the way we want our students to be supported in these difficult situations so we are that's the task can i have a couple comments on the compliance section um so i would very supportive moving ahead with the title nine and not because it's a light board um work item workload item but just how long it took us to hire a title nine director and the importance of it um you know it seems like the student conducts you know we've the board has done most of its work already so that seems already on this way the student suicide prevention policy seems on its way uh and very much support all students belong um policy looks like we have a longer a timeline um i do think it's important that we do something on the foundation um policy for for two reasons um we've sort of been operating with that pretty robust foundation supporting a lot of different schools over the last 25 years and our policy doesn't really connect with the current reality um or the reality that's been in existence um it seems like we need to have a point of view on buying whether foundations can purchase staff as they've been able to do not really within any sort of policy structure um and for sort of equity and transparency and the fact that we now have a fund for portland schools that the board um and the board and staff are much more deeply involved in versus it being this entity over here that does something so you know that's something to me um that we should proceed with because we're a year into the the new foundation like i say probably 25 years into buying allowing school communities to buy staff um and there's been lots of equity concerns raised about that so having a clear set of values a point of view around a policy would be helpful okay um so let's uh before we even attempt to um come up with sort of a timeline um director moore um did you want to get uh input from our student reps uh yeah oh we're we're not i was just talking about the compliance
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piece we're yeah we're hang on um so i i'm in terms of the compliance piece um i think it um and and maybe a lot of this in general in terms of coming up with me sequencing the work i think a major factor is going to be staff capacity and um and in particular in the compliance section um there's going to be kind of of necessity i think a um the two groups of staff that are going to be primarily involved are going to be the legal office and student student services so that's a it's a very heavy burden on mandated policies for those two offices so i think when when we're talking about sequencing the work we're going to have to um especially since the board workload on all of the well the exception of the foundation um the board workload is relatively minor as a component so anyway we're gonna have to keep this staff capacity um top of mind when we're talking about these compliance calls is that fair i think yeah i think that's fair i think it's uh it's the it's brenda's team that is uh has the disproportionate subject matter expert burden here i think um and mary i can say this because mary and i aren't sitting in the same room where she can choke me but i mean i think we can the legal side we will keep up with that as it intersects um that's sort of more of our steady diet whereas this is often extra work on top of regular uh staff work so um yeah okay okay so um so let me have lots of time liz is that what you're saying i'm saying i'm glad we're in separate places right now that's all i'm saying i've been waiting for i was waiting for mary to chime in okay so this next section is i'm going to be looking at policies that are not mandated um it includes a mix of revising policies that already exist and creating new policies um so i think before we before we launch into a discussion um i i'd like to invite the people who want to talk to talk to us about the proposed climate policy are you are you prepared to um talk to us you've got up to 10 minutes and can we do that now um absolutely yeah this is gerald scrotchins and if amy is here i mean it's here we are ready to go and i know she's on some place on this screen so yes we are ready okay so just to be clear we're not um the committee today is not going to be speaking to the merits of any of these policies like we're not going to be discussing the individual policies we're trying to figure out what we're supposed to be doing over the next eight months 10 months whatever it is um so if you can give us a um kind of a quick summary of what the policy is about its origins um you know why you think this is important and how much work you've already put into this at this point so you've got 10 minutes take it away who's gonna speak go ahead gerald okay great sorry i didn't realize that i was up first but that's that is excellent uh so uh thank you and i'm just i'm just going to read a few remarks here but again uh thank you for just allowing my voice to be amplified in the space and you all just listening and supporting us also again my name is gerald scrutchens i'm a member of the pps climate justice committee a founding member of the board of directors for the eco school network and a social studies teacher at grant high school and i'm a pps parent as well as a member of these communities i can tell you that there is an urgent need for pps to adopt a climate
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crisis response policy one that is comprehensive inclusive rigorous and reasonable such as the draft policy that we are presenting today climate change is a central social and environmental justice issue of our time it impacts not only pps students and families but the whole global community and multiple generations especially our frontline communities as those bearing the brunt of the first and worst impacts of climate change our pps students and families who are already facing an opportunity gap will suffer the most from the effects of climate change in portland we can expect more frequent and intense heat waves wildfires flooding and landslides climate change impacts will exacerbate other disparities including greater risk of poor health reduce access to housing on and under employment limited access to transportation options in parks and other mortality rates as well i teach ap human geography and u.s history at grant this year and i have co-led the students climate justice club at harriet tubman middle school and now at grant my students are so aware that climate change is happening now they are passionate about the need for action and they want to see it now however as educators and administrators we fail to meet their basic needs required for basic knowledge on causes and solutions to mitigating climate change and promoting environmental justice the introduction of climate justice curriculum was welcome and students have responded overwhelmingly both in terms of demand for the course and passion about the content i've seen students overwhelmed by the current and future realities of climate change racked with anxiety about their future i see enormous disparities in students opportunities to access climate justice education especially opportunities for our historically underserved bipod community to learn how to advocate for change in their own neighborhoods portland nationally as well as globally we need to elevate their voices and listen to what they are saying they want to feel prepared for what their future climate is going to be and they want to have some firsthand knowledge about what climate action looks like their potential to lead us to new climate solutions is huge but we need to share with them a real world model of climate justice and climate action we can do this through the schools themselves the physical spaces where they come to learn we need to both teach the concepts and demonstrate the actions needed to avoid leaving our students feeling hopeless and overwhelmed as a parent of two pps students i share my own children's concern about what continued unchecked climate change will mean for their future lives for the environment as well as for the environment pbs has a responsibility to lead on climate change action as a central institution in our community as well as the school districts serving the largest number of young people in the city that's seen as a national and global leader for sustainability the eco school network is a local nonprofit organization comprised of parents championing environmental initiatives in their schools we currently work active in more than 50 pps schools as a director for the network i can tell you that parents are hungry for pbs leadership on climate change as well as district level and they will be the first in line to volunteer and to support next phase action in their neighborhood schools and finally in my work on the bps climate justice committee our core mission is education empowerment of students teachers and greater community around issues of social and environmental justice we have made great strides on the education side and a more comprehensive climate policy would be a tremendous completement to our work preparing and empowering students in this area the climate justice committee has reviewed the draft policy and looks forward to collaborating on this development and implementation we know it won't be simple and we appreciate there are substantial costs for implementation but the cost of doing nothing will be great this is an amazing opportunity for pps to lead lead by example to other school districts and organizations in our community or beyond and to lead by example for our students all of our students but especially our students from frontline communities to demonstrate to them the extent to which we care about them today and all of their tomorrows and just a little bit of background knowledge on the pps climate justice committee we passed resolution 5272 back in 2016 of course uh in my opinion just as one of the committee members and working on environmental justice and climate justice issues it feels like we are running up a muddy hill in flip-flops and i would also say that this is such an important intersecting issue with
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other um social issues that we're dealing with right now in our community and we do claim ourselves as leaders in climate justice and environmental justice however i think we need to take more of a proactive stance within our district and ensuring that our textbooks are mentioned in climate change students are learning about activism and they are learning how to mitigate the climate crisis thank you go ahead amy thank you gerald hi i'm amy higgs i use she her pronouns i'm executive director of the eco school network and a parent of two pps students a year ago the climate justice committee started the studied the district's resource conservation policy which is outdated and never had an ad mike rosen and i had each testified separately about the need to update that policy so along with my colleague jane cumult we decided to take a crack at updating it we reframed it around climate change and started conversations with staff we plan to present it in march but covid came and so we spent more time on community uh input gathering i want to appreciate the district staff who shared input dan young aaron pressberg nicole berg monica fleischer whitney ellersik ben dandino terry johnson brandon conrood terry brady and emily courtney i'm going to share my screen now let's see okay hopefully you can all see that in a moment we appreciate the support and feedback shared by pps students public agencies community organizations including those serving frontline communities local scientists and pps parents and teachers so this draft has been reviewed or is being reviewed by these groups and their comments have been incorporated or resolved uh in the most part i'm excited about the steps the board and staff have taken to prioritize climate justice education it was great hearing about the update at the last board meeting and at the same time as the largest district in oregon our greenhouse gas emissions are significant they haven't actually been measured yet but we know that the ultimate impacts of the district's emissions don't fall evenly on our community members the climate crisis response policy is basically a draft road map toward a place where pps is a model of climate action and climate justice where students see climate solutions in action at their school and where they trust in their communities willingness to take action for their future so the policy is divided into two big goals emissions reductions and resilience and engagement and preparedness with specific targets under each goal the first goal is emissions reductions and resilience we propose that pps reduce carbon emissions by 50 percent from 2010 levels by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 this is the same target as the city's climate emergency declaration and we propose making pps systems more resilient to the climate change impacts that are now unavoidable the next big goal is engagement and preparedness so we propose that all pps students and staff have opportunities to learn about and engage in climate solutions climate change preparedness and climate justice practices so diving into the first big goal we can reduce emissions and boost resilience by making adjustments in all of these six areas grounds omf new construction transportation purchasing and food systems we can shrink emissions from these sources maximize the carbon absorbing potential of school grounds and also enhance the ability of pps grounds and facilities to adapt and recover from climate extremes just to share a couple examples of the targets we provided in the the policy language are things like planting more trees not building new fossil fuel infrastructure staff incentives to walk bike ride the bus or telecommute reducing food waste and many more so that's our big first big goal the next major priority is engagement and preparedness and the areas we're focusing on are campus action front line community support climate justice curriculum professional development and communications a couple examples include hands-on opportunities for students to learn and practice climate solutions and supporting students and families from frontline communities and preparing and responding to the most likely climate change impacts i just want to emphasize that our community is ready for pps to take this on from third graders and their parents and teachers right up through our city leaders we invite pps to be an active partner in conflict fronting the climate crisis i'm going to stop sharing my screen now
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um we see that everything you all have been considering for your work plan is important and we know that you all are volunteers and in deciding which policies to prioritize this year i just ask that you consider the urgency of each one this policy addresses an existential threat that's already playing out and it's projected to get much worse so this is about pps being responsible for our impacts it's about equity for our frontline communities and equity between generations it's about health and safety it's about risk management and protection of district assets and it's also about science and common sense i want to thank you each for giving so much of your time and brain power and hearts to the pps community and i hope this draft is is just a helpful starting point so that pps can become the climate partner that our community and students need thank you okay thank you um all right so um we're going to be getting public comment um at the end of the meeting as well and i suspect most of it will be about this policy but um let's focus on the on the whole the whole list of all of the policies that are not mandated um there are quite a few of them and um some of them have been identified as um some of them we already as a board have identified as high priorities so liz do you want to talk about any of this section can we get them back up again yeah thank you roseanne liz you're you're muted thank you i can check the box on that one for this meeting i hope um these are these recommendations for the for policy work come from a variety of sources um so i'll just walk them through it at a high level and then i think the committee can discuss um some of the prioritization and and hear from students on the student rep policy but formal complaint is uh policy is already in process uh it's on the agenda today uh although i'm not sure we're gonna get to it but it's it so you i think the committee is aware of that same with the real estate policy um enrollment is uh uh comes from um i think from a board perspective and needing work needing work on this uh area and rita i may let you or scott speak to that but there have been some stops and starts certainly a year ago we were i don't know it's coveted times is it a year ago several months ago when we were all in the same room together um there was some some work that started on some of the enrollment related policies and and school boundaries or um and i i actually am not sure that i'm very well equipped to speak to the the scope of the work to be done there but it is work that has been um queued up for quite some time and started and stopped um code of ethics i would put in that same category of work that has been discussed for some time and um we haven't gotten to as we talk about capacity um that's just one that we need to build out the code of ethics we we started and uh i'll own the delay on that in the in the legal team so it's been on our to-do list for a while and we are committed to getting a draft ready for whenever the the committee wants to put it in the queue um professional conduct between adults and students the board of course did much much heavy lifting on that in 2018 um i think what we've found is just a few areas and we knew this would happen right i remember the conversations in front of the committee at the time that this was our best shot on developing a policy that you know osba didn't have a model of we looked at a few other models but there was a lot of original drafting that went into this on the part of the committee and so having lived with it for a year and also seen it transition seeing the district transition to comprehensive distance learning there are some places where uh it needs to be tweaked but we know that there'll be there's always a lot to talk about in that policy it's it's dense and robust and very important and part of training for lots of populations every year so it's an important one to keep very much up to date um climate crisis response i cannot say anything more than these eloquent speakers here today i think you
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um know the history on that um indemnification um is uh relates to some employee groups for expenses incurred that are not always that are not included in the statutory tort claims act um and there have been two different board related inquiries about that uh the student rep duties um i don't read if you'd like to have nathaniel uh or one of the other representative students here speak to the scope of what may be involved there i think they'll do a much better job than i will on that and they're here um nathaniel do you or one of the other students want to speak to that uh yeah we've got a number of things that we're looking at um uh it's mostly just um taking out things that haven't been working in the past moving some things to bylaws um just trying to make the overall structure more efficient and um well representative of what we're actually trying to do here um i believe parker wanted to say something yes um it's basically just revising the current policy um taking out some redundancies and some limiting factors um that have become apparent as this uh the policy in its current form was implemented um in 2017 or 2018 i believe very recently um and we've sort of gone through and pressure tested uh the policy in its current form and found some less than uh optimal uh stipulations and things of that things in that policy that don't really represent um how we'd like to conduct ourselves as a body yeah and i'd also include that one of the main goals is to reduce barriers and promote equity inside the policy as well can i ask first question reps how much student input you think would be needed on you you're talking mostly it sounds like tweaks as opposed to huge changes how much student input would be needed on uh going forward sure uh there's a few more substantive changes um but there is an engagement plan um that is being developed um by our student or our staff liaison uh yen who i don't believe is in this meeting but we do have a comprehensive plan to engage students um in the works but to more directly answer your question we would like as much student engagement as possible um but as as much as we can get ready yeah and i'd also like to know that um given that last time i don't believe there was a particularly high level of engagement that it is important that we go through those steps this time okay um thank you guys very much for that and then the the computer use policy is it just it's in need of updating the technology has changed it just hasn't been updated in a while and particularly again highlighted in some of this uh virtual space that having clear the computer use policy sits over the acceptable usad which is a fairly standard governing policy procedure document for organizations both of those will need some revision i think that's fairly light on the board and i think it's fairly light on engagement because it tends to be kind of defined by the the technology but we will continue to assess that as we move forward then the osba section db is the first one that's still in process it it's i think appropriately prioritized pretty far down the list um and the other osba revisions you know sit in the queue in that osba process queue so um there may be some ways to strategize how to fill some small gaps in agendas with that work if we think it can be done quickly but um and to accelerate that work i i think there's gonna have to be if it's gonna get done in over a several year time period at this rate but um but i cannot look at the list of really important policy areas and tell you i think it
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should come ahead of it because i don't okay so um i'm looking at the clock it's now 5 38 and we have 10 minutes worth of um public public comment so we've got what 12 minutes left um so i'm going to pose a few questions um first question is there anything on this long list that anybody thinks we should not do anything we can just flop off the list okay well the other question as were there other candidates that didn't make the list and uh don't don't hurt don't hurt me for bringing that up the other thing i would add is that there may be things that arise during the year that are that's unexpected that we don't yet see i don't think staff is holding back on you i think that the other areas may be what board members have um contemplated i think the staff have provided their recommendations based on what we know today i think for for example parent engagement policies i think are really outdated um i don't think it's a house on fire but um they're they're out there around around site councils i think elsacs are still in policy uh for those of you who have really long memories um there there's no uh you know there's no accountability uh around any of these um those some of them are state laws some of them are not so that's just a body of work out there again i'm not arguing for it to displace any of these the ones on earth but i just want to bring that up in terms of future work and i'm i'm sure there's a couple of other areas out there as well so i raised two policies at the last board meeting that um i think are um worth uh putting on the agenda one is the board members um elections and this was there's a state law that passed a couple years ago um that was um designed to prove greater equity and representation on boards so i'd like to at least have a discussion about that in the in the committee um and we may decide that we don't want to pursue it but i think it merits at a minimum of discussion and the second one this isn't a wholesale policy review in fact um it's probably just a minor series of amendments and i'm happy to bring more detail but our school and i know we did a fair amount of work on the school naming and mascot policy around the um two and a half years ago around the franklin mascot um change but we've had this past year i think a real um call to action around the name of names of many of our schools and the policy as it was written and given that i was chair of the time i'll own this is uh not really um set up to [Music] um take a a host of names it's more very selective and it's also very just to the school very focused on just the school community and many of the issues that have been raised are much broader than the particular school community so i have um and i'm happy to send them around but i i don't think it's a um a heavy lift again i think a lot of the good work was done in the previous policy also i have something a potential revision to that same policy around um school-based art and this was came out of the grant murals which are policy talks about a whole host of symbols mascots names um but doesn't really address art so i've um again i i don't think it's not a wholesale rewrite but just some amendments to update um the policy so those are two things that
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i would like to have um raised by the committee this this year okay so not only have we not cut the list down we've now added three additional policies to the queue um and i think i think there's a good case to be made for all of these um but i think we also need to be realistic so i'm going to make a suggestion and let me press the suggestion this way it is now the beginning of october this committee has been in operation for what two and a half months um this is i haven't counted them up but i'm guessing this is what the fourth fifth meeting that we had um and um thus far we haven't um we're still working on a work plan let's let's just start there um so um i think we need to acknowledge that the work that this committee is engaged in does not lend itself to rapid resolution and we need to we need to do due diligence on all of these policies um and in order to do that we need to have the time so my suggestion is um we have been meeting every three weeks for two hours um and it seems to me that it's pretty clear that is not an adequate amount of time to actually make real progress i can tell you that staff put in many many many hours preparing for these meetings and more often than not um by the end of the week at the end of each meeting there is at least one agenda item that we haven't even mentioned never mind gone into in debt um so we're eating up an enormous amount of staff time that ends up having to be replicated three weeks later and even then there's no guarantee that we're going to be able to get to the agenda so i will own the fact that um i can i can be a little more draconian about needing facilitation and if i have your permission to do that i would happily do that um but i think the fact is that a two-hour meeting is not sufficient to get through these agendas and if we have if we just shorten the agenda for every meeting to actually make it doable in two hours we will never even make a dent in this list so here's my suggestion um i would i would recommend that we increase the amount of time for these meetings to three hours is there any objection so i guess it depends on where the hour goes because if it's in the middle of the workday um that's will be hard for me um and also hard for anybody who works a regular shift to participate in the workshop to participate in the work and for students once we're back to well let me let me clarify my suggestion instead of making these meetings four to six we make them four to seven can we shift them so that they're not on the same weeks as the board meetings i mean it's just hard if you have to double double duties um i guess one one other thing and maybe this is just a suggestion and it's not um in opposition to the three-hour meeting um but if we had the documents earlier then i think that there could be more exchange of information or input um prior to the meeting instead of like so we have more efficient meetings uh so for example like the real estate policy um i have if i'd gotten it if i had it in word document and i'd gotten it last week i could have you know sent down like here's some prose changes that i've got and that way people have a chance to look at them in advance their staff has a chance to say that's a bad idea or that's a good idea or you you know may want to change this
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i know just maybe that will make the meetings because it's sort of like we get here and then we we're there's some high level things we're talking about and then just some like much more mechanicals so just another thought so um you're getting the material um thursday prior to the monday meeting um and a lot of the materials are dependent on back work so um we need to make sure that we come up with a cadence that's actually doable um so i i'm gonna wish you just unmuted yourself well i just just from the workflow perspective of how how staff works through that um we you heard mila make reference to i sent you things on monday so we ask those who are working on the this who are the subject matter experts working on policies to have their materials in by monday in order to get them to the board members by thursday and if we move that up and we do need time between the staff submission and the distribution to board they go through a number of sets of eyes they get asked questions guadalupe gets to see them um uh he's the one who usually gets shorted on review um also if we get pinched which is not best practice and we really try not to do that to him um if we if we move up the thursday deadline what we're doing is we're just we're compressing the number of days from the committee meeting for work to get done before the next round of documents flow so there has to so you know when we talk about like three weeks versus two weeks you can create that same compression of work time that generates the next revision there just has to be enough time in between to do that and to get the the documents out and i i want to acknowledge that i i know there are so i think we did get them out last week uh by thursday and i want to acknowledge that sometimes we have missed that and that creates compression for you all and you have you donate an incredible amount of your lives to this organization in addition to all the other things that you do in work and community involvement and family so i i want to acknowledge that as well it's not just staff compression it's board compression but how we how we think about how the workflows and there has to be some time to get it done before we're processing and generating documents and you do have to have meaningful time to review them so right yeah i mean this is this is a question for board work in general um is getting off this merry-go-round rat race for both staff and board of you know let's pretend like it's thursday before monday but really it's the monday after that because if we can get that extra weekend there we'll be more efficient um but we can't it's like the walking slower to go faster kind of metaphor but if we're constantly on on you know staff trying to crack crank things out for a three or four day turnaround for board then we're less efficient when we get to the actual meeting so we're talking about making it a a four-week cadence rather than three weeks between money i'm talking about uh instead of a thursday before the following monday if monday's our meeting time making it a thursday before the next monday after that to allow for more of a review more of getting the questions asked more of the is this a good idea well no because of that um before we get to them the actual meeting and then the meeting we're more able to move through move quicker okay put that that actually that's going to cut down the staff production of the original documents by week so instead of having two weeks to produce the documents for review the subject matter experts are only going to have a week well no i think i think it's the other the other way around so whenever our next meeting is scheduled for um and so you can you know whatever monday that is we've got a
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deadline of the thursday before that that was it three weeks from now staff essentially has a deadline for cranking out a bunch of material um well let's delay that meeting for a week um and then we have a a longer review time and we should be able to be more efficient in our work in the meeting that's the theory to get more stuff done okay um i'm not getting i'm not understanding how this would work and um so let me let me stop here um because because we could discuss this offline but yeah let's do this offline but um i'll just leave this as um clearly we can't keep doing it the way we're doing it because we're not going to make progress yeah um and i just want to make clear i'm not asking staff to do all their work an extra week ahead of time for our next meeting okay i'm talking about extending it going the other direction um okay well we're gonna have to because i'm still not understanding how that would actually how how we'd actually find an additional week in any of this but okay let's talk about this offline um and um so i'm going to ask uh do we have an agreement can we just agree here that at least for the next scheduled policy committee meeting that we extended by an hour can we agree to that yeah which was the date uh um roseanne was today so it's three weeks from october 5th it's the 26th 26th yes october 26th okay all right and um so we're doing that on the fly we're going to have to check and make sure that it's going to work for staff but for the time being let's say we're going to we're going to have a three hour meeting next time around and then tara is going to have to work some magic about future meetings um okay i will insist on an hourly three minute get up and walk around um okay okay all right um so i'm going to stop us here so that we can take public comments and um just uh it's just for the for the people who are testifying you have two minutes to testify and given the late hour um we're going to have to strictly enforce the two-minute limit okay cara who do we have we have um tim sweinhart hi there thank you um i'm tim sweinhart i'm a teacher at lincoln high school i'm a founding member of the climate justice committee and uh a parent of two pps students um thank you all for hearing all this we're all trying to do way too much right now um and uh you know so the conversation tonight about what's mandated and what's not this climate response policy is not mandated um but i would like to argue that it's still necessary um we're developing curriculum in classes right now in portland public schools um in line with 5272 and you know we are continuing to lead the nation in that regard but we have to remember that schools and facilities present a hidden curriculum so we're doing we're working on an explicit curriculum but we have this hidden curriculum that's not keeping up with that and this really kind of this hidden curriculum teaches students whether we're serious about our work and our commitments to climate justice um you know i think that that giving this attention this year amid this really uh you know huge docket of other things that you have to do does it kind of would it would recommit in a way to 5272 it wouldn't it would allow for students to be involved in the implementation of this i think in a way that would be really important um you know i think one of the most important things we can do amidst the pandemic right now and everything else that students have on their plates is to to just really try to inspire hope um you know that change in this world is possible and i think that showing them that change can happen at an institutional level at pps is one way that we can do that and it can get back to that core principle of 5272 that i've talked to people around the country about which is that you know we are working to inspire students to see themselves as activists for social environmental justice um so thanks again for your time tonight
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and for for uh considering this thank you thanks we have sophia england hi i'm sophia england i'm a senior at my high school uh my pronouns are she her okay i would like to thank the portland public school board policy committee um for this opportunity as a student on behalf of many students those of us with plans for our futures would like to see this as the world's priority let alone pbs to be a student learning about the threats of climate change and the massive shifts necessary to avoid the irreversible chaos very school is teaching us this content not take the crisis seriously it's hypocritical and demonstrates that these goals are unrealistic pbs claims it's for racial justice and equity but as the crisis is affecting communities far more rpps to say this policy isn't the correct makes clear that those people aren't either the rebuilding of madison high school is a perfect opportunity to make a sustainable building and set the pace for transitions in the festive schools as well as an awesome opportunity to make the most diverse school portland and also located on 82nd a leader in this movement but long before the school was torn down they wouldn't even consider the proposals from staff and students we understand that these are big commitments and that they aren't cheap but to not commit would be to continue to endanger our futures students and teachers have had pushing for action on behalf of pps for years now taking time away from their education because of the mess your generations have left behind but you still owe it to us to do everything in your power to prevent that our entire existence wrestled this crisis your job is to raise an empowered generation that is set up for success who ignore this will not be doing your job you know this is the right thing to do please don't be on the wrong side we're counting on you thank you thank you ray blackbird good evening pps policy committee my name is ray blackburn i'm 17 years old i had a senior madison high school and tonight i'm going to tell you about something that i'm sure you've all heard hundreds a hundred times before probably even from kids like me stressed out and tired of telling adults what they already know the climate crisis is here and anything less than priority won't really cut it anymore so i'm using these two minutes to speak to you about my priorities the future of my classmates and brothers are our foreigns and schools and the future that we all share is at stake i'm currently in the climate justice elective in my high school and i'm really happy to be there to be learning the class of my peers about how our environment has been so taken for granted as to show every summer with record-breaking temperatures longer fire seasons and regulations but the truth is all of us should be learning about climate change never before has has a generation been faced with a crisis like this and right now there is no required curriculum centered around educating young people the most effective generation this is the problem that we can all fix access to education and knowledge about fighting climate change can be for everyone so i'm here speaking for my classmates and all those that are going to come after me together we can implement district-wide climate justice education privileged white students like myself are largely the face and voice of the youth climate activism movement in portland however low-income black and brown students are generally the most impacted by climate change and in order to build a more inclusive future for our education system we need to include everyone in fighting this battle implementing the climate crisis response policy would be a great first step so let's take it thank you so much for your time and understanding we can overcome this crisis together thank you erica elvarka hello my name is erica um ella barca that's a-l-a-b-a-r-c-a the hair pronoun i'm a seventh grade language arts political studies teacher at roseman heights middle school i've been a teacher in the district for 12 years also a member of the climate justice committee i want to stress the urgency of this moment we have catastrophic fires devastating tropical storms growls we had a hurricane a sad entire day over
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the bahamas and the amazon forest on fire not only that the tundra in this in siberia we're not taking drastic kinks now by 2030 we know that we've reached the tipping point we don't even need to wait nine years to see what that future entails we are living elements of it right now uh in a conversation i had with james holt the member of the nez perce and one time director of the confluence and environmental project he talked about the ship the climate resiliency the meaning that we need to develop waste beyond the climate crisis we face now imagine that native americans who are spearheading some of the newest innovations in science protect native species and also carrying thousands of years of science and observation embedded in their culture and traditions are the ones having to provide the sound reality check of what it means to prepare for our futures i also want to point out the portrait of a graduate that is such an obvious focus of our curriculum and instruction you have ideas of collaborative problem solving critical thinking transformative racial equity leaders if a portrait of a graduate is what it's supposed to be it should be plain to see that climate justice touches all of these elements and when i was a student that my students age the conversation about environment is much different but the idea that change needed happened was there in 10 years or 12 years ago when it started students also wondered what we could do with the environment and now i have students today who are face-to-face with the climate crisis who are also asking what can we do while others are answering probably nothing what will they have to tell their children about how we didn't do enough for the environment well it was never made a priority that's not really an acceptable answer so i know you have a lot on your plate i just want to um i just want to make a couple points the policies you make set a direction an articulated path to getting there little houses also unintentionally block the things that are most needed for students and indicators so be careful of those policies and also you have educators and students who are in this with energy and dedication and that's an asset we work with these kids every day they're strong they're resilient they're ready to step up they want to engage in these difficult situations and conversations so please make it a priority that their voices are heard not in appreciation not in acknowledges acknowledgements but an actual action that support or its only clear path um to the work we've made it their job to do thank you okay thank you thank you do we have any other speakers one more rachel haynes i don't actually see your name on here so i just wanted to call it in case okay um thank you for everybody who spoke um thank you for everybody's patience today um we will get back to you with um an updated uh calendar invite for the next meeting um and um you know as scott says forward forward forward um so i'm gonna close this down here i'm late for my next meeting so um thank you everybody and see you in a few weeks uh stay safe and healthy everybody thanks um the student reps me and jillian on any um emails that are related to this committee yeah

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 - Committee Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDVmokTZiuGv_HR3Qv7kkmJU (accessed: 2023-10-14T00:59:52.903034Z)

2020-10-05 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board Policy Committee Meeting 10/05/2020

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