2020-11-13 PPS School Board Charter Schools and Alternative Programs Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-11-13
Time 08:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Charter and Alternative Programs Committee Meeting 11/13/2020

00h 00m 00s
daniel nice to see you hi thanks for joining us um this is our first meeting of the school year for our charter and alternative programs committee um nice to see so many of you who are out there doing the work with our students or virtually doing the work with our students the purpose of this board committee is to review our charter renewals and we'll uh go into that um first thing in this meeting to see who's who's up this year um but then also to just check in on our um our alternative programs internal and external and today i hope to have a a good conversation about how we're supporting our students in virtual learning in our alternative programs so i guess we'll get started with public testimony care do we have anyone who's asked to provide public testimony today i did not receive any requests okay any anybody who has is on with us who would like to make some public testimony before we head to the rest of our agenda all right then um we'll just look forward to a good conversation um roseanne did you hear anything from michelle no no no okay then we'll just move on in our agenda and um tara and karina i think this is you we'll start with our charter school update and remind us of who is where in the renewal process and whether or not we have any new applications coming online and we'll um kind of rough out our schedule for the spring great do we want to do introductions real quick sure let's start director bailey board member amy constand board member just start by the top row of zoom so everybody's screen is a little bit different on mine i'm first but i think that's true for everyone so i'm beth and i'm the opal school administrator the beth why don't you tag somebody else who hasn't gone yet okay so i'm gonna tag the person to my right on my screen and that is kathy um guytan sorry for messing up your name how about paul halperson you're on mute paula hi i'm paul halverson um i'm karina's a admin assistant and tag somebody paula um oh um uh roseanne i don't know paul it's been a long time roseanne powell uh board manager and i'm going to tag stephanie hi uh stephanie walker executive director of the arthur academies and i will tag jenny brayden hi jenny brayden charter school's admin assistant to tara o'neil i'll tag tara hi tara o'neil the program director of the charter schools for portland public schools and i will tag nathaniel shu hi i'm nathaniel i'm student representative to the board and a senior at jefferson i'll tag ah let's see uh cara hi i'm cara bradshaw i'm the executive assistant for the board and i will tag lorna fast buffalo horse good morning everybody lorna fast buffalo horse i'm the director of multiple pathways to graduation and i will tag erica hi i'm eric destavis i'm the program administrator for contracted alternative schools and i will tag karina hi i'm karina wolfe i'm the area senior director for multiple pathways to graduation and i will tag joe mcferrin mcferrin portland oic and rosemary anderson high school good morning good morning and please somebody select i i can't and and so i i think shuka might be on the phone and
00h 05m 00s
hard to recognize is that yushuka nope must be something this is tara miller on this phone hi this is sarah miller i'm with portland arthur academy good morning good morning how about elise huggins good morning elise huggins administrator overseeing reconnection services for portland public schools anybody else on the phone uh want to let us know who you are i think we still have to tag jennifer stackhouse as well hi i'm jenny stackhouse i'm the executive director of portland village school michelle's joined us good morning everyone my name is de pass portland school board anybody else on the phone want to jump in okay so we will um tara and karina i'll send it back to you and we can uh look at an overview of our charter school uh renewal and application consideration process coming up in 2021. great thank you um so i just want to um i actually just want to start if it's okay and just um take a moment just to do a very quick land acknowledgement if that's all right so i just want to start this morning and welcome all of you to our meeting and just want to acknowledge um the lands that we're meeting on today are from various locations of the area that the land has been um home since time immemorial to the native nations of the moma california chinook clackamas malala kaplan and tualatin peoples and um native peoples hunted deer and other animals fish for salmon and other fish gathered traditional roots and berries traded lived with within traditional spirit spiritual and governmental structures and more and still do smallpox and measles epidemics brought this area by brought to this area by settlers missionaries and traders disseminated up to 90 percent of the population in this in the early 19th century boarding schools tribal termination racism and other aspects of colonialism have continued to negatively impact native people since that time we can't undo what was done but we can honor and acknowledge the descendants of the original people of this land those who have passed as well as the land itself as we gather today we focus on building connection with and learning from our current native students families and community and with that um thank you um with that i just want to welcome everybody this morning thank you for coming together and tara and i would love to talk about the charter schools so we are in a really exciting year where we haven't been in a long time we have two charter schools up for full renewal and we have zero charter schools with the annual one-year renewal which we used to do for a long time between the fifth and tenth year renewals we would allow either party would allow a one-year extension and we are now in the part where every um both of those schools are now at their ten-year so um roseanne were you going to share the slide deck um i am so sorry i wasn't prepared to do that no that's fine that that then that's why i'm checking in so i'll share the slide deck and then i'll turn it over to tara and she can share about it jared you want to take it from here so um as soon as i see the and karina will you just like as i finish the slide then you because i haven't done that absolutely you're the equivalent of the push the button thing yeah i would say so urbana that was a lifelong dream of mine um [Laughter] secrets come out there you go i have um first wanted to acknowledge the question that director comstam asked about any new applications and there were no new applications for charter schools for this particular year we received the letter of intent for those schools by may 1st which would have come by may 1st of this past year if there was going to be one and and then we um receive those applications by mid july so for this year there are no applications and i i've also not been contacted by anyone at this point who is looking at starting a charter school in the following year um we will certainly keep everybody
00h 10m 00s
posted if we start seeing interest in that uh so um so for this year oh here we are with a fabulous quote i love it i love that quote that is great because that was exactly that's just wonderful i think we credit karina with that quote not saying it but finding it i found it i did not say it that is awesome so there are six pps sponsored charter schools they are um all k through eight we don't have any charter high schools right now so the k-5 schools are the emerson school cairo's pdx opel school and portland arthur academy the k-8 schools are le monde french immersion and portland village school there are also two state-sponsored charter schools within pps's boundaries they are both k through eight and that is cottonwood school of civics and sciences and the ivy school and we do interact with those schools in a number of ways the primary way from a contractual standpoint is with uh with providing special education but additionally we also pass through the funds and we are interacting more in terms of sia funds and esser funds with the state charter schools this year as well we also include them in all of our directors meetings so that they can learn information whether or not they're sponsored by the district because they are serving pps students next slide so we have two full renewals as karina said for this year for portland arthur academy and for uh opal school and for both of those schools uh they we've done multiple renewals with the schools in the past and they have also completed a five-year contract and an additional five years by doing the one year at a time extensions that um that i'm sure you're familiar with from having done those last year as well so both schools are currently in their tenth year of the maximum allowed by law so they are now going to be renewing for an additional contract so the timeline for the renewal we have to have one meeting by mid-january to set the schedule and uh understand how we're going to meet all the statutory timelines so this meeting can suffice as that meeting we just have to ensure that we have that set and then there are two to three february meetings that are the committee and then there is a full board meeting at which the vote on whether or not to renew will take place and i'll just say we broke it down just a little bit and have done a little work with as we do every year with um roseanne and the board office and um director constant around when those might happen so the next couple slides just break it down even further with regard to the current boards to to being mindful of the current board schedule and tara has there been any guidance um out of the state um that uh makes any modifications to the renewal process or the reporting process given a comprehensive distance learning none other than what is already guidance for full-on comprehensive distance learning for districts as well so nothing specific to charter schools around the renewal process uh so it looks like we have some specific uh weeks as well that you can see here but we're hoping to set our um uh our time frame is set by statute for the most part starting at the end of the contract year and working backwards so statute will say within 180 days of the end of the contract is when we need to receive the application from the charter schools for renewal so that is going to come to us on january 2nd so that is when we will see what charter schools provide in terms of their application and then from that point forward we're also working on those same timelines so the first week of february is when we hope to have the first meeting with the two charter schools to review their relevant data and look at the application for renewal and that second to third week of february the 8th through the 12th is when we would plan if we are able to plan the possible public hearings and that third week of february is when there would if needed would be a follow-up work session um that one is not statutory that's at the discretion of the committee so here's some pieces that are for the
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committee and then the next slide has pieces for the full board thanks karina yes so the full board meeting by statute is required to take place within 30 days after the public hearings are held and the board meeting that falls within that time frame is the one on march 9th for uh holding the full vote if for any reason that does not happen on march 9th we can also move to march 23rd which falls after that 30-day period but we just need to have a mutual agreement documented between the charter schools and the districts saying that's acceptable and we can hold the vote on that date as well all right anything more you want to say about that process or any questions from our friends at arthur or opal i know you're all well familiar with this process but okay so this is beth and i just want to say we're familiar with the process but this will be my first time um and my colleagues first time going through a renewal ten years is a long time in the life of a school and or at least in a charter school and so it is new to us yeah um no we look forward to that we look forward to going through that process with you and um you know it's very prescribed um by the state in terms of our data review and all the metrics that you are um beholden to me which you're well familiar with so beyond metrics we look forward to just getting a sense of um what thing what life is like for your school community and your individual students and that's what i love about um this process is that uh each of our charter schools and maybe in particular the two of you have such different pedagogy um but but historically have served your students so well so it's always fun to get a look at how you do that and how different it is but how it meets the needs of your kids i'm good i just um i think like everybody everything else we're doing this year it'll be really interesting to think about how we engage families and students um in um in virtual or uh or you know in this setting that's safe and and really get a feel for each of the schools so we'll we will work hard to do that i also i also would add that you talked about the metrics that we generally look at and of course oregon report cards look pretty different from last year as well as not having aspect data and one of the things i think we have that's a plus for both of these schools is a long history so we can also look at the past nine year trends because that's the last time they renewed which is very helpful yep great yeah thank you but i was on mute when i was trying to say one of the highlights of being on the committee last year what were all the site visits yeah um and so it'll just be interesting to see how we negotiate that this year because that's when it was so informative uh both the formal and informal conversations plus seeing classrooms so again be interesting i'd be interested in in a virtual classroom visit if that's uh that would work um so i just wanted to open up that as a topic going forward and i have a quick question if i may um i'm curious uh having not gone through the process before what's entailed in the evaluation process what what are we looking for in terms of um success are we looking at um you know test data just curious what what the what the metrics are so we can um it's really often a three and i'll let her go into more detail specific detail but it's really kind of the three-legged stool of looking at you're exactly right um director to pass it's looking at the data and what are the data trends as far as student achievement and attendance engagement but really student achievement data and looking at various student metrics looking at the fiscal and the organizational management so compliance with um with all of our um state standards as well as kind of business and operations
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as well as hearing the third part would be hearing from students and families and really getting a sense for their school community and together those three things um really comprise the various parts of data that we will um bring forward to the to the committee tara do you want to add to that sure there's also um very specific criteria in statute that are the only things that may be considered in the decision of whether or not to renew and uh very very clearly within that are all the things karina just spoke about so student achievement is a really big piece of it an additional fiscal responsibility um proper management of financials and then all the things around being a nonprofit organization which is what each charter school is so all the board requirements and responsibilities um so organizationally around um all of that as well so there are some specific things in statute and i think the other side of that is there are many things that are not to be used for determining whether or not the school so it's really just the things in statute and i apologize i don't have that list of things on this but i will ensure that it gets uh sent i'll make sure that i send that out to um roseanne yeah thank you that'd be really interesting i just i wasn't sure how granular this um assessment was was was it you know making sure that minutes were taken at every board meeting etc so that's the idea that sort of thing is described that sort of thing is exactly what our annual review of the charter schools is so we do a pretty granule granular annual review for each school every year around those exact things board minutes what's posted on the website um as well as student achievement all of those things thank you and i'll just say um that each of the board and and all interested parties we have a uh what has been um a three-ring binder or uh or a certainly a significant um digital uh file um that has each of those sections so there are various sections that are that we go through both with the annual review and with the full renewals so there'll be a lot of information coming the way of the um of yourself and the committee school board directors on the committee so we'll share a lot of that ahead of time and then also in that process really walking through that in january and february i have a general question we uh we had an enrollment update at our last board meeting this week um and i'm wondering have we have has our enrollment in our charter schools um mirrored basically our enrollment in the district at large which we've had about a three and a half percent enrollment decline as a district but it's been primarily at kindergarten in first grade um have we seen anything different with our charter schools our charter schools enrollment has pretty much stayed steady for the two schools that are still growing up it's actually gone up um i think there might be one or two schools that had a lower kindergarten entry but their waiting lists are fairly robust and so the kindergartens don't stay if someone chooses not to come there's a waiting list of people to come in so in general the charter school enrollment has gone up a small amount got it and on a future slide when we talk about the esser funding there um there's a slide that has the enrollment per per charter that everybody can see okay i think this is the end of the conversation with regard to charter schools anything else on charter schools before you want me to move the slide forward uh i don't think so i i just noticed that um joe had joe mcferrin had a comment about helpful to have some level of focus yeah revaluing his schools on the achievement of black students and i did want to say also for charter school students we do disaggregate the data so that we can look at at student groups in terms of student achievement as well as attendance and enrollment and everything else and that while it's not one of the one of the prescribed areas of focus from the state process we also have had a significant focus on what schools are doing to increase the diversity of their student populations absolutely yeah thanks joe um okay karina can we talk about um our rfp process and our um opening our arms to our uh
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community-based programs and um just the conversation about whether how that landscape may or may not be changing this year great thank you and thank you tara for grabbing the questions in the chat because i can't see them with my screens um so so thanks thanks for doing that um so yeah shifting gears um just doing kind of it and this being the first meeting um i just wanted to kind of give the committee just a general overview of our alternative system and again we can go more in depth in future meetings um as directed or as people would like but just wanted to reference that we have within our district we have mlc metropolitan learning center k-12 and then we have alliance high school on two campuses currently and then within our contracted alternative schools we have um 10 contracts um and and i it's they're still there but prior to covid um on 16 different campuses so um i would just draw some attention to helen's view has a middle school and rosemary anderson has a middle school and all the other schools are um at the 912 or the 14 to 21 year old at secondary so that's our alternative system um and then i am going to invite erica stavis to join me and just share just a little bit we're gonna again stay pretty just high level but we wanted to share with the committee um just the major parts of work that multiple pathways has this year and so in addition to the two chart full renewals for the charter schools we also have an rfp coming up so every five years um we are by um statute we go out for an rfp um actually it's not by statute it's by practice at pps but it's best practice so um so we go out so we are due so we're gonna and be in a cycle this year um the next rfp cycle will start july 1st 2021 and run through june 30th 2026 um and our anticipated schedule um erica do you want to jump in i was just scared when you said 2026 that seems like a very it seems like a future date that is very far away but yes i'd be happy to jump in um as karina mentioned we have our five year rfp coming up and this process is you know it touches a lot on many things that tara mentioned with all of our cbo programs we have a pretty robust annual review process and while it's not um scripted by statute what that review process entails i think pps over the last several years has developed and refined a really great process for the review of our cbo programs we currently actually have nine contracts one contract southeast works actually close their education program just due to a variety of factors not not financially related but just due to the fact that they had other programming that was becoming more robust so they decided to change their focus from my understanding we have all nine of our contracted alternative high schools that will be reapplying for this rfp in addition to a few other organizations that have reached out to learn a little bit more about our process and who might be interested in applying we anticipate rolling out oh sorry go ahead amy eric do you know roughly how many students do we have in that high school population probably this year yeah yeah roughly roughly 650 700 students but but it's earl but please remember it's early for us in the cbo right and so um often times and it'll be very interesting to see how this year is the same as past years or how this year is different from past years in that we often we are right now um teachers submitted grades on tuesday um for our first for those folks in the four by four for the first semester and for people who are on um for cleveland and lincoln who are on still on quarters it would have been the first quarter um and alliance did their first uh four by four and nlc did as well but um but so we often get more our enrollment often goes up second semester um so we'll be and it'll be curious to see how that grows i would just say we have two contracts too with um um going from the nine to the ten just with pcc so one of our pcc contracts yes to college and one of our pcc um contracts gateway to college um so those and within our secondary menu um it's worth noting that we have high school diploma and then we also have um ged and we there's a couple slides in the in just a minute that'll talk about why we center cooley center um but erica do you just want to go over
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the timeline absolutely and i did just want to add on before moving forward that um for board members that are not familiar with that kind of enrollment timeline for cbos and that kind of push in spring oftentimes we'll see as close as 1200 students being served by our cbo high school program and we look at year to you know year to date versus a snapshot of enrollment because oftentimes that doesn't give a full picture of the scale of students impacted by our contracted alternative schools so we anticipate our rfp going out basically the first week back in january from winter holiday and then we'll spend some time reviewing through february and march and ensuring that we do all of our interviews and other processes for um asking questions of those that have applied and proposers and then we intend to um get awards in late march and then do contract negotiations for april and may of course a copy of that contract is included a sample contract is included in the rfp and then services will begin july 1st and it's important to note that many of our cbo programs run year round and so it's important to understand that um approval of those contracts would need to happen before july 1st so that programs that do maintain programming throughout the summer are able to continue to work with students throughout those summer months and if you'd like to i have a fundamental question um so do we have a a set and rigid budget for our contracted alternative programs or what are the parameters in this rfp process say we get a bunch of new applications we have a set either budget or number of students that we are looking to serve so as you go through the the rfp process um that can be flexible and determined by uh clearly determined by the district so when we go through an rfp process there's no set number of providers that we either accept or or negotiate with or not it's just who meets our cut score as we set those and we're working as you know like hand in hand with our department of purchasing and contracting and procurement so um so as we look at those part of what contract negotiations will will entail is that as you all know parallels the time or or aligns somewhat to the time of the district budget process right so we can have an rfp and people can be um it's a five year cycle and so we encourage anyone who thinks you know we've got i've gotten phone calls in the last couple years as an example where people saying oh i'd like to start a school and so it's like this is the time and so um so we encourage everyone who would be interested in the rfp we want to make sure that the current providers already know that this is the schedule and this is happening but we want to make sure that we go public and we're very inclusive as far as wanting to encourage anyone who wants to apply to apply with regard to budget budgets set by by this the superintendent in our budget process and approved by the board as it is every year with regard to how much we do or how varied we do contract negotiations from year to year that's an internal decision um and so there's no um those are conversations within um that you all can have as a board and certainly um guided by um the superintendent's recommendations thank you so there's no there's no um hard and fast rules about that or or limit on any side are the the contracts are multi-year they're they are it's a five-year rfp so you would get a five-year award you'd get an award for this specific year with the potential to renew for the four the four following years budget flexibility moving forward yeah up or down yeah and that we do every year just like we've done the last four years as an example is every april and may we are waiting to see um you know are we what's our budget impact um in multiple pathways or what's our budget impact in the contracted alternative line item and thankfully we're very grateful that it has been either hold steady or very minimal
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reductions because the superintendent and the school board have have prioritized these contracts and we're very grateful for that and we're very grateful for the work you all do well and so this is really looking next thank you for that we appreciate that it's a great it's a great you know multiple pathways is great for a lot of reasons but it's largely great because we have such great contracted school providers and community um that we get to engage with all the time um and so that's what really you know it is that picture that was at the beginning is it's our it's on the adults to figure out how do we reach and do right by our students and so really looking at how do we tailor services to meet the specific needs of the students that need to be served and so just following that um that thought is this is the focus area for our at promise students so just a little um a little uh education or information the word at promise um is really um trying a national movement trying to really shift the word at risk and stop being deficit focused and really being strength based and growth have a growth mindset and so we really think about who are our at promise students um between the ages of the the national definition is really more between the ages of 16 and 24. also called opportunity youth so students who are disengaged are out of school and or out of school and out of work and so we're looking at who are those students and the data that we have in our district around this is not going to come as a surprise to probably anybody on the call or in the meeting are um are the students that you see on this slide so the students uh students of color unfortunately our outcomes continue to be predictable by race and we work our mission is to eliminate that looking at the number of students who are with identified disabilities who are in need of alternative education looking at our students we have a growing need and we need to do a better job and it's a continued area of growth for all of us and certainly us in multiple pathways in doing a better job with our students and doing an adequate and appropriate job with our with our multilingual students and also one of the things that i just say and i will always always remind myself and others is we often talk about our students with disabilities as we should often students also end up in alternative school because they're tagged so we also want to look at the whole range of students that we have that are looking at being served in contracted alternative schools so those that we have with regard and a lot of these follow exactly the ors that outlines alternative schools so those students who struggle and have chronic attendance significantly credit deficient have significant learning gaps or gaps in education we're looking at secondary students so the the rfp will be for both middle school and high school students homeless students and then geographic alignment with pps with our at promise students so really looking at one of the things that we did not have this last cycle and many of you have have are aware of this is we did not have any providers this last this current five-year cycle that we're located in downtown or on the west side so really thinking about in the in the rfp we did five years ago we really made a point to say we need more providers we need to really look at the segmentation analysis of where our students are and do we have enough at the menu in southeast or the menu in north the northeast and because of that we grew certain things like specifically middle school services so we'll be again looking at the data working with our system planning and looking at the data around the kids that are disconnected or disengaged and our reconnection services data who are those students and what categories do they fall into and also where what areas of town do they live in and then when you say you'll be looking at that data so then does that mean that when we do look at that data then we're going to actively try to solicit proposals from providers who can serve those needs or that we may you know ask some of our current providers to to modify their scope of somehow so i would say yes to both of those and eric erica can go into more detail but one example is we've reached out and so all the things that you see on this slide they will be things as we are as we are drafting and um the cur the rfp currently we're calling out the things that are currently on the slide that i just went over so we're calling out the need for middle schools middle school providers we're calling out the need for downtown or west side providers
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and um and making sure that we make sure that our homeless students have an adequate um that our school choice includes um includes the demographics of that that aligns with the demographics of our students erica anything you want to add to this um no i think you touched on on many of the points and just to kind of reiterate that um we're working with system planning and performance to you know review data as it relates to um engagement during this kind of critical year where things are not clearly happening as they normally do so we're continuing to kind of dig deeper into some um more niche reports to try and figure out i'm working in collaboration with reconnection services to really identify who are the students in need of alternative school services where are they located and what services and some of the slides that we just included here on the slideshow so this was data that was pulled early october and this shows the percentage of students 19 years old or over and this shows a comparison between our comprehensive high schools our cbo schools and in district alternative schools and so as you can see and the numbers are kind of low um so comprehensive high schools only one percent of their students are 19 plus cbo student population is 19 plus and are in district alternative 17 plus and as you can imagine most of these students not only are over age but also credit deficient and or have severe or chronic attendance you know issues additionally percentage of students with disabilities as you can see um our cbo's and in district alternative schools continue to serve a very high concentration of students with disabilities compared at least percentage wise to our comprehensive high schools the number and scale of course larger at the comprehensive high schools because there are so many more students but the percentages i think are important to point out so that we can really get a picture of who our cbo schools are serving and how we need these programs to support these students karina i just um while there's a break in the conversation want to give an appreciation for using the term at promise rather than at risk and i think our language really matters and labeling how we label kids matters so i'm really happy to see that shift to using language that's more positive and and and hopeful thank you i i will say uh a year ago we're not no one's going this year but a year ago um and it is it's happening virtually but at the um a conference that we often go on to our alternative accountability policy form as a national conference and a variety of us uh um multiple uh folks from multiple pathways went as well as our colleagues from pcc and mr mcferron from rosemary anderson and others and we were all really impressed and uh lorna fast buffalo horse from from mpg also and we were all really impressed that the state of california made the decision that they were gonna take the word at risk out of all they worked for about 18 months and they were going to take the word at risk out of all um legal uh out of all their law language and change it all to at promise and the governor signed that into law about a year ago and so in the state of california they have made this switch to you won't see at risk in in in their verbiage anymore everything is at promise and so it was really it was really inspiring and so we hope to to do the same in oregon thank you that's great and um i like it too because it implies reciprocity that we have a promise to them as well for them to realize their promise oh well put him and we are happy to i'm just mindful of the time that we have about 15 minutes left and so we we are happy to provide more information and more specific information um with regard to the cbo rfp at future meetings i also just want to um send out an apology to both to the cbo leaders specifically but to ceos and charters um in that there wasn't a whole lot of notice where between the time when we set this meeting and where we had this so i'm sure that that um that there will be a variety of people that might be interested in describing or wanting um wanting to hear your requests from the committee around how we can do deeper deeper dives into anything you'd like to know about the alt system in future meetings sounds good beth did you have something yeah i wanted to bring forward some language that kairos pdx has shared with the charter committee group and that is that they talk about investing in their children so they're not looking for contributions or other language that we've used they talk
00h 45m 00s
about investment and i think that that's also a really powerful way to think about it yeah thank you very much so the next topic is just responding director constant you had asked us to share some information around just funding distribution kind of in the it during this year in the age of covid um and so um and so i just wanted to add a couple slides and um tara can chime in and erica can chime in as you'd like we just have on this first slide it just talks about uh the columns on the top are the private schools the cbo's and the district the district charters and the state charters and then the dart schools that the long-term care and treatment and the and the reason i'll just share that this topic came up is because there was a question around esser funding and so we wanted to share um transparently with the board where we are and that's also one of the um one of the reasons that um kathy guyton has has joined us thankfully is if there are specific questions around um esser funding or around sia allocations questions like that and my my high altitude question here is just we had a great opportunity to make these investments through the the esser funding and then i think we have a parallel conversation about our student investment account funding and i just um didn't have a sense of whether we are also um making these investments in our alternative our internal and alternative programs and in our community-based organizations so i'll let you karina give me your response to that but i'd also love to hear from those of you who are out there wrangling your own school's budgets um and let us know how you felt like you interacted with this sort of supplemental investment budget process so to start us off tara do you kind of want to go over do an overview for the charters and then erica can do one for the cbo's and we'll all quickly move to a there's about three slides with figures on them but this one has an overview sure absolutely so with the district charter schools which is about uh i'm going to say 1400 to 1500 students probably around 1450. 1471 i think oh thank you 1474. and the state charter schools are running just a little over 500 students so that's kind of letting you know total between the district and the state schools there's about 2 000 students um so for district charter schools as as as we've known district charter schools are participating in the district's equity allocation funding for those schools that qualify so if they have a student population that combined historically underserved or direct certification meets the standards of the district to to participate in equity allocation funding then they will receive some of that equity allocation funding and right now what we have is an estimate so we have a few schools that are sometimes on the bubble of qualifying so we won't know until january when the census is done specifically which schools are going to qualify so this is an estimate of what we think schools will be receiving um and uh and we really won't have an answer for sure but the all the charter schools are eligible if they qualify for that funding um so uh back to the previous slide on the sia funding all the charter schools also had to complete an sia plan and prepare a budget and the charter school's office maintains all of that information and they will they will be receiving the sia funds at the same percentage as the district is receiving i will also say that kairos qualified to apply for the sia funds independently so the district won't be passing through those funds but they will be receiving sia funds the two state-sponsored charter schools will also receive sia funds but the law did not provide a process for that so the district will be serving just as the pass-through for their funding but the state office will continue to monitor their spending and all of the eligibility requirements for those sia
00h 50m 00s
funds where it gets into a little confusion is with the esser funds for the charter schools the district sponsored charter schools are not eligible to receive any of those funds because of the change over in how those ester funds could be applied um they are not being shared with the district-run charter schools but because the state was able to do a set-aside for the state-run charter schools the two state charter schools in the district will be receiving the asser funds so again the state doesn't have a procedure for distributing those so the district is also going to be distributing those funds through to the state charter schools as just as the financial conduit the state will again oversee all of the spending and eligibility etc and can you go back to why our own charter schools are not eligible is that because of the way our district chose to read the federal statute are the federal guidelines around the esser funds and declared that charters were not it's eligible it was because of the choice that we were given around title 1 schools sharing the funds only with title 1 schools or sharing the funds differently that would include the private schools differently students attending private schools differently at that time it was the um the guidance that had been put in place by the secretary of education u.s secretary of education that sort of changed all the rules right and that was recently modified and so um charter schools fall under the same umbrella with all of the other private schools there but they do not so the umbrella but they are not title 1 schools and i would just say is there anything cathy that you want to add i'm sorry i was uh like everybody doing three things at once um so uh could you repeat the question sorry that's okay so just talking about charter schools and private schools and cbo's and esser funds so we um finally finally resolved the situation with our illustrious secretary of education so we were finally ode finally gave us the okay to distribute the funds with the formula so i was able this week to notify all of the private schools which do include several cbo's who will be getting some of this of the esser and gear funds um and i will move forward again the funds are available through next summer and schools have a lot of liberty as to how they're they can use them and i'm going to be meeting with all of them i have to have a consultation with all of them again to develop a plan and move forward with what they're going to do with the funds normally what i'm seeing are schools wanting to spend them on some cleaning supplies and those kind of coveted covet related expenses to the building and also software and things professional development for distance learning so and um thank you for the reminder so um kathy do you know what esser stands for so so what i know is that esser is federal just for the audience that esser is federal funds allocated federally for um really to help schools with regard to covid and the expenses that are include um as a result of um of covid thank you elementary and secondary school emergency it is under the airs act and although i'm not um i can't predict the future it seems very likely that congress will have to write another law and provide more support for schools moving forward so they can open and for this next year hopefully they will have more guidance around the equitable share of funds because that's where we got into this pickle with betsy devos so yeah and um there may be some ways that the state could be more helpful in issuing guidance around um our own distribution regardless of tangling with the the definitions put forward by the feds
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so i would just encourage all of you wonderful administrative team here to connect with um courtney wesling and government affairs on this issue and what some of the implementation glitches are may be um because i think you're right we're going to see another federal relief package and we want to make sure that it gets to all of our students who need it i'm glad i wasn't the only one who had to google esther um so can somebody help me out with gear g-e-e-r going once going twice so i was waiting for kathy to jump in and i'm kathy i'm not trying to um put you on the spot which clearly i we are emergency education relief fund so put that in your message i'll just leave it there so my understanding um director bailey is that there's three within cdl the state had three specific um grants and so cdl was one of them and or cdl was a compilation of three of them but the gear grant was the specific one where just a small amount um 62 109 went to the private schools and cbo's um cbo's and uh and other private schools within pps so i think one of the reasons um that we just wanted to share this is because of exactly what's getting raised that there are various funding streams and it can be very confusing um but it is really um unfortunate that the district charter schools um um are not receiving esther funds at this time um and the and they have made that director constantly you asked about um what are schools saying or people out in the field what are you thinking and i would just be remiss if i didn't reflect back that our district in district charter schools have requested and wondering around how can they also get some support um for the additional expenses um with regard to you know um cdl and um and this operations for this year and and just so i'm clear this is a decision that rests with our district and i know that there was a modification to the language at the federal level around the private school you know availability of the funds for private schools but am i correct that our school could i mean our district could change our interpretation there and not have it be in either or between our title one schools and our charter schools but just have it be a bigger tent tara do you want to respond to that well i my i would i think i might need to ask kathy specifically my understanding is that initially there was not a choice and after the reinterpretation now we're in a position where there might be a choice but i don't know so this would be a question for leslie i'm just the receiver of the firm so i i'm not um in a position to see what they're doing i just i get what i get um so that would be again a question for her before we move on i'd like to ask a ques beth i know you had something that you wanted to say too but um i want to ask a quick question so our if our cbo's are um eligible joe if you're still on here can you just tell me what that allocation was say for rosemary anderson so i have an understanding of the order of magnitude here uh i'm sorry but i'm not sure what our allocation speaking of putting people on the spot i'll say that this was a very this was a very um touch and go type situation for a while and so we just received notification on tuesday and kathy has been reaching out to schools and because of the middle school being title one eligible that's the only school within poic that actually meets the eligibility for criteria and kathy gaitan if you want to kind of clarify where we're at with that that might be useful or we can yeah maybe if you guys can follow up by email yeah okay with their tara says a dollar forty per admw i mean 140 so that's not nothing um okay thank you and it would be uh helpful for me to hear what the expenses are that are coveted related um i know you mentioned a couple of
01h 00m 00s
categories like professional development in the whole distance learning software kind of piece um and also uh if and when we get to a reopening what kind of expenses you might anticipate there just you know just broadly ballpark um how you see that coming up and uh and that's both for charters and alternatives yeah what your unreimbursed covert related expenses are well i can jump in there just just to add the things that we're thinking about that we're trying to prepare for as we reopen we're talking about moving walls to create more space we're talking about having staff additional staff to do cleaning we're thinking about thermometers these electronic thermometers so that you can always check temperature um and then the big one ventilation so we're getting quotes on our building at north and we're looking at 20 000 per unit to get up to snuff so that we can have the kind of air circulation that we can be feel really good about but we've also um identified some standalone units that we've replaced that are about 500 a piece to help with air circulation and ventilation so significant cost just you might want to remember too that using federal funds for structural things is not going to be allowed we're clearly we're we're very reversed and yeah we've been doing this for a while so okay thanks joe that's helpful and again we we face many of the issues in our old funky regular school buildings so i just wanna as we close and i just there's just one i just wanted to i know it's time but we just i just wanted to we can table it also but people had asked around um just attendance and reconnection services in this moment and so we just i just had a just a slide or two just to give an update about that but i just want to close the funding piece with um this has been a year unlike any other and um and so the we there's been a lot of um um kind of hurry up and then wait because in part the federal government has changed things and ode has changed things and so we one of the things that we are really clear about is we do want to be mindful and i think we can continue to bring information to this committee but around the impact so thank you for asking the question director constance around the impacts on on or on smaller organizations with these various funding streams one of the things i will say that we have prioritized for all of the contra for all of our pps students um including our cbo's and our charter schools are chromebooks and hot spots and so we continue to try to look at how we what are some of the ways that we as a district can just be more inclusive in our thought in our work going forward but it's very um as you can see in here it's it's complicated yeah can i this is beth and i'm wondering if i can chime in the chromebooks for our students has been a huge um boost so i want to say thank you many times over we probably have between 40 and 50 percent of our students who have taken advantage of getting a chromebook from the district and i don't know how we would possibly have provided that through our budget so i just want to really acknowledge that um we did the a group of charter directors did send a letter with some ideas about outside of the standard essa funding how the district might be able to provide some amount of funding to support the expenses so for us one of the big ones was upgrading teacher laptops so that they could actually work remotely because i don't know about the other charter schools but many of our computers are 10 years old and desktops and not able to move and so there was a pretty significant investment in just getting technology to teachers so that they could do their job and that's already happened um and then joe talked about ventilation it's a big deal trying to keep things safe for everyone who's working on pipe and then all of the cleaning efforts and the sanitizing and the labor
01h 05m 00s
and the costs and the masks and all of that and in our letter one of the things that we said we tried to give sort of a a menu of ways to support us including things like just let us know who your approved vendors are because every one of us you know we have a teeny tiny staff and we're out trying to figure out you know which are the counterfeit masks from china and which are the ones that we can use that are going to protect us so there's a lot of different ways that i think the district could support us that some of them are monetary our allocations from the warehouse lots of different ways so we encourage you to think about what that looks like the sr funds are you know something around two percent of the state school fund um and we recognize that we've benefited from chromebooks and other things so thank you and still a request great we have been um slowly but surely in a lot of systemic ways trying to make sure that you are all part of the family so yes and we feel that we feel a shift but still working on it um joe you had um you wanted to raise something maybe for a future meeting about student safety i'd like to hear about that and then i want to move on to just talk about where our kids are with virtual learning yes so thank you um and and i joined beth in in our appreciation uh one one of the things that keeps me up late at night is thinking about the community violence that we've been experiencing over the past several months and how that will impact affect reopening and so i i would like to not to scare anybody so this is not i think i think we have an opportunity to be have a coordinated effort to um address this um before it um gets to a level that we all don't want to be a part of right so i just if we can and maybe this isn't the right group but i just wanted to put that out there that there are concerns about what's going on in the community in terms of violence and then how how we're going to deal with that address that in a proactive way as we reopen schools sometime in the future so what can we do as a school system to keep our students and families safe right that's what i'd like to i think i think it's your question is a really good one and i think now is the time to start having those conversations in anticipation of reopening all right let's let's think about that and talk about that and i want to say to you um joe that i know your school community has had some losses and some a lot of pain in the last few months and i know you're a really tight community and i also know that so many of your families look to to your leadership and the leadership and and friendship and love of your staff and um i'm just really sorry and anytime we lose one of our students or one of our graduates it just it hurts all of us and i'm so sorry and just want to send love and condolences to your whole school community thank you i really appreciate you raising that topic too um joe and and i that's a fantastic unfortunate but um incredibly real topic that we need to continue to address we have had um experienced violence in our um the families in our charter schools our cbo's and our in-district alternatives um we've there's been a lot there's been as everybody knows just a great deal of loss so that is absolutely a really important topic for us to continue to think about um and maybe that's this in part a shift or a pivot to our very last topic that we can just say very quickly is that we're really trying to do some work with regard to how are we how are we making sure that our students feel seen and loved and um and have a sense of belonging at school and so i just invite um lorna um quickly to just kind of share a little bit about what we're doing with regard to our outreach during this time thank you karina so reconnection services continues to work in portland public schools for students who are out of school or
01h 10m 00s
disconnecting from school finding those students and referring them to school it is a caseworker or a case management approach and so part of the process is really working with the student and their family members and gaining the trust with them so that issues like student safety can be considered in where to refer a student to re-engage with school our reconnection services office also works closely with the student attendance coaches which are measure 98 funded positions in all of the pps high schools and really working under a change in the ode process that um it doesn't trigger a drop of a student from school in the same way so trying to really adapt and really figure out are these students kind of lagging in their attendance for example at a comprehensive high school and we just need to coordinate collaborate and get them back on track or are these students who have disengaged and we need to talk about another option in the cbo's or the in-district alternative schools or um or some other place so that work is continuing um it is highly coordinated with um student intervention teams and other aspects in all of the pps schools um you know including the cbo schools would you say are are we seeing generally that it um that it is harder to keep kids engaged and connected to school whatever that school may be um in in virtual learning yeah i think it's it's a huge challenge um i think there there are a few exceptions out there of students who you know whose anxiety may have prevented them from good attendance who are um adapting quite well to um distance learning but so many of our students are really struggling with um you know not being able to go to school with the you know i know from my time when i was at alliance how many students used our food pantry um the district it does have nutrition hub sites but it's a different process when it's not at your own school in in all cases so access to food access to kind of mental health access to tutoring instruction all of those are [Music] have to be sort of repurposed for how we get those to students and it's definitely a struggle and then the state has said has changed the rules around dropping students which is great we don't want students to be dropped because they're having connectivity issues or other things like that so it is raised a challenge for reconnection services about how we identify those students and um really required all of us to get better at how we communicate with each other about our students i think we're going to learn a lot more as karina was remarking earlier after we you know passed the first grading the first term the first semester so keep us posted about just what this looks like in terms of how many students are feeling disconnected and then what we can do and what we are doing about it absolutely can i just uh pop in here for quickly since i have a forum i one of the other programs i oversee is the mckinney-vento program uh serving our homeless population and uh we have found that our numbers of identification have dropped significantly this year as compared to last year where about half what we would normally identify um we're not alone our east county colleagues say the same thing and we've heard that california is in a similar situation we attribute it partly to the moratorium on eviction so it's people are able to stay in their houses and or where they're at for a little longer and haven't been displaced but the reckoning ball will be calming fear also we're seeing that some families are just basically
01h 15m 00s
falling out there the connection between school and family is just really broken plus we're thinking too even though we have continually reached out to schools you know secretaries aren't seeing families in person the their living situations may not become apparent so anyway just reminder for all of the school administrators out there if you um can make sure to double check that your families are housed and if they need assistance to please contact their liaison you know there's the online referral that you can submit and we're doing our best but we need support from schools i'm really glad you chimed in there kathy um this that was you kathy right yeah yeah yeah um i have asked for um more conversation um around our services to our homeless popul students um in our board meetings so that's going to be coming up and hopefully we'll get a report on that and just you know what we have said all the way along with every aspect of remote learning is that we're going to be reviewing and recalibrating and you know not taking anything for granted in terms of how we're delivering services to our students so want to get a sense of what we're doing is it working who's who's not being served what do we need to do differently do we need to have revisit our resource allocations but you know it's heartbreaking to hear you say the connection between school and family is broken we all know that that is true in some fundamental ways but it's it's on us to figure out how to repair that as best we can in these very bizarre circumstances well if i can say also too we've been very fortunate to receive some funds from uh jonathan garcia beau and um one pot of money was from the cares act and the other one was from donations so we've been able to use um some for rental relief that's been very helpful also i oversee the migrant education program and we have done some utility um payments for for some families a lot which has been helpful and we're also using funds for tutoring for both migrant and mckinney-vento students so all have been real i mean families are seeing our support but i worry that once um the eviction moratorium ends uh these families are you know they're just hanging by a thread and it's quite really sad to see the the utility bills that i'm approving payment for it's just so and some have already gone to collection agencies and you know that puts a burden also on our staff because then trying to pay these things gets very complicated because you're not the person who's getting it it's just super super sad so i really appreciate the funds that we've gotten i'm hopeful that we can get some more because it really does impact our families and students you know it's you know obviously very hard to concentrate on school when your family is in disarray yeah yeah i've heard some utilities around the state are doing shutdowns um not not in portland yet but um it's like just blows me away and you know it never hurts to remind everybody that we as a as a country have got to get uh on board with uh looking at internet connectivity as a utility this is just pathetic pathetic pathetic yeah we're we're fortunate to be in portland but if you're in eastern oregon with my colleagues and migrant i mean there's no connectivity out there there's huge spots so you know we have our problems in trying to make sure we have hot spots and things but at least you're going to connect to something yeah thank you karina did you have um anything else you want to wrap up no i think this uh i appreciate um the time of the committee today and i appreciate everybody who has um participated and given feedback i think it all just the previous the last conversation just brings us to the kind of the last thing on this slide which is we're really centered at making sure that people are okay and that our students are okay and our families are okay so our focus is really engagement first and then enrollment and then attendance and you're gonna see we know that our data is gonna reflect that because so many of our students and families are struggling so um so we're just going to be mindful of that um so that that's that's all we had today okay i just want to say to you to our um everybody who joined us today if there are other issues that you want to bring forward or when you're talking to your colleagues who aren't on this call today
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that they want to bring forward please reach out to me and or karina or roseanne and um let's broaden the conversation just just let us know what we need to be paying attention to okay everybody take care thank you so much


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