2021-05-04 PPS School Board Public Hearing

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-05-04
Time 18:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type town-hall
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: 2021-22 Proposed Budget Update and Engagement Meeting - 5/04/21

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is being streamed live on pps tv services website and on channel 28 and will be replayed throughout the next two weeks please check the district website for replay times welcome everyone tonight this is an important evening for us as a board where we do community engagement just one facet of the community engagement that the district does around our budget process um and so i turn now to our superintendent fatality to introduce the process tonight and set us on the right direction as we begin telling the story of pps what we're doing and where we're going through this very important budget document superintendent guerrero thank you chair lowry and good evening directors um uh if if you'll permit me just to start with a little bit of context here um our our goal over the last few months has been to to construct a proposed annual budget it's the annual exercise in this case that leverages all funds available towards a set of priorities uh priorities mainly guided by our continued march towards realizing our pps vision and importantly at supporting students demonstrated continued improvement towards those goals those student outcomes set by our board of education so we believe that if we focus on a clearly defined set of strategies such as improving our organizational capacity investing in the talent in the school system um that those are some of the ingredients that that will that will pay dividends so critically this budget also supports our ongoing commitment to racial equity so in collaboration with stakeholders and community so that our black and native students in particular have the equitable conditions and supports necessary to experience success here here's just a few examples of how the funds and you know the revenue all the revenue available to this organization how we've attempted to to braid them together to support our students and and school communities um 20 million dollars to address student learning needs proposed investments in more instructional specialists special education staff social workers providing more time for professional development expanded evening and virtual scholars programs supporting a saturday school another area of investment includes 13 million dollars to allocate staffing to equitably differentiate and support for social social economically disadvantaged and historically underserved students and schools we're proposing a 10 million dollar package to invest in community a community-centered approach for summer learning and enrichment activities to provide that safe structured engaging activities and learning opportunities during these upcoming summer months those are just three areas you're going to hear staff describe many others i recognize that you have two pretty thick volumes that constitute the proposed budget i think uh we all want to get to the point to uh where we can all give that elevator speech uh that that describes the highlights of this of this budget so i'm glad that we'll have opportunities in the coming weeks to to continue gaining an understanding of what's in there and sort of coming to some consensus that that this is the right approach so tonight uh again we're joined by uh i won't say new because in portland portland here you know 30 days is is the probationary period for for our chief financial officer uh alberto delgadillo and again by by danny ledesma our senior advisor on racial equity but we have a whole virtual green room of senior staff ready to uh expand on descriptions uh take your questions note your questions some will have to come back to but but they're also on deck to provide explanations so with that i'll turn it over to alberto thank you superintendent guerrero good evening chair laurie and directors i'm excited to be here once again in front of you and and also in front of the community i'm going to be sharing my screen to get this uh to share a deck let's see if it works it's always uh hit and miss but all signs are pointing towards it's working so uh i'm going to uh say otherwise i'll hear otherwise if it's not but um excited to be here and and and really as uh superintendent said it's it's it's one of our continuing opportunities to share where we are in our process um and i think it's also i i also want to take a moment just to share that um you know as as we go through the work
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it's so easy to just like get lost in it but to take that moment a step back and just really uh thank the teams thanks thank all of the individuals that have been involved in making this happen and it's to this point right we haven't crossed the finish line and that finish line is this theoretical goal pulse that moves and so we we get that uh but also there's a lot of work that's happened it isn't just about this one individual moment in time but it's it's all the efforts over the past year over the past few years in community engagement and conversations that we continue in the spirit of continuous improvement and re and iterative learning that we bring together and and that's what i hope to do today is to that continue that process as we do that and it's not just from the perspective of of an administrator it it's it's just how we think about the perspective as in language english language learner as you could tell i still kind of stumbled among the words as as someone who's been historically underserved as someone who just who grew up in a trailer park so it's like how do we start bringing all of this together to help tell this story and continue the conversation um and so i will just ask that i'm going to like to say modulate between like the 30 000 foot view and then we're going to try to like get down to some examples uh but again it's to help provide some context around what's happening and so high-level timeline so where are we in the process um and as as we look at this information here we know that the state proposes a budget uh or or starts there's conversations around the budget levels and and some internal planning that happens and then as we go through the process between march and may which is where we're at the legislature and us can go through this um assessment and and take estimates build the process excuse me build a budget and then we continue to move along um and i know for our directors this is very familiar information but i also want to make sure that our community is aware and and we continue to build that understanding around where we are in the process and simultaneously we are uh our budgeting coincides with the oregon legislature biannual pickle so some places um or companies they budget on an annual basis the state has a biannual cell which we follow and for this budget we are estimating a state school fund um at an annual biennial level of 9.3 billion and 778 million in student investment account and 318 million uh high school success fund at the state level which translates for us about a two billion dollar budget for the upcoming fiscal year and i do want to point out that our budget is available online we are going to be doing high level broad strokes and then some little clicking in but we certainly have a lot of this information available on our website so as we go through this process you can see some of the detailed funds available on our website this presentation is available on our website and in addition to a second budget or excuse me the second the second volume of our budget yes there is a second volume uh that has more details as far as expenditure set to school sites uh so again if through this process we we may not get to answer our our community's questions and and we certainly are going to be collecting feedback but there are some additional materials available and so the funds behind the budget the budget is built around really five big funds and there's a lot of information on this slide and one of the key things to point out is that the general fund and the special revenue fund are two key funds that allow us to really carry forward the programs uh while the deb service fund capital project fund and internal service funds tend to be more restricted towards capital projects paying back debt uh workers comp and so these five funds do put our budget do build our budget that's approximately the two billion dollars and so then another question that um i come across when having conversations with folks who are
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uh getting familiar with school budgets it's like well where does the money come from and so approximate totals uh approximate percentages of our budget is about 92 percent are from the state and local level and that includes our property taxes that includes the the state funding formula and about eight percent from the federal side and then a lot of organizations have what you call an operating budget so it's like essentially the ability to move the work as i was mentioning earlier and for this year my budget is about 50 50 split so about a billion dollars towards the capital projects and then about another billion to what one could say our operating budget which is like the general fund and the special revenue fund and so when we start taking a closer look at our general fund and special revenue fund we see the change from last year to this year and we see that for the general fund it's a increase of about 14.2 million for the special revenue fund about 102.4 and it's it's also important to note that these funds are are really what help like keep the lights on as as a figure of speech as we continue to support the the primary programs and also along with keeping the lights on it's also keeping two specific requirements and how these funds are spent so there's some very specific um guidelines regarding how special education funds can be spent how can title federal grants be spent our local option levy which is specifically for teachers so there are a variety of different guidelines and requirements as we go through understanding how the funds can support each other to be combined to create our budget so then how are general funds uh and and the special revenue funds spent um like similar school like many districts across the country um the mo the majority of it is in personnel and so when we start thinking about our investment in people uh it's the plies the utilities uh thinking about um summer programs the affinity groups athletics like that's and any sort of contract that we have and with our partner partners or vendors staff falls under the non personnel side of the house so as only the contacts around all the several funds because it's so easy to say wow two billion dollars but then okay well okay that's a billion that needs to go over here and okay well there's a billion over here and then what's happening with all the other funds and as i mentioned earlier there's a lot more detail in our budget volumes but hopefully this information here starts to help lay the the the general foundation and so we're talking about the general fund within the general fund there's several other funds but there are three key funds that make up about eighty percent of it and eighty-five percent of the fund and so the prop our property taxes our state school fund and our local option levy combined make up about 85 of our general fund and so when we look across the trend over the past few years we see how some some funds have increased over time uh other funds have uh changed um there's been a decline we have local option levy for example that that's steadily been fairly steady and then in addition to that as we look across these various funds we also have to think about how do these funds play a role in supporting each other when that's possible so as an example the local option levy fund specifically for funding additional teachers [Music] we can't then use that to pay for utilities or to pay for a contract with a a vendor to pay for the audit for things like that so it's like again very specific items when compared to the state school fund it's an opportunity that gives us it's a
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fund that allows for an opportunity to be more flexible and how we leverage our funds but there is this continued assessment and how the funds interplay with each other and and so i'll just revert back so that's the general fund right that that is about that's three key funds there's several other funds that we have more detail in our budget book and then our special revenue fund right so sticking to the theme of our overall general operating budget we have the general fund we just talked about three funds and now we're talking about the special revenue funds with the special special revenue fund similar to what we just discussed there's several funds that make up the special revenue fund from federal programs to um additional uh federal the stimulus relief dollars are in our special revenue fund and then this slide here calls out two key funds that are that originate at the state level we have our student investment account which focuses on several critical things a critical areas and last year leading into last year we had to make we had to pivot make some adjustments based on the covet recession and what we encountered and then now as we're looking forward to next year there is a change of about 19 million dollars that goes towards these very specific uh activities and again there's there's additional details in our budget book and with the high school success um measure 98 again similarly there's been changes over time but this also gives us a specific opportunity to invest in how we continue our or expand our programs and drop out career and technical education and so forth speaking of federal stimulus dollars so part of the special revenue fund are those stimulus dollars and um over the course of the past year there's been three rounds of funding that the federal government has enacted and the information on this slide gives a general estimate of what we received after our allocations to our pass-throughs to our per our federal and state guidelines and then simultaneously our projected expenditures not just for the current year but also what we anticipate to spend over the course of that surf round of funding over the course of the life of that esser round of funding with knowing that there's specific guidelines in place and specific timelines in place we're working towards not just uh investing for next year but really what does then the following summer look like what does then the following year look like because we have to not just put these investments to exceptional use we also have to be thinking realistically that these are one-time funds so we need to make sure that as we work through our planning how are we thinking about sustainability particularly after the uncertainty that we just had with enrollment over this year what is that going to look like for next year and so forth and how did then these funds support that sustainability and so with all that in mind as we start bringing it down to provide some key examples superintendent guerrero mentioned earlier some of the the the key activities that we're investing in when we start thinking about how we leverage all of these funding streams to put together uh a robust plan um and everything from how we're we have a community-wide request for proposal to really focus on community center approach for summer enrichment um eight million dollars to enhance a learning enviro environment by class size stability so we talked about how there is enrollment uncertainty so we want to mitigate disruption to that and be able to invest and hold for next year in addition to how we're thinking about extending summer access to child care extending contracts with son and rsj partners so these are some of the examples of some key investments in learning while on the other side of the house and the operation side of the house there's additional investments as well that are in our budget 330 million to continue the work in modernizing
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our high schools 58 million towards investing in our in our technology infrastructure 5 million to support covet recovery so being including how are we thinking about serving meals in various learning modes whether it's it's comprehensive distance learning limited in person it's ensuring that we can be able to provide the necessary meals to our students regardless of learning models or learning modes and as we go through this budgeting process there's another key component to this is as we as i mentioned earlier how are we continuing to work towards building our budget not just for the moment but for a continued approach with with our continued uh approach to developing our strategic plan through racial equity and social justice through a racial equity and social justice lens so to talk a little bit more about this i want to turn it over to our senior director danny ledesma who'll shed a little bit more light uh on this particularly for our community as we as as we continue to get feedback and share how we're approaching uh our budget thanks noberto um so uh the last time we were together we talked a little bit about this and i don't i don't believe you had all the materials but earlier today we sent you our sort of staff work uh that we completed uh for your consideration and for our communities consideration of how as the budget proposal came all together how we applied the racial equity and social justice lens uh to this work um so that we can continue like noblers said to continue to grow and think about how we're aligning our investments strategically in a way that really affirms our beliefs and values specifically around racial equity so uh as we talked about before we did want to include an update to the res j lens so we added some more information in that preamble that discusses what the lens is to align it towards our vision as well as our emerging strategic plan the other thing that we did is that in addition to the six prompts the questions um that asked you you know the the typical questions that asked you sort of like who which stakeholders were involved we did some slight adjustments to that but we also added a second section of prompt so we wanted to make sure that we were really anchoring our decisions and our our thought process to get to data um and so uh dr brown and his team in the office of systems performance created an resj dashboard for us that looked at indicators in a couple of different areas and each of these updated prompts or these questions asks folks to go into the data so that we can build our data literacy and to start to think about how we answer those questions using the data and also some of the some of the higher level sort of critical thinking about our wonderings we'll talk a little bit about some of our answers but what we wanted to let you know is that both in its development and in its final proposal uh staff at all levels have been really trying to think about how do we apply a really sharp critique to our budget proposal to make sure that we are sort of living into and sort of taking into action our values around racial equity so in the document that i provided for you earlier today um you have the updated questions and i just want to point out that these questions were answered at a moment in time we are going to ask folks i'll run through some of those questions and answers with you today to just do some highlights so you can see how the update is working but then we're also going to leave as a takeaway for community members um to just sort of ask invite them to read kind of our our intentions and our thought process around the racial equity lens with hopes that as we continue to move through this process we'll get your thoughts as a board in terms of how how you think that the um budget really responds to the lens as well as giving our community an opportunity to do that so in that document um if you're following along on page seven of the document is where we have these new questions these additional prompts that link it to a dashboard and so one of the first questions that we ask is how does the proposed action close the disparity between student and teacher diversity and so what we answered is that we talked about how this budget is yet another step in our continual uh investment in really promising practices that are being led by several departments to diversify um our staffing at pbs we know that we are not only hiring more
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people but we're also hiring more people with the intention of trying to diversify our staff and one of this um one of those places where we're really proud of has been uh in the investment in additional counselors and uh social workers and we've seen an increase in the diversity of the of that employee group um so we talk a little bit about that we also want to make sure that folks are really also thinking about some of the support of existing programs such as a really successful aspiring leaders initiative that's being led by dr kimberly mateer uh we're working with folks who are aspiring into that sort of school administrator position and we're seeing a lot of very fast results from that so that was sort of one way where we wanted to look specifically at that sort of demographics of staff in the second question we talk about the question is how does the proposed action create opportunities to create student achievement and math and english language arts for black and native students and if you were thinking about our board goals um and also thinking about this question one of the updates to the racial equity lens is to try to get some more alignment as people are making decisions we want to anchor in those board goals around achievement around student achievement um and so uh in our answer we really point to the specific investments around learning acceleration we point out instructional specialists the specific culturally culturally uh specific support for native american students uh technology support and then also the deeper amount of investments in curricular supports or curriculum supports um the other uh question that we ask about is how does um the how does the proposed action create opportunities for growth in math and ela and so we really look to again not only looking at those instructional strategies but also looking at some of those support strategies so that we're creating that exponential growth that we really need to be able to close some of those gaps so we spoke to the support for youth leadership activities student-led conferences we also spoke to the investments in mentoring and leadership development uh we the the fourth question asks how does the proposed action disrupt predictable racial patterns and discipline for pacific islander black and native students um again going back to the data folks pointed out that we've hired additional social workers for all of our title middle schools and k-8s while we're still continuing our investments that were made last year in multiple pathways to graduation we're investing further in sel in social emotional learning we're really wanting to improve coaching and partnerships by providing more opportunities for professional development we're also in continuing to increase behavioral and mental health supports including contracts with culturally specific mental health and behavioral health providers um the last question has to do with high school graduation this one is really pointed at us how does the proposed action create greater opportunities for high school graduation for native students again we want to be anchored in in data um and so um we talked about how a lot of the proposed investments are intended to support native student students for both academically and social and emotionally and we point to specific investments in the indian education program the cbo school funding for many nations academy and the resj partnerships with nia family center to provide positive cultural identity development culturally specific family engagement and wrap around services so this is a high level sort of uh update of of the resj lens but i did want to sort of point out some of those specific answers that we gave to those prompts hopefully as a way that sparks some of your own uh critiques some of your own wonderings and thoughts as as a board you consider some of our investments and we wanted to really highlight these for you so in the next um the next uh in the next portion of the meeting one of the things that we're going to ask folks to do is to give us feedback particularly related to the resj lens we wanted to ask folks when they are reading the budget and listening and listening to folks like alberto present on the budget um and thinking about the racial equity and social justice lens kind of what is that initial reaction what does that gut tell you about where we are in the work um the second question is that we want more specific feedback that folks may have as we consider the proposed budget are there additional places and the questions that we need to examine more is there uh feedback about some of the
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the prompts that we answered and how we answered them and then the third question is what questions or wonderings are folks left with are there are there things that are left unanswered are there uh questions that we get other questions we really want to make sure that we're leaving a lot of space and room for folks to get their feedback out in as many varieties in as many ways as possible so you'll notice in the um in the budget in the slide deck there's a link to the budget feedback form it's a google form that we'll all have access to so that we can continue to learn and grow from the reactions to this so i'm going to turn it back over to neil berto for the next uh portion thank you danny um and and yeah i wanted to i know usually google form links are fairly complex and long so we want to make sure that we have that up there for our community to take a look at but again the deck will be available there'll be an opportunity to leverage the link and we're also in the process of working with our community engagement department to schedule additional opportunities between now and and the 25th so this is really just part of the ongoing process and opportunities to connect with our students to connect with other community partners and so fairly soon over the next few days that information and dates will be confirmed um and so speaking of dates oh just a reminder again i know there's a lot of information here so it's just opportunity to visit our website and get additional information and really i think that it's one thing to have a a fairly robust technical document but it's always important to hear the type of questions folks may have to then help translate that into like what does this mean for my school or if there are any other conversations and we should then also be able to continue to refine our process and and and do that um and i believe we also have um i i and danny i don't recall if we were if we got a chance to post our budget uh excuse me our registered budget document as well so the document that you were just working through talking through with with our directors that's also going to be available online as well for broader reviewing in addition to that to give provide feedback unfortunately it wasn't posted till this morning well just to be clear uh directors uh that's an internal exercise we did as a cabinet this morning so in the spirit of transparency we're just sharing with directors how we're responding and thinking about uh those questions so we just wanted to provide that sort of insight i would hope the director sort of at the end of sort of understanding what we're proposing to invest in that that we can all have sort of responses to these kinds of questions in the protocol thank you for that that was really helpful it was helpful to see thank you and as far as upcoming timeline this high level timeline of activities and upcoming engagements i did just mention we're going to be working towards getting together with additional community members to provide and engage in additional conversations between now and the 25th so our community engagement team is working to finalize those states and last but definitely not least i wasn't sure from a protocol perspective uh if uh this portion of the meeting would i believe we had public comment um sign ups but then also i don't know if uh chair laurie if you have specific uh process that you wanted to continue with and whether it's conversations or excuse me questions or or whatnot but i just wanted to pause there thank you so much um cfo delgado we are gonna go ahead and move into a public hearing at this juncture um the board will have opportunity for more questions and comments um after this when we go into our executive session time um so we are gonna go ahead and um i'm gonna call this public hearing from may 4th 2021 to order and convene the board as the budget
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committee and i want to thank those of you who are watching online and those of you who've signed up to give public comment um the board will hear your comments on the superintendent's proposed budget um no exact session i'm getting notes from roseanne that we only have one public commenter that's uh joined us so far and that we aren't going into execution it's a follow-up work session is that correct roseanne okay i apologize my script said works a set execution at some point and i just you know went with it um sometimes you just put i'm like uh the character on anchorman you just put it in front of me and i'll read it so uh that could be problematic all right the board will hear public comment on the superintendent's proposed 20 20 20 20 21 22 budget and i'm gonna request we had a request of uh limit to two minutes but since we only have one person who's here so far we'll up that to three minutes because you know feeling generous um because public feedback is very important to us um and the board acting as the budget committee will take um the public comment we've received via email the public comment we hear tonight um any of the public comment that you choose to submit after watching this tonight before we approve the budget which will be scheduled for may 25th now if you haven't been able to sign up for public comment we would still love to hear from you and rosanne did we work it out that people could join in this meeting yes if people would like to um provide public comment and they're interested they can email publiccomment pps.net and kara will send the link information okay so just be clear if you are watching this right now and you did not sign up for public comment but you would like to give public comment on the budget tonight you can email public comment at pps.net and you will get a link to this meeting and you can join in for public comment if you are watching this later not live or if you don't feel like jumping into public comment tonight you can email us your written comments at publiccomment pps.net and again your public thoughts are your thoughts are very important to us as we do this work so please uh do send us those comments um tonight to our commenters who are joining us please make sure you begin your comment and clearly state your name and spell your last name and you'll have two minutes to speak and you'll are sorry three minutes to speak and you will hear a sound after three minutes which means it is time to conclude your comments miss bradja would you like to call the first person who has signed up for public comment yes with amy sylvia hi my name is amy sylvia s-i-l-v-i-a um my pronouns are she and her i just want to say hi good evening superintendent guerrero and school board members like i said my name is amy silvia and i'm a lead in the nutrition services department right now i work at maplewood elementary and i worked in nutrition services for over eight years um i'm also a union officer and i spoke to you about two months ago about respecting protecting and paying us for the essential work that we do and we're really glad that the district agreed to provide a pandemic recognition payment acknowledging our dedication and the central role that we play in ensuring a healthy and safe school environment excuse me this was an important first step towards equity and for this historically underserved works undervalued workforce the next step would be to include nutrition services in the general fund budget and provide our predominantly female workforce an actual living wage unfortunately the proposed budget does not do that as written it contin continues a long legacy of treating women's work as unimportant how else do you explain only budgeting twenty six thousand dollars for cost of living adjustments for a hundred and eighty workers how else can you justify paying entry-level workers only fourteen forty an hour we need wages that will attract new employees who want to make this their career true equity requires structural change we're asking you to invest invest general fund dollars to raise the standards for this historically undervalued group will go a long way towards achieving your strategic priority of having a diverse and stable staff another key priority is to invest in the future of our building facilities by hiring and retaining more union custodians we're glad to see that the proposed budget has funding for additional custodial staff years of understaffing will require years of continued investment a couple key things you can do are to bring back the rovers
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which are a key part of the training program and add a longevity bonus so we can train and maintain our custodial staff to protect the multi-million dollar trust our community has put us in thank you for your time thank you for being here and showing up and i can i just say the room you're in is just so joy-filled uh with the color pink and the artwork behind you so i love i think uh you know as you've said nutrition service workers are some of those who bring a lot of joy to our students and show up and have done such an amazing job this year caring for our students and it's so appropriate for you to be speaking from that space thank you for your company uh ms bradshaw do we have anybody else who's come for public comment tonight we do not okay uh i'm looking for roseanne um have you received any emails mrs powell it seems like she has not so i do have to say that the place in the um script that i saw the words executive session were in a note telling me how to sorry um how to get us into executive session if we need to so i am just officially at the point in my term as board chair where i'm making things up um so that's where we are tonight so i um i guess we're at the point where since there is no further public comment um that we can take a short break and then we will move into the second part of our board work roseanne is that a thumbs up okay so we will take a 13 minute break and be back at 7 for our next part of our work session thanks everyone bailey maybe before we break it just a question because there was a reference to um other community meetings which i don't think are on our budget calendar so if there were i guess i'd like to request that there's going to be additional meetings with community partners or community groups that board members be notified so that we can attend those just um as a way to get additional community feedback since it's the official uh budget calendar is limited great and i think what i heard from alberto is that they're working with community engagement to schedules those is that correct okay so that's correct once we have those we can get those on so okay we'll see everybody back in 12. i have one last question as well for those that are still there is there going to be one central place that we will be able to review all of the feedback in one spot that comes from community yes sorry i wasn't sure if that question was aimed at me i'm jumped in like yes yeah absolutely the idea would be to as we go through the process uh similar to like the form and what now the team will then compile and put together to then uh be able to share inclusive of any other questions that board directors may have as as we go through the process so that we can try to create a not just for the time being like collect information but also subsequently are there any themes or uh or future faqs that we can just continue to put out there and continue to help inform and and and and and just build understanding but yes okay that's great thank you we will have time for more questions during our work session that's coming up and it is a separate um link so we'll exit out of this work session and then you'll find the email that says you're a panelist and it says click here in the email and that's how you get into the next meeting thanks everyone


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