2020-12-15 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2020-12-15
Time 18:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type regular
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting 12/15/2020

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the board of education for december 15 2020 is called to order for tonight's meeting any item that will be voted on has been posted on the pbs website under the board and meetings tabs this meeting is being streamed live on pps tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times welcome to this meeting of the board we begin with the consent agenda board members are there any items you would like to pool we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of the meeting but first of all ms bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda there was a revision that was uploaded to the website earlier today but none since then [Music] board members are there any items you would like to pull from the consent agenda i have three comments to make but nothing to pull great i'm sorry i was frozen there i was frozen i think our chair might be for everybody there she went scott this is your moment seize power all right julia go ahead would you want to uh get it under consideration moved and seconded and then did you want to pull something from the consent agenda before we move sorry what you missed is i said i had three comments but i don't have anything to pull okay does anybody else have anything they would like to pull okay let's go ahead um with emotion on the consent agenda um do i have a motion and second to adopt the consent agenda so moved second all right director constand moves and director from edward seconds the adoption of the consent agenda julia what um comments last questions did you have yeah so um on resolution uh 6214 which is our expenditure contracts we have a number of um legal contracts that appear to be um while they're vendors that we use they appear to be sort of the start of new contracts and i'd just like to add it when we have our mid-year or the next quarterly reporting that we get sort of the the annualized uh summary for these vendors given that uh there's more expenditures for these con for these law firms than is represented on this so just to get an accurate snapshot of our spend with these particular um law firms um and then second um on resolution 6218 i had a question for the record and i think it's been responded to so thank you staff and then on resolution 6217 um i know we've had a discussion about this already before but i just want to acknowledge the work of staff to find a a good solution to and home for access um that that was more than a year-long uh process and not easy so you know kudos to all the staff uh and the work that went into that to find um a good solution for for the access students and families and to reunite the two campuses great is there any other board discussion on the consent agenda all right we will ms bradshaw is there any public comment no all right the board will now vote on resolutions six two one four six two one five six two one seven and six two one eight all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions the consent agenda is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right thank you everyone we turn now to our time of student and public comment before we begin i would like to review our guidelines for comment
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the board thanks the community for taking the time to attend this meeting and provide your comments public input informs our work and we look forward to hearing your thoughts reflections and concerns i think director brom edwards just alluded to that as she talked about the work that went into reunifying access our responsibility as a board is to actively listen our board office may follow up on board issues raised during public testimony we do request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a personnel matter and not be the subject of public comment if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or superintendent we ask that you email them to public comment at pps.net again that's public comment all one word at pps.net please make sure when you begin your comment that you clearly state your name and spell your last name you'll have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after the three minutes which means it is time to conclude your comments ms bradshaw who do we have signed up for our student our public comment tonight we do not have any public comment tonight no students either okay well i guess we will hear from students as we move on now to um student representative shu and nathaniel would you like to provide us with your report this evening i would thank you wasn't expecting to go so soon this is weird uh anyway uh for us seniors the horrendous college application process uh drags on meaning that i am still exceedingly preoccupied however as this is our last meeting of 2020 i am hopeful that this will no longer be the case the next time we meet in january uh during last month's sorry during last meetings where the rush to report i had mentioned that the dsc whose full name by the way is the district student council not the district district student advisory council has been functioning as a more cohesive and effective body lately in the interest of transparency i would like to take tonight as an opportunity to elaborate on what this has meant for us as an organization to begin with we have for the first time since our creation approved bylaws as is our right and duty under our board policy these bylaws which we intend to be but a force draft of many cover topics from the types of dsc meetings to meeting rules to bsc voting and quorum we have also as of tonight voted to form our first three formal subcommittees the policy subcommittee which will be tasked with managing the ongoing efforts to amend our board policy the bylaws subcommittee which will be tasked with refining and expanding on our bylaws and the intergovernmental subcommittee which will focus on expanding intergovernmental and interorganizational student voice the first two shall exist until their respective goals have been accomplished and the last one will be a standing subcommittee in addition we have scheduled our own dsc retreat for early january during which time we hope to address various pending matters and plan for the rest of the year one notable topic at this retreat will be planning for our annual pbs student summit including deciding what form it might take given the challenges of the pandemic furthermore we recently held an election for the position of deputy student rep the winner of which was jackson weinberg of cleveland with whom i look forward to working with more closely this year and finally we have for the first time also for the first time since our creation achieved a representative from every comprehensive high school in the district a number who a number of whom were elected by their student bodies while we currently lock representation from the alternative schools i am hopeful that this can be addressed in the not too distant future and thank you that concludes for tonight nathaniel this is director constant i just want to congratulate you and the rest of the dsc for um getting through those processes of making sure you had a representative from each high school that's been surprisingly challenging for the student reps who have come before you and i think it makes a huge difference so um it's really exciting to see uh how robust all your processes are becoming for the dsc and we know it's going to improve our all of our collective work by having having such good participation on your
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side so thank you so much thank you thank you student representative uh superintendent guerrero are you uh ready with your report for us tonight yes chair good evening directors when i started this to everybody listening on this our last regular meeting of 2020 actually i have a few slides for you we want to make sure we get the children on screen but i do want to begin with a quick recap of our covet 19 related event last evening we had a panel presentation to the board by regional and national public health experts along with representatives of district stakeholder groups including students parents educators and community-based partners and in just over two hours our panelists covered a number of pandemic related topics i particularly appreciated that our pediatric public health experts from children's national hospital in washington dc described many of the health and safety issues and factors and other complexities that school districts everywhere are facing as they contemplate reopening uh dr joelle simpson next slide one of the medical experts shared i cannot tell you how much i realized that planning for a hospital system paled in comparison to what you have to deal with and trying to keep school safe for kids uh that was her commentary after her continued work with us uh because in fact this is complex uh no one wants to reopen schools more than we do and we continue to work as we have for many months on the now providing comprehensive distance learning and addressing students basic needs while at the same time beginning to contemplate the future a future we hope is not too far away when we can welcome all students back into into their schools so i'd like to reiterate something that one of our directors brought up last evening when the day comes that we do reopen schools our sites cannot be merely a return to the past to the normal at that time we'll have to focus on the overall educational recovery that will require some adaptability some innovation some flexibility both in remediating for the impact of this pandemic as well as addressing opportunity gaps that existed before we shut down while we attend to those academic and social emotional needs that our students have it's why we went to the community over a year's time helping us to develop our aspirational vision it's why we're working right now even during this pandemic to develop a multi-year strategic plan which will begin to articulate a blueprint for how we will actualize our graduate portrait our educator essentials our educational system shifts that are going to be necessary to realize our vision so i want to thank the many teachers staff and students who have been participating in related focus groups recently we look forward to providing the board with an upcoming update on our progress uh in developing our strategic plan and how these prioritized action steps that emerge will in fact seek to inform our budget development process as a reminder uh we already have evidence of how we're prioritizing uh resources for instance the student investment account funding for instance as we remain committed uh to our theory of action and we're pleased to hear that it looks like that will be more fully funded uh for the coming fiscal year so i'm grateful for the board support as we work hard at being better uh and continue our journey of transformation here in the portland public schools so even in during this pandemic we remain optimistic about our future and if you missed last evening's event it is posted now on our youtube channel and if the panel did not cover a question that you have please visit pps.net you will find a banner on our district home page linking you to our question and comment form which we will keep open for another day for family students and others who wish to to make their voice heard so my sincere gratitude to all of our panelists from yesterday evening for sharing their time and their expertise not just yesterday evening but throughout this crisis and to the staff who put the event together to our directors for your continued interests or your good questions for listening to the kind of critically important information uh necessary uh for us to be aware of as we navigate the operation of our school system during this pandemic following this regular meeting of the
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board we have another one of our study sessions later this evening with a robust update on health education in the school district i want to acknowledge that we're coming close to perhaps the most challenging calendar year many of us have experienced this pandemic has exacerbated societal gaps in access to support of all kinds including access to basic needs and i'm proud of our work since march and addressing many of those needs and in delivering instruction in a way and at a scale that we've never had to do before so there are thousands of pps professionals who have worked countless hours for nine straight months and as we close out this calendar year and head into a well-deserved winter break i'd like to acknowledge the hard-working individuals who comprise pps i'm constantly inspired by our educators who continue to show extraordinary flexibility creativity and patience here in this photo it shows a typical morning at the home of ashley white she's para educator at our dart school she's sitting here with her twin daughters who are vernon first graders who set up shop with her and are learning while she lesson plans i'm grateful for our school leaders and administrators for their tireless work in supporting our school communities and operating in an unprecedented situation since this past march and i'm grateful for our custodians facilities safety teams transportation and nutrition service workers who haven't stopped working and many others whose dedication has helped maintain lifelines to those we serve i'm also appreciative of our families who've endured so much thank you for your understanding and generosity as many of you have had your roles as parents and caregivers redefined since last spring and i'm odd most by our students their brilliance is always what motivates us we recognize that this has been challenging that they've continued to demonstrate perseverance and determination in the midst of this pandemic a reckoning on racial justice and through this disruption to their learning to their social activities their school customs and traditions pardon me and as always our students give us hope this particular slide shows the choirs at cleveland high school who combined put together their first digitally produced song called secret for the mad during the process students examined mental health how to talk about it and support each other and ways music can play a role in helping us through this challenging time you might have noticed my recent social media posts highlighting students from many other schools coming together and in the midst of all to perform music together so to our talented students at cleveland and everywhere thank you for lifting us all up and i'd like to take a minute or so just to highlight their impressive performance so here you go directors real things they're gonna help you get through this one night and there will be i promise you it will always it will always [Music] [Music] it will all make sense again thank you to our talented students of cleveland high school this year has not been easy for any of us to everyone in our pps community thank you my wish is that you can find some moments of peace and restoration during this winter break we all deserve to exhale a bit and that concludes my remarks directors thank you superintendent guerrero for that um a very lovely piece from the cleveland choir there and
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um so much going on i know that i deeply appreciated the um work with our experts yesterday and thank you for um helping lead that we turn now to our committee and conference reports and i'm just gonna run through the alphabetical list of the committees and so if you don't have a report you can just say you don't have a report um but i know there's been a lot going on since our last board meeting so audit committee do you have anything to report we're going to be um covering it later in the meeting so i'll pass thanks julia all right uh bond committee director depos yeah we um had uh the bac report we started the meeting off that way also heard the osm office of um i forget the acronym office of school improvement um quarterly report an update we got a promise a commitment to share a bond execution plan at some point in the future and when that's better developed i'm really excited that we also are replacing we have an outgoing bond accountability chair and um during knowing that he was leaving we made it developed a recruitment process um through that recruitment process we got 14 applicants um which is a lot those are 14 people that are committed to working with us volunteering i'm really excited to um share and we'll share in more detail in january but through that recruitment process we um our staff is recommending the four applicants out of the 14 three of them are women all of them three of them are under 50 two of them are under 35 two identify as african-american we have an expert in the tech space that can help us um as we talk about tech improvements for the bond um one of them is a disability advocate so through the process of doing this recruitment asking them to voluntarily share their gender identity their race their age we got a really diverse pool of talented people i'm really excited to be sharing that later in the month with you all and um and we'll be appointing them in our hopefully in our first meeting in january and i believe that's it thank you director de pass all right our next committee is the cdrc thank you um we have the uh december cbsc meeting tomorrow evening between six and seven um google meet and on the agenda is the pps five-year forecast which the board looked at earlier this evening the first quarter financial reporting and benchmarking and finally confirming dates and topics for future cbsc meetings that's it all right uh charter and alternative programs director constant we have not met since my last report okay um inter-governmental committee uh we'll be approving the uh or considering the legislative agenda later on in today's meeting okay and did you want to say about the uh word about the elections piece that's going to come before us in january or do you want to save that oh uh great yeah no it's funny we had talked about that huh um no i will mostly save that uh but we will be back in um january so if i was ready two weeks ago chair lowry i'm sorry in january we are going to schedule a discussion about um uh school board elections and and whether we want to make changes based on recent state legislation and overall based on the idea that that at large elections um can be problematic and so we want to sort of take a look at um our elections and how we do them and uh whether we want to make changes to that so a robust conversation coming in january and i know one of the things we're talking about is the fact that we have a predominantly white board and maybe the way we're elected is a systemic issue um in why our boards have not been more diverse in the past now or in the past so thank you for helping us lead some of that work all right policy committee we're back to director moore again um so we had a meeting on december 7th last monday we looked at the suicide prevention policy um which we'll be uh putting out for a first reading later on this evening uh we talked about um some new revisions to the real estate policy um uh we talked about the um anti-racist learning communities policy draft which is uh our response to the
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legislation that all districts should have a policy under the category of all students belong addressing harassment racism discriminatory behavior in schools we also had a preliminary fairly long preliminary discussion of the climate crisis response policy draft the next meeting will be january 4th and a lot of these topics with the exception of suicide prevention will be carried over to the next meeting that's it all right thank you director moore we go now to the rose quarter is there any update uh director bailey or director broome edwards um we can tag team director bailey we had a meeting on monday and much of the meeting was focused on the highway covers and also public comments related to the project there was a request in addition by one of the committee members uh for sort of deeper engagement with pps and our concerns with the project so that we don't get too far down the road on the project without our issues being surfaced and that was nate mccoy so courtney wessling who's the pbs staffer teaming with me on the executive steering committee and i are going to talk to odot about how we can make that happen um because very clearly the project is um moving and um we need to get a placeholder at least for a side conversation uh we're certainly not the driver of the whole project but um to have a cup be able to have a conversation about um the interests we have related to tubman director bailey do you have anything to add no i wasn't at that meeting um it's just hard for me to imagine us telling them anything that we haven't told them in the past but there you go all right thank you very much both of you for that work um director bailey and dr moore anything from the southeast guiding coalition that we need to be updated on uh yes the coalition has been doing great challenging work uh meeting on a weekly basis and also a number of members working between meetings with the goal of coming out of [Music] the meeting on thursday with a consensus decision on feeder patterns for kellogg [Music] so stay tuned fingers crossed that we come out with something that receives broad support from committee members that we will consider in january all right and any other committees or conference reports that we have not gotten to anything from council great city schools or osba or anything else we need to share all right michelle i'm having a hard time because you talked about the bond execution plan and i just got execution plan in my head and was like um i don't know i went down a rabbit hole of like you know firing squad and all sorts of funny things so it's weird the way language sometimes uh pulls at us but i'm i'm very intrigued about the bond execution plan which i think is more about getting the bond done than any of the the where i went thank you all for your time and for your reports tonight on your committee work um it is always really intriguing to hear all the various aspects of our board work all right we are moving to our regular update on the covid19 metrics and so superintendent guerrero would you like to present this agenda item i'd like to present our chief assistant performance dr russell brown as you know we've all been tracking the trends with covet here in oregon but uh russell has the latest update for us here so good evening chair lowry members of the board mr janet guerrero and members of the community pleased to uh join you again this evening to give an update on on the metrics um you'll see that this is dated based on the metrics through last week we had an update yesterday as well and i'll articulate that in a moment next slide please
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so uh pleased to say that we've seen um our case rates the blue line there begin to plateau a little bit and that slight downward trend has continued into this week as as well but yet um as you can see we are well well above that threshold for considering a transition uh away from cdl or the inclusion of any other uh limited in-person activities at this point in time next slide please so um as expected our case rates have gone up since october we fully anticipated that back in october we were seeing about 140 cases over two weeks as of last week the plateau was around 538 cases over two weeks yesterday's update headed at 498. again about twice the rate that would be necessary to be looking at a transition period test positivity had stayed level at 8.2 percent it has has dropped this week to 7.2 percent again cautionary tale because we we still have uh two major holidays and where we expect that a number of folks will travel and have gatherings despite advice not to do so so again would lean back into the the importance of of our basic protective actions you know wearing face masks maintaining six foot of physical distance between uh one one another and uh rigorous hand washing to help stay the course of this as we move forward and again in light of what we heard from dr graven yesterday unfortunately we can anticipate the numbers to continue to to remain rather high for the foreseeable future at this point in time that is uh next slide please that summarizes the update for this time and again we provide two links for members of the board in the community if you want to keep updated with the information that's in this report and to be able to monitor as we move forward thank you again for your time all right thank you dr brown our next agenda item is the acceptance of the comprehensive annual financial report also known as the kafir and i did not know that's what it stood for um reports the management and the report now required for federal awards so director berm edwards as chair of the audit committee would you like to introduce this item thank you so at the december 2nd audit committee meeting um the audit committee heard from tim gillette and jason romney of talbot corvola and warwick or tkw we had the presentation on the kafir the comprehensive annual financial report along with the reports to management and reports on the requirements the single audit act of school district number one um we'll let tim and jason provide the overview but just to i guess the headline from the audit committee it was just another year of excellent work by the internal pps team led by tracy pinder um and so you know a year in which um we had an unmodified opinion and um it's the type of long lengthy report you want to read and find nothing surprising um that's that's always good uh when something's coming out of the audit committee um the audit committee after hearing the presentation and some questions and discussion voted to recommend the board of education accept the kafir the report to management and the report on requirements for single audit um and i will flag before we um hear the presentation from the tkw team that um when we get to the resolution i have a small um amendment to the uh resolution language to just eliminate the words and approve so we just accept but we don't approve so um when we get to that point um i'll make a motion to amend the resolution but with that i think i'm turning back to superintendent guerrero or um claire hertz the deputy superintendent who um you know another year of great results from claire's team as well uh thank you director brim edwards you took the words right out of my mouth thank you for recognizing the accomplishment here on behalf of our budget and finance team and we we do have uh some distinguished individuals with us this evening we have the president of the association of school business officials international otherwise known as deputy
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superintendent hertz and i know that we have both tim gillard and jason romney uh from tkw talbot our corporal warwick uh accounting firm so uh we're glad to have you this evening and um we like to get these kinds of reports good evening um board of directors we are so pleased to present the third year in a row of a clean audit with no findings a major shout out to the finance team and how much they have produced and really especially figuring out a paperless office in a finance area and all working from home they really have shown all year long and tracy pender and her leadership really shines in the outcome of this kafir it shows it and tkw is a great partner um they their high bar pushes us towards excellence so with that i um know that tim gillette and jason romney um are here to um present the report thank you great thanks a lot claire appreciate that the introduction i'm hi i'm tim gillette i'm a partner with talbot corvolo and warwick usually just call tkw i'm here with my manager jason romney to present the annual comprehensive annual financial report for the district we've already gone over this with the audit committee so i will go pretty quickly and always happy to take questions or slow down but i think quick is probably appreciated in this regard i think as you've already heard it is a clean audit reported what we call an unmodified opinion is the official term so we we in our opinion the financial statements fairly present the position of the district um the the comprehensive annual report is a huge document [Music] if you aren't going to read all of it i would recommend you read the management's discussion analysis which gives some good background information and some comparative information and is a good overview for the kafir um what else our part of this is really pretty small the the real credit goes to claire and tracy and and cheryl and melissa and everybody else who's involved in helping with the financial statements um so a big pat on the back for them as claire mentioned it's the third year with no single audit findings which is the important thing that you want to you want to hear about and it has not always been that way for the district there were a number of years ago where there were a number of findings so this is this is a good result and besides our opinion on the financial statements we also issue a report on in accordance with oregon minimum standards the state requires us to look at things and there are a couple of things in there you may want to look at but nothing that i would call too serious and then as i've already referred to what they call the single audit the what the federal government requires us to look at if you spend over 750 000 in federal funds which obviously the district does and that's the place where uh we look at a a number of different things as prescribed by the federal government and again it came out came out clean no findings so great work on on the district's behalf so again happy to take questions um are there any questions from board members at this time can i just point out that i believe the last time we had um an audit with findings was four years ago and as i recall they were pretty significant findings um claire has been here for the last three years and all three years have been clean um i think it speaks to her leadership um as deputy superintendent and her ability to recruit and keep a talented team finance team that is all over everything they've done a great
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job thank you important point we die echo that and as the outside auditors we would agree with that as well um especially this year with all of the challenges the of uh the pandemic and the the changes that have occurred in our society with remote work and and remote auditing for that matter it's been an interesting year for everyone and i think the district can be proud of what they've done any other comments or questions all right thank you so much uh mr gillette um we now are going to um bring forward the resolution 6219 and we'll bring that forward and then uh director from edwards you said you had an amendment to this resolution so um we now bring forward resolution 6219 acceptance of the comprehensive annual financial report reports to management and the report on requirements for federal awards um do i have a motion on a second so moved is there a second out there for me all right so director broome edwards moves and director constant seconds the adoption of resolution six two one nine is there a new board destruction discussion director berm edwards yes i would like to um offer an amendment that strikes the words in the first sentence of the resolution the words and approves so the sentence would then read the board of education accepts the comprehensive annual financial report on and on okay all right so i have a second of that amendment all right director moon edwards moves the amendment and director bailey seconds there any discussion on the amendment uh can i i just get a little rationale for the removal is that consistent with past language or i'm just curious it is that we don't traditionally approve an audit um we accept it and that's true of the kafir as well in terms of prior years okay thank you and in fact the resolution's name is acceptance of um or what besides the audit committee only recommended accepting no approving [Laughter] any further discussion on the amendment all right all in favor of the amendment please indicate so by saying yes yes yes yes i'll oppose please indicate by saying no any abstentions the amendment passes seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes all right now we move on to the discussion of the um resolution as a whole is there further board discussion ms bradshaw is there any public comment no all right the board will now vote on resolution 6219 as amended acceptance of the comprehensive annual financial report reports to management and the report on requirements for federal awards all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes i'll oppose please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6219 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes thank you nathaniel all right we move now to our school renaming process agenda item superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this next item i would but first i'd be remiss if i didn't say well done claire hertz for your leadership and kudos to your team i agree with the directors this is this has been a great track record during this administration to to reset and be prudent public servants uh uh stewards of our resources so thank you for your work so under renaming as i shared with directors earlier this summer i test our senior advisor on racial equity and social justice danny ledesma to establish a renaming and redefining committee co-facilitated with pps students to design a set of recommendations to improve our administrative directive and procedures for naming buildings this renaming and redefining committee
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will utilize a racial equity design process to evaluate the current administrative directive and suggest improvements in alignment with resj so tonight we're hearing an update from director of engagement shanice clark on the work of the committee and danny ledesma regarding the work of the committee as well so you have the two of them here thank you superintendent good evening uh chair lowry and directors um as the superintendent said my name is danny ledezma and i'm the advisor in racial equity and tonight i'm going to uh reintroduce uh kind of jog everyone's uh memory about this item and then uh the fabulous uh chinese clark is gonna sort of give you all the details about the work that we've been engaged in um so i don't know if you remember but it was it was actually uh july 15th um when the last time i was before you talking about uh the naming and defining places uh work um and if you'll remember in july uh we were uh in the right in the midst of the pandemic but also our community our country was in the midst of significant protests around a racial reckoning and our community uh was uh really in a place of discomfort and you heard from several of our community members from parents from students about how important it was for our students of color to feel a sense of belonging to be for their identities to be affirmed while they were in schools and you heard a lot of testimony about how uh how noxious some of the names and the places that we were venerating um through history have have been and what the impact could be um and so when we um when we came here uh you were so good and continue to be really so supportive when we asked you not to jump to the fix um not to sort of take the um take the testimony and sort of immediately start to to sort of move into a place of fixing stuff but rather to to sit in the discomfort to encourage us to think about how we can take a moment and reflect and think about how we can make sure that in in trying to make changes and trying to make improvement those really aligned to our vision and to our core values around racial equity and social justice and so in doing so we we proposed um naming and defining places process and as you'll recall this process is hopefully aligned to our vision and so if we go to the next slide you've seen this slide before what we endeavor to do is to make sure that as we think about ways to reimagine and change the student experience at pbs that we make sure that it's always aligned with the vision and as you know our community adopted this vision over two years ago and in every element of the vision from our core value of racial equity and social justice to our graduate portrait our educational our educator essentials and our educational systemships the value and the importance of racial equity and social justice are have we heard loud and clear from teachers from students from parents from community members how important it is that this gets woven through all that we do at pbs and so what we wanted to do in the naming and defining places is to really think about how not only to think about uh the veneration that happens in a name um but to really think about how we change the student experience so that students um are can can really sort of see and experience all the ways that our core values the graduate portrait the the elements of revision the way that they come alive so um as you recall uh we have a racial equity framework and plan if we go to the next uh slide uh one of the things that we wanted to do with the naming process is make sure that it was tied to this framework and plan you can see this on our website but in the framework and plan we have five goal areas and we thought that this this connection through student-led initiatives resg goals as well as teaching and learning rsj goals that this is a way that we could really tether any type of renaming to the work the core work that we're doing at pbs so um we looked at the goals in the framework and plan around student voice around student identity development affirmation and looked at curriculum and instruction and wanted to take a more holistic way a holistic approach in the way that we were trying to to move this work um as you also know in our next slide we have a a theory of action that really supports our approach of targeted universalism um if you go to the next slide if you're quizzing yourself if you remember the
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theory of action uh so the our theory of action uh is is targeted to universalism in in in action right uh if we really look to the places where our system or district um where we ex where students of color experience the most barriers and if we attend to folks who are experiencing those barriers then in fact we can build a stronger district and our theory of action basically uh restates that that if we really think about how to employ and execute racial equity and social justice strategies into the the core work that we do of instruction with students teachers and the curriculum then we can build not only uh organizational organizational culture but organizational capacity or that extra muscle to be able to create that foundation to support every student but particularly our black and native american students so this work if we're going to think about uh student experience really has to be grounded in the experiences of our black and native students and so you'll notice that some of the work that we're doing really attends to what what are we trying to say about the terrible legacy of slavery of genocide of of um colonization in our country and how do we make sure that um in our naming process and our uh ways that we're trying to think about things that we really pay special attention to giving our students our educators our community members the education and the tools to be able to uh to understand why why certain names or why certain histories are problematic which links to our next slide please which is uh wanting to make sure that this is all tied into our approach to teaching and learning which is to be culturally responsive or to be culturally sustaining and to make sure that that pedagogy is there so the naming uh process really uh leans into two two key uh uh elements of culturally responsive pedagogy and critical race theory the first is really uh in in the naming process wanting to make sure that we don't just change a name but that we're really thinking about how curriculum how instruction how the student experience includes a disruption of ideas where eurocentric or middle class uh uh culture is really normed and instead uh really understand that there there are there's a much bigger and deeper history of history and culture um and wanting to really honor and respect the diversity of our of our communities here in portland the other uh piece is um in critical race theory is that we want to make sure that we're aligning this to the act of counter storytelling and making sure that we're that the stories of our bipac students are black and indigenous and students of colors and family and community can really um be told and in doing that that can really be a way to counteract the racial inequities and to really sustain a movement for racial justice in our district and in our community um which i think if you think about if you reflect back on all of the summer and into the fall of protest sort of how important uh counter story counter storytelling can be particularly in giving voice to our students and making sure that our students are really centered in all of our decision making so uh the one last thing i will say if we go to the next slide is that our approach to racial equity and social justice has three three sort of problems right we want to make sure that we're doing all that we can to uh really sort of make sure that individuals are ready and that we're raising the consciousness and the giving individuals throughout the system whether it's students or teachers or principals or leaders uh that we're really sort of focusing in on that growth that needs to happen at the individual level but we're not stopping at that individual but we're and sort of jumping to systems change but really attending to a different organizational culture what are the unwritten uh norms and behaviors and agreements uh that really make up a culture of learning a culture where we are really dedicated to continuous improvement um grounded in our ideals around racial equity and social justice and how do we attend to and really uh feed and feed the culture a positive and transformational culture so that we can in fact um not only build our capacity or our muscles but really disrupt um uh oppression and uh oppression where it shows up in our system so that we really are building a district that um lives up to our deals so um in telling you this sort of uh approach of organizational development we wanted you to see how this shows up in some of the work and so i'm so um excited to introduce one of our area senior director stephen stapleton who has been just a
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really great member on our committee he brings a lot of experience and practice in uh his his some of the work that he's done before he came to pps in uh the great state of texas um and uh it's been really uh a delight to be able to work with stephen he's brought a lot of positive and uh really positive energy and uh productive energy to the group so steven's gonna talk a little bit about how this approach uh is sort of coming to life in our planning process thank you danny for that and thank you shanice also and looking at you know the organizational culture i think you know if you look at number one and regardless of renaming schools is solidifying um into this naming and defining places toolkit regular into regular practice of the school of learning about the school there's there's a lot of history and as danny mentioned earlier you know honoring and respecting our communities and while those communities may change i think in the process of counter storytelling is lifting up the voices of our students especially our body pock students and how they become a part of the legacy of their school how they become a part of the traditions and the culture and define that for them and make them feel included and and work that i've led in the past um you know we when we've talked to students and done similar empathy interviews as shanice has our students really talk about filling part of something and even though the yearbooks that they studied didn't look like you know the people in the yearbooks didn't look like them they still felt connected and understood the school and i think that sense of belonging is important especially now whenever a lot of students may not feel that they do belong and so i'm really excited to be part of this work thank you danny thank you danny and steven i i can take it from here um my name is shanice clark for the record and uh good evening folks superintendent board of education we can move to the next slide and i'm going to just talk a little bit about uh our process that has kind of multiple strands but we're really focusing on building uh these transformative and humanizing uh experiences that that couple uh culture change uh with name change and so uh our committee is of the initial uh phases of exploring that uh in addition to um our case studies that we'll have time to hear more about especially um as we continue uh and on our next slide i will have an opportunity to get a little background but things that you've seen before um i know as an educational organization where we are preparing students to lead change in concert with our demands and a responsibility to dismantle systems of oppression we are really approaching this analysis of naming our buildings and spaces by ensuring a few key things and that is really uh in addition to what you've heard earlier this commitment to racial equity and social justice and the perspectives viewpoints tensions and ideas that folks have to bring to the center of our work having a place for that discourse and i know our administrative directive is going to have an opportunity in the future to really apply uh racial equity through this community design process where we acknowledge how we go about these power constructs looking looking at new change and as steven mentioned a toolkit is going to be this support mechanism that will also be in addition to some of the procedures that we're thinking about uh that will help folks overall across the district be able to engage in this work but ultimately really strengthening our processes and approaches so young people uh at the center especially with our broader community have the bra have the critical knowledge um and capacity to really interpret and analyze um their school issues and how they impact um the their identity in school culture um and on our next slide uh i'm going to talk a little bit about uh a place that we've landed um especially as racial equity and social justice um is really fueling the way we look at the process to be able to have conversations uh in space acknowledging every student and every student experience culturally responsive pedagogy is really
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something that informs this this work and student empathy interviews were mentioned on the previous slide or on slide six but is really something that we looked at with the support of our core team to model uh culturally responsive design method and sharing you know we build that relational trust focus on human values uh and embrace complexities as we think about renaming so this is where we are in the initial stages and we have this criteria that we will help sample and identify reflective um really of our community created vision and our framework but this criteria listed will really drive the lens that we bring to decision making and policy making and change making right for school communities overall and so looking at this lens to be applied in both practice and procedure um and in the actual selection of a name um and so i'd love to also uh have ernie guerrero our director of open school step up who's also a member of our core team uh talk a little bit uh about the value of this process uh especially as it impacts students throughout our system thanks janiece and danny chair lowry and directors and some familiar faces it's good to be in space with you um i i just wanted to share a kind of a perspective as a partner the director of the step up program for open school and we've been in partnership with with the district for now 17 years and uh that my uh my place here tonight is really jus is a place of gratitude and appreciation for the process you know um step up works in three high schools right now we serve 400 students a little over 400 students right now 85 percent of them are are bypass students um seventy-five percent of our staff at step-up are bypack so i feel uh as a representative on the committee that the district and this the work of this group is really is reaching out to bring perspectives uh both within like step up and also partners that are very familiar with students and families that are in the schools and in the in the school spaces um the uh there's another piece to this that uh that has just been really um just rewarding to be a part of and that's just seeing how student-centered this process has been there's a committee that's working on like we're working on the administrative directive and looking at that sort of context uh from that that that piece and also hearing from representatives from wilson and and madison at the work they're doing on the ground and really the students the students work a lot of the students work on the ground is going to be really driving a lot of how how we work together in shaping directive and the tool kit and just the ideation that's coming that's coming through from a lot of their work in concert with the committee's work um and uh i was i was intrigued and surprised at how quickly the the group uh developed trust and transparency between all three all three folks working together um and uh and just kind of lastly um this is important work and this is bold work and this is work that not every district is is is jumping into right at the minute and uh i just wanted to share share some gratitude and uh and just appreciation for stepping into this work uh and supporting it and and knowing that and and respecting the importance of of this work that's in front of us so thanks for thanks for some time here appreciate it thank you so much ernie for joining us tonight and talking a little bit about you know how this really impacts your experience serving students across our system and a little on our next slide we'll reflect uh on the committee still and and the charge but really have a group of folks students a community members um and folks from our school leadership to help grapple with this charge to design these recommendations in support of our case studies that are on the ground right now
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at madison and wilson and so we have an opportunity to learn a lot from our folks at both processes but more so are trying to build a system uh that is responsive to um the needs and resources that are most responsive to what students are asking um asking of adults um in our system uh so our charge is here and i know we will have many more uh school communities um in the future uh that will be exploring this process um and i will be in support of this good work that we're setting up to frame uh in the next slide we will talk a little bit about the phases um so uh we in total have about five phases and uh in our first were taking the opportunity to digest what it is um we needed to accomplish and review the resources we had available to us uh and talk a little bit about culturally responsive design and that idea of empathy interviews um as a uh mechanism to practice uh and pilots um what that could look like for folks in our general process so uh our case study phase is really beginning to take a deeper dive at potential issues and solutions on the horizon for wilson and madison's name recommendation that is to come and uh in our third phase we are really looking um at the solutions that are uh coming to the surface and trying to make a plan for them uh with uh beginning to draft and revise uh practices and protocols and i mentioned the toolkit um as something we want to also be able to add uh on our next slide we're uh gonna just talk a little bit about the the last two phases continuing our uh draft changes and uh changes to practice um and hoping to finalize uh by march of 2021 and we'll have an opportunity to review develop uh and really further analyze um the recurrent process uh that we put in place for from the administrative directive so that's a little bit about the phases and on the next slide we'll talk a little bit about uh what this means for us currently uh and so uh i mentioned a little bit about this already so no surprises here um but we are really uh feeling ready as a core group uh in terms of identifying what core steps or needs exist uh to do this work um and so i have been able to begin exploring and ideating uh different pathways in response of uh the case study learnings from madison and wilson and so uh we have a toolkit and resource guide that is to come but on our next slide uh we'll have an opportunity to stay connected as both madison and wilson are sifting with community feedback from both students parents and members of the greater community with school-based committees that have been meeting weekly and so i know we're right at the nexus of figuring out uh what might work best for both school communities and in january hope to have a picture of uh when a final name will be presented but we will be continuing to provide support to both communities in addition to giving a deeper analysis on this process that will ultimately help reinforce uh technical supports that are help our schools be able to do this work that centers students um and our vision and commitment to racial equity and social justice and so and with that being said um oh that concludes uh the update for the evening and uh we have some time for i think a couple of questions um and appreciate your time tonight great i know that superintendent guerrero wanted to make a comment before we get to questions why don't we finish the board's questions related to this presentation and then if i could if you would indulge me please that sounds great i i'm happy to indulge you whenever all right so questions for the team question if i can um well first thanks
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to the team um for really putting students at the center um i think that's always what makes sustainable change even change that may seem like it will be hard hard for some segments of the community to accept um but i think when we have students at the center we can't miss so thank you for that and also explaining the process um i think the work on the ad will perhaps be um as important as um the naming processes i'm curious um i had some visibility to the franklin mascot renaming process um two years ago and how the committee worked i thought they had a process that engaged at one point the whole school community and i'm curious what what that would will look like for say um students or community members who aren't on the committee in terms of when it moves to a recommendation and wondering if you just could share that and then i guess the second thing um question i would have is when it comes to two or is there some other transition or um steps in the process danny it looks like you're muted danny oh sorry i'm having some moments of technical difficulties can you hear me now we can okay thank you um so uh thank you uh director broome edwards um so i think uh the purpose of the uh of both the toolkit and the changes to the administrative directive would be to not only sort of think about how to um how to standardize some of the the sort of engagement uh pieces of name changes but also to give some sort of hands-on um sort of uh resources so that folks can do that really well um for a huge school-wide process that also engages community members and potentially partners want to make sure that we are giving folks the tools and the the support that they need uh to do that so look for more of that to come i think um what we've heard from uh the both the committee and from some of the empathy interviews is how important it is to make sure that uh as many diverse and multiple perspectives are heard um and then um the second part of your question was about the timing for the upcoming changes is that correct you know it's also trying to figure is it is there going to be a recommendation come and then be some other steps or is it when he gets the advance to the board that's the final step just yeah so for the for the for the naming for for both madison and wilson they are operating under the current administrative director and the policy that's set up so there will be um a name that comes up for votes and we will continue to uh to update you beforehand i also want to sort of point out that you can go to our website um and there's a page on the website that has the sort of like up-to-date um sort of where where they are in the process um and so both uh wilson and madison have had some some sort of pushback in their process to allow for more engagement so i believe uh mid-january is when uh at least one of the schools might be might be ready to um propose some names they're still in process thank you go ahead um yeah i appreciate uh well thanks for all the work uh and i appreciate that this is this is specifically being structured as a learning process uh for how we go forward how we how we learn how we do better and build that in as we go along [Music] and i know when we talked about well tonight and both previously as to how this can be a learning process for the community uh we've been getting letters from alumni both pro pro yes change the name khan how dare you um how do we engage all parties in that um at that look at history uh that discussion of you know how
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how can we how dare we judge past practices with today's views well yeah we can and we we will but having that discussion um engaging alumni with students and and respect respectful process that uh you know affirms affirms everybody i just want to ask in particular with these two current processes uh can you tell me more about how that's been a part of the process well so i guess before uh and chinese can uh give us more information about the current processes but um what i would say is that that they are they are sort of operating under sort of like as is um they are case study um and so what we're trying to do is reimagine a process that is a little bit more inclusive and sort of takes into account um sort of is is more clear about sort of the alignment between uh the direction and the division of pbs and sort of how how then we uh apply uh racial equity lens to history um and particularly how that might have an implication on naming um i think that uh the the biggest uh priority has been to make sure that while the naming process is happening that for students and for principals and for school school staff educators that there really is an alignment so that the name change doesn't happen in a vacuum or that the name is changed and then five years from now there is no way to kind of really sort of draw what that what that that um without through line is um and so i think in the toolkit and the toolkit is is becoming more and more high stakes but i think in the toolkit is where we want to try to give as many resources as possible um so that folks can think about some strategies to uh how you know how do you have these conversations across generations um how do you have these conversations um an engagement process that really values and respects different perspectives but is still aligned to a set of values in the direction of the of the district so i think you'll see that um in the toolkit and we'll try to get that and i think that that's some of the discussion that the the small group is grappling with as well um in in sort of like how do you come up with a naming criteria that does contend with the fact that a lot of um a lot of historical figures don't stand the test of of time because of some pretty um pretty pretty racist and and you know colonizing practices uh of the past and danny has said it said it well but i'll just add um i know uh the historical and educational perspective especially as it relates to folks who have other kinds of relationships connections to a school building who aren't students i think the alumni engagement is something that is has been happening and is continuing to happen but in the long term we really are thinking about uh building clarity around uh how we look and consider artifacts that are relevant to a school community um and i think uh the the people that who are a part of it um and the things that happen in it um are uh central central parts of the conversation and so um i know that folks might be in various places right um with with what might be um meaningful to them especially with the different lived experiences um that folks have in a given uh school community and um i think you're asking good questions um and i think folks are continuing uh to to grapple with what uh is most relevant to you to those principles uh that wilson created ultimately um uh that ultimately is reflective of the school community's values um and so that kind of helps center those discussions with alumni um and uh helps folks be able to connect and bring bring their their honest perspectives um in madison's end they they're looking at creed um and so i know racial racial equity um is at the center of their value system that they have articulated for their school community and uh has has playing a role um and when we have conversations uh with folks who might not be in agreement at first or um having that discussion amongst what might what might be best but yes i think that our vision and in
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staying student-centered um is uh as a part of how we think about um holding space for perspectives that are even different but being able to connect that to a common goal or a common understanding thank you and i'm unclear because i'm trying to get out what specific conversations are happening now what kind of inclusion is happening now and if and and how you're trying to facilitate that conversation of sometimes opposing views so i think uh what we're doing now is we're following the the current administrative directive which requires that there be a community panel um so in addition to students that are part of the naming teams they also have community members um the both principals of madison and wilson did a pretty robust um sort of not not only betting but also uh outreach to get uh diverse perspectives and uh shanice's team has been supporting the facilitation of the meetings where some of this has come out i think that at least in practice what we're seeing is that much like our naming and defining places committee a lot of folks are really listening and trying to center on the experiences of of youth um and so um we're we we're hearing much more challenges around the timeline uh around around construction as opposed to the difficulty across generations or between alumni and students i think that our community is really um bought into listening to students and and sort of thinking about what that looks like um great that's that's more what i was trying trying to get concretely what was happening now on the ground um thanks any other questions before we wrap this up comment i just want to commend um staff for addressing this work i know it can't be easy um you know with everything else going on in our lives and work lives but also just i want to speak to the importance of addressing this at this time now after we've seen a summer of protests we've seen a pandemic happen that nobody expected um no one's trying to rewrite history it's just that history has always been told from the side of the oppressor so there there are two sides to history and the um people that are on on the other side of history haven't had their voices elevated ever in curriculum in history books in in just our understanding of who's important who's who's who's a leader and so i really appreciate i'm looking forward to hearing more about these discussions because it is important work and and we are tied to some nostalgic view of what leadership is i think it would behoove all of us to expand our understanding of of who's important whose voices are important to elevate which icons were um you know that were were venerating and and so anyway thank you i just want to thank you for your work i know it's um an extra lift in in a in a tough year all right thank you um go ahead yeah no i just wanted to add my voice to to um director deposits as well and and and others who have said it and thank the staff and this is an incredibly comprehensive um process you've put together and sort of forward looking on how to do this and it was what we talked about early on we had a lot of community members demanding instant change they wanted us as a board to take a vote that that week you know on changing the names and and i think you know the what what we said at the time was the way to do this right is to listen to the community is to build a process to be inclusive in that um and seeing what you've come back with you know in a very short period of time uh we are moving quickly um i think is really impressive so thanks to staff for that and i also wanted to say um wilson the that process which is again under the current administrative directive has narrowed it down to five um uh finalist names so um i would encourage everyone here and in the community to go uh review those and there's a there's a google form to to submit your input uh around the wilson process in particular i say that as a as a graduate of wilson high school and one who is looking very much forward um to changing the name um to something that um i think is more worthy of our community and our values then aren't you also a current wilson parent also a current and future wilson parent yes yes so you've got lots of ties to that community excellent all right um superintendent guro i'm going to turn it over to you um and then we'll um we're going to take a short break great stephen if you could stay on
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camera thank you directors for your comments and thank you danny uh shanice ernie the students the site administrators you know for participating in a deliberate design process um and and taking advantage of this being a learning opportunity um and i think it will help uh reset how how we engage in these processes when these questions and interests in reflecting on the names of our of our building so thank you for the work there so i i asked if i could go a little bit off script with with our chair because one of this this pandemic has really disrupted some of our routines or i should say my routine and i realized when i saw stephen on the screen that i dropped the ball because normally in person uh i've tried to make it accustom when we have a new team member a new senior leader uh in the district that we give them a proper introduction so if you don't mind me taking a moment to do that now i can't let it go uh and so uh if i could directors introduce to you uh doctor since we're using honorifics especially these days dr steven stapleton he joined recently as an area senior director he's supporting nine elementary schools and two k to eights in the cleveland and franklin cohort uh he's working alongside uh dr estero and and prior to joining us uh here in portland where he actually grew up and has roots he comes to us from texas's largest school district hisd houston where he served for a long time as a well-recognized school leader in fact led a middle school for its uh the largest academic growth in the state it's a pretty big state so that's uh quite an acknowledgement uh in low socioeconomic communities so uh that was one thing about his uh career path that certainly was was appealing to us and the accolades that he's received for for that work uh he started actually originally as a science teacher uh he's also worked as a specialist in instructional technology uh he's worked his way up through the ranks and that includes as a director of professional learning uh for for educators and school leaders uh he earned his bs in biology actually from ut austin hookum he has his masters in administration from lamar and his doctorate in ed leadership from texas a m university so uh i wanted to make sure that he got that proper introduction we're really happy to have him join an already dynamic team and i think we were saying earlier what a difference talent makes when you're engaged in this challenging work but with your permission i'd love to give him a minute to say a word about uh his his initial impression and and time uh here in pps stephen i think superintendent guerrero one of the reasons you might be thrown off is that today is not stephen's first day and often uh senior leadership is coming before us on their very first day at work with pps so uh welcome dr stapleson thank you and i know it's not a habit to correct my bosses but i am a doctoral candidate i haven't earned that yet i was busy working in middle schools and most recently a high school that was focused on work and so um i'm taking the the long plan my parents rushed me through my four years of undergrad so i'm taking my time now but we will get that done soon enough um so i appreciate that you know um being part of bps i wanted to come back here you know went to school in vancouver for a little while across the river my father was in the military and um you know being at a school most recently where you know we were focused on environmental justice and social justice being one of the only high schools in the nation to do that i'm coming to portland um felt like a natural connection you know when i did feel like i was moving back home but you know portland public schools is on the forefront of equity and social justice the conversations that we're having here school dish public school districts across the nation are not having the same conversations at the depth and level that they're being had here and that is something that i want to be a part of but is a testament to the work i've worked a long time for a um or done work with a non-profit called the schlectty center with phyllis schlechty and you know he talks about the roles of the school board and the superintendent he describes um perfectly what a learning organization is and describing the role of the school board as community builders and advocates for schools and you know i've seen that most recently you know just just in the actions of the board but with director bailey visiting classrooms with him at multiple campus and being able to see his interaction with principals and students in the classrooms and um it's something that you don't see and you know having superintendent aguero here you
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know phil schlechty describes the role of the superintendent as a moral and intellectual leader i mean capacity builder and truly you know this is this is a place that allows people to speak their truth allows employees to feel safe to speak their truth but also provides that level of professional development and learning that you just don't see everywhere and so i am so thankful to be here and while it is about six months onto the job i am so happy to meet all of you and um i i'm excited for all the great work that pps is doing and look i'm looking forward to being here for a long time thank you and thank you superintendent guerrero welcome stephen what is the name of the author that you just mentioned his name is philip schlechty i can i'll send you an email too great all right well we are i'm gonna take a little break here um some of us have been in meetings since 4 30 this afternoon so we're gonna do um i'm gonna be generous let's do a 10 minute break um give you a chance to take a walk uh get the dogs back out um take a bio break do what you need stretch and we will be back here at 7 40.
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is director to pass with us
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i will text her okay um all right well uh rosianna's sorting that i'm going to go ahead and ask uh director moore to go ahead and introduce um this next piece of our agenda as she is the chair of our policy committee director moore thank you um i am presenting the uh policy uh the student suicide prevention policy for first reading um and i just want to say a few words about how this policy came about um so this is a policy that is required by an oregon law and known as addie's law which was enacted in 2019 thanks largely to the advocacy of the family of addie staub um addie was a pps student who identified as transgender and died by suicide in 2017. this policy could have been a sterile recitation of the statutory requirements but this draft policy instead reflects the thoughtful work of pps staff neil rodriguez adair and amy rawona of our office of student support services they've worked with students staff the staub family community partners and board members to leverage this opportunity to build a district-wide understanding of the scope of the issue of suicide among adolescents and young adults and create a genuine wraparound system to identify and support students experiencing crises neela and amy are present here they're available if anybody has questions but they will formally present at the second reading of this policy in january and mr staub will be invited to attend by the board chair um and he'll be given the opportunity to speak if he chooses to this policy defines what a plan the district must have and in turn what plan each school must have to respond to suicidality among students and um at this point mila or amy if there's anything significant that i've missed in describing this policy um
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please offer uh additional info if you think it's necessary otherwise um i'm available for questions and um amy and mila are all i just wanna sorry you wanna go ahead julia i was just gonna say since um amy and mila are here i think um i don't wanna pass up the opportunity to thank them for all the work they did that sort of passion and heart that they brought to to the work because policy making sometimes can be dry and um abstract and impersonal and that is not the case at all uh for this policy that we're first read have first read tonight so thank you to you and your and your teams and really um pulling in voices from the community i say and approaching it with with heart um versus just we need to do this to comply with the law thank you julia i echo that exactly and just um we don't often um get a lot of insight into the work of our mental health support team and this is an example of such incredible work an incredible engagement um i was especially impressed with the student engagement that went into it um so thank you very much it's um really meaningful to me that we're having this first reading tonight because we have a work session later on health as you know and there's some just really sobering and just profoundly troubling information in there about how many of our students um have suicidal thoughts or have attempted suicide so this is an issue that affects a much bigger part of our student population than i think most of us realized before and so it's so important to bring it out of the closet and to be proactive about making sure that students and families um know what supports there are available to them and um i do hope that that addie's family joins us rita um for the final passing because you know there's no greater gift that they can bring to our community in their child's honor than really making sure that others don't suffer the same fate so this is really really important work the proposed policy will be posted on the board website and the public comment period is 21 days um so contact information for public com comment will be also posted with the policy and the plan for the second reading will be at our meeting on january 12th of 2021 um and i i say i came back to the policy committee meeting after a couple months off and it was with um great joy to hear the incredible work that amy and mila have done along with the stava family um and and just as director moore said taking this from sort of or was that maybe director from edward's taking this from just a cold policy into something that's a living document that just deeply for our students i'd also like to thank staff for their work and for their outreach uh this policy will be a big step forward for us um and especially the implementation of the policy which we've also talked about well and really engaging our students and staff in ways that support them and i'm sure will help prevent suicides going forward all right thank you so much and thank you to amy and mila for being here tonight i know that that's a lot to ask of staff to give up your evening to be at one of our lengthy board meetings but thank you so much for being here um both so we could thank you for the incredible work you have done and continue to do but also just in case we had any questions thank you and if um if you haven't taken a moment to really read into the depths of this um just know that amy and mila both have done a huge amount of work in really creating an excellent excellent policy we move on now to the report on evidence of implementation of the secretary of state's audit recommendations director berm edwards as chair of the audit committee would you like to introduce this next item great thank you um i was just looking through my emails um for the first time we received a notice that um secretary of state was going to come back for an audit review and it was march 18th um so you can imagine why it is that now
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here it is on december 15th that we're having the conversation instead um so just for since um this audit spans uh two versions of the board um in january 2019 the secretary of state's audit division had an audit of both the oregon department of education and portland public schools titled od and pps must do more to monitor spending and address systemic obstacles to student performance particularly at struggling schools and at the time pbs provided a lengthy response and as is the practice of the secretary of state um audit division they will they come back to check whether the implementation has occurred um so there are two things that so they've come back and said they're ready to review the implementation so on friday there will be a document submitted to the secretary of state which really will be sort of our initial response the secretary of state's office we should expect that they'll perhaps ask to interview people ask for additional evidence ask for documentation um meet with staff to better understand places where they have questions or clarifications um so what we're doing is providing our best um what we view as like the evidence that we've followed through on the right on the um the findings and recommendations and what we said we were going to do when we um responded to the audit initially uh so there's sort of two parts um one part we're not going to have a discussion about unless of course staff borders can ask of course whatever they want but there's a portion of it that is the management response and so that is three through twenty three through twenty five uh one through three and then some other random numbers are the odes and then you have district staff responding to the bulk of the audit and they have brought um evidence and sort of their the quarterly reporting on how they're responding to the audits and the findings and their implementation um on a somewhat regular basis to the audit committee so that's that's a piece and then the other piece is there was recommendation number 26 which was to the pps board of education as a whole and they had a number of recommendations um they instead of doing it in a sequence of numbers it was 26 a through f i believe and so um most of them paired up with um items that the district staff and management has had has responded to and then it was that the board should ensure that staff has done these things um so what you have what we have before us tonight is a document that provides evidence of implementation that the board has um has an opportunity to review of the district staff's implementation of the recommendations um from from the audit and i would say if i was going to describe sort of our two tasks as a group it's one to have a consensus on the status and for each of these we have an opportunity to either um indicate that the district has implemented they've partially implemented or not implemented so that's one thing to have a consensus of the board or a majority of the board say this this is you know we believe this is the status of the implementation and then second um it is to review the evidence of the recommendations and if there's anything um that you feel is missing or that should be added or there's evidence that's been provided that the district has implemented um a recommendation that can be that can be added and i said this is this is not the end point um so there will be an end point i know that we're all looking forward to that but um that this is a document that then the secretary of state can review the evidence um the documentation behind it not just of um what we were attesting to but also um management's response as well um and i will say when i look through here um the the amount of work that's happened um instead of like the covet even including in the covid um grace period that
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there's been a tremendous amount of work around issues the secretary of state's office and the auditors flagged as things that they've they um their findings in the report so that is what we have before us and i think there was a question about whether this was something that the audit committee uh would have done that in conversations with the state auditors um the audit committee because it has community members um and because this is the board's sort of this is the board accountability piece that it really is the boards the board's work um and again this this originally would have come to us in march um but they said because of the or the request for the response but because of covid they just came back i think two weeks ago to um to ask that we submit uh our res we submit our response which is both thus the management piece and then the the board of education piece um so unless people have board members have a different way in which they want to proceed um we can what i thought we could do is if people are prepared to let us know where they think if they've reviewed the evidence or if they have a point of view i know we've had some initial discussions on sort of what everybody might have a different standard on what how they're going to judge whether or not pps has for example the pps board should ensure that district administrators prioritize key steps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of district operations so that could be a very it could be subjective um and so there's no wrong answer for any board member of what you feel whether the district has done something we have tried to prevent provide some evidence that um is is what the auditors would look for in terms of here's evidence of implementation any before we move on to any questions from anybody on the board i think the one place that i would i think we need to talk about structurally and this is not the time to have the fleshed-out conversation is the idea that the the audit committee like several of the other committees is sort of poised to do some of the deeper dives and that it might be helpful to think about the audit committee coming back with recommendations on some of this and that yes the full board make the ultimate decisions but some of this deciding if it's implemented or partially implemented it would be helpful i think to to have a recommendation so i think that's that's one of the things that i think we have a that we just need to talk through how we as a board want to think about that but for this moment in time we're at this moment and so i think that that that's a further conversation for another day yeah i agree with that good chair lowry and one and one other just kind of broader um umbrella comment about this process is that i think we need to make clear um sort of the the chronology in which this work occurred and when it was undertaken because the way this is presented in response to the the format of the secretary of state's audit um appears that these actions that are cited as evidence were undertaken in response to the secretary of state's audit when in fact the vast majority of them were already underway some of them had largely taken root by the time the secretary of state's office did this audit and they they used um some some um document source documents that went back you know two years in time from when they came um which pre predated um the superintendent's arrival and and virtually our entire leadership team's arrival so i think that's really important because um whether we like it or not this is an opportunity for us to tell a story about the transformation that's been underway in this district and um i think we should we should use that opportunity um that's an excellent point uh director constance and we i think if you look at the the initial response um we did a lot of that we supplied way more information of the work that was underway and um some of it was acknowledged and some of it wasn't and um that's the auditor's choice um we did and and i know staff spent uh this was i think rita myself claire guadalupe's
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um sort of christmas uh or holiday break in um december of 2018. um and so it's an excellent point and we could add a cover point uh a cover letter um i think what you have here is the from an auditor standpoint uh as we checked in on what what would be considered um evidence that there had been implementation um that that this was the format that it was suggested and not not that there hadn't been work beforehand so my understanding tonight director berm edwards is that we as a board need to decide on a through f of of response 26 whether we as a board would say it's implemented partially implemented or not implemented correct that that is our work before us in the next you know 25 minutes or so is to go through each one a through f and decide implemented not implemented or partially implemented correct yes and if there's data that um you think is either either missing or irrelevant um you you could flag that director scott you had a looks like you had a question yeah thanks i i just i want to make us i won't be labor at this point but i think it's important to put it on the record so i i am troubled by this process overall and i understand where we are and the need to provide a response um i think what troubles me the most is that i don't think what the secretary of state did in this last section regarding the board and asking us to weigh in independently follows best audit practices in fact i think it's actually very poor practice i have been subject of many many government audits on the management side not a single one of those audits has the auditor ever included something that asks um the elected officials to weigh in separately from management in terms of whether things have been implemented um i obviously wasn't on the board when this audit findings you know came through i i i wish at the time and frankly to be really frank i wish now um that we would actually be going back to the secretary of state to tell them that we um will not be responding to this in the way they've asked us to because i don't think it follows best audit practices i think what this ends up doing is politicizes the findings our job as a board is to hold the superintendent responsible for um in fact following through on all kinds of management initiatives including following up on audits um that's part of our normal work i think asking us to independently verify um the work that's been done by the board it just it asks us to do something that that we're neither equipped nor staffed um nor well positioned to do and and sets up a really bad precedent where um because we are elected officials um we might want to politicize um the findings and and and be somehow uh you know um cautious about sort of following through so i'm saying that because for me in this process for each one of these what i'm going to be asking the superintendent to do is tell me whether he believes it is implemented partially implemented or not implemented and that is going to be my vote for whether what we're moving forward with because i think what again is important is not i mean we need to move forward on a lot of these things and i don't disagree with some of the findings but again i think the structure and the process the secretary of state put forward um was intentionally meant to to politicize in a way that i think is harmful to the district so director scott i mean i think it's it's a question of if it is the will of the board to we could choose not to respond to this we could choose to say exactly what you've said that we do not feel like this is best practices and we we will not respond um and that's something that if we want to do that we need to have that conversation now or lowry a middle a middle ground might be we could paraphrase what director scott just said why we don't believe it's best practice and then still of course include the responses from management with their assessment of implementation and say that as a board if we so vote that we we endorse their assessment of the state of things and given where we are today i am comfortable with that middle ground i'm comfortable with the board sending back um a response you know again given the history and you know the board changes over time um what i would be uncomfortable with is if we deviate in any way from management's response because i think that's indicative of a different issue um that might be going on in the district which i don't think we have but i don't want to make sure we don't go down that road all right the director bailey and dr deposit are unmuted and they both neither one has had a chance to speak yet so michelle did you yeah yeah thank you i'm um i i agree with uh what you just said uh director scott um and also um constand that we can go for middle ground it just sets us up and you know
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especially the audit committee we're kind of in charge of upholding processes that are transparent um and this just does not feel like the right way to proceed so the one thing i would say julia i'm going to let director bailey speak um he hasn't had a chance to speak yet and then we'll come back to you scott yeah um i will agree with the director to pass and supporting director scott and con director constance comments uh we've already spent an inordinate amount of time on this process it's it's time to move on director from edwards yeah so um we already responded to this audit um and to the end of the findings quite extensively um so i think to go back and say now we did say at the time we actually had a press conference before they released it that said it was a political a political audit um and that there were motivations and how it got released but we did respond and we agreed with the recommendations i think it would be unusual for us now to go back and say even though we said we were going to implement and uh take action on the recommendations for us not to do that now i mean we could do the board as a whole couldn't decide that i wouldn't recommend it that's why i would recommend the middle ground where we still provide the evidence of implementation um but we just attach it as the management letter with the board's endorsement so i think the question tonight then is what do we do with this um response 26 do we go ahead and say implemented not implemented partially implemented or do we just turn in what we what we already have i think that's the decision we as a board need to make in this moment i'm sorry turn in what we already have so you've already submitted to us the 26 with all of the evidence julia the only thing that's not in 26 are those final board decisions yeah i mean i think it would be also i i think we should submit the evidence um you know in the for the past year when i've raised this issue with leadership um nobody has ever said we're not going to respond so it would be um it would be it'd be unfortunate to get have gathered the evidence and not to submit it no that's not what i was saying suggesting that yeah i think what i was saying is we have so earlier tonight the board was emailed out the response to number 26 the piece that we have left to do at the meeting tonight is as a board to decide if we are going to say that each a through f is implemented partially implemented or not implemented do we want to what i'm asking the board is do we want to do that or do we want to just send the evidence in or do we want to do like andrew suggested when he first spoke and follow i guess it's up to each board member to decide if they want to follow the lead of what superintendent guerrero recommends on each one that's up to each board member to discern but i think there's a bigger question here about process and i know director medwards you've been frustrated about this process and i think i i have been too on the lack of clarity of how the board is responding what we're supposed to do and the relationship between the audit the audit committee and the full board so i think there's more work for us all to do in sort of a structural process level as we continue with next steps with this um secretary of state audit but right now in this moment we as a board need to make a decision about how we're going to proceed so i i think we should go ahead and do the implemented not implemented partially implemented and go ahead and come to a consensus on a through f um tonight that's my two cents what do other people think i would be interested in hearing if there's collective board support for just asking the superintendent to make a determination about the status of implementation and then whether collectively their support for endorsing the superintendent's assessment that would be my preference for the way forward can i make it i don't support i'm a little uncomfortable um as putting the superintendent on the spot right now asking him to you know decree whether each of these items is implemented or or what's status um if i understand correctly i believe each of these you know a through f corresponds to um the recommendations that are
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that are above this um that have been uh where staff has responded with evidence about their progress in um working on the findings um i agree with andrew that our assessment of the degree of implementation should not diverge from what the management response is saying um but i i doubt very much that superintendent guerrero has committed the um that information to memory um so i would suggest that offline following this meeting we um we sync up the sections in in recommendation 26 to the to the other recommendation areas uh in the rest of the response and just and just adopt the same status um assessment director edwards i know you were trying to speak there before uh director moore started i don't know if i i did um so i i think uh we we can't do the board can't do it's the reason why i've been asking for almost two years a year and a half to have a board discussion is the board can't do its work offline um so and if we need to submit something on friday we should just make a decision so if somebody wants to make a motion um of what you want what if somebody wants to do that um i would move that we submit the evidence i think we should divide it into two parts i think there's two parts the evidence that we've already gathered in staff participated in that process and then second how how we want to do you could make a motion that it will mirror the staff recommendations somebody can make that motion you can make a motion that we're gonna come to a collective decision tonight that's the other that would be the other one or the third would be we're not gonna have a point of view on that but i think we should i would recommend that we divide it into those two parts i think that's great you know i'm happy to make a motion um both that we submit the evidence it's been gathered and i see no reason not to submit that to the secretary of state's office um and that we as a board um make our response to the secretary of state's audit consistent with management's response um on these items and i'm assuming that they sync up exactly i'm trying to go back to my when i was on the audit committee when we talked about this but but that we would we would mirror management's response um on this i second that motion so can we divide the two please um because they're two different topics is it so what are the i mean i think when we talk about evidence are we talking about three through 25 are we talking about the evidence that was part of the 26th that we don't need to do anything we don't need to do anything with the with management they they're going to submit their own that's so what you're talking about is the evidence that accompanied the 26th memo that we received late this afternoon um and i just haven't been on board leadership for the last six months i would say that we have definitely tried to make a way forward for this julia and we you know we brought it up at agenda setting and i've tried to find a path to have this so i i want to just say on the record that this is not something that board leadership has been ignoring that this has been something we've been working towards sorry andrew what were you going to say oh i was just going to say i i it seems like this is all part of one response so i i guess i'm comfortable with the motion as it is that we would submit the evidence and and it would mere management's response yeah i don't understand why they need to be separated if you can understand that words well i'd like to because as a courtesy i'd like to vote for the evidence that um i've spent some some time but i i don't support having the board not take a position on what we think whether or not it's been implemented or not well this is where a recommendation from the audit committee would have been helpful and it is it is deeply disappointing to me that uh to to discover that the audit committee has not been um discussing this recommendation on a regular basis um i i know the audit committee has been assiduously tracking
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the um implementation of the the responses to to all of the other recommendations so it came as a surprise to me that the audit committee was not going to be presenting a recommendation to the full board because that is the way this board has structured all of its work we have multiple committees that do work that is a responsibility of the full board um with the understanding that the individual committees get deep into weeds and then report to the full board for consideration with recommendations committee is the only committee that has two community members on it and we had a discussion and the conversation was that it needed to be addressed by a conversation by the full board which never happened despite being asked we have a motion before us andrew made a motion and i seconded it um liz are we legal here with this motion that andrew made and my second thing of it or um where are we that's fine and so director of room edwards in our discussion of this motion has asked that we separate it um so is that an amendment that you're making to the motion director brim edwards as a courtesy i would ask for that and if people don't want to extend the courtesy that's the rest of the board's decision i'm sorry i'm i'm not sure i understand so separate it and then what so julie my understanding since i spent a considerable amount of time even though it wasn't the audit committee's responsibility building out the evidence i'd like to be able to support the submission of the evidence and but i don't support the we're gonna just adopt whatever staff's position is but if the board doesn't want to do that's fine i'm just ask as a professional courtesy director brian edwards could you um could you talk a little bit more about why you're uncomfortable um making sure that the board and the and the superintendent are in sync on these recommendations because we were asked by the auditor to they gave us a recommendation we responded earlier this spring not that we didn't think this was our responsibility but said we would implement our portion of it so to me it seems um contrary to what we did earlier to now adopt a position that this isn't our responsibility it's management's responsibility and i do see a difference between management and the board and like as i started this at the very beginning i knew there was a just based on our earlier conversation director scott that there was a diversity of opinion i think you had said early on like i don't even really need to go through this process um i'm gonna take the position if they say that i'm good with that so you know i want to acknowledge that people can have a range of positions i felt like we spent a fair amount of time responding to what they said to us before and we didn't say when you come back we're not going to have a point of view on whether we think something's been implemented i mean what you're highlighting is actually one of the reasons why i think this is a bad practice from the secretary of state is because elected officials do change um and the board today is different than the board of the audit the board you know the next time we respond to this or the next time there's a follow-up it could be different as well so i think that is problematic um in a way that management doesn't the other thing just just to be just to be on the record so anyone watching who you know cares about understands i mean one of my concerns just just looking at the very first one i mean this is asking the board to independently verify whether the district has built an effective common core curriculum based on state standards and ensuring adequate school support and accountability for performance this is solid operational work um in the district and one of the things that we have learned um very clearly and and and the secretary of state i i i wish would have seen this as well is that board role is is at a policy level and it's at an oversight level and it's not an operational level and and you know my concern just to reiterate is that this this audit forces us or intends to force us to get involved in an operational level where i don't believe it is the board's role and i don't believe it's appropriate um and so i again just just have just have real concerns about that so um i and i don't i i you framed it as a courtesy in terms of separating it i don't i don't mean this to seem like a discourtesy at all i just view it as this is one response so my my audit is really just intended to say this is what the response is and i do think it's a middle ground i i appreciate the evidence you've gathered and i'm i'm i hope it is persuasive um to the secretary of state that
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management is in fact implementing um and and i hope the secretary of state to the extent they don't feel that that it is persuasive or that any of the audit response is persuasive that in their follow-up response um they'll provide that and then as the board we we can take that into account in terms of our um discussions with the superintendent moving forward if there's a difference of opinion there so i i do think there's a process here for um i mean because accountability is very important it's why we're here and i think there's a process for that to work forward um i just i i i yeah i've said what i wanted to say so i'll stop superintendent guerrero uh do you want to wade into anything here or would you like to maintain your um cone of silence in this moment i'm trying to be a good employee chair so we we're subjected to this audit i think i've shared my personal views on the title and everything behind it um but we were asked to speak to a number of sections and in in the auditor's minds that that's the work we needed to do um so we've done our best to list all the evidence and activity for each section uh my hope is that as the board reflects on our progress that hopefully we have alignment in recognizing that there's been work done and admittedly you know we've already you know committed to whether we think we've implemented fully or we're part of the way there and uh so we've already done that self-reflection i'm thinking of sort of our own process for a superintendent evaluation it's like in some ways you have 25 plus sections of staff's reflection of work um and i i i completely um can can empathize with director scott's sort of viewpoint on this and at the same time you know i know that it's been a challenge and appreciate director brim edwards you know attempting to shepherd through in good faith that you know we're completing this this task i'd love to turn the homework in and and move on frankly um so i i'm a little low to spend too much more energy on this because it's already occupied a lot of bandwidth for board and staff i know staff did a ton of work in helping prepare this um 26 response memo as well so we know that staff has been uh doing a lot for this director constant did you have a comment i do i do think it's really important to submit this evidence and as director scott said it's important for the district to be responsive if the secretary of state comes back and says that any of it is insufficient but the part that's compelling to me is that when you look through these uh many probably most of the things under section 26 which are listed as board responsibilities are really indistinguishable from the things listed in the other parts of the audit that are squarely management responsibility um and so uh yeah i'm i'm in favor of submitting all the evidence and evidence of implementation and as one um united document director brim edwards as chair of the audit committee and having done all the work you've done with those sections 3 through 25 or whatever it is um do you have a recommendation on the the a through f i mean i looked through them in my quick and dirty is that everything's implemented except for maybe the strategic plan which is partially implemented did you have sort of an opinion or thought about that actually i don't i don't want to go down that path if we're not going to i mean there's there's no sense going down that path of what my point of my point of view is if we're not going if the will of the board is not to do not to have the board weigh in okay so i guess director bailey are you waiting to say something uh no okay so i guess right now we need to decide we have a motion before us that andrew made that i seconded director from edwards has asked us to amend the motion to separate the evidence from the implementation piece um so is there any further board discussion on this motion and amendment well procedurally we should vote on the amendment and that should be our topic of discussion right now and then move to the main motion so the amendment uh director bran edwards is asking that we amend the motion there's not been a formal amendment made or second on that amendment um i i moved that we first move the evidence suggests we restate the motion that is currently on the floor
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sure so um um uh so the motion is that we um submit as part of the secretary of state's audit response the evidence that's been gathered and that the board's um response in terms of whether it's implemented philanthropic partially mirror management's response okay so is i guess uh is there a second to that restated motion just to be clear that we're all talking about the same well that was just the same motion as before that i think that chair lowry seconded i i i would like to add the uh a caveat that um i'd like to see the full management response before it goes off with our endorsement i think our the full management response was in the board books that we received ahead of this meeting well i think this means it would include um the assessment of implementation for the section 26 step as well yeah i don't think this would be included in the staff response i think we would we would still have i think so my understanding is to make this happen then one of us from the board would have to then look at the staff response and make sure that our responses mirrored theirs so it's going to take some a board member's work after this meeting to get this submitted by friday if we vote this way so that'll be the next question is if we vote to do this then that means someone going through what the staff has responded and ensuring that our response mirrors that so while i don't agree with the process i'm happy to do that it shouldn't take very much time i mean it's a okay it's a you know mechanical process all right and i actually don't think we should spend a lot more time so if people don't want us split them i'm okay to split julia i'm fine i second that motion to split um michelle did you have a comment nope all right so i second the motion to split is there any further discussion on the amendment okay all in favor of the brim edwards amendment please indicate your uh support by saying yes yes yes yes all those opposed please indicate by saying no no no okay all uh abstaining so i think we had three yes and four no is that correct i was at uh can we do thumbs up if you were a yes and some sideways if you were a no because it's hard to count on the internets okay so i think it was okay so the um amendment fails so we move on to the main motion um andrew could you read it again just for clarification sake yeah uh nathaniel has a quick question sorry nathaniel you're not on my screen yeah do i vote on that i think so uh liz says she doesn't think so thank you for asking that clarifying question sorry for skipping over you sometimes this stuff gets a little a little procedurally which is why we have liz all right andrew can you read that emotion that emotion again you say when you say read i think you mean restate um so the motion is that um the motion is that management's yeah that that we sorry the board's response is to submit the evidence that has been gathered and that and that our response in terms of implementation would mirror management's response on those same issues all right uh this motion is before us um i would use the word endorse it sounds less knee-jerk to me and like it actually is an acceptance of the work that has been done rather than a philosophical orientation to just accept it all right so i'll accept that as a as a friendly amendment i think we still have to do all of our emotionally stuff on it that's what i've been told before friendly amendment liz thumbs up do we need to do the thumbs up friendly amendments fine oh friendly moment unless unless there's with no objection a friendly amendment is fine and they endorse these um so that amendment that motion is before us all in favor is there any further discussion on that motion all right all in favor please indicate yes oh sorry director from edwards i just want to clarify that um my vote in no way is a reflection of the evidence since i was involved in the gathering it um it's just i have a different perspective um on what we agreed to do all right all in favor of the motion please indicate so by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate so by saying no
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all those who abstain dr brim edwards did you vote i did um i'm and i'd like to explain i voted yes because i believe because i believe i believe in the evidence um and i think i've been on the record as i don't support the other piece but if i have to make one one vote i'm going to vote for that um but i strongly disagree with the other yeah sorry i just was super confused for a minute it's getting late i'm a little punchy okay so uh the motion on the secretary of state audit passes seven to zero um and director berm edwards is going to look at the management thing and endorse those i would i think it would be helpful to have another board member um support you in that work director bailey are you volunteering for that you're just raising your hand you're muted sir yeah this is gonna be like a five minute task yeah i mean it's a task to just go to the i think okay so um i think i'm capable of doing it and i'm happy to have somebody look at my work took my work afterwards yeah that would that that's not why yeah that's not why it raised my hand i didn't realize it would only take five minutes so thank you director brynn for stepping up to that director more were you gonna say something i was um so based on uh what andrew was saying in the beginning about how um it is somewhat it is unusual to have um this kind of thing included in an audit do we want to write a i don't know sort of preamble paragraph um attached to this or or or just be done with it i vote be done yeah i would go back to the superintendent's comments i think where we are it may be better to just be done right i mean they're still going to come back and ask us for i mean we're not quite done but i think we're done with this piece all right well thank you for that work director by medwards really appreciate it i know this has been a long road um we moved now to the uh to resolution 6220 um portland public schools legislative agenda and superintendent guerrero would you like to introduce this next item yes we actually have miss courtney wesley i think we're going to move her on screen here and she's going to share with us a bit more about an overview of your evolving legislative agenda so courtney there she is does anyone ever think of star trek like you know and being beamed in and beamed out of our meeting he's now teleported am i is am i up okay good evening board directors um for the record courtney wesling director of government relations um i am first of all director scott emma do you want to introduce this um sure i'll be quick and then i'll turn it over to you for the real substance um so yeah tonight what you have before you is the legislative um agenda for portland public schools and um this has been the intergovernmental committee um has reviewed this a couple of different times um and uh you know staff um sort of put this together and we have made some some additions uh and amendments to it over time the overall legislative agenda is um aligned with the five educational system shifts of portland public schools and then broken into different categories of funding racial equity and education creating a welcoming and safe learning environment school reopening and comprehensive distance learning and operational improvements um and uh i guess i would just say according you might want to add something i did want it flag oh i had it up here a minute ago and then i've um lost it but one of the changes um there it is uh i just wanted to note in case nathaniel hadn't seen our student representative um did ask for um something related to climate change and so we do have a highlighted bullet in there pps will support and advocate for policy proposals that address the climate crisis and promote climate justice especially when directly relevant to school districts and i just wanted to to thank him i think this is one of the reasons we have student uh uh uh advisors who help with these committees is to point out some really obvious things that i think we're all very much in support of and i think that made it stronger so so thanks for that edition courtney anything um you want to tell me board on that same note um i asked nathaniel if he wanted to suggest language and that's his language verbatim because i thought it was great so thanks nathaniel for not only offering language but offering great language um yeah so i'll just i'll just start at the top go through this pretty quickly
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um as andrew as director scott mentioned i'm trying to align our agenda more closely with the system shifts that we've outlined for the strategic plan for this school year um you know it's important that we are constantly um pointing our work back to the district's vision and our strategic plan and priorities so i just we haven't done that very well in the past or really at all we didn't have a vision before so um this is a great i think opportunity to weave that into our work legislative work so the first and and i also want to highlight that second paragraph which just basically says this is not a um uh exhaustive list there are going to be things that come up that are not mentioned on this list that we will still advocate wanna advocate for this is meant to kind of put all the kind of key highlight some of the key items that we consistently advocate for year after year um things that matter at the to the very base level and bottom line of our organization and then there are things that come up you know uh that are new and they're not going to be included on this agenda because we don't know about them yet so we just want to i just want to make that point because it's not exhaustive there are going to be things we care about that aren't listed um but we just need to make sure that we have a good solid uh robust list of items to to go down to salem and well go down to zooming and talk about with our legislators so to the funding piece obviously we want to be supportive of the state school fund the governor's budget had it at 9.1 in the governor's recommended budget that's just the starting place we are advocating in line with all of our colleagues at osba cosa o asbo in other districts the 9.5 number i think at the legislative committee a couple of weeks ago i had it at 9.7 i did a little more work talked to claire um and we're gonna shoot for nine five it's the right number um and of course the rita added a piece underneath that about the csl the issue being the 50 50 split we have we have cost we have inflation in the second year of a biennium when we get 50 51 the first year and 49 the second we end up having to make cuts so that is why we keep talking about um sorry the 50 50. that's why we need the um 49 49 51 which is not what the legislative fiscal office bills the number to so this may not be a legislation i want to make this clear this may not be a legislative item rita and board members um it may be a discussion with the legislative fiscal office in the governor's office but i still think it's important to include it because it matters and we're not the only ones that care about that that detail and then of course we are really happy and grateful for the student success act and we want to continue seeing the investments from that you know monumental landmark legislation and so that's included here measure 98 is fully funded in the governor's budget there's a lot of support for that so we'll continue to support that the the expenses related to covet of course are ongoing and so we want to make sure that we're specifically calling that out as we head into a special session next week and then of course in january when the full session starts um and then continuing to support the facilities um grants for seismic and modernization those are um perennial favorites of the legislature so i expect that that won't be too much work but we need to continue to talk about that racial equity and education of course this goes straight to the heart of what we do here at pps and so i want to make sure that we specifically called out um the items that will fill in um that will point straight to our racial equity agenda as a district um we also had a discussion with the reimagine oregon folks last meeting with the intergovernmental committee and they laid out some of the work that they're doing on the education side of the policy house and i thought that was a really instructive and informative meeting and it really goes to show you that a lot of what we're doing or a lot of what they're talking about we're already doing but it's a great synergy i think to be supportive of their work and to continue um you know listening and learning from them and helping to advocate for for their um policy agenda so that's listed specifically here we talk a lot about uh the grow your own and diverse diversity and educate in educators and school staff and making sure that we're investing in ways to really make sure that our workforce reflects the students in our district so that's an ongoing discussion that's not a one a one and done you know we had conversations last session last long session about this we're going to continue having these conversations because we're not doing it well enough and we need to keep working on it and then a couple items at the bottom i just want to really
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call out the governor's budget is a little thin on some of our small low incidence programs like the long-term care and treatment program regional programs and so we want to mention those and continue working with cosa who's also listed this is a priority for them so i just want to specifically call those out because they're smaller programs with low you know smaller dollar announcements associated with them but they're you know those are big dollars for those for those students and those programs um back down to warm welcoming safe learning environments we added that piece at the bottom about climate justice and addressing the climate crisis this is not going to be a i don't think uh big climate session coming up but this is important issue we know that we know our students care about it we all care about it and so i don't want to minimize that at all i just want to make clear that i think this session is going to be really interesting to see how much focus is obviously on the pandemic and wildfire recovery and relief and the ongoing housing issues that are you know always on the table so we'll see what what happens here but i i don't expect it to be the same as last time um but i'm really glad nathaniel that you brought this up and reminded us how important it is so thank you um and then there's also a piece about i5 on here uh director brim edwards and i have been in meetings a lot about this issue and we'll continue to work with you all and keep you informed on what's going on there with the project and then how that project interfaces with legislative um um let's see school reopening okay so the big one the big bullet here is is one that director scott added last um last meeting pbs supports and will advocate for legislative measures that help get students back into the classroom as soon as it is safe to do so i would say that is inclusive of advocating for vaccines for our educators and our educator and our frontline school staff i know that's been a popular topic lately for obvious reasons um and so those conversations are happening and i think they're gonna being that drum um if we want to safely get back to school we need adults in buildings vaccinated um so i just wanted to mention that that that is i think fits really well in that bullet point and i don't necessarily think we need a specific additional item but that's up to you all to decide um and then the liability protections that's coming up in the special session next week on monday i mentioned that in an email to you today the governor called a special session for the 21st to take up some housing related issues bar and restaurant support liability and some emergency board funding it'll be interesting there's still a lot of controversy around some of those items so we shall see but um seems like there's also some bipartisan support so um you know your guess is as good as mine as to what happens on monday but i will continue to keep you updated um courtney just really quickly on that i don't want to go down too far down this road but is the um is the eboard funding is that is the governor allocating some kaizak dollars as part of that so i'm not sure and i don't know if john or cassie knows exactly what the source of funding is i know that there's they're talking about 800 million million dollars that the governor is going to get the legislator to approve and move around so there's 600 million for the housing issue the housing items the moratorium extension some landlord relief and then there's 200 million that's going john do you want to step in and sure um thank you sure you bet on contract with us helps us in salem hi me and cassie hi nice good evening um so there's 600 million dollars that they're going to allocate to the e-board to spend 100 of which is wildfire relief 400 is covid relief and a hundred is for other emergency issues that come up and i think the idea is that they get the allocation and then make those expenditures in the january emergency board which they are planning on at least that's what the speaker's office was saying today and then on top of that is 200 million and cassia correct me from around 200 million dollars additionally for housing dollars um uh i don't think that she exactly identified where the dollars are coming from i think it's a mix of the remaining karazak dollars that need to be spent by december 31st and um reserve dollars but cassie correct me if i'm wrong on that yeah i think it's probably unlikely these are karazhak dollars just because of that deadline at the end of the year and my guess is it's more ending fun balance from this current biennium and and the reason why i bring it up is i was a little surprised in media reports that school reopening or school expenses
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related to covet doesn't seem on the list and i know one day sessions are very very short and generally um predetermined um so but i i do wonder if it's worth at least uh planning the idea that you know allowing some of that e-board funding to be used for for school reopening or coveted expenses like cocktails to go yeah yeah and honestly thank you for saying that because that actually was exactly what struck me is that we're focused on cocktails to go and not reopen in schools um it's i think there's going to be some more information coming out in the next few days director scott um last week i did hear that there was going to be some funds for school reopening i don't know the number and i don't know if something changed and it was a good source so i don't know if it was um if anything changed over the weekend or if they just haven't figured it out yet this is moving a mile a minute you know they're just landing on whether they were going to have a special session and whether or not and what's going to be included so um you know the three of us will get together and figure out you know make the calls to the right people to figure out um if that is actually the case or if that was talk and got um you know got moved over for in in lieu of something else to that point courtney um the speaker's office who we called this morning kind of outline and i don't think this is confidential but you know we're all just on this meeting right it's just us um is that the governor's office had outlined kind of a high level um thought about where those dollars should be spent and agencies were submitting into the governor's office their request to continue on some of the coveted relief but there were so many that they didn't have time to vet it before the legislature didn't have time to vet it before the um the special session on monday so they're going to push those decisions to that january e-board and that's where i think you'll see some of the school reopening dollars and other coveted related issues be spent all right thank you was there anything else courtney not unless there are questions all right are there any other questions before we move to voting on this legislative agenda thank you for the exhaustive work you have all done um really appreciate it hey courtney i have one question um so one thing that's not specifically called out on here is the transformative curriculum and pedagogy even though we do know that there's several bills specifically pertaining coming up pertaining to um curriculum um sort of as follow-ons to the native success student success bill and the african-american student success bill we also have one coming up for civics education so do we want to call that system shift out more specifically since we know that there is going to be activity in that area if you would like to do that we we certainly can are you are you referring to um dembro's conversation or maybe you weren't there at the meeting he he talked about um the uh now it's escaping me his bill um but on anti-racist curriculum yes sorry anti-racist education and how it's going to be a few years obviously until we can implement it but that he has a bill to um you know push that in yeah there's a few other things i do think we should just call out that system shift specifically because um i think we're going to be asking you to show up for some of those um in the next session yeah we can do that um we can i'm just thinking about where to place it and i can um i we have to add it now since you guys are approving tonight so i'm just um looking here i mean the the anti-racist education obviously fits well under racial equity in education the civics doesn't fit the same way and i don't want to get too into the weeds here but maybe we just put it under there what if we ask you to include that and then trust you and andrew with the intergovernmental committee to find the right place for that is that is that a workable okay um so i think we need to get the emotion before us so we can continue discussing um do i have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6220 portland public schools 2021 legislative agenda yeah and i'm going to hopefully save us a step i'm going to make a motion to adopt the legislative agenda with the amendment that was just discussed to add a bullet hey courtney could you spell out what that exactly was transformative and pedagogy yeah the system shift is around transformative curriculum and pedagogy but the specifics we can
02h 50m 00s
nail down the wordsmith okay so adopt this with that with that um change all right so director scott moves do i have a second second director to pass seconds there was adoption of resolution six two two zero with the proposed amendment is there any further board discussion scott's trying to talk but we can't hear you all right i can't hear him okay i i don't have my camera on i have my script on scott can you hear me okay sorry um was there anything the committee considered but decided not to include yeah um there was an item that we had on there initially about the um uh sorry the the the uh budget what's the budget acronym andrew yeah so we do we do have this csl right um we do have csl in there no it wasn't that one i'm sorry um the uh oh the tscc oh yeah great to include a bullet to advocate to remove that requirement and there was some good conversations with her about and with um others here about why it was probably not a battle that we should be taking on this session so we removed it and i think it was the right call but other other than that i don't recall anything else being removed all right any further discussion all right uh ms bradshaw is there any public comment no all right the board will now vote on resolution 6220 portland public schools 2021 legislative agenda all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6220 is approved by a vote of seven to zero with student representative shu voting yes right now we move on to the legislative agenda for oregon school board association and uh oregon school board association or osba as we normally refer to it is organized as one general state association that supports 14 geographic regions tonight we are voting on a resolution to adopt the osba 2021-2022 legislative priorities and principles as recommended by their legislative policy committee director moore as a member of ospa's legislative policy committee would you like to say a few words about this before we vote yeah just a very few words um so the legislative policy committee for osba along with the osba board of directors has been working on this legislative policy agenda um for about 18 months they at the end of every legislative biennium they um you know work up a new agenda so this has had really a tremendous amount of work that's gone into it um it reflects i think um a growing recognition by osba that um it needs to champion um racial equity work in this state um osba is um is undergoing some pretty significant [Music] changes mostly in the direction of racial justice and social equity um osba for those of you who don't know osba is the um kind of um the voice for school boards across the state it includes k-12 and community colleges and education service districts the the legislative policy agenda is intended to be fairly high level to give direction to the osba lobbyists on how they things legislative priorities for the organization but also how they should respond to um any kind of legislative initiatives that come up um same sort of thing that courtney does um like we're giving general direction um i would uh strongly recommend that the pps boards um adopt the osba agenda thanks all right do i have a motion
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on the osba agenda don't moved don't have a second okay so i heard director scott move um adoption of the osb or i don't know if it's adoption yeah adoption of the osba 2021 2022 legislative priorities and principles and i heard a second but i didn't see who it was who seconded that on stam come on stan thank you sorry i flipped back between my screens with the script and the zoom and i don't always catch people all right um is there any board discussion on the osba principles and priorities one quick thing which um rita i'm going to put this on your plate is uh one of the items on here is uh it says workforce shortages and there is a line on there that talks about a diverse workforce but if i were back in the sausage making i would have used that piece to beef up the values around um you know training a diverse workforce in this state because osba could be a player in that arena working with our institutions of of higher ed and teacher training programs so it's it's couched in there enough to make me think that that that's what they intend but but go out there and beef it up all right any other discussion yeah i had just a comment um so having served my previous life uh on the osba board i will say that um i think there has been a measurable improvement in its um its statewide priorities um the one thing i just want to call out that i um it was always an issue for me before because how it has been used historically is the support local governance and opposed mandates and um just concern that's often like local control becomes a way in which um uh discriminatory behavior is like this is this is our our context and you guys can do what you want and we're gonna do what we want um so i just i'm concerned about the um that reference that that becomes sort of the the holy grail um and i know that in the meeting that we last meeting that the intergovernmental committee had um it was great to hear from a diverse cross section of elected leaders from other jurisdictions about the reimagine oregon legislation and when asked about um sort of the potential opposite which i was really excited about their um legislative agenda um when asked about what um what could be barriers to a broader agenda it's this hey if portland wants to do that go ahead and do that but in our community we don't want to do that so this i'm i'm going to vote i'm going to vote for this but i um i want our legislative agenda to always if they're in it's in conflict with osbas i want ours to to trump um because i think it better reflects our values so all right director bailey we have two minutes left uh there's a uh under the financial section it talks about uh cost containment uh and in the past that has meant osba trying to cut benefits for workers um is that still the context that they're talking about here uh sadly i have to say that i think um that remains uh that remains a a uh an approach that osba uh embraces um i but i think by by saying cut benefits do you mean purge reform because they don't they don't they don't lobby for individual districts decision making within individual districts regarding employee benefits well the way they talk about it it's the costs associated with health care and retirement which to me says purrs without saying purse the cost there's also there's also there's also health insurance issues um where haven't they tried to push us into uh more of a statewide benefit
03h 00m 00s
program that would have cost us money i i guess i would just ask and i'm new to this process new to the osba that i mean the length you're talking about larger context that that you have which i'm sure is real but the language itself seems less innocuous more but it seems it seems innocuous um you know the cost associated with healthcare retirement benefits are eating and the funding available for instructional opportunities for students i think that's factually true um that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be cutting the custom benefits but it means that the way the system is set up there is less and less funding for frontline you know for frontline uh teaching in students and that osb will promote legislation that provides relief for districts related to benefits costs controlled by the state which also sounds innocuous to me okay i think my sort of understanding of our relationship with osba is we very much appreciate a lot of the great work they do um like with the student um investment account act and um the the work that they're doing to um continue to evolve and i think we also recognize that um in some ways we are i think uh what was that director medwards that said our legislative um priorities should always um be where we lead from and that we support this and we enjoy being part of osba and we we know that um we're not always a hundred percent in sync you avoid are trump i did not say the word trump i've been trying to remove it from my language um because people react very strongly when you say it these days so especially my mother who is not a us citizen so um anyway let's go ahead and vote on uh the motion before us um so i just want to put out uh um andre i agree the language may be innocuous but that is not the history of osba so i want to flag that at least informally as something to watch that we don't get pull in on pulled in on saying that we support uh [Music] measures that really directly impact i mean i mean the the pension available now for new state workers is pretty meager um and that that's how purse reform has been carried out and i don't want us being part of that process but in support of that process so i want us to be careful in terms of how that actually might be carried out this session so can i just say osba is a coalition and as with any coalition not every participant in the coalition is going to be a hundred percent um behind element um i think that it's a question of um institutional relationships and we have we have just passed our own legislative agenda and everyone knows that pps has its own legislative agenda um we are an independent actor um who also participates in a coalition and it is to our benefit to maintain a good relationship with that coalition um not only because we can leverage their collective power but we can also and we have i think been a force to promote the evolution of the organization all right so i'm going to ask us do we think we're ready to vote on this item all right i'm seeing some nodding okay all in favor of adopting the osba 2122 legislative priorities and principles please indicate by saying yes yes yes all opposed please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions all right the osba legislative priorities and principles are adopted by a vote of seven to zero with student representative xu voting yes all right is there any other business at this time before we adjourn to our study session all right seeing none um i will remind folks that the next regular meeting of the board will be held on january 12th this meeting is adjourned and we wish you all a peaceful and safe rest of the new year next we will move into our board work session to review and uh hear about i think it's our health
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curriculum tonight so um let's all take a three-minute break and come back uh to that session at 9 14. see you all in a few have some family business i need to attend to so i probably won't be joined until about 9 30. okay


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