2021-01-26 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

District	Portland Public Schools
Date	2021-01-26
Time	18:00:00
Venue	Virtual/Online
Meeting Type	regular
Directors Present	missing

Documents / Media

Transcripts

Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting - 1/26/21

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e e e [Music] test one two 3 4 one two three four test one two 3 4 e
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to speak
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of the board of education for January 26
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2021 is called to order for tonight's
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meeting any item that will be voted on
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has been posted on the PPS website under the board and meetings tabs this meeting is being stream 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 everyone to tonight's meeting Mee thank you for your patience
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we were in an executive session before this and it took us a little while to to migrate over uh we are beginning tonight with the consent agenda board members if there are any items you would like to pull we will set those aside for discussion and vote at the end of meeting if there's just an item you want to comment on we can do that after the consent agenda is before us miss Bradshaw are there any changes to the consent agenda the resolution for the minutes was updated early afternoon but has been posted all right thank you board members are there any items you would like to pull from the consent agenda do I have a motion to and a second to adopt the consent agenda so moved is there a second all right I two people spoke I recognized Amy's voice so director Bailey moves and director conam seconds the adoption of the consent agenda is there any board discussion on the consent agenda I just had a quick question um that I did ask in advance to Deputy superintendent Herz um but it wasn't with a lot of advanced notice um so it wasn't with an an question it wasn't with an in time for an answer um and it was regarding the camill um air filters in the district buildings that we have a contract for on tonight's agenda and I'm was wondering if those were as part of the sort of covid um air quality and filter issues that is being put in place for our our buildings is Deputy Herz here with us she should be on our way over all right she is in I like I you know the limbo between attendee and panelist good evening yes I'm here with you it's just I'm thank you for um having me join you in the room so the um the campill is a service to replace filters we have about 8,000 of them and um it's a contract that went out on an RFP process and they were our old provider and this is um they've won a new Award of the latest RFP and so this is our ongoing regular maintenance but at the same time we are um also upgrading our HVAC system so um this this it's in essence uh both but mainly this is our regular um contract for replacing filters on a regular basis yeah just with the both the regular filters and what we're doing over and above over and above for covid is this is this part of it or is there is there some other piece of work that's also happening there's lots of other work that's happening it's not necessarily related to this contract okay thank you any other board discussion Nathaniel yeah um so I'm looking of the minutes and it looks like in the um 1215 minutes I'm not included and in the um 1 five minutes I'm um recorded as taking a uh incorrect votes twice okay um the 12:15 was over just an oversight which I which votes were incorrect so if I recall correctly I voted I um abstained um on the question of um resolution 6222 and um voted yes on resolution oh on um amending resolution 622 to I voted um to abstain and I voted yes on adopting resolution 22 6222 Miss bradow do you want to take them back and correct them and then bring them to the next meeting for approval [Music] yes so we will not be approving the minutes um we'll pull those from the consent agenda and have them corrected thank you for bringing that up uh student representative shu is there any other comment on the consent agenda Miss BR is there any public comment on the consent agenda no all right and the minutes I need to pull up my board books which resolution was the minutes
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Cara they were resolution 6233 okay so the board will now vote on resolutions 6230 uh through 6232 and resolutions 6234 and 6235 all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes I'll appose all opposed please indicate sorry haly I was looking at something you said 6235 I think it only goes through 6234 unless I'm missing one oh sorry my fault okay in which case if it's just through 6234 I'll vote Yes all right so let's let's scratch that vote we just did and let me say it correctly the board will now vote on resolutions 6230 6231 6232 and 6234 um 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 excellent all right we turn now to student and public comment before we begin I would like to review our guidelines for comment the board T 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 our responsibility as a board is to actively listen our Board office may follow up on board related issues raised during public testimony we request that complaints about individual employees be directed to the superintendent's office as a Personnel matter if you have additional materials or items you would like to provide to the board or super tendent we ask that you email them to public Comet pps.net again that's public 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 will have three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after those three minutes which means it is time to conclude your comments Miss Bradshaw um do we have anyone signed up for student and public we do we'll start with marabelle Oliver and believe she should be they should be on their way hi my name is Mira Oliver my pronouns are she her and hers I'm a fifth grader at L Hurst Elementary thank you for letting me speak here I'm here today because I would like the schools in Portland to open I think I have a unique perspective about this topic and would like to hear what you have what I have to say these are some issues I'm having with online school one in my classroom it was easy to do work because if I had a problem I could just walk right up to my teacher and ask for help now it's hard to get help when I need it I can't go to ask him for help unless I'm on a call which is only a couple hours every day email doesn't work well for this number two school does not teach me a lot instead we are spending a lot of time on the same assignments this may because the be because the assignments are hard to give online do not re reassure Yourself by thinking that I'm the only kid like this I know I'm not and I think we all know that my brother who's in third grade and who's also at Laurel Hurst Elementary is struggling in school because it's hard for him to pay much attention the kids may be playing with the background on their screens and doing who knows what what else he also doesn't feel comfortable with his camera on he's a smart kid who normally would participate but now it's even harder these are very real concerns I am getting anxious around assignments because I'm scared to ask for help I don't really have a full idea why but I think it's that is because the assignments are more confusing on a document and I can't just go ask what I want to know about like I could in school another thing I've heard about is the other kids are dying from depression about online school it may have been hard for them to live because they can't see much of their friends or can't get caught up on assignments and are getting bad grades I like to mention that I have heard talk of teachers worried that they can't trust their students to wear a mask and socially distance if we came back who thinks so love of their students we are more than a face on their screen we depend on teachers to be role models and to help us learn teachers also remind us to be quiet to pay attention
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and soon to keep our masks on I wear a mask every day all day in my school pod and little does my and my my little brother does too every kid has if they live in Oregon and took a walk or went to a store for the past few months they had to it's the law right now I have heard that other districts like Bend Oregon are opening up but not Portland all I have to say this about this is that it makes Portland look so bad I wish that we could go to school just like them is it really so difficult thank you for listening thank you Mar thank you so much and thank you for having your camera on that was very brave Miss Bradshaw uh what further public comment do we have all right Cara sorry yes public comment do we have I know you're managing a lot on on that end of things we have uh Monty bstrm are you there Ronnie hello oh wait wait are they talking my name is Monty branom b r a n s t r o m and I'm in fifth grade at chisan elementary school I prefer the I prefer the pronounce he and him thank you for allowing me to speak this evening I started Crest in first grade at the same time my older brother BR started in sixth grade we both liked our small school the Jesus and our classmates but my brother was frustrated that there were very few opportunities to take electives as middle school or in comparison to other schools our cousin attend Jackson Middle School just just across the river in Southwest I mean Southwest Portland and they have over a dozen electives to choose from every year cresten has three for a few years I have been told that keston was going to be ches 3 K pip school and I be going to Kell from middle school I was excited to be able to move to a brand new school with my Cresent classmates and have a real Middle School experience finding out that Portland Public School has made the decision to leave creson off the list of schools and programs moved to Kellogg moving to Kellogg next year made me upset I meant that like my brother I was going to be stuck with few exes and fun opportunities I am happy to find that that the board of directors has a new proposal to vote on tonight that includes Cresent students in the plans to go to Kang middle school year next year but now that I'm sad that it doesn't include all Creston students I hope you yes on changing Crest into a k 5 school next year but I also that you won't change the boundary lines so that next time we meet I can tell you about the cool electors on my friends all my friends from kesten and I are talking taking at kog Middle School mute thank you thanks thank you thank you Miss bradow you're muted oh well we have Avery coats hello my name is Avery coats I'm 11 year old years old I'm a sixth grade student at cresten thank you for listening to we speak tonight this year has been really hard with Co we haven't been able to be together as a whole class since last March and I really miss all my friends to split our class of 35 kids so eight kids would go to Hosford and the rest go to Kellogg is so unfair I would be one of those going to Kellogg but I have friends who would be split off and going to a school that is full where they would be with kids who already had a year of middle school together it sucks we know that having a middle school is better for us than the than the school options at cresten we don't have a wood shop or so many other things that middle school students get so I'm glad you are saying you will send Creston to a middle school but it's just as important to not split us up from our friends my two younger brothers and I have watched Kellogg buil be built we were excited it would be would be our Middle School to take that away from some of my friends and not others would make me feel really bad my brother in the in fourth grade might end up going to Hosford when I'm going to Kellogg this is really confusing and I know my brother wants to be in the same school as me
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thanks am I able to share this time with my student and say a statement as well is that appropriate I did have you signed up as well so I was just going to have you go next since you already that's perfect thank you I appreciate it um do I have three minutes as well I'm sorry just to clarify okay thank you hi there my name is k coats my pronoun pronoun a she her and I'm a parent to three creson kids and while I thank the PPS board for the decision to convert Creston to a K5 in August 2021 I'm also still advocating for our Middle School cohort to remain intact and transition to Kellog together sending 24 students with only eight in my son's sixth grade class to Hosford and putting Hosford well over enrollment whilst leaving Kellogg with space to accommodate potential new students seems outrageous if you're rewarding families who have chosen to leave their neighborhood schools only to return when they think the offerings are good enough this really calls into question ppss stated District policy goal of prioritizing neighborhood programs to send all of our kids to our neighborhood Middle School would see Kellog's enrollment at a lower enrollment than hos fits before even considering any additional any additional Crest and students the north south split also makes no sense for our community and would continue to compound racial and socioeconomic inequality in southeast I wish that PPS would commit to doing the heavy lifting and thoughtful Grassroots engagement with families in each School community directly affected by these enormous changes putting this decision in the hands of a coalition of inherently biased volunteer Parents Without adequate community outreach and without an unbiased moderator involved is it's simply responsible the result of this dereliction has pitted neighborhoods against each other in a battle for a fair education for all of our kids something that was avoidable avoidable and will be lastingly disruptive disruptive to Southeast Portland as a whole Harrison Park will be left under enrolled for years to come due to these decisions and it proves P ppss inconsistency in prioritizing racial equity and social justice as a focus for all of its decisions we have repeatedly heard from PPS and the southeast guiding Coalition that these decisions were reached by looking through this Equity lens and yet the dominant voices seem to be privileged white parents as I am aware I am myself um but many of the native speaking Chinese Spanish communities have been have expressed that they do not want consolidation Consolidated DLI programs which leaves many of us feeling that this proposal has always been a foregone conclusion if this is the case then I do assume that DLI programs will need to be Consolidated at the elementary school grades also during phase two these responses can't be true for middle school and not true for elementary surely in all of this let us not forget that these are our children these are our kids lives all PPS students have experienced some degree of isolation loss stress and fear in these last 11 months do we really think this is in the best interest of their emotional well-being to cause further uphe in their education particular particularly when they're vulnerable Twins and young teens I thank you for listening to me tonight I appreciate all the work that's gone into this so far and I look forward to seeing ethical changes in this process going forward to ensure equ Equitable education for all of ppss students thank you thank you we have Tyler VTO yes good evening and for the record my name is Tyler Beckle B Teel and I'm a parent of a kindergartener and a sixth grader at Creston thank you for hearing my testimony tonight I'm here to advocate for the entire creson Community by urging you to pass uh the corrected resolution 6236 with an amendment to section two of the resolution specifying that all creson students will go to Kellog before I advocate for kesten though I'd like to advocate for the entire Southeast Community and speak to the board about the process by which this resolution came before you today the Coalition met 12 times from September 2020 to present inadequate when compared to the previous Deb process which met 37 times with 18 Community meetings this joint effort included Community Partners in multiple languages the coalition's meetings were held virtually and excluded anyone without access to technology persons who did not speak English or were unable to dedicate up to 3 hours in evening to watch live streamed meetings the vast
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majority of the decisions and de deliberations were made behind virtual closed doors and breakout sessions that were not viewable by the general public the breakout sessions were of often over half the allotted time two and a half to three hours and there are few recordings transcripts or meetings of these breakout sessions this is a violation of Oregan public meetings law and troubling in a time when equity and access to government and transparency are par out per board policy boundary changes must be approved by January for the next school year we've all known Kellogg was being built for a while so I'd like the board to ask PPS why such far-reaching decisions are being brought to you at the last meeting of the last possible month PPS has a history of short changing neighborhood schools and its most underserved populations once again PPS through the coalition is prioritizing focus and emersion options which is troubling when we acknowledge that the lottery Focus system primarily benefits white affluent students as presented to the Coalition DLI programs also serve the same affluence in middle school as underserved populations often migrate out of those DLI programs the Coalition fails to acknowledge this by recommending the DLI students from two schools with a lower percentage of free lunch eligible students go to Kellogg while the resolution before you today seeks to split 24 students from the Creston cohort cohort where we are 26 and a half% free lunch eligible and send them to Hosford PPS needs to stop prioritizing immersion and focus options over neighborhood schools the Coalition proposed cing the capacity of Kellogg to 80% to leave room for enrollment spikes that many new schools experience this assumption reserves seats for possible students and provides PPS a cushion while Creston students get a hard lesson as while as proposed yesterday to us parents 24 of them are removed from their Community I strongly urge you to adopt resolution 6236 as corrected with an amendment that will send cresen all cresen students to Kellog thank you for your time thank you we have Kim Mccarty good evening this is Kim mccardy I'm I'm coming to you from Shu Ren we are um I'm the vice president along with Maggie Berg we are a parent organization that represents Woodstock Elementary Hosford middle school and Cleveland High School and specifically the Mandarin immersion programs at those three schools um we come today to talk about the um South the the guidance um around um the southeast schools and um really just to repeat um what we've been saying um all along that first um during phase one we felt that our Chinese um and all language specific um households were not given the kind of access that they needed specific we were expecting as an example invitations to meetings to be translated documents at the meetings to be translated interpreters at the meetings to be present and while there were focus groups um and there were there was um some specific language specific Outreach um in many cases um it was in most cases it was inadequate it was um not timely and we um really impress upon PPS to do better we understand that and we feel heard that in Phase One the complexity of dealing with the Dual language immersion programs and this decision regarding Kellogg um was was too much and so we are hopeful that we will be invited to phase two we are hopeful that PPS will make an effort to reach out to um especially our black and indigenous and um native speaking communities to be a part of that process and that decision- making and then when when they speak up when we speak up that we are listened to because we feel that has not been the case and that more weight is given to those voices um I feel that there's some contradiction about who is in the Dual language programs um my children are at Woodstock Elementary um they've been at Hosford and Cleveland most most of their classes are majority
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people of color and um it is a decision um that we've made and um there are many sacrifices that the kids have made to be a part of this program we feel it is a great privilege and we're grateful to be a part of such a program um but it's it's also um deeply troubling that these programs would Shuffle um what our majority what I believe our majority um bipac um students around from place to place especially when this is a place where students um have not been displaced um Woodstock Elementary has a program with over a 20 year history and I'm here to convey as a co-chair some of the sentiments that I've heard from those families that of course they would like the stability of having the um progression of Woodstock Hosford Cleveland to be preserved but they also understand that we're here to you know say what would be our preference but but also it's a it's a larger conversation for everyone in Portland Public Schools everyone in the city um and we really do need to Center first and foremost these decisions on the people that will be impacted most and in this case we feel that that's our um black and Indigenous communities and our native speakers um and and then most recently I know there's a decision um in Creston Elementary and we just ask that the board think about whatever decisions are made today do not lock in and prevent new decisions being made during phase two thank you for your time and your consideration thank you we have Carrie Babin Carrie you're muted still sorry Carrie Babin Babin um she her I have three kids at Creston and I'm speaking in regard to the enrollment and program balancing um process the only way for PPS to achieve educational Excellence while addressing racial equity and social justice is to establish robust neighborhood programs across the district unfortunately phase one of the enrollment and program balancing process the district has chosen to prioritize Lottery only DLI programs at the expense of neighborhood schools while DLI programs are intended to serve our non- English speakers they also serve a large portion of privileged class in our district and are not accessible to every English language learner this is supposed to be a data- driven process but with the exception of Lent the of the lent DLI program the Spanish D programs and PPS are made up of higher sces students than the neighborhood programs of Bridger lent Harrison Park Arleta Marysville and Creston in addition these neighborhood schools serve more diverse Community than the DLI programs this data comes from the um Kellogg Middle School recommendation options presented on December 10th however the DLI programs have been given priority placement at Kellogg Middle School while Creston and Bridger neighborhood students will be subject to split feeder pattern PS and in the in the case of Bridger and Harrison Park they will they're required to wait an entire year before they will be given equal access to Equitable Middle School programming as a Creston parent I am relieved that after our proposal that the proposal um will now offer a clear path to middle school students um to a middle school however all Southeast Portland Students deserve access to an equitable Middle grades education and neighborhood cohorts should absolutely be kept together whenever possible the district's recommendation of concentrating Bridger lent and eventually eventually Atkinson's DLI programs in Kellogg come at the expense of the neighborhood students and as a result neighborhood programs are pitted against each other in southeast for resources one of the many wonderful things about a neighborhood school is that everyone is welcome any kid who walks in to cresten that lives in our neighborhood on any given day gets a seat in a classroom there's no application there's no pre-qualifications there's no required test scores regardless of your native language your immigration status your income your special education requirements or your learning disability neighborhood schools are accessible to everyone and they are built on community I know that as school advocates you and the board are well aware of the value of neighborhood schools but in this moment I truly wonder if our district leaders are my request to the board is that you remind District leadership especially now as we
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enter the challenges of boundary adjustments in phase two that our only path to to equity and educ educational success is through strong neighborhood programming Focus options and dual language emerging programs may have their place but not at the expense of neighborhood schools I ask that you reconsider split feeder patterns for for Crest and Elementary um and and the and the program for Bridger as well thank you for your time thank you we have Mariah aito hi there can you see me okay my name is Mariah appolo and that's a p o l t o and my pronouns are she and her um and I'm a parent of two students at Creston and I am not a public speaker I'm kind of nervous so I apologize um about If I Stumble at all but um I am uh also a licensed counselor and I um have worked in the past for years at Morrison Child and Family Services with a lot of kids um ages 3 to 18 um and I talked with their parents I talked with their school counselors and time and time again it came up that it was um it was peer interactions and it was um El Ives and not the main core classes that would keep kids engaged and excited about school and in some cases those were the things that made all the difference between kids staying in school and leaving not not attending um and I'm really relieved that PPS is proposing that Creston convert to a K5 in the fall and that our kids at Creston will be able to go to a middle school because we have far fewer electives available to them and I feel like that will really help our kids have equal opportunities for success and for excitement about being in school for years to come um so thank you for listening uh to us about that but I really also feel that it's equally important if not more important that our our kids have deep connections that last long with their peers that they've started with um since the beginning um particularly in middle school friendships become so important um to their social and their emotional health and I really strongly believe that our cresten kids need to stay together as a cohort um it's a really been a rough year on our kids mental healthwise to not to be isolated from each other and so keeping them together should be a top priority we need to support them by keeping them in a stable School Community where they can be with their friends um it's PPS is job I believe to uphold the bond that we all voted for to focus on Kell as our middle school or at least when I voted for that Bond um it was with the expectation that my kids would go to Kellogg that was always what was discussed um and it feels like a bait and switch that our kids um are now potentially going to be split up or sent somewhere else and it sends a weird message to hold space at Kellogg for kids um in private and Charter Schools um whose parents have not until this point chosen to be part of our our neighborhood school system and then we are pushed out who have been part of this community and so I feel it's very important that our kids uh go to Kellogg middle school together as a group group thank you thank you next we have Melissa babis and I did not move her over yet so she's coming right now sorry all right hello um just my name is Melissa Bavon my last name is b a b a s i n and my pronouns are she her I'm a parent to two Franklin High School students and a seventh grader at Creston Elementary and just like Mariah I am nervous and not a public speaker um so here I go I am very new to learning the systems in place for PPS and what role the board even plays in advocating for our communities I'm trying to learn how this all works it's incredible intimidating to engage and honestly this feels like it takes so much work just to know where to go to
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educate myself about all this not to mention that I work full-time from my perspective it feels that there are people just at the top making decisions for the smaller voices here on the bottom I know this is not true but this is how I feel coming from a place of not knowing how the system works I know the goal is equity I see a large gap between those less active in the community and those involved making big decisions I'm learning more and I'm trying to educate myself on how to be involved how to advocate for my kids as well as for all kids especially those with little opportunity to be heard I found that I'm losing trust in PPS um from past and now presentent decisions in handling the big and the small issues regarding our children I'm disappointed being new to this and learning it's it's um really hard to watch this Gap I know you um I hope that you can hear my voice and consider ways to better communicate and find ways to maybe bridge this Gap moving forward um one big concern I've heard in regarding the Cog opening is that there will be a projected surge in enrollment I'm worried that if the proposal will split the Creston middle school kids approves that this will break some of our kids emotionally and mentally as well as reinforce the narrative that PPS does not care about small neighborhood schools or the families that actually choose to attend them Creston numbers are so small and our neighborhood school is so closely knit together and bonded and supported by one another these kids need to stay together most of them have been together since kindergarten for their mental and emotional well-being keeping them all together is the best decision you can make for our community especially for the kids as we navigate through this pandemic I hope that you all can reconsider not using the number of projected Poss possible kids who are projected to maybe enroll in Kellogg um that are not even currently enrolled in a neighborhood school and allow the cresten and neighborhood school students a spot first and if there's room allow those estimated projected kids to apply and if room get in it seems like that is the right thing to do I'm sad that this whole Southeast feeder and Boundary situation has ended up so stressful I bet it has left a lot of those on the inside trying to make these hard decisions feeling frustrated and not appreciated I do appreciate the hard work that's being put in I'm just sad to hear that this has somewhat actually negatively impacted our Southeast Community and put parents against each other and even affected relationships please keep cresting kids together they can fit into Kellog it is the closest school and we are the community we need to remember that we do this all for the children they all deserve equal opportunities that enrich the communities not not divide them um thank you so much for giving me this time thank you and that concludes who we have signed up for the general public comment thank you Miss Bradshaw um and I appreciate everyone taking the time to make their comments I know it is hard to get up and speak publicly Sal um sorry my husband's delivering dinner right at this moment of course um I do appreciate everyone who makes public comments um I know it is intimidating to speak before the board I remember my first board meeting it was intimidating just to be you know on camera and up front um so thank you all for your courage um and your advocacy tonight we really appreciate you speaking um we move on now to um superintendent Guerrero with the superintendent's report um superintendent Guerrero would you please provide your report for us tonight would love to good evening directors and when I thought of this to everybody joining us this evening um there's really there's really just two big items I want to highlight uh this evening uh they meaty ones uh the first is last week's announcements on graduation rate since we haven't actually had a chance uh to meet or talk publicly about it and secondly uh an update on our plans uh and the next steps we've taken to safely reopen schools for for limited inperson instruction as we move towards a hybrid model of instruction uh but up first uh hopefully you've all had a chance to see this line graph uh which Bard I know you'll agree with me is is fantastic news uh is the recently reported upward Trend in graduation rates the graduation rate at Portland Public Schools is up again coming in at 83.7% for the class of 2020 our students continue to demonstrate growth year-over-year some of the most exciting numbers stand out when we look at the
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three-year Trends which by the way includes the 1920 school year even with its multiple challenges U but here's some highlights um black students had a 12.3 percentage Point gain latinx students had a 4.8 gain multi-racial other ancestry students had a 4.8 percentage Point gain uh and students with disabilities have had a 38.9 percentage Point gain in the past 10 years white students had a 5.2 percentage Point gain so these last few years we've assembled a strong team cultivated relationships across the district and are holding each other accountable to the shared Vision we have now embraced these graduation numbers represent the Persistence of our students the dedication of our teachers and staff the leadership of our administ rators and the support of many Community Partners especially our culturally specific Partners uh who have found so many relevant and creative ways to support students and families the upward Trend we're seeing also serves as validation that our continued focus on student opportunities and outcomes which I know is something this school board has made a clear priority the Investments that we're making the specific ways we've chosen to utilize uh our res ources such as measure 998 and student investment account they're paying off and we've made these choices using our community design Vision our North Star that called out the importance of centering students offering exposure to careers and access to expanded opportunities and supports as part of their school experience so we're pleased and we understand that we still have more work to do but this upward Trend which represents the growing number of diplomas that PPS students earn each year by meeting graduation requirements includes accelerated gains for our black indigenous and other students of color this all gives me confidence that we're on the right track if we continue to work together and Center students I believe we'll see those numbers continue to rise next slide more information on our graduation rates can be found on our website but in addition to these highlights I've just listed um that I made earlier about the three-year Trends I also want to highlight some statistics just from the class of 2020 here when you doubleclick the 83.7% graduation rate for the class of 2020 you'll find that graduation rate for students of color is now over 75% black students had a 4.4 percentage Point increase uh from the 201819 school year latinx students had a 4.1 percentage Point increase uh year-over-year and students with disability increased from the 201819 school year by 7.2 percentage points so again we still have work to do uh but we're really pleased with the upward trend of students earning their diplomas and continuing in such a positive direction so kudos to to everyone for for yet this uh positive indicator second big topic which you're going to hear uh a lot about this evening uh from the team uh each regular meeting of the board we've continued to provide brief updates regarding the health metrics and status of our reopening plans and we committed to sharing our second semester plan by the close of the month so following through on this pledge this evening directors all employees and All Families will be receiving a detailed update momentarily regarding covid-19 plans and our next steps toward safely reopening our schools you'll hear many additional details uh just a little further on the agenda this evening but here's just some of the highlights beginning tomorrow January 27th Educators and School staff will receive vaccinations this will occur in a sequenced order and we expect to complete vaccinations for this key Group by the end of February as third quarter begins on February 1st students will continue to participate in comprehensive distance learning but by March 1st all schools will offer limited in-person opportunities this includes extracurricular activities for our high school students on April 1st when fourth quarter begins we're working towards and planning to offer hybrid learning model for most all of our students and I can announce that we are planning for expanded summer programming opportunities which we are calling a fifth quarter to provide for additional instructional time and to help mitigate for some of the learning loss students may have experienced during the pandemic I'm eager to get as many of our students safely back in person uh and into instruction as quickly as possible uh but of course we're Guided
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by our principles of living into our commitment for racial equity and social justice which means centering and lifting up the lived experiences of our black native and students of color who we know families have been disproportionately impacted by covid-19 and the pervasive inequities in our systems we're also Guided by a principle of ensuring the health and wellness not just of our students but of our staff and all of our employee groups uh we continue to be guided by the need to cultivate connection and relationship and to strengthen and innovate the instructional core which we've seen a lot of over the last 10 months families and staff can expect this detailed communication to be emailed to them uh as I said momentarily uh in all of the supported languages and all of the information shared this evening and further details will be posted to our website uh later tomorrow morning so we're looking forward to sharing more about our plan and preparation just a bit later on the agenda thank you all right thank you superintendent Guerrero that's very exciting and I um as we look at the graduation rates oh sorry my camera's off because I was eating you don't all need to see me slurping slurping spaghetti during the superintendent's report but um I think the really amazing thing about the graduation rates is that's not just a product of the work of last spring I know we did have a lot of very dedicated Educators and staff working with our students um to make sure that in the chaos of the pandemic they were able to graduate but it is you know testimony Testament to the work the district has done over the last several years of how students are showing up senior year better prepared and how um Middle School the Middle School experience is hopefully preparing students even more fully for high school so want to thank all of the staff for the incred inredible work they've done over the last several years to um create that increase in graduation rates especially and I'm very excited to hear more about um as we move into Limited in person and hybrid in um more detail tonight as we continue um we have a really amazing thing on our agenda next um something that um has been very Community Based and I think shows um some of the incredible work again of our staff and our focus on um as the superintendent said racial equity and social justice and that is the Wilson High School naming and defining places recommendations so superintendent Guerrero would you like to introduce this next item yes thank you chair Lowry really excited to bring this to our directors last July we shared with you a plan and a procedure for updating the administrative directive for renaming School District buildings and other spaces with Wilson High School serving as a case study in the naming and defining places process so this approach has been intended to align our intentions and actions and move towards a more balanced approach that centers the voices and experiences of our students especially students of color and aligns with our racial equity and social justice framework and plan as the chair just listed uh and tonight tonight I'm really excited to have students and participants here from the renaming Committee of Wilson High School as you know directors a few weeks ago I met with principal ristic and to learn more about the work of the renaming committee and their community's recommendation to rename Wilson school after ID Tob Wells Barnett I shared with him and the community my full support and my recommendation to you is to formally accept the name change this evening so directors based on what I've already seen I can State unequivocally that the engagement process led by these students with the support from our office of community engagement meets and exceeds the expectations outlined both uh in our current administrative directive so as I turn it over to the team I just want to express how proud I am of our students their leadership and the entire community's participation to get to this place tonight so presuming the school board approves this change uh your leadership your voice and your steadfast determination that of the Committees to make this change uh I think it's a bit historical here because For the First Time In 170 plus year history of Portland Public Schools students will walk through presumptively the doors of a compreh ensive High School named in honor of a journalist activist mother of four tireless and fearless champion of racial equity and social justice a black woman idab Wells Barnett so my thanks to all of you uh for conducting this process with integrity and with careful thought as to the identity and values of our school community that you want to convey to current and future generations of students so I know we have a number of uh invited guests but I'm going to ask uh Danny Le Desma our senior advisor on racial equity and social justice uh to share more uh on how this
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recommendation came together thank you thank you superintendent good evening directors um I get uh the honor of introducing uh the team of folks uh but before I do I just wanted to uh point out that this uh this recommendation is really the culmination as the superintendent said of significant engagement and student L engagement that illuminate a critical moment in our district and our community's history uh the recommended name change speaks to an increasing shared understanding and shared critical analysis of how places shape experience and that how we as communities of color as students as families and educators are empowered to build new and more responsive shapes uh to those places that have such an in an incredible impact in creating a safe and culturally affirming educational environment um before I hand this over to the very capable hands of principal uh reek I want to point out that in addition to this a um action tonight we are currently in the process of updating an administrative directive as part of our naming and defining Places work that corresponds to to renaming and in our student driven uh committee we will continue to draw on the lessons that have been learned from this process um and really take uh this uh this process as well as the process at Madison uh High School to uh to really come up with some uh exciting ways that we can make sure that there's this uh integration between um a recommended action for name but also a pull through around culturally responsive pedagogy and making sure that we're ensuring a safe a sense of safety and belonging at all of our schools um I am so excited about not only being able to um to sort of engage in this work but about um a corresponding toolkit that we'll have for uh future School communities so that we can really learn from and uh attempt to think about how we replicate some of the work that's been done um here um and so I want to encourage you to watch out for those uh upcoming meetings and I'm going to turn it over to uh principal rek um who has who has led a really incredible process um and I will say that as the committee members there's been so many layers understanding and uh so many uh ways that the principal and team and the committee approach this that we've been learning from so um so excited um to go ahead and turn this over to the principal thank you so much dear Portland Public Schools board directors superintendent Guero uh District leaders uh my name is Philip fisti and I'm the proud principal of what is currently known as the woodro Wilson High School I I have the great honor of joining you this evening with a group of students who over the last seven months have led a historic effort to rename our school and ensure that the name of our school represents and stands for some of our deepest values Justice Integrity inclusion with your blessing and support the next time I have the opportunity to introduce myself I will say that the proud principal of Ida B Wells High School and we can go to the next slide I hope you can see the slides are the slides being shared or should I do that one moment I sure I need to grab it no problem thank you students for for being with us this evening this is the the finals week um so um I'm also very grateful that they're here we can go to slide three if that's okay I'm wondering if I have the right slides rosan I'm sending them to you now it's it's not a thing unless we have some kind of technical difficulties right you got [Music]
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of course it seem to be taking longer than usual um so principal herisk uh I sorry I could you say your name last name again for me so I could pronounce it correctly sure it's thank you um I just so appreciate your willingness to be in this process and um while we wait for the slides sure um what is the thing that you're most um excited about with the new name idab Wells Barnett there's a lot but I'll just share with you kind of what's uh closest to my heart right now um shortly after received uh the superintendent's approval we uh reached out to I B Wells Memorial Foundation which is a nonprofit that's run by some of Ida B wells's descendants and uh I wrote to them to say we're in the process of renaming our school and I'm interested in possibly developing a relationship a partnership uh perhaps uh con um hosting U CommunityWide evening events or professional development for our staff and um and so I had a conversation uh just last Friday with Ida B wells's uh great-grandson who was just delated uh and he said thank you for reaching out to us uh at this point usually we find out afterwards and we're always grateful but it's nice to be included in the conversation early on he had lots of ideas of uh things that we could do so I'm I'm both excited and humbled uh by the fact that we are joining a lineage and taking on a lot of responsibility to really honor Ida B wells's life Legacy and we'll do so with um in in partnership with her descendants and uh Scholars and uh journalists one of my mentors and former colleagues uh uh received an iwls uh journalist award um so she is somebody who resonates with a lot of people and uh as a school Community we will have a chance to um benefit uh from uh from those new relationships that we develop um so thank you for the slides uh let's go to slide three um before I introduce the students who will be presenting this evening I would also like to acknowledge several other members of the Wilson High School renaming committee I'm deeply appreciative of their active engagement uh and support over the last uh several months uh vice principal Aisha conning Miss Norma Hamilton miss narina mccleave Mr Martin Osborne Miss Deborah Walsh and two of our teachers Miss Ellen wat watmore and Mr Zack Winterspring um and we also received a wonderful guidance and support from Mr zelle Watson uh who supported us uh over the last several months as well and so without further Ado I would like to introduce you to wewe nura Liliana sea Asen Mia Janelle and cison they will share with you information about our work over the last few months how we engaged our school community and how we ultimately determined that IW Wells Barnett is the most appropriate namesake for our school so Janelle please take it away yeah uh could we please go to slide five thank you so much um as you will see from our presentation this evening our committee closely followed the administrative directives on naming and renaming District property next slide pleas uh we studied the administrative guidelines carefully and ensure that we follow all the necessary steps among other things we made sure to notify our stakeholders about the naming process we created opportunities for stakeholders to provide input we documented levels of community support and we thoroughly researched all the candidates next SL please thank you uh one of the first things we did as a committee before we solicited any Community input and before we discussed any potential candidates is that we established a set of guid uh next slide please um so like Janelle said we first established a set of principles to guide our selection process we wanted to ensure that we um centered the voices and perspectives of historically marginalized communities we wanted to
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demonstrate open communication and transparency we wanted to provide a variety of opportunities for stakeholders to participate and we wanted to make sure that we Center the voices of all students next slide please thank you as preious previously mentioned we also established a set of guiding principles for how we would choose the new name in reading our school's mission statement we thought that our new name should uphold our school's commitment to Justice tolerance and compassion we wanted the new name to be inclusive of all students especially those who have been traditionally overlooked we wanted the name to represent values of Education Equity righteousness and morality and we wanted the name to have a lasting inspirational impact uh next slide please thank you we have been working hard over the last few months to fulfill all these guiding principles as you know the renaming process started in June of last year when we formally requested the superintendent and the board to change the name of our school we spent the months of July and August preparing and we officially launched our committee in September ever since then our committee has met at least once a week we spent the first few weeks establishing our norms and guiding principles we studied the administrative directives we developed communication including a comprehensive website that contains all key information and we prepared to launch a robust Community engagement campaign from October to December we worked hard to collect and synthesize Community input and this ultimately allowed us to identify five finalists for our school name when we returned from winter break we did some more research and discussion before we reached our final recommendation if you would like to learn more about the Wilson renaming process please click on the links included on this slide next slide please as you just heard from Mia we worked hard over the last few months to gather a lot of input from our community in November we sent out a community survey that resulted in more than 680 nominations we also attended more than two dozen virtual meetings these included neighborhood association meetings PTA meetings staff meetings student club meetings and many more shortly before winter break we sent out another Community feedback form which received more than 1,350 comments all this community feedback helped us in the decision-making process um you can go to the next slide please uh thank you after reflecting on community feedback engaging in a lot of discussion taking another close look at our guiding principles and doing a lot of research our committee identified five am amazing finalists all of these remarkable women left a lasting Legacy and made important contributions to our society uh yeah next slide please uh good evening uh my name is wewe Hutchinson I presented back in June requesting uh this name change and I'm honored to have been a part of this committee after many meetings tough decisions and discussions ultimately we as a committee with the help of our community input decided that Ida B Wells Barnett would be the best namesake for our school we are so grateful for everyone's contributions and hard work ID Wells Barnett was a teacher renowned journalist and civil rights AC acist she fought against racial injustices and fought for women's rights she's the founder of several civil rights organizations including the NAACP she was also a contemporary of woodro Wilson and directly opposed some of Wilson's segregationist policies next slide please thank you we included a link here for a document that includes all the community feedback we collected in support of ID Wells as you will see many of our students families and staff are very enthusiastic about this recommendation um it's two slides down thank you thank you so much for taking the time to hear our presentation today we hope that you will support our requests that we change the name of our school from woodro Wilson High School to ID Wells Barnett High School nice job everyone thank you students thank you so much for your leadership um and I know I've seen many of you at other um things uh continuing your leadership so thank you for being here tonight and for all the work you've done um on behalf of your school and our district all right um we're going to go go ahead and bring the motion before us and then we as a board will have some time to discuss so do I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6235
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resolution to change the name of Wilson High School so moveed so moved second right I heard Michelle first so director depos moves and director Scott seconds the adoption of resolution 6235 is there any board discussion I just wanted to make a comment to the students that um the this tremendous opportunity you've had presented that um will give you some backbone and some foundations for work that you'll likely be doing in your activism through college and Beyond um you'll already come to those conversations with the experience of having gone through a renaming process which is really powerful um I also want to thank um principal hitit headis Stitch and staff um for for for going through this uh process with the with um the Community input and students and I'm really curious if the staff could share some of the Lessons Learned um that that you'll use to move through the process for the next renaming um is there any is there any like one key piece of learning that you'll use to inform the process next time I'd love to give an opportunity for shenise Clark or Danny to share something about that go ahead I'll quickly share um and maybe Danny can hop in there's so many but I think what was really impressive about these folks um uh especially creating uh these principles uh that really guided the process and filtered decision-making through the work it's ultimately a practice that we've adapted uh with our general criteria uh more generally so we're we think that's a a great way to um align uh the vision and values um of PPS in our schools um and at the center with student voice and decision making but um I'm sure there's a long list and if Danny wants to chime in no I'm going with that one that was great thank you direct Scott I know that you wanted to make a statement as a Wilson so you're a Wilson Alum you live don't steal my thunder Aly don't steal my thunder go there okay go ahead sorry all right I'll dive in no I'm I'm actually I'm really excited um to be able to vote Yes on this resolution tonight and and I say this as as a board member representing Zone one uh which includes the currently named Wilson High School I say this as a proud Wilson High alumni um class of 1991 and I also say it as a proud parent of two future idab Wells Barnett high school graduates class of 2023 and class of 2026 um I really applaud the work of this renaming committee um you all worked really hard to explain why it's important to change the name um and identif ified some really inspiring Alternatives and I want to thank principal um ristic for his leadership throughout the entire process um and really really making sure this moved forward I think it changes long overdue um and I think our community broadly supports this change I I do want to address head- on um a couple of the arguments that I heard in opposition because I I I think it's important that that we have this conversation publicly and and explain not only what we're doing but why we're doing it one argument that I heard um from a couple of people is that wooder Wilson Legacy is complex and it included many positives um as well as some negatives and that this action erases the contributions of an important historical figure and the second thing I heard a couple times is that um some frustration that the final list of names only included only included black women and therefore was not diverse to that first point um I agree that Wilson's Legacy is complex and I think there are many positive things that he did and I think we need to acknowledge that Wilson W Wilson was a racist and to fully understand the complexity of his life we have to look at that entire life and and everything that he did as a student at Wilson I I learned about the League of Nations I learned about Wilson's internationalism and other positive contributions but I didn't learn about his racism and I didn't learn about his furtherance of segregation and I didn't learn about the harm that he caused to American citizens harm that lingers to this day um and I think it's important to note this action doesn't erase Wilson's Legacy it acknowledges his full Legacy in a way that's long overdue that we haven't done to date and it determines that on balance Wilson does not deserve a prominent place on the front of one of our comprehensive high schools and I think as to the second Point um that I heard that this list of of final names only included um black women all I can say is it's about time um I think in a country that for over 200 years has named almost every school and Road and Bridge and building after white men it's way past time to rebalance those scales and for most of our history the contributions of women and people of color have been systematically ignored and suppressed and so if I can take the liberty of
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speaking on behalf of all white men I will assure you that we will survive just fine um not having anything named after us for um for a few more years as we sort of rebalance the scales so um so I just again thank you to this committee um thank you for bringing it Forward I think you've set a great example for how we can do this um in other places as well and and not just in the school district but this is a conversation that's happening at cities and its states um and I just think it's it's a model that I know other governments are going to look to us um to to to follow um as as they go forward so so thank you again I'm really excited to vote Yes tonight well I have I have a question I'd like to pose to um whoever wants to take it from the students PE who were on the naming committee um so I will admit that I was surprised when I saw this um recommendation this original recommendation that it was I to be Wells Bernett Bernett because I'm familiar with her Legacy I'm familiar with her reputation and I don't know that I had ever heard her referred to by her married name and so um I'm interested to hear about the discussion that you guys had during the process and how you arrived at the recommendation for her hyphenated married name and then also um if you guys want to address the the letter that we received from the idb wells Memorial Foundation which Prince Rish mentioned I don't know uh if he had a conversation with them on this topic where they said that um you know they don't have any issue with her being referred to by her maiden name and that in fact her autobiography is written um as I to be well so whoever wants to jump in and talk about that thank you you or maybe you didn't have any discussion about it maybe you guys only talked about her married name I can go well we had a a certain level of discussion we didn't necessarily have it maybe as in depth as um we didn't we didn't specifically touch on the fact that um it was her married name versus her MAA name but we did discuss the fact that ID Wells Bernett was the name that was on her death certific that was a name that she um legally had and so one of our discussion points was that we wanted her Legacy to be one that she promoted during her life and during in her death um obviously there's nothing wrong with um just merely saying I be Wells especially because um her Legacy that is carried on by her family and her descendants is um ID to be well but I think either one is appropriate and we chose I Wells because that was the name that she had so director conam can I jump in so exactly as as cadison said we we wanted to honor Ida B Wells Burnett's whole life um and recognize that um she did a lot of work uh publish many articles and many books as idab Wells But ultimately uh chose to hyphen it her name and lived a part of her life as Ida B Wells Bernett and we wanted to make sure that we name our school after a person and not an idea uh and to use a formal name as our official name this is the name that we hope will go in the building this is the name that we hope will be on uh student diplomas and transcripts and at times when we need to to shorten the name we will shorten the name to Ida be Wells um we would like to keep her first name her middle initial and at least her ma name uh as opposed to shortening her name to something like Wells or Wells Barnett because the truth be told uh there are many buildings there are many roads that keep somebody's last name and we tend to forget who the person is uh we don't know don't remember who Barber was we forgotten who Vancouver was we don't even remember who estor is named after and perhaps many kids don't even know who Benson was so what's important for us is that Ida B Wells or Ida B Wells Bernett is the name of our school and so the official name Ida bwells Bernett as it was uh when she ultimately passed away and then when we need to shorten the name ID Wells that is how she is probably best known and uh like the members of the memorial Foundation said they're perfectly fine with uh either of those those names Liliana I saw you raise your hand did you w to add
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something to this um I was just gonna say pretty much everything that principal H said just acknowledging her as a real person with a complex Legacy and I think um using the name that she chose to make her own um is really important in thinking of her as a real person that's all thank you um um as guess the board member who's got a hyphenated last name um and a lot of people choose to just ignore that that's the last name that I want to have used um I really appreciate the thoughtfulness that you thought that you brought to that question because I do think it's really easy for people to just use the name that they they want to to use and so um as somebody who's got a hyphenated name I really respect that you guys thought through what what would she have wanted um and res respect that and because it's um it's not that doesn't always happen um because it's just easier not to do it so I really appreciate um students and staff uh respecting how she wanted to be represented and that she's a person and can I say something else or do you me to wait till later I just F I had to jump in there as a hyphenated person um just as I think about this vote tonight um thank the staff and the students who put all the time into a really thoughtful process um that got us here tonight um as a board member I think this this may be one of the things that has maybe one of the longest impacts um that we may have and actions that we take as uh director Scott said um the name Wilson lasted a long period of time um so I'm looking forward tonight to having voting on something in favor of something that is going to have be remembered and pays tribute to somebody a very important figure that will last Way Beyond my my our board service and our probably our lifetimes um and it's interesting because I think dror Scott gave some of the arguments about why why we wouldn't make the change um another argument that I you know heard often in the process at the very beginning was that naming like renaming a school is just a gesture and you know I think tonight and the students presentation um really challenges that assertion um that a renaming is is is more than just a gesture but the names really matter um very much and that when we um look at the work that uh we're doing certainly what's happening in the classrooms and schools matters but also who we pay tribute to and who we honor um so I want to thank the the students uh for their work and the staff um to allow us to uh really take a very important action that definitely is not a a gesture um I I want to note that uh Bill Hillyard um who was the first African American editor of the Oregon in would be very proud tonight of um our students and the community that we are recognizing um a trailblazing um black journalist who um that we we can all be proud of and I think you know none of us want to have um schools in which we um don't honor and are proud of the that the name that and the individual and the person's actions behind it um so I'm going to be enthusiastic yes I saw that you were maybe trying to speak there did you have something to add to this conv no I'm good it got covered no problem great okay thanks it's you know Zoom meetings are a little bit challenging to to negotiate the facilitation um is there any more board discussion before we turn to public comment chair Lowry I see that student SAA Scott's hand is raised SAA did you have than you I hope you can hear me okay um I definitely want to reiterate the importance behind making sure that the renaming of any type of institution or any place of importance isn't just a gesture and so um I do want to bring up the fact that we have had conversations about what we want to do further to make sure that we're prioritizing students who over history have been marginalized and dismissed within school systems and
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so I'm really hoping that the future of our school we're going to see a lot of representation and Leadership especially in journalism because ID well has left a very important Legacy in her advocacy through her writing and so there definitely a lot of things that we want to see for the future of our school and we're going to keep working towards that all right any thank you Sena is there any further board discussion before we turn to public comment um ASN has her hand raised great sorry I can only see like half the people on the screen so I so appreciate you pointing out who has their hand raids Asen that's totally okay it's Zoom is hard I totally understand um yeah I just uh speaking about you know the name and and using using IW Wells Barnett's her her full name um I just think as a black woman I I identify as black woman um having the place that I go to school every single day or would go to school when we were in person every single day I'm walking into a school that I know represents me as a black woman means the world um especially you know opposing that having gone to a school named after someone who was openly racist and openly a white supremacist that activ harmed my people and um you know having this opportunity to change our name it can't just stop with our school um you know we are very fortunate to be able to have this opportunity to rename our school but there are other schools um as I'm sure many of us know in the PPS District that need this name change as well and I just really want to emphasize that this energy needs to be matched with those schools that do have more or or a higher percentage of students of color and black students especially because when you're going to a school named after someone who was a slave owner or white supremacist or racist or a KKK member that takes a toll on your entire educational career and it's not fair and at the at the point we're at right now in society you know with black lives matter and everything else going on it needs to be prioritized with every single school not just Wilson which happens to be a majority White School in a you know in an area with mostly white people um so yeah you know I'm very fortunate for this opportunity especially as a person of color but the energy does need to be matched in other areas of PPS any further comments from any of the students that are here with us tonight or any of our board members before we go to public comment I I would like to revisit with our students for a second the question around the name because I want to make sure that we don't get hung up on the this false um dichotomy that she that that she referred to herself as ID Tob Wells Barnett even though that was her name at her death we hear from her family that like most of the work that they do in honor of her Legacy they don't use her married name and we've gotten a lot of feedback I've gotten fair amount of feedback from students that are concerned about the Hy ated name um because it's a mouthful and and principal re it's not exactly clear to me like you know it says Wells would be used most of the time but you know the formal name would be IW Wells Barnett I mean that's it's a little bit different proposition when it's a hyphenated name as opposed to times when you inform formalize something by dropping out the middle name so it's unclear to me exactly how it would be referred to and I I do think it matters because to say you go to Wells Barnett High School is a little different to to manage than than Well's high school so I'm I'm I'm interested in the students ideas because I don't think it's a question about whether or not she it would be sliding her sense of herself I haven't seen anything historically that says that and her family doesn't back that up so director constam what what I heard and students in uh principal um restitch correct me if I'm wrong is what you all said was that forly it would be ID be Wells Barnett high school and when we shortened it instead of it being Wells Barnett or Wells High School it would be ID Wells High School when we're sort of talking colloquially but when anything formal would be I Wells Barett High School is that is that what I heard you all say please please clarify that's that's exactly right and I would also add that we we're wrapping up the first step in in in a process that will continue the first step is to recommend a new name and what we're
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recommending is to use ID Wells Barnett as the official name of the school if we once we have your your blessing and approval then we'll begin the second part of this process which is really about branding which is really about school identity it's about how we begin to manifest ids's uh Legacy in our curriculum in our um in murals uh in through our logo and lettering and and and so then we will have the questions of well what what goes on a football jersey what what goes on a baseball hat what goes on on you know on the scoreboard in the and in the gym and as I mentioned if ID Wells Barnett doesn't fit we will try to retain ID be Wells as the a as as the as the common way of referencing ourselves uh to ourselves and we'll steer away from any further reductions of her name um so as I mentioned the official name makes sense to me to be the uh be ID Wells Bernett uh she did publish at least one book under that name possibly others um it's hard to tell these days because of republications of of certain texts but uh that is the that was her chosen name for a good portion of her life and and effort to honor her full um personhood we would like to keep that as the name we also see this as beginning um prompting conversations so who was Barnett who is this man that she married um he was a pretty remarkable person himself uh was it common for women at the time to hyphen at their names uh she chose to keep her made a name why is that so in other words we're we also see this as an opportunity to have deeper conversation about this person that we're taking on as our namesake and whose lineage we we hope to um uh join all right anything further from students or directors before we move on to um public comment this is probably going to get me in trouble but are you g to keep the Trojans and you don't have to answer that well a lot of things are going to be in discussion like our our mascots like like like a lot of things like like like the language we use for like chants and stuff like that cuz we want to change the identity of the school and how we want our school to be seen as from like the community in general I think you should be the mighty pens p NS right because she was a writer and the pen is mightier than the sword I mean I think there's a lot of a lot of H potential there but I'll Trust you all to figure that out the bees the stinging bees or something like that there you go okay well well obviously you don't want Scott or i on your team choosing your new mascot um Miss braa is there any public comment on this tonight there's not all right then we are uh ready to vote the board will now vote on resolution 6235 resolution to change the name of Wilson High School to as it is written in the resolution Ida B Wells baret all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all oppos please indicate by saying no are there any abstentions resolution 6235 is approved of by a vote of seven to zero with student representative Shu voting yes all right thank you to the team from ID Wells barut High School it was great to have you with us and uh my understanding is the name change goes into effect immediately is that correct Liz waiting for our legal nod I actually don't know it says the resolution reads um let me pull it up on board books I was looking uh the resolution reads will now be known as yes that would be immediate then okay so you sp a few days since I've read the resolution I'm sorry I didn't recall off the top of my head yeah so congratulations to the students of idub Wells Barnett High School than you name change thank you for leading the way all right thank you and we'll we'll handle those details I heard director Bailey talking about we'll make sure that all gets uh solidified all the the technical parts that need to go into the name change but thank you so much for being here tonight and chair Lowry just not to interject here but we also have a process for Branding and identity and all of those next pieces so I'm sure principal H and and and the community will will will be excited to start that next stage as well go Mighty pens okay um we are going to take a little break because we've been uh here for an hour and 45 minutes so uh let's take a f minute break and come back at 7:50 we'll see you all back in just a
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few
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uh deep community- centered work as we talk about the um uh Kellogg middle school student assignment plan which is phase one of the enrollment and balancing uh scenario uh for Southeast um last year at the direction of the board we want launched an enrollment and program balancing process o sorry cell phone down Contracting with flow analytics to lead data analysis and modeling this led to the convening of a Southeast guiding Coalition sered known cooil as scgc comprised of parents Guardians principles students and teachers to create a recommendation to staff for the phase one process at the last board meeting staff conveyed this recommendation and its recommendation and the Board of Education reviewed the recommendation and requested that staff and the southeast guiding Coalition reconsider options for Crest and Middle grades to move to a comprehensive Middle School in Fall of 2021 instead of fall of 2022 after weighing multiple options most scgc members maintained their recommendation without revisions staff has reviewed the recommendation and modified it by delaying the mount Taber Middle School du Lang dual language immersion program move to Kellogg Middle School staff recommends that the program remain at Mount Taber for the 2122 Year and be included in phase two of the southeast guiding Coalition Middle School balancing process staff also recommends that each Creston middle-grade student be assigned to a comprehensive Middle School for the 2122 school year staff who has been involved in this process are here to answer any questions the board may have about the recommendation before you so we begin um by bringing this before us do I have a motion and a second to adopt resolution 6236 the Kellogg middle school student assignment plan so moved all right director constam moves is there a second second all right director brim Edwards seconds the adoption of resolution 6236 um I know that there is quite a bit of board discussion um so let's begin of a can I just ask a have a question before we have the discussion um this is for staff um last night um there was a community meeting with the creson community which is the first creson specific uh meeting since um the uh decision had been made about um the recommendation and that at the meeting there was some data provided by parents that um was somewhat different from the data that the district had reviewed and I'm curious um whether the staff has looked at that data now and whether um staff could share sort of what they found that sort of Rec reconcile the data between um what parents had based on actually looking at the addresses involved and what PPS had so we originally had um for the students north of Powell we originally had 30 and we have um looked at the data again and
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it is 23 students there were seven students who live outside the cresto neighborhood were who were um added to the count in error so that just to clarify because the initial information that had come to the board the number of cresten students in the rec in the recommendation um who based on last night's proposal would go to Kellogg and the number that would go to it sounds like 23 I know that was a preliminary recommendation it's not the decision but and 23 to Hosford correct and the um what I would say about last night is was a listening session for us to hear um what the creson community was um looking for and what um to get feedback on the proposal and we were clear that we needed to wait um until the board made their decision this evening before because we um until a resolution is passed we don't have um you know the direction on which direction to go so we also asked in the same meeting if there because there was suggestion of a instead of a East West boundary a North South Boundary and so we were um pursuing that as well and I'm sorry um Deputy superintendent Herz it was 23 at Hosford and how many at Kellogg I don't have the count here um Judy Brennan director of enrollment and transfer do you have the count in front of you yes good evening um we are so that the error that you saw reflected was really just a scrier error moving data from place to place the initial information that you received as a board um was correct um had the correct count of 23 students our counts are based on October enrollment which is our most stable enrollment numbers if I understand correctly um parents had access to um student address information that might have been more current or at at a different date yeah I was just trying to find out how many were actually because the proposal that was discussed last night was a split between Hosford and um Kellogg and I just I'm just trying to figure out how many were going to Kellogg and how many were going to Hosford so we've just landed on 70 to Kellogg okay so it's 93 students and just another clarifying question that I got today during director brim Edwards I would also add their additional special education students that are moving and those are moving to those are moving to Kellogg that's correct so just another clarifying question that I got from the community today based on last night's meeting um the there was a a statement made like going back to the drawing board it wasn't going back to the drawing board on the whole proposal about Creston for 2122 it was to take into consider I just want to make sure I understood the community understands it take into consideration what you heard last night and um look at the options but it's not a we're not going to have a middle school assignment for Creston students next year so I'd ask for um Dr Esther Dr o please um share it was part of her closing comments and please share her intent yes my intention was to just let the community know that we did hear their concern about wanting all their students to go to Kellogg it wasn't that they would not have a consideration for middle school for next year right it just caused a slight um bit of concern that that maybe was like going all the way back to the original recommendation thank you for the clarification that was not it at all I I have a question along the same lines about the number of students um that are in the um Marysville are leid in Lent um that live outside the what would be the Kellogg enrollment area um do do we know where those students are from and and um Judy Brenan can you please refresh our memories as to exactly what those transfer agreements specify in terms terms of matriculating to the next grade band um yes uh we do have data and I uh
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we've got a table that could be shared with all board members I'm not sure if all have seen it um if you include Creston it's a total of 72 students currently in grades 5 through seven in a what would be a um Kellogg neighborhood feeder school not including immersion um those students are from a a wide variety of schools the most prevalent would be Lane um there are also students who live outside of PPS in that group there are students from Harrison Park um Hosford Roseway Heights Mount Taber Etc and um we also looked at at their race ethnicity and um free and reduced lunch rates for those students they're primarily students of color and 50% qualifi for free meals under direct certification they may have come to those schools either through um an intentional transfer approved through enrollment and transfer or they may have started as a neighborhood Family who then moved to a different neighborhood and through board policy currently has the right to remain in their current School through the highest grade transfers are approved to the highest grade of the school um there is no provision in policy for um grade reconfiguration and moving and what that means uh whether it breaks a transfer or students have the right to move with their cohort what we do have is precedents from the openings of Oley green Harriet Tubman and Roseway Heights middle schools during the the last 5 years were students in the transfer students in the cohorts of the um K8 feeder schools were allowed to move forward to the new middle school so that's why they were part of the Baseline um just following that that um prent Judy can I follow up on um that sort of point because when I look at the data it looks like of the 72 all but one all but maybe I'm reading it wrong but all but one of the students um actually have a middle school that they could attend it looks like Lane Mount Taber every of all the 72 students um only one is Fabian there's a Fabian there's a har there there are 12 Harrison Park and one Fabian student I I do want to caution you that I believe that this data may include students who are in the um specialed focus classrooms um we also pulled current fifth grade from Creston and some of those kids may be kids who are assigned to Creston for the DEA and heart of hearing program which will be moving to mount Taber so we are doing our best to pull together data rapidly and give it um our best check but um this is not a an a student by student by student by student analysis um so just keep that in mind with this number of 72 but I concur that um of the students only there's 12 Harrison Park and one faan who would be assigned back to K8 schools yeah and I it's just if I could just continue I said that's a really important point that um we don't have the data and as we move into the next phase I think it's going to be really important um as a board member when I look at just the data that says we've got 17 um sort of out of District students going to Kellogg um I think the natural um question for people would be you know who who are those students how come they have priority over PPS students um so for our ability to be able to share the rationale of why out of District students might be taking priority is is going to be an important thing especially uh when we are saying for one group The cohort is important and not for another group um just as as we move forward in the process and looking at boundaries and whole host of other things I think we're going to be a have to be able to um you know explain why we're making decisions the way that we have based on the data because looks like I mean if you just look at the surface we've got out of District students and then other students who have Middle School assignments so to be able to rationalize that and Sh and share why we're doing it is important so one thing I'd like to add on the deaf andhe hearted hearing um uh program it is a regional program and those would
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include out of District students and so they have a K5 program at creson and a 68 program at man Taber and so we're not changing that um feeder pattern that's staying the same the K the deaf and hardened hair hearing would not experience a change what it does do is that some of the fifth graders that are part of 567 count of cresten do have um a different um feeder pattern rather than going to Kellog or Hosford and some of them may be coming from out of District because we it is a regional program so I just want to say quickly before we leave this thread that um Judy even though you introduced the Precedence of um Oley green and um Roseway Heights those precedents are in direct conflict with our policy and so for example if we were to consider amending this resolution tonight to not include the outter out of neighborhood students in the Kellogg enrollment that would be in keeping with our existing policies even though there are recent precedents that deviate from that unless I'm missing something the only thing I would add is the southeast guiding Coalition believed that students should stay together and carry um forward that was a recommendation in conversation with them yeah I'm I'm curious from a staff perspective since the southeast guiding Coalition um recommendation um came to staff um and we're counting on you to use your expertise and looking at it what's the difference between those students staying with their cohort and we have some anecdotal examples but we don't actually um as Judy mentioned have like all the information on like who those students are but there was a sense that this keeping the cohort together was important um the question like why wouldn't that also apply to the C to the Creston students um keeping them together since in this particular case we've got um two two schools it's not that Hosford has a bunch of space um they're actually overcapacity as well so I'm just curious about the differentiation of the importance of cohort because 23 students seems like you know um just a big a small number of students to try and keep together as a you know a part of a larger cohort frankly quon's not that many students after all but I'm I'm curious from the staff's perspective not the coalitions but the staff's perspective From staff's perspective from my perspective as the executive sponsor of this um process the my perspective is that it's important um with for students that have relationships to stay together at the same time as we were trying to find a solution for in in what we were hearing from the board was a priority of um changing K8 more k8s to K5 we looked at what we could do in terms of um in phase one one so that we could get our Creston students into comprehensive Middle School in um this uh in 2122 rather than delaying it to phase two in in 2223 in doing that we have um in in historical our history the whenever we modernize a school or open a new school we have a significant increase in enrollment and it averages about 10% so so we were trying to leave a 10% buffer um at um Kellogg because we know we will re we will see that many students over um even if if you take the current students and just roll them up you'll we will experience a significant bump we've seen that at Fabian we've seen that at Franklin we've seen that at Grant so all of our um modernized and new schools have experienced that so we believe that it's important to set that aside so that we don't end up with 110% at um uh Kellogg and we were looking at balancing um there are three crowded um middle schools Mount Taber um Hosford and Kellogg and we were looking at um how do we um because those are the closest U the Hosford and Kell are the closest to um Creston um so we were looking at how can we um make a solution for this next year as the board um was suggesting and that so we look to balance it between the two programs Hosford and Kellogg with those um the
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anticipated bump and rolling up students will come out very similarly in so in in terms of as well as Mount Taber in terms of the um capacity the and versus enrollment next year so it's all they're all going to be over 100% but it's going to be um something that will work with boundaries and continuing to go through phase two which may have additional changes in feeder patterns as well at the middle school level see that several people have unmuted themselves and and seem like they have questions to ask um so um director Scott did you have a question I saw you were unmuted no okay uh not at this point thank you okay director Bailey um yeah uh didn't staff uh say that uh when the Coalition asked for guidance around uh optimal enrollment that 85% would have been optimal so when we're talking about is and Claire did you just nod your head yes I was gonna say there are some under enrolled and over enrolled and we were saying um a range of 60 to 80% would be acceptable and then we had to see um that was something that we would um talk about getting some schools up to at least 60% and some down to 80% but also um recognizing um that was a Target and that 85% is usually about when we hear from principles about the school feeling very full um rather than at 100% And it's very full so my question which is kind of a rhetorical question is if the goal of this process is to balance enrollment uh and get to Optimal enrollment at our schools optimal use of buildings uh how is it that we're considering a proposal that will substantially overcrowd three middle schools in fact move us in the opposite direction by adding um adding and enrollment at Hosford and opening a new school at over 100% so the rationale is that this is phase one with getting um Kellogg open and because that needs to be done by fall of 21 when the building is ready for occupancy and then continuing we're hoping in um late February for phase two where we would look at boundary adjustments as well as feeder pattern adjustments to balance middle schools across the five middle schools in in the area there's two under enrolled and three over enrolled and so we'll have to make some shifts in feeter patterns to accomplish that okay but I assume we wouldn't want to do a second change to the Kellog theater pattern at that time so there the what we have stated is that we would um allow for any student that starts in um their middle school experience in 2122 this is in our recommendation that they'd be allowed to finish their middle school experience however we were also wanting to make sure that we left room for the best Solutions in Phase to so I can't say that this is permanent feeder patterns for everyone that's um in place um as we are looking at adjusting boundaries across all of the Southeast region I don't want to make any um um assumptions about the best solutions that we can find as we look at all the um data and do the analysis across the whole region for Middle School just an example just to help me understand this um so let's say that I'm gonna say ridiculous things that geographically don't make sense but let's say Maryville right now their students are going to Kellogg for middle school but if we change the Maryville school boundaries and some of the students who would have gone through Maryville so let's say a fifth grader who's at Maryville but then we changed the Maryville boundaries so they now live where they would go to Lane instead of to Kellogg because instead of going to Marysville they would actually go to one of the schools that fed into lamee so we're we're looking at you know changing things like that and so just so students who start at Kellogg this year one of the things is their siblings then wouldn't necessarily be able to go to Kellogg if we changed boundaries um and so that may be we may have families that have an eighth grader at Kellogg but have a sixth grader at Lane because of these continued changing so the the disruption wouldn't happen to the
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specific student but families may experience some um transition time as we go through phase two is that fair to say uh Deputy superintendent Herz yes and the other thing that I would mention that I don't think we've discussed tonight is we originally wanted to start start this process in March of 2020 and as we all know March of 2020 is when the pandemic um closed everything down so we were delayed in starting we believed that it was we would be able to have in-person meetings um as school opened in the new year and as we all know that hasn't occurred and so the need to go to a phase 1 Phase 2 approach for the Southeast region was because of the limited time that we had in order to have a decision by January for Kellogg opening in the fall I just I just want to make sure I I I'm pretty sure I heard this but I just want to make sure we have Clarity I think what I heard you say just just to publicly state it is possible in phase two that the decision would be made that Creston would no longer feed into Kellog so that option is still on the table for the southeast guiding Coalition in phase two as we look at at all of these issues to to take into consideration it it is true for all of the schools that are there one of the things that is part of the recommendation is we've um said we would delay the mount Taber DLI Spanish DLI program joining into the Kellogg um middle school so that's something that um we because we believe in a robust program um with when you have more strands together that's something that when we talk to our instructional leadership is of Ben benefit for the um for the DLI program so that was a part of the component of the decision making and that's something that I imagine would continue to be a goal um for the best instructional programs for our students but but Andrew the the flip side of what you're raising is that it's also possible that uh for the 2122 Year all of Creston would be assigned to Kellog uh that it's only the that we're only making a commitment to split the fifth grade and then all bets are off other than that they're going to get one middle school or another yeah thank you I was I yes I was trying to get at the point there is there is still the we have not Lo locked phase two um through the resolution that's on the table today that there still is flexibility there in the future and the resolution on the table today also doesn't lock Creston into anything it just says staff will work with the community to assign Middle School although I I will say because I don't want to cause um a lot of um anxiety by people from crester watching it that um the conversations that have occurred have not been that after this um board vote whoops sorry after this board vote that students would go to a non geographically adjacent Middle School so to date the conversations and I I heard very clearly last night was Hosford or Kellogg I mean why we why we would give a a neighborhood School a non- neighborhood adjacency Middle School I doesn't make any sense but the current the current language in the resolution says neighborhood comprehensive middle school so that's um implies um something that's in the neighborhood that and there's um when you look at where Creston is on the Southeast region of our in our map of our district um they're um one one at the um Eastern Edge is closest to Kellogg and the Western Edge is close closest to Hosford and again those lines got redrawn when um Kellogg was closed as a middle school so we're kind of undoing some of that and I know that the Creston Community told me that their boundaries are very weird and so that may be part of what changes in phase two as some of those boundaries um so I think one of the pieces with all of this is um the southeast guiding Coalition did a huge amount of work and presented us with with a recommendation that we worked with staff and that the feedback we gave them was we we wanted to see what would happen if Creston was put into middle school and I think you know that this proposal before us does what we asked the staff to do um I know that this in some ways complicates the work for next year because we will have to balance those middle schools it will U my understanding was Creston we had
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asked for them to wait for one year so that we could sort of you know get Kellogg up and running and then with those boundary changes my understanding at least sort of was that Creston would go to Kellogg but we just needed to sort some stuff out and redraw the Elementary School boundaries so that could happen and by having Creston go into middle school now means it will need to split the cohort and it will cause a little bit of tightening on some of the other things and and keep Mount tabber over enrolled um Kellogg will be over enrolled and then we'll have to you know kind of redraw some things as we bring Harrison Park online so you know this is go no matter what we decide tonight this is going to be it's like this was the easy part if you can believe that and the next phase will be you know much more complex as we try to equitably assign students so that schools are not over enrolled so that you know one of the things is DLI enrollment drops off as students get older into Middle School that there's a robust collection of students um in the cohort so this is a you know I just want to so thank the southeast guiding Coalition for their work I know some members are frustrated that we as we have asked staff to Tinker with their initial recommendation um but I think this is part of this process of how we get feedback and listen and think and I think the The Guiding coalition's intent with having Creston wait a year was um in some ways the right one and I think the Creston Community has has expressed that they did not feel like it was the right one and so we're we're trying to be responsive um to all the pieces of the Southeast Community and know that this is not easy and I do know that some people have felt like communities have been pitted against one another um and I know that when I spoke with chesan families they were concerned for all of Southeast and how this will live into what's next for Harrison Park what's next for Kellogg um and I think that you know all of us want what's best for our kiddo but I really think you know especially the people on the Southeast guiding Coalition have worked really hard to try to see what's best for all kids um and that continues to be the place where where we um have to to return to as we do this work uh director Mor I saw you were unmuted did you want to add something in well I um were not finished sorry sorry H Scott were you finished finished uh no because there's there's another aspect that we haven't um considered and that's that when those k8s become k5s we will try to increase their enrollment through boundary adjustments which means they will have a larger K5 cohort and those that feed to Kellog will be feeding even more students in so if we lock in Kellog at over 100% there is no room to adjust those boundaries um we will will overwhelm Kellog for a couple of years um so that that that really throws a monkey wrench into things so director Bailey that actually gets to the question I was asking so I just I want to make sure I'm that I'm understanding it when you said we we lock this in but what I'm hearing is that the resolution before us does not lock crested in right some of the other feeder patterns I think we are making that decision so there's there is still still still a question there and and then also the issue of of boundary changes in phase two that can be made to Again Begin to shift am I thinking about that accurately can you ask that question again Andrew what are you asking I just I I heard I heard Scott say we were locking Kellogg in at more than 100% And then we'd have to increase the the enrollment at those feeder schools which would make it even more crowded and I guess what I'm what I'm what is important to me maybe I I'll just put this in an eye statement what's important to me is that we are allowing flexibility for the southeast guiding Coalition in phase two to address those issues and and my understanding of The Proposal before us is that it does still allow that flexibility in phase two well I I think think um you know we we asked the Coalition we we paired down this phase one decision and asked them to come up with a plan that didn't um that left options open uh for phase two and I think by a filling Kellogg up um past 100% when our goal should have been 85% or in that neighborhood and then to increase the boundaries um it's going to make it much more difficult there will have to be a wrenching change to get Kellog back down to that optimal that we want as a result
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of this process at 85% so we guarantee so in a sense you're right around um that yes we're only guaranteeing if this proposal uh is adopted that there we're only saying three years of Kellog and part part of it would feed in but at the same time so so maybe that uh when year out we lose that last grade of Kellogg and so enrollment might go down of Crest and feeding and that might go down but at the same time we're going to have an increase coming in from those boundary changes if we try to make those K5 feers robust and so there will be no way one there will be a limit on how much boundary change we can do and two there's no way to get Kellog back down to a reasonable 85% unless you pull out one of the feeders and if you want to go tell Pi pick one of the the other feeders that um uh we're going to do something different from you so not to belabor this point too much but I I think it's important for me to sort of make sure I'm understanding this resolution says to Creston students you you you can go to to again Kell Kell or you know or Hosford um in this next year to give them a middle school experience couldn't The southe Guiding Coalition as part of phase two revert back to essentially the initial proposal and say future Creston students will be going somewhere but not Kellogg and the DLI program at Mount tabber will go back and wouldn't that get us right back to the starting point that you're you're talking about Scott and and then again there would be fil up and I I think your point is a really good one about leaving space and I appreciate that that value but but it feels to me like that option and I'm not saying the southeast gu Coalition will end up with that option but that option is one on the table that could be discussed but tell tell me how that gets us down to 85% at K wasn't it the same way that we did under the initial proposal no because uh we uh we found out that there's been an um the number of kids currently in uh 5 through seven at the proposed feeder schools non-rest and feeder schools was more than we thought right I'm just saying director Scott the southeast guiding coalition and they um they may make a recommendation but again they're not the decider they're making recommendations to staff who then are overlaying their point of view and then it comes to the board so they may recommend something again and I think in this case the staff um and you know board members who were engaged in the conversation made one adjustment to where the southeast guiding Coalition recommendations and you know that that's part of the process they're they're not the sort of deciders and they're re recommending based on their their best information and they did a pretty good job right yeah yeah no and sorry didn't I didn't I just want I just want to I need to really make sure that I'm clear on this because I I'm not getting the answer that I thought I was going to be getting so yes thank you director BM Edwards that that that I didn't Andrew can I can I try to respond um so the problem one of the problems is that um a guarantee has been given to students that if they walk in the doors at Kellogg next year they are guaranteed a place there for the next three years so even if in phase two The Guiding Coalition decided to you know scratch this and go back to recommendation one um the enrollment numbers at Kellogg would be locked in for three years so future boundary changes could have an impact potenti but it would take it would take a while for that to play out yes I the the students going there yeah would would be locked in again every year if you made a change you would you would you would see a decrease I I just for me the important principle here because there are no perfect answers or the southeast guiding Coalition you know would would have would have would have developed them there are just there are there are there are really hard choices here what what's important to me is that we are leaving as much flexibility for phase two as we can while also providing something to existing Creston middle school students and and we can talk a little bit more about you know because I think there are some things we should talk about in terms of phase two and and how we might make the process run a little
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bit more smoothly but in I'm trying to thread a needle in terms of of a decision that again helps some students who otherwise would have been left out without making permanent changes that are going to be long-term damaging I understand they may be changes that impact for two or three years that's a good point I want to correct one St one statement longer than two or three years all right let's let Deputy Herz respond with clarification and then I know director Moore has been waiting for quite a while to speak so can we do that and then we can come back to you director Bailey there are two changes between the southeast guiding Coalition and the staff recommendation the first change is um a a comprehensive Middle School experience for Creston students and the second change is the mount Taber DLI program is not moving to Kellogg and is staying at Mount Taber because they already have a middle school experience so I just wanted to be clear that there's two changes from the recommendation and and Deputy superintendent Herz can you remind me how the number of students in the mount Taber uh DLI um three grades I'm gonna have to ask staff Judy if you could um look that up please director can we let dor morgo and then we can come back to director Bailey and then answering that question director conam yeah it's 76 students that's the answer I just wanted to address the the issue of um leing enough flexibility to allow phase two to happen um so I think two things there um one um this is not a minor modification of the original recommendation this is a pretty substantial change um and it is um it is going to limit I think the options that will be considered available in phase two um the the range of issues that have been um punted to phase two for good reasons I mean you know it this is all hard work and and I'm not questioning that decision but I am saying that phase two is going to be a daunting exercise there are many overlapping issues that the guiding Coalition is going to have to deal with and by making this change um it is I think going to substantially complicate the work that the guiding Coalition is going to face in phase two the other thing I would say is um I think it's important to acknowledge that the guiding Coalition is made up of parents and principles and Guardians who have spent an enormous amount of time since September pouring over RS of data they have been wrapping their heads around an an outrageously complicated set of issues it's you know this is this is where the structural inequities PPS are are in you know full um they're completely obvious um in my experience of doing enrollment balancing work um what you discover when you start getting into it is that everything is connected to everything you make one change and there's a Cascade effect throughout the system and I would argue that um you know simply by virtue of limiting this this process to Southeast and not even you know the the entire Southeast um we have already artificially limited the um the range of options available um and I have to say that if I were a member of The Guiding Coalition after putting in Endless hours of work um and looking at dozens and dozens of scenarios including this very scenario for Creston and then making a final recommendation based on you know all the evidence all of the analysis all of the discussions and this was their best thinking to have the board overturn it because one school Community is is unhappy with the outcome and they're unwilling to wait for one year and accept the idea that PPS um has made the offer that if if the Middle
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School experience were delayed for one year PPS staff have said that the district would throw all kinds of resources at Preston students in order to ensure that they have a robust middle-grades experience for one year if all of that is overturned based on school board members having their inboxes filled with emails from parents who are disappointed I would have to question my commitment to sticking around for phase two because if if we're going to commission a body to do the work and we're not going to accept what we're not going to allow them to do that work and we're not going to accept the recommendation that they give without ourselves doing a commensurate amount of work to understand all of the issues that's a problem I think that's a problem and been there done that and I have to say this is precisely why I ran for the board this is why I have spent the last 15 years obsessed with PPS systems structures and policies and practices because this is a sort of thing that school boards have done year after year after year after year and this is why PPS has these endless interminable problems of of structural inequities that are perpetuated for decades because nobody has the guts to say no to a school community that is unhappy and all we're asking asking of this one's School Community is onee delay allow us to do right by your kids for that one year and by the end of phase two your kids will have you'll have a clear path to a middle school um a middle school experience we just can't tell you today what it would be so that's my pitch and and let me add to that we're not only asking the coalition to take on phase two we're asking them to clean up a problem that this proposal would create overcrowded middle schools it makes their job even tougher yeah you you don't have to deal with a Kellogg that's good to go no you have to figure out how to walk Kellog down from 101% down to 85% um that's um that's a pretty tough thing to ask folks we knew when this process started that not all the k8s would be converted in the first year because Harrison Park was going to open up a year later and but we're trying to do that and I want to thank staff for responding to the board requests because I think they did their darnest to find something that was workable and I really appreciate what they did but what they showed was it's not workable it's a 101% at three middle schools and remember and we've heard it very clearly from parents all year our kids are dealing with a lot and and to say wow we're going to throw you into middle schools that are overcrowded at a time when you're needing a fair amount of Social and emotional support um is not a a pro-healthy thing to do for kids right now thank you I just want to respond Julia representative shu's been waiting for a while as well so can we let him speak and then and then you'll be next thank you dror brim Edwards can to respond to that and I can go afterward yeah the reality is if you look at the map Chan's going to go to Kellogg or Hosford and it's there's not there's not another school that they're adjacent to and Middle School adjacent to and they've been in a under enrolled K8 for you know 14 years now and we know it's inequitable and the principles in in fact the the conversation with the southeast Coalition principles said you can't throw enough resources at a middle school that has you know 90
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students or Kate that has 90 students in the Middle grades to provide any sort of equity because you just don't have the students I mean principles as part of this Coalition said that so we we we we are going to be providing them an equitable middle it'll just be another year of an inequitable experience and the reality is there there's there's no there's no map that I've seen that would have them go any other schools than Hosford and kog and you know I I really appreciate all the work that the southeast Coalition did um however at the end of the day the board gets elected to make decisions the process was very clearly set up that the southeast Coalition was was making recommendations to staff I want staff to apply their their knowledge their expertise the data they have um what they know about the academics to the process and also board members need to apply that and we're all going to bring something different so I've been a Southeast Portland resident for 50 years and I bring a perspective of you know having been part of that the broader School community in the Southeast and so you know I I think we you know I'm not signing up for next phase two of The Guiding Coalition and a process in which board members agree to turn over their their vote and accountability and you know what what we should be bringing um to the work and that doesn't at all to me diminish the work that the southeast Coalition did because I think they've done they got us 95% there and and we have 90 students who next year aren't going to have a middle-grades experience um and I just think that's unfair and besides the you know just from a process standpoint the the the proposal that went to the broader Community um that everybody went and commented on had Creston feeding to Kellogg so it was a surprise at the end of the day that Kellog that Creston got exed out of the plan and you know a process issue that we would have one option and the one option having Creston going to Kellogg and then all of a sudden it's not I don't think it's invalid and for cresten parents to ask to have what lots of other middle um students all over the city get which is a Equitable middle-grades experience and so to me I think this is just the right the right thing to do and to me it's a more of a perfecting Amendment versus undermining everything that they've done and I just view it as part of our roles as board members to bring our knowledge and I I feel like I have a fair amount of knowledge of the Southeast Community I sat on bag the bond stakeholder Advisory Group with the Creston Community when Kellogg was the rebuild was on there and to to me there was never any question that that was sort of the direction that we're heading so I I think it's perfectly reasonable for um us to to bring our perspectives into um push back and to um dig deeper into the data um because of what we know is about the community so I think this is the right direction and I don't think there's a clear path next year because what I was what I've been told is we'd have to move a lot of boundaries and move the Mandarin program and then we'd have space still to put Kellogg in this I'm sorry Preston in hord and Kellogg so to me you're going to get end up in the same place anyway why make them wait another year and say it's going to be dependent on all these other things because we aren't going to not move Creston to a middle to students to have a middle middle grades experience or middle school experience student representative Shu did you have something you wanted to contribute to the conversation here uh yeah um but I want to make sure that this particular topic of conversation is um well complete for the moment it's um it would be Shifting the topic um go ahead and shift we can we can Circle back yeah we're good at circling back when we need to but thank you Nathaniel all right um so I have a statement that I have prepared um with the the council that I'd like to read um the DSC disc discussed this vote thoroughly in its last two meetings our respective opinions on the matter have been in large part informed by our three resident Southeast guing Coalition members who are also the only real student reps on the
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Coalition they as well as the council as a whole were ultimately unanimous in recommending I take this specific course of action tonight it is critical to acknowledge that this process was both incredibly complex and extremely important it required an amazing amount of vote from both the community members who selflessly volunteered their time and from staff but nevertheless I will vote no tonight let me be clear the vote does not reflect the contents of the proposal for say rather it is a reflection of the shortcomings in the process that got us here Paramount of these flaws was the troubling lack of comprehensive student engagement at every step of the way on such a compreh on such an all-encompassing matter I know it's hard to get student engagement especially in a virtual environment I know it can be difficult to get students to fill out a survey much less sit on the Coalition and I'm grateful for the student Outreach that we did have but the bottom line is that we need to find a way to do better because this isn't cutting it we need to find a way to get a significantly larger and more diverse group of students on bodies like the coalition to get surveys more widely circulated to always work to center student voice inside consequ consequential considerations even when we aren't being explicitly asked to do so we must have a concrete plan to that effect going into these considerations I know it's difficult but we must do better and there's no better place to start than stage two thank you Nathaniel And thank you to the DC I know Jackson uh wenberg who's one of our um DSC members uh texted me earlier when we were talking about the southeast guiding Coalition and he said that he personally logged more than 60 hours 6 Z hours um working on um this Southeast guiding Coalition work so again I want to thank all the members of the Coalition um and and like director brim Edwards said you know the one of the realities is that the the ultimate decision lands with the board and we are a a political body and we are made up of diverse people with different backgrounds and perspectives and we weigh in and direct staff um to adjust things and so um I know that some of you are frustrated um but I know that we honor your work and I know that the staff greatly honors your work um and that we have I know learned quite a bit in this process and will continue to shift and adjust as we always do as a learning organization to make phase two um even better um and uh even more um engaged with students um and focused on our racial equity and social justice values um are there any other comments before we turn now to our public comment portion director Moore I saw like everybody unmuted so I saw Rita then Amy then Scott then Andrew so let's Rita Amy Scott Andrew that's just how you are on my screen okay um I'm gonna I've got this long thing I'm gonna try to distill it down um this plan this this modification of the um guiding Coalition recommendation is um I I think substantially flawed and is um I think the original recommendation has um much more Merit than this in terms of responding to the charge we gave to the guiding Coalition um applying the racial racial equity and social justice lens to decision-making as we have committed um and um and pursuing the outcomes that the board stipulated for The Guiding Coalition um it is the this modification means that we're going to have out of five middle schools in southeast we're going to have three that are significantly overcrowded we're going to have likely highly likely three middle schools that will be over 100% capacity even as we have two middle schools one of which will be starting up um we're going to have right beside them two middle schools that will be significantly under enrolled um that is precisely the kind of issue that this whole Enterprise was intended to fix um it's likely going to result in um temporary assignments and you know ultim Ely undoing decisions that we make so there's going to be more churn for students overall um this is um this is a decision
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that is being driven by very shortterm considerations and what we I think collectively have said is that we want to be thinking systemwide we want to be thinking long-term we want to H we want to resolve the problems that we have inherited not create new ones or not repeat the old patterns that have brought us to where we are today um the original recommendation um guarantees that Creston students will have a middle school experience um it's just delaying it for one year and there are many other students in southeast and elsewhere in the district who are also not getting a middle school experience because they're still in k8s and what we're doing today is setting precedence for future processes that we're going to need to undertake in order to address the reconversion of k8s into k5s and the creation of middle schools and Boundary adjustments all over the district and if we don't stand by a um a process that we as a board requested then I think we are going to mightily complicate um any future work and and let me just I'm gonna go on um in order recent events have triggered my inner political scientist so I've been spending a lot more time contemplating the art of governance than I normally do and I a couple of things occur to me in order for systems and institutions to work we all have a role to play It's the job of parents to Advocate passionately for their children it's a noble and necessary Duty and that's especially the case in a district that still has a lot of work to do in redressing the structural inequities that have plagued this district for Generations The Guiding Coalition its role is that board asked a group of parent representatives to use their experiences as parents to inform their thinking but to transcend their parental role engage in systems thinking and grapple with the complexities of resolving longstanding problems to better serve all students in southeast staff the staff's role is to provide a process that responds to the board's directive supports the members of The Guiding coalition to fulfill their deliberative role and facilitate discussions that lead to a decision the board the role of the board is to set the direction for the district in the pursuit of creating and maintaining the kind of District our students deserve it's our responsibility to safeguard the health of the system in order to ensure that it best serves all of our students moreover we have pledged to employ a racial equity and social justice lens in all of our decision-making centering the needs of students of color who have been poorly served by PPS for Generations given those responsibilities we sometimes have to make difficult decisions that don't please everyone but Advance the greater good this is one of those times while the board retains the authority to make the final decision given the complexity of this kind of work I implore my colleagues to defer to the wisdom of The Guiding Coalition whose members did what we asked them them to do they spent months wrapping their heads around a supremely complicated project of understanding endless data balancing competing imperatives and interests and undoing long-standing structural inequities at significant cost to themselves in time energy and emotion so I am I am begging you to do to do the right thing here I completely understand the disappointment of Creston students and parents I completely understand I have been there I have been where they are I have been Railing at the school board for years before I got here I understand I understand how critical this is and how how emotion Laden it is for everybody involved but as a member of this board it is my job to look after the health of the system and that sometimes means I have to say
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no and this is one of those times I strongly recommend that we as a board go back to the original recommendation that came out of the southeast guiding Coalition and we adopt that so that we can proceed onto phase two otherwise I don't know how this is going to play out that's my speech thank you all right I had originally I originally saw several people unmute and asked us to go in that order is that what we want to do or do we want to engage now with what director Moore has said I think I might have been next so if anybody has anything to say in direct response to Rita please go ahead I I'm just going to raise the issue again I'm sitting here looking at the map and there if there's five middle schools and three are crowded the thing is Creston isn't anywhere near the two that have space open so the reality is they're gonna go to Hosford or Kellogg why we would make them wait another year I I just don't see it I mean they're not going to jump over school communities to go to Harrison Park or to go to to Lane they're not even geographically I mean frankly the crust and boundaries practically touch Kellogg so so here's this is my response so I I think it is highly likely that if we delay a decision for a year on Creston that cresten parents and students will get precisely the outcome that they are asking for I I suspect once we deal with the boundaries and all the rest of it my suspicion is that cresten as a whole will end up at kok but it will be done in a way that is um deliberate and and won't create a school that is so overwhelmed with warm bodies that it's going to be very difficult to have the kind of Middle School experience that people are asking for um so I think in addition to that delaying it for a year responds to the concerns about having students split in a year after a pandemic if they continue as a K8 for one more year they will stay whole as a school Community if if we push this um decision without due diligence and I think that's what this is if we if we push it for an immediate resolution to satisfy the Creston parents I think it's going to be an inferior outcome for everybody it must event totally within the realm of possibilities of good possibilities because this is the one option it wasn't like there was two option this was in the one option that went to the community that for the community process I mean I was disappointed that there weren't two options it's like how come the community only gets one option but the one option had Creston going to Kellogg and to me like I feel a sense of like outer Southeast has had you know as we've done this other transition work for middle schools asking Creston to wait another year when we're saying you're going to get that outcome anyway because I I don't see any if I saw some other outcome to me it would make sense to potentially wait but I don't see another outcome so you know it's like they're not going to go to Harrison Park and they're not going to go to Lane I mean there's just just not even geographically touching any of those boundaries and so they are going to go to those those two schools and they wouldn't go to they wouldn't go to mount Taber probably because Mount taber's full and creston's way closer to Kellog can I ask a a factual question related to this with the with the switch of keeping the the DLI program at Mount Taber and moving um 70 70 creson students into to uh Kellogg does that change the overall enrollment at Kellogg substantially or materially for next year because I I thought I heard those numbers were roughly equivalent you said they are you said the 72 students in grades in the three grades of the uh Taber DLI and 70 students currently slotted from Creston to go to Kellogg so be before we got new enrollment numbers I was at least uh thinking about looking that as an option to get some cresten kids into Kellogg the new
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enrollment numbers push the Baseline up to 91% and then if you get a bump you're up to 101% now you can change the 91% uh lower it by taking out the DLI program but then if you replace that with the 70 kids from Creston then you're back to 91 plus the 10% bump 101% okay but just to be clear the proposal enrollment numbers changed the game right I hear that but the original proposal didn't keep DLI so I hear you saying there was another option that you might have put on the table to keep at Mount tab but but the coalition's proposal had Kellog get 91% and then you're right if we get a bump it'll be over enrolled this proposal the original proposal the South the Coalition did not I know the numbers changed I'm saying the proposal we had in front of us with the most recent numbers right would have had Kellog and 91% this alternative has Kellog and 91% so the O the the crowded argument I'm just trying to understand where that coming from because it seems to me that either way kogg would have been roughly the same enrollment next year no what I what I was uh what I would recommend is that we defer the DLI program feeding into Kellog to keep Kellog not at 91% but uh go back to the spreadsheet um so that would be a change though to what the Southeast guiding Coalition Rec right that would put it down to 81 a proposal that we' all right so couple of things I know there's several people who want to speak the other thing I'm going to ask is director Moore and director Bailey do you have Amendment language if you want to amend what's the resolution that's before us um that might be you know something we want to entertain and consider is to to make an amendment to this um because that's the sort of the process at this point is if you have another idea or another proposal um that that to bring that forward um director constam what did you have to add well I may have an amendment and I have a couple of thoughts but the one one of the things that really sticks in my craw here that no one else seems to be too exercised about is that we are just blly violating our clear board policy which says that transfers are approved through the highest grade now maybe there's some GR area there because it's is it the highest grade When you entered that school or is it whatever the highest grade ends up to be if that school gets reconfigured um I think that that's worth discussion and I'm interested in how my colleagues feel about the potential of um you know sending students at Creston arita Lane and Marysville if they're not in the DLI programs uh back to their neighborhood schools um with this reconfiguration because after all we are a system of neighborhood schools and that is our current policy regardless of the fact that it hasn't been followed in our last two most recent examples of of reconfiguration so um that that matters to me I'm interested in people's comments and then I have a on that and then I have a couple other things I wanted to say my expectation would be that if a student was at Preston and or Marysville or arita or wherever and didn't live in the neighborhood and wasn't in DLI they would go to their neighborhood Middle School um that's not the proposal in to this proposal so that's not the proposal this proposal has 72 students who just like you said but who go who are would go back unless we make decision otherwise this is that cohort I think the sense from the southeast guiding Coalition was the cohort was more important but I think to Amy's Point that's not really our that hasn't been our policy it it is not our existing policy um so I guess I I'll nobody seems too too uh quick to share their views on this so I'll see if there's support for an amendment I'd like to propose an amendment to follow board policy I don't have the citations in front of me um that that uh designates that transfers are approved through the highest grade and that students in the Kellogg feeder schools um if they are not neighborhood
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students revert to their neighborhood schools uh or not in a special program like de Harden hearing or the sped special education classrooms and then there's always the hard ship transfer process but yes Julia thank you for that clarification I would second that Amendment and I I would third that Amendment because I think that's the first time I've heard the conversation centering on the students um not on on the convenience of the district or or other stakeholders in the system but really centering on the kids sorry this is a brand it's a new issue that I so I'm going to need a little bit more and I'll be curious about about staff's response to it as well how many students are we talking about who are in those programs that are outside the neighborhood 72 I feel like 72s come up a lot that's because I have it in my notes and I misstated it for something else that's why but don't hold that against it and there's Rule of 72 sorry sorry Michelle do we have a a real number of how many that's what said it is 72 out of neighborhood students in GA in grades five six and seven at the schools currently proposed to be feeder schools for for um Kellogg and I don't know if that includes Creston Preston and I clarified with other staff who are watching it does not include students in deaf and heart of hearing or special ed focused classrooms so these are just students who are in neighborhood programs at what would be the four feeder schools um to Kellogg if you included Creston that's a lot of kids but Judy at the beginning of the meeting you said something different when I asked about the 72 you said that included special ed and Deen hard hearing because when you sent that chart that had where those students are they all have another look 21 of them are um laying 17 out of District um but you said that they were but now you're saying they aren't the The Deen harded hearing or the sped classrooms I we don't really need to worry about this right now we can just make sure that the language of the amendment makes it clear that we're only talking about students in the neighborhood programs at those feeder schools not in the DLI program not in the special education Focus rooms and not in the deaf and heart of hearing program well so how many of sorry I just I I think it's I'm I hear what you're saying about policy but again what it sounds like we're doing is throwing a brand new idea on the table you're saying that these kids who have gone through the appropriate process to end up in the school they are even though they're outside of that catchman area you're proposing an amendment that would tell them they cannot stay with the cohort that they have gone to school with so far that they are going to go back to their neighborhood School they have never I'm I'm proposing an amendment to change this resolution but it's actually not telling those kids and families anything different because when they applied to transfer out of their neighborhood school it was made very clear to them that those transfer rights were good up until the highest grade of the school that they were transferring to so it's wioo on them other than the fact that the Middle grades in their feeder schools are disappearing but but you're saying a student in sixth grade at one of those K through eights who throughout this conversation over the last few months has assumed they're going to go where their where their classmates go that we are now telling them they're going back to a neighborhood School a neighborhood Middle School that they've never attended with a group of kids that they don't know I me I think we need to be that's what we're proposing right oh I know it's very hard and it's very harsh and we've been through it before with DLI programs when we have a new High School program and kids have to leave the cohort that they've been in for um you know their whole Elementary education um no I mean Andrew it's well I'll just say I am more than happy to look at that as part of a process um and as part of as was part of phase two but I am not okay dropping that in a in a board meeting on haven't actually director Scot this was re this was one of three options that staff came up with um that was brought to the the Coalition and they they made a decision they want to stick with their regul with their their resolution I mean with there a recommendation but it it's not like this is a brand new con a concept which is why I asked for had asked for the data um because it
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was presented as like here here's three different way they can basically came up with three different ways to address the giving Creston a and ultimately ultimately chose uh Deputy superintendent um Herz can speak up but ultimately chose the taking the mount Taber out or the imersion program out versus this option I I have a I struggle with the whole idea of of having sixth and seventh graders who've been let's say at Marysville having to go back to Neighborhood schools my question is about current fifth graders so if a fifth grader goes to Marysville now and they do not live in the neighborhood will they get to go to Kellogg or will they go to their neighborhood Middle School I think what we're saying here Judy correct me if I'm wrong is that the fifth sixth and seventh graders at those feeder schools will be assigned to Kellogg that's what's in the resolution as written and I believe your Amendment would alternatively assign those students back to their home schools based on their address I'm I'm not com able with moving current sixth and seventh graders out of their middle school cohort but I would be open to having fifth graders who are aged out of the the program at their school um go to their neighborhood middle school but I think as director Scott said disrupting students in the middle of their middle school experience does not seem like a place that is uh what's best for students and I'll just say I I'm I'm I might have been comfortable had this I hear that it might have been an option at some point it's not the option being considered today and I think these 70 two families or the subset of families that are only in fifth grade would sure have liked an opportunity to come testify tonight on this proposal I think if they knew that this was an option so I would not be comfortable making this change in this meeting it was in the options from our La I think it was our last meeting when we considered these when we first took up the notion of creating a path for Creston so it's been publicly surfaced publicly serviced but it it's not it's not the proposal tonight so even a family even if a family had been tracking this closely they would have said oh the board is not moving that direction it's not from staff it's not from The Guiding Coalition proposal so yeah okay well just because I'm the kind of girl that if I want to make a proposal to add an investment to the budget I feel a sense of responsibility for uh for proposing my own cut to the budget just because I'm that kind of person I will stick with this amendment to say that I support the staff recommendation for uh Creston to have a middle school options next year even though I would prefer that it was all just to one school um but in order to add that bump to Kellogg I would accompany it with this amendment to um uh stick to our board policy reg regarding out of neighborhood transfers Ju Just to throw out another idea and I know you're um proposal director constam is still on the table but one um issue that was brought up by the Creston Community um yesterday is like the bump and so what happens was been described by staff is when you open a new school students who families maybe who hadn't CH chosen their neighborhood school for elementary school um but you know went to a charter a private school then they come back and the cresten community I think you know their point was hey you're prioritizing fam families and students who you know weren't committed to um the neighborhood School concept went somewhere else and you're prioritizing you know possible or future students that may decide to come back over families that chose a neighborhood school and what's sad about Preston is like they they they stay with their neighborhood School even though that what PPS offered them was a very inequitable middle- grades experience um so another possibility would be that came up last night is that those um like the bump if you weren't currently one of the students identified to go in but if you were part of the bump that were new coming in that you would have to apply in to the to the school because instead of having like Kellog students or I'm sorry Creston students have to apply in um that that's more Equitable than just saying hey these students get a flood in and fill fill the bump or the 10% because we um you know this would fill the school to 91% and then this bump of future students who are gonna are gonna who are
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gonna come back just because it's a new school um but how fair is that to Creston so just another concept of where you might get 10% of um other students if you're looking for moving students around thank you director B Edwards so we've been discussing this now for an hour and 25 minutes and I it I know we have a lot more to do here um my question to you is we need to vote on the constam amendment um and we still have public comment we need to hear um so what all is your will as a board about what our next steps should be at this moment and I have one clarifying comment great go with your clarifying comment Claire while we the um just being aware as new kids move into the area and we assign them to another school we're creating another Transportation um issue so um just wanting people to be aware that those students would have to be assigned somewhere and we'd have um to consider Transportation the other um piece um Judy Brandon I want to make sure that you've shared with me some data about 16 Kell neighborhood fifth graders so if you could um state that clearly for the board just to to put some data behind the concept you were just discussing um what we see is 16 students who would live in the Kellogg boundary as it's being proposed including Creston who are in other PPS K5 schools right now for whatever reason and at the end of fifth grade they're going to need a middle school so if Kellogg is closed to any new students other than those who that are in the the feeder schools at this time we have to consider where those school where those students would be assigned and then as um as Claire mentioned we'd have to make sure that we provide them Transportation um that that's all part of this if we um think about limiting enrollment to just the kids who are in the feeder schools and Judy do we know how many fifth graders are in our feeder schools to Kellogg that are not in neighborhood I know that 5 through S is 72 do we know how many are fifth grade I know you got to click to the right screen there I'm counting 20 25th grade 276th grade 257th grade yes so 20 of the 72 are fifth graders seven of those appear to be students who do live in other districts so wouldn't have another PPS School um and then Harrison Park would be the the the top of the 20 students uh with five um students in those other feeder schools thank you sorry how many did you say were out of district seven of the 20 likely students who have moved to other districts and um as is our policy have been given the right to stay to the highest grade what's on the table is defining what highest grade means so the constam amendment that's before us would say that um students in fifth sixth and seventh grade this year um who live out of neighborhood would not um go into Kellogg uh that's the amendment before us I uh have already stated I won't vote for that but I would vote for something that would say fifth graders students who are in fifth grade this year would need to return to their neighborhood schools and not be um assigned to Kellogg um I would be willing to accept that as a friendly Amendment and it is friendly it's a Kinder and gentler uh slightly less impact but a Kinder and genter and I think ultimately more uh student- centered option so friendly Amendment accepted to the amendment on the table and and so just to clarify so we you still have the mount Taber um dual immersion staying where it is that's like 70 and this is 20 more students is that this would reduce the Kellog load by 20 20 fifth grade so they would reduce sixth grade by 20 students they go back to their neighborhood middle school or middle grades program and I I support this because it does follow our policy um and it does give us a little more space at Kellogg and so all we're talking about in this amendment is just that question of what does it mean to be in your school to the highest grade and what we're saying is that dividing line will be fifth grade for this next year if this amendment passes I think that's a reasonable interpretation I think that is not that could be argued that that's not really a deviation from our policy just a different interpretation so I'm just going to restate again I I'm not sure I oppose
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this on a policy basis I oppose it very much on a process basis though and I think that we know in community engagement when people pay attention is when something's going to affect them directly and immediately and I think the fact that it was on the table for the southeast guiding Coalition or came to us as a potential option it it was not teed up as something a decision we were going to make today and I think 20 families waking up tomorrow and realizing that the middle school and the kids their their kids friends that they plan to go next September they might have been tracking this Loosely to say okay we're gonna end up somewhere or Kellogg or whatever to find out they're going to a completely different school with a completely different goord of friends we we owe it to those families to have engaged them and I'm not aware that we have so that's the reason I'll oppose this but just to make the point again this is the expect this is what they were told when they transferred out of their neighborhood school but it's it hasn't been because they've been in a k througha program and expecting to go to school with those people through eth grade director depas do you have a comment I just wanted to say I um um agree with the friendly Amendment and with the caveat that we um engage those families that would be impacted I think that's important to wanted to say to director Scott I I think that the engagement piece is really important can I just throw in go ahead Rita I think I'm I think I'm G to have to go with director Scott on this one um it was explicitly discussed um by The Guiding Coalition and they came to a conclusion um and and I believe we should kind of Stand By The commitments that the district made to the guiding Coalition um but I'd like to say for all future future processes that we should ensure that the existing um policies governing enrollments transfers anything having to do with student assignment to a school um should be built into to the um to the process from the beginning all right are we ready to vote on the constam amendment CH low yeah if if there's no more board discussion I just wanted to read back what I have for the language for the Amendments we put a little and loose yeah go ahead thanks Cara um I have that we have an amendment to include the resolution that the district in the resolution excuse me that the district would follow board policy that designates that transfers are approved through the highest grade and that the students in the fifth grade in the Kell School feeder schools go back to their neighborhood schools for Middle School unless they are enrolled in a special program yeah I would change the language to read for the Middle grades because they may not have a middle school they may have their neighborhood school might be a K8 okay got it thank you all right um any further discussion before we vote on this amendment I um so Judy the the data on these families is that they're uh these kids are that they're predominantly lowincome children of color as far as we know of the 20 of the 72 students yes mostly students of color 50% direct certify which is much higher than the district average um or the broader Southeast average and and what are those commensurate figures for Creston would just the overall yeah or I mean if you have it for the Middle grades which probably don't I don't um I I could look it up but I don't have it at my hand lower lower person all right are we ready to vote sorry well so I just want to say I would want to know more about what are the circumstances that led to these kids being in these schools and not in their neighborhood School is it a hardship transfer around some kind of bullying going on uh I think principles could probably key Us in um and I think especially um in in the a this day of covid um I don't know if this is a a good thing for kids I I get the policy um but this is also extraordinary an extraordinary situation that we're having with Co and its impact on kids was there any discussion around this proposal with the guiding Coalition do we have any background from our our principles or anyone in the community here um I didn't hear principles talk
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about it in the small group I was in but the Coalition members were like no no we we do not want we want we want the kids to move together I my my sense is that um The Guiding Coalition didn't talk about you know there wasn't a case by casee discussion um it was more a kind of statement of principle um that they thought the the kids who were part of the school communities should remain well then we need to change our policy because right now our policy is that they remain up until the highest grade in that school and if we're not going to walk the talk then we should change the policy because there was a big rip the Band-Aid off for the programs yeah or well we could either change policy or we could we could comply with the policies that we have um K is is seeking to do CHR Kristen is 26.5% direct CT for free and reduce um and that is um half of what um the students that we're talking about in the um uh Amendment from director constan all right are we ready to vote on this matter or do we want to have further discussion all right um all in favor of the constam amendment please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes all oppose please indicate by saying no no no okay I know how Scott and Andrew and Amy and I voted um Julia Rita and Michelle can you let me know I didn't didn't hear you or didn't did you vote Yes Michelle yes I did okay so Michelle Juliet so depas brim Edwards and conam and Lowel voted yes and Scott Bailey and Moore voted no so the constam amendment passes four to three with student representative shoe voting do I get to vote on this also didn't you're already abstaining based on process [Music] right I'm not sure what your question is Nathaniel I'm sorry am I allowed to vote on this yes Liz says yes yes oh then uh no okay so the amendment passes 4 to three um we um are going to turn now to our public comment and hear from the public um before we vote on the final resolution Miss Bradshaw is there a public comment on this matter Miss Brad you're muted S I was trying to get unmuted I was just hitting the wrong part of my keyboard yes there is um we have Tammy mazna and I apologize I've not moved them over yet hi my name is Tammy mosat it's spelled M oos n o t and I use she her pronouns I have a child in fifth grade at Creston and I've been a high school teacher in the Beaverton School District for 18 years first of all I want to thank PPS for amending the coalition's proposal to include a guarantee that Creston kids will have a middle school for next fall it was the right thing to do and we are grateful we are absolutely not okay however with splitting up our cohort in the way that your revised plan does this will separate only 24 of our students split between three grade levels from their classmates this is unacceptable the district did not properly oversee this process and that is why we are in this mess and it is up to the district to fix it in a way that does not place the entire weight of irresponsible management and oversight of this process on the shoulders of 24 middle school students I'm going to interrupt what I plan to say to talk about the structural inequities of the composition of the southeast guiding Coalition you say that you commissioned people to do this work and that these were selfless volunteers yes those people put in a ton of work and I am grateful for that but
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can we really neglect the fact that everybody on that Southeast guiding Coalition has skin in the game every single person there's an in inherent bias within the comp of the people that make up that Coalition and if there were certain sort of agendas that for which there were more Representatives on that Coalition for example the consolidation of DLI programs then obviously that priority is going to rise to the top there are some inherent structural inequities in the way that this process was carried out when our daughter was in preschool we were introduced to the frenetic culture literally in southeast Portland of people clamoring to compete for The Limited number of spots at focus and option schools we had no interest in joining that frenzy we didn't even know that you were supposed to apply to go to school we just thought you got to go to your neighborhood school well we quickly realized why everybody was desperately looking for an alternative to their neighborhood school because they thought that their school wouldn't be good enough we wondered if we were putting our own child at a disadvantage by not doing the same same thing we didn't know what to do but we ultimately decided to do which what just simply felt right to us invest in our neighborhood school we held true to our belief that if everybody chooses to Lottery out of their neighborhood school this leads to further depletion of resources and worsening conditions for those that are left behind at Creston our families rallied behind the bond so that our neighborhood Middle School Kellogg could be built from the very beginning we were told that Creston would feed to Kellogg we were even given a brochure with Kellogg pictured on the front of it at our back to school night at Creston and then when the southeast guiding Coalition was formed nearly all of the proposed scenarios had Creston feeding to Kellog but then in an Abrupt about face at the last minute The Proposal omitting Creston was voted on by the Coalition presented to the school board our promise of a neighborhood Middle School was literally ripped out from underneath us overnight the new reality not only removed Creston from Kellogg as a feeder paath but it left us without a middle school option at all and no one ever explained to us that the plan would for sure ultimately be either Hosford or Kellog the following year that was never stated no promises were made and with the school's enrollments being as high as they are what would leave us to believe that there would actually be room made for us that following year um so there we were um people are accusing us as having loud voices but honestly I think anybody having been through that history that I just explained would have a hard time remaining quiet under these circumstances um and I need to talk about the wrongful prioritization of DLI programs um when examining this proposal it became crystal clear that its driving force had been prioritizing the placement of DLI programs thus leaving no room for Preston as a neighborhood School specialty programs special options for a select group of students and yes I do realize that DLI programs benefit some of our most vulnerable students English language learners but it is time to be honest about the other side of the coin DLI programs have also been a near alternative to private schools for many English-speaking students in these DLI cohorts it has been a way to escape having to attend a neighborhood school that is perceived as being not good enough while also gaining the educational capital of becoming bilingual at the same time PPS needs to make neighborhood schools its top priority creating highquality neighborhood schools that are so good that nobody needs or wants to Lottery out and that are so good that elll students Thrive there like never before neighborhood schools over specialty programs please they are the backbone of our community thank you very much thank you if Lisa kenel I'm just going to remind folks because I didn't say earlier when when you give your testimony to state your name and spell your last name and know that you'll have three minutes to go ahead Lisa hi I'm Lisa kinel ke NS L I use the pronounce she and her I have three children that attend school in PPS two of my children currently attend Creston K8 a fourth grader and a seventh grader and I have one student now at Franklin High School who also attended Creston for grades k through eight um I've lived in the neighborhood since
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1995 so I have a lot of historical knowledge and for the past 12 years I've been an active community advocate for Creston and Southeast Portland as someone who's been involved with this process for some time I come before you tonight to share my comments on the modification to the resolution that converts Creston to a K5 neighborhood school in the fall of 20121 I fully support converting Crest to a K5 and I have some comments on the implementation as that process moves forward to answer director Moore and director Bailey's questions directly um about waiting for another year I will say we've been waiting for nearly 15 years I first came before you to testify in 2016 to ask you to include Kellogg on this 2017 Bond and prior to that I pulled together a group of School parent representatives from all across Southeast Portland to discuss the needs of our students in each Community we all agreed that students in southeast Portland did not have the same opportunities afforded to other students in our city due to the high concentration of k8s and no Middle School options having been involved with the Deb process I also understood that having Kellogg operational was an important factor in relieving numerous enrollment issues that existed in southeast Portland schools during my involvement with this Bond stakeholder Advisory Group we debated the merits of a replacement or a renovation of Kellogg and we moved forward with advocating for a full replacement of Kellog following the passage of the 2017 Bond I was honored to work on the Kellog dag committee and provide input for how this new building would serve the students in southeast Portland Creston as well as our Southeast School neighbors have been waiting again for this opportunity to have a middle school for over a decade we're going on 15 years so I personally want to thank the board for honoring the commitment to our voters and working to open Kellogg as a neighborhood Middle School it's been highly anticipated and Southeast Portland and the chst community have been again without that school for 15 years so we know this is a lot better for our kids than under enrolled k8s in southeast Portland and I also agree that you can't just throw resources at a K8 and make it what everybody else gets at a middle school while I'm in favor of the resolution before you this evening I also have concerns the current proposal gives crust middle grade students a middle school placement but it fractures a small school community and sends just 23 Creston students to a middle school where their longtime classmates will not attend this breaks down to seven fifth graders seven sixth graders and nine seventh graders those current students in fifth sixth and seventh grades um social and emotional well-being of our PPS students is a priority for all of us especially in the postco era as we re-enter our school so splitting off such a small cohort of student students has a a huge negative impact for both students and families the current proposal also changes High School feeder pattern sending some families that live mere blocks from Franklin into a feeder pattern that ends up at Cleveland and this doesn't meet the proximity priorities as a district for neighborhood schools and finally we know that split feeders at neighborhood schools have not helped retain enrollment numbers sufficient to maintain schools we've seen enrollment in these neighborhood schools decline when there are split feeder options or multiple Focus options in the area Preston's a really good example of that and I know that this will impact Creston in a negative way because what parent on the north side of pal will they even consider sending their kid to Creston and kindergarten with the thought that they would have to split off and go to Hosford and Cleveland once they matriculate up through grade five a split Fe feeder at Richmond JMP and neighboring and neighborhood feeding to different middle schools in the early 2000s is what decimated that neighborhood program and closed Richmond as a neighborhood School we've seen this play out in our history so I come to you tonight as someone who's been involved in this process to bring a middle school opportunity to the students of southeast Portland completely infavor of transitioning Creston to a K5 and sending the middle grade students onto middle schools but I ask that we continue to prioritize community and neighborhood schools and feed Creston students as a full cohort to Kellogg especially given the board's support for maintaining middle school cohorts the fluidity of this data and both Hosford and Kellog being at similar enrollment percentages once we make this transition thank you so much for your time tonight thank you we have Megan Kelly hi my name's Megan Kelly ke l l y I use the pronounce she her hers and I want to thank you all for the opportunity to speak again tonight I know I was here at the last board meeting so hopefully you're not tired of seeing my face um I currently serve as the Creston School PTA president and I wanted want to thank the board members who responded to our requests for individual conversations about this proposal it's really valuable to know that any neighborhood School Community can have access to those people yourselves who represent us and are ultimately accountable to the future of our children so thank you I know that you've heard a lot from Creston in the
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last couple weeks or so and we are very appreciative of the change to the resolution PPS is a district of neighborhood schools and Southeast Portland is unique because we have both neighborhood schools and a really high concentration of language immersion and Lottery focused option programs Southeast Portland seems to be unique in that there continues to be a question of whether our kids deserve to go to their neighborhood schools and focus option programs seem to be being prioritized over and over uh over neighborhood programs as at Creston we are proud of our community we've invested in our neighborhood school we experience both the struggle and the resilience that that comes from that choice I would also like to address the scgc process most importantly the fact that the Coalition is comprised of Southeast Community members some of those members have knowledge and expertise in education but most of them do not their parents like myself as much as every member wants to remain objective that's inherently impossible therefore we ask that the Coalition be seen as it should be a group of community members who have been asked to give feedback and suggestions they should not have as much power in this process as they have been allowed to take we encourage PPS and the board to take more ownership of this process and Lead You are the experts who have been hired and elected to make decisions that affect all of our children we've been asked why we didn't speak up until late in the game well early on we didn't need to and we did not need to take space from impacted communities there was one Community town hall and one proposal was presented and that proposal met our goal after the town hall PPS and the board directed the focus of the coalition to look only on Bridger overcrowding and Kellogg enrollment the proposals were adjusted and the community our Creston Community was not provided an opportunity for feedback and our kids were no longer being served in that proposal in fact Hosford was still over enrolled in that proposal so there were still inherent problems if you look at the proposal there's no reasonable location for Creston to go in Fall of 2022 without this amendment so if you ask us to trust you but there are no options left for US unless the plan is for us to displace the Mandarin program which makes no sense then you're asking us to do something that's impossible last night was the first time our community has been given an opportunity to address the proposal together in conversation with PPS staff the night before the board vote at no time did PPS staff reach out to crested for input put on any of those changes prior to that meeting despite our Coalition rep clearly expressing concerns and distress of our community and I know I'm over time so in summary please vote to approve this resolution and please provide direct guidance and expectations to PPS staff so that we can change and improve the process moving forward thank you thank you that concludes the public comment all right is there any further board discussion before we vote on resolution um 6236 as amended chair Lowry I have some just general comments to make great um and actually I would have liked to have made these at the very beginning um but we just Dove right into I think um I probably the last the last topic that still was um not yet resolved um but so I'm just GNA step back for a minute and go back to July of 2019 and Portland Public Schools had a us office of civil rights complaint relating to the inqu inequitable Middle grades offerings for many of our students um at the time the board reached an agreement to have the OCR complaint withdrawn and the commitment was that PPS staff on the board would move ahead with um trying to create a an environment in which those 1800 to two 2500 students who were in underr K8 had an opportunity to um participate in a middle school experience um and following that uh withdrawal of the OCR complaint um the board working with the staff um opened uh two middle schools Harriet tman and Roseway Heights um which was a which was a huge win uh for those students that they moov from really an inequitable environment to a middle-grades experience which um I think um under the the the new newly created District Vision um is only going to get better um but the biggest concent after Roseway Heights and Harriet Tubman um middle schools were open the biggest concentration of the remaining k8s are in southeast and it's a region of the city that has experienced over the years
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as referenced by some of the parents tonight a lot of disruption and inequity over the last 20 to 30 years I mean you had both been meet in Kellogg Middle School's closing you had Marshall High School closing so it's the only high school that's closed since um Jackson Washington and Adams in uh 1981 um so they had they major High School two middle schools and then over the years there's been been a lot of a lot of neighborhood programs as Focus programs um expanded in the schools and the neighborhood programs became too small for uh the uh to sustain a neighborhood program whether that was Brooklyn Edwards youngson um so I think when I when I look at Southeast um it's the last place where we have a large concentration that doesn't diminish at all with um that we have some other schools in the district where we have k8s where students aren't getting um an equitable Middle grades experience but the the vast majority of them are in now Southeast so I want I want to thank the southeast guiding Coalition um the staff and the school Community for the proposal tonight because opening another Middle School let not lose sight of that is a huge win for the students in the Middle grades and outer Southeast who were in under enrolled k8s and receiving inequitable Middle grades experience and this this action tonight and the opening of the school next year is really going to change that and that's that's a great thing and um Kellogg will be our first fully rebuilt middle school um that supports and accelerates student achievement um so I think it's the vision and the model of what's what's to come um I think we should we should celebrate that as well um in general as I've mentioned tonight I support much of the proposal that staff um was going to accept from the southeast guiding Coalition it's great to see hundreds of Southeast students who didn't have this Equitable experience um now have the opportunity it's going to be super exciting um middle middle years when you have opportunities to pursue your your passion I think it Sparks love of learning and just really propels set students up for success in high school um and so you know I think I want I don't want to lose that whole piece of that tonight because it's it's huge for the district and huge for outer Southeast um and then I'm just going to take a moment to talk about um CR Creston um because it has been a K8 since TW 2006 and so you know I think the the disappointment of hey wait another year um was you know not not something we should have asked the Creston community and I think it surprised them and as we've talked earlier tonight that's not you know that's not what we want want to do um as a school community so the Coalition did great work um I feel like there was additional work to make it more equitable um Creston students in deserve a middle school for their sixth seventh and eighth graders and I want to thank U both superintendent Guerrero and Deputy superintendent Herz for um looking at the data again and trying to figure out um ways in which we could really make the promise of um more students in southeast having a Middle grades a middle school opportunity this next year after waiting a long period of time so um thank you um superintendent and Deputy superintendent Herz um so all in all I'm going to I'm going to be supportive and there's two sort of final issues I want to touch on um before we leave this topic because I feeling once we leave the topic tonight um it'll be let's go Full Speed Ahead on the next phase and I would like to uh for the board to have a discussion about how that next phase Works um I again because Southeast has experienced a lot of change and is going to continue to experience a lot of change and I think we need to be intentional about what that looks like and and identify the goals of the work and maybe some of the night's confusion was based on what what is a higher priority opening a middle school with um neighborhood enrollments or was it getting all the DLI programs in one building um and that wasn't clear for me so I think just having uh Clarity uh from the board on what the goals are and then to this piece that's been spoken about tonight as well what the role of Staff the board and the community Advisory Group is um because I think we need to be crystal clear I don't want any volunteer to spend a lot of time and feel like that we wasted their time I mean that's that's horrible because I've been I've been a parent volunteer uh so let's just be really
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clear about what each of our roles are um and you know frankly I don't want to be accountable for something that I don't have any ability to impact um so I think board and staff um should have that discussion about what our roles are because I very clearly see that in some ways this is exactly how things were supposed to happen in that we got a a solid recommendation from the community advisor not we staff got a solid recommendation from the community Advisory Group um that in almost all aspects is carrying forward staff looked at it they made some revisions which is totally appropriate and the board asked to have some revisions which is also totally appropriate because ultimately we're the deciders but also I want staff to apply their their expertise and the knowledge they have um to the work and I think that makes a better process um so I think we should you know all be clear as we move ahead on what what everybody's roles are the other thing is and this is like a smaller issue but it became an issue when we didn't have agreement and the small group great breakout sessions um you can't observe them in real time and so you know it's just like this is an issue with covid but if you know covid probably is going to be the context in which we operate going forward that um because the small group breakout sessions people weren't able to see those discussions um and understand the thinking so all of a sudden things just popped out um if you were a Community member that wasn't on the Coalition and it created a sense of opaqueness about the coalition's work um so you know if we go as we move forward as long as we're still in Co how do we do that in a way that there's transparency um and an opportunity for the community to have better visibility to the data the decision- making and the discussions because I do think um in many cases that leads to the community to accept recommendations that they may not have accepted or supported in the first place but if they understand the rationale so I really think we should look at how do we do that in a way which is more transparent and then um finally uh based on last night's meeting with the Creston Community um you know I thought the community brought forth some pretty compelling data and arguments about all why all the cresten students should be um stay as as one cohort and I hope the District staff um will consider that data and the importance of the cohort of 23 students who would not be going with the rest of their very small Elementary School um cohorts and I hopefully also that the you know action tonight whether it's the constam amendment or the retention of the Spanish Immersion uh students at Mount Taber that that provides the district some flexibility um for this next year and that um we're able to land this in a way that um we have a huge cohort of sixth seventh and eighth grade students next year in a brand new school um getting that uh Rich Middle School experience that we'd all want for ourselves so I again I want to thank the staff and the Coalition and other board members who thought through this process and um got us to where we are today because um this is a big step forward thank you director B medwards director Scott thanks I know it's late I'll try and be brief but I do think it's important that we be sort of transparent in our thinking on issues like this um so it's a very difficult decision and and the southeast Guan Coalition had a really difficult job to do and and they did it really really well we knew that starting with Southeast and then when we divided that into phase one and phase two was going to make it challenging um because the changes we're making now impact changes in the future the alternative which was to try and do the entire District at once you know we determined it was logistically impossible and I actually think this experience validates that decision but doesn't you know make it any easier that we're going to run into some of those issues and I think that's what we're what we're doing running into here I am going to support um the resolution not because it's perfect but because I think it attempts to thread a needle between these phase one and phase two decisions and and I think it does so in a in an Artful way um and you know I think it's as I mentioned it's important that we explain the decisions we're making particularly when we disagree with the Coalition that we tasked um with with with making recommendations to staff um and I agree with a lot of what Dr Moore said regarding the risk of pulling on individual threads of these proposals because I think the entire thing can unravel very quickly I think we need to be really careful about that um but what sort of swayed me is this the resolution before us it is a staff recommendation and it's based on their conversations with board members with community members and applying their own professional judgment um to the work of the southeast guiding Coalition again
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the southeast guiding Coalition put together a proposal that was good it met the district and board goals they worked really hard on it and I want to commend them for that for me the cost of leaving Creston students out of the Middle School experience outweighed the cost of having overcrowded middle schools there's no right answer to this and and I think the southeast guiding Coalition did struggle with this and they they considered this and they came out down on the side of saying actually they thought having chist and students wait one more year you know was was worth you know sort of avoiding that um and it's a totally reasonable place to to come down um um I I do think though what was kind of persuasive for me in this conversation is that it's not clear to me that the change we're making because of the DLI to mount tabber really is going to change the make the enrollment in cagy worse than it would have been under that Coalition and and I also think what's really important is that for me it it allows that necessary flexibility in phase two some of those things might get a little more difficult but they're still on the table to address a lot of the issues that were raised tonight and I think finally um public trust is really important the creson community assumed they were going to Kellog I can't speak to what was said uh by prior administrations or prior boards I wasn't here you know actively during the 2017 Bond campaign but that Community genuinely believed they were going to go to Kellogg and and I think that deserves some weight in terms of of our overall public trust which is which is the only currency we have um I do want to um follow up a little bit on director brim Edward's comments just about phase two because I think coming out of this and and and you know communicating with some some Coalition members um I think it's really important that as we go through the process as as they go through the process that we build in some check-ins because I think one of the things that that was a little bit difficult was they had constraints that we had given them um they were barred at looking at changes beyond the Cog feeder pattern which is one of the reasons why they they weren't able to say you know Creston you won't go in in in 21 but you will go you know in in in 2022 we didn't allow them to do that um this conflict between do we convert the k8s or do we deal with the overcrowding issue can we if we can't do both um was something that we could have built in check-ins with the board for staff to come back and and say okay what would you emphasize going forward we could have provided some additional guidance I think as we go into phase two that's something to really look at um um again I I think the Coalition members will feel better about the process and it brings the board along in that process as well so for all those Reasons I'm going to support it um I really do appreciate all the hard work it's very very hard decision and so so thanks to everyone involved thank you director Scott I too I'm going to support the um staff recommendation as amended um and again I want to thank the Coalition for all their work I want to thank staff for all of their work um listening to board members and listening to the public and and taking the work of the southeast guing Coalition and presenting us with something workable tonight um I don't think it's perfect and I don't think we can hope for perfect um and but I do think it it really represents substantive listening and a lot of people's best work so thank you everyone that was part of this Judy I did have a question about um some of the Fallout from the amendment that we passed um student who um there is there still a window for students to request a hardship transfer so any of those fifth graders that will now not be going automatically to Kellogg they can still request a hardship transfer into Kellogg if they so choose or another school yes okay and um we would prioritize siblings of kids who are moving who are for example in the seventh and eighth grade cohort but approval would be based on Space availability and I just wanted to say that publicly for any of those families who are affected or know those families that are affected that they have that option all right anything further before we um call for the vote um just the last thing I want to say is I wanted to speak to Nathaniel's comments um Nathaniel I really appreciated what you had to say and um I regret that we weren't able to make a course correction earlier on because you did raise these issues about student participation um much earlier in the process so I just hope that we have a commitment to um make sure that in the second phase um students play a central role in um guiding us through this process because we've we've done such a good job of engaging students on our policy committee on our budget committee and these issues around you know School enrollment and boundaries are are things that students really have are going to have strong opinions on and um have a lot of valuable lived experience to contribute to our decision- making so um Nathaniel my personal apologies for not um having done a better job of supporting that when you raised it at the very beginning of this process and my personal commitment to make sure that we all do a better job uh moving
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forward Dr Bailey um yeah I uh I wasn't ready for this discussion to end because we haven't considered uh one other important factor that's out there um which and that's creative science uh right now creative science is at uh the former Clark site I think it's uh fair to say that that should be the future site of the K5 students who are now at Harrison Park and the Coalition is going to ask us what we want to do with creative science and that's a huge question mark hanging out there and we don't know where those students are going to end up or in what form and this is phase two I mean this is work we'll be doing in phase two correct director Bailey absolutely okay well we are two hours and 10 minutes into this conversation about phase one so can we let me finish this is one of the other factors that could greatly impact how many students feed into Kell um and so that's why I'm going to be voting no that and all the other reasons I said about capacity I'd love to say yes to everybody isn't that what elected officials do we try to find a way to say yes to everybody and when we do we create condition conditions on the ground that aren't fair for kids and aren't fair for staff all right anything further before we call for the vote all right um I now bring before us resolution 6236 Kellogg middle school student assignment plan as amended all in favor please indicate by saying yes yes yes yes yes all um oppose please indicate by saying no no no are there any abstentions resolution 6236 is approved by a vote of five to two with student representative Shu voting no all right we are going to go ahead and take a break now and I wanted to let um our board members know and staff know know as well that we have gone ahead and postponed the study session that was to be after this meeting because of the recognition that it's already an hour past start time almost an hour past start time for that Gathering um so know that we will um end slightly earlier than maybe you were forecasting so let's take a five minute break and be back at 10:07 thanks everyone
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we are um continuing on with really important vital conversations tonight um and uh now we turn to um our updated covid metrics and our update on Lippy and plans for hybrid in third quarter and Lippy means Limited in person instruction for those who uh don't speak acronyms all day like some of the rest of us end up doing here superintendent grow would you like to introduce this agenda item um I would thank you chair Lowry and uh I I had a feeling this we might get to this agenda item a little later in the program uh which is why uh I tried to give the viewing audience a little bit of the highlights in in my opening report but uh as I said then we promised to provide our community and our employees an extensive update on where we stand at the end of the second
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quarter uh during this pandemic so uh it's been as you can appreciate an evolving complexity of variables and factors and evolving guidelines and metrics and uh we'll we'll continue talking about some of that but uh we're eager to share what we pledge to do and just give you uh our our families a more thorough understanding of where we are so the we have Team lined up to share some of the uh the bigger points um as we commence this agenda item uh we blasted out a broad CommunityWide message uh in case you you notice that in your inbox uh uh we realize it's a little later hopefully families will have a chance to to read it in the morning um but we have here as usual to help provide an update a more thorough one Dr Russ Brown our chief assistant performance he'll be accompanied by Dr sha bird our chief of schools uh as well as Sharon ree our chief of HR so I think they're GNA tag team talking about vaccinations how we're going to expand in person opportunities and are developing plans for hybrid instruction to to hit our school so uh Team uh and I know that we have some slides uh for you as [Music] well [Music] and carara and Roseanne if you can let staff in from the virtual green room that would be great I want to be in the virtual Green Room are some crackers back there are there snacks all right the ties are showing up okay there's an extra set of those in the green room if there were cheese and crackers back there no one uh pointed those out to me um I certainly would have liked them um thank you uh superintendent Guerrero members of the board and and the community uh as this pretended mentioned the three of us will uh go through and review the these materials uh for you today uh I'll start off and then I'll I'll hand off to Chief Sharon ree to be able to talk about vaccination and then uh finally uh Chief bird will will talk about limited iners instruction on our plans for Hybrid next slide please so uh the superintendent uh touched on these highlights earlier I I won't belabor them again um we're going to start this third quarter and comprehensive distance learning and we'll talk about uh again vaccination uh some expanded extracurricular activities and also again our plans to move forward not only through uh the fourth quarter but also looking into learning recovery as we move forward next slide please throughout uh this time as we work uh through remote instruction to comprehensive distance learning and now as we move into uh limited imperson hybrid we've had these guiding principles they remain unchanged uh We've centered racial equity and social justice uh in this process uh and all our thinking as we move forward uh the our our next priority has always been to ensure the health and wellness of our students staff and larger Community um you know we've talked uh repeatedly about the importance of uh cultivating connection and relationship and um I think we saw some of the evidence of that with with the great work that our our teachers and our schools did in conjunction with our students last year to to increase the graduation rate uh despite the pandemic and then finally uh obviously this is really offered a a great opportunity for Innovation and uh we're continuing to look forward and and innovate as we move through next slide please so throughout this time um there have been changes to the metrics over time as as science has has evolved and as we've had um additional information uh in January in early January around the 19th there uh the state uh revise the guidelines again uh for the metrics and with this latest revision um we find ourselves in a very different position where the metric now would support an immediate expansion of in-person services for students and
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that's exactly what we're going to do so if you look at um the the graph on the left uh shows the the Blue Line shows the trend of uh case rates over a two we period of time uh starting in in uh November and and hearing through uh through the second week of of January what you see is that we had a peak and then it declined over time uh but with the prior metric thresholds that that came out in in October we were still well well above the that red cut line for uh comprehensive distance learning mandating that with this most recent Rec release the uh cut point for uh entry into comprehensive distance learning or mandate in comprehensive distance learning it was set at 350 cases uh over every two weeks or 25 cases per day this aligns very well uh and actually was driven by uh the Harvard Global Health institute's uh framework and at that point at 25 cases a day uh the Harvard um Global Health Institute framework suggests that that's a typ point where uh stay-at home orders are required um and at this point you know clearly uh we're below that line uh as of last week we were sitting at 293 cases today we're sitting at 243 cases over a two we period and our daily rates uh look pretty constant looks like we'll be around 250 next week as well and so we're again we're now in a position where we can uh immediately look to to beginning to expand in person opportunities at our schools next slide please while while this affords us the opportunity to expand in-person opportunities in our schools it doesn't again take away from all the requirements necessary to maintain the health and safety of our our students our staff and the community as a whole um there are well over a hundred requirements and the ready School safe Learners document uh that are mandatory and the remain mandatory some of the more Salient ones touch on now the ones that that really have a lot of imp uh implications for what we can do and how we can open um are still in place and and were absolutely prepared to to do these things uh we have to screen students uh at the entrance of every school um students are required to uh wear face masks except um in cases where medical or or disability comes into play we must have symptom spaces uh for symptomatic individuals students and staff uh we are obligated to to have uh 35 square feet of of space per per individual in a classroom uh in order that students can have and staff can have that six foot of of um physical space between themselves and others as we move forward when we look at um hybrid and and also limited imperson activities it uh we also have to create stable cohorts in our buildings so that we can support contact tracing and also uh respond if it Cas appears and within that we're we're required to minimize the number of cohorts that student uh interacts with and uh fundamentally can't allow a student to interact with more than a hundred other uh students or staff within a week and really puts a cap then uh on on the number of interactions and again ensure safety obviously we still have to maintain uh cleaning protocols uh disinfecting High touch surfaces uh we've spent a great deal of time working with industrial hygienist around air quality um including filtration and and um running our systems more frequently to to keep air circulating within the buildings and um again just reinforcing the basic uh Public Health policies around uh handwashing um physical distancing uh Etc and again putting those in place with signage uh around the buildings to support that next slide please we have a a brief video that um will help folks uh get a little bit of a picture of what that can look like in one of our buildings and I'll be quiet here momentarily if we could get that video to run with sound and thank you to KGW and Christine Panic for doing some of this visual work for us it's telling people not to come in if they're sick and to wear masks the first thing you see when you walk through the door is hand sanitizer then it's if you're a guest or a parent you've got to grab a clean pen and sign in and as you walk through the school there are signs all over the place this one reminding people to keep 6 ft apart throughout all the hallways there are markings on the floor telling kids which direction they need to walk and when you go into the main office there are safety protocols as well for instance there are markings on the floor telling you where to stand
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and staff are protected by these plexiglass barriers inside classrooms desks are spaced 6 ft apart Dr Shan bird chief of schools says each classroom can fit up to 20 kids maximum but because of classroom sizes it'll probably be more like 13 to 15 kids they're marked with the capacity so this is to make sure we have physical distancing in place so this classro can to hold 14 people custodians will clean classrooms daily and there will also be reminders to stay safe playing over the intercom thank you for helping maintain the health and safety of the building and throughout the school you'll notice a number of rooms called symptom spaces these are areas where symptomatic kids and adults can go so in our symptom spaces we'll have Standalone air purifiers to just an added measure of safety in those rooms and then we're running our uh HVAC systems for longer during the day we have a uh industrial hygienist that we consult with that is um looking at all of our spaces if you're wondering about kids coming at the same time each School building will have multiple entrances limited in-person instruction will consist of about 2 hours per day on top of distance learning it won't be a fullscale reopening right away but we do hope that as as vaccines are administered then we can uh welcome more and more students back over time the Portland Public School District gave us a list of the schools expected to be in this initial phase of limited in-person instruction it includes 16 elementary schools as well as two high schools and a couple alternative programs the district is still working to determine which middle schools might be involved thank you um I I find uh the video to be be helpful you know sometimes we talk about these uh health and safety requirements and it's maybe a little bit hard for folks to visualize them and this is opportunity for folks to actually see what it looks like in a building and and see uh the the substantial preparation that our operations team and and our schools have done in order to be prepared to safely bring students back into our schools with that um I'm going to transition now to uh Chief ree who's going to talk with us a little bit about um vaccination and and the rolling vaccination plan next slide thank you thank you Dr Brown can we move to the next slide early in January the District staff convened a vaccine team to be ready for any eventuality regarding distribution of vaccines and I uh have say I'm grateful for that foresight because if tonight's update had come yesterday or the day before or even Friday it would have looked very different than it just this evening uh but rather than take you on a journey of what has occurred over the past uh few weeks I can focus on where we are today we do have a mega vaccine clinic uh up and running hosted by our healthc Care Partners OHSU Kaiser Legacy and Providence at the Oregon Convention Center uh that is streamlining the process for uh vaccinations the scheduling for the Mega Clinic uh with regard to K12 prek-12 uh staff and our um the staff of Our Community Partners began today and based on a change in direction that we received details of just late last night right about 24 hours ago that scheduling process is going through an Oregon Health Authority website uh that's not connected to uh Portland Public Schools uh we are facilitating communication and information about that website so again the first appointments opened uh or were uh able uh to get uh them today um uh to begin appointments tomorrow at the Oregon Convention Center uh OA is scheduling process and the capacity of their website um has been uh Rocky uh what we expect is that OHA will be ironing out those Kinks over time and that like all things covid we need to lead with patience and perseverance through these unknowns um so the mega Clinic is anticipated to run 900 am to 6:00 pm seven days a week and it can handle uh is our understanding 2,000 vaccinations a day First St for vaccines within the prek uh 12 group are those providing direct inperson support to students that would be limited iners instruction that would also be our nutrition services uh staff who have been um feeding our community uh from the beginning of the pandemic our bus drivers who are out delivering food and curriculum uh and other resources to um our students uh also in this first wave are
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uh kindergarten teachers and support staff everything pivots uh on vaccine Supply but if we proceed on this plan that it will take about a month to go through the metro area uh in this group we are providing support to our staff to facilitate uh information we have a vaccine information web page that we set up uh we have set up a specialized email to respond to the many many questions about vaccinations and we are hosting a vaccine Town Hall co-hosting a vaccine Town Hall of Moma County and the Coalition of communities of color uh that uh will be at five start at 5 o'clock on Friday so next slide I'm gonna transition uh to Dr bird okay can I ask one question before you move on just um clarifying question um yes so you said that you thought uh the process would be completed in a month is that for both shots or just the first that is the first shot uh so what will happen then uh director Moore is upon receiving your first dose you will be automatically scheduled for the second dose uh depending on which of the vaccines at because it's a different timeline if it's Mona or uh and so you can take that month and add a couple weeks uh to it I just want to add um not not to be overly optimistic but the Convention Center capacity is far more than 2,000 a day so that's not the limiting factor Factor um so I know the healthcare providers are working to see if they can increase those numbers over time so again I I know they're saying 2,000 a day now and I don't want to be overly optimistic but I think there is an an opportunity for them to ramp that up um over the next few weeks I have heard the same thing director Scott not to interject uh we certainly know the facility can handle more the real limiting factor is the number of doses made available and and to that point one of the things that is important is for advocacy and and to the extent you know the district or the board can help with this to make sure that the region is getting our share of vaccine right now the vaccine is being distributed somewhat evenly throughout the state despite population differences so I think that's something that we should be talking to the state about in terms of making sure that proportionally the Portland metro area is receiving the amount of vaccine the equivalent amount of vaccine per capita that other areas of the state are receiving okay thank you Sharon uh so so as Dr Brown mentioned we will begin our uh third quarter which is on February 1st in comprensive distance learning but we will quickly roll out uh limited impers instruction or Lippy as it's known and that will actually start this week with Madison High School on Thursday our first uh limited impers program we'll start uh next slide so limited iners instruction is just uh as it is named We would like to be able to serve you know as many students as possible we do have some limits as Dr Brown described at the outside of this presentation uh students can be in cohorts of no more than 20 but as you saw in the news story The Practical reality of our classrooms is 13 to 15 will fit in most of them and uh we need to um have a database approach to how we select uh students to come to limited impers instruction so we have asked our principles uh to uh use data to inform their decisions about the types of programming they're going to offer so in this first phase we have about 19 we have 19 School sites Madison being the first one to open by February 8th you'll have uh the 10 child care sites uh that um that we offer currently childcare at will be open as well as our six CSI elementary schools and Grant High School also be open as uh by February 22nd We'll add another group of schools our TSI which is targeted support intervention and Title One schools as well uh will so that will bring the total to 45 sites and then by March 1st new every School site will offer some version of limited iners instruction so we need to just understand that Lippy is aimed at meeting specific needs of a targeted group of students um and it's based on uh either educational need or social emotional need uh and curriculum and instruction so we've asked our principles to look at their data in elementary school for literacy math and social emotional learning and look at those students who are not engaging as much as we would like them to or whove had who have other barriers to uh access education and reach out to them first and uh and for high school it's largely Credit Recovery we have Juniors and seniors who are uh aiming towards graduation here in in or seniors aiming towards graduation in June so we want to make sure that they are caught up we have um uh so the high school programs will will look pretty similar across the district uh so School administrators have been identifying the uh students that are eligible and they're reaching
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out to families individually making sure that families understand that this is optional and that it is uh we want to make sure that they feel safe we know that there uh are cons uh concerns among people about the uh impact of of Corona virus on certain communities of color particularly and we also know that those schools have students that have particular educational needs so we want to give families the choice of uh making that making that decision for themselves uh we're going to provide all the safety that was outlined uh by Dr Brown and we want to make sure families have a good understanding of what's happening in our our classroom we're doing lots of Outreach we're making a lot of documents public and transparent of what we're doing to provide safety in our classrooms and then families will be able to make that uh decision um each Lippy session will run for two hours because it's designed to supplement uh instruction that's currently uh happening in the in the building it doesn't take the place of comprehensive distance learning it's designed to supplement so I think of it as intervention and there's also some other activities that are happening such as Athletics which we've had 4200 students particip ipate in uh strength and conditioning training in our athletic programs uh and we'll also be adding we're excited to say uh choir and band in a physically distanced outdoor environment that will begin in February as well so next slide Dr bird before you um move on just a question about the um just because I I don't think there's widespread understanding of what exactly limited Anderson instruction is or that it's not going to be for all students so on that last slide at um so you don't for example you don't have to be a a Grant High School student but you would have had to have been identified by your principal so you could you could attend Mt let's see let's use a different example you could attend Cleveland your principal identified that you have some credit recovery or some other issues so you would you would be um attending Grant so your Limited in person instruction so like not your at least in that first phase is that right no so right now it's going to be school there are some schools that are going to be working together as we expand offerings so right the high schools will will probably roll out uh quicker than their phases that they're in and that's the other thing that's a good point to bring up too though is that if you're a phase three school and you're ready to go and you have teachers that have uh volunteer to participate and you're you have a plan to submit you can start before your phase starts we just want to make sure that people had time to plan carefully and that we could get Transportation uh the transportation needs of all of our students students met so we are offering transportation to uh anybody that needs it and uh our transportation department that does take time to to build up to so that's why we ask for plans to be submitted there's a timeline for the plan to be submitted and there's a two week period where we approve it line up the transportation and then uh start the program so students will be attending for limited imperson instruction for the most part they'll be attending their own school there are a couple of examples of elementary schools that are working uh together um in addition though to Limited instruction for high schools the example that you particularly asked about there are Credit Recovery activities going on uh all the time even they're they're in a remote setting but those there are we have substitute teachers working with students in high school to uh recover credit and we also have you know our virtual scholar program and and other credit recovery activities that are ongoing so those 19 and 45 School sites assuming they start on time versus early those are specific School and you need to be a student at those schools and invited by your principal correct okay great and what percentage of the students is like phase one and phase two of the district population is it like 10% or phase one so we have 81 schools so 19 uh schools is so by February 22 that's more than half the schools are will be uh will be up and running but it's only going to be a small percentage of act yeah so that's correct so some some schools are starting off small and again keep in mind that as vaccines are uh administered to education professionals then we anticipate more people will um be comfortable and we anticipate that these programs are starting small and are growing uh principles have told us that they have uh teachers that are uh very interested in serving uh students once they are vaccinated because there are people that have situations where they need to so they need to have a vaccination before they can return due to you know lots of lots of reasons we do anticipate that there'll be a smaller roll out and then growing over time next slide I spoke about this already I just want to um highlight that there are uh OSAA um competitive uh Sport Seasons
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that are starting uh full contact sports are prohibited by the OA so not all of for example football will not uh is a full contact sport so it will not be a competitive sport but there are still participating in some strength and conditioning activities other sports will be uh playing in those dates that you see there on the uh on the screen and we are again excited to offer vapa so this another opportunity for students to be involved one of the things that we've learned and Outreach to our from to our community is that one of the biggest concerns that parents have is uh besides the academic component of this is the social emotional component and the U the mental well being of their students so we want to have give students as many opportunities as possible to uh be involved when we can in a safe environment next slide so the uh big news here is that hybrid instruction which is uh what will be what the first uh return to opening of our schools in some uh larger scale fashion will occur if everything goes well and uh you know educators are getting vaccinated as they're on target to do and we continue to have case rates that are meeting the metrics that allow us to reopen for hybrid instruction so we anticipate that most students will be in some form of hybrid instruction uh by early April and so to facilitate that process by February 2nd which is next Tuesday we'll be making uh available an online form so that families can share with us their choice uh if they choose to if they would like to participate in some hybrid instruction or if they would like to remain in comprensive distance learning and so um the hybd instruction would be that students will go to school a couple of days a week and be home a couple of days a week um and parents will have uh will lay out options for for parents to be able to make an informed decision so k through eight uh is one uh let's talk about elementary school K through five we are confident we can you know there's a we have a road map to do a full hybrid offering six through eight because of the limitations that we have for the number of students that may interact with each other during the week is uh that limit right now is 100 if that does not change then what we we what we are planning on is offering the core classes would be in a hybrid model because everybody in sixth grade is can stay together for you know they can stay with their cohort for math science English and social studies and for their electives they would likely remain in comprehensive distance learning so that they're not uh interacting with too many students in high school it's becomes a little more challenging because as you know High School electives uh those are mixed grade level electives as well as when students uh are in a class and if they uh fail class they might be in mixed grade level classes or if they're accelerated they would be in mixed grade level classes so for example when I was a teacher I taught 11th grade English but actually had students at every grade level in my class so that it becomes very challenging to keep those those cohorts and uh intact where they're not interacting with more than 100 students so we're looking at different options and we want to serve as many students on campus as we can but uh what we are uh looking at realistically is that they'll be uh expanded Limited in person for high school and and then some comprehensive distance uh learning element as well beyond that we're looking at uh what we would typically call think of as summer school we're calling that quarter five and that's the time for learning recovery so it'll be an expanded uh summer offering because we know that uh students uh will need some more uh contact with teachers and so we are planning for a much more robust summer program than we would normally offer and open some more students than than normally we would uh offer so we are currently uh working on those plans and we'll be able to share more information with that with you shortly about our um quarter five plans next slide when Chief bird with that quarter five um are you thinking about that for all grade levels yes it would be across the across the school district yeah definitely so we do want to just remind you that um throughout this pandemic and as we think about uh limited iners instruction and then returning to uh hybrid instruction where kids are coming back to school is that you know we we these are the things we have focused on uh is first of all what's been really important and our teachers have done an amazing job of making sure that our our students feel some sense of belonging you see that in Elementary classes with the morning meetings you see that as evidence in our high school classes where teachers did not um uh assign an inordinate number of eps in the first semester we had a lot of teachers uh assigned the grade of no grader incomplete so that students could uh feel you know that they were not going to be behind they could catch up and they could uh recover from uh things that were sort of out of their control and then our middle school students many
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of them are involved in in an advisory program where they have a about social connections we've Al also been fortunate that we have many of our culturally specific partners that normally do on-site work either after school or during the school day have been working uh still remotely and they've been tutoring students and have been um Making Connections uh and you know we often rely on these Partnerships uh because you know the the most important element in a in a in a child's School experience is that they have a positive relationship with a caring adult of course we have that with teachers and we also have that with our culturally specific partners that work in our schools and have uh relationships with our kids so they've been uh great to us and they have been to our students and they have been continuing to support us in in different ways um we have uh as you know uh from a central level designed lesson plans for teachers so that they could uh you know use those as an aid to them to them and uh planning for online instruction and we've also uh made improvements to that throughout the the school year uh based on feedback from uh teachers technology we've had at Roosevelt High School that uh early on they realized that there was an issue uh where kids may have had the equipment that they needed but they didn't necessarily know how to connect and how to uh how to access all the different platforms so uh they early on brought in small groups of students to uh help facilitate their um instructional um technology use but also they also had other people on hand we hired this sh more counselors and social workers throughout the district than they had at Roosevelt and many other schools have had uh mental health supports for students so it's been a One-Stop shop for many different needs at many of our schools and so we'll continue to do that we would like to be able to uh you know serve every student in a in a person environment we know we can't do that right now based upon the health metrics and the um and the constraints that we must follow to make sure that we have a safe environment for both employees and students so The Limited iners instruction will be limited it will be our our principales reaching out to invite people to join we we plan and hope to expand that as we lead up to hybrid but we do have these other uh supports in place that will not be going away next slide and we'll take your questions thank you so much I appreciate all that uh the details I know several board members have been able to to tour some of the sites as we get ready for Lippy uh what questions do we have board members I have a question about the ventilation uh this is director to pass um I know that we have one school in our system that has excellent ventilation that would be Harriet Tubman but I'm concerned about the other um buildings that are average age of about 80 years old um in our portfolio and what are we um what are we doing about those how can we be confident that the air filtration um systems are working the HBS are hbac systems are are working and comprehensive in every in every building particular those where we're starting sure there have been air purifier purifiers ordered for every um symptom space But even more than that in areas that where there is uh ventilation uh concerns and those air purifiers can be put in those uh spaces I think we've ordered nearly 400 of those um for that purpose we also are running our ventilation systems longer uh in the day than we normally would because the the air needs to be circulated in order to that's the that's the recommendation of the industrial hygienist of which I'm not an expert in but our coo is preparing uh danan is preparing a um a onepage fact FAQ to uh explain this in Greater detail but there has been consultation with industrial hygienist and ALS and HVAC experts and uh you know the county we have uh been in consultation with them and all of our buildings have been um you know uh as they've been going in to take out furniture and to prepare for physical distancing they're also doing an evaluation of those hbac systems and ventilation systems Dan young has been teleported into the space did you want to add to that not too bad Dr bird uh yeah good evening no actually Dr bird did a great job I can give a little bit of context from process so early on uh in this process uh we were looking at our ventilation systems you know we didn't want to make decisions on our own and and we're not all in-house Public Health experts so what we did very early on was reached out to mola County Public Health to get their Direction on how to proceed uh and what they recommen recommended that we do is hire a certified industrial hygienist to help us create a plan for the entire District so that's what we did we hired PBS engineering environmental uh to help us
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create this plan and over the course of several months uh we worked with PBS to put together a plan that would apply to you know our 80 plus schools and our over 200 buildings uh and what what uh they did what we did is we utilized the guidance that was out there for ventilation systems So the plan that we created conforms to the guidance of the CDC uh the EPA uh OSHA uh ashray is another one which is the American Society of heating refrigerating and air conditioning Engineers so that's kind of like the HVAC uh Association in the country uh and also monoa County Public Health and so as as Sean notes what some of those uh uh specifics of that plan are are attempting to really maximize the outside air that we bring into the system so we've adjusted our system to increase the our dampers so what we're doing is we're bringing in more outside air uh we're running our systems longer throughout the day as Sean noted so roughly four hours longer and running it continuously throughout the day we created maintenance checklists and hired outside Mechanical Contractors to go through every one of our buildings and complete checklist on our buildings to make sure that the systems are working properly so those are things that we put together in the plan we then met again with BMA County to make sure that that conformed all the guidance that they had and that they were aware of uh and they were actually really happy with what we put together uh and then we implemented that plan so those are some of the steps that we take in the process we went through to uh to ensure that our systems are operating at maximum capacity can um can you give us the latest on um testing capability um and um I know this is I know we're dependent on system Partners um in order to have that kind of capability can you give us the lay of the land there and expectations going forward so I'll lean in on that um the the most recent guidance from the state in in terms of uh Ray School safe Learners does specify the need to have a testing program in place specifically if you're operating outside the metric framework right now we'd be operating within and uh the testing gu uh the guidance around testing that they um are advocating for for symptomatic individuals uh and and to have that in place we have begun that conversation with our our health department about what would be available I think we would prefer a more robust testing program and one one that would test not just symptomatic but also asymptomatic individuals um you know would really facilitate an opportunity uh for us to be able to catch things early and respond in a way to to maximize keeping our schools open as much as possible um while it's specified in the guidance right now again we're working uh with the county to to articulate the plan moving forward and the availability of it uh I don't have more specifics around this um because I I think there's still a little bit of a lag on much like we're we're doing with the vaccines I think there's a little bit a lag on the specifics around this at this point in time but uh it is something that uh to uh director Scott uh Point earlier we we would certainly appreciate advocacy from from the board uh with respect to maybe expanded uh testing opportunities for our schools and on that advocacy point I think board members have seen the most recent uh letter from the council to uh Biden Administration we know this new federal Administration has started to talk about making sure that K12 has capacity and resources uh to make testing more ubiquitous so we hope that um there's follow through there but uh this is this is still an evolving uh conversation uh with our with our local authorities and partners any further questions I have a oh go ahead thanks um so I was wondering um Lippy beginning District ride on March 1st will be optional um and I believe you also said that the following more widespread hybrid instruction would also be optional which I fully support um I was
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wondering if we have a rough estimate as to when op period would end and um what metrics we'd be looking at to make that determination you kind you want to know when the optional period would end is that what your is that what your question was right so I think you know for the rest of the so yes you're correct lipia is optional for students and and we will send out a registration uh query about uh hybrid and so that would take us through the end of the school year and then you know we'll be constantly monitoring uh the vaccination distribution uh throughout the spring and and summer to see when you know when those metrics move down to where it will be uh safe to you know open as you as you know regular school quote unquote uh so you know that is dependent upon Health metrics but the remainder of the school year for all practical purposes would be you know would be uh most likely in hybrid that would be the option beginning in early so I I'll jump in I have a it's a brief question but a little bit of a sort of just a longer um setup but I know it's late and I'm tired so I'll try and be quick but I I I really appreciate this information tonight and I think um you know one of the things we've been hearing from a lot of families is we need some timelines and some dates in terms of what things are going to happen and so I think I think beginning to get that that concrete um timelines out there is is helpful my question is going to be around those time timelines and whether we can accelerate them but but getting to that um you know I I want to point out I think it's really easy to ask the question and and I get this a lot I know we all are is why haven't we opened yet um and I I think that you know one of the things to look at when you look at the standard operating procedures the district has put together and and I think are part of the communication that people are receiving it gives a really good sense of the issues in play and the you know herculian efforts needed to reopen safely and staff have been working on that you know for for months and and it is extremely complex um to reopen schools we said as a board and I know the superintendent said at the beginning of this pandemic we were going to let Public Health and Science guide our decisions and I think we've done that um I think it's worth pointing out at this point where we are that the science is relatively clear and and the science is saying that schools can be opened safely when appropriate measures are in place and and I think the studies have also shown that the cost of distance learning on our students academic and social and emotional health is is very very high um there was a CDC study released today um that you can read about in in the Washington Post and other newspapers and just to quote you know Dr Honan who's the lead author of the Journal of American Medical Association report she says the conclusion here is that with proper prevention efforts we can keep Transmission in schools and educational settings quite low um one of the studies that the CDC looked at was the study out of North Carolina which a lot of people have talked about they had 990,000 students in staff um attending school and found that that within School virus Transmissions are very very rare there were 32 infections that were acquired in the school versus 773 infections that were acquired somewhere else in the community and the study found uh and this is remarkable the study found no cases of student to staff transmission so 90,000 students in staff with zero cases of student to staff transmission so you know I I think it is becoming clear that we we can do this safely um and I want to say a quick word sort of about our teachers because that's come up in in some news articles and and other places and I just want to say you know um personally you know the teachers that we have in Portland Public Schools are essential to have a successful reopening and without our teachers back in the classroom there won't be a successful reopening to schools um our teachers are already Heroes they were before the pandemic anyway but they really have been up to this point and they've done an incredible job adapting their lesson plans and curriculum to distance learning they're working with brand new technology and they're doing everything they can to support the students during during a pandemic um and if you talk to the teachers they are working harder than they ever have right to to sort of make make this as successful as we can but I think they also will agree this is not a substitute for inperson in-person classroom learning I also think it's worth pointing out our teachers have legitimate concerns they have concerns about their own health they have concerns about the health of their family and loved ones concerns about the health of the students and their students families and they're the same concerns that all of us have um when I toured Woodmere last week to see what it looks like to have Lippy and and and potentially moving on to hybrid and I stood in a gym with 30 other people who were all masked and all socially distanced it felt wrong and it felt wrong because it's been 10 months since I was in a room with that many people but I'm also confident that it was done safely and I think what's going to be really important over the next few weeks is you know we need to be sharing the evidence that's out there um about the safety of reopening schools we need to answer the questions from our teachers we need to be transparent about everything we're doing to to keep our teachers safe because the bottom line is that our kids in our community are going to need our teachers to feel and to be
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safe so that we can start repairing caring some of that damage that this virus is doing to our children's education and our children's social and emotional well-being so with that very long setup at 11 o'cl at night um I'm curious to ask the superintendent what whether it would be possible and what factors are needed to safely accelerate reopening and what the barriers might be that would prevent us from RE from from accelerating that reopening plan well I think you've heard um a few highlights this evening uh and families and and directors will note The nine-page Briefing that they're also getting uh with more details uh which we we said we would provide our community some of the key ones I mean obviously uh we want our employees uh to uh some safety precautions made available to them so you just heard about the vaccine roll out more doses that's a key factor uh the other is we are still working under ready School guidelines by the Oregon Department of Ed so you heard about some of the constraints there and so that that puts a limitation on how many students we can have back on campus so uh hopefully we the the the metrics will continue to Trend downwards that gives us a little bit more flexibility but the need to maintain cohorting and uh social distancing parameters uh makes you know the model that we can put forth uh you know uh puts a limit on that uh so I think we'd all love to be fully reopened um but I think this is going to be sort of a gradual turning the dial on or opening the valve to to create more and more expanded in-person opportunities and and I think frankly some of it and I'm glad that we're we're starting with an initial set of schools we're going to learn a lot through this process I think as you know standing in even a large siiz space like a gym with a number of people it's us getting comfortable with you know those new protocols uh for health and safety uh in our building um so you know as you know we've certainly made suggestions about ways that we think that the guidelines could could offer a little more flexibility we've worked with the other City uh larger districts uh in the state and and pointed out where things uh become difficult and I'll just point it out here you know how do you implement a hybrid model schedule in the high schools I I we still don't have a clear example of what that that looks like uh without really really limiting uh the number of students that that are on campus so these are all the questions that you know we're trying to be as creative as as possible about but uh these these are some of the variables that that still need resolution uh for us uh we brought up the testing so we still need a capacity to do that that's going to be another important way that we Safeguard uh ourselves as as we as we are on campus as well uh and team if I'm missing an obvious one at this late hour uh please chime in as well thanks I just want to amplify because I think it's really important even if we felt that it was safe to reopen by February 15th or March 1 and even if our teachers felt that it was safe to reopen under the existing state guidelines we are not allowed to do that and I I just think that's an important point to put out there um as as we have this conversation moving forward so thanks um I would be curious I don't know we don't we're focusing on students but you know as a board we're going to have to at some point meet in person again and I'm wondering if um anybody has given any thought to when that might happen of course it would have to be safe um but I feel like if we uh are asking our stakeholders our students families and teachers to come back that we should consider when we're going to come back to doesn't need to be answered tonight but it's a question I've had on my mind talk to me after I'm vaccinated I think we got our first consideration of that question in our um in the memo that you just referred to superintendent um where we begin to contemplate um uh moving back to inperson board meetings as you contemplating your limited staff in person in central office so I know Roseanne's working further on defining that I know that this is a conversation that we want to have with board leadership we've certainly thought ahead and have a larger space prepared for our gradual return but I think just like with campuses we want to make sure we have the precautions in place I'd like to say let's all start by setting the example but the fact is uh I'll be last in line and I'm not going to deny that vaccine dose to a classified staff a Frontline worker a bus driver a nutrition worker so uh I think that would be sort of one of the conditions by which we want to make sure
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everybody's had that opportunity uh and you all also have that opportunity so we can start to meet in person as well um it's it's late uh sometime soon uh I still have a lot of questions about how hybrid would work um particularly if I'm a classroom teacher who uh even splitting in half I want to see how that works what are my responsibilities online in CDL and what are my responsibilities in class how many um that's all that's like you know two lesson plans um going and just how how that planning time would work uh all those things and then then if what if my class is has to be split in three in person because I can't fit half into that smallest space um what's the going to look like for me as a teacher and again it's late um and that deserves a kind of a you know your week or a sample week um and how that would differ at different uh levels um that's a great set of questions uh director Bailey I think uh director Scott said it earlier I mean schools are are are people run business we can't do this work without our much valued teachers but that's exactly the kinds of ongoing conversations we're engaged with them about how to do that but the two people you know on the screen here who are really at the table trying to Hash those things out are Sharon Ree and Shan bird so do you want to get offer a quick response here I'll to sh I mean not everybody all at once we are uh in in uh you know we're beginning to talk about those issues with our with our labor Partners I mean there early discussion about that those issues Shar I don't know if you want to add anything yeah I I think that really captures the the critical component there are a lot of um challenges to overcome uh uh in offering uh hybrid the sorts of models that we've seen um vary from uh different sorts of schedules simal cast I mean there's there's uh options out there none of them are easy uh necessarily easy to implement so uh we are still very much at the drawing B stage so um I lost a little bit of that Sharon but I'm assuming we don't have the technology to do any kind of simoc cast on a mass basis we have actually uh explored that and I don't have I don't have an update for you director Bailey at this point in time but we have explored what would that look like and what would the cost of that as we have been uh looking at a number of different uh possible scenarios yeah and I would just add that you know there there are a lot of um we we're going to present various options uh soon and so we're working on that with groups of people working on that um and it's going to require some modifications you know in our in our particular in our secondary schools uh just because the numbers that we're dealing with so you know we'll be able to come back um with some options we won't have him go into all the specifics but since you asked director Bailey Don wolf has also been teleported in and he can give you just a little bit of a taste of some of the exploring he's done with how to use some added technology tools to simal cast and otherwise Don sorry first time I've been teleported and so I'm trying to figure out the controls on that in a webinar I'm standing up in a little dark we have been exploring what a simal castle look like and what it would take toing bring in a camera and microphones that can be portable in Mobile to be able to follow a teacher around um to be able to present the same instruction that's going on in the classroom at home um working on looking at some different models from other school districts around the country that have employed and and seeing where we're going to land with with all of this functionality as we move forward what what the Ultimate model is going to um look like again that's going to be done in partner with our labor organizations so that that will be a key component on on how we roll this out okay so I just don't want to be the take the takeaway to be that PPS is going to start simoc casting all of its lessons all I'm suggesting here is that we're we're exploring it is it another tool that could have some value or or help to add to our Arsenal and these are the kinds of and we certainly don't want to put another burden on our Educators who are we know already sort of challenged with trying to offer you know the the kind of connection and
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instruction that that we hope that they continue to focus on may I ask a question regarding I mean we're talking about simal casting and teleporting um have we given any thought to having outdoor lessons I mean for those of you that aren't from Portland the weather actually does get better um usually around July 5th but um it's it's tolerable um through the spring months you know uh with the right equipment on have we given any thought to outdoor lessons where where a simal cast could happen so the re the recent guidance um for ready School safe Learners actually provides uh some expanded guidance for Outdoor Learning and um Dr bird earlier mentioned uh expanding uh opportunities for uh Visual and Performing Arts outdoors and and yes uh this is definitely on the table and definitely part of what what's being considered moving forward can I just um in my in my role as pretend Public Health person um I want to just say um all of this is predicated on the uh infection numbers continuing to decline or at minimum staying stable so it means that um we can't throw open the doors and neither can anybody else um everybody needs to continue to wear their masks you know physically distance wash your hands do all the things you're supposed to have been doing for the last year and if people um if people become fatigued and less diligent about doing that we're going to see the numbers go back up and if they do we're not going to be able to open and and I just want to also note that we are looking at the um the arriv probably of um much more um contagious viruses so we need to actually redouble efforts to maintain all of the safety precautions that we've been taking all along so I just felt compelled to say that thanks Rita um anything else before we still have to hear from our student representative and we still have some other business is there anything else before we move on to those other pieces ahead of us tonight I just want to say thanks to everybody who worked on um making it possible to do the Performing Arts um the kids are super super excited about that so thank you superintendent for uh valuing that and for your team uh for putting putting it together guess you really do deserve that award you won uh about the Arts superintendent so you're putting your money your mouth is and making this happen so I know the students really appreciate look he's holding it up what is it called I didn't mention it in my report but I am very humbled and appreciative of the Oregon music education association's naming me outstanding administrator this year and I accept it proudly on behalf of our mu of our music educators here at BPS for continuing to to make it a priority I I to director to pass and looking forward to uh seeing on all of our campuses a little more activities starting up uh and uh we'll keep doing the PSAs folks should not stop washing their hands uh keep wearing your masks and there'll be a lot of that going on in our schools all right thank you all so very much I know it's been a ton of work and I know we still have a long way to go but um I it feels like the we're starting this process of reopening and that's very helpful all right um we turn now to the student representative Shu I'm sorry it's so late I know it's finals week and I know you have some other students who are here going to um help answer questions tonight um so Cara can you teleport in uh I think it's Jackson Tay and Parker um so that Nathaniel can now uh give his report thank you student representative Shu all right let's see if this Zoom thing is still cooperating um all right all right so um you should be able to see just one slide no more no notes or anything just one slide and it should be the title page is that right yes that is what I can only see a couple people um
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great and we've got um Jackson Tay and pin yeah all right let's go ahead and get started then um so as you many of you have probably heard the DSC and I have been Distributing a survey intended to gauge student thinking on the prospect of returning to inperson education now that it is within our power to do so now that the results of Thea the survey are available I would like to take tonight as an opportunity to to present them to you and to answer any questions the board might have first I'd like to provide a bit of background for those still watching at home tonight as to what the DSC is as well as why we put out the survey but simply the DSC is a largely advisory parliamentary group of approximately 12 students from high schools across the district which I am responsible for coordinating it exists to elevate student voice and advocate for students interests on a districtwide level as reopening or a lack thereof is probably the most significant issue of this year providing an accurate representation of our students thinking is both critical and clearly aligned with our mission but what made me realize the particular need for such a systematic form of Outreach at this time was my receiving my recently seeing a number of op beds and receiving a great number of emails regarding reopening that used some form of this basic argument that the issue affects students more than anyone else yet our voices aren't being heard and therefore that particular writer shall speak on our behalf it's my hope that this survey could Ser as an empirical indication but not a Beall end all measure of what our students are thinking before we get into the results let's briefly go over the methodology of the survey I created it via Google forms and it was distributed by DSC members myself as well as in the later stages principles and teachers it limited respondents to those within PPS and to one response each the image on the right right is a screenshot of its five questions for the first three it asked respondents to respond on a scale of 1 to 10 question one asked compared to in person School how has your experience with distance learning been with one being much worse and 10 being much better question two asked how would you how much do you want to get back to inperson school with one being not at all and 10 being a great deal question three asked without without knowing more how enthusiastic would you be about a PPS plan that would fully or partially reopen schools in around a month or two assume it would be compliant with public health guidelines with one being very unenthusiastic and 10 being very enthusiastic question four provided respondents an opportunity to provide qualitative feedback on the prospect of reopening and question five asked respondents where they currently attend school only high schools were listed as the members unnecessarily high schools although there wasn't other op and we did receive a number of middle and elementary school responses well the survey was closed for data processing last Thursday it has since been reopened and I hope to provide an update in the not too distant future in the event that we receive considerably more responses particularly out of currently underrepresented schools from when the survey first went live on Insurrection day to when it temporarily closed last Thursday we received a grand total of 1,28 eight responses which is roughly equivalent to 9.5% of our total High School population or 2.4% of our overall student population in particular we have extremely high response rates from four schools B in Cleveland Benson Jefferson and mlc with between 20 and 40% of all students responding we have also received a moderate number of responses out of Madison and um well my script says well SP it but it's Ida uh B Wells right that's right ID be Wells with 4.4 and 3.6% respectively all of our other high schools with the exception of pioneer are represented to varying lesser degrees the survey does should not include DFC member responses which were recorded through an identical but separate survey and which did not vary all that much from the overall survey results particularly in their answer to question three which was on average nearly indistinguishable and here's a visual breakdown of where our responses came from as you can see Cleveland students account the largest single group of respondents with just shy of half of all responses Benson and Jefferson account for about another third while the remaining with the remaining fifth or so being comprised of other schools Dr Brown his team and I would all like to emphasize that this is a real limitation despite a decent overall sample size because a large majority of responses come from these
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three schools we don't have sufficient data to generalize for all PPS students however since this survey was reopened Sunday we have received about 300 new responses from Franklin and I hope I can update it when we have more comprehensive and accurate data and now the moment you've all been waiting for on average respondents having a moderately worse time with distance learning would like to get back to inperson school but are somewhat more of a hypothetical PBS plan to get us there either in part or in whole in the next month or two on the right you see the number of responses to each option for the three numerical questions however these generalizations hide sharp divisions in the student body the responses had rather high standard deviations with 2.46 2.95 and 3.12 respectively and while many respondents would like to see a return to inperson education soon many others are very opposed to the idea around 26.8% report better experiences with CDL than in person with 3.6% responding with a 10 on question one similarly 40.7% answered between 1 and five on question three signaling some level of opposition to a hypothetical the hypothetical Planet describes it's also worth noting here that there would appear to be an enthusiasm gap of sorts those who are in some way opposed to reopening in the near future generally tend to be much more strongly opinionated than those who favor it which would only make sense given the physical health threat posed by Co in short well we can identify some broad Trends such as a general animosity toward dist distance learning a general desire to return to in-person school and a somewhat modest level of support for hypothetical PPS plan to get us there in the next month or two the respondents very much divided particularly on question three and as such there will be plenty of exceptions to any generalizations we come up with now let's turn to the demographics of our respondents I'd like to give a shout out here to Dr br's team who were kind enough to find and assemble this data for us as is unfortunately often the case in self- selecting surveys historically UND underserved groups that is to say black/ africanamerican Hispanic latinx and Native American students are underrepresented although in this case by relatively small margins while other groups that is to say white and Asian students are over represented Pacific Pacific Islander students meanwhile are proportionally represented what was surprising to me at least was how respondents varied by race particularly to question one historically underserved students generally reported having a better experience with distance learning than their white or Asian counterparts as then ated by the top chart this trend is similar among sped students and emerging bilinguals however this greater support of CDL does not appear to translate into noticeably different responses to question three as shown below and here we have a small sample of our qualitative responses to question four which asks what would you like PPS to keep in mind as it considers if and how to return to inperson learning those on the right were selected by Dr br's qualitative data analysts after a systematic review of all 925 responses that analyst broke down the responses all responses by Theme by far the most prevalent of which was health and safety apprehension of which 41% um of respondents expressed just just so you know I'll make that analysis document as well as a full record of all qualitative responses available to SLT elt and the board so that if you want to see the summary or all responses um you can do so um and now now like to read out these uh selected responses um we've got uh we are miserable in online school and want to get back to in person as soon as possible even if we only get to go in once a week consider the human interaction and motivation that would bring this might be too much to ask but to keep in mind mind how online school has affected our personal State lives many of us have jobs now and also will have a hard time adjusting back into normal school even if you vaccinate teachers that will not stop the spread between students and youth under the age of 16 currently have no vaccine available both my parents are high-risk and so is my grandma I cannot afford to get sick and going to school I would have a very high chance of getting sick in addition I selected this quote um I'm
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really struggling with this concerning I have every incentive to support reopening that said I think it's the wrong thing to do we will survive the effects of distance learning but the same cannot the same cannot so surely be said for carelessness in a pandemic to sum up in general respondents report having a moderately worse time with theing would like to get back to impresson school but are somewhat more wey of a hypothetical plan to get us there in the next month or two however respondents are sharply divided and any generalization we come up with will likely have exceptions we receiv received 1,28 responses from when the survey first opened to was temporarily closed with process for processing with now over 300 additional responses since it was reopened white and Asian students are over represented whereas black s African-American Hispanic latinxs and Native American students were underrepresented the latter group tended to report having a better time with CDL than the former I believe it is certainly worth finding out what accounts for that disparity and to see what aspects of distance learning therefore ought to be retained and what aspects ought not to be retained whenever it is that we do return in person and because the large majority of responses come from three schools we don't have sufficient data to generalize for all PPS students hopefully as more results come in I can provide that update relatively soon and of course I'd like to once again plug that we could use more responses especially from those underrepresented schools so if there are still any PPS students or anyone who knows any PPS students um still on the line at this hour I would very much encourage you to pill it out um just scan the QR code there go to the upper link or go to the bottom link and um go to the Google Drive and then go to the link in the PDF and that concludes my presentation do any board members have questions or comments for any of us just thank you I you know I've done a lot of survey design really appreciated that you um how you broke out the qualitative um data the word count was really interesting and um and I'm really um impressed by your response rate too it's it's it's pretty high yeah that's really great data Nathaniel could you go back to the slide the demographic breakdown slide just wanted to take a one more look at that yeah you can take other questions while I take one more look at it yeah and I I also wanted to say I think that the um what you reported about the uh black and latinx the responses you did get from those groups um indicated that CDL was working for them um and that and your encouragement for us to explore why I think is a really um interesting um puzzle to solve so uh what percent of the survey takers so far were historically underserved um I don't know the exact breakdown um Dr Brown can you um could you back up a slide I thought we had a uh the frequency by race in one of the slides in the in the deck no I don't actually have it in the presentation but I can pull it up within a minute um suceed not important now but when when after you're close it the second time um what I would suggest is we we can get that to you as a followup and the breakdown on that because we did um we did do an analysis that the had the percentages by by race and then uh bucketed it by um you know our our underserved students versus our white asan and so we can get that number to you um I I appreciate um Nathaniel you know trying to keep this relatively succinct uh there's a lot of data there to to work through but be happy to get that to you as a followup Dr Brown this is uh uh director Lowry I just want to say thank you to you and your team I know that the DSC really wanted to have student voice out there and they created the survey and then you came alongside them and helped them kind of refine some of the data analysis and and pieces of it and so just thank you so much for for helping the students to to do the work that they were trying to do here um definitely part of the work of the district is that we learn and grow together and we um I know that I've learned from your expertise through
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Nathaniel uh presentation tonight so just really appreciate the way that that kind of beautiful collaboration happened so thank you for for giving your time and your team's time to this work uh not not at all it it really was our pleasure and uh we had a lot of fun uh in the back and forth in the dialogue as we as we went through it yeah we've got some pretty great uh students that hang out around these parts is it possible to do a pivot table on those three questions um and and figure out what the like disaggregate by race just as as a follow-up step and and present that when you present um those additional responses absolutely e easy to do I will say that um it it gets a little messy when you do it by every race this is why we sort of bucketed it into the white and Asian uh versus underserved uh because it it makes it a little clear the contrast so if you do the pivot table because some of the the race R groups there we go are are have such small proportion sometimes that can be a little tricky to to take a peek at but of course yeah we can do a pivot table on um can I ask a question can you hear me yes I can hear you okay um sorry my U my internet is oddly enough unstaple um so I don't know if somebody's already asked this um so you got a pretty good response rate overall but um it sounds like the response rate from students of color is significantly lower um given that covid has had a disproportionate impact on um communities of color um do you have any strategies that you're going to use to try to boost the numbers of responses from students of color actually Rita the slide that's up now shows that it's not all that much different it's not a huge difference right as I noted as I noted significantly L um and at this point my main strategy is just get as as possible and hope that those rates go up but I I agree that if targeted um strategy could probably be useful um and I'm open to I've done to increase participation um in various you know from the city to uh Energy Efficiency consultancy has been to offer an incentive um I know that's not always possible and you have to Resource that but it can be as small as um opportunity to win you know one of three gift cards um I don't know what students are are they still buying caffeine um drinking a lot of caffeine or not but those that can be a way to increase and then also who you out reach to can be uh targeted as well but the incentive really I mean I've done everything from gift cards to to literally to ammunition um to get survey response to that I I know that we also have Parker and Jackson here and just um I know you guys it's 11:30 at night and you have although you're teenagers you probably stay up late often probably maybe a little more fun than watching Schoolboard meetings although I'm not sure about that um given the 60 hours Jackson spent on the Southeast guiding coalition but I just wanted to ask if either of you had anything you'd like to to say about this survey since you've youve stuck with us the whole night well I I I guess since I'm since I'm here I might as well uh I might as well say something I guess I'd like to start out um something not entirely related to the survey but I would like to extend a thank you to the folks uh from Ida B Wells um you know it's it's a continued uh and a united front uh pushing for for student um student voice about the the survey specifically um I think coming up with strategies to engage specifically underserved communities um is is always welcome I don't I don't know that I'm necessarily um well well versed enough and I certainly I'm only part of one Community um but I think Michelle if you'd be uh or director to pass if you'd be willing to um to to help us um or or to uh make it a more Equitable process that's something that we are always open to um and we've as as director biley said um the numbers aren't um horrifically skewed but we can always do better um and I think that that's that's another continued goal of ours so I'd be happy to to work um with uh or
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whenever works for you uh scheduling wise to to get um a plan for that set up but uh now Jackson do you have anything to add um not really um I'm just kind of glad and also feel a little bit bad about having Cleveland be 50% since that is um my own school um and ay I guess last you were far too successful yes far too successful iess I guess yeah I think I think Cleveland High School leaders like um teachers emailed it somebody emailed it to the whole student body from the staff I think on at the request of the leadership team so it it went out to everybody so that may have helped the Cleveland numbers but I think you know DSC was tying at the policy committee meeting about how you know some schools have leadership some schools have ASB there's all sorts of different ways schools are structured for students to kind of lead in these ways so I think you know uh that may be part of what happened in Cleveland um so that may be as you think about response rates that may be something to consider as well so well I want to thank you all for this great work you've done um and because it's late I'm going to go ahead and have us move on uh to our board committee reports I already know that um we don't have one from the audit committee Michelle do you have any news about the bond Improvement committee no just that we will be doing an orientation this weekend uh for new members that's for the bond accountability committee right the new members are on the BAC Bond accountability committee yes and uh we have an upcoming meeting and I don't have the date memorized but nothing nothing new to report all right great thank you so much um we move now to cbrc Rita anything from cbrc um we're having a meeting this Thursday dor K Sam anything from Charter and Al alternative committees alternative programs it's late uh just that we uh laid out our um schedule for the consideration of the full renewals of um opal school and um Arthur Academy it is late those are two full renewals this year and um I I'll raise it again because I'm kind of following a few threads on this but we had what I thought was a really good conversation our whole committee um with some of our alternative school leaders just about the the community violence that's going on and that is really really impacting our students and particularly um kids in our alternative schools um we have um Helen's view has had nine students or recent alumni Di um just in this school year from from violence mostly from gun violence and so um we had a good conversation about how can we really as an as an institution um support our staff who are really struggling and also um you know use everything at our disposal to to support our students and families and we even got to the point of some nuances of this conversation in terms of fears about returning back to school because there's so much tension in the community that um that's a place where where kids can be you know identified when they'll be there um so really really sad difficult trying times and um one of our one of our real leaders um in our alternative school community said it's the this epidemic of gun violence and is the worst he's ever seen so um it's related to the pandemic somewhat and um I think I I personally think we're we're both doing a lot to support our staff and our families but also that we need to be more explicit about talking about the responsibilities that we have to Spur our broader Community to pay attention to what's going on for with our young people thank you director constam for that um heartbreaking and thoughtful um call to action in a lot of way uh director Scott um intergovernmental committee have anything to report yes we are meeting on February 11th to discuss intergovernmental issues such as an update on the legislature and other things along those lines I'm glad you are discussing uh issues pertinent to
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your committee's name uh D director Moore anything from policy uh yes uh so we met on Monday um was another long and busy meeting um we continued talking about the um uh climate crisis response policy um we introduced the topic of um uh considering revisions to the student assignment policy uh in preparation for the phase two work in southeast that is um expected to start in that month um uh we also um considered um some some additional revisions to the um preservation maintenance and disposition of District Real Property policy and um we uh unanimously recommended that it um go for a first reading um by the full board and recommended um adoption um we also had an initial discussion about uh a new uh comprehensive sexuality education policy um and finally last but not least um the student Representatives um uh Pres presented a draft um some draft revisions to the policy governing student representatives and and the the student representative to the board and the District student council um we had some discussion about that um they're going to go back and work on it some more and bring it back to us at some point yet to be determined um we've got two policies that are currently out for public comments um the anti-racism and anti-oppression learning ities and the um professional conduct policy so anybody who has um comments to offer uh please get them in at your earliest convenience that's it we meet again in three weeks that I can't believe policy was just yesterday but if this meeting keeps going on long enough it'll be the day before yesterday all right uh Rose Quarter any updates [Applause] [Music] that's killing my dog yeah I think that's feedback from director's not working yeah do you have any updates Julia Scott do you have an update on Rose Porter um no and Julia would be the one to have anything she's our rep okay can you hear me yeah yeah I missed it the day it conflicted with the policy committee meeting right thank you okay and uh we obviously have talked about Southeast guiding Coalition is there anything else uh before we adjourn our meeting tonight all right um so uh this uh meeting is uh the next regular meeting of the board will be held on February 9th as I said earlier we have canceled our study session because I don't know about you but I'm my brain is not ready to learn right now um we will schedule that for another time this meeting is adjourned and uh we'll see you all later and Julia can you make sure you connect with kot Cara about dates for the retreat tonight thank you

Sources

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

2021-01-26 PPS School Board Regular Meeting

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Event 1: PPS Board of Education Regular Meeting - 1/26/21

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