2021-02-11 PPS School Board Intergovernmental Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-02-11
Time 17:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education's Intergovernmental Committee Meeting - 2/11/21

00h 00m 00s
let's go ahead and get started are we recording or streaming or whatever we need to be doing i'm going to assume the answer is yes great thank you okay uh welcome does anybody have more than just like a little bit of sort of white stuff outside is anybody getting dumped on yet we have a massive uh freezing rain storm happening up here in mount tabor oh i'm i'm right by laurelhurst i think it's just a dusting presently we're sort of going in and out of like some sleety snow versus rain so we'll see we'll see how this turns out a good freezing rain storm followed by 40 mile per hour winds is um often a recipe for success right excellent driving conditions yeah trees coming down power lines i told the kids to charge all their devices because you never know when the power is going to go out and god forbid we lose our cell phones speaking of which i'll be right back what's gonna say god forbid you have to play a board game in candlelight or something i know i don't my kids wouldn't even know like they'd be like what's going on we're just gonna go to bed never mind all right well let's uh let's let's go ahead and dive in so on today's um intergovernmental committee agenda we are going to get a legislative update we'll have a discussion around some bills that are relevant um to the district and things that people are interested in um a conversation which may be short about school reopening and any intergovernmental issues around that that the committee or board can help with and then under our other items uh a conversation about the municipal broadband um pdx proposal in multnomah county and whether the district wants to support it um any other any board members have anything else they want to add committee members want to add to that agenda and are student reps anything you all would like to add to the agenda um no nothing other than i like your background julia and i'm excited for the uh the reopening update thanks great um so we'll start off with public comments uh cara is anybody signed up for public comment no all right then we will dispense with that and move on courtney i'll turn it over to you hey um good evening everybody nice to see you um yeah there's it's this is so such a weird session doing this all remotely um and i know julia's experiencing this as well but it's my opinion is it's it's like it should be slow because there's such a limited amount of conversations we can have we can't have hallway conversations like if we were in the capitol right now so you have to schedule every meeting and um you know it's hard to get time with members so it's just been really interesting um but it's also it's also really nice to watch committees you know on in a in your like office your home office not have to drive to salem so um it's it's we're all getting adjusted to this new reality or at least the temporary reality um they're going to be doing it remotely at least until through april is what i'm what i'm hearing and they'll be reassessing you know as metrics change and um you know they've been they have been changing but there's a lot of unknowns and we're not again we're not public health experts so we're just um you know following the guidance of the legislature um i've been sending updates every week on friday they're not you know the most sexy updates right now because it's early in session and they're getting through a lot of bills a lot of times in the legislature in the legislature they have courtesy hearings so they'll hear a bill but not intending to move it so a lot of that is happening it's just sort of a slow process in terms of getting things through and then they are meeting on thursdays in person to have floor session but today's was canceled because of the impending weather so we'll see you know i don't know that that's going to slow them down a ton since there's not a lot being kicked out of committee just yet but um anyway i just wanted to share that sort of brief overview um the there's a lot of bills a lot of education bills like any session um we're tracking those i have cassie from ian's consulting on here with me as well just in case there are questions that maybe she's closer to than i am there's a lot of committees we're watching and a lot of bills that are not always in the usual committees so we're following following some of those i just got finished listening to a hearing um around a bill that would address some technical issues with senate bill 155 that was a sexual misconduct bill and it was pretty lackluster but it was interesting because it was in a committee i didn't expect it to be in it usually goes to education committees so there's some of that dynamic going on
00h 05m 00s
as well um what else can i tell you about the session uh there's there are quite a few bills that would that are coming out of the bipoc committee or the uh bypoc what are we calling it the uh cassie help me out it's been a long week caucus thank you oh my gosh [Laughter] um and so we were looking at some of those bills which a lot of you know a lot of the times a lot of times we because we're the largest district bills get offered up that um ask districts to do things that sometimes we're already doing so that's another you know kind of fun thing to look at and consider and compare and that's um uh frequent i think we'll see some more of some some things that we're doing well and that we can talk to members about whether you know what's our success story or what's a challenge in tps when it comes to that to a particular topic um i oh and i'm gonna sorry i just i was texting don wolfe in case he has um time to join on the municipal broadband so maybe roseanne could you send an invite to him yes thank you that way i can keep talking or shut up and let you guys ask questions um and then i have some specific bills i wanted to raise with you that have come up questions about support whether you want to or not um i shared with you the legislative agenda just as a reference i know we're not uh we haven't all memorized it i mean i mostly have but you might not have so i i wanted you to have that in front of you in case you have questions about how anything squares up with that um so let me know if you didn't get it but i think you all should have it it's also on the website um courtney before we go into specific bills can you give me and this is just a newbie question um because this is my first legislative session going through as a board member can you can you give me the run of show around when the state passes its budget around schools and how that filters back into districts and maybe how it's supposed to work and how it actually does work the legislative process or how everything comes down later on well i guess i guess what i'm thinking in terms of i mean budget budget generally gets done late but i know you know i know i'm i'm pretty familiar with the legislative budget process but i just how that interacts with our budget process um in a in a year yeah legislatures in session i'm just curious about that yeah i wish claire was here because she can always speak to this so much better than i can but it's tricky because we have to build our budget while this is it's like you know while the plane's flying you're building it and um it has always felt that a little bit like that um our timeline you know we we don't have to approve anything until june basically um but there's lots of community engagement and you know the the i don't want to call it rigmarole because that sounds like it's not a very important process but you know there's a lot of um there's a there's a process a standard process that we go through as a district to develop our budget and it is happening simultaneously as the session uh the long session and well every session but this year long session and you're right we don't really settle on these large budgets until may usually and so um it's it's a bit tricky um and i don't i don't know that i have a good answer i think we we have a general sense of what the uh the governor's proposed budget is a good you know uh um what's the word framework to start with so we build it based on that and then we adjust as we learn more and as committees have conversations and i think the um the co-chairs budget i'm not sure on the timing actually cassie do you have the time down on that sorry it's usually the latest i think it's about now usually it's usually early in this year of the rumors have been that it will be if there's a little bit later it will take quite a bit longer we asked representative knows who's not one of the tri-chairs of course but one of the subcommittee chairs and his estimate someone said may and he said i think we'll have it before that but he didn't seem entirely confident so more mid-session than usual i think this year generally speaking my is my assumption correct that what happens if you're sort of operating off of of the the governor's you know proposed budget or the co-chair budget what might happen late is an ad or are there you know because again i'm assuming those are somewhat conservative right and that sometimes it's sort of a question of of of maybe adding or are there years when actually the the final um education funding comes in lower than either one of those um again i'm just i'm thinking of how this relates to our process right and are we sort of building off of what we assume is going to be the floor and then you know look if they had you know 100 million dollars or more then it's something we can add things back which creates its own set of problems right because in some ways you might be still talking about staff reductions that you don't have to make which is which is um but i think it's both director scott i think we we obviously see what the governor for the state school funded for example it's 9.1 is what the governor proposed we know based on conversations with
00h 10m 00s
school business office officers like claire and others from oasbo that that's not enough to keep us that's not current service level that's actually a dip so what would we need to get to current service level well we think that's about 9.4 so we cut we build it based on both is my assumption or my understanding and then we kind of reconcile it as we go um but but we can get more information i'm happy to get more information for you you don't need to do any project on it it was just more of sort of a general question i'll turn to that no and i knew it was and i knew it was problematic i'll i'll uh i'll uh i'll look to the veterans on the board for uh for guidance as we go through that so do we want to dive into some any specific questions that um committee members have or courtney i know you're tracking some specific bills as well yeah we're tracking a lot and i'm actually happy to share the um the current list of track bills there's a lot of stuff in there you probably aren't going to have that much of a i mean i don't want to make assumptions maybe you will have a lot of interest in but there are a lot that probably won't um but i'll but i'll share that i'll send that out um i think a couple things have come up around um so for example the last uh in 2019 there was a bill that would remove the non-medical exemption for vaccinations rita director moore is probably familiar with that she was on the board at that time director brehm edwards was as well i we got a request from the folks who are running a coalition to support that bill to see if we would support it i am a little concerned about weighing in on public health matters as a school board and so i wanted to bring that to you because i told them i would and i wanted you all to make that decision and kind of guide me and it doesn't fall squarely in our legislative agenda um so i wanted to raise it with you to see what you thought it's a obviously contentious issue especially right now um and it's it could it it would also be fine to be neutral which would be my staff recommendation okay can i ask for a clarification um does does that mean it would take away the religious exemption as well yeah yep okay but that really it was the broadening beyond religious that was it's the philosophical exemption that is in my mind deeply problematic so i i would be into it before i have a point of view i would be because just because something's going to be contentious doesn't mean we shouldn't weigh in um i agree i would want to know um get some data from our district about you know whether it you know the prevalence and i know from like some of the charter school hearings when that was and i'm not sure why it was with the charter schools that was raised but that they had high unvaccinated rates and then so just like what what the rates are where like whether we saw a big change when the exemption got broadened and then i'd like to hear from some public health experts um of like what is the the benefit or detriment to the general student population by you know by the change in the data because of the exact changing the exemption that that's what i'd want before i'd say like we should take a position one way or the other so it's been a it's been a few years since i looked um but the last time i looked um we had um some schools with i would consider to be extraordinarily high levels rate rates of um kids not vaccinated um and it seems i mean the pattern that i saw then seemed to be kind of based on socioeconomic status primarily um so to my mind it it is a public health issue and an issue in the schools um and i am inclined to i'm inclined to think that it is within our uh scope of responsibility as an educational institution it's funny because my recollection of looking at the data was it was more of a um the trends were more um not uh socioeconomic but more kind of where they might have fallen on the
00h 15m 00s
spectrum of the you know sort of like same thing with fluoride sort of like we don't want to be putting kit things in our kids bodies versus a um any sort of socioeconomic but if anything skewed to a higher well that's what i mean yeah that's i assumed i assume this is what you meant yeah oh that's not what i meant that's why not what i thought you uh okay higher um wealthier school populations um tend to have higher rates of um unvaccinated kids um and in some schools it's it's pretty alarming actually okay now we're we're in sync i think the beginning of this conversation but it's off the charts with our charter schools yeah amy that's what i was saying my recollection is for some reason the data from the past when we had extensions was there were like super high rates of um non-vaccinated students so i'm happy to get that data for you yeah and i was gonna i think i agree with both of the comments so far i think i i think i think reed is right this is something in in our purview that we should feel comfortable weighing in on and i like i like julia's approach of you know as with everything we're not public health well dr moore is a public health expert the rest of us are not um and um i'm not i just play one on tv i think it is i think i think it would be good to do a little bit of consultation but i i am 99 sure that the people who do science will say this is a really important issue and i think we do need to be prepared you know potentially to to weigh in courtney could you talk a little bit i mean the downsides is it just because you you know you say it's contentious and i agree although my sense is that it's contentious among a very small number of people um yeah i i think um i i don't disagree with any of what you're saying everybody i have strong opinions about what i think about this bill personally um and i think uh and i'll just tell you i'm pro-vaccine so i think we should i think we should pass this bill however i'm just trying to play the politics of it a little bit and i want you to just know that this is something that's um you're gonna hear from people about whether you do it or not and you're gonna hear from more people probably if you do it and and that's on either side and i just want you to know that that's um that's something that's gonna come up so it's up to you and i agree that um you know we the student health and wellness is important and it's something that we value in pps and so if that's the track you want to go down that's fine it's up to you you know in addition to the public health questions uh director mermaid was raised i would be you said it would take away the religious exemption and i guess that that surprises me that that seems like it would fly in the face of both the state and federal constitutions so i would also be curious just about a legal read which i assume the legislature has done um because i think that would be i'm less likely to support something that people think on its face is unconstitutional even if it has a good policy yeah yeah that's that's good and i actually want to ask cassie if she has heard any is this the exact same bill language and the reason i'm asking cassie is because she has other clients that are very much in this realm on the health care side of things so i'm just using her expertise um on this bill over over time um is this the same language as last time so i'm looking right now and i haven't been able to fully take the time to compare the two because i'll say that this bill unlike in previous sessions where vaccines climate change um some of the gun issues have really been from the beginning of session a focal point for everyone around which other policies have shaped that has not yet been the case here people are not talking about this issue on a large scale yet but i i do know that in the past the concept which included an elimination of all but medical exemptions so philosophical and religious excluded um was you know i think um a very uh robustly processed policy that uh senator sanders hayward worked on um and the cha i think some of the the justification around getting out of the religious exemption which there were even some moderate democrats who struggled with um the elimination of a religious exemption but the justification coming from senator hayward and and probably else there i don't know that i saw an llc opinion i'd have to go back to 2019 and 2020 to look to see if there was on that issue but it was a lot about being having the option to do public online education so that if the option is still there um and then of course you heard from the uh people who were opposed to removing these exemptions about separate but equal right so there was an ongoing dialogue that was never fully resolved of course because these didn't ever really move fully through the process but i'll just dig and find and see if we can get an lc around that thanks parker sure um courtney could you uh do you have the the number uh for this bill because i have not read it but it sounds
00h 20m 00s
like it'd be something that um you know full disclosure i i don't have a vote but even i do ideologically supporting it'd be something that i'd have to um look into more if it was talking about all exactly it's senate bill 254 and parker and tay and anyone else who wants to have a lesson in olaf's i'm happy to find time to walk you through how that works it's a nice tool and especially as a student it's a great way to track things of interest sorry i haven't offered that before but i'm happy to sure okay i've got the number senate bill 254 yep okay thanks courtney and um and uh i'm old enough that um i would be happy to offer some personal testimonials about life before vaccinations and what it was like before the polio vaccination you sound like you're a specimen from the past i mean there is a i mean i'm not ancient but i am old enough that i vividly remember polio um i have i had friends who who suffered from polio um i remember i vividly remember this and i was little but um i think i think what we're seeing now is is an artifact of the success of vaccines i think you're right because and what happens when you don't have one yeah like not only polio but measles as the same uh thread like my mom was like yeah people used to have marked on the outside of their house that you couldn't go to their house because they had measles and it's just measles mumps german measles horror stories about german measles which nobody even thinks about anymore so yes i would be happy to offer those and and i will have rants queued up on demand if this comes before us we will build that into future agendas and and i'd i i'd like to be clear i am pro uh vaccination um my my further inquiry was not so much about the um the the effectiveness of vaccines but director moore i i certainly enjoy um discourse with you um and and uh further discussion i enjoy a good rant so i'm open for it anytime you could be on the other end of the spectrum with uh what what it's like being a student with most people vaccinated um because it is it's very different certainly i there's uh you know a lot has changed i'm a history nerd um you know personally looking into it it's it yeah yeah vaccines are are really a gift to humanity in in what they've achieved and how far we've come hey courtney what's what's next yeah so um the other one i wanted to talk there's a couple more house bill 2001 which i know director scott you you mentioned in an email at one point to me but it's also been a pretty actively active conversation lately and this is a stand for children bill that speaker kotec is carrying you'll notice the number 2001 that's usually a high priority number for a bill and this bill is a is around protecting basically protecting investments in our grow your own programs diversity educator diversity programs trainings etc by throwing into statute some rules around how you lay off teachers basically so if you're traditionally or at least um you know one of the things we hear about a lot is laugh in first out so this is a way this is a bill that would retain teachers of color for example um because often they are the last in the system and so um they are running this bill and there's a hearing next week um we've had conversations just operationally around what this looks like in a from an hr perspective the our partners at osba and cosa and oea of course are also looking at this bill and um i think i think we should support it um we're talking a lot with toyathik at stand to just answer questions about how our experience is as a district with this issue and how we can strengthen or make the bill work you know work better for districts so
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yeah that's what i got and um i should also say that um just real quick and i'm sorry to cut i don't know who that was i don't mean to cut you off um our legislative agenda includes specific mention of the importance of educator diversity and making sure that our educators are reflecting our student population and so this would be you know in that spirit supportive of that item on the agenda for one would like to see us actively advocate for this bill do you know is the i mean is the bill um specific in terms of what it would replace existing cba language with i i guess i'm also and maybe this is more of a legal question i'm just sort of curious if the legislature passes this does it supersede collective bargaining agreements or does it require collective bargaining agreements to be renegotiated the latter is my understanding but if it would be helpful yeah i was just looking at it what it actually does is redefine some of the terminology used so it redefines what merit is in these conversations to include teachers who have a history of having served students who have uh populate student population with 25 or more um what they consider diverse or speaking the language um in a dli classroom for example being being fluent in a language or have a competency in a language as another example so there's some there's uh there's language specifically just because you are a new black teacher there's some other things that have to be um that have to be present in order for this to kind of kick in so you have to if you participate in a grow your own program for example that would be something that's a consideration or the flu the language fluency or the percentage of um of poverty at your school for example those are sort of the big three i think cassie is that other three that's true that's right and some trainings as well i think you mentioned that but it says a school district shall retain a teacher with less seniority than a teacher being released under this section if the teacher being retained has more merit so and then you cite the definition of merit now including some of these pieces with a history of serving diverse students are there other examples of of laws passed you know in the last 10 years that sort of direct school districts to do something with their collective bargaining agreements i i appreciate that explanation cassie i'm still a little confused though as to whether it is actually superseding the cbas or whether it's just i mean you know redefining merit it then sort of gets applied in individual collective bargaining ruins i i have to imagine the unions are going to argue that no matter what the state legislature passes it then has to come back for for bargaining um but whether that's the case or not i think is kind of it's interesting i think um it's a it's a really good question you know the other issue that comes up around well it's come up i've had questions about it um is the class size bill that would require uh class size to be a subject a mandatory subject of bargaining that is an example of a bill that has really they've really struggled to pass and and i'm happy that they haven't passed it um it's really problematic that bill has been around for maybe six or six sessions um and it's and the argument from um from districts has been let us do our bargaining at the local level don't require don't mandate us to have a certain thing in our contract so i want to look more closely at this language i don't think this does the same thing but but i don't know for sure and the language is going to change because i know they're already working on amendments and so um i don't want to tell you yes or no until i've really looked at what the next round says because it's i think there's i think they've been working with legislative council this week to get that um to improve the language okay yeah great well let's let's let's keep us updated on that i i would agree with with um director constant i think this is something that that is a really positive um has a positive potential so and i think director scott sorry um the other thing i just think what we so often we are trying to make a bill better so that work for us because the underlying you know value is there and i think this is an example of that um where we want to be helpful and we want to make it work but we also want to be really communicative and vocal when something isn't going to work and not let it happen to us so i just want you to know that we're working through that as well um another bill that's come up um just this last week it's a
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representative bynum's bill there's a list of forever crimes out there you're probably some of you are probably familiar with these are the crimes where you've committed one of these crimes on this list and you it's very difficult to get hired and so there's a bill that was come out of the mesd board it was their kind of brainchild with the help of representative bynum to remove some non-violent crimes from the forever crime list to allow districts to hire some of these folks that have maybe a blip on their radar it does not require us to hire them that's a key point um but it would allow us to and so um the and i'll i can send around the list and i'm working i'm also i've talked to sharon about about this as well and and i'm gonna talk to molly evans um but these are non-violent drug crimes primarily and uh and i think this is a way that we could um bring in some folks to be you know in our system who maybe made a mistake when they were young um and have been rehabilitated and um yeah so it's it's tricky tspc doesn't love it you know there are definitely um there's definitely opposition but we're watching it and i think um want to be you know get some guidance from you guys um on whether we should be you know vocal on it or sit back i want to know what the the forever list is um because it seems odd to have a forever list that was like for inconsequential um things so i think it would be good just to know exactly what what that is and then the other thing do you say it's just for teachers or it's all school staff or all districts that i needed because it may make a difference it would make pardon for school staff yeah well no because uh courtney i know that you can have some positions now yeah um if you have these same offenses but you can't get certification as a teacher or like a school uh counselor in the public sorry you're right you're right and that's why tspcc has a headache about it sorry yes so i'd just like to know kind of like who would a who would apply to what they what they are you know a little bit of the rationale is like is this the old war on drugs days that they got on a forever list or is it actually more complicated than that and there's a reason why like there's a reason why they're on the forever yeah i'll share the list i there were some items that i i wasn't sure if we were going to have time to go deep on here so i didn't share that list ahead of time and i apologize for that i i think that this falls squarely under our um uh diversity and hiring goal with in this legislative session because the it obviously just hugely disproportionately affects people of color um and just to give you guys a little i i have a personal um i have a strong personal feeling about this because uh i i um was in a leadership position with a alternative school before as a chair of the board and really the most probably the most inspirational educator i've ever known who is a um a black man who had an offense when he was in high school that prohibits him from getting certified to teach in the public school system is is really probably the most inspirational and effective educator i've ever seen work with kids so um that's what they're trying to get at here i say i um i mean i think there's this session there's a number of things that are happening that may address that and again i just want to see what the list was before i was because somebody labeled them forever at a certain point but there are some other um interesting working with courtney's sister um some is there some other work underway on expungement um that i would also i'd be interested that's focused on a lot of the drug like non-violent drug crimes that like to help people get them expunged from their record and like would that actually take a fair number of those off the books or is there another is there another wrinkle anyway like how they interact with that because yeah that's a good question director brian edwards um and it's it came up in the work group i was i sat in on with a representative and some others on whatever day it was it feels like that was last week but it was i think tuesday um and the the question about expungement expungement did come up but that bill did not i'm aware of it from my sister's world but um but i'd like to look at how those two interface because
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you know the issue of expungement sometimes there's a barrier right there and i know you're working on that i mean it's expensive first of all um so there's a lot of things but i think that's a good reminder that we should um maybe compare see how the two interface yeah the reason i ask is also because um senator berzansky the chair of the judiciary committee is going to be the is the the prime was the one who asked have it drafted so he's definitely invested in moving the bill and um it just covers a lot of the i think offenses that um would fit in the category that most people like yeah you should be able to move on from those once you've sort of paid done your restitution and um you know whatever your sentence was um so it'd be interesting to see whether that actually could move a number of people also through that not not that and that's not in opposition to this other bill but it's just like it'd be interesting to see the inter the interplay yeah that's a good a good suggestion and i will reach out to um stacy at mesd and and i think is it tai in bynum's office yeah all right courtney any other specifics you wanted to mention those were the few that i wanted to raise with you here today i mean we could talk all night about all the bills out there but um i'll share the tracker with you all um and you can feel free to ask questions about um about what you see and i'll continue sending updates and they'll get more interesting as things you know move forward in session great thank you um okay next up our next up on our agenda school reopening and i just i wanted to keep this on there in case there is anything although i don't i don't have anything specific um again this is not a conversation about reopening generally but more conversation about whether there are any intergovernmental issues around reopening you know vaccines was an issue but it seems like that has um and is moving forward um i know continue to be some hiccups um in supply but um good news today right the president said we got another 200 million doses and so um so yay um and then i know testing has been another issue that obviously we're relying on on both the state and the county um and i don't know if anybody on this call has an update on testing but but you know my understanding was that is something that the state has been talking to districts about i may just put it back to you courtney um are there any other issues around reopening or any other staff for that matter that have an intergovernmental component that we might be able to assist with um i'm not sure i i asked danny to join just in case she had anything to add here but um i we've been i just so you know we've been updating our elected officials staff um our elected officials can't always make it they're obviously busy like you all but we've been briefing our elected officials offices about our reopening plans when we have announcements so we we briefed them earlier this week about our hybrid planning so that's been really good people are really happy to be included and just no more this is a hot topic no matter where you work and where you sit so um it's i think been met with a lot of appreciation that you know they can be updated on as things move along um so we'll continue to do that because we need to be transparent with our community it's important and a lot of them are also parents so they want to know and um and not only you know not hearing much more than that they're just it's more appreciation with a few questions not as much pushback or you know discontent um at least from where where i sit um on the testing front i don't have an update but i'm happy to get more information obviously that's something that's uh you know included in rssl guidance and it sounds like there's several resources and we're not we're not necessarily paying for that which is also positive um i also learned what else i learned something else about um hey courtney i have a question why you're we haven't gotten a lot of detail on child care plans with reopening but are we working with the county on that that would be a great danny question and um and i also did get that question from a legislator that's like one of the only questions i got so it's definitely been on my mind so yeah danny if you have anything to add on that front that would be great sure so uh so directly with child care nancy hoth and emily glasgow are working on uh child care plans uh not only through hybrid but into into summer um and then uh myself and sean byrd who's our chief of schools have been working with our partners at multnomah county who manage the sun service system so if you think about sun not only as the extended learning and the extended uh care of opportunities after school but also our p3 coordination some of the student advocacy work that they do as well as um some of the the connections to anti-poverty efforts like connections to rent assistance and energy assistance and general case management so
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throughout the closure the sun service system has basically suspended in-person operations and asked partners to to transition into online case management and resource and referral um in which case they have been uh servicing so many families um as you can imagine we hear quite a bit of feedback from our partners that the need is extremely great out there so uh to date we have um been working with the sun service system and oregon food bank to stand up several food pantries across our different schools um and just as of yesterday we extended their current uh cub licenses which is the way that we sort of are tracking and also ensuring that our partners are following safety plans we extended those until um the current operations until the end of the third quarter um at which case we'll we'll sort of like come back so we wanted to make sure that principals and students and families uh had that sort of continuity of service and expectation around access to some of those basic needs and food uh through the food pantries at the same time multnomah county uh during the um during during the pandemic and during uh uh sort of distance learning uh uh sort of uh uh i wanna say squired but that's not the right word uh hosted a report from ed northwest to talk about what's the best uh sort of models for uh online and hybrid and sort of eventual return to in-person services through the sun system and are we're currently working with the partners to develop kind of like what would be a plan for eventual return and so we're uh we're expecting to hear some uh some more of their thoughts and sort of like what's been going into that and we'll continue to sort of work not only with multnomah county but with our partners in developing what is that sort of phased in approach to services as you know our vaccination eligibility uh extends to our our partners and certainly our sun service providers are are part of that so we've heard a lot of feedback from uh our partners who have been really excited about the opportunity uh to to be included in there and certainly they have staff who are taking uh taking uh you know sort of uh taking part in that access and we also have a lot of providers as you know that are continuing to have to do some more education and some confidence building around the vaccine um and frankly you know are having a lot of the same conversations that we're having around um around safety around sort of like uh you know getting their folks confident about returning to in-person services so more to come we'll keep you updated on that but we are sort of actively working on that with multnomah county and our service providers can i go back to testing um i i am i admit to being a little shocked that the protocol more than a year in is um that only symptomatic people are going to get tested um i mean that's wrong-headed on so many levels so my question is why are we still having um capacity issues is it i mean what's the problem is is the problem the the lack of tests is it the lack of processing facilities what what are we doing so i'm going to assume that's rhetorical unless courtney wants to i don't have an answer director scott but i but i'm happy to reach out to oh to um ode sorry they're working with oha on this that was not intended to be rhetorical and i don't would have it but if you if i know i can find out you get the answer yeah yeah sorry i was going to say it'd be great to hear back from ode um uh rita i will say you know we had a meeting a week and a half ago with with um with the public health um doctor dr vinay prasad um that you know he's done a lot of work in the space he he actually and so i'm i'm i one i want to recognize i am way outside my lane here so i'm simply repeating something um not advocating for it you know he he actually did make the argument that that well well random testing could be interesting um he didn't think it would be that helpful from a public health perspective that you know it potentially could tell you where hot spots are but but school districts that have done that it hasn't driven a whole lot um and that you know testing of symptomatic people from from sort of a cost benefit perspective might actually be the right approach moving forward so i put that out there not as the definitive but just as at least one perspective that may be similar to what ode so i think it's a good question to ask um you know in in terms of
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what the cost benefits are and why we're going down this road i'll report back great let's move on to broadband um rita do you want to introduce this or do you want staff to talk about it uh either which um i i am i don't have a particular expertise in this i am passing along information that i have received um i i've been in some communication with the municipal broadband folks um i i will not claim any expertise in this um or or even any any particular knowledge about the status of the discussions um but uh so i'm looking at the board book um i also sent along the um the feasibility study that was completed from multnomah county and um it's it's not posted on the board book but anybody who is interested it's very long it's over 200 pages i think um but it um the county is now in the process of determining whether they want to continue to explore the feasibility of establishing a municipal broadband network it would be a fiber optic network throughout the county um and the the ask from the municipal broadband folks is um that um interested stakeholders pps being one um send a letter of support to the county uh regarding um the establishment of a project manager position at the county level to manage the exploration of this issue that's basically all i know and so that that is the ask though is is is pps is the is the board willing to send a letter to multnomah county saying we support the the the funding of a project manager position to continue looking at the issue of broadband yes it's no it's no no more than that in terms of like that yeah okay yeah yeah um one thing that is um maybe interesting um so i have to admit i did not read the whole 200 plus page feasibility study um i did read sections of it and um a lot of it is around what would it um what would it cost to build and what kind of monthly premium would subscribers have to pay in order to make it um fiscally feasible um and there's all kinds of all kinds of data in there um one of the notable things is that the it's not cheap i mean this would not be a cheap proposition um but a huge chunk of the cost would be in portland um the rest of the county um it would be you know the per mile cost of creating this network is pretty small compared to the per mile cost of building this network within the portland city limits um so i think anyway i just note that and and if you want i i do have a rant queued up for why this is important i will spare you unless you really want to hear it but i got one so rita um not not necessarily now but i am interested in hearing um about this more um and it's and it seems you you do have a rant queued up so um i'm interested julia did you have a comment i was just gonna ask um and maybe this has been already covered but um my recollection is maybe you can explain how this is different didn't the city of portland do this and invest a whole bunch of money and resources into it and then spend a whole bunch of money and resources sort of unwinding i'm recalling the little things on the top
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of the um downtown they had these pods that it's andrew you're laughing but like yeah yeah how is that different from i i people are going to think that that was a setup uh question it wasn't um um it was a spontaneous question yes two different things actually so um city of portland did set up a wi-fi um system so it's not it's not high-speed broadband um did set up with those those pods that around the city trying to sort of bring hot spots essentially to different areas um of the city and um and then and then they did end up unwinding that it was not feasible um also the city spent um time less fewer resources although not you know i mean not insignificant but time in the mid 2000s researching the issue of municipal broadband and actually there was some and i i'm going off of some variable memories here and so i am i'm i'll try not to delve into the details because i'm sure i'll get them wrong um but but but the recollection was i mean there were definitely different task forces and work groups and you know pulling together different coalitions and and getting to the point of of there was a plan and i don't know if we'll know what county's sort of plan um i'm assuming i hope that they sort of took that and and and you know built on it um you know rita says it's expensive my recollection is it is wildly expensive um and that was really the ultimate barrier um was just that it's it's it's a huge upfront cost and you know and then and then sort of sort of the you know the question becomes you know how low can you get those rates to to make it feasible and are they low enough um because really what you're trying to do is is out compete the the private sector i mean to be really blood about it right is that the private sector is not bringing broadband um uniformly or equitably to our region um and so you know the question is is there a role for government to step in and do so because has broadband become like the mail or electricity or natural gas that it is it is a it is a natural monopoly of sorts and the government needs to step in and regulate in in some way um and i'm gonna i'm gonna stop there i i am fully supportive of the idea of continuing to explore this i think that is something that government should do and if multnomah county is taking that on it feels like a pretty low-cost ask of us to say yes multnomah county hire a project manager and report back to us when that person has done more exploration i think the question of you know whether it's a good idea overall is we can we can put that off for at least a year or two as they go through this exploration um because there are significant benefits and significant costs in my recollection thank you i knew you might know something about it and uh and don wolfe is on on here as well i'm not trying to put him on the spot but i just wanted to include him in case any questions about sort of the overall merits of of this were um contemplated so i don't know don if you have anything to add um i'm happy to answer any questions i will dive in a little bit deeper on what phase two looks like because i meet with um the interim cio from multnomah county and on the cio from from portland from the city of portland on a monthly basis and this topic just came up in this this tuesday's mondays meeting that we had and there is a um community connectivities partner partners that has been established to in light of the um feasibility study coming out and knowing that there is still a need pulling together partners from all of the city and um in in multnomah county and other interested parties so i've been in you know asked if i'm interested in if pps would like a table or seat at that table to discuss a whole number of of items on where are what's what's the gap analysis what do we still need how can we start poking away at some of this stuff to potentially address some of the issues of a phys that are brought up in the feasibility study so um there is going to be continued work to go on around this topic but it is a pretty significant bill and a pretty significant when you read through the feasibility study of gaps that would have to be addressed um having as many properties as we do and knowing that we're running fiber between all those those buildings is um and with all of the public entities involved it it creates for some synergy if we can find some ways to work together and share some of those resources to be able to lend towards a broader um answer to this to this problem for all of our community and i think just to steal something that i'm sure is in rita's rant i mean this is hugely important to our families and and that has been so highlighted by covid uh and the need to switch to distance learning and and that that digital divide and digital gap is is is is large and um i mean maybe even one
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of the most impactful things um and and obviously for our students but it's true for our students families as well so so there is a huge there's a huge upside when we're thinking about the people we're serving um can i i'm going to try to keep it from a rant but let me just give an example my house um i'm not in st john's but i'm near st john's um i personally have a comcast account i pay a large sum of money every month to get internet access um because it was so unstable pps gave me a verizon hotspot so i have two points of access to the internet both of them are unreliable it is a very rare meeting where i don't have some kind of significant issue with unstable internet and although i mean you've seen it in action so this is this is not something that individual families even if they have the resources to pay for internet access even with that you can't solve this because this is this is a a community infrastructure issue and the providers have failed to invest in infrastructure in certain neighborhoods and we all know which neighborhoods those are there you go uh what's the timing on this letter do we know is that have we been asked to submit by a certain time or um there's no deadline um the county is you know like like us the county is um in the middle of building its budget so sooner rather than later um i don't i mean the county county budget is very very tight um i think they're probably looking at another year of cuts i don't know how far down on the to-do list this might be so the sooner if we want to weigh in sooner is better than later is there any um concern about sending a letter in support from committee members um or staff there's no financial piece it's just a letter right yeah okay seems like a reasonable thing to do i i think i think so as well what is our process um is this something that needs to go to the full board or can the internet rental committee some someone walk me through the process i think um and somebody can correct me if i'm wrong but i think if we want to send a letter in the name of the full board we have to have a full board vote um there are ways to do it where we don't have to wait for the next board meeting which is right um director moore i don't know if that's accurate there we have sent board um letters from the board on the i5 project before without a vote yeah my recollection is basically the committee recommended courtney or somebody drafts it it gets circulated to the to the board with a here's the letter that the intergovernmental committee recommends sending does anybody have any objection contact courtney okay that would be if we can do that that would be better i think presumably then everyone sort of decides whether they are signing the letter is that kind of what it sounds like yeah well then it's actually something like that would just go from like it would just say the board of education or okay and it could could the student representatives sign on to that or would that be out of place that seems totally appropriate i mean it's not it's not like a vote it's a indication of support okay great um good well let's let's let's do a motion then uh uh do i have a motion to uh recommend sending a letter on uh in support of further studying of a project manager to further explore municipal broadband so moved second okay any further discussion then i guess the committee will take a vote all those in favor i guess there are three of us that get a vote right all those in favor say uh yes yes yes any uh opposed or any abstentions great um okay and then uh parker let us know if that's something that you uh um and the student committee would like to to add your name to as well and we will get something circulated just to save courtney time is there a letter template that came along with this letter of support template or no um i i didn't get that um i can contact
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the guy who contacted me and see if they've got something if it's helpful to save time you could copy me on that email and i can you know be in the loop great good and once there's a final draft you could um send it to to nathaniel or to myself and i can circulate that um to the other either the whole dsc uh or or the rest of the student representatives to the intergroup committee okay rita thanks for bringing that forward appreciate that uh any other business for this committee before we adjourn for the night okay thanks courtney thanks cassie and uh thanks everyone thanks everybody play in the snow


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