2020-10-20 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-10-20
Time	18:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 10/20/2020

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board of education for october 20th 2020 is called the order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted as required by state law this meeting is being streamed live on pbs tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times welcome to tonight's board meeting we're going to begin with another recognition proclamation resolution to recognize some of our employees superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this item i would love to chair lowry good evening um i'd like to invite our chief of school support uh brenda martinick up to say a few words about our school psychologists thank you as you know november 9th through the 13th is national school psychologist week tonight we want to recognize our school psychologist for all of their hard work and dedication to our students and families here in pps school psychologists are uniquely qualified members of school teams that support students abilities to learn and teachers abilities to teach they apply expertise in special ed evaluations mental health supports academic learning behavior plans in order to help our students succeed they partner with families teachers and school administrators and other professionals to create safe healthy and supportive learning environments which strengthen connections between home school and the community in addition to this our schools support our multi-tiered systems of support teams to identify students strengths and their needs and to promote equitable outcomes through academic and social emotional tiered supports they also specialize in our special education testing eligibility and legal requirements around access and supports for students with disabilities our school psychologists apply their training and expertise to help ensure that every student is able to realize the graduate portrait in order to lead a more socially just world so thank you thank you brenda the board will now bring forward resolution number 6192 resolution to recognize november 9th through 13th 2020 as national school psychology week do i have a motion so moved protected all right director from edwards moves could you try again and director bailey's second so director broome edwards moves and director bailey's seconds and we've got siri talking to us too or alexa or somebody um okay miss bradshaw is there any public comment on resolution 6192 no is there any board discussion on this resolution i know that we would all echo what uh ms martinick brought forward to us about the importance of school psychologists and uh the wellness of um children as far as a key part of their ability to live into that graduate portrait and so it is uh wonderful to be able to to have this resolution to recognize the importance of um school psychology and director i would just echo that i actually had just a quick se but i can't everything is seems to be uh lost on my computer so i just wanted to echo that how important that really is and those words in the resolution and and yeah very very happy to vote in support of it so thanks for that carol lowry i just want to thank uh i want to add my and underline my appreciation for our dedicated school psychologists uh as well and appreciate the board's recognition of their work all right any further discussion there we go i think it's important to recognize we're in a pretty big mental health crisis in this country right now with huge increase in people trying to reach out to deal with anxiety depression [Music] so the the role of psychologists is even more important now all right the board will now vote on resolution 619 which resolves that the board of education of portland public schools extends greetings and best best wishes to all observing november 9th through 13th 2020 as national school psychology week all in favor please indicate by saying
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yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6192 resolution to recognize november 9th through 13 2020 as national school psychology week is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes thank you nathaniel all right we move now uh to the board consent agenda board members if there are any items you would like to pull we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of the meeting are there any items you would like to pull from the consent agenda great miss bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda no do i have a motion and second to adopt the consent agenda so i moved second all right director scott moves and director constant seconds the adoption of the consent agenda is there any board discussion on the consent agenda i just wanted to i'm sorry go ahead now go ahead amy i just wanted to take note of one of the contracts with the clash group which is uh highlights the diversification of our contracting for the the huge um piece of work that is our construction management and i think we're gonna dig into this a little bit at our school improvement bond committee meeting our next time to better understand um how we are breaking up these contracts and how we arrived at that but um i support that strategy and this is i believe the well this is the second to come through the first was with hiri which is our who with whom we had originally contracted but it's good to see so i also want to just note that we have um an extension of the lease to kairos on the agenda and i guess i want to highlight that they sent a request to the board this summer about their lease terms and given that we're in the latter part of the fall it would be good to i would support us setting a timeline for trying to get a response back to them on their request of us i i fully support the lease extension as well is there any further discussion on the content agenda all right the board will now vote on resolutions 6193 through six one nine eight all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes thank you nathaniel all right we're going to take a brief commercial break here to uh do some more encouraging of voting now that we've all voted twice see how i did that uh and director berm edwards and director bailey are going to share with us a little bit about the bond and why you should vote yes on the bond uh pbs bond that's on the ballot for november 3rd dr bailey would you like to go first i would um wow this is the third bond um that i've been a part of in some way or another a number of us were on the ground floor in 2012 when we met the lucky lab and got this bond program started it's i'm really excited that's continuing i think it's uh it's a huge statement on the part of voters that they have supported us modernizing our buildings we have a long way to go so we have what over 80 school buildings and i think what do we have to six that are up to current safety for a big earthquake and so we're going to be looking at having to modernize all of them over the coming decades but in the meantime we have to take care of the buildings that aren't yet modernized and that means taking care of roofs if you let water into a building bad things happen and that's why roofs are so important and also i assume there's some exterior brick work uh as part of that as well to keep the
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water out it is crucial uh we'll also be investing in uh replacing some hvac systems nobody wants to have the heating go out in the middle of december in their school building uh even if there's nobody in it and we're learning how important good ventilation is as well that's part of an hvac system i'm excited about the security improvements that we started in the last bond on our continuing and we'll continue the health and safety work we took care of a lot of the big chunks in dealing with leading the water lead paint radon and asbestos but there's uh it's it's like any old buildings there's always more work to be done there to improve the safety for occupants so there's just just great great stuff in this bond anywhere you look it's gonna touch pretty much every building in the uh in the district in some way or another um and it's really focused on what's needed now so i'm i'm very happy that we're on now a regular maintenance schedule for our buildings going forward and as well as replacing um and modernizing as we go ahead thanks so i'm going to build on directors bailey's comments i think it's important to understand to frame it up that it's all all that work that director bailey just outlined will be done while keeping us at our current tax rate um so those are investments that will impact every student every classroom in every school i want to just highlight two particular aspects um they've been talked about before but just to remind voters are in the package um first i want to share um from a message that um the social justice youth community sent out today including with a new video about the accessibility improvements that are in this package so an excerpt from their communication so measure 26 215 calls for landmark commitment of funds to support a vital inflection point at pps and creates a thoughtful investment in both physical buildings that are more accessible and safer as well as equipped for the 21st century needs of all students the voices that can be heard on this new video the disability rights our civil rights vote yes on measure 26 215 created by members of the social justice social justice group outlines the critical investments that are going to be made so in the bond um this the bond will make investments that after 30 years of the ada law passing every the first floor of every building uh will be made accessible um this is a heartening step forward and an indication of how long accessibility concerns have languished since the passage of the ada is a huge step forward they also highlight the other investments in this package that are critical to equity and excessive accessibility and they include 128 million dollars in technology including assistive technology 13 million to improve teaching and learning environments for diverse learners 183 million and the health and safety improvements um and again i would encourage people to there's a five-minute video of our our teachers students alums um allies talking about the how important the these investments will be to our our students and you can see that at yes pdxschools.com it's a it's a great video we'll recognize um some of the people in it um as they are again staff and students and alums um in addition the second thing in the bond that i wanted to highlight is just the continuation of our long-term plans um to modernize all our high schools um in essence this bond if it's passes um will really mark i think that the closing chapter of the the high schools um will have the modernization the full modernization of jefferson a school that was built in 1909 and also we'll get cleveland high school and wilson high school shovel ready um with a big investment in design and planning for those modernizations and then in addition there will be an investment in north portland and roosevelt in planning for um an expansion given um the the positive enrollment changes that happened there so two key um things in this package that will really speak to um both equity and accessibility and i think on the strength of this package i want to share just since we had our last meeting um the bond package that this board that
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the staff and board created um and the board referred to the voters it's been pressure tested and multiple forums and pleased to report that both the um oregonian and willamette week have endorsed the measure and encouraged a yes vote for the package so thank you julia did i forget to mention that we are getting all this at the same tax rate that we have now yes say that enough scott yes this is a renewal of the same rate so um it will uh not increase your taxes to vote on this to vote yes on this all right we are going to move now to student and public comment before we begin i want to review our guidelines for comment um the board thanks for the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments tonight we have a special treat we have a video comment because um our meeting is past the bedtime for our student so we'll be receiving their comments via video um public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns and our responsibility as a board is to actively listen board members and the superintendent will not respond to comments or questions during public comment but our board office will follow up on board-related issues raised during public testimony we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment at pps.net and we've already received some materials from some of those folks speaking tonight so thank you for that please make sure when you begin your comment that you click clearly state your name and spell your last name you will have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after three minutes which means it's time to conclude your comments ms bradshaw do we have anyone signed up for student or public comment tonight yes let's start with nigel whaling hi um my name is nigel whaling w-e-h-l-i-n-g and my pronouns are he hit i am a 10th grader at lincoln high school i want to share my experience with the online learning so far and the five issues i have had one i have to juggle this new learning environment with eight subjects which is double the amount of other high schools each teacher uses everything differently and has different expectations i must learn the extra applications each teacher decides to use as well two i don't understand some of my teachers expectations because i can't just raise my hand and ask a question in one class i had a really important question on the assignment and email my teacher she never applied i had to turn in a half completed assignment because i didn't understand it three since asynchronous time is used differently every single day i never know what to expect i had a doctor's appointment during one of my asynchronous classes we had a surprise test that day i had to take that test while i was in a car going to my doctor's appointment i couldn't submit it because of the lack of energy four no adult seems to understand that our world has changed they expect us to do things the way they were done last year we have eight periods we attend class six hours a day we are graded we are assigned tons of homework even more now because teachers seem to feel disconnected from us for four weeks i worked on that computer 77 hours per week 16 to 24 hours in class and 53 to 61 hours doing online homework while trying to figure out how the new system worked my weekends were 12 hours of online homework on both days i was exhausted five during that time i was working 77 hours per week and i got nine migrants it was from starting at the screen for all the others i recently changed my classes to land the workload but this is how your decisions have affected me as a student at lincoln high school thank you thank you um next we have matilda barth and that is our video comment roseanne are you ready to present that can you enable my screen sharing of course there you go
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i don't have any volume do other can other people hear her no it looks like we don't have volume still no volume it may be that you need to whoever's presenting might need to click turn on original sound on your zoom meeting um because the computer will suppress the background noise so it should be on the top left of your zoom window turn on original sound can we come back to this public comment and move on while i try to figure this out of course ms bradshaw do we have further public comment yes we have gretchen gaming hi hi i'm ready for my statement could you speak up just a little bit i'm having a hard time hearing you is anybody else it's that i'm also having a hard time hearing that's much better gretchen can you hear me now okay uh my name is gretchen gainey g-a-n-e-y she her and i'm a teacher at irvington thank you for your time this evening i would like to share information about the state of our literacy instruction at pps and the urgent need to continue to fund the letters professional development for our k5 educators i'm aware that funding sources may dry up but training for pbs teachers in the science of reading is not a line item that should be cut if anything it should be expanded in light of the cuts that will inevitably need to be made after all what is the most critical skill we can give to our students the gift of literacy reading is something that many of us take for granted especially if we were among the 40 of students who learned to read no matter what the teacher did the other 60 of students require direct explicit systematic instruction that sadly most teachers including myself have not been prepared to give despite the fact that i have two degrees in education a reading endorsement and i've been a teacher for 21 years i've only recently through orton gillingham and the letters professional development been exposed to the type of structured literacy to teaching reading that i should have gotten as a beginning tutor the more i learn about how we learn to read and write the more i feel a sense of urgency as i recognize that huge numbers of students are not getting this critical instruction from the beginning of their school careers and each year that a child fails to learn to read it becomes harder and often impossible for him or her to catch up with grade level peers each year the gap widens currently there aren't enough reading interventionists to remediate the reading instruction for so many learners this model has to shift to one in which we expect every single k2 teacher and eventually k5 teacher to be a highly trained and skilled teacher of english reading a child's success should not depend on which kinder first or second grade classroom he or she landed in pps thanks to the dedicated drumming appearance and organizations such as decoding dyslexia and some fabulous reporting by journalist emily hanford of american public media a broader recognition that teachers must be trained in the science of reading has begun legislation passed in oregon and around the country has addressed the needs for comprehensive screening and of instruction for students with potential reading difficulties how does that translate to everyday classroom our district and districts around the country have invested in critical reading curricula and supplemental reading materials that are not based in the science of reading and they often run counter to that science and affect teaching and encouraging students to use strategies that poor readers rely on in some most teachers do not have the professional knowledge to teach students the most effective and efficient reading strategies the answer to turning this around is high quality ongoing professional development and coaching in the science of reading and a cohort of pps teachers is currently going through a self-paced professional development model known as letters l-e-t-r-s teaching reading is the most fundamental teaching we do and yet it is one of the most complex undertakings as well research has proven if we use a systematic approach to reading instruction we could teach the majority of our students to read proficiently by the end of first grade we would save millions of dollars that we end up spending on staff and resources to remediate those students later or support some of them when they eventually drop out because they did not learn the most basic skill they needed to be successful in school and life i have said to many of my colleagues that this is literally a life or death situation for some of our students and the ability to help them should rest in our hands but we need the professional knowledge and the tools to do it effectively and efficiently thank you for your time i'm impressed
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you got that all in perfectly at three minutes that was excellent that shows you know the planning of a teacher right there miss bradshaw uh do we have further public comment yes denise archer hi i'm denise archer a-r-c-h-e-r and my pronouns are she her i am the parent of nigel whaling a lincoln high school 10th grader and here's my experience of lincoln's home distance learning as a parent before the pandemic nigel signed up for eight classes they included ib math ib chemistry and the constitution team for which he interviewed and got accepted after the pandemic i was surprised to learn that lincoln was to have eight periods while other high schools were following the 4x4 model in order to support students during an international crisis as soon as the school year began nigel would wake up and immediately get on his laptop to begin school at 9 15 a.m aside from a 15 minute lunch break and a half hour dinner break he would continue to work on his laptop until 10 30 or 11 pm when it was time to go to bed nigel looked terrible by the evening his eyes were bloodshot and he had dark circles and bags underneath them he had nine migraines in one month i began to track nigel's weekly hours he spent 77 hours per week staring at his screen working on school he had eight hours of social time and three hours of dinner time with the family all per week it appears that nobody wants to pivot the school continues offering eight periods of classes and the teachers continue assigning large amounts of work and i don't understand how it is even acceptable much less legal to withhold a student's points on a surprise correctional test during an asynchronous class because he has a neurologist appointment due to all the screen time at school nigel has always been a straight a student in fact he received his first b last year however his current progress report states four fs one d and one c because of the migraines the grades will be resolved soon with all due respect this is not an education this school year is not even admirable persistence the workload and level of stress created by lincoln's eighth period class schedule is unsustainable and pardon me toxic nigel has friends who spend more time on their computers for school than he does 14 to 16 hours per day as impossible as that sounds and these are growing teens with growing brains what i had to teach nigel is that the core of resiliency is the ability to pivot he has dropped french and will complete that during summer school he dropped khan team which is a passion project he switched from ib chem to regular chem nigel's favorite subject is math he has he's two years ahead of his peers in math so he dropped that class however there is great loss in having to give up the studies you enjoy most it's only been one week but things are looking better and i just want nigel to enjoy school and his final years as a kid thank you thank you rosette are you ready for matilda's testimony let's try this again dear portland public school board my name is matilda barth i am a fourth grader i am now a top reader and speller in my class two years ago i was even scared to look at a piece of paper like i'm doing now and try to read there were too many letters and words and i did not have the necessary skills to decode the sounds into words i have been receiving private tutoring twice and a week one hour each session two years for two years my tutoring utilizes og based curriculum which is multi-sensor g direct exquisite structured and sent i am an example of how well proper tools and education can make a difference in a student's life i'm a lucky privileged person because my parents have been able to afford to pay for my tutoring my propose here
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today talking to the pps board is to ask you to provide fair and equitable education for all students in your district by providing exquisite teacher training all students deserve the opportunity to succeed like i have been able to succeed thank you oh i'm so glad we were able to make that work thank you roseanne ms bradshaw do you we have any other public comment or student comment no that concludes our public comment board chair if i could just enter interject here i really appreciate our young students ingenuity and finding a creative way to offer her testimony during uh a time of dense distance learning and i guess we could call it distance testimony i like that distance testimony definitely we're going to continue hearing uh from our students we're going to turn now to our student representative uh nathaniel shu and hear his report tonight nathaniel are you ready um i think so can you hear me hello yes we can hear you ah great i've been having some problems i'm trialing i'm trying to dial in now uh tell me if it cuts out uh so thus far my reports have dealt almost exclusively with the affairs of our students oftentimes with a focus on the dsb and that's okay that's largely largely the purpose of these reports however i will be taking a different approach tonight today marks exactly two weeks until the november elections since these elections will have an immeasurable and direct impact on our students and the quality of their education and since i like the vast majority of our students have been prohibited from personally participating in them in my case because i was born 20 weeks short of the arbitrary cutoff date i feel that i can hardly refrain from discussing them tonight i would like to begin with our very own ballot measure 26 215 the proposal to renew our school bond well it has been said before it bears repeating that this measure is an extraordinary opportunity for the voters of our district to have a truly meaningful positive impact on their public schools without raising taxes it would raise a total of 1.208 billion dollars and utilize that money to make significant improvements in a multitude of areas from curriculum to infrastructure the single largest allocation would be for the modernization of jefferson high school's building at 311 million dollars as someone who is now in his fourth year at jefferson i can personally say that this funding is desperately needed our building which was built in large part over 110 years ago and has not been substantially renovated in over half a century has no shortage of issues from holes in the walls to widespread plumbing issues to rodent infestations to fundamental seismic vulnerabilities to simply being too outdated to adequately accommodate modern education it is quite frankly a disgrace and a disservice to the jefferson community that it has taken us this long to address these problems but now that the opportunity to do so is here the voters of our district should certainly seize it additionally this bond would advance the modernization of other schools such as by completing construction at benson polytechnic high school and providing 40 million dollars of funding for planning design and pre-construction at wilson and cleveland high school the bond would also provide 60 million dollars for the creation of an albino located center for black student excellence which would advance the district's equity goals the precise nature of this center would be largely left for the community to decide as should be the case the bond would furthermore provide 183 million dollars for as we heard previously health and safety improvements including roofs security and seismic resiliency it would allocate a combined total of 181.6 billion dollars to up 181.6 million dollars to upgrading our school's curricular and technology both of which are at this time better outdated and by investing 13.4 and 33.8 million dollars in special education and ada accessibility respectively it would considerably advance inclusive education
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in short measure 26 215 would make great progress toward pps long-term goals it would make education in our district more equitable inclusive modern and safe it would truly benefit all of our students especially those underserved historically underserved by our district and by extension our city and our state and it would do so without increasing taxes i urge all of those watching tonight to raise awareness of the bond's importance however you are able and if you are allowed please vote in favor in case you don't already know the campaign website is yes pbxschools.com finally i would like to conclude by mentioning the national level elections and more specifically the presidential election i understand that most of those watching tonight have likely been pretty tuned in to national election news and that this is not the form through which such matters are normally discussed but in all likelihood this election shall dictate the future of our nation and our world it will determine the society into which our students will graduate so this much i will say please vote vote bearing in mind that you are choosing a future for those of us who cannot do so ourselves vote bearing in mind that in our nation's response to the climate crisis the continued existence of humanity may very well be at stake vote bearing in mind that the united states status as a constitutional republic a liberal democracy and a relatively free and plural society is contingent on the elections outcome vote with the utmost level of care and intention thank you and that will conclude my report thank you student representative shu for your leadership and for uh your words tonight um i think we can all take them to heart as we consider thoughtfully consider um our choices this election superintendent guerrero do you have a report to share with us tonight thank you chair i do but um nathaniel just made it a very hard act to follow i do have uh just a few slides i'm now giving away all my secrets there roseanne it's you know again as our teachers and our students are dealing with distance learning and all of the technological pieces it's i think uh good to model that um we too have uh a lot to navigate and it's always good to see you know behind the curtain superintendent guerrero well good evening directors we try to be prepared and what we want to share and this superintendent's report on the regular meeting board agenda is generally an opportunity for me to share with our broader community highlights of all that occurs across our school district that illustrates the work the progress towards our district priorities as well as remark on the challenges that we're facing as a school system it's it has also been an opportunity for me to provide some personal reflections on the state of affairs impacting our students their families and our lives so i've spoken on the inhumane ways our immigrant community has been treated in our community and what it means to stand up for black lives and i've also used this space to celebrate the way our students show up each and every day living into our vision of students being prepared to as our vision states lead change and improve the world so tonight i'm going to try to do all three so next slide so back in the 1990s i was an idealistic educator in the heart of san francisco's mission district i walked into my first classroom assignment determined to make a lasting impact on the lives of these pictured fourth graders uh convinced that if i provided them with a rigorous and engaging experience that they might go on to lead successful and thriving lives what i learned from them however is that while as educators you know we have a responsibility to to be prepared but also focus on creating a joyful
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learning space and opportunities that our students are more than equipped to think big to demand bigger so again pictured here is my first official class of students uh back in the early 90s i was a fourth grade spanish bilingual teacher arguably the best year of my professional career what i thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated about this formative experience was seeing these students find their spark their joy their love of learning but as important was the way in which they led change in the community so this picture is actually super special for me to me for for very various reasons behind the students you might notice that there are some building scaffolds my students were collaborating in the design of a mural decorating the school with some really important themes to to us at a time when latinos in the mission including my students were advocating for the expression of our culture through public art and now it's a must see in the neighborhood when you visit san francisco what you don't see in the picture is a younger long-haired version of your superintendent thank you for the surprise gift to our students of room 10. so imagine elementary age students thinking big leading change and improving the world so next slide here in portland i've seen the way in which our students have also shown up on friday as part of our council of great city schools annual conference students from across the country participated in a town hall on racial equity and social justice we were fortunate to have one of pps's own students on the panel carmela thomas a senior at grant high school who on top of being one of this year's rose festival princesses is also president of mecca and leads teach-ins on topics of race at the school as part of the school's race forward initiative directors i know many of you were tuned in to this incredible panel and were moved by the way in which these students showed up carmella showcased the very best of portland public schools attributes of the graduate portrait we aspire for all of our young leaders a transformative racial equity leader powerful and effective communicator reflective empathetic and empowering optimistic future oriented so carmella like you heard nathaniel tonight is one of thousands of students who already possess these attributes and i'm so very proud that many colleagues across the country we're able to get a taste of how incredible our young people are uh i was i was listening attentively to nathaniel you just can't say it any better uh shout out also to the grant high school dance collective of which carmela was selected last year's mvp for also sharing their prior recorded performance during the conference next slide so living into the attributes of the graduate profile and as an extension our educator essentials is especially important during a moment of national reckoning on racial injustice so students all over our city are speaking up demanding change and leading the way students like aiden carter from rosa parks elementary school featured here on the front cover of times for kids leading protests to declare unequivocally the black lives matter students like janaya casey and rio meyer of lincoln high school who are creating safe and youth-led spaces for students to express their voices openly or like last week when pps students met with city commissioner joanne hardesty to insist that our elected officials live into our commitment to racial equity and social justice or as jania says and i quote black lives matter is not just a 2020 issue black lives have and always will matter no matter what so i'll bring my superintendent's report to a close but uh it would behoove me uh to share a few thoughts ahead of uh the upcoming election also uh which is a really important component of living in a democracy earlier director director brim edward shared with you that young people had created a video highlighting that disability rights are civil and human rights on your screen is daniel jarvis holland a benson high school graduate and rachel stev a cleveland high school graduate and leaders for the social justice youth
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group at northwest down syndrome association in two weeks voters across the country and in our community will have the important will have the opportunity to make important choices the run-up to this year's election and the potential scenarios that follow it are at the same time understandably already causing a great deal of anxiety across our communities especially for our students staff and families of color so staff is preparing guidance to make sure district and community supports are are advertised and made available to our students and educators and are also seeking input from from our school leaders and educators and here's what i hope to be true on november 3rd that our community will lean into our core values of respect racial equity and social justice and keeping our students at the center that our community will be compassionate critical thinkers who as i described earlier are thinking big and demanding bigger and that our community is listening that they are listening to our young people's demand for a more socially just world i know that our school board will be expressing their commitment to living into a more socially just world by joining the oregon state board of education and making it clear our district's position on black lives matter and expressions of hate in schools and i want to thank you in advance for your words and and uh actions and that concludes my remarks for this evening thank you thank you superintendent guerrero for your very powerful report highlighting the incredible work our students are already doing to lead and to make this world a more just an equitable place and the department oregon department of education is also engaged in that work and last week ode passed a black lives matter resolution and urged school districts to create and nurture an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students families and employees in which all students belong i was heartened personally by the step that our state leaders took as it is in alignment with the resolution we passed in june number 6130 that says in support of re-centering the pps student experience through supportive and affirming people culture and climate that's the name of the resolution the sentiment in that resolution is more important now than ever and as the resolution stated we need to be a community that not only expresses but also lives a commitment to every person's fundamental right to human dignity we commit to eliminating the racism and oppression oppression embedded in pps and rebuilding it as an education system that affirms positive identities nurtures a sense of belonging and promotes a joy of learning and superintendent i want to thank you for your continued commitment to racial equity and social justice and for modeling what it means to be an equity leader i'd also say that as board chair these last several months it's been wonderful to be able to make mistakes to live into my white dominant culture and do all the things that are acts of white supremacy like valuing urgency um prioritizing perfection and to be in a space with the rest of the board that we're working through that we're calling each other in to new practices and we're working on modeling different behaviors and so i really appreciate the authentic lived out practice of this board and of our senior leadership to grow and change and for us to be able to stop and say in the midst of doing something wait a minute we're we're rehearsing the same old script we're following into the same bad patterns and be able to shift and adjust with grace and with um forgiveness towards one another and with a real commitment to learn so um i just so appreciate both how this organization is shifting for our community but also for me personally and the ways that i am being allowed to grow and learn um as chair and as a member of the board would any of board members like the ode resolution i i think everybody's waiting for me to go um i i i agree with you i also appreciate um the superintendent's leadership on this issue if anybody on this call would like to see um a commitment to black lives matter that's on this call today it would be me i'd love to see it yesterday or even you know 10 years ago um i i fully support the district's targeted universalism and focusing our our um our theory of action our strategies on
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on addressing racial equity inequities um yeah i i i also support um giving this more time to be more intentional as i was looking at the resolution over the weekend i see some places where i think that needs to be strengthened and i'd like to be more intentional specifically about um uh calling out anti-black racism and and i'd like to see us be um quite a bit more intentional in our language um recognizing that when we're not intentional or when we're not um when we're not using real words that we're um prioritizing the comfort of white people and in order for us to actually do institutional organizational change we need to be using explicit language um you know to back up our intent and um so yeah that's um i i just i look forward to getting you know doing this work with all of you and appreciate your interrupting white dominant ways of um of working especially around trying to be perfect and rushing things through it it's never worked for communities of color to operate that way and so um i i i'm supportive of moving slowly more slowly and more intentionally and i hope i can help ward smith that resolution it needs a little bit of work um so i also just want to thank the superintendent for his leadership in this area and and also my fellow board members um for all the things that um chair lowry talked about in terms of how we're pushing one another and i'll be really brief but you know something you said that just struck me about you know resolutions are important but they're completely insufficient and and let's just be honest that passing a resolution is actually one of those things that makes us feel good and accomplishes very little to nothing and so um i agree take some time get it right but um really it's our actions it's how we move forward it's what we actually do every day it's walking that talk which is going to be important in terms of changing the culture of the district and by changing the culture of the district we change the culture of the community um and contribute significantly to that so um so thanks to super done and all the staff and my fellow board members for helping um sort of push us all along on this on this journey so it's perfect that i'm going to follow director scott because i um sort of endorse his comment um that uh sort of governing by resolution it's easy to put something on the agenda it it gets voted and then it goes into the next meetings minutes and i think um when i look at what the state board of education did and setting a framework for all the school districts around the state to have a conversation about what it means to belong what sort of what what symbolisms mean to our students and staff how we welcome and include students and what happens when there are acts or symbols of exclusion and so i think we've got a great framework to work in um and i think it's while we'll take the time to craft a policy or if we're going to do a resolution i think probably the most important thing we can do is over the next three to six weeks when i think our country is going to go through a very challenging national conversation no matter what happens that lots of our students and our staff are going to need extra supports and probably the most important thing we did is make the investments last spring in the budget to provide additional supports to our students but you know i think while we're doing the longer term work to remember that our students are looking to the district's leaders to provide support for them but it probably um is going to be a very challenging and in some case traumatic environment for lots of our our students and staff and it's our responsibilities as leaders to continue to provide that support so i'm looking forward to the discussion and ways in which we can provide tangible support and not just passing a resolution i i totally agree with that director medwards and it's exactly along the lines that i was thinking of and i think it's important for us when we make these symbolic gestures which i think are important in and of themselves it's important to connect them to um the commitments that we're making in a very um pragmatic and tangible way for example um was just working with a group of community leaders who founded this um pdx love over hate
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group and connected them with our list of student supports for honest school by school and also with our um triage team that now can respond to hate incidents that were trained to respond to hate incidents in our school environments and now you know they they still need to be able to respond to unfortunately those kind of incidents in a virtual environment because they're still happening they're still affecting our school communities so i hope that we're always doing what we can to make sure that those investments and those commitments are really reaching everybody who needs them and that people know what's available all right thank you all i know that this is something we will continue to work on and live into as we move forward um we're now headed into our um division 22 report um and so superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this next item yes i would uh the next item is our and we do these now and then is a division 22 update and i'm going to invite our deputy superintendent who who bears the lead responsibility on this uh dr craig cuellar uh and i think joined by our cao dr luis valentino who are going to provide uh our annual report to you yeah good evening chair lowry vice chair bailey members of the board and uh thank you superintendent guerrero yes i'm also joined by dr valentino our cao as well as linda smith um our director of tag and ib as well as aurora terry our senior director of college of courageous and also daniel cogan one of our project administrators is also joining us as well this is the yearly requirement for all districts in oregon uh to share with the community and the school board compliance with our oregon administrative rules in which we are held accountable and responsible to as a school district so today's presentation we'll make sure we go we're going to go through the detailed community report and i'm not seeing the presentation yet is it is it showing sorry i was trying to open it actually in something else not yet we still have our bright even bunch view there we go we can go to the next slide uh so as a quick overview the division 22 administrative rules assurances is a joint commitment between all school districts in oregon and the ode in providing a high quality educational experience and equitable opportunities for all students in our care as part of our shared responsibility to provide quality service for our students and communities this system promotes reciprocal accountability between school districts and the oregon department of ed the assurances articulate the floor of the education to be provided to students not the ceiling so compliance with division 22 oregon administrative rules ensures a basic level of service across the state so the division 22 assurances process will offer an opportunity for districts not in compliance to reflect on areas in need of intention and alignment plan to how to address them and to make sure that we are also receiving the technical assistance needed to move into compliance next slide please this is a review of last year's division 22 community report that i presented to the school board on january 7th the district certified compliance with all 54 oars except for four and here is a status update on those specific oars that are listed here on the slide for media programs the ode determined that pps was actually in compliance the corrective action plan provided to the ode indicated that eps demonstrated compliance because we met the requirements by having certified teacher librarians in every school and by having articulated program goals and program services additionally we exceeded the expectations for the oar as we are in the process of aligning our program goals to the oregon school library standards and associated k-14 learning goals with common core state standards and within our gvc framework for teacher training related to dyslexia the district is also now in compliance having completed the corrective action
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plan i'm excited uh later tonight in the board work session we're going to be able to learn more about the great work that's going to be that's taking place in dyslexia so i'm really excited about that later for program and services for tag the corrected action plan was approved the district applied for an extension to the say oar in august and we're going to share more in more detail around that oar later in this presentation and for instructional materials adoption the corrective action plan was also approved because the district was not able to be in compliance with all instructional materials adoption by the beginning of the 2021 school year the board did pass resolution 6164 approving the postponement of the oar this oar is waived however for the 2019 2020 division 22 assurances next slide please before we do move forward in the presentation i think it's important that we do take a step back and celebrate um just the progress we've made as a school system um and here we're highlighting in the past three years the specific oars that we have moved into compliance which is i think is really important sometimes it's very very easy for us to focus on the opportunity gaps but i think it's also important for us to also celebrate the progress that we have made as a school system in moving into compliance such as the complaint procedures such as prevention education and drugs and alcohol the human sexuality education media programs and teacher training related to dyslexia so the team has done incredible incredible work in the last three years to continue to move us forward um you know hopefully towards full compliance in the future on april 16th uh the state i'm sorry next slide on april 16 2020 the state board adopted a new administrative rule um and this rule establishes the division 22 assurances in effect for the 2019 and 20 school year accommodating for the school closures and providing appropriate flexibility to districts during this unprecedented time school districts will be required to report on the division 22 standards included in this new rule any standard not included in this new rule is waived for the 2019-20 school year and tonight we'll be reporting on the 17 standards for the 2019 and 20 school year next slide please and listed here on this slide are the 17 oars we are responsible for reporting on in this community report the ode reduced the number of standards from 54 to 17 and note that we are not i just want the board to also note that we are not reporting on the instructional materials adoption for 2019 and 20 for instance again we are moving from reporting on 54 oars down to 17 um where there was a significant reduction of of the x of the x expected compliance that we were needed to be in compliance for so um this just points out to the 17 standards that we are being held accountable for by the od next slide please um the state made another change to the division 22 process by moving the reporting date to the fall and this is why we are reporting in late october opposed to the previous timeline that we were held to um the previous timeline had us reporting in january uh this new change now gives us the most of the current school year to put in place action plans the correct areas we're out of compliance in which is great because now we'll have the majority of the school year to put our action plans in place and hopefully move towards compliance to the following school year next slide please so this means for the 2019 and 20 assurance process uh the district will report to their local school board and post the report to our webpage no later than november 1 2020. um districts will then report assurances to the ode no later than november the 15th of 2020. shifting the division 22 assurances timeline to the fall will allow the ode to review district submissions and provide districts with actionable feedback on the corrective action plans earlier in the year giving districts additional time to implement their corrective plans in order to achieve compliance by the start of the next school year the november 15 submission deadline will permanently replace the february 15 submission deadline going forward this is really really good news because this can help stretch our timeline for moving into compliance next slide please and this is just a side-by-side summary chart that looks at the side-by-side comparison of requirements as we can see previously
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the requirements we were held to 54 standards this in for this current school year we're being held to 17 standards and really that flexibility was designed to accommodate the school year um which was disrupted by the pandemic uh this also talks about the february 15th deadline um no longer being um the hard the hard timeline for us moving forward will be november 50. next slide so we are in compliance with all 17 of the standards for 2019 and 20 accept programs and services for tag students portland public school district was not able to complete the corrective action by the start of the 2021 year due to the state mandated early closure of school districts due to the pandemic and the introduction of distance learning to staff and students access to school and district buildings was not allowed hindering sufficient access to teachers and students during the limited online learning and this is also cited in the memo that the board received in advance so with that being said i would like to go ahead and turn it over to our director of tagging ib linda smith we'll go into a little more detail specific to this oar linda well we're switching to linda can i just ask a quick question that's okay um the the corrective action plan is that a um a factor that came about because of previous years of not being in compliance or is that is it a corrective action plan because we had a complaint last year in the 2019 hi everyone aurora himal senior director of college and career readiness in the 2019-2020 school year we did state that we were out of compliance for providing services for tag students uh so we were working on a corrective action plan that included training for teachers to correct for that so the investor is the investigation separate sorry i'm just trying to understand yes correct so our corrective action was because we are non-compliant for division 22. then separately there is a a formal complaint that was made to the state that we're out of compliance for all three of the oars so the current investigation is in regards to the parent complaint the form and not because we were out of compliance last year thank you all right linda i can see that you're talking to us but i can't hear you so i don't know if you're unmuted oh there we go i got it sorry about that you're on a little screen so yes there are two separate things um sorry director brim edwards um i i didn't realize that uh so yes they're two separate things the parent um appeal was done in the late spring or in february and and then the other corrective action was for the previous um non-compliance of selecting non-compliance so beginning this year in september 2020 pbs teachers will receive the right level training from their building tag facilitators and tag facilitators also receive mentally professional development from our department from the tag department on best practices for tag students focusing on strategies for differentiating assess rate and level of learning as well as key characteristics of a tagged student the professional development is shared at the building sites by the facilitators as well as through asynchronous learning activities in canvas new teacher training will also include identifying tech students and the characteristics of a tag student and how to assess the rate and level of already identified tagged students while providing best practice strategies for students to meet a tag student's rate and level of learning new professional development for new teacher professional development will be provided during the professional development time that will take place during the first few days that's already taken place of the teacher in service through canvas or the asynchronous models that we've provided and the tag department is also collaborating with steam and humanities to embed best practices for tech students in professional development as well in the lesson planning asynchronous and synchronous professional development will also be available for teachers
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monthly on canvas beginning in october 2020 i guess it's the next slide all right yep so good evening [Music] chair laurie directors superintendent so as we move into 2020 the understanding that on september 17th the state board adopted a new administrative rule for the school year and this rule establishes the division 20 22 the 20 the division 22 standards in effect for this school year which is a continued modification and accommodation due to the school closures providing appropriate flexibility for school districts during this unprecedented time and school districts will be required to report on the division 22 standards included in this new rule however any standard not included in this new rule is waived for the 2020-2021 school year as you will see on the right side of the slide that includes personalized learning requirements for the diploma vision and hearing screening the pe minutes and modifications to the instructional time rule next slide please and so as we move into the 20 2021 school year we anticipate being in compliance once again with all the three oars the first is the instructional materials adoption and as referenced in the staff report from august of this school year pps has been unable to purchase comprehensive curriculum resources in content areas described by division 22. over the course of the last few years the school district has made concerted efforts to supplement existing court materials or has done partial adoptions with the limited funding being provided however through the proposed bond investment we hope to adopt comprehensive culturally relevant curricular resources and materials for k-12 classrooms across all disciplines this investment will put our district in compliance with the state required adoption timeline and will provide updated resources and materials across core subject areas including language arts math science social sciences the arts and the social emotional learning program the second oar in which we will be out of compliance is the physical education requirement the oer is new as of the 2019-20 school year uh the these requirements were in place previously however they were not part of division 22 until the 2019-2020 school year the requirements were waived in 2019-2020 due to the interruption to the school year the minute requirements have been waived for this year as well however the district will be out of compliance because students in the middle grades will not be participating in pe throughout the school year as required by the modified oar of students having physical education throughout the school year middle grade students in pps are enrolled in one quarter of pe per grade level for the 2020 2021 school year the third oar which we will be out of compliance will be the tag related oers and as linda linda smith just shared we are currently still under an audit under programs and services for tag students and ode has indicated that once the audit is concluded that most likely the corrective action will include pps needing to make corrective actions across the three tag related oars and so that that completes the the division 22 uh presentation i will uh turn it back to our deputy superintendent dr claire thank you dr valentino um and board that does conclude our presentation um if there are any questions the team and i are here to answer anything that you may have so i have a question um so i'm glad to see the progress that's been made um on some long-standing issues that um have been before pps that we haven't met the sort of basic standards um i would like to ask a few questions about the um tag not compliance because um as long as i've been the board or affiliated with pps i think
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we've been out of compliance and so the question i have and i i will put a like covet astrid on it so just recognizing that we're in unusual circumstances but do we do is is there a path and plan that gets us into compliance um and recognizing that compliance is sort of is the lowest common denominator i think lots of tag talent and gifted um parents of talent to gifts to students would say sort of like that's that's the low that's the lowest bar but do we have a plan to meet that sort of basic um compliance and when when will that happen um may i respond to that um so one of the one of the um i've had the great fortune honestly since last spring in the brick and mortar visits i was able to go through 500 classrooms in the spring along with ode and this this fall doing virtual visits i've been in about 120 classrooms and virtual virtual classrooms and so um what we are seeing is the same thing that we saw on the brick and mortar visits as we're seeing um now and that is um it's it's teacher training it's not that teachers aren't doing the best that they know how it's just that in the university programs there's no teacher prep for gifted and talented education and so now the burden is on pbs to ensure that our every classroom teacher knows how to assess for rate and level of learning and that is a skill that needs to be taught so our plan is really to get to as many of those teachers as we possibly can not relying only on our tag facilitators to do that work and so with canvas the accessibility to all of our administrators and to our teach our classroom teachers having access to modules that we are preparing we're hopeful that at least through the distance learning piece and um the virtual schools schoolhouse that we're in right now that teachers will have access to that training because we don't have access to them it's going to take a long time there's a lot of teachers in pbs and you know we're going through every one of these classrooms and what i'm seeing is if we go in one building and there's one teacher ode is saying that's not doing an accessory and level of learning then we're out of compliance so if one teacher is not um meeting the assess rate and level of a student we're going to be out of compliance so that's that's a heavy lift what i can say that's been very positive an example of some great work that's happening that we've seen during virtual learning was at ockley green we went into eight of their classrooms virtually and what was nice to see is the expectation was the same throughout all of the classrooms in which the learning targets were there extensions were added to every single one of the agendas and the learning outcomes in every one of the classrooms we also saw some of the highest student participation both showing their cameras on and participating and teachers allowing students to answer questions versus the versus the teacher answering the question for the student and not waiting for that to happen so there are some real positives there's it's going to take a while it's going to take a long while we have a lot of teachers that we need to train and ensure that assessed rate and level is happening but they need to know what to look for in order to assess rate and level of learning so it's a heavy lift i'll be honest with you so and then if we you know based on the preliminary preliminary outcomes of the investigation um we'll have a lot of heavy lifting to do not only with rate and level of learning but other things that will go along with that so i think you have a follow-up but go ahead somebody else if anybody else has a question or if not i'll just jump in um i don't know if anybody's trying to turn their microphone on on but you can interrupt me if you are so i guess my second question so it sounds like um we have a plan but it may take a while um i'm assuming there's other districts in oregon larger districts that um are in compliance um have we looked at what their best practice are because i say for as long as i know pps has been out of compliance on um the division 22 tag um requirements i'm wondering if there are neighboring districts that we can sort of leverage their sort of best practices or learnings that they've had
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in order to be in compliance at that lowest bar and that's one of the great things with the investigation that's happening because i'm sitting side by side with the the tag expert at ode and so she's able to share things that are happening in other districts uh they do look they do look very different than than ours um so we're trying to take the best practices from there that she's sharing with us to bring into our canvas models that we're putting together for teachers who have boots on the ground in the work presently so that we can make that that shift um in the past it was heavily relied on the tech facilitator at the building level to do the professional development like a train the trainer model and we see that that's very difficult because there's so many things within the district that have to happen and mandates that come from the state and other compliance issues that get eaten up during professional faculty professional development and faculty meetings and such so we felt that it was very important that we could reach directly the um the teachers the ones that are actually face to face with the students and really allowing them to build capacity and what formative assessment looks like and how you use that data quickly to adjust for rate and levels so we that takes time we're doing it um we've already have our first module out um teachers and administrators have received a notification that it's there we've had many teachers already sign up so i feel like this is a good great first stab that we've not ever had before and so i feel very very um hopeful that this is going to at least get that first um breast kind of thing happening as quickly as we can going through virtual learning until we can have that face face-to-face and get into the schools and really work with teams of teachers so thank you and i really appreciate how many class that here how many classrooms you've been on because i'm sure that's really informing the work thanks it's been an amazing adventure i will just say that i've loved every minute of it and actually the first day that we did it um when we were in a kindergarten class if i can take the the liberty and that and just to see all the little round cheeks of the kindergarteners their first day it just kind of melted um angela allen and i's hearts right like we were like oh look at these kids we get to be in a classroom it's so exciting so anyway it's obvious well thank you all so much for think that that's the only classroom they know thank you all so much for your work on this and for uh this report about um our status with the division 22. um superintendent guerra i know we have another exciting uh item on our agenda tonight would you like to introduce this next item chair lowry can i interject for one second before we move on just to uh all right i thought you were finished chair constantly no i just want to uh thank aurora heimel welcome you back from your maternity leave and thank you for giving us a sneak peek at your beautiful son oh thank you so much thanks it's wonderful to be back thank you welcome back aurora well yes chair lowry we have uh yet more excitement uh still in our meeting uh left so as i think directors all know the teachers standards and practice commission uh more commonly known as tspc is oregon's licensing agency for all educators their mission is to establish and uphold professional standards of excellence and communicate those standards to the public and educators for the benefit of oregon students so the agency is led by executive director dr anthony roscellis who i think is also coming up on his third year anniversary and tony's been a key partner and collaborator of course not just on personnel matters but in particular with growing uh work in the area of career pathways and pipelines so we certainly appreciate his ongoing partnership but dr rosalie's is with us this evening to share some some exciting news about the appointment of one of our own educators to the commission so dr ross ellis thank you thank you chair laurie superintendent guerrero and members of the board my name is anthony rosilis i am the executive director of the teacher standards and practices commission as superintendent gretel mentioned and i wanted to first start by sharing just a few minutes about what tsbc is tsbc is rather unique across the country
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because most states their licensing boards for educators is actually a part of the department of education oregon is one of about a dozen states where the licensing board is independent of the department of education i in my position i report to a separate 17-member commission that is appointed by governor in this case governor brown the commission is made up of members that are primarily educators eight of the 17 members are teachers there are elementary and a secondary principal there's a school board member there are members of teacher education programs and a few public members including one school board uh representative so the commission is a is a dedicated as superintendent guerrero mentioned not only to the licensing of our educators but really to improving the performance of educators and of course therefore our students we approve teacher preparation programs offered by all of the oregon colleges and universities we as i mentioned mention like we license teachers administrators and other personnel employed in oregon schools and when necessary we also take disciplinary actions when educators commit crimes or violate standards of competent and educated ethical performance one of the challenges for tsbc has been in several years is that it is it has not been able to participate as much in the ongoing professional development of our current educators we set requirements for continuing professional education but we uh the commission has not really held its uh what i would say is its proper place in working with superintendents and school districts and trying to really move forward the idea of what an educator will need to master and be able to do in support of our students in the coming years if anything uh this year with covid and also our wildfires has demonstrated that if we are not very mindful about the preparation [Music] and qualifications of our educators in areas such as distance learning we can get caught off guard and who suffers the most are students so the work of providing and ensuring that every organ classroom has a quality well-trained educator is the purpose of tsbc and this work could not happen but for the volunteers who serve as commissioners on tsbc we are pleased to announce at tspc this evening that governor brown has appointed and the senate has confirmed dr michelle york as a member of the tsbc commission dr york is a teacher at west sylvan middle school she teaches math and sometimes science and she is also the avid lead at west sylvan michelle is also one of the reasons why she was recommended for this appointment is michelle has been dedicated to teacher prep for several years now she has participated in several what we call program reviews at tsbc these are when we actually have colleagues within the education environment they actually review a particular university's program for teacher preparation and they provide me a recommendation about whether that program is meeting state standards or if there are areas that are needed for improvement dr york has proudly and graciously served on in doing this work for the commission and i think this is a testament not only to michelle's dedication but the dedication of the school board portland public schools and its superintendent and administrators to furthering education professionalism in oregon for the benefit of our students so without no further ado i would like to introduce and welcome dr york to the commission and i do believe dr york was invited um i and i think i saw her on there all right lowry with your kind words can we invite dr york to if she'd like to share any remarks yes please you don't have to but we'd love to hear from you if you're up for it yeah this is a little short notice and i apologize i have nothing prepared but i am very excited to take on this new role with the tspc i have been very dedicated to mentoring new teachers wherever i am and taking on student teachers and i know that there's just so much we need to do to prepare
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teachers to be successful and anything i can do to support that through my work with tsbc i'm really excited to move forward with that thank you and i would like to mention for the portland public school board that our relationship with tsbc with pps and its administrative team has grown immensely in the last few years at least from the stories i've heard about how that relationship has been in the past many of you who've been involved with schools in the past have known that tsbc was often known as the stepchild in the education agencies that was woefully behind in license application processing i am pleased to say in the last few years we've really ramped up our work and now we are most licenses are being processed within a month and uh many of them aside from our busiest times of the year are even processed more quickly uh that's a big improvement from the three or four months that many of you may re recalls is as recently as three four years ago uh and we are really making some strong efforts this year particularly to reduce the barriers for educators of color to enter into the field some of this work has been done with some of the staff at pps not only as commissioners but superintendent guerrero deputy superintendent clay are in working not only to develop teachers but more importantly because i think this is important for teachers to succeed is to have quality administrators and principals in their buildings this is a key emphasis of tsbc and i am i can share with you that i really feel that this is an emphasis that uh pps shares as well so i look forward to continuing to work with superintendent guerrero and also coming back and spending some time talking with you as a school board down the road here about some of the other good projects that we're working on that will definitely impact pps students superintendent guerrero chair laurie thank you for allowing me the time to present with you this evening thank you so much for being with us dr russellis i know that chief of hr sharon reese deputy cuellar and other members of the team uh enjoy our our regular opportunities to to collaborate on on some of our shared goals uh thank you for being with us this evening and you know for the guest of honor congratulations uh dr york thank you for representing all right do we think we can do the wave for dr york like this you know where all of our it would be challenging because all of our zoom things are in a different order but just imagine it dr york and thank you dr oselias for being with us here tonight and for the work you do to support our students by supporting educators all right we are at committee reports um so i have a list of a few of you who i know have had meetings over the uh since our last board meeting um so julia i think there was an audit committee meeting since the last board meeting would you like to report on that julia i can't hear you the suspense it's exciting it's showing you is still muted so let's go ahead and move on to direct oh okay um sorry about that so the audit committee did have a meeting on october 14th um we have um a new board member uh we traded scott for scott um so and we've um in addition to one community member we also have two student reps who have been participating in the meetings we had two main topics of the the audit committee won was a discussion about the implementations of the implementation plan for the contracts audit um so stay tuned we'll bring that back probably send it around to the board and also post it we had a number of comments at both at the meeting but also uh follow-up comments from committee members that we need to integrate into the feedback on the uh contracts audit and then second we uh recommended and to the board a um two audits to add to the 2020 2021 uh audit plan and in the consent agenda this evening we approved that and the the two audits um will be the we've got there's two audits currently um that the board previously approved that are ongoing that's the procurement card audit and also the ach or the or the wiring financial
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wiring audit that are underway when those are finished up there'll be two more audits in the pipeline and one will be sort of a sampling of schools associated student body funds and then the second will be a health and safety audit about whether building safety plans are being followed and of course that will be um that those audits will only happen once we return to either a hybrid or some sort of in-person learning um so the recommendation was made and thank you to the board tonight for approving those contract audit plans um so that we can have some in ready to go when the current audits are completed we also um there was a third audit that was recommended by the office of the internal performance audit and that was an audit relating to um the facility usage and whether the current fee waivers that we have for um title schools was actually being utilized equitably and the decision was made to not to not advance that to the board tonight for um to be approved but to wait to the next meeting so that we can consider that and two other ideas that were advanced one was um a hardship transfer audit and also an audit of esl um so the december meeting um we'll hear more from the office of internal performance audit about their thinking their thoughts about the risk and the scope of those three concepts um and the last item we had at the committee meeting is that we have currently an opening on the committee and for one of the community members and on the pbs audit committee page is a short description of what we're looking for and a link to um so people can apply i'll send that around to the board and also post it in a number of different places and and share it with um some of the regional public auditing offices so if anybody has somebody they want to recommend to serve on the audit committee or would like are interested in serving um please let us know i think the cutoff date is the friday of the last that first week of november so that's the audit committee report i'm sorry applications are due november 6th awesome uh director bailey or director morris do you have any updates about the um southeast guiding coalition or the enrollment and balancing or dbrac or sackett or whatever all we're calling everything these days i know those are all very different but uh i know that both of you are involved for a long time in these conversations around the district you know that's a little bit of a trigger for some of us um yeah the uh the group of community members and principals and and uh pps staff uh that is they've been meeting for i think they're in their second month of meetings and are meeting again on thursday you can watch those meetings on youtube and director moore and i are going to actually do a short presentation to the group on thursday we've been kind of had a hands-off watching but i think there's the need for uh clarifying uh what the board is looking for um in terms of this process and then just being able to answer any questions that might come up as well [Music] if you've been through this or watched pps struggle with this over the last 10 years you know this is an incredibly challenging process and very complex so hopefully we can help help it along in the right direction the other thing coming up is uh they were gonna have uh an open house uh i think that's been pushed back to uh later in in october than they were initially anticipating that [Music] so the committee is still working through a number of scenarios that staff and our consultant have brought forward around configurations around the location
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of dli programs and so on and again this is a really challenging process and i just want to thank everybody on that committee for engaging in that i just want to clarify the open house is going to be on the thursday um in the first week of november okay october is running out all right thank you director bailey are there any other committee or conference reports um dr khan stamp did you want to give any comments about the council of great city schools uh conference this past week um just very briefly that i hope people had a chance to tune in there were so many different breakout sessions that i couldn't necessarily tell who among us was jumping into different sessions but there was just so much to learn um the majority of the presentations uh touched on on covet in some way or on um how districts are responding um in accelerating their equity work and empowering student voice around black lives matter movement um but just lots of very inspiring and interesting presentations we had an opportunity to be in a conversation with oakland and um minneapolis around uh school policing and school security and and what does that look like as we break down old systems and and all three of us are still in various stages of recreating the new and what that looks like um i had a chance to hear dr brown's presentation i don't know if anyone else did on just some of our challenges with assessment and again focusing on where we are with the pandemic so thank you to all the staff who prepared presentations and who took the time for themselves to learn from from their colleagues around around the country and thank you superintendent guerrero for your leadership too in helping to do a lot of the planning for this conference i think from a from a mechanical and technical standpoint they pulled it off really well um going virtual on very short notice and attendance was still good so there's really an appetite for us all to learn from from one another even in these strange times superintendent i don't know if there's anything you want to add there i would say our students were also featured we had uh our grant answers wasn't it and then superintendent guerrero do you want to talk about our other student that was part of the panel this student panel was inspiring and phenomenal i think everybody got a link to that but definitely take the time to watch it you'll be so glad you did i was going to share the same thing if you haven't had a chance uh please watch that short segment it'll be well worth the time to hear our youth talk about you know the really complex issues uh in our world right now and just the level of depth and uh sophistication it's i learned a lot and and i think uh helped to hopefully inspire some some dialogues but uh the youth are leading uh that that's definitely what stood out so uh part of the member districts uh proceedings as members of of the council includes uh quarterly board of directors meetings so thank you director constant for participating this past saturday half the day to work through all the business of the council in in supporting member districts i think the next opportunity to to get engaged is the legislative advocacy that tends to happen in march we won't know if that will be in person still but certainly the council has always been a strong voice on k-12 and public ed and nothing's changing in that regard especially as congress is deliberating hopefully on what a stimulus might look like to support schools across the country and and we all have whiplash paying attention to that process because it literally changes week by week all right any other uh reports from board members great all right we are um is there any other agenda items any other business before we adjourn and move into our study session all right the next meeting of the board will be held november 10th at 6 pm and this is different than our usual pattern of every other week and this is so that we can watch with our communities as the election results roll in on the third and i am especially looking forward to celebrating the bond passing
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so please make that a reality and vote yes on measure 26 5. this meeting is now adjourned and we are going to gather back in our study session uh at 7 55 that gives you eight minutes to take a stretch break and do what you need to do and we'll gather back again at seven

Sources

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

2020-10-20 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 10/20/2020

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