2021-05-10 PPS School Board Policy Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-05-10
Time 16:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
Directors Present missing
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education’s Policy Committee Meeting - 5/10/21

00h 00m 00s
um uh we are convening the uh may 10th 2021 policy committee meeting um we have another very full agenda for the next three hours so we're going to have to be very disciplined in order to get through the whole agenda today um so we have here um uh myself scott bailey aaron lowery julia brim edwards and amy constand who are board members the first four are members of this committee director constance is not a member of the committee but um welcome to join we have um student representative jackson weinberg do we have any and uh oscar calvert um and uh and then we're also gonna be joined by staff sort of as things go um so if if the staff can introduce yourselves as you enter the discussion will be helpful okay um can we just leap into the agenda uh the first item on the agenda is a revision of the uh what used to be called a computer use uh policy it's now uh the responsible technology use policy and um i think travis you're going to lead us through this um so let me just let me just bring this up we've we've talked about this policy the revisions to the policy um in pretty good detail over a number of months i think we the point at which we left it at the last meeting was um at the very beginning at the top of the policy under number one scope where we were looking for some language that kind of framed up um what the purpose of this policy is and some some refined language to give to sort of set expectations for students and staff about um when they what they can expect to happen or not happen when they're using district technology right right so anyway take it away okay um see just uh introducing myself from dr travis pocky from the office of technology um and just wanted to kind of come up with um at least some suggested language for for this so i'm gonna try and share my screen real quick and this was actually added to the policy itself as a proposed revision let me know when my screen comes up okay you're up okay um so really kind of putting some um some language around the no expectation of privacy but this is really focusing on reasons why we may be doing some of that monitoring so citing laws such as the children's internet protection act the federal education rights and privacy act children's online privacy protection act oregon also has a couple of laws that surround student privacy and uh consumer privacy uh 336.184 and 646 a dot 600 so citing those those laws or others for reasons both explicit or not students and staff should have no expectation of privacy while using pps systems so i really appreciate this proposed updated language um because i think it gets to a little bit like here's here's why it's not just a big brother thing um so i like this one of the things that one of the suggestions i would have is um i know a lot of people know those acronyms um i don't actually i don't actually know them all like exactly what they are so maybe um good to spell them out and then do the you know ferpa behind um and or the acronym behind and then i'm wondering if there's an and this is a question maybe for the lawyers a um a general description of what the ors 336.184 so if you're not if you're a non-lawyer it doesn't
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mean anything so it that is that the section of statute that deals with x just again to try and make this a more accessible definition to non-lawyers i think it does that it just um there's a way to put it in um the layperson's language that we can add we can add typically we put the the um this the statutes at the bottom of the policy but we can add language to that um paragraph that describes what it is and then reference the statute at the bottom of the policy if that works that would be great to me that would make it be like okay i understand like why pps is doing this is not some they're trying to invade our privacy or they're not monitoring us for law enforcement but there are you know state and federal requirements related to x y and z that but just less legal language i guess i think the title of the statute might provide everything you need to know it's just the the um oregon student information protection act so would that be sufficient just to cite it the title what is that that's the ors 336 184 yes oh so i think it's uh good to include the laws and and specifically uh which specific laws and i think it would be helpful uh if there's a way to have a blanket one or two sentence statement about the reason behind the laws or kind of a here's why uh what what is it about these laws um and student safety that um would be the grounds where um we would look at look at messages look at emails look at um texts and so on so scott i want to make sure we're distinguishing between two different things there one is to have a policy that comply so we are compliant with federal and state law and the other is you're asking for new language in the intro that says when we would look at um no just just a um kind of the rationale that's more than a listing of laws um and so if you go further down um the the language that talks about fostering safety and security of users um i think may get to what it is that you're looking for and i just wondered if do you need that at the top as well because it what we tried to do is articulate it as we went as we were further down into the policy under um if you look at uh subsection four we we repeat again i mean we never took it out the no expectation of privacy we talk about cyber bullying and anti-harassment things like that is that do you think we need more than what's included um are those the basic premises for the laws um yes um but one of the other one of the other aspects we're trying to cover here is one one of the things i've mentioned before which is the very the very nature of systems is that they are monitored so you know an alert may trigger that something something bad was found in somebody's email account and that's not because somebody was going through and manually reading their sent items it's because a automated virus scanner went in and found that so we're we're looking for terms of just basic system hygiene in terms of of just basic operation of an environment we're not going to be going in and manually opening somebody's sent items it is monitored though so i think i think part of what's what director bailey is getting to travis is uh um i think they're and i this is your expertise and mary knows more than i do
00h 10m 00s
but they're i think they're two big umbrellas one is we want to protect people from exploiting you on a system where otherwise no one else can see because these are children in our systems the other is we want to give privacy to things that are personal to you like your education records we want we want to protect that which is not shared publicly on a regular basis and can't be by law and we want to keep sort of bad people from coming after you and sending you to exploiting you or um i mean there's a whole spectrum of exploitation that could happen and i think those are the two big pieces that these statutes try to cover does that help that does and um and thanks mary the the references in section four do are are part of that but that that one or two that's that statement was i appreciated that um and i also wonder if we should state you know maintaining a good i.t system means we do this this automated not looking for anything specific but looking for threats to the system um which may turn stuff up four threats to students actually that's the exploitation part right and the threats the system may be threats to individuals or it may be a ransomware or you know all that stuff um and i think it's for those three or at least two reasons there will be no expectation of privacy it it's it's for those reasons but it's also uh i mean it's extended to staff as well i mean for right well staff and and our systems i mean our systems do monitor and maintain a significant amount of money um and we want to protect those like any other institution would potentially protect its financial assets yeah and this does say students and staff so yeah i think we're covered there so maybe um so i think there are three reasons that have come out so one is um we want to protect students against exploitation um we want to protect um we want to ensure that records that need to be that are protected by law continue to be protected and then the third is the integrity of the of the the security of the system and maybe if we could spell out those three reasons and then if it works out that each of these federal or state statutes kind of refers to one of those three we could put those in in parentheses too i don't know does that help i i'm i think i think we're trying to avoid um having sort of an an endless litany of reasons why we're doing this if we could just like consolidate them so i mean i feel like we don't need all the laws cited and quoted i think if we just say we're doing this because of laws and and my concern is that these things names might change and things might shift and so again that involves technically going back and adjusting the policy so i i would vote for simpler not more and and maybe you know a point a point that we could address here is this is this is saying what we do um i think the the why we do it or why we may do it you know establishing a probable cause that's that's probably a completely different policy right um what what we're doing is talking about maintaining the integrity of the systems for these purposes um drilling into the detail may may only complicate and and create nuance where we really don't need one or or one just isn't appropriate so i put for the next oh go ahead rita i'm sorry go ahead oh so i i just wanted to get some clarity as we take this back to to wordsmith it a little bit more uh i've heard
00h 15m 00s
um to to kind of distill it uh into essentially three buckets integrity of systems safety of student what was the third one rita protecting records um and protecting records and then and then i'm hearing keep it simple and so what i what i what we can do is perhaps change that paragraph to that distilled idea and then move the references to the specific laws to the bottom of the policy and spelled out so it's not acronyms and we can give put the sites there as well does that sound like uh something were for you all and i think just just what you said mary in terms of those three bullet points that that satisfies what i'm looking for you know just the these laws represent our values of we want to protect students privacy we want to protect the system we want to protect uh make sure that students and staff don't get taken advantage of uh however you worded it i think we're good okay so um i think that works for me as long as you have something that indicates that that's the information is at that end i mean the other way you could do it is just put in parentheses the accurate the the laws in parentheses afterwards like right afterwards so that you're not having to go to the end of the policy and connect i don't know that we don't footnote policies do we try anything we we typically um we have put the legal reference that buttresses the policy so that has been um what we've done with a number of our policies we don't we don't have to but that's been as kind of a standard yeah i guess but um and maybe it's that i don't even read those anymore um and that it's good to know they're there if i didn't want to go there but i guess it's like how would people connect a string of statutes with what we're referencing here well we could instead of just using the accuracy you know like we could put everything at the end of the documents but spell out the acronyms um so that would get past the it's just an endless string of un unknown statutes um would that would that work probably and this is there's probably not a lot of um this is more of it like a layout type thing um so substantively i think what you've got there what that works it's just my bigger issue that can be solved outside of this committee meeting is just how do you make sure you're connect that to this other thing since we don't do footnotes and i just want to emphasize one point that i had made before is you know it's it's these laws and others um so yeah i want to make sure that we're not bound by you know compliance or with a particular law before we go and investigate a problem so student or any kind of suspicion of abuse or or anything along those lines there's policies and procedures of how we have to go about that but um i don't want to get get in the position where we have to spell out each one of the things that we might be complying with in order to do that monitoring gotcha okay i i heard you make a point before and now now that really sinks in um and that's why i think stating the values up front this is the point of it uh and then we can say we can do that addendum with current laws um by by by making it a little uh all more encompassing up front then we don't have to go in and change the policy every time there's a change in law because we're stating you know we're doing this to protect students and in accordance with privacy laws or if that's the right term okay okay awesome you can do that okay um can i bring up a timing um so i think we want to have this policy on the books this revised policy
00h 20m 00s
on the books uh before the start of the next school year um and where we're starting to bump up against deadlines um so if if the committee members are okay with kind of if you think we're heading in the right direction here um i'm going to make a suggestion that um travis and whoever um kind of go back recraft a sentence or two and send it to the committee members prior to the next board meeting so that we with an to hopefully um forwarding it to the getting it out of committee and forwarding it to the full board for um consideration at the at the next board meeting which would allow us to do the um 21 day comment uh periods and still adopt you know all assuming everything works out and still be able to adopt it before the end of june so rita just to clarify you're not talking about tomorrow's board meeting you'd like it say no no no no no in a week's time yes okay so i have a just a question about um i guess our engagement it's not really community engagement but this would be more staff engagement on something like this since um the other individuals who this would impact would be all of our staff have has have we shared and solicited feedback from our represented groups no not yet we've been trying to work since this is a revision to a policy rather than a new one we've been trying to get uh get the language straight before we do engagement i thought our i thought that our approach was going to be to generally to get feedback before we sent something out for first reading or is it the first reading is going to generally for engagement it's customized by the policy there isn't a consistent approach that works for you travis can you take the screen down so each other thanks that the so so in general i don't i don't think we can say that for every policy the steps are the same for this policy which is fairly compliance driven and updated our usual approach with any policy is to send it to our labor partners to let them know that that this is happening and we will do that in this process but that isn't a separate discrete engagement step that takes more time it is actually part of where it will go coming out of this committee headed towards the first reading okay if i can just add and when we discuss this we were talking about development where we where we thought the need for for engagement uh was going to be in the administrative directive because that's going to be the how how things are for example if there it does need to be um a review of a student's records or something like that how does that how how is that accomplished what administrative steps need to go in there and we have discussed and we discussed it with um nathaniel who was on the subcommittee or in the sub the the group that was working on the development of the policy of developing a an engagement plan for the administrative directive because that's you know that's the kind of the nuts and bolts of it and wanting to make sure that everybody understood what what that was going to look like so um then my question um i understand the sequencing so this will be sep sent separately not just a p-a-t which i know always gets um because it's also a condition of the cba but also to all of our other represented groups yes with a clear we welcome your feedback and here's the timeline i actually don't send them julia but i'm sure they say something like that i have confidence i'm looking at roseanne when i was saying that you probably did not know that so we don't send something separately to uh our labor partners right they get the notices of meetings and the agendas but we don't solicit publicly i thought we had a direct that was part of our
00h 25m 00s
policy process where rachel maybe it comes from rachel that we went and and i don't want to overstate and be inaccurate in any way and i fear i already have been so but we we do have a part of the process is that policies that affect employees and how they do their work go to our labor partners so if we're not finally tuned on that i guarantee you after this conversation we will be on this one okay um but that's so i do we agree on the principle and i don't again i don't want to overstate what's been happening but we will get we'll make sure that happens okay great i understand the sequence and just if somebody can confirm that is the actual what that will actually happen that'd be great thank you okay so are we agreed that travis will circulate some new language um before before next week and um or uh when would the timing be by next what thursday um and um committee member any committee member who has um uh who wants to tinker with it would would circulate um suggested edits um so that hopefully we can bring it before the full board next at the next board meeting next tuesday okay just another process question sorry on something like this because there's the staff piece and then there's the sort of students and family um do we ask the district student council for feedback before we first read or is that or is it happening in the committee process through the the representatives or do we send them something as part of like hey we had this first reading it impacts students wayne if you want so julia the district student council serves to advise the student rep so the district student council doesn't actually advise the school board technically um so jackson and oscar being on this take this information from this committee take it to nathaniel and then he's the one that um sort of advises the board at the border meetings so i'm not sure how um i feel like we're already fulfilling that process of having students weigh in in these conversations in this way and nathaniel was part of the as i said when we were developing making the changes um and we actually asked him to take it back to some of the students and also asked him about what for his input on what he thought a student engagement plan would look like so i can't speak to what that is right now but um that was one of our asks on the on the student side of things great thank you ailee and mary okay all right so we can't hear you rita i was being so eloquent too sorry um thank you dr pocky for all your work on this um and we look forward to the next iteration and hopefully we can move this out of committee um next week all right okay thank you very much thank you um okay so next item on the agenda is uh a complaint policy so um if you recall um just to sort of frame up this discussion um we have resurrected the complaint policy um and we are now going to be uh looking at some recent additions that were made uh i guess about five weeks ago now something like that um um but we're also going to be looking at the complaint policy including the previously discussed revisions with an eye towards potentially hopefully voting this out of committee for a first reading today uh if we can um but i um i want to make sure that we spend um a fair amount of time
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today looking at the preamble um i think that's the one area of this policy that we didn't really cue over um sufficiently the first time around um and and we have sections in here that uh we have a new draft alternative preamble we have the current preamble uh which we need to um we need to deal with those two sections together because there's they're redundant in places and we might want to blend the two anyway it seems to me that that really is the area of this policy that um that we need to do a little bit of um uh work on the language um as opposed to the rest of the policy that i think we have um we've worked over quite a lot over many months so um i'll have some a couple questions about the other areas and also some just potential language to add in another area as well but we can do that but just want to flag that for you okay so um so julie do you how significant are the other edits that you're going to suggest well i don't think they're that significant um i mean do you want me to share them now and then we can come back to them yeah then we can well we can figure out whether we could deal with them fairly quickly so that we can you know kind of focus on the beginning or if they're going to require you know a lot of discussion then we can just take it in order so why don't you give us what you got and then we'll go with it so i first just have one piece of information also that i'm going to want on numbers in that numbers one and i'm sorry d one d twelve d1 d12 and e1 i'd like to know how many complaints that would have covered in the last like five years and i don't need an answer look at my board so what's the roman numeral that you're looking at i'm sorry it's four it's under filing an appeal okay it's the very last part correct julia yeah so other persons it's a okay d there is like i'd like to know how many how many complaints have requested legal services on number 12 i'd like to know how many complaints we have who have filed multiple complaints not how many multiple complaints we have but how many complainants have filed multiple complaints and i'm sorry julia over what period of time do you want us to look back just like the last five years um and then or you could even do since 2018 since that's when we had the policy major policy revision and on e how many how many complaints have filed complaints directly against the superintendent and i you know in some ways i might know this based on the ones that get to three but since we don't see if something gets resolved in level one or two we don't see those um and then just as part of the the larger body of work do we actually maintain a complaint log since again since the board sees things at three and that's a question i can just you could answer afterwards we do have a complaint log just to answer that and i need some clarification to make sure we get the committee what you're asking for so we do maintain a complaint log um that's updated every friday what um when you look at d1 it talks about translation services other accommodations and legal advice and so you're just looking for legal advice not the others or a trans translation if we've had i mean that would be helpful to know as well or reason of other reasonable anything in that paragraph yeah
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and we don't we don't um i don't think we track or categorize complaints so it'll require a manual review of each complaint that was filed from 2018 forward because there isn't a database where we can code show me where this request was made so we'll have to factor that in in terms of time okay so um i say i don't need that information for today um but i'd like to know that but uh so the the language uh rita specifically that i would add is on let's see my version doesn't have a page number so it is in the red line version let's see it is d14 that after the words pursuing contact with complainant i would say about the complaint subject so you know we have parents who contact us about a whole bunch of things and i don't think just because you filed a complaint about one topic means that you can't have a conversation about a with a board member or anybody else about another topic um so that would be one thing and then at the end of that section add the sentence the district will send our district staff will send a weekly communication about new complaints that have been filed against pps and the reason to add that is there's no way for board members to know if a complaint's been filed it's most the time we find out if a com if somebody doesn't send it to us directly which in most cases doesn't happen we don't actually know that a complaint's been filed so this gives board members awareness in order to be compliant with this um who has filed um like what what complaints been filed i say it hasn't been necessary in the past because things just you know came to us when they came to us and a lot of times things never came to us because they got resolved so that those are the two items okay so let me make sure i let me make sure that i i have them so this so we're we're talking about roman numeral 4 d 14 right um and we need to copy edit anyways we've got a simpson because so pick one um but you're you're suggesting um in the sentence beginning board members should not knowingly okay i don't know anyway but i understand that there's a majority of the board that wants it in there so it should at least be that it's about the complaint and topic versus like totally tramping playing on free speech rights um and then this then at the very end add a sentence that says the district staff will send a weekly communication about new complaints that have been filed against pps because there's no way all right okay okay i got that i i'm i'm working on language now but um we've got some we gotta edit this paragraph um there's something wrong it's just the edits i don't know what happened in that paragraph but the red line okay left so we've gotta fix that rita but i think we have a record of what that should be can i make a suggestion of of what okay so um either center because i don't care which uh but pick one and then the second sentence board members should not knowingly initiate so delete refrain from right should not knowingly initiate or continue delete the aim um can we delete or pursuing so it would be board members should not knowingly initiate or continue contact with complainants and then julia wants to add about the topic of a complaint once a formal complaint has been filed comma or independently investigate allegations in a of belts and complaint happening there yeah yeah okay um okay and then and then you wanted to add a sentence that has give some notification to board members about what complaints have been filed
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right right because but no otherwise yeah i get yeah i get i i get the reasoning i'm i'm worried about language now so um before we start crafting a set okay scott go ahead yeah julie i agree with you about that i'm not sure it belongs in policy uh and i i totally appreciate that you know we if you don't know you don't know and you need to know in order to follow the policy i'm just that seems to be a procedural piece um to me it's fundamental i mean if you're if board members are going to be held accountable to the policy then the district staff needs to provide information to the board so they can be in compliance i just my point of view like i say i don't agree with the the overall i think it uh impedes on board members ability to to do their their work um there's a disagreement but i do think that if we're going to stipulate here's what's required of board members then it should be yeah and staff should provide information i don't see what harm it does unless the district's not going to comply well um i i think i i think one could argue that since the word knowingly is in that sentence um if you had in the a.d um a a provision that staff would provide regular notification to the boards then i think that would satisfy um well i'll just say we the other things that we're supposed to get on a regular basis don't always happen and again i feel like this is um going to be something the expectation that board members do and so like then board members need to have the information or needs or we need to have a link that we could check ourselves to where the i mean which which could be another way to do it if there's if there's a log just give board members the link and they can look and if board members don't want to check that's their checking but it just seems like if there's going to be this statement made and it otherwise it seems a little bit like a gotcha like you should have known i mean parents contact me all the time about stuff and and you know who's to judge when you knew well another way to do it is if you get contacted by a parent you could include as a standard question have you filed a formal complaint i get so many emails i'm not gonna i'm not gonna ask people whether they filed a formal complaint because like we're not wanting people to file a formal complaint i mean we're wanting to solve issues before they get there i mean the vast majority of communication from parents we never we don't want to drive them to that complaint process in fact a lot of times they're just looking for information so it's not it's not a secret and if people want us to comply then it seems like there's there's two there's two methods we could either get a link to the complaint where we can just check our to the log we can check ourselves or staff could be committed to sending it to us on a weekly basis i'm a board member i i feel like knowingly takes care of it but if i mean how are you supposed to know better if you weren't informed of the formal complaint so i think we are hoping that staff will let us know when there is a complaint so that board members don't you know inadvertently um become triangulated with the you know complainant and the district um that that would be my hope so that we would be aware um that doesn't happen right now right so i would it would be nice if i think it would be a good thing for board members to know when a formal complaint is filed um it doesn't happen because there is this policy doesn't exist yet i just want i mean like this yes this is this is a new this is a revision so it it makes sense that the that the procedure doesn't currently exist but are your thoughts on asking staff to let us know when a formal complaint is filed so that if we're also having parents contact us we're at least aware that they've also filed a complaint i i think i think the substance of the amendment you have to have some way to notify board members otherwise they can't board members can't comply with this language i think the mechanism for that could be
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a statement that its um staff will promptly notify and that could be a weekly thing it could say weekly we have one that goes out every friday to the slt so there is a mechanism this thing exists it's already administered inside staff on a weekly basis every friday at the end of the day um it is a little granular just to say exactly how it's going to go out in a policy but at the same time i know what the thing looks like already and so i do think where the substance is really there i think you have to have both sides if the board members have to not do something they have to get be given the knowledge of it so i think um i i tend to agree that the the word knowingly um gives sufficient um i mean i think it's sufficient to to give um board members the give staff a directive to inform board members and and allows board members to have some confidence that it won't be a gotcha situation so um okay so are we okay with uh the addition of the uh about the topic of the complaint okay um so it liz this paragraph still has yeah it's easily fixable it just yeah needs to be fixed okay um all right julia any other oh that was it okay okay does anybody else have any other um any other suggested edits otherwise we'll turn to the preamble okay all right um so uh so the um the draft alternative preamble that appears in purple um was added by staff relatively late in the game when we were looking at this policy prior to march um and and i think the intention behind it as i recall was to kind of frame up this policy as just one element of a broader effort by the district to to be more responsive to concerns um and and note that there are multiple ways for families to um to address concerns or complaints they have um well prior to invoking this complaint policy the the formal complaint process um so i think that was the intention um and and we didn't really get towards missing it um so so i guess let me ask a kind of general question um are our committee members okay with kind of the thrust of this alternative preamble is there anything in there that that you want to um that you're not happy with some of the pieces of it are redundant with the existing preamble so we have to we have to figure out how to i think probably blend those two are we gonna yeah i was gonna say are we gonna delete the current preamble that was that was the recommendation at least when it was first drafted as i recall it's now been several months but i think the idea was here's option a and here's option b yeah yeah i prefer option a i think i like the way it acknowledges i feel like it's easier to read it feels more compassionate um and i also think like it does a good job of saying um i i love the acknowledgement of the complexity of pps and that we can do better i it just feels like a very human preamble where the second one feels more like i would expect in a policy if that makes sense yeah um i think there are a few sentences in the existing preamble that we might want to incorporate um i i kind of like the i kind of like the idea of portland
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public schools welcomes expressions of concern as opportunities to learn clarify our intentions and engage in continuous improvements it's a little bureaucra i mean it's more bureaucratic but i kind of i i kind of like the idea behind it so and are we so are you suggesting that they're eliminating the word maintaining strong relationships including includes having a fair accessible process on which complaints may be addressed in a timely matter is that or is that already in the new preamble um i don't think that's expressed in the new preamble and so here here's another possibility um we could we could maintain and and this is just a it's just a thought um we could keep the alternative preamble as it currently exists and then keep the language of that the first paragraph in the existing preamble take out the second paragraph because it it's because it's i i think mostly redundant i think well i don't know okay so here's where i'd like us to end up today i would like us to finalize the language in this preamble so that we can get this out of committee um i think we can do it it's going to require it's going to be a little messy um because we're going to be word smithing on camera um but i don't think the word smithing needs to be terribly complicated um so just to to as i my recall may not be uh in fact i'm quite confident it's not precise but i think the alternate pre preamble was sort of a here's the request was that staff draft something that had a little warmer lead in with some more values in it um that was that felt that had a little more empathy um i think it didn't go any farther than that and so this is the board's policy you should make that preamble what you want it to say and we can i think i agree with you reed i think we can do that yeah so so julie i think that's a good catch and i would support lifting that sentence from the old preamble and moving it into the new one [Music] and if you want i can try to specify exactly where um no just that sentence [Music] so is the district will resolve complaints as quickly as possible and in compliance with state law um lifting that sentence from the old and making it the last sentence under the new right after social justice period does that work i want to be sure i'm tracking just so we get the edits right in translation i have three sentences that have been talked about from the old preamble to be incorporated into the new the one scott just read about the district will resolve complaints as quickly as possible and in compliance with state law then also maintaining strong relationships includes having a fair accessible process in which complaints can be addressed in a timely manner portland public schools welcomes expressions of concern as opportunities to learn clarify your intentions and engage in continuous improvements to benefit all students
00h 55m 00s
and maybe there was more of the first paragraph too i want to make sure i get all that you want in there so we can move it [Music] julia i think you're if you're talking to us you're on mute yes sorry thank you um it may be better to put this up on screen so we can see what it is that's being proposed to be struck and be moved and be agreed to it seems like we're down to three paragraphs that that might be an easy way to cara roseanne can you put that up there pretty please thank you so i would submit that the sentence about maintaining strong relationships i think that sentiment is covered in the new preamble when we talk about core values like respect and relationships when we have conversations just just want to check to see if there's agreement with that it's not adding that line with keeping that out so that's that's what i'm suggesting but i just want to make sure um [Music] they're maintaining strong relationships scott was just mainly a way that i think the sentence linked to the previous sentence which is now being eliminated so it was it was more of a carrying a train of thought from one sentence to the next so the most important thing is to me in that sentence the fair accessible process in which complaints can be dressed in a timely manner um right roseanne can you shift down a little bit so we can see that a little bit more a little bit more up see it it's the fourth line down there it's just that maintaining strong relationships is really just the link to the sentence before right so i i think that a little bit further down is where i plucked out that we will uh resolve complaints as quickly as possible that's the um so it's the last sentence in the second paragraph so i think that that gets at the um that timely manner just says it says it differently in fact a little bit more urgently i think i mean i i'm fine with some redundancy so either way works with me so just that um from a standpoint of accessible it looks like is the family resource coordinator is that something i can't tell what the one two and threes are for is that an actual link or is that just it it's a placeholder to get the exact title right and that position has now been filled so we can get the exact title we weren't sure it was i think when this was first started it was a concept later it was posted now jamal's been hired actually so yeah so i just in terms of accessible um families i would have that be a live link the family resource coordinator whatever the the name is and also there should be a live link that if you want to file a complaint like here's the same sort of thing we can do that because if we have this whole thing on here's how you file a complaint and but there's never any like now you have to go find where to do that no uh question do we want to actually name that position in the policy when the job title could conceivably have a new name in a year you know we went from ombuds person to or ombudsman whatever it was to this um we can genericize it enough that it is a resource for families but keep
01h 00m 00s
keep the live link as julia suggests we can do that so one of the other things with the preamble the last paragraph of the current preamble is a deeper dive on the commitment to racial equity and that all now has been summarized up into looks like the last sentence and reflects our strong commitment to racial equity and social justice it's in two places but yes where's the other one sorry um at the end of the first paragraph of the alternate preamble and at the end of the last paragraph of the alternate preamble yeah so we say twice a strong commitment to racial equity and social justice um i i would like to carry over this language in some way that says the district shall create welcoming environments reflect and support the racial and ethnic diversity of a student population in the community and and the next sentence as well the district's goal is to have a complaint process that is accessible to and welcoming of all of our students parents gardens and pps community members because to me that speaks more to like how you're gonna do things and creates a more specific expectation than just a we have a strong commitment to are you okay if we don't display that as a quote from the other policy just in case the policy changes so the language will stay the same but it won't be quoted from will be represented as exact language from another policy that seems like a way to keep it evergreen great we'll do that thank you [Applause] okay do we so i would support uh julia's suggestion of including those so just just to be clear um okay i have a uh um it's just copy editing so um we have what appear to be footnotes i'm assuming those are leftovers from something are you talking about the family resource coordinator well family resource coordinator again you know concerns at the end of that paragraph and then administrative directives in the following paragraph i think they may be comments that are suppressed for right there's staff comments on the side i don't i don't think they're actual footnotes okay okay and then just going back to the family resource coordinator um you know in a in the interest of keeping it evergreen um i know scott has asked this question earlier uh are are we going to keep the title in or are we going to no we're going to generously we're going to scenario okay sorry yes sorry no that's okay is that even a word that's a word but i'm using it but but it's when i thought about it stuck in my head so that's good it's um when i took my dog into the vets they were genericized uh right i think that's genderized degenerate um just wondered if oscar jackson had anything to weigh in on or is this like you guys are thinking just get this crap done um i like julia's edits also i was just reading like the current one i like the generally just like the last paragraph of the previous one and it starts with the district serves a diverse community and ends with treating everyone with respect if we were going to keep only one from that i'd like to keep the last sentence i feel like that's kind of like a good ending sentence to the preamble
01h 05m 00s
so do you want would we then take out the sentence in the third paragraph of the alternate preamble that says all parties to a formal complaint shall be treated and treat others with respect and dignity um never mind i just saw that never mind okay oh good it's a lot to do with love so so i've one if we're done with that just one last question uh about i can't find something somewhere where is it that we define that only people when people can file a complaint or those within the school community what section is that in the old preamble it's the the first sentence of of this current preamble so that's not carrying over i think it should well the first uh the first sentence of the last paragraph in the alternative preamble um says we also make available to students families and all who reside within the pts community of formal complaint process i'm sorry you're saying in the new preamble that's in there where is that in the new preamble the last paragraph first sentence okay so um this is a definitional question because if the if the purpose is to exclude people who are not to be able to exclude people who are not in the pps community from the complaint process then i think we have to define what the pps community is somewhere in this policy because there's a lot of people who [Music] you know may think well that's just parents or parents an alum or it's all taxpayers or anybody who i think division 22 defines it as those who reside inside the pps boundaries like if you live inside the district we'll have to go we can look at that division okay so i think we should pull that forward because i don't think necessarily like we ask for help and support from lots of people who live outside the boundaries and they may think well i'm part of the pps community because you know i support the [Music] you know lincoln cards baseball team because i went there but i don't live within the side so i think we should if if that is a division 22 definition let's just pull it in so that a person who resides in the district or by any parent or guardian of a student who attends the school district who attends school in the school district can that be in the definition somewhere because i think somewhere in the preamble it's sort of like just it sounds like we talk about the people yes all the time and we're actually if we're if it's being defined as a specific yeah we can do that students included in that definition i believe so let me pull it back up here i'm just toggling between screens yeah well i mean we reside within the district so i would assume so a person yes yeah well technically we could have a student who lives outside the district true or by any parent or guardian of a student who attends the school at school in the school district so if you're a student it's an interesting inconsistency well i i'd be happy if we did a little trampling on student rights and you know now um i i think then we should add student to that list to uh just to make sure everybody's covered okay we can do that okay liz do you have what you need i think so okay um i think we're gonna have to uh since there's a lot of copy editing going on um will you be able to get us the revised language find necessary this week okay this week okay perfect perfect okay um okay so anything else on this policy are we go ahead sorry i didn't mean to interrupt you go ahead no go ahead if you had a question or comment something i i realized you were about ready just to have a summary statement so maybe i should hear your summary
01h 10m 00s
statement before i say something so go ahead please go ahead well i i was going to say um are we are we ready now to to vote on whether to um move this out of committee and put it before consideration of the full board okay any objections to vote in on this well i don't object to a voting on it i'm not supportive of moving out of the committee because in march we decided we needed to have parent engagement before we moved ahead so i'm not i don't object to a vote i just am not supportive of moving okay okay so can we take the vote now so all in favor of moving this out of committee for full consideration by the board uh please say yes yes yes opposed no okay okay um so this will be on um the agenda for the next board meeting next tuesday right two weeks from tomorrow so not tomorrow night but the 25th not tomorrow yes yes sorry okay all right um so we are we're a little behind um but i think we're making good progress so um but i am mindful that we've got another hour and three quarters to go so how about we take a five minute break and when we return we'll move to the next topic the anti-harassment policies okay so i will reconvene at 5 21. kind of a suite of techno uh or a bunch of technical changes to a suite of um anti-harassment policies and i think mary kane is going to take the lead on this one right and take it away can i just give a shout out to mary kane's awesome matrix she created for this it was fabulous and very easy to understand thank you oh good well it helped me as well as we were as i was going through it because it is a little a bit complicated so that may be the best thing to turn to at this point we put it up on the screen mary um or cara could do that we'll put it on the screen it will not be merry one moment my i can't my screen is i think thank you roseanne so the first one that we are looking at is the 18020 anti-harassment non-discrimination policy um the only changes that we have made is to add um retaliation language we had retaliation language on the other anti-harassment policy that was located in four this for um regarding students and we realized this was missing um when we met last week to discuss other changes there was a recommendation [Music] as you can see the highlighted area um in the original document policy we talk about complaints we can make complaints anonymously but we've now added language saying that corroborating evidence is required for any disciplinary action or other consequence just to give people some warning that that the the anonymous complaint alone may not the district is hampered in a in doing a full investigation um we also discussed um creating a landing page which you can see is the that will be hyperlinked because
01h 15m 00s
different different types of complaints go to different um sometimes go to different departments and so we thought that would make it easy for people as they were trying to figure out whether um it was a formal complaint it was a title nine complaint it was a workplace harassment complaint and so that we are developing um and the retaliation language is um there were some comments about uh modifying it a bit and so this is the new language for it and that's the end of it um do you want to talk about each um policy separately or would you like me to go through all of them and then discuss as a whole i i'm inclined to do it policy by policy so we can just kind of work through them as quickly and efficiently as possible okay so i'll stop now and let you uh if there are any comments on this or so we're looking at the uh one point eight zero point zero two zero policy right on discrimination anti-harassment policy correct and i guess the running theme through all of these policies is that the changes being the revision things suggested here are um pretty much mandated by statutes for the most part the retaliation language is found in in a lot of other policies you know where there's the uh prohibition against retaliation and so i've added here since this is when when we developed this policy a few years ago this was kind of the umbrella policy for a lot of other different kinds of actions so we would you know refer to it along with for example the um workplace harassment we would um and other and the other policies we have but the other changes when we get to the other policies those are all statutorily required okay okay um any any comments questions concerns about the highlighted language in this policy are we ready to vote whether to send it to the full board for consideration okay all in favor say yes yes yes yes any objections okay all right that was easy yeah so the next one we're looking at is in the student section and this is uh what what i did here was we had we had on the books two policies the one was 4.3060 which is and the anti-harassment policy and the other one is 4.3070 which is the teen dating violence domestic violence policy the anti-harassment policy focuses a lot on bullying cyber bullying and and a lot of the the the the goals of the two policies were related and what what we've been as we've mentioned in other committee meetings looking for to make things a little more user-friendly so rather than having multiple policies trying to condense them so it's easy for people to find what they're looking for so what we've done is put the two together and so what we're um suggesting is that we adopt that we adopt the changes i added the language from the teen dating and domestic violence policy into the anti-harassment policy so i just uh you know put it directly in there and then i am suggesting we change the name of the anti-harassment policy to the student anti-harassment and teen dating violence policy um those are when we looked at this and when the subgroup looked at it we didn't make any changes to what had already been provided to you i think it looked um
01h 20m 00s
i think the the group thought it was sufficient so did you make any changes so you took the language from the um pre-existing team dating violence policy right and incorporated it into intimacy correct okay did you change any of the language coming from that other policy no when you okay no did i hear um julia did you have a question i thought i heard a voice i should say for what it's worth on almost all of these i'm not going to have much of an opinion because i was on the work group i mean so um just for what it's worth okay although julia uh you were you did have some questions about the title so i i am looking that's true so the other option is we have a couple of options the we can call it the teen dating violence slash domestic violence and harassment policy or the student anti-harassment and teen dating violence policy two options i think we should avoid the word teen [Music] we might have some precocious 12 year olds out there it's true it's the name of the statute but we can absolutely change it how about if we just say student anti-harassment and dating violence policy perfect well that was yeah okay okay shall i move on to the next one okay so wait a minute procedurally we're going to have to do two votes right we're going to have to vote on whether we want to advance this to the full board and then we also have to vote on whether to rescind the other policy right correct okay so so if we don't have any other comments about this let's vote on whether to advance the student anti-harassment invading violence policy to the full board for consideration um all in favor say yes yes yes any opposed did julia vote uh i was a yes sorry yes as well but i don't think i am muted myself i thought i said yes but i don't think i did okay well i thought i only had three voices properly so it could have been my yes you were missing there rita okay and then um uh all in favor of uh rescinding the existing uh teen dating violence domestic violence policy that's 4.30.070 all in favor say yes yes yes yes any pose okay i still thought i heard only three voices okay um i unmuted properly that time okay all right so both of those votes were you uh four to zero right okay okay next one miri okay the next one uh is we are um recommending that we rescind uh policy 51030 it's the grievance procedure of sex discrimination this uh uh policy was from 1976 um uh and it outlined title ix grievance policies as as they existed in 1976. they're different now so um the the the policy is is out of date we have um what we have in uh what we'd like what we have in place to um already for people to [Music] make title ix complaints is the um we have a student-to-student title ix administrative directive that's that was
01h 25m 00s
uh uh signed off uh in september of last year and we are in the midst of um completing the uh a staff version of that the reason that we want to put it into an administrative directive is with the new administration the regulations that were promulgated under the last administration are likely to be changed so we'd like to we wanted an easier mechanism to pull the title ix procedures um once they change if that makes sense okay so let me just ask uh um a question um by by correct me if i misunderstood so by taking it out of policy and moving it into an a.d okay that's what we're going to do um is anything lost by not having it um codified in a policy well i don't believe so i mean the administrative directive has the same um you know authority um it just describes uh the the protocol and we have that in on the adult side this is dealing with when we're looking at um adult grievance procedures we have that already incorporated in the workplace harassment policy as well so what we're so what we are missing right now is title ix has um slightly different procedural rules but what we have in place are state state policies state statutes that are that um are actually broader than the title ix um regulations and those are covered in our workplace harassment those are covered in actually the teen dating um and domestic violence policy language so i think we're i i believe we're covered um but for the the one uh the additional uh title ix administrative directive that i have to put forward okay so i guess let me ask you a different way okay it's the same question but just a different approach um so in an effort to make sure that every ad has a is attached to an actual policy um what policy would this ad be attached to the the four point uh the the one that we just passed the the one that we just voted out activity so um yes so on the student side the the title nine a d um sits will sit under the the our the newly revised uh student anti-harassment and dating violence policy so we'll sit under there because um and so and the same in the and then the on the staff side the one that we're completing will sit under the workplace harassment okay okay um so that is it okay but so i'm not hearing any other questions or concerns i just want to check because we're going to have to vote on whether to rescind right yeah i'm like julia rita i was in the work group i already got to go through this with mary and ask my questions i was an hour late to the meeting because i got confused but mary graciously stayed on worked with me helped me go through all the things so i'm i'm good on all of this okay um and i'm not i'm not hearing scott objects so um let's vote on whether to re-sin whether to recommend the rescission of this policy all in favor of recommending rescission uh say yes yes yes yes okay uh any opposed okay next next one is the workplace harassment policy and i um in this in this subgroup i had to apologize to everybody i know we was before the um the board not too long ago
01h 30m 00s
what when i was looking at trying again trying to um create fewer policies um what i realized is that what in order to comply with um uh what had been what i call senate bill 3077 which is that was the state's um was oregon's uh desire to um keep title ix provisions the the protections in place knowing that the the federal got um the federal regulations were going to um narrow the protections so um there is in that statute a definition that i that um of sexual harassment that i believe if we incorporate it into the workplace harassment policy will um will make us compliant with um all of the oregon statutes in play so there are three there's uh 342704 that's the that's the senate bill 3077 that i just mentioned as well as the 659a and and 243 sections which are the um employment statutes so um except it's pretty simple the the it's just a definitional we're adding a definition for sexual harassment and you can see it in the draft um where i've uh it's under section three what what is the definition of sexual harassment we've changed it from assault to broader harassment and the change i'm asking to include is subsection four and that will make us compliant with ors-342704 so am i correct in thinking that this is kind of an elegant solution to one of the issues that was very complicated in reconciling all the different federal state stuff okay yeah well well done thanks um yeah the alternative was to to write an entirely new policy that mirrored 90 of what is in the current policy but then this different definition we have talked um we we have mentioned to some some legislators that having different definitions of sexual harassment in different statutes is a bit problematic there we are so that's the only okay okay so i was going to say something snacky but never mind um okay okay so um any comments questions concerns okay um let's vote on whether to move this out of committee all in favor of the proposed revisions to the workplace harassment policy um going to the full board for consideration say yes yes any opposed okay all right uh next and um mary before you start talking so um i'm not hearing uh any um i can't see students so i'm not hearing any um questions or concerns um but please speak up if you have any okay go ahead mary so um we are also asking that you consider rescinding the sexual harassment staff to student policy um i'm looking at it right now this policy is from [Music] 1994
01h 35m 00s
and it does not it's it's out of date it's not compliant with um um ors342704 um so it doesn't it doesn't get to anything we we would want to rely on um and the the sexual harassment sexual discrimination is found in other policies um uh the um professional conduct policy and then the administrative directive for the sexual conduct um staff to student um are are are places where we should have our staff turning to for guidance this it does not this statute i mean this policy is um is not helpful in fact it's um yeah it's terrible i guess i shouldn't comment but okay so so the other half of it though is that the um the required language is now going to be incorporated into a revised professional conduct between adults and so we have the professional context yes and then we have the the and then we have separately an administrative directive that's the sexual conduct staff to student which lays out the the um the definition of what sexual conduct is which this doesn't have at all so it doesn't it has no definitional guidance and um that can be found elsewhere in the in the um prohibition against child abuse and sexual conduct to students and then it could also and other language pro around the prohibition of sexual harassment is found in the professional conduct policy so again trying to reduce the number of policies people can trade yeah okay so um so i i think we should think about them as kind of paired up these two things so we're rescinding one policy but we're not losing anything because we're incorporating it in another policy right in two other policies we've either moved them okay um okay so um so let's vote on whether to recommend recision of um sexual harassment after student policy all in favor say yes yes yes okay any opposed okay all right um do we need any further explanation of the next one the professional conduct policy i think we just covered it right um the professional policy is the same as the workplace harassment i've just i've added that definition of sexual harassment that is found in 342-704 so so that so so it too will be compliant with that statute okay okay um all in favor of um the revisions to the professional conduct policy um recommending to the full board the revisions of the professional conduct policy say yes yes yes yes any opposed okay um okay um do we have any more on this list today that's it the rest were just for um for you to have an understanding of where other things are where the administrative directives are sitting um okay yeah okay um can i make two really um nitpicky uh questions um so for the professional conduct policy um we don't have any um references to statutes currently i think we need to add some now or at least one we can do that um okay and then the other question
01h 40m 00s
applies to all of the policies pretty much actually all of the policies we've talked about today um way back when we uh we started a process to align the portfolio of pps policies to the osda numbering system [Music] um but the osba numbers don't appear in any of these drafts so are we still doing that we are that was me just not wanting to do that deep dive but we can do that for the yes when it exists because there is no professional conduct policy for instance from osba so if some some will have it and some will not right right right but we we've been putting them at the at the bottom of policies the the osba equivalent so we'll do the same okay i i just think it's probably easier to do it as we go rather than you having to backtrack at some later date which won't yeah yeah okay anyway okay okay um okay so uh let's move on to the next thing um and we're well at least we're being consistent we're still 10 minutes late um so we'll move on to the next one the district foundation policy and uh related stress so i think jonathan is going to leave this discussion uh yes good good after good evening uh directors uh student representative jonathan garcia the chief of staff uh i believe robin ferrone our interim director of strategic partnerships is going to be joining us uh and we have a deck that will guide our conversation um which i believe you all receive so i think roseanne will put that on the screen um so really again uh thanks for the opportunity to come speak to you i know that this is going to be the start of uh many conversations with the board and the broader community about the fundraising efforts of portland public schools fundraising efforts of our parent community uh and fundraising uh uh all together and so uh today i think uh we wanted to begin to have that conversation with you uh and and really think about uh our approach so roseanne are you going to be able to do that screen share oh there you are uh i is this the okay so um again most of this is in your memo so i won't read uh word for word or uh in context i just really want to articulate and i'll turn it over before i turn it over to uh to our director uh robin ferrone um as you all know and many of you have been a part of uh fundraising uh over the last 25 years and especially in local school foundations we believe that parent fundraising is just one of many ways our parents in our business community can get really involved in our schools uh and when we think about uh equity uh you know i think equity can be at the center of how we operate uh especially racial equity uh and social justice and and so uh we welcome you know as we begin this conversation we really welcome the board uh and our community to to really help us uh truly get uh uh uh arrive uh at uh an ethical equitable approach right it uh parity does not mean equity uh equity does not mean equality and i think we have to be very clear what we mean uh by equity and so uh again i think as we think about our fundraising efforts there are a million ways there are a major a variety of ways in which we can uh arrive at equity uh and and our budgets our public budgets uh indicate the way in which pps is is taking on the the challenge of equitably distributing resources uh and the last point i will say is is you know and uh this is both and uh as a statement um i know that there's a uh there's a perception that if parents stop fundraising that they'll go and advocate for uh in salem and i think um really our encouragement is for us to to to consider a both and uh attitude of uh folks can contribute to their schools and still continue to advocate which is what we many of us do uh in our work and in our uh in our daily lives so next slide and as i articulated uh our strategic partnerships uh team has been working really hard to
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to advance high impact involvement and investment in our school school district and school district community as you all know we launched the fund for pps a 501c3 nonprofit organization which is led by its own board of directors and you know our our team is really working to advance uh our district's vision and emerging strategic plan and really use it on utilizing our racial equity and social justice lens uh and just as an example when when the kova 19 pandemic hit impact uh impacted families and students we raised a million over a million dollars and i know many of you contributed to to those efforts um and uh you know the majority of that money went to to support families and communities that have been impacted uh mostly our communities of color so next slide so um so what you'll have in front of you and what you have in front of you i know you received this on friday with your material is that we are asking the board to consider uh two policy revisions uh the first one is uh looking at district foundation policy seven point one one zero zero three zero uh which is uh giving the district permission uh for the or or giving permission for the district to establish trump foundation uh and so we presented that to you um we worked very closely with legal uh to get a a red line or get a draft in front of you uh and then our robin in a little bit we'll go over uh the additional policy but i wanted to um turn it over to robin here um and i believe mary to kind of walk us through some of this district foundation work well i could continue going through the slides and then we can go back and look at the the proposed redline policy if if that works so we wanted to just give a brief overview of some of the other activities that the strategic partnerships team has been doing working on the increasing equity in the school-based fundraising arena so just as a reminder there are two different types of school foundations there's the affiliated local school foundations which are under the uh financial management of the fund for pps which our team works on so all the funds that they raise after the first ten thousand thirty three percent goes into the pps parent fund and then we have eight independent school foundations and they're their own separate 501c3 organizations and 33 they contribute 33 as well but it's only on monies that are spent on staffing because those are the only monies that come to and through the district um so right now we don't actually have any um oversight or vision into like how much money other the additional monies they are raising or any other school-based um fundraising groups we we don't have a way um to present that information uh to the board which was something that was proposed in in the community uh driven uh policy so sorry i have a question um i thought it was um at least the original sort of quote memo that wasn't really a policy was that it was only um it was 33 if they paid for fte but it's not 33 it hadn't been 33 of everything so if they raised like three thousand dollars for like science kits and then they bought an fte for you know a hundred thousand that it was just the one-third of the fte but this slide says it's everything over ten thousand for the uh the affiliate for the affiliated foundations it's everything so um but the independents are are have their own 501c3 so it's only um foundation funded fte what year did that change from the affiliated funds paying 30 the reason the reason affiliated funds pay are paying uh a 33 is because the the fund for pps only receives funds for fte so we're not taking we're not taking pta money or we're not taking other other forms of money i thought you guys were the umbrella for everything so if you're so if you had right but
01h 50m 00s
but as you know local school foundations are not like you just said are not allowed to raise money for things outside of fte so therefore as the umbrella organization of the affiliated lsats we have control we you know we have financial management over the over those dollars uh versus the independent school organizations for example friends of have multiple uh line items if you will that they raise money for so they have an fte's line item they have a activities item blah blah blah we only see a third of the fte of the independent yeah i understand how that works i guess i'm going back to just the switch i'm sorry because i wanted to make sure i understand this back for when the switch happened because those local school foundations um used to raise money for a whole like they were the venue for a whole host of and sometimes it was for ft and sometimes it wasn't and you're saying that the rule now is that vehicle is just for fte and that's why it's 33 so if they raise something for some something else it's by a pta or some or some other entity because yeah there's lots of other parent fundraising happening for things other than fte right yes and and that and that was you know what we wanted to make clear is we don't have you know information on all of those monies um the we do sometimes get a check from apta that says this is this is the money we want to go towards staffing in our school in which case then that's their affiliated local school foundation dollars that they're allocating towards staffing um really we want it to be more consistent and that is in the other policy that we're recommending where there is a separate chair and a treasurer over their school foundation and that it it really is clearly delineated because the own the monies that are coming into the foundation um is intended for staffing but we we're not going we're taking one third on everything that comes in i don't know and that that was the way it was all hands raised when they handed it over to us but i can't say about how it had been working like a long time ago but that that was that in recent history that's how it has been okay so i'm i'm still not clear i'm gonna re-ask julius question in a slightly different way if an affiliated above the 10 000. if the affiliated spends 10 000 on microscopes they won't be able to [Music] we i i i the fund for pps will not give a ten thousand dollar check to buy microscopes okay so let me finish please so they can't affiliated the money all has to go to staff is that correct yes correct okay um yeah and i i i guess being out of the business of being a parent in pps for a while that seems like a change from the past the cpa the pta can raise the money i understood understood when we were when i was at llewellyn most recently and sellwood we would always say foundation equals teachers although obviously we hired ea sometimes too and that the pta was all the enrichments so like chromebooks microscopes field trips so that's how we would differentiate it for parents okay no i understand those two things and foundations affiliated foundations are only staffing now the unaffiliated foundations obviously can do things a little differently there um but that when i was the the president of the foundation at um sellwood that was how we understood it to be okay so the unaffiliated foundations we only interact with them when they send in their 33 percent um saying we're spending this amount on staffing here's 33 of it minus whatever the 10 000 [Music] and so on okay okay thank you and i i got it now okay um and and then the other piece is the fund for pps also um does the awards to the pps parent fund and so the on this slide is the criteria that um is used for that so if
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the school has over 40 percent um students qualif uh identify as historically underserved and at least 15 percent qualified for free meals then they get an award and these links that are provided here and in the memo all go to thefund4pps.org website where we have all of the information posted there's a pps parent fund page and there's also a side-by-side comparison of affiliated and independence and we provided links to all the historical fundraising by by school that we have you know that we have access to so in the next slide um we are um some of the new procedures that we've been working on um so you know once the management of the the foundation school foundations came under the fund for pps uh we began to see how there were some gaps in the information that we had and inconsistencies and we've been working with pps finance to tighten up those procedures and timelines so that we have better data to share with you and more equitable procedures between the affiliateds and the independents so beginning this coming school year we're requiring all school foundations to pay for the actual position that they are adding back to their school with their foundation dollars because there was a practice that would um that was happening at the um in the budget process where they would pay for the lowest paid staff rather in in the school rather than that actual position that they were adding back to their school budget with with the foundation fte um so right now the data that we have are on positions that have been that were funded but they weren't necessarily the ones that that were done in the staffing process they were um i don't know that's sort of confusing so um it happens like on the back end so we want it to all be transparent and be consistent so that we can report back on what are the positions that are being funded by fte dollars the second is the uh independent school foundations the way it currently works is is that um the fund for pps invoices them at the end of the school year so actually like in april or may we we send them the invoice for the current school year so um we are shifting that timeline and saying beginning 2022-23 they need to pay at the beginning of the school year so that pps finance has that money uh in the account when they're beginning to pay salaries um so these were just the procedures we inherited and looking at them under the this equity lens we're trying to make this a more consistent and fair process between the different types of foundations um and then the can i just say it can't just clarify so has the practice always been that the um affiliated foundations pay at the beginning of the year well yes because the we're holding the money the fund for pps is holding all the money for them or like their bank you know so they're sending in all their money all year long then when we close the books for the the non-profit and june 30 then we have a total amount that we send over to pps finance um in july and then those get allocated into this each of the schools accounts as a grant basically is how it functions um okay thank you robin do you know of any other school district in oregon that allows school communities to buy fte not that i am aware of we have done some research into this so um we probably have some other examples but i don't think any of them were important [Music] um so then the third thing that we did this year was with our annual local school foundation training we included slides um on racial equity and social justice and what that could mean in in each school community in terms of looking at how they spend
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the funds so that we talked about um in those slides which is still posted it should focus on that increasing the educational equity within their school community um and then i on the next slide i have an there's an example of that um case study we call it at bridal mile we have a new principal there jerome townsend who wanted to understand how we could use the res j in working with this bridal mile foundation which is an independent and they work together to identify an instructional specialist is how he's going to use the dollars next school year and that person will work with all the classroom teachers to better serve students who are not meeting benchmarks so this is an example of how looking at aggregate data of student populations doesn't tell the whole story and we have students in every school in pps who need extra support so we think that this is a way that you can use the lens in each school community and not just look at the total aggregate and only prioritize those with the highest numbers so from just an equity standpoint from the districts if it if there if that was a need why wouldn't the district pay for it because there's not enough money so i mean what i mean that's what because i mean you're like can you can you stay more what you mean by equity pardon can you say more what you mean by equity well i'm just saying that example if we have students who are black indigenous students of color in a school that don't meet the threshold and they need an instructional specialist then why why would that be absolutely as you know let's pay for it as you know as you know you look at our budget heat map which i believe is shared with with this board um we have done an equitable distribution of staffing and resources to communities that have large percentage of black indigenous and kids of color so the district's position is that we are going to fund organization our school communities uh through an equitable approach really considering uh the communities in in their totality and as you can see by the budget heat map um when you look at organ schools like rosa parks that gets twelve thousand dollars and forest parks that gets almost seven thousand uh that shows the way in which we're uh distributing resources equitably public dollars are finite and uh we have to think about how we as stewards of those public dollars are able to use uh our our thoughts and our knowledge to to actively distribute those resources and the last thing i'll say is that as you know our school administrators have uh have their own opportunity to to to staff and work with their school communities uh to to meet the needs of their community so we we really rely on our principals to to to to work with with our with our uh central office team to identify the needs so one other thing just i want to go back for a moment to the very beginning um where we talked about what the local school foundations purchased and our policies explicitly our current policy explicitly states that they can purchase fte educational enhancements such as equipment supplies extended day activities and contracts so the example that director bailey used of buying the microscopes our policy would allow them to to do that and not to have the 33 percent which the 33 percent isn't even in policy so the policy is is quite outdated you know as you know but it's the policy i mean it may be outdated um but it's it's still the policy um until it's developed i agree director i agree director from edwards i mean i think you know we we've inherited this and it's been four years and we're we're as you know we've we've taken uh taking it on i mean it's been almost 30 years since the foundations were started and it's only been in the last four years that we've we've done a robust look at these issues so i agree with you i mean if there are there are issues in the policy or issues in the in the way in which our processes are done i think this is where we have the opportunity to to address and and refine as we move forward
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um so maybe it would be helpful if i could just get through the rest of the slides quickly and then we can turn it over to looking at the the data or the actual proposed policies would that be okay um okay can i can i just um i'm just looking at the clock and um we have uh we have at least one more policy that we need to talk about this evening so we've probably only got about 15 minutes left um and this is just the first time we're talking about this this is not the this is going to be coming back so um anyway i just want to make sure everybody understands that the time constraints go go ahead um so rita would would you like me to continue to go through the slides or would you rather turn towards the proposed district foundation policy that we have um how how much more of the presentation do you have i mean because the rest of them are are really geared more towards the other policy which is um currently called parent groups and the schools um and that so we're proposing some other additional ways of um providing more structure and guidelines in policy around all school-based foundations but i think that that could be taken up on a later agenda and we could get that those slides i would suggest that actually that's what you're talking about here and so that's what you should shift to and the governance pieces and the foundation policy itself can follow but you're talking about this and so i think showing the board members and walking through the thinking on that other policy is is tightly connected just out of respect for the also the parents there's been a lot of parents across the city who've been working on and got a proposal that i would hope that the committee we'd have time to have some side by side so that the um proposal that a group of parents have been asking us a pretty broad group of parents have been asking us to consider also be on the table at the same time just just so we can kind of walk through the the advantages and disadvantages of each of the separate approaches but not just one approach right yeah and that's sort of the time constraint here that that was what it was asking for sorry robin um so i just want to um this is a talk about the timing again um so i think so we've got these two policies that are connected they're distinct but they're related um and um i just think it's important to uh to point out that the foundation the district foundation policy um as i understand it there is um some some urgency attached to that um we want to have that in place by the beginning of the next school year so we're looking at um a shorter deadline on that the other policy um we already know that's going to require a substantial amount of community engagement so um so i just want to make it clear that there is some urgency to tackling the district foundation policy um as as soon as possible um i guess i'm confused because this has been on i'd like to know what the specific urgency is and also like again i think that we've there's been multiple requests for us to look at it and the committee hasn't done anything so we have to make sure that urgency includes everybody's voice who's been interested in being part of the conversation and those that haven't been in the conversation for sure yeah yeah i i'm not i'm not arguing against that i'm just saying that um the i mean we can continue with this today um we're not going to resolve either policy today um i i'm just i'm just laying out timeline's question doctor i appreciate that and um you know we will we will work with you as the chair uh to move in a steady way that honors
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and honors your colleagues on the board and honors uh the variety of voices uh both voices that we hear regularly and those voices that we don't hear at all uh to come into a meaningful dialogue about this i think uh just to make a point here to differentiate between uh what we're trying to do is create a foundation policy that is if you want to call it neutral maybe maybe no policy is neutral and then the more uh convert the the the policy um that has a lot more interest from the broader community but again we'll defer to this board as how you want to proceed this is how we think um is is one effective approach but again we'll welcome other other considerations as well so i just i want to chime in here and i think julia some of the urgency is um from your email which said if we as a committee don't do this then you're gonna do it on your own straight to the board so i think some of the urgency comes from this place of like there's been some pressure um and and you've been part of that conversation and i i also am really concerned about the you know i had spoken to the group of parents that's concerned about um equity and have talked to them and attended their presentation and then saw the policy that they sent and i feel like the policy that they sent is is one perspective and um i appreciate the work of all those parents i've been where they are you know um foundation president and working on fundraising and seeing that you know fundraising sometimes feels like um we're we're trying to um put the finger in the hole in the um dam uh instead of like trying to build a better dam and so i think some of the frustration was we want to spend our time on like really looking at funding in the state um but the policy as they have written it would basically end any sort of like ability for us to have corporate giving or lots of other really important facets of our life as part of a community um and because it was parent written i do think we need to to look at it but i think when our staff brings something that's a different weight to some extent um so i do think we need to look at that parent policy but i don't i don't feel like they're equal in the as far as like the the work that's gone into them but i feel like the parent policy that they've kind of revised gives us a good community engagement piece um to look at of a very specific perspective of a group of parents um and i think our staff is doing some work to draw in more diverse perspectives which i think is key so i i think we really need to handle this i think there is urgency because we do want to do this well and equity is a huge factor for us but i do think there are a lot of of things around privilege and power at play here so i think we need to you know do the the mix of urgency and um uh thoroughness to make sure we are hearing from a wide range of voices and that we also are helping those parents who have so desperately cried out that there is something wrong with our system to fix those parts of the system so that they can feel better about the advocacy and passion and work that they're pouring into our schools yeah in fairness i i did ask i don't think it's a standalone i did ask staff's perspective on what the parents i mean that's what i figured you know hopefully at the this kind of part of this conversation what staff's perspective um is on what has been proposed um but you know having been involved for 25 years and i know a lot of other people looking at the screen have been involved as well but in 25 years is i do think that parents it's not an either or and i don't think that's how people have approached it i mean usually the people i see in salem are the same people who are like involved in the ptas and the foundations and that people don't view it as a either either or so i think that that's already happening um but but i do think right julia that either or was a direct quote from the group that i met with that they felt like they needed to stop doing fundraising so they could do more advocacy that's that's i know but it was communicated to the like i thought it was communicated to me so i'm just wanna share that i i view it very much as an and and i also know that our policy on policy allows a whole host of entities to propose to propose policies and um you know that we may staff may have a better idea or they may have a different idea but that doesn't mean that the venue that we've provided for the community which is that anybody can come up with the policy i mean any student can any staff person can like that's that's part of our policy and our process is then they come to this committee and they get to they would get discussed and so i expect i do expect a full discussion of
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[Music] um oh i just want to add that i think it's very important that we both look at both policies they don't want us to ignore one policy just because it's not written by staff i think we need to look at both policies and make a decision about which policy works better for the foundation or what we need to add to either or so i want to push back on this notion that we need to focus on one policy because it was written by staff and i think that just hurts you know allowing other people to sit at the table i appreciate that oscar and julia for for those comments and i agree we don't want to stifle any community engagement or any community uh feedback we know that our our families come from a variety of opinions and we want to make sure that those are lifted however i will i will i want to uh as as this district's chief of staff who works with 9 600 amazing employees who are experts and uh subject matter uh folks who have dedicated their careers and their lives to to this work that that i would i would hope that this board and the community really considers um staff's perspective in a in a different way i can tell you that my team over the last four years our strategic partnerships team have have dug deep and deeper and deeper and duggar dug even deeper right and um and i think you know they they're the ones uh on the front lines fundraising on the front lines looking at these policies they you know you all are they're the stewards of this work so i would i would i would hope and i would encourage this board to take our staff's considerations into and and respect their their their expertise and their their their experiences and i think what i was trying to say is that the folks who wrote the foundation policy have a very specific parents have a very specific perspective which we do need to consider and i think the staff who have worked with the foundation and are doing this work have a different perspective we need to consider and um yeah and i think that that really matters and and so to say we're gonna set them side by side and pick one i think we need to look at both of them and say what is the wisdom from this one what is the wisdom from that one putting them in the context of who wrote them in their perspectives okay and that's what that's what i that was my sort of what i was trying to say um for me i mean sorry cheryl it's okay go ahead i want to make sure that i'm clear here that that that we as a collective are not pitting staff against community uh because this is not what this is about this is we're presenting multiple ideas uh into the into the space and i i think the requests which i'm hearing loud and clear is for all of us to have a robust discussion about the myriad of ways to engage in this conversation to arrive to to to where we want to be and i do think it matters that most of the parents involved in doing this policy are white and most of the staff involved in this work are people of color but we do have white staff as well but i do think that's an important context we need to consider as well sorry scott i said you should go next on them i talked um i just want to say that and i've confirmed this the parent group urging us to change only came up with a foundation with a policy proposal fairly recently in response to um board members requests after meeting with board members that i don't think they view it as a fully fleshed out policy uh but more as a conversation starter and that's uh i got that phrase confirmed uh they would love to work with staff similarly as to how the climate justice policy there was extensive discussion between staff and community members as community members developed that the draft to bring to us so this isn't a here's our best fully punished idea policy idea they're bringing to us they're just it's it's their first swing and they want to be part of a collaborative process with staff and the board so i i don't think it's it's a here's staff idea here's this idea i think it's more here's an opportunity for uh staff and some community members to sit down and hammer something out that gets us all in a in a better place
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so i think i think in some ways it's premature to do this versus this i'd rather i'd rather see parties sit down to get some more developed language and um [Music] and bring and as jonathan mentioned bring in parties who haven't been part of the process uh to help develop it as well which again is what the climate justice group did is they took ideas and they have continued to go out uh the latest draft that um [Music] that we got included for example some input from the latino network um so uh i think that's where we need to take this going forward um i i understand that so this is just a question about the two proposed policies so currently to be clear the district fund or the district foundation is specifically for fte um the district fund is not it's i mean we we supplied a lot of people with basic needs like i uh yeah and then that's kind of where the mix-up is oscar you're kind of point getting to the crux of it because the the policy that the community proposed mixed school foundations with the name fund for pps and would make it so that the fund for pps couldn't raise for fte which is which is kind of you know not what we want to happen so the fund for pps is the non-profit and then the school-based foundations kind of are underneath the fund for pps reporting structure i think the driving principle of the proposal that was put forward is and this has been like as long as i've been a parent of pps or post measure five was the discomfort that some schools could buy fte and others could not and there wasn't really any way to make it fair and the one-third was an attempt to make it fair but in 20 years we haven't been able to figure out a way in which the perception and i would say most of the people that i have shared with me the sense that they think it's unfair are from schools that don't have the resources to buy fte and um sometimes that's represent mostly students of college but other times there are school communities that just have fewer resources in the parent community so i think that's what they're trying to get us not trying to um not work with staff it's i think it's something like very organic that a lot of people a lot of parents have just felt and then as we've actually had more resources into the district through the the art tax or the student success act um the local option which were all things that we didn't have when we um when measure five passed and parents were like how do we fte and so this this was like a i mean i'd use like a sort of a bridge sort of a bridge or a band-aid and there is more to that but i i don't think it at least the parents i've heard from are not coming from like i mean it really boils down to whether you're from a school that can it has been traditionally um whether you could buy fte or not or what whether you thought it was fair and people even people who got equity grants was like well still we didn't get to buy an art teacher we didn't get to buy you know half a pe teacher or you know a fourth world language teacher uh so would you but you would agree and i would hope that the board agrees that at least under this administration we've allocated resources equitably look at the budget chart that we shared with you so at what point um so i hear i i would hear the argument if guadalupe or administration why aren't you sharing equity so when we think about arts arts uh in schools right we want to make sure that we're closing those arts uh gaps like we are doing our responsibility you know as public stewards of dollars so i i guess i'm just like yeah and i i and i would julia i
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would i would question that i sense that i know one that i've worked with in the fundraising for foundation or foundation boards nobody thinks this is ideal nobody this is how we would be in oregon huge echo can everybody make sure they're muted um but anyway so i i think that idea that the people who have foundations think it's peachy i mean i i myself was like i'm gonna be the foundation president and do this work to support my school but it's it's also really morally hard because what does it mean for other schools and so the the thing that made me really excited about foundation was the one-third that we could at least try you know pta doesn't have any equity built in and so i also as we talk about equity in our district and parent groups i have deep concerns about our pta fundraising um my example is that when i was at the llewellyn pta we raised thousands of dollars and paid for field trips and all sorts of stuff and my friend at the same time was the president of the pta at woodlawn and they raised four thousand dollars a year um you know we could give stipends to teachers for supplies every fall we could do tons of stuff we did you know teacher meals and we could pay for a lot at llewellyn that woodlawn couldn't um and there's so there's no equity mechanism for pta so i think what we do with the foundation really matters because it also sets the conversation for how do we look at our whole system and how do we understand that parents want to help support their kids schools and being able to engage in a parent-funded equity practice actually is a gift to us all as we support all kids from our community um so i think it's i don't know anyone who's involved with the foundation who who thinks it's the best way forward but it's where we are in the reality of our system which is getting better like you said julia with things like the measure 98 and the sia well and just the other context of the the team responsible for raising private dollars for the district is that rolling out a fundraising agenda for the fund for pps where we're asking businesses and the broader community to give to schools is going to be a really contentious environment if at the same time we're saying but you cannot give directly to your school and i understand there's still ways that they can give and we want everybody to contribute in multiple ways but we do have a lot of businesses that have given to their schools and what we want is to increase the giving and match them and pair them with schools that haven't gotten that support so we have been working on that and that and um building that that foundation and so it that just the idea of the timing of you know putting out something that would then say never mind and and we won't be able to necessarily replace that four million dollars i mean i don't think anybody suggested that there's not going to be fundraising the the other policy is primarily to use fundraising to buy fte it doesn't contemplate that you can't raise money um for pay for a whole host of other things and i think during the pandemic um jonathan and the the fun team made some really compelling um it's really compelling initiatives about ways people could help and i think you saw broad-based community support for that but it wasn't like by an art teacher at da vinci or um you know half a pe teacher or half a school psychologist or a counselor i mean all the things that i think like we should expect the district to pay for which which is different from these other things so like i guess i want to be clear my focus is primarily on at least my focus has been primarily on the fte portion and like how do you create fairness so uh robin i appreciate what you're what you're saying um at the same time let me gently push back or at least say on the other hand i'm an economist i always have two hands um on the other hand it's an ongoing equity issue um an inequity issue that has been simmering and bubbling for years so um
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scott can you say more what do you mean by that when you say equity issues can you can you be can you elaborate a little bit more well just the fact that some schools can fund an extra one two three four fte um and that's an inequitable structure it's not living up to our values and i would argue if somebody if an outside if we had no foundation structure and an outside funder came to us and said you can have this much money but this much of it is going to go to these upper income schools and here's a little bit left over to distribute to the lower income schools we would have issues with accepting money along those lines scott but i think i think it's also important that we don't um i don't know individual examples because as you know as as these four million dollars are coming in as an example like i said earlier the school district is is is investing equitably in the school communities that are not and so at what point and so you know and i and i would i would encourage us so as a man of color who's lived here in oregon for four years i can see the way in which redlining our neighborhood our neighborhoods are implicitly racist or the way in which our structures have been built right and so so if we're trying to address the racial equity challenges let's let's really try to get into the root causes of these issues so eliminating fundraising so we say no more ftes how are we gonna how are we gonna ensure that you know the ptas don't all of a sudden start raising two million three million dollars and using that to pay for everything but ftes and now the school you know so so i think to your point how do we as a system uh right we have to approach this all through a system a system of equity right not silos of equity and so so i would encourage this board as we're unpacking this this piece of the conversation with local school foundations and fundraising that we think about the the layers and layers right because if we're going to talk about inequities then we should start looking at issues like neighborhood schools like we should start looking at some of those other challenges that create the the haves and the have-nots and so i would just encourage us to to be more holistically and broad about how we talk about racial equity and social justice yes and right now we have a system that encourages parents at some schools to think solely of their school we have some principals who have brought in you know said look at what this title one school is getting we have to raise money to match that and that's that's really a warped value system absolutely so we want to i would like us to recast this whole system towards our equity values absolutely and i yeah i think we're all i think we're all agreed on that goal and i worry that tweaking things here and there is not going to get us there and it's going to keep in place some of these systems that encourage people just to think about you know just us and not the the whole system and i think there's actually huge latent support for doing an equitable a truly equitable approach um that we're not tapping into that would get people excited um i think that's that's the wager i'm willing to make um so the give up the four million is is uh is a deficit viewpoint i think flipping the narrative can get us to 6 million or or more and i totally totally agree that the other pta booster funding is also an issue what i what i worry about is the thinking where okay we don't want to mess with the 4 million that we're getting we're going to backfill it with equity funding within the main budget and that leaves a hole of you know there's a handful of schools that raise a ton of money and a bunch of schools that don't raise very much and then the lower income schools to get a great deal of the equity funding so the schools in the middle are relative the schools on the upper end are not getting the services and so we're you know we're we're again i think we need to
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to flip the whole system to really represent our values yeah yeah and i i hear conversation and uh i think a bigger vision piece um we that i'd like to get us to and i and i'm not sure if that that bigger whole fundraising discussion piece comes before dealing with individual policies or not and and so yeah i think scott i think you know agree with a lot of what you said and i think what you're getting at is the i think which is which is true and i i agree 100 is the the the culture of fundraising right uh is what you're you're talking about right so i absolutely agree the culture of fundraising is disgusting right uh and it means i get it i get it but across i mean not only giving i mean the fact that one percent of all you know uh giving goes to latinos in the country is ridiculous right uh so both giving and the way that we fundraise right but i also want to make sure that that we don't forget that philanthropy and giving is not a white person thing it is not a privileged person thing it is everybody my mom who who is poor gives her time and energy when i was a student in kindergarten she didn't have a dollar to her name but she somehow find ways to make the malays and so how do we build that culture right and so i also don't want us to lose trus sight of that that uh and i think that's what a lot of your when i speak to director moore you know privately i mean i know that that's the spirit chair lowry i know director bailey when we've talked about this right how do we transform that culture and so uh so i hear this board i hear the board's desire to change the culture of philanthropy change the way the culture of fundraising and also address the system uh the systems the systems that are that that are that are not aligned to uh addressing racial equity and social justice but i want to make sure that when we say racial equity we actually know what we're saying and what we when and how we're saying and what purpose right because because one of the things that i can tell you in the four years that i've been here is that i'm tired of the way in which equity is usurped is taken advantage of by people that don't know uh a lick of what equally truly means right being told that they're that they're they're they have bypoc anger is what i'm hearing uh from folks like what does that even mean right so i think we need to uh reset our conversations and really focus on what are we trying to do we're trying to make our schools better for every single one of our students that includes my student and the student that's sitting across him and or her and so again i'm committed to working with all of you and our community to get this right and and to get this right it's going to take layers and layers and layers and layers of work right okay so i'm going to i'm going to draw this to a close uh we're out of time for today um this will be coming back to the committee at the next meeting um so this is just the beginning of the discussion um and i want to make sure that today we have uh well okay i i should mention um we are not going to have time to um to look at the um climate policy information that was scheduled for today so my apologies for the staff who are involved and anybody looking in um we'll get make sure that is on the agenda for the next policy committee meeting um and uh in the next 10 minutes we have uh people who have signed up for a public comment so i want to make sure that we have time for that so um just real briefly to the the climate folks who are listening in uh again apologies um we both reed and i have uh read your suggested comments uh we agree with the great majority of them i think there's a few that get a little too much into the programmatic detail and you know we've gone back and forth on the policy versus plan piece of it um but uh it looks to be another round of uh improvements overall and we'll we'll be back to you shortly and now that we have some staff input um via aaron we should be able to build in a full draft for consideration next time and
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again apologies about how this has worked out today okay um kara can you um invite the people for public health yes we'll start with ellie russell hi can you hear me okay you can hear me okay hi my name is ellie russell r-u-s-s-e-l-l my pronouns are she and her i'm a parent at marysville school we're a neighborhood school in southeast where all kids have art class but sadly there is no music i learned about foundation funding when trying to start a music program at marysville the biggest hurdle i came across was funding how would the school pay for a music teacher i learned that many schools have music for one reason only they have a foundation what this meant was that we did not have music because we were a poor school i was absolutely outraged when teacher salaries are paid for by community wealth it is wrong on many levels private funding makes sense for private schools but it goes directly against the goal of public school equal opportunity regardless of economic status pps claims to be committed to racial equity but its current model of foundation funding benefits its whitest and wealthiest students while the schools without a foundation have more students of color this illustrates how pps is perpetuating systemic racism but wait you might say one third of the foundation money goes back to the schools in need problem solved right but this money is not enough and it is unreliable marysville's grant is only sixteen thousand dollars next year pps should allocate a stronger source of funding our student population at marysville is title one and we face many barriers in life our parents do not have the money or the time to supplement their children's education but title 1 funding is often used to justify private funding based on the idea that wealthy schools are missing out title 1 funds exist to make public education more equitable by providing resources to those in need when other schools fundraise to compete with those funds it defeats the purpose in conclusion the disparities from foundation funding are huge they create division within schools economically racially and socially let's find a better way to fund our schools i'm calling on you to please reform pps school foundation funding thank you [Music] thank you we have megan mermis hi my name is megan mermis m-e-r-m-i-s and my pronouns are she her i'm here on behalf of a coalition of pps parents teachers and public school advocates that believes the district's fundraising policies and practices need to change and that oregon schools should be fully funded for the oregon constitution this belief is echoed in a letter submitted to the board earlier today signed by leaders from 32 pps schools both with and without foundations who support ending the current policy that allows private fundraising to pay for staff our aim has been to educate the community about the foundation system and to encourage a dialogue and review of this policy and the related data we've hosted conversations with parents teachers administrators and policymakers including every member of this board and have repeatedly requested to speak directly to mr garcia who did not reach out to us to discuss our proposals or his own proposed revisions to the policy each one of us has been intimately involved in raising funds at our schools and have seen the strain at places on our school communities and the division it sews between schools so we thank you for placing it on the agenda tonight we fully support increased transparency and all fundraising across the district however the proposed changes that shift the parent fund contribution from 33 to 40 percent is unacceptable this fails to recognize the many stories we've heard about the divisive distracting and inequitable impacts foundations have it claims we can do better but only seven percent better rather than patting ourselves on the back for this meager attempt to counteract our inequitable system we must end our reliance on private funding of teachers we hope that the board will consider following the lead of many neighboring districts including beaverton lake oswego and north clackamas none of which allow individual schools to raise money for their exclusive benefit each year pps makes deliberate informed decisions about staffing allocations considering the specific needs of different school populations and guided by a commitment to equity and each year that work is undermined when individual schools supplement their staffing by
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funding additional media specialist classroom teachers educational aides and more we're calling for an end to allowing individual schools to add fdb fte above and beyond what's equitable the assertion that pps is a national innovator and setting aside a percentage of funds does not justify the fact that even with parent fund grants the funds used to hire additional teaching staff overwhelmingly benefits the most resourced school communities personal financial generosity is not and will never be an acceptable substitute for a stable source of government funding that fulfills our collective responsibility to all public school children teachers and schools thank you uh chair moore if i may uh hi megan uh i apologize if i have missed an email from you i don't think i've received any communication asking to me but i'm welcome i i would love to meet with you if you want to forward me that email i'm happy to schedule some time this week with my team we absolutely would love that thank you very much thank you we had one more person signed up but i don't see them in the attendees okay um well we have three minutes to spare um we could either uh give us give ourselves an extra three minutes or um anything else pressing that we need to talk about uh i think we've got a number of issues that are going to carry over from this meeting to the next meeting um chair moore did you want to at least get the indemnification policy on the table just as a introductory topic or no um well how about we just say um the indemnification policy was and uh if we have time we clearly don't um i would encourage uh committee members to take a look at what's in the board book um and understand that it will be coming it'll be coming back so i i think that's all we have time for today okay all right i am going to uh during the meeting thank you everybody for um another uh very busy very productive meeting um and uh the next policy committee meeting will be roseanne do you have the date i was trying to get ahead of you to find it hold on just a moment uh it is tomorrow isn't it i mean we got work to do it's may 28th it's june 2nd because there's no it's a holiday on the 28th monday so it's on monday it's um june 2nd yeah because the third the regular meeting regular meeting date monday the 31st is a holiday don't forget to take it so the new date for the next policy committee meeting is june 2nd


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