2020-11-16 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2020-11-16
Time	16:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	committee
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Policy Committee Meeting 11/16/2020

00h 00m 00s
okay so i'm going to open the november 16 2020 policy committee meeting okay julie is here um and um we have uh just to remind everybody we've gone to a three-hour format um to try to work through um as much of the long queue of policies um in the works as we can um so i'm going to i'm going to try to remember to take breaks um if if i fail in that attempt uh i'm going to trust that people will make their views known um okay director mark can we have a break now please no um you can make a views no that doesn't mean i'm going to say yes but just saying um but let's try um i mean we we have uh if we stay on schedule um we can probably make reasonable breaks at it after about an hour um so let's try to do that as much as we can if it goes too much beyond that then um we might have to interrupt the discussion um okay so um before we get on to the um the full agenda which is pretty cool um i wanted to pick up on something that we talked about at the last meeting um and uh i don't think i've had a chance to talk to everybody about this so forgive me um but i want to i want to go over the idea that we talked about last week last meeting of having um board members of the committee work with staff um on language so that we can take a lot of the copy editing work outside of the meeting time so that the uh these committee meetings can be more focused on kind of concepts and giving direction to staff and a lot of the um a lot of the discussions about oxford commons and such um don't have to happen on camera which i think will make it easier for onlookers to actually follow what we're doing um and i hope we'll make it a bit more efficient in terms of everybody's time commitment so um so looking at what we have in the queue um over the next few months um i have a proposal for um a kind of matching board member to specific policies um so i want to i want to talk about that and hopefully get agreements around that and then we'll move on to the rest of the meeting so um we have a number of uh number of policies and in no particular order um i would like to suggest the following pairing and um let me see if i can get the whole list out please take note as i go through this list and then we if anybody has any issues then we can um we can talk about it so this complaint do you think you could just so since we have it is it laid out on the word plan that we can marry it or do you just want us just to write quickly write notes or either that or speak slowly well um i mean all of the policies that i'm talking about are are listed on this on the workplace um so i will i'll i'll try to take him in order um okay at the top um real estate policy i would suggest me and ailey the second one on the list all students belong which we are i think renaming and you should have a draft initial draft um but for that policy uh actually i don't think we have anybody um we're gonna take bids on that one
00h 05m 00s
with anybody else who wants to work on it okay that julia was the you know we had kind of talked about having a resolution on this and julia was the only one who reached out to me from our board colleagues interested in shepherding that resolution so i think she's definitely the okay one she should be on there okay um and we'll be talking about it um today um okay no i'm glad to uh provide any support julia if you want uh somebody to bounce ideas off of great thanks scott okay um the comprehensive sexuality education um i don't think we anybody anybody interested in that i want that okay okay uh student suicide prevention i would suggest scott uh title nine um so the original spot on the title ix policy was that we were going to postpone discussion of that so um so i haven't i don't have a recommendation on who should uh we should work on that one but i in um i just heard today that um we should probably go forward with that policy um the idea for the postponement was that uh in light of the election results um it was it is likely that there are going to be some some revisions at the federal level um but given that any changes at the federal level will probably take a good long time to win their way through the bureaucracy um it's probably advisable for us to go ahead and try to tackle that policy um sooner with the understanding that we may end up having a revisit at a later date um if especially if we don't have to work on it well there are still some state some state statutes that are requiring changes as well so but yeah and yes so we are going to have to work on it um the question is how how how much um okay anybody anybody else interested in working on that one i'm waiting to hear the whole list before i can circle around and and again provide some teamwork on some of these okay um uh proposed new policy on indemnification i'm suggesting uh julia and i the complaint policy i would suggest julia and scott um professional conduct uh i would suggest julia a climate crisis response scott and i uh code of ethics um alien eye um i just want to make sure i'm good uh i think okay so i think that covers the list for the one the policies that are either currently in the works or um about to be discussed um okay so that's the that's the list there will be more coming as we move on um but uh does that sound okay to people so i'm uh i'm happy to help out with uh sex ed and with uh title ix since maybe julie and i can do nothing together it was a joke uh okay has he made me re-look at my list i was like what okay so scott i'm going i appreciate your enthusiasm but i want you to think about whether i mean that would give you one two three four five that would give you six policies
00h 10m 00s
that's a lot so this is alie i only have three so i'm thinking about um maybe either title ix or um doing professional conduct with julia i'm happy title nine and professional conduct be the same people because some of the title nine changes are in the professional conduct policy so those are those are linked if that's helpful right do you want to be a team on those yeah um as long as that's okay letting yup totally okay okay yeah that'd be great okay add me to the sex ed though and i'll i'll help out with that yeah and it looks like we still need one more person to work on the suicide policy with scott are my notes oh so i'm going to say something liz and then you correct me um i think a thought there is that um it's likely that there won't be an enormous amount of work attached to that policy so um so we were thinking that one board member would probably be enough and that adding a second one might actually complicate life okay yeah uh how do you feel about the student representatives being on this that being uh jillian and jackson i was going to ask the same thing if uh if our student reps wanted to join in on any of these um so i i would um so i had the same question actually um and we had not talked about that at the last meeting um so uh i think it would be um i think it would be good on a couple of levels um i i think it would be a great experience for students to really walk through the nuts and bolts of you know making the sausage um at the same time uh i want you to i want the students to understand that this would be this could end up being a fairly significant amount of time so it could be a fairly big time commitment um but that being said um i would say um given that we've got a lot of these and there are two official student reps to this committee um i don't think they should be assigned to all of these so here's my suggestion um i'm going to be sending this list out and i i would ask the student reps to indicate um if they're interested in participating in any of these and if so which one okay yeah absolutely and the um the i'm i'm happy to as well um i'm i'm no longer an official uh representative um i i think someone wanted it limited to two which is a discussion that can can be had at a later date um however if the student representatives or you rita would like another student to help with the policy um i'm i'm happy to as well okay so um how about how about we take this offline and i'll talk to the student reps and and they'll pick and choose and then we'll um broadcast the needy okay all right thanks rita and jillian just mentioned she's interested in suicide prevention okay okay all right any questions about that um the exact mechanics of how this um ford staff um off-camera work is going to happen um we still have to work out some details but i'm hoping it will make the committee time more efficient and effective so okay all right um moving on um so the first agenda item is the formal complaint policy um okay so before we start talking about the redline version i want to i want to note that you got a second document
00h 15m 00s
um well last week um and this is uh so the origin of the second document is uh i've had some um conversations with staff um and the superintendent um and and there was a there were a number of comments around um how we're framing the topic of complaints um because right now the complaint policy focuses um almost well almost exclusively on the formal complaint process um but i think there is some uh some appetite um to kind of reframe the policy to indicate that the formal complaint process is really intended to be kind of the last resort um which really comes into play only if all other mechanisms within the district to resolve issues have been um have failed to provide a satisfactory outcome for the the complainant um so i i asked liz um and and her folks to um draft some some language um and it's very much a draft um that would um that would put the this formal complaint prior process in a bigger context and there are some things happening within pts um even as we speak um may and i hope will eventually kind of um streamline the process uh for families about resolving issues that emerge um some of the things that are happening are in the very early stages so it's probably inadvisable to make explicit reference to them right now um but i i i do think there's some value in um adding some new languages kind of an extended preamble that talks about and talks about how to resolve so that's kind of the point behind this this new language um so rita doesn't make sense to at least have the board members or um who are members of the committee to have a better sense of what those those things are so that we can think about how they fit with the policy um yeah i think so so um i i'm i mean i'm aware of a lot of what's going on i'm not sure i'm totally aware of everything and i'm almost certain i'm not entirely aware of where of the status of these things um so um liz would you feel comfortable kind of talking about some of the things that are in the work sure and i'd love stephanie and anyone else on staff to dive in because i think it's a collection of conversations and work strands um there and in fact it may be responsible for him even to hand it over to stephanie but i'm trying not to just do that unannounced um there's a new position there's a new i think one of the big pieces is that the uh ombudsman position um uh was eliminated a little more than a year ago and now that there is uh going to be a new position the title of which is something like family resource coordinator that that will likely sit in jonathan's team was the last version i heard in in community engagement but maybe there's a definition i mean if there's been something since then but the idea is to
00h 20m 00s
can i um i don't think this is the venue to to to really talk about the details of the position um i i do think it's worth i mean for for our purposes in terms of the policy um i think it's fair to say that there will be a position we're not
00h 25m 00s
entirely sure about all the details but um there is going to be some kind of um position that would provide system navigation and resource coordination and kind of being the you know the first stop for families who are having some issues with somebody about something um so um so i think it's worth even if we can't fully define it right now for the purposes of drafting some language i think we probably know enough about kind of broad outlines of the position to build it in some language um and there are there are there's at least one other thing that is in in very very early stage um that would um that would allow the disc to give the district capacity to um to more efficiently and effectively track um emails and you know other messages that come in indicating that a family or student has has a question or a concern or an issue um it's probably too early to mention anything specifically in the policy about that but that i i mentioned it just to indicate that um there are some system improvement things going on um in the background which i think make it even more compelling to have some kind of initial preamble in this policy that that talks about the um you know the complaint response system more broadly anyway does that help julia yeah thank you okay um okay so um so we have some language in front of us and i'm going to i'm going to suggest that we not go line by line in this um i wanted to sort of broach this during this meeting but i think this is one of the places where we can more efficiently do this outside the context of the meeting because even if we like the language as it currently shifts if there's some redundancies with some of the existing language and you know we can probably blend it better um but i think that counts as copy editing um which it's trying to avoid um so i just want to if you've had a chance to look at it does anybody have any um any issues with the concept or the kind of general direction that this language is going concept looks great um uh who who's gonna what what are we gonna do with refining this or how's that gonna work no go ahead please go ahead i was just gonna say with this this is a very this is translating multiple conversations and points of view into a first cut and we if there is general agreement with this direction we can take conceptual feedback in the middle of in the meeting or uh more refined copy edits by email then then consolidate into a more full-flowing draft we it was so conceptual when presented originally to us to draft something that we left the existing language there so there was an ability for board members to see what was there and what was changing as an alternative approach more than just some of the editing we usually do so i would say if we have a conceptual conversation here we will uh and take any other smaller more word choice wordsmithing edits um in a red line we can come back with another draft next meeting so um so uh julie and i are the uh subcommittee on this so we would talk to you beforehand sorry i'm thinking about the full yeah i'm trying to figure out uh how this is yes let me just go back to that issue
00h 30m 00s
more broadly now that the board members have been assigned to specific policies we'll set up time to talk through on a per policy basis what the next steps are i think there's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all model some policies need a lot of work some needs a lot you may have a different assessment of that than i do so we will touch base on individual policies as assigned and work out next steps and the right cadence and i think we're all going to have to i mean this is a new way of doing this work so we're all going to have to sort of figure it out as we go along so okay so any other commentary about kind of the uh direction of a new preamble so i um i think it's a great start and i think it's uh way more welcoming to um to families i have some like smaller language changes but i think the one thing that i like that's a kind of a larger conceptual idea instead of calling it a preamble which is sort of like i think a lot of times people like i can just go now let me get to the meat and just skip through it is like if we actually want people to think that this is like where we want people to start i think we should like make it a make it a formal step not not step in the sense of um division 22 but for people to feel like okay i've got an issue that i haven't been able to resolve like here's here's what i do versus that's the preamble i'm going to go right down to they're telling me to file i got to file a complaint and so i would just make it sound more official in some in some way without it being the formal process and super encouraging people to do it like we think and maybe adding more like exciting general language like we think this is how people get actually the most satisfactory responses um versus going through this other process not and not saying you can't use this other process but really encouraging people like this is the place where it's closest to the work that you can get actually more satisfactory responses and maybe even call this a conflict resolution policy as opposed to a complaint policy uh which i think captures what the we're not going to call it a preamble anymore but um right okay right here i really like that scott because i think if people are looking oh so what i do is i file a complaint right but if we're saying i think calling it a conflict resolution policy says we as the district want to partner with you to resolve problems and bring restoration rather than it's all about this formal process where you complain and then we sit on high and decide um but then it's about trying to resolve and um improve i like that conflict and i don't know conflict resolution i don't know if that's the right language necessarily but resolution policy doesn't quite work um but something like something like that i i agree um i think we are talking about i mean in real terms we're talking about conflict resolution but i think the idea or the ideal might be to give people a kind of um kind of guidelines on how to deal with issues before they you know before they evolved into actual conflict you know it's like questions concerns issues you know so we're gonna have to get a little creative in the word smithing i think i mean i think you do have to have the word complaint in it because also we we don't want it to be like you have to go people have to be able to find it and um i mean the reality is some people are going to be like i've already done that and now i'm gonna wanna file something right i think it should be an and um i want to consult division 22 we may have to have it formally say complaint somewhere in it because of that required process but we'll we'll do our best to expand and modify to convey what i think we've heard and and we'll find out if it's to state that or not or whether we want it to anyway but we'll come back and let you know if there's a regulatory requirement for it okay um any other comment liz did you get enough to work with
00h 35m 00s
i did thank you all okay okay so um let's then uh kind of pick up where we left off um at the last meeting um and again we're going to try to avoid words missing we're going for you know concept um so if my notes are correct i think we left off last time at page four which is roman numerals for filing an appeal disc three so be step three appeal to the school board that accurate okay okay so we've got a number of red line changes um are there any um without lasting into word thinking if we can are there any changes here that um you feel like we need to discuss rita can i interrupt really quickly i'm looking at the version that's dated 11 on board books and so this section is actually on page five i just want to make sure we're all in the same version unless i'm wrong yeah there are two documents uh in the board book one one is labeled 11 16 20 20 policy community draft redline version that's the one with the new what we call the preamble um and the other one was the uh the revisions to the existing complaint policy um which is what i used for my notes so so for for that draft it takes four of eight uh for the other drastic page five of nine so um ewitch um the only difference in the two drafts is the very front part um the additions of the preamble right okay so um so any any issues that require discussion um in um in a section on step three appeal to the pps4 the whole section i mean that so all of all of b and c no all b already so um everybody having the same information um it seems that if there have been board questions and answers that um that would be part of the written background information provided to the complainants as well you have a question well i'm just it's a i guess a statement um that that the written background information um that everybody have the same again the theory of everybody having the same information um are you suggesting that we add some language to what's here including well i guess that would be my word that would be my question if that's that's included because that hasn't been the past practice depends on the draft one draft is red line to last versions the last meetings version and one draft is red line to the current policy so that is new language and maybe i'm right and i'm sorry i'm looking at the one from my version from last time which is my notes on it appears that it's the same as the one that i printed
00h 40m 00s
out yesterday yes that has not been changed from last meeting to this meeting in terms of new proposed language about the 24 hours an exchange of information right so originally when i had raised this because i think this was language i had added it was thinking about and then then i had an additional thought it was thinking about um say we get a complaint and based on either new thinking or something that staff sends the board of like here's additive information for your other than the sort of established written record um which seems like that prevents a complaint from walking into a meeting and getting some brand new information but if it's going to be the written record it seems like it should also include whatever information board members received in response to questions so my question does i just want to make sure that includes that so julia what you're saying is if i ask a question of staff in preparation for hearing the complaint that question and the responding information should be provided to the complainant um that seems i'm trying to think why why we wouldn't i i think phrasing it i think that's generally the case you might have a legal question that's a privileged communication that would not be included you might have of some ferpa protected information that wouldn't be i mean i i don't know all the different variations but i think the general gist and the intent behind this language even though maybe tweaked more was that information the board was considering generally is information that the complainant should see was the intent of the the edits i thought were requested what we're trying to get to so i think we're headed in that direction but welcome suggestions the policy i think is best framed in terms of what comes from the district to the complainant i mean it can regulate internal communications among board members but that seems like an odd thing to put in the policy given how it's other orientation to the complainant but the information flow what the board has requested what we've tried to do is i think in the direction julia but uh tell me where where we can make it better okay so i totally agree with the um two area the two areas and there may be more that where you you wouldn't share information and i think um we could be explicit about that um but say it says the districts happen to complain shall exchange any other written background information they intend to present and maybe it's just as simple as adding present to and just adding or share with the board what i'm hearing is julia uh is you saying if i ask a question and staff answer it in a way that's uh sort of making a case one way or another for example that that's information that the complainant might want to either dispute or add some detail to or but if they don't know that has been added to the argument so to speak or the case um they would have no way of responding to it is that right yeah okay i think that's and and i would agree i think that's uh and i hear liz saying that's the intense um except in the the the legal ferpa kind of exception i think present two shouldn't i think the the share with because it present these are short proceedings generally there may be a whole lot of information so percent to i don't think is meant literally in terms at least in terms of how currently those um uh processes have been those those hearings have been conducted so i think i think present i think present two is meant more in the share with yeah this um not our current practice so in some ways like borders are walking into the room with more information actually
00h 45m 00s
than the complainant and it's information supplied by the staff sometimes that may be the case yes this is meant to make sure that the complainants understand the basis for the board's decision and the information the board was considering i think is how i would characterize the event and it's your it's the board member's intent that we are trying to translate so i want to be sure we get it right my my questions and explanations are in furtherance of what you're trying to solve and uh is it the and i want to formal requests for additional information or uh you're having a conversation with somebody and a staff member and something comes up because i think trying to ensure that that everybody understands both board side and staff side when we are providing information that we then therefore have to provide to whoever is you know kind of leading the complaint forward i was thinking in terms of written written questions and answers just because those do get shared with the full board but obviously people have different people have different styles or maybe thoughts on so do we do we have a specific uh proposal on the table for language well i just would suggest after the words present to to add or share with um so share with or almost a shared with as well because there's share with at the formal hearing they're shared with before the formal hearing sorry to get really worried smithy but i think that's the julia's i'm hearing the issue julia i think the at the appeal hearing may be more prescriptive than was intended because it's taken literally that's a point in time and what you're talking about is the materials the board is considering for the appeal i think so maybe we can tweak that to make it less tied to that time period and more about the information being shared with the board okay and you probably given given the earlier discussion of their there may be circumstances under which um particular types of information won't be able to be shared so work your magic with the words and okay okay um anything else um sorry this is alien i noticed that in the step three it says we have to hear it within 30 days i'm on the 11 16 version um that says the board will vote on the appeal within 30 days of the written request to appeal the superintendent's discussion i know that we have delayed multiple times based on us asking for a delay from the complainant or the complaint asking a delay for us is that something we should put here in the policy um as something that sometimes happens or do we leave it in this way just all knowing that stuff crops up we have something on other provisions that says that it can be delayed by mutual agreement and i i don't know that it specifies on which level we're at but i don't know that we need to do that we'll get we can make it clear that it applies at any point in time okay all right um can we move on to see other types of complaints so i had a question about um it says we accept anonymous formal complaints concerning division 22 matters um and i know we've now added in with a division 22 um but it seems like people may look like well i don't have a division 22 complaint but i have an anonymous complaint like where do i where do i send that so it seems i don't know we take we take anonymous complaints in
00h 50m 00s
a number of settings through a number of intake mechanisms this is one of them and this is the division 22 formal complaint policy so i think that's the the clarifying edit there we need a place for it to go so we know that for this this regulatory required process they come to this place i think it's not to limit anonymous complaints in other settings but to make sure we get the anonymous complaint under division 22 in a identified place so i think when sorry um when um when we work on the language the preamble language which we're not going to call it preamble but for the sake of it but this may be one place where um we might need to tweak this document just a little bit and and um clarify that you know everything that we're talking about right now is part of a formal complaint process um in which case you know the division 22 stuff comes in um anyway sorry um i interrupted somebody was it scott yeah i was just going to say well well division 22 might be why we have this policy the public doesn't give a rap about whether their complaint is division 22 or not and and so it might be i i think this should be a there should be a broader statement that goes beyond the uh just the division 22. um just to say well you know does doesn't have to be division 22 to make an anonymous complaint i think we can i think we can rework it so it's more clear and less and and the whole point is that people understand it so um we'll work on that so maybe sorry no no please go ahead so maybe after the first section where we talk about this conflict resolution other than the formal complaint policy then there is actually a preamble um that talks about various types of complaints and um it could be division 22 is like it's the formal there are you know these these types of things there's also a whole other host of complaints and where you go for those because me is saying like hey this complaint email this is only for division 22 and i think i agree with scott like until i got on the school board i didn't even know there was a division 22. um and so i think that just in plain english we should be describing you know where people go and i don't i don't know why we'd only have formal complaints i i know why title nine we might have a separate place but if something wasn't title nine and wasn't division 22 where would they go on the conflict resolution webpage that uh lydia created there is a i mean i don't know we have that on that you see that we refer people there and it does talk about what number you call to make anonymous complaints it also lists the safe organ hotline which is also where you can make anonymous complaints we can perhaps provide greater context rather than just say for other complaints go here so that people understand that the the web page offers a lot of different avenues i think what would be helpful though i mean i i want to make sure that people have concerns i mean i think what i doesn't matter what i think what i think you want like but i happen to agree with we want to have people know where to go and we want to welcome concerns and all in all avenues but what one of the purposes i understood of the revised language on the front end was to not make this entirely about complaints and i worry if we start building paragraph and section section over multiple kinds of complaints that we've undone what the intent was in the front part so i i guess i need some clarity as we're drafting about how to frame the the information in which place and whether all of that's in this policy or are we trying to have a are we trying to say here's how we'd like you to work through
00h 55m 00s
and these are the informal ways and the collaborative ways and the closest to the work ways that you described earlier julia and then if that doesn't work here's this process or are we trying to say if you have a concern about this required process or any of these other places here are all the places you can go to complain and i think those may be different send different messages and i'm i want to make sure i'm we're we're understanding what you're trying to accomplish my two cents into this conversation is that this is the complaint policy this is not the complaint process right so the process that's on our website for people to find is not necessarily the verbiage in this complaint so if someone's rolling out to the pbs website looking for how to make an anonymous complaint julia this the exact language in this policy may not be what's on the website so i think it depends on how we're thinking how users are going to encounter this language so i would um there's a great point i would hope that they would be not in conflict or be aligned and maybe the thing in the the section that is no longer the preamble maybe there's just a reference to here's a general resource that you can go to and then when you get informal complaints be explicit that these are division 22 but if there should be somewhere in pps and if it's if it's the website that has all these other places then we should steer people to that at the very beginning and then we can go into and here's the formal division 22 piece but if we're like if you're following along the complaint process like i found the policy now i know what to do and then it's like oh but actually i'm in the wrong place because this is only for division 22. so maybe we should um can i can i stop us here because i think um what i think i'm hearing is that this can be dealt with um in the process of coming up with new introductory sections um and fold this kind of information into that up front rather than here is that that sounds reasonable mary director more just so that i'm sure that i'm understanding the conversation correctly i think we want to convey that we want to have a culture where folks are welcome to lend feedback express opinion displeasure whatever it may be and we encourage them to do that their child's teacher with their principal their school supervisor etc in a multitude of ways but for division 22 purposes that the board is outlining a formal process with specific steps to resolve those right yes but i i think the thing we're talking about is you know these little pieces that are not necessarily division 22 so under a different um you know in that introductory section and that's a logical place to put it so so i'm suggesting that um unless i hear from liz otherwise i think we've given enough direction at this point and we're we're veering close to uh we're missing at this point so do you have enough to work on liz i think so and we'll be sure to not call things division 22 matters because i agree with you that's not helpful to people so yeah okay in addition to the other things you've talked about but i wanted to know we heard you on that as well okay all right i'm going to move on to d other positions so i think um i think as we work through this new introductory thing i think some of the things in this section under other provisions we might want to move up front things like um number one the following you know district will provide the following resources um
01h 00m 00s
or not i don't know i think it might be worth going to is translation and i'm pretty sure that lydia amongst others helps people kind of walk through what the process is um not about the content of what they put in but about here's what here's the next step and here's the timeline and all that kind of thing so it seems like we should list something like that we're gonna say that i don't know maybe maybe she just sends him the paperwork and says good luck no lydia is the the star of the job she helps uh families all the time so we really appreciate that's an important role it's a good call absco so um ron d right one thing i've heard from another number of complaints is the synth um these are often parents who've like their first time in the system that it's super intimidating coming into a room and i know in covet it's like very different but coming into a room where you know we we limit in number four we limit them to one other person and they walk in a room and there's like um as they said like you've got the board the superintendent lawyers um you know a whole bunch of other staff member in a sense of like i'm like completely outnumbered here um and i don't know what the language is but i just i i keep hearing this it's like it's super intimidating and for the average parent to be in that situation and like um i'm not sure what to expect i'm nervous and then there's you know i didn't know there and i'm sorry liz like i didn't know there were gonna be lawyers in the room or like i didn't know who was gonna be there and so i i'm just thinking about like and maybe this isn't in the policy but just our practice of like here specifically when especially when it's a student um when it's one of these closed sessions language because much of the time it's a public meeting so first of all in a public meeting anybody can come and then when it's an executive session then i think that's really and so i think i think it's a good point that that is imprecise given what happens and it may make a uh complainant um feel unduly restricted in who they can have there as support so we should talk about what you if you want any guard rails on an executive session right in some nexus but a public meeting they can bring anyone right and so i think some of the most of these have been like student student related where i've gotten the feedback um and so i mean like do we need all those all the staff in the in the meeting um and if we've already laid out the all the information is that is that necessary especially if we're going to be telling them you can only bring one person i think it's hard in a policy and maybe i'm not thinking very creatively because it's been a long day i think it's hard to define on a policy basis across the board which staff how you would define which staff can be there because a particular complaint may require more you know three people and another one might might actually require seven because of the the people to be available to answer questions for the board so staff is there to to be helpful and there's sometimes you might need someone who's in the who's a counselor versus someone who's in the the administration building versus the person who did the step two complaint who's the boss of the person in the building i'm just thinking through all the rules that are implicated so so it's hard for me to get my head wrapped around how to define that unless you want to say every you know staff members you know need to have information
01h 05m 00s
relevant to the complaint but i'm not i don't know if that solves either even be another thing so like so i can see a complaint and saying the same thing like i'm a lay person so i need to bring next person and next person and you only said i can only bring one person yeah so i think we should change that language anyway i do think we want to think about an executive session is a confidential session so i'm uh but but i it's hard i think we're hard-pressed to tell a family i mean it's their private information that's being protected and for these are ferpa protected proceedings so if they want to bring someone into that conversation i'd be hard-pressed to start drawing firm lines right i mean i've thought through every piece but it's their it's their privacy and their child's privacy where those rules protect it's not the districts right they're the person inviting inviting them or bringing them like is the assumption that they agreed to share that information yeah i haven't thought through all the mechanics of that julia but it's as a conceptual matter i think that's right so it's um i think outside of policy we might want to think of other ways to um sort of some pre-hearing ways to ease people in and lydia has developed some very nice materials that she now sends out to every family before they come um and what i'm not recalling lydia is whether it talks about who can accompany them that may be in more generous and welcoming terms than the current language which will will revise before the next turn of this but do you want to speak to what you tell families and information you give them uh so the information that i provide for them before they come in i um i just play them with all the background information and then how the proceedings go like if if they want to speak in front of the board they have x amount of time and then they can remain there if the board has questions um but i do not uh specify how many people they can bring in most of the time you know both parents come in um if if they are both available uh but i do not specify if they can bring more than one more than two so i think we can revise that julia because i think we we want to respect different family and uh cultures and support needs and um i think that's important great okay um okay any other issues yeah um number 12 um who is the determinant of what has been previously filed investigated and responded to and my assumption is this language has been run by ode and they are okay with us rejecting a complaint i don't think the the specific language hasn't been run by ode because it's just making clear to participants what i think is already in the ode regs which is if you are unhappy with the decision that you have at step one you go to the next steps and if you're unhappy with the district's decision you go to ode but you don't start over again on the same issue at step one with the district so it's just making that part clear um to to families it's not it it's i think it it have to be anything that is not all ty ty goes to the runner and the runner is the complainant right if there's any ambiguity about whether this has been addressed before then it's not been addressed but if it has been addressed you don't get to start over on that process there is finality at some point if you don't like what ode does then you take it to the circuit court to completely over lawyer the answer but there is a path that already exists this is intending to reflect that so i would say two things about this one that um we should make clear that that's the process and put in here that they can go to ode and then i know that there's a whole process of a first read a first reading a public comment period and then you know second reading
01h 10m 00s
whenever that happens i think in the meantime we should fix get the ad fixed um because if you go to the ad it says that the board is the final and if actually it's not the final we should we should well we should add in here like you don't refile it if you don't like it you go to ode and then fix at least right now for whatever the three to four month time period that it's going to take to get the policy through the process to get the ad corrected so that it's aligned with state law i i agree um i'm fixing the the ad and we will we will put that work stream in motion for the superintendent to review and um uh ultimately sign off on or or not but i'm sure he will because he likes to be compliant i know this about him i would say you know yeah but but there is a part of the steps i'm sorry annie go ahead now i was gonna say under the step three appeal you know after it's like step three appeal and then it says if the complaint is not satisfied with the decision then they do these next steps i think that's already covered here about what those next steps are there under under step three except for the the ad says the board is the final arbitrary it just needs to be fixed okay what what what happens if uh there's new evidence you know a complaint gets decided and then uh that videotape of me comes out and uh so it turns turns out the complaint was right after all so i i think there are a number of permutations of that scott so this is not a core right we don't have rules of evidence we don't i i think the there are a couple paths one path is if there is just if there was any sort of deception or you know improper conduct or motive on the part of any any staff member i think the district would step up and do the right thing right this is um uh that's that's what this place is if there is imperfect information at the time of a decision and later there's just more information unless you get a second bite unless the district decides to again this is one path but i i want to be careful we're not setting up this i made a public records request after i went to ode and then i got all of this new information and now i want to go back to the district again we we don't this is this judicial like function is is a sliver of what the board does and outside the normal operations of at the board level and at staff level so i i have concerns about making it too um too quasi-judicial i mean i think we do our best to adhere to and provide fairness and due process there are due process claims that would be available i i would surmise i've been thought through all of them if someone really you know was done wrong by the district in this process i would there might be other claims that's not what a family wants to do a family wants to have be treated fairly and have and find resolution if at all possible and i i think there are multiple paths so that's that's a i don't know how to write that in a policy answer to cover all of those steps but i i don't think sitting here that just new evidence without other extenuating circumstances should have you start over because we don't purport to have an entire universe of evidence on a particular issue so like if there were a dog park issue right and there were there we were talking about one dog park but now we got evidence of other dog parks that came in after we decided the issue about the one dog park i'm not i'm not sure that that's i don't think that's what this process is designed to do or consider but it's not my process so we have to meet the division 22 requirements and if this is what the board wants it is your process to define so i'm but that's my initial response when i think about it i mean obviously if here's maybe a potential practical solution if the evidence is like super compelling and it's uh an issue of like importance the board can always waive its policy um as a practical matter though it says for the vast majority of them if the evidence that new
01h 15m 00s
evidence is immaterial like this is the policy okay i'm good let me just okay i have a little bit of a follow-up sorry sorry so i'm just thinking of an incident where what if an incident happens and then that gets reported and it gets resolved say in the second step and the family or student says yes that works but then what if the same incident or a similar incident happens again i mean obviously it wouldn't have been resolved right could they then okay it's a new incident i mean and unless the issue is uh i don't i'm gonna use i'm gonna go back to the park setting because it's simple and easy um right if uh if i don't like the sign if i do something wrong with the sign at the on the school grounds every time i look at the sign doesn't create a new incident but if there's a different sign or that sign you know we've resolved it that the sign is going to be taken down and then another sign shows up right i mean if we had a resolution or if a different sign i don't like it's similar but i mean it's you get one shot at the same incident um the same dynamic so there's some there's some subject of complaints that are about how things are operated or run they're conditions that will exist and so they're resolved one time and they will continue that way despite multiple interactions by a family or student with that process system building thing does that make sense yeah but i think i i do think it's very generous and again tie goes to the complaining party right if it's ambiguous whether it's been processed or not i think it's got i think it's we want a process that that is accessible that way and not overly formalistic right we want to resolve the solution we want to resolve the problem we want to understand if it gives us visibility to systemic issues how do we but we we're not trying to create a court-like setting so i just re-read with them not to believe the point but how i'm reading this is like if one person files a complaint and they're like kind of an incompetent complaint filer and the district field has been investigated and responded to does that it appears that that's like that's about complaint like somebody else couldn't have a separate complaint about it i have to think through again all of the different ways that shows up julia so if it's about the same immutable incident that applies equally to all people right the bus route i have a complaint about this bus route and family a says i've gone through all the steps through complaining about this bus route and i don't like it this family be come and complain about the same bus route in the same year i don't know i mean i i think there's a high likelihood of variation there of new issues but i i suppose there could be some you don't if you had 20 families who were complaining about the bus route you wouldn't serially do it 20 times either so i'm trying to figure out where that that is this i think this language was drafted with the idea that the com that this the individual complainant doesn't start over again and i think most complaints are most complaints are about a particular family but i i can't tell you there are none where you wouldn't say out of the uh for some sense of efficiency you could come up with some absurd results in both directions i suppose yeah i mean it's interesting because i was thinking of that that exact same way um that like it's the same person but then i read it it actually is not specific to a person filing the same complaint i think division 22 is going to give the nod to this being limited to individual complainants and not i i don't think that that uh stephanie's family can exhaust my rights so it may be a truncated i mean it may move through quickly but but the individual rights by each family to complain about the bus route i i don't i don't think anyone else can exhaust mine it's probably i mean i'm thinking i'm shooting from the hip here on that one i haven't thought through all the nooks and crannies but i i think that's probably right that's an individual appeal can we move on are there any other concerns director more i'm late to the party so you might have already covered this if that's the case staff can brief me later but in 1d this notion of an annual report i'm assuming that's a summary of the formal complaint trends did you want my assessment of how process from staff perspective
01h 20m 00s
and and i know lydia always does a really nice job in summarizing those were you looking for something different 1d 1d torch back at the top yes ma'am i'm not seeing a wendy it's a red letter a and then a d in blue page 3 of 9 rita on the conversion from the 16th because complaints can be an important indicator of the health of an organization the superintendent will provide to the board at least annually data on trends and emerging issues as well as an assessment of the formal complaint process um so it has become clear to me that there are differences in the text between these two versions so we're we're going to be using the 11 16 2020 version as the baseline okay so sorry okay i was just looking at the posted material anyway okay so uh so the question is the superintendent um i think i think it's the superintendent as a metaphor or the district so maybe we should make it the district not the superintendent i just want to be clear on sort of what you're looking to describe in the way of an expectation so this is a formal complaint policy so you want an annual summary i'm guessing of all those that were filed how many went through step two or three you know did they result in uh you know resolutions or support or other direction as well as an assessment of the process are you looking for my opinion of the time and effort and resource expended or for example so the kind of trends of uh you know we've had 18 complaints about the coffee and besc um okay time to do something about that okay so a summary of the trends the types of complaints are they coming from a particular area right and um sort of emerging issue like what should we um based on what we've heard we're paying attention to this and um i mean personally i would like to see i think would be helpful to know if um some issue areas needing improvements were identified and if so what was done or what is being done that kind of thing what we were trying to avoid is the two prescriptives in the policy um so i think we were refraining from being more prescriptive because i'm pretty sure we could be um we might not want us to be um but anyway okay to answer your question yeah we'll we'll provide a summary of formal complaints and any patterns or trends to your point there's no shortage of improvement areas but we're not right tabulating you know everybody's opinion about all the things that we need to work on this refers to something more specific yes yeah okay um okay back to the other provisions any other yeah on number 13. um so i um find problematic that um question about the second part of it the first sentence not knowingly refrain from initiating or pursuing contact so currently the board is not informed when it comes which one are you talking
01h 25m 00s
about which number number 13. so currently board members i mean they wind their way through lydia and the process and the long response so oftentimes the first time we know there's a division 22 complaint and it's coming to the board is when we get a notice from lydia that we're going to be scheduling something um so you know i i don't know if a board member would even know that um then second um so complaints come in different forms and i again i think often we may be thinking about one or two particular examples and then write a complaint to address that when it could be much different so for example i'm going to take in 2014 the parents coalition where you had actually 10 10 parents filing a complaint with ode um and but there were you know hundreds of high school parents who were supportive they were just name complaints and so i'm just wondering how that works and then also how it works if um so say for example we've got somebody in the pipeline with a complaint um that lives in lentz and they're participating in the southeast um uh the southeast enrollment balancing or middle school opening process and they can't contact you i mean i don't i don't see how this is enforceable or as we found somebody could file a complaint and then their spouse shows up or their ex-spouse or you know their advocate so i i think it's um hard when we're elected officials get contacted by a lot of people to have that be an enforceable or even necessarily the right the right thing to do okay can i clarify just a couple things um so first is um the the point you're talking about is number 13 in the original document in the november 16th document it's number 14 you know for those of you keeping score i i didn't read for all my notes from once the next yeah okay um the second thing is that the language in this paragraph is still somewhat goggled um so we need to we need to clean up that language um i think the intent of this is really clear that's here it basically means that we should not knowingly initiate or continue or pursue contact with complainants once a formal complaint so julia if we don't know that a complaint's been filed then that's not a problem but i think it's all about like once we know there's something going on um how do we interact with that complainant right so i you know i've had examples where if somebody's got a complaint and the person contacts me about something totally different and we have a conversation work on that but i think this is about us as board members doing our own investigations or um sort of unilaterally trying to resolve something or do stuff not as a collective and that i mean that's what this speaks to to me yeah so but this just says so for example and i know all bird rooms do this because i see a lot of the responses if somebody contacts you even if they're a complainant people respond well i mean i've responded to people who have sent complaints but i think there's a difference between what this is going to um initiate or continue or pursue contact with complainants so i think you know just there's a way to to graciously respond and say you know we're in the formal complaint process um thank you for your willingness to continue bringing these issues forward um without getting into like that engagement piece okay well that's that's not what this says and maybe that's what gets fixed because it's implying that you can't respond because to somebody who has sent you something um okay um and then the other question
01h 30m 00s
i would have is what's the diff what's the definition of investigate is that you have some technical expertise because of your professional background or you like live near the school where a complaint's at and it's like oh like i totally know this answer that the district gave is wrong because i've walked by that place a million times and you know there's x there um what what is what does investigate mean does it mean like looking up the meaning of a word or a phrase or a legal definition or like hey i know somebody who's in that pta and they offered this you know very different version of events than the district offered what it what does investigate mean i i would think that investigate i mean i think any knowledge that we already bring is fine and i think it's working through that with the um the senior staff i think for me investigate is you know calling a principal and asking them questions or calling a pta president at the school and asking questions i think it's you know our role as the board is to work with that senior level staff so i think it would be that piece and if you know something of like hey i've walked past this park and i've seen this then that's something to share with you know the head of osp as we're doing this work i mean that would be and if you need to look up a word or ask a question i think that that's doing due diligence as opposed to investigating questioning i think investigating to me goes to questioning directly people involved in the complaint process at the school level so um that means if the staff or superintendent invites you to a school visit about the impact in school you should say no because where you should go and you're going to get the district's version of things or i guess i'd want to have a more clear clear definition of what investigate means because i think it's open to interpretation because i see individuals and actually this part of the strength of the board everybody has relationships um something happens about green you know rita and scott know people there i read and paul new things get people there and a lot of times um that's the advantage of a board with deep community ties that may or may not be um in like and a sense of a sense of place um that we bring to the we bring to the process i mean i'll just say like the dog park you just go you know you walk by richmond and like there's two different signs that say two different things and by the way they're full of graffiti and that wasn't like in the district staff report um and so like is that investigating like hey there's two signs outside and in that particular case um so if it's like hey you have that information share it which i actually you know in that case send it to claire um but i think we should be more clear about what that what that means and so there's not a a got you like it's okay if i do it but if yeah i use my community connections but you shouldn't offer yours or i mean for example really i mean i think for me it's the difference between going on a site visit to a school and like hearing what the superintendent has and maybe asking questions and then calling that person later and asking specific questions from the complaint right those are different um and you know there's there's a way to like i don't think any of us should be directly questioning principles um as board members i think if we have questions about the complaint that that's that there's a pathway to do that right um so i think this is all like trying to understand if we have information as board members to share it but you know if there was a complaint let's say about llewellyn which is where my daughter went and i have very close ties to that community still um and in fact there was something that that came through about llewellyn at one point it's not my job to go call the teacher that it's involved and say hey tell me about this parent or the principal it's to say when we get to you know if i have a question or if i see something in the complaint things to share hey i know this piece of information tied to the community but it's i don't think it's my job to go in and try to resolve it at that level um it's it's my job to share that information with the staff who are doing the complaint response can i ask a clarifying question um which is that um let's see going back to the language um
01h 35m 00s
this this says uh for example uh should not initiate or continue contact once a formal complaint has been filed um does that mean the formal complaint or is that when um the level three the step three well we don't even know when a formal complaint's filed so i mean i don't know i don't know how we could but if you if you become aware so you're you know let's say you're talking to somebody um who has a complaint um in the course of conversations you discover that person has in fact filed a formal complaint you are now you now possess knowledge that a formal complaint has been filed so at that point this would kick in and and then i think the point is to say um i hope you can work things out uh you know outside the complaint process keep talking um i hope i don't see you in another month step three but beyond beyond that lets the process work on its own we're we're not the problem solving body in that sense sorry i understand not contacting the person directly and trying to like fix the problem at that stage before it gets to a further stage what i don't understand is not allowing um board members to make sure that the information being provided to them is accurate or that that information is the full information that needs to be brought to them the board can make that decision yeah the board can request information jackson and we get you know and and so the question is if we have questions of the principal it's we ask them during the hearing right it's it's that we do have a chance to ask these questions or bring forward it it's are we doing it within the process as a collective or are we doing it on our own and i think and also it's staff's job to respond to the step one and step two complaints and try to resolve it and so if we know something that can help resolve it then we should be sharing that with those staff and then when it gets to the step three appeal is when we can ask those questions and say and we've said before at step three complaints we don't have enough information or we have a question about this that's not resolved can we delay making a decision and we have so it's really that it's it's the issue of are we working together as a board in the process to make sure everybody's clear and the boundaries are respected um but it is we do i mean our goal i think is for all of us to resolve this well and to fix things that are broken and to um also help you know um make sure people feel heard and that the process is fair but we can i mean we can do that it's just you know if you're a if i were to call up you know let's say someone at cleveland had a complaint and i was to call up you know paige's science teacher as a board member that's super intimidating so it's how do we do it in the process in the proper way is kind of that piece and respecting the hierarchy of staff well then i think we should have what i would say could i julia can i interrupt because i i have a medicine okay um so we're going through a great deal of time and trouble to to create where we have created and now we're revising we're improving um a formal complaint process in order for that formal complaint process to have integrity we need to allow the process to work as intended if we have a board member doing an independent investigation in parallel to the official um complaint process that is going to interfere with the integrity of the process and i think in terms of you know earlier there was a lot of discussion about what qualifies as an investigation and i would say i think i think reasonable people know what constitutes an investigation and what doesn't i mean noting that you know i was walking down the street today and i saw the sign in question and i noticed x and you say that to the staff person um obviously that's not an investigation um but if you're if somebody is conducting an investigation that
01h 40m 00s
involves multiple phone calls to different participants in the issue in question and reaching conclusions and checking up on things and and maybe advising the complainants about how to approach something or what to ask that's an investigation and i don't think that is productive because it's going to undermine the integrity of the formal complaint process we're trying to set up yes okay i'll just there's multiple examples over the last two years in which the board either got inaccurate information or not all the information so i think when everybody saw the video for example of the of the assembly it was like oh that was clearly like planned um and but the video was never even though that was an estimated complaint like it never got onto us and so you know it's if a board member gets so free here's another example um before there were any sort of complaints everybody on the board got a uh well not everybody so some people got photos from an assembly at a certain point in time staff said hey i don't know where those photos are could you give them to me and there's the supply to them it's like i don't i don't get what the what you're implying is an investigation and when actually you know often staff i mean most cases staff and board members are equally copied on the information so i don't i'm just not understanding that the difference or i also think if we're going to say that we can't get anything from acquaintance i don't think it's inappropriate for staff to be for example inviting us to a school where the subject of the complaint is because that's from a parent's perspective it's like oh well so you got information from one side and there was no limits on it and yet okay here's the thing here's the thing okay i get to i get your point so here's the thing we're either going to have a formal complaint process with procedures in place that is implemented by staff or we're not pick one you can't have both that's right let me finish if the board has a role in that formal complaint process as the venue for the final appeal then i do not understand how a board member can play that role with integrity if that board member has been screwing around with the process throughout and we have had cases where that has happened and i don't think it's productive and this paragraph is intended to employ board members to allow the formal complaint process to function with some level of integrity and i would agree i would agree with you julia that um you know if there's a complaint about something going on at x school and i was scheduled to visit x school in the next month i'd say i'd reschedule i think that's i think that's what we should do agree let's just call it out like i got invited by the superintendent to go visit the school right before we voted on the complaint so and that was after a long period of you taking independent action in parallel to the official there was no there was no independent action okay all right i'm gonna i'm gonna call the question um you're clearly not gonna agree so i'm gonna call the question uh we need to work on the language we need to um fix the language in this paragraph but um i'm going to ask for a formal vote among board members okay in principle um who is in favor of this paragraph with potentially some relatively minor revision okay who is opposed i'm opposed um okay
01h 45m 00s
i think it's not defined and i think it's going to be impossible to um actually implement with with intentionality i'd like to propose language that we add some sort of doesn't have to be formally done now but that just like we're not going to have contact with um the complainant that staff will also refrain from discussing the case outside of normal normal um processes which is the written record and anything else with board members because my concern is that parents already feel the deck is completely stacked against them and that if we're saying okay here's the set of rules then it should apply to both sides if we're really if we're going to be the final appeal then it shouldn't be one side continue can continue to have one-off conversation all right i'm going to ask you if you want to propose new language write up the proposal we'll consider it at the at the next meeting okay okay okay um we're now at 5 49 and we haven't taken a break yet um and we're waiting my schedule on the agenda so um we're very close to finishing okay um i don't think we have any significant changes can can we power through for another five minutes and maybe get it done i think that's it chairmoor may i um just add a point of clarification if if you're not familiar with the complaint process and the history of it at the district i just want to say for the record that the staff who's in who's in charge of the complaint policy has never withheld information or had side conversations um i i feel like someone on this call was um it's insinuating that she has not done her job appropriately and that i just want to make clear if anyone had any question about that i just want to make sure everyone knows that i can attest that lydia is an amazing complaint coordinator and there's no record of that so i'm not saying that was the intention but if that was the perception that came across i want to be really clear lydia's on my team and i stand by her absolutely and i know the superintendent does too i know you all do too i just want to make that clear yeah thank you for raising what may have been my perceived what i said um my sub i actually was thinking about the substance of the responses not the complaint process and i absolutely agree lydia is amazing and all the complaints they they can complain about the process but they don't complain about lydia so um thank you for letting me correct the record it's the the content of the the response i'm sorry but i just want to apologize to lydia because i know that sometimes we are very careless in our language when we talk about things like this and you know wanting to get information and stuff and so i just want to make make it clear that when we speak about the staff or the district um we do need to be careful in our language and remember that those are people that we know and work with us and so i just want to apologize to you for that sort of careless use of language we were using as we had that discussion so thank you for the work you do okay okay thank you for that um all right so let's let's see if we can get if we can finish this um and then take a break uh so e lab section wasn't it what what am i missing something is there more to this draft there's e complaints against the superintendent or members of the board of education uh oh the new draft is the very bottom of page seven on to page eight right you're right yeah i just didn't see anything marked up there there isn't but i just want to make sure are we good okay i'm not hearing anything so i'm gonna call it good um okay so um liz um you have a number of issues that um you're going to come back to us next time and respond to what you heard tonight um julia if you have if you want to propose some altern alternate language for that paragraph um please send it around
01h 50m 00s
before the next meeting um and then we will put this back on the agenda for the next policy committee meeting in three weeks is this a process that i thought scott and i were gonna yeah we'll work with you in between now yes i was gonna say that yeah yeah sorry it's still new it's not happening i have one other thing that there i think there was a misunderstanding on the public engagement process that um when we had it was presented that people who went through the complaint process um would be contacted and when i went back and looked at the suggested engagement it's not all the people and i just want to note for the record i think we should talk to all the people who have been part it's a subset but i think we should yeah thank you for the opportunity to clarify we plan on sending the survey that we sent out to all of you for comments um to all complainants great thank you okay i'm gonna pause here um can we take a five minute break get back here at 601 um and then we'll move on gonna do time certain for public uh okay so so that's on at 6 50 period okay good thanks yeah so we we have less than an hour left okay all right agenda is um a draft policy to respond to the all students belong legislation and so you got a draft and the the recommendation i got uh was that um this grant this is very much a draft very much a pretty early draft um so it's probably less productive at this point um to to think in terms of you know actual word smithing which we're trying to avoid anyway remember um but uh to think about this as a concept and if you have any uh questions comments concerns suggestions um in in a conceptual way to provide direction to staff to come up with the next draft is that there so um who is should i ask danny to walk us through the concept or live who wants to do this yeah no i think danny or daniel mary but danny okay yeah i can i can take a a thing and mary uh mary and i worked uh closely on this so um so this uh this policy uh came from the state board of higher education's uh adoption of the all students belong uh initiative where the state board of higher education uh really wanted to sort of send a clear and unequivocal message about the use of hate symbols in any school environment and so after a really powerful testimony from the chair and willie howard they adopted a set of uh rules uh for school districts to follow along with uh the requirement for school districts to adopt uh similar policies uh to uh to reinforce this work and so what we've been wanting to do is to make sure that we were sort of looking at this policy through its very stated goals from the state board of higher education while also making sure that there is a great alignment with some of the work that we've been doing at the district around our responses to hate speech and really firming up our protocols so what you have here is a policy language that is rather broad and high level and we are currently working on an administrative directive that will have much more detailed information including uh a sort of like updated robust sort of response uh responses to to hate speech you've got a little bit of a preview of that in the election uh toolkit where we you know sort of really wanted to make sure that folks were very clear about the definitions of hate speech about making sure that
01h 55m 00s
folks knew the difference between hate speech and speech that you know from values and we really wanted to make sure that we're we're kind of uh continuing to use our racial equity and social justice lens uh to to really examine how we can make sure that these protocols are in alignment with our uh with our vision and with our our steps moving forward as a district so this policy um has a few parts um so the first thing that we did is that we well we love the concept of all students belong um we wanted to uh wanted we wanted to to really sort of brand this policy uh for pps so that our community would be familiar with that we had some early interests from principals uh around really wanting to adopt uh this policy and really sort of feeling um inspired by the language of support for black lives matter and uh specifically sort of school districts taking on like anti-black racism as a sort of as a sort of movement moving forward so we tried to take the best of all of those things and so we changed it from all students along to anti-racist learning communities um and so that's uh it's one thing to sort of for your for your review um and even though i know that this happens um i have 20 000 tabs open i just closed it um so the other uh thing i would say is the um so so what we uh we started with the purpose where we described um we we described sort of like our commitment to racial equity and social justice we tried to frame this in terms of our uh sort of how we wanted to uh how we want folks to understand our work around uh being anti-racist and opposing heat symbols through the affirmation of our vision and our racial equity work we also spent some time uh sort of making sure that like a lot of work and you'll you'll consistently hear this is that we don't want to just sort of remove a symbol or um you know sort of denounce the symbol but we also want to make sure that we're we're paying attention to the experience of students moving forward since we're really linking this not only to school climate but also to the educational experience for students so there's that framing there is um we went back and forth on sort of like how far down the the road to go in terms of a long list of definitions and we decided for this first graph we would kind of limit the definitions that only are responsive to the language that's in this uh policy but in the administrative directive we wanted to be really clear and kind of have a compendium of um terms that are related to this so that we were really crystal clear which you know for administrators for students for uh parents and educators that were really clear about through what all those what all those different terms mean what was the difference between all of them and then um i think uh you know mary had the really great suggestion of sort of like making sure that with the administrative directive that we're also thinking about what's that professional development that links through um so that uh it's not just a directive or it's not just a policy on the shelf but that it really is uh supported um so uh the the sort of needs if you will of the uh sandwich is basically uh sort of uh where the policy lays out uh the prohibition of hate symbols um and then sort of lays out the sort of consequences of their use this policy focuses on three primary symbols of um of hate uh a swastika a confederate flag and a noose and but we thought it was important not only to uh to sort of affirm those three symbols that those were not tolerated but also to give more information about the database of hate symbols that the anti-defamation league league keeps and so there's an active link to that um and then uh the consequences we wanted to make sure that there is some um that the administrative directive would sort of outline consequences and sort of how we approach this there is quite a bit of overlap uh in some of the work that we're doing around addressing online issues um the title ix policy um and uh the student conduct and discipline policy and so we want to make sure that we're really crystal clear in the administrative directive and that the policy gives gives room for this so that there's clear understanding of what the difference is between each of those it's just one moment and then the um and that then there's also the um that that we're also sort of making sure that that uh the expectation and the um alignment is there in terms of student experience and uh creating a
02h 00m 00s
climate and culture uh for for learning so that's the work in a nutshell mary kane not only is she an excellent party guest uh she also uh did a lot of heavy lifting on this and we've been able to collaborate really closely on this one thing i would say is that in meetings i have with colleagues who have similar roles across the across the region um is that the use of hate symbols at sort of like you know the city of portland the clackamas county washington county metro um there is quite a bit of appetite to to make sure that um folks are really uh you know trained up and sort of uh understanding how those symbols are how those symbols are being used how young people are being recruited online uh and how this sort of like plays out in different different ways so we'll we'll continue to try to make sure that we're aligned with that and and keep this policy body updated um so that if there's additional information or uh direction that that you're sort of aware of that as well okay any any comments or questions um so the intent of the original um that that were working off of was it was about all students belonging this version that you have is specifically about anti-racism uh and yet there's references to lgbtq and other forms of hate targets of hate speech help me reconcile the broader with uh anti-racism as being somewhat narrower sure so so and this is sort of like where some of the interplay and the uh definitions came through because uh in the administrative directive we want to make sure that there's a clear understanding of say like misogyny uh sort of anti-immigrant sentiment as well xenophobia um but i think uh we landed on anti-racist for this this um policy in particular because of the intent and because of the connection between the three uh the three sort of uh symbols uh that were outlined um the when in the state board's uh uh presentation and sort of rollout they really focused in on on the importance of the black lives of the black lives matter movement and sort of how this was connected and that by creating a space where we are really attending to anti-racism that in fact we create a space uh we create space for many intersecting uh identities to feel to feel safe and to and to belong it's been our it's been our our theory of action uh that by sort of uh zeroing in on on race and anti-racism that that can uh that that that can take us a long way and making sure that we've built the muscle to be able to then make sure that that all intersecting identities are affirmed so i appreciate that but sometimes there's not going to be intersection with somebody who's subjected to hate speech or a hate hate symbol um so i'm that that's you know and the initial title sort of almost sounds like well all lives matter kind of kind of a thing and i appreciate not wanting to cast things in that sense um but are you guessing that the anti-race that the title is uh uh more limiting than what the intent of the policy i mean because what what what um danny has described our intent is to to be as comprehensive as possible so i i hear what you're saying about the title maybe yeah yeah and i want to uh don't i think we should be specifically calling out anti-racism and not doing a uh mush that if along with calling out anti-racism i would want us to also call out um other forms of hatred i guess i guess one some some um some continued
02h 05m 00s
place for you to think about is that if you think about some of the objectives and the goals of of sort of white nationalists and uh the sort of folks who perpetrate these symbols um i think nothing would make them more upset than sort of calling out anti-race uh that that would sort of the the the sort of singular focus on race and that sort of emphasis would be evidence of of this the exact opposite of what they of what they aim for um and a lot of their a lot of their reasoning can sometimes be about like well what about white people who experience this um this other type of hate symbol um why aren't you accommodating for that um and that's why that's why sort of like black lives matter or um you know racial equity or dei is problematic for them and so i think that i i totally understand what your intent and i hear what you're saying i think the um in terms of rooting out hate speech i i would i would i would strongly say that um some of the best things that we could do for our lgbtq students for for uh for uh women for uh is to be anti-racist that that is that is that is a strong antidote to hate oh sorry about saying dei jackson helped me we're cool all right it's good modeling to ask a question when you don't know what something means right so um i guess maybe when we go out to public comment we can find we'll hear from other groups um i think it's the language should be centered on anti-racism um from hearing from um the disabled community about ableism and certainly um lgbtqi students about the issues they raised i'm not we we have a like passing reference to that or even national origin um that i'm not sure we've quite captured the unfortunate the the broad spectrum of hate speech and symbols libra and i would just open the aperture um a bit i'm and i this is um i'm interested in hearing more about maybe this is like more of the a.d but understanding how it be play out because we can say as an adult like hey these we know these things are hate symbols so if they show up we all know you know a nuke is the ultimate you know act of racism or a burning cross i don't think all students um are you know depending on what like where they grew up or um you know what their family's background is or their experiences they've had would know maybe all the variations certainly the explicit ones that are mentioned yes but if there's a much longer list um i'd be interested in how we um share with students what those are i mean i and by the way i was doing an independent investigation and the um the link is not um a link because i was wondering what the other um symbols were at least in my version i couldn't link to it the hate on display hate symbols database i couldn't find it but when i went to it it said i saw a whole bunch of other articles that had like the okay symbol being like co-opted by white supremacy and you know it's like that's a something people use all the time in um like just responding to text so like i guess i'm interested from an educator standpoint of how we share um some of the nuances or evolving because the okay sign i don't think used to be the white supremacist um i think a lot of people would still be surprised to know that that was good please that's one of the difficulties is um there it's the symbolism it moves so quickly and it's and it's hard for i think the adults to keep up um a lot of the recruiting tactics on online in particular are moving very quickly with memes that
02h 10m 00s
seem innocuous to us but uh hold great relevance and great harm to students who are also on these online platforms and that that's why with danny referenced in the ad what we're um also conceptualizing is the educational piece like what is this what is this we're talking about and how can we help students to recognize it so that they are aware when they're being recruited right they are aware or when the you know they're being drawn in or and and because i don't know that we can we can list everything in the policy that it's going to change too quickly yeah i i i think that mary hit it on the head we had when we were training um when we were offering professional development at the leadership institute um a couple years ago we heard stories of sort of students who were who were you know innocently sort of wearing one of the symbols because it was adorable um and it was just because the administrator had seen uh you know something you know had taken an interest that they had seen that that was in fact you know was sort of like a pretty uh pretty common hate symbol and the student had no idea so i think what we've really tried to focus on is making sure that not only do administrators but also that our custodians uh and folks who are in our facilities department um so leading up to the election we asked folks to to sort of like do a double take around um around all the rules making sure that that graffiti wasn't uh that the graffiti wasn't sort of uh hate symbols and just sort of making sure that that sort of educate we have two schools who are currently implementing the adl's no place for hate curriculum and several schools are adopting different parts of teaching tolerances uh so some of their pieces of curriculum around um around sort of like hate and schools so i i do think that there is um an opportunity and in our protocols we reference both uh as sort of like resources we've also utilized the state center's um response to white nationalism uh as well so we are really trying to make sure that we've got all of the resources available and that we're we're that and that we're um that we're savvy in the way that we talk about this because there is a recruitment that that's happening uh we can sort of see it there is there is a sort of start with like questioning um and it's it you know in and the interplay of misogyny uh xenophobia and racism are really really strong um and so we want to make sure that we're we're very uh that we're very focused around around what that looks like so i'm really glad to hear that it from a standpoint of like a board member um i it would be great to capture like everything you just said somehow and like a paragraph or two about how we're gonna do that because i think otherwise it could be hey we feel really good because we passed this policy but not necessarily indicating like how we're gonna equip students and staff to and i'm thinking primarily of the unintentional um things that may maybe expressions of hate that people like i didn't you know i didn't know that um and we live in we live in a very white community in some in some ways so it's some some staff and students may or may not even know what we may think is really common things so i i hope we can capture some way that how we're going to help educate our community even acknowledging that they're rapidly changing yeah i think we can accomplish a lot of that in the ad okay and um do we have any other um major i'm looking at the clock um do we have any other major comments that you want to give to staff um danny and mary have you gotten enough to work with for the next iteration of this okay any burning issues that okay all right let's just close what sorry one last thing um in the let's see it's uh 2 8 and 2b um it seems to leave out the emotional impact there's that does it mess with your
02h 15m 00s
learning does it are you denied services and not just you know the impact on you as a person um of the of display of hate speech so it and i'm i just want to note that and if it makes sense to respond to that and if i'm you may have had good reasons for just leaving it at one and two there or a and b or whatever that nomenclature is mary can you also send around the actual link that of the the database yes i couldn't i couldn't find it online okay all right um can we move on um okay so we have um two other policies on the agenda um and i'm gonna make an executive decision um uh to postpone the discussion of the uh title ix policy changes um and it's not just because we're running out of time um leanne who is um the title ix coordinator and has been working um with mary on the um on the revisions and and remember these are revisions that are responsive to both state law and federal law um and it's taking since they're vastly different in in a number of ways um kind of blending the two is taking a fair amount of work um she is not able to be here today and she has been overwhelmed with some other stuff so she hasn't quite finished um making the changes so um it sounds like an excuse to postpone discussion of this policy until next time because i want to at least start talking a bit about indemnification um this would be a new policy um that is intended to be responsive to some um situations that have emerged in the last couple of years um so i we uh we don't have draft language but um uh we wanted to have kind of a conceptual discussion about this um and i think who's gonna walk us through some thoughts on this liz is this with you yes i think um i can kick it off um it i had two separate inquiries um from one from rita and one from julia this summer about um those situations when being an employee of pps subjects um an employee to certain expenses particularly some licensing licensure challenges that are um that can emerge in a number of of contexts um uh speaking about the the legal department i can say that there is a pretty long history of some uh complaints being made by people who are unhappy with the um the position that a district lawyer has taken and then filed bar complaints uh we see it in the special ed arena quite a bit frankly um and and i say quite a bit it's not an epidemic that's an example there could be others and so that is not covered by our current by the tort claims act because it's not a tort but it can be a very significant expense to to a district employee and so um at a very concept in response to the inquiries from rita and julia about that uh i i looked for some sample policies and other examples and there are a few there aren't a lot um sometimes they're focused on lawyers sometimes they're focused on a broader um situation but i think
02h 20m 00s
i mean i'm sensitive as not being an employee um it's easy for me to talk about that because this policy uh wouldn't benefit me but i um but i do want to get conceptual direction the inquiry came from board members about how you know how does this work and what what do we have and how do we where how are we thinking about expenses uh and i'm not talking i i think the inquiry is not related to unethical conduct that is substantiated it's when some of those processes get used um because people aren't happy about decisions again i think i there are some examples in the special ed arena um that are most important but they're but we can come up with others so it's i get i think the the idea of where how can staff be helpful in providing more information to further the discussion but this again from the board initiated in korea will be helpful and also follow your lead that's what i would say we don't have a draft yet though do we no i i don't i um no we don't have a draft i don't feel like i didn't feel like we had sufficient direction in order to produce one and so that's even just a working draft um we need some direct i guess of what you'd like to see and then we can put something together um i think um for you but what we wanted to get since it's coming from you or the the the request was coming from you what you were interested in where you want us to go with this what what what are the specifics you had in mind or would you like us to present you with uh we have a number of different uh examples what would be helpful so let me let me ask let me ask you two this question um do you have specific questions to which you would like answers that might be a more efficient way to approach this so so some of the most um the examples we're most familiar with are about lawyers and bar complaints um but do you want us to look beyond that we found the city of salem policy if i'm remembering is just about lawyers because this this then happens um in other places too this is not unique to pps so i will say um my response to this is um yes i think i i think we probably should go beyond attorneys because one of the things that prompted my question was a comment from a non-attorney employee who was facing um i i think it was a potential ethics complaint um i'm not exactly sure i can't remember this was a year ago um i can't exactly remember the details but it was it was definitely not an attorney um but it was a kind of credible possibility that they would have to be shelling out substantial legal fees to defend against what appeared to be what sounded to me like abusive conduct so would um would you like it to be something that's done at the end of the process after an outcome i i don't know how else you know if it's right if there's a finding of unethical conduct then that may not be something the district wants to defend so it's an application it's a request to be reimbursed is the decision maker the superintendent how do we i mean we can we can we can come up with some criteria for you to think about but those are some of the structural questions i would put as we're trying to frame enough for you to react to i guess i um so the indemnification does is does what it um because my understanding was more in a legal sense because i'm thinking about there's all sorts of things that happen all the time in the district in which people have to go get lawyers and or may want a lawyer um or the district to put their expenses or to be able to get something outside i mean generally my sense was when if there's something that happens in the course of your duties and it becomes a legal issue the district defense defends you and i thought my understanding was this is a narrower
02h 25m 00s
this is like in the course of a lawyer defending the district or engaged in the legal process on behalf of the district which is a little bit different than um other cases it can be this is part of the discussion to figure out what's the what do you want the scope of this to be and we if it would be helpful we could bring some examples with this is where this might play out i mean again we have not put pen to paper because we um really needed some some input and direction or just some thought partnership to get to get the ball rolling um i think it would we maybe it would be helpful if we uh again drawing from other examples from other jurisdictions what what might this look like and what types of things would be in and out right and then you guys could adjust that in an outline as you potentially saw fit you might want to put a cap on it um you know there might be it might be indemnification up to a certain dollar amount we um i i think we i think it'll take multiple rounds of thinking through how what it might look like and but i think we want to keep our eye on the north star what's the problem you're trying to solve right and i think what you're trying to solve is when complaints are made against a pps employee who's acting in the course in scope appropriately within the course and scope and has to individually defend an administrative proceeding that's outside the torque claims act you want an individual employee to not bear at least all of that burden on an individual basis i think i think that was the basis for the into the first inquiry but the devil's in the details right yep yes it would be useful to know in what cases does the district not cover provide legal support for staff and say like hey you're on your own or that's separate so to me that would be like in what cases are there because my understanding is generally is at least the central office when a decision is made and there's some sort of complaint filed that the district defense defends them and it's not the person paying their own lawyer so when you talk about a workplace or a tort a tort claim right so there's a statute and then our policy that repeats the statute requires the district to defend employees who are acting in the course in scope when they're when there's an allegation of wrongdoing in a in a legal claim the administrative agency and again i think the best example it comes up in individual licensing although the ethics commission read a raise from another pps employee last year is another example um where they're they're i i don't think there is an ability for the district to pay if it wanted to so another thing you could do is say you know the board authorizes the superintendent to have discretion to do that but right now this i don't think there's legal basis to do anything but cover things within the tork claims act so if it's outside that there isn't there is an authority given from the board to the superintendent to pick up any of those costs that an employee is carrying simply by virtue of doing their job for the district that's that's the dilemma so i think based on what you said i mean a couple of things left out at me um i think some kind of monetary cap makes sense where the threshold is i have no idea but um you know i don't want people racking up legal expenses you know on on our dime um unnecessary um and um what else is i don't say um i would like some ability for the district to deny a request um if there seems to be evidence that the person in question was in fact not acting appropriately um i wouldn't want it to be a kind of ironclad whatever you do we got to cover i i don't think you i don't think you should i mean you can't and you don't want to and you don't to the extent the district is the complaining party to an entity then then you don't right that's right and there could be a point where the district files a complaint against an employee or a former employee like you would not you would definitely not want that right
02h 30m 00s
or if you're a mandatory reporter and you have to file that right i mean you would we would want to think through what all those pieces look like but so it it seems to me that i mean i don't know how many instances we have occurred in the last five years i have no idea um it's probably more than one it's almost certainly more than one is it more than ten no clue um but it i'm imagining that you might need to like pop it you know you might need to make some scenarios up i think that would be helpful yeah i think that would be helpful to make sure because you want to you're trying to stop on you want to solve the problem but not create unintended consequences and not create an open i mean again i don't think there's a unless it has a wildly broad scope that no one's considering i don't think this is significantly expensive i mean the volume is not so high for the district but it is it is a significant piece for the district and attracting some people to certain roles knowing that this exposure exists yeah yeah so i think from my standpoint i'm interested in a narrower version and having some sideboards that don't create the impression the the appearance that um it's uh like hey if we if we like you will you this is covered or not but there's some sort of objective criteria that reasonable people would agree on that unlocks that and i'm with rita on a cap too because no cap you know it's um i mean again the district can always wait you know you can make a decision to wave the cap if there's some extraordinary circumstance but i think having a cap creates a more like let's try and get this resolved in a way that's not um taking money from the classroom unnecessarily yep and different levels i mean we have we can bring some examples that we have with our employees to illustrate scenarios um and where you would want to reasonably cut that off i think most most don't go to crazy links but one that did so i i'm i'm right i'm not two minds in the idea of reimbursement because you know on the one hand yeah it would be nice to have an outcome so that you can be certain that the person was acting appropriately on the other hand for an awful lot of people for most people you know covering upfront costs for legal fees could wreak havoc with their life um and i mean i would be hard pressed if i needed that um so that's a tricky one for me let's um continue to think about it look at some other examples from other jurisdictions and see how it's handled but i think that's exactly the trade-off yeah okay any other questions on indemnification okay because if we were inside my wheelhouse um mine too but i do worry about losses um okay uh we have four minutes until 6 50. so um let me ask kara uh the people who signed up for public comment are they already on yes we now have everybody signed up online okay okay so um rather than just waste the next three minutes until we're becoming certain let's let's go ahead um let's start with zander zip
02h 35m 00s
i love this the way is how this is working because i'm seeing i'm seeing craig labelled as xander zip hello hi xander you ready yeah sorry um my wi-fi was not working for a minute there but i don't know totally understand all right um am i ready to go yes go ahead all right uh hi my name is xander zip i use he him pronouns i'm a madison student and i'm here on behalf of publish students united none of us are oblivious to the anti-hate speech influx across pbs our group was formed in response to these incidents and the need for change in pps response we formed a coalition of students near across nearly all pps high schools in order to change the hate speech policy we are here to propose a partnership with the policy committee so that both admin and students can have a hand in drafting the document designed to support us the instances that drew the most attention of our group were the symbols on jsu posters at cleveland an article at lincoln excuse me and an article at lincoln it's important to note that these are but a small fraction of the events that have spread throughout ups and also that our focus is on the response to these instances not the incidents instances themselves nor the consequences as the article from lincoln was what brought our group together i'll start by talking about it a student at lincoln wrote an article in support of the proud boys despite their labeling as extremists we take issue when a school paper publishes that article as the group is presently inciting violence throughout the city lincoln then provided no response to affected students and went radio silent until an issue arose regarding the same incident at a pta meeting they then attempted to use restorative justice practices but did not bring in a coordinator and still made no attempt to support their students of color or involve anyone but the publisher of article of the article in the rj process at cleveland the jewish student union returned to school to find a plethora of swastikas and other anti-semitic hate speech on their posters put up throughout the school the school took down the posters completely instead of addressing it what we miss here is the response condemning this action and presenting its affected students with swift support we feel as though the current policy does not go far enough to support affected students nor does it seem to do a good job of clearly addressing the issue itself we as students have a right to a safe and accepting learning environment until the current hate speech response is altered this cannot be achieved in pps okay thank you thank you xander we have kylie jones hi um hello my name is kylie jones i share pronouns i racially identify as asian i'm a lincoln senior and i'm also on behalf here on behalf of publius students united as previously mentioned police students united is a student advocacy group dedicated to career creating safer spaces for students of color and students with marginalized identities within portland public schools we plan to do this by tackling both the preventative and responsive side of hate speech by doing the following determining where the student teacher staff admin and board gap is and bringing the bridging the disconnect between the two creating clear and concise definitions of what hate incidents and hate crimes are redef designing the current hate incident and hate crime reporting system developing methods to prevent these incidents within portland public schools whether that be education on various issues within an intersectionality within equity or systems of repressions or just other forms of preventative measures and creating support systems for students teachers and staff when these incidents do occur we want to be involved in helping implement the policies within this all students belong legislation and we believe we are uniquely qualified to help implement these policies into the districts we as students are arguably the most affected group by these incidents and policies and we believe that in order to best gauge how these policies can be practiced having one of the groups of people that are affected is extremely vital if we are able to work with the board and the policy committee to implement the various policies within the all students belong legislation we would lend our perspectives as students who have dealt with these types of issues and types of hate speech within our schools we would be able to elaborate on the various emotional mental and physical effects hate speech incidents have on students and the school community and we'd also be able to elaborate elaborate on how historically where the student the district has done well in response to hate speech incidents and where it has fallen short these qualities would allow us to help advise and create better solutions to tackle these types of incidents while all of us may have different titles and roles within the school system we all want the same thing safer spaces for students and schools thank you thank you
02h 40m 00s
i'm you there we go we have beth cavanaugh can i just if we make sure that kara gets your email addresses when we um go through the next turn of the um of the the policy um we can reach out and engage with you all right trooper edwards i do have them and they're they should be in board book under when you log in under supplemental resources awesome hi i'm beth cavanaugh i use she her pronouns my name is spelled b-e-t-h-c-a-v-a-n-a-u-g-h over the past year i've been part of a group of parents and teachers from across pps that was formed to review pps data related to foundation fundraising in our district members of our group have worked at or have children who have attended schools across the district including alameda abernathy beach laurelhurst atkinson grout hospi green scott roseway heights and roosevelt many of us have been actively involved at one time or another in our schools foundations in reviewing the district's data we have found that even when accounting for grants from the pps parent fund foundation dollars disproportionately benefit students in schools that are predominantly white i'm here tonight to let the committee know that we're prepared and excited to share our findings in order to bring transparency to the pps foundation system and build community support to reform our foundation policies so that they are truly equity centered our research will be released to the public this wednesday morning through a large network of parents teachers and students that told us they want to help inform their communities about the district's racially and equitable foundation policy this policy committee has an opportunity to be the committee that chose to establish foundation fundraising policies centered on racial equity my fellow advocates and i look forward to supporting you in that endeavor thank you can i just mention uh sort of point of information um we have we have the foundation policy scheduled for january right yes thank you fyi that concludes who we have signed up for public comment today okay thank you um okay we have five minutes anything else you feel compelled to discuss in the five minutes rita um of the the very beginning when we talked about pulse depaul different policies that um work on one of the ones that we didn't discuss was the foundation and i'd like to um participate in that okay let me ask as would i read it okay um i want to thank our students who are here today especially jillian and jackson who are the policy committee students um i know that this is uh not easy sometimes to jump in on the computer and online and to speak up when um we're all you know discussing things so i really appreciate you being here and and parker for coming and adding in as well um and just really appreciate your student perspective as well as all the people who gave testimony today um thank you for your time and for your investment in the district yep what are you saying um and um so i am going i i'm going to promise you not just be your response to everything yes what amy said i i only do it when appropriate um so and that was it that was it yeah so um i i promise to send out an email with the list of policies and um and uh committee members attached um it's gonna go also to uh students and uh students let me know if there's in a policy area that you're especially interested in working on okay um okay we're at 657 anything else i'm sure there's some minutiae we can talk about for the next three minutes and really drag this out but would you go back to redlining um i i would like to discuss some grammatical issues that have emerged and okay just joking you should have thought before you said you wanted to go back to redlining
02h 45m 00s
okay all right um it's nothing else uh thank you all for um it's been a long three hours i know um thank you for everybody's attention um i think we made some progress and we will see you back here in three weeks okay thank you

Sources

PPS Board of Education, BoardBook Public View, https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/915 (accessed: 2023-01-25T21:27:49.720701Z)
PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)
PPS Communications, "PPS Board of Education Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbZtlBHJZmkdC_tt72iEiQXsgBxAQRwtM (accessed: 2023-10-14T01:02:33.351363Z)
PPS Board of Education, "PPS Board of Education - Committee Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDVmokTZiuGv_HR3Qv7kkmJU (accessed: 2023-10-14T00:59:52.903034Z)

2020-11-16 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

Documents / Media

Notices/Agendas

Materials

Minutes

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Policy Committee Meeting 11/16/2020

Sources